My Clockwork Muse (10 page)

"
Found
a trowel?" he asked in a
mocking tone. "
Retrieved
a trowel is what the police will
say. In any case, the city is full of trowels, most of them smeared
with brick mortar. Unfortunately, the one you speak of is now burnt
beyond any use."

"I see..."

I pretended to be impressed by his logic. In
truth, I was just glad I had declined to show him my vial, that it
remained safely concealed, unburned, in my trousers pocket. I again
gave him my most casual smile. I tried to hold his gaze, but found
my eye drawn to the window beyond. The tapping continued without
ceasing.

I felt myself beginning to break. "Can you
not—?"

Coppelius cocked his head. I saw victory
flash in his vulture's eye. "Can I not what?" he urged.

"Can you not ... stay just a little
longer?"

"Bah! There is nothing more I can do. It is
rest you need. Do not fret about ... evidence. Try to get some
sleep. Your fever is back." He turned and departed.

I waited until I heard the door close, and
then flung aside my sheets. I had no sooner swung my feet to the
floor than Olimpia appeared again in the doorway. Thinking she had
departed with her father, her presence startled me. A cry escaped
me and I pulled the sheets up once again to cover my
near-nakedness.

"Miss Coppelius!"

She looked at me expressionlessly, without
saying a word. We stared at each other with nothing but the tapping
on the window pane to fill the silence between us. A slight smile
played over her red lips.

"I think your bird wants in," she said.

I allowed a second to pass. "You hear him," I
declared breathlessly.

"Of course. Why wouldn't I?"

Ignoring the tapping, she crossed the space
from door to bed with as much grace as I had ever witnessed in a
human being. She seemed to glide to my bedside. I pulled the sheets
close to my neck. I might have been shivering—Times New Roman" \s
12from fear, or excitement, I knew not what. She leaned over me. I
felt helpless to move. I could feel her lips when she whispered in
my ear, her words so soft I strained to hear.

"I believe in your monster, Eddy," she said,
and then kissed me on the cheek.

"I knew I shouldn't have let you go out. Look
at the trouble you got yourself into." Tap crawled in through the
window and flapped to the chair. His weight caused it to rock
slightly while he sidestepped across its back.

"What trouble can there be on a day like
this?" I countered. "Just smell that fresh air!"

"Yeah, just beautiful, Eddy—if you're an
animal living in a tree. If you prefer perching next to a warm fire
... I gotta tell ya straight up, Eddy, it sucks out there."

Sometimes his expressions puzzled me. "It
what?"

"Oh, I keep forgetting." Tap seemed to roll
his eyes, though I saw nothing more than shiny black orbs amid his
feathers. It might have just been the way he tossed his head.
"Sucks ... Less than ideal ... Shit-spattered ..."

"Okay, I get it."

"It's about time everybody cleared out. It's
been like Grand Freakin' Central Station in here lately."

There was another one. "What's that supposed
to mean?"

Tap shook his head hopelessly and sighed. His
feathery bird breast heaved. "Grand Central Station ... Busiest
place in the world ... Chatter-filled hellhole ..."

"Okay, okay ..." Tap had obviously had a bad
night.

"Remember when it was just you and me,
Eddy?"

"Ah, but no longer, my ghastly devil," said
I.

"Oh, that's real nice. Thanks. Not grim and
gaunt this time?"

"Not this time, my friend. If I wasn't afraid
I might crush you, I'd throw my arms around you and we would dance
across the floor together." I pirouetted through my sitting room. I
felt as light as a bird myself. My toes did not even touch the
floor as I twirled.

"Your reluctance to crush me is touching. I
think I might cry, Eddy. Now, if we could just get Pluto to swear
off trying to eat me, we'd be making some real progress."

"No one's eating anybody today. Did you see
what she did?" I touched my cheek. I could still feel Olimpia's
lips burning upon it.

"Oh, brother! You're a real piece of work,
Eddy. A real piece of work."

"You're just jealous."

"What? Because some bling-blang girl licked
your cheek? You could find a dog for that. I can see from here that
Pluto got your other one. Whoop-de-doo."

"You
are
jealous!"

"Jealous," Tap scoffed. "You think the ladies
aren't all over this? Whaddya suppose I do out there all
night?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Oh, believe me, buddy, there's more to this
bird than just sitting around on sculpture squawking."

"Can't you be happy for me, Tap?"

"I can, but I'm not. Did you get a good look
at her old man? And you think your own stepfather was bad? All John
Allan did was deny you a few bucks in your youth, and you're still
having bad dreams about him. Now, this other guy, this Coppelius
... We’re talkin' nightmares here, Eddy."

"It was not Coppelius who kissed me, Tap. It
was Olimpia!" Just saying her name sent shockwaves of excitement
through me.

"Arrgh! Now I'm seein' that ugly vulture
planting a wet one on you. Thanks for the mental image, Eddy. You
wouldn't happen to have a gun anywhere around here, would you?"

"I feel as light as a feather!"

Tap shook his head. "Last night, you're
dancing with a corpse. Today, you're dancing on air. I don't get
you, Eddy."

"Last night I was not in love."

"Yeah, and last night you weren't wanted by
the police either. You'll be dancing at the end of a rope if you
don't watch out."

My feet hit the floor with a thud. If mention
of John Allan had not brought me back to earth, mention of the
police did.

"But certainly they don't suspect me. Not
really." My words sounded stupid in my ears, but I could not
believe it, not in the full light of day. And not with the feel of
Olimpia's kiss still on my cheek.

"You heard what the old troll said. The
police think you're a firebug. They think you snuck into that
building when Gessler wasn't looking. They think you wanted to burn
the place to the ground."

"Don't forget the woman in the lunchroom," I
said aloud, without necessarily meaning to. I looked up suddenly as
if my own voice had startled me from some reverie. "She saw me.
With the dead man. Before he was dead.
Me
, Tap."

"She saw someone who looked like you. So
what? People see lots of stuff. You yourself saw Billy Burton
bricked up dead in a wall. And was it Burton?"

"No. I mean, yes. I mean, I don't know. By
God, I don't know."

"Well, there you go, then."

I began to pace. "Oh, I don't know what to
believe anymore. I saw Burton dead. Then I saw him alive. Then I
saw him dead again, trying to kill me. I can't trust my own senses,
Tap. What I believe to be true cannot be."

"Things used to be so much simpler before you
got all tangled up with the police, Eddy. Now look at you.
Melancholy and delirious half the time. Walking around in your
sleep. You don't know if you're comin' or goin'."

"Coppelius was right about one thing," I
said. "I cannot tell the police what I've seen."

"This Gessler fellow, the one who was here
yesterday ... A slippery eel, if you ask me. I'd be careful with
him, Eddy."

At the mention of Burton's name, my stomach
always lurched. But Gessler's name produced in me a feeling of
defiance. "Oh, I am pitted against him now," I said boldly, feeling
the fire in my eyes. "Oh, yes. If I am to swing, it will not be by
his hand, believe me."

"That's the spirit!" Tap cried.

"Ah! But wait!" I had just remembered the
vial in my trousers pocket. I fished it out and produced it with a
flourish. "I may have lost my trowel, but look at this!"

Tap leaned forward, seeming to squint.
"Laudan," he said. "What is it? An empty bottle that used to have
laudan in it? Or Laudan's empty bottle? Give me a clue here, Eddy.
What am I looking at?"

"
Laudanum
, you stupid bird.
Laudanum
. An empty bottle that used to have
laudanum
in it."

"Well, how was I supposed to know that? It
says 'Laudan'!"

"Yes, I know what it says."

I took it to my desk. I sat down and
inspected the glass vial closely, holding it to the light between
my thumb and forefinger. I turned it carefully.

"I found it in that basement," I said as I
contemplated the glass and torn label. It was the first time I had
seen it in daylight. "The killer used it to sedate his victim. I'm
certain of that."

"How can you be certain?"

"It was the dust. Or the lack of it, I should
say. I found it hidden among dust-covered items and yet the vial
was clean as if it had just been used. The victim must have been
drugged.
Must
have been." I looked up at Tap, remembering
anew the lady in the lunchroom. "And the woman, the cook! She bears
that out. She supposed the man drunk, she said. But he was not
drunk, I say, but sedated."

"With that stuff? The laudan?"

"The laudanum, yes. This coupled with the
existence of a recently used sedative in such close proximity to
the body cannot be coincidence. It is this that will save me, Tap.
Somewhere on this vial is evidence that will link the killer to the
basement. Then I can show that it was not me."

The very idea that I had to prove my
innocence still seemed unbelievable to me. But if what Coppelius
said was true, then I had not only to prove my innocence of murder
but of arson as well. Feeling myself more victim than suspect, the
reality of my situation had become almost incomprehensible to
me.

"Hate to disappoint you, Eddy, but all I see
is an empty bottle. Maybe, now, if it had something in it—"

"But something
is
in it!" Turning it
in the light, I saw something I had not noticed before. A shallow
crescent of crystallized liquid was wedged in the bottom of the
bottle. The hardened substance caught the sunlight streaming in
through the window and made a rainbow of colors. "Yes... Now this
is interesting..."

I sniffed it again as I had the previous
evening and with the same result. Then I dipped my pinky through
the open mouth of the bottle. The substance was slick and
unyielding. I withdrew my finger, moistened it, and tried again.
Applying my fingertip to my tongue, I could taste the extreme
bitterness of the substance. I winced. It was as bitter as the dose
Dr. Coppelius had given me just a short time ago. Here, the opium
had been mixed with some flavorless liquid. Perhaps a grain alcohol
of some sort.

I had no idea what Coppelius mixed his with,
but I realized that the small amount given me had probably
accounted for my good mood—not discounting Olimpia's kiss, of
course. At least until Tap had started in on me.

"Hmmm..." I had to think for a moment. "It
occurs to me that it might be advantageous to investigate the
nature of this compound. Don't you think, Tap?"

"Mm-hmm..."

"Do you suppose that's something a chemist
could do?"

"I'm a raven, Eddy. How should I know?"

I set the bottle down on my desk and sat
back, staring at it. Perhaps I was forgetting something. My eye
fell upon the label.

"You know what you're forgetting, Eddy?" Tap
asked as if he had been reading my mind. Sometimes I thought he
could do just that, but I ignored him.

"Yes!" I saw what it was. No sooner had I
felt the triumph of my discovery than I was overcome by a troubling
thought.

"Here's what you're forgetting. If that is
such damning evidence as you say, you better be sure it can't be
linked to
you
before you go around babbling about it. After
all, it is in your possession now."

The worm squirmed in my gut. I didn't know
what made me think of it, but I wished I hadn't.

I flung open a drawer and withdrew a sheet of
paper. I dipped my pen and wrote "Laudanum" in a script
approximating that on the vial's torn label. My hand was shaking so
convulsively, I had to stop after the
d
and take several
deep breaths before I could continue. When I had written the word
out entirely, I put my pen down and examined my handwriting
closely, comparing it to that on the label.

My capital
L
had an open loop at the
top, a large closed loop at the bottom followed by a short sweeping
horizontal leg. My eyes darted to the vial's capital
L
. Open
loop, closed loop, sweeping horizontal—

My heart leapt into my throat.

I snatched up my pen and frantically made a
series of additional
L
's, thinking that I had subconsciously
imitated the form of the one on the label. Working as rapidly as I
could, I did my best to write in my natural hand.

When I was done, I looked down at my work and
found staring back at me half a dozen open loops, closed loops, and
sweeping horizontals.

I dipped my pen and tried again with a
feeling of great urgency. No matter how many times I tried, my pen
could form no other type of
L
. Open, closed, sweeping; open,
closed, sweeping; open, closed, sweeping;
openclosedsweeping...

"Ah!" I dropped my pen as if it had suddenly
transformed itself into a snake. My chair toppled over backwards as
I jumped to my feet. I towered over my sheet full of
L
's and
suddenly felt as though I were gazing directly into the mouth of
madness itself. Despair overtook me and I covered my eyes. "What is
happening to me?"

"It's just an
L
, Eddy."