The Ghost and the Dead Man's Library

Spinner nodded. He was obviously observing just that.

“—I mean, considering they’re supposed to be uniform editions.”

“That’s because it took so long for Eugene Phelps to get the complete set out there,” Spinner noted, his eyes never leaving the book in his hand. “The man was editing and publishing the volumes, one at a time, over the span of decades. Poor Phelps set an impossible task for himself—it’s no wonder he failed.”

“I don’t understand,” Brainert said, sinking into the chair next to me and crossing his legs. “There are dozens of editions of Poe. What’s so challenging about putting one together?”

Spinner lifted a new book from the pile and stepped around the desk to face us, as if he were lecturing to a class. “There is, of course, no such thing as a complete Poe. Much of Poe’s journalism— his puzzles, anecdotes, contemporary observations, things of that nature—were written anonymously and lost in the reams of yellow journalism printed in Poe’s time. Phelps made a valiant effort to track down material he suspected had been written by Poe, but in the end many of the passages Phelps identified were discredited by more rigorous scholars and linguistic analysts who came later.”

Spinner’s pedagogical tone didn’t bother me in the least. I’d heard it a hundred times—from Brainert. He went into lecture mode at nearly every meeting of the Quindicott Business Owners Association (or, as my aunt called it, the Quibble Over Anything Gang). What was fascinating to me was Brainert’s reaction. It was obvious from his fidgeting that he didn’t like the tables being turned. As far as my friend was concerned, he was the professor and everyone else was the potential student.

On the other hand, these two were in the same department at St. Francis College, and I wondered if the specter of competition was rearing its ugly head.

You talking ’bout me again, baby?

“No, Jack. Another specter. Go back to sleep. I know this isn’t your thing.”

Sister, you got that right. I thought those mooks you had traipsing through here, hawking their dime novels were wearing, but these chattering skulls deserve an award for most tedious discussion in half a century. I’m beginning to wish I’d caught lead poisoning in a hardware store.

I noticed Spinner was now opening Volume Eight of the Phelps editions. This one was titled A Dream Within a Dream.

“Unfortunately, much of Eugene Phelps’s lifework was dismissed in the years after his death,” Spinner continued. “One look at an index and it’s easy to see why. The contents are all over the place. Several poems and even a few stories appear in more than one volume, and the way the works are assembled is utterly arbitrary.” Spinner sighed and set the book down on the desk. “And of Phelps so called commentary—well, the less said, the better.”

I cleared my throat, and almost raised my hand. Thank goodness I squelched the impulse. “But, Professor, these volumes have always been of interest to collectors. According to my aunt, their value has skyrocketed in the last seven or eight years. Do you know why that is?”

“It’s this Poe Code nonsense,” Spinner declared. “It all dates back to an academic paper from a decade ago, written by Dr. Robert Conte, a professor of comparative literature at Mount Olive University in South Carolina. The good doctor stated that he’d discovered the hidden code buried in the Phelps edition, and he claimed to have deciphered it, too.”

“Amazing!” Brainert leaned forward in his chair.

Spinner shrugged. “If I recall, the puzzle had something to do with the words being out of order in the text of a poem or story. I really can’t recall the specific details. But Dr. Conte was only the first to make such a claim. In the years since his treatise was published, other scholars chimed in with their own pet theories, and the legend of the Poe Code was sustained.”

Brainert raised a finger. “You say the legend was ‘sustained.’ An interesting choice of words.”

“Phelps himself claimed there was a code, but he probably said that in a bid to sell more books,” Spinner replied. “Of course, the idea of a secret code is certainly intriguing. Why, even I was drawn to the lure of a Poe Code, once upon a time.” Spinner chuckled at the memory. “When I was a first-year graduate student, I thought about making the Phelps editions the subject of my own doctoral dissertation.”

Brainert nodded. “Sounds great, why not?”

Spinner shook his head. “I realized that such a study would be a waste of my valuable time. I came to the sensible conclusion that there are more important American authors worthy of study. Literary diversions like the Poe Code are excellent fodder for less-serious academics like Dr. Conte, a scholar who prefers the works of American Gothicists like Poe, Hawthorne, and H. P. Lovecraft, over more serious, ambitious, and important American authors—novelists like Kerouac. Poets like Alan Ginsberg.”

Though my friend did not react, I knew Spinner’s words had stung Brainert. Not only did he admire the works of Poe and Hawthorne, Brainert also claimed to be distantly related to H. P. Lovecraft, the New England recluse whose horror fiction has begun to rival Poe’s in popularity with the public and even certain scholars. And as I recalled, Brainert was rather disdainful of Kerouac and Ginsberg.

I suspected Nelson Spinner was aware of this.

Brainert shifted in his chair. “So you don’t believe there is a Poe Code? It’s all a myth?”

“What’s all a myth?” Sadie asked, finally showing up.

“This Poe Code nonsense,” Spinner informed her.

Sadie looked to Brainert. He frowned and gestured back to Spinner.

“Eugene Phelps was a New England eccentric. That’s all,” Spinner said. “Follow the logic, and you’ll come to the same conclusion I did. Just ask yourself these questions: If Phelps really possessed some mysterious treasure, why did he go bankrupt? And why would he blow his brains out if he wasn’t flat broke?”

I nearly spoke up then. Maybe money wasn’t the reason for Eugene Phelps’s suicide, I wanted to say, recalling my own husband’s descent—not into the maelstrom but into a concrete sidewalk.

Calvin and I never struggled financially. His family was so wealthy that we never wanted for money. Yet my husband chose to kill himself, right in front of me, driven by personal demons I could do nothing to stop…or, at the time, even really comprehend.

I wanted to say those things, but of course I kept silent. Some thoughts are too personal to share with a perfect stranger—or even a close friend like Brainert.

But not me, right, sweetheart?

“Right, Jack…not you.”

This is a real yawnfest you’ve got going here, you know?

“It could have been earth-shattering,” I silently pointed out, “if the Poe Code was real.”

But Blondie claims it’s not. Too bad, looks like he just burst Bow Tie Boy’s bubble.

“What a shame,” Brainert said.

He looked crestfallen. Clearly, he had hoped for better news.

Nelson Spinner glanced at his watch. “Well, this has been very pleasant. But I really do have to go. I have a long evening, papers to grade, you know.” He faced Brainert. “Can I give you a lift back to the campus, Parker?”

“No thanks,” Brainert replied. “I’m heading over to the theater. I’ll catch a ride home from Ronny Sutter.”

“Still hoping to resuscitate that old Movie Town Theater, eh?” Spinner asked.

“It’s been a financial struggle, but we’re almost there,” Brainert replied. “And since Ronny’s donating some of his time, the construction work has progressed much faster.”

Brainert had obviously told Spinner about his pet project. He and three other partners (including a film studies professor at St. Francis and an elderly retired screen actress who’d moved back to New England) had purchased the broken-down movie theater in Quindicott in hopes of reopening it and showing classic old films. Brainert gave Spinner an update on the restoration work as Sadie and I escorted them to the front door.

“A shame you have to go,” Sadie said. “Please feel free to come back soon, Professor Spinner. I don’t know how much longer the Phelps editions will be here, but I’m sure Penelope would be very glad to show you the store, perhaps escort you around town.”

I stiffened with embarrassment at the obvious sell job. My lord, I thought, is this how Spencer feels when I