The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2Poe, Edgar Allan
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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2
Poe, Edgar Allan
American fiction -- 19th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales, American; Short stories
Opening into the garret where they caught him, was a closet, ten
feet by eight, fitted up with some chemical apparatus, of which
the object has not yet been ascertained. In one corner of the
closet was a very small furnace, with a glowing fire in it, and
on the fire a kind of duplicate crucible—two crucibles connected
by a tube. One of these crucibles was nearly full of lead in a
state of fusion, but not reaching up to the aperture of the tube,
which was close to the brim. The other crucible had some liquid
in it, which, as the officers entered, seemed to be furiously
dissipating in vapor. They relate that, on finding himself taken,
Kempelen seized the crucibles with both hands (which were encased
in gloves that afterwards turned out to be asbestic), and threw
the contents on the tiled floor. It was now that they hand-cuffed
him; and before proceeding to ransack the premises they searched
his person, but nothing unusual was found about him, excepting a
paper parcel, in his coat-pocket, containing what was afterward
ascertained to be a mixture of antimony and some unknown
substance, in nearly, but not quite, equal proportions. All
attempts at analyzing the unknown substance have, so far, failed,
but that it will ultimately be analyzed, is not to be doubted.
Passing out of the closet with their prisoner, the officers went
through a sort of ante-chamber, in which nothing material was
found, to the chemist’s sleeping-room. They here rummaged some
drawers and boxes, but discovered only a few papers, of no
importance, and some good coin, silver and gold. At length,
looking under the bed, they saw a large, common hair trunk,
without hinges, hasp, or lock, and with the top lying carelessly
across the bottom portion. Upon attempting to draw this trunk out
from under the bed, they found that, with their united strength
(there were three of them, all powerful men), they ‘could not
stir it one inch.’ Much astonished at this, one of them crawled
under the bed, and looking into the trunk, said:
‘No wonder we couldn’t move it—why it’s full to the brim of old
bits of brass!’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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