Entering the building, we passed through the foyer and found ourselves inside a cavernous gallery, brilliantly illuminated by gas-jets and filled with several hundred mounted specimens of birds, beasts, amphibians, fishes, and insects. As we hurried down the center of this imposing collection—past glass-fronted cases replete with every imaginable variety of carefully preserved invertebrata—Crockett shook his head and muttered: “I can’t cipher it nohow, Poe. Why would folks pay good money just to see whole rows of little bugs and other such varmints stuck up with pins?”

In more leisurely circumstances, I would have replied to this exceedingly naive query with a concise discussion of the vitally important science of biological taxonomy, as pioneered by the great Lamarck in his magisterial (if not wholly original) work, Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres. There was, however, no opportunity for such a disquisition; for, as we reached the far end of the gallery, I perceived a trio of policemen conferring at the opposite end of the adjacent room.

One of these, I saw as we drew nearer, was Officer Carlton. Along with his two colleagues, he was standing beside a display of preternaturally lifelike wax mannikins, representing such immortal literary figures as Shylock, Falstaff, and Tarn O’Shanter. Noticing our approach, Carlton turned from his companions and, after welcoming each of us by name, declared: “I am glad that you have come. Captain Russell is most eager to see you”

“What precisely has transpired here?” I inquired. “Not—I fervently hope—another ghastly murder?”

“I am afraid, Mr. Poe, that the implacable fiend has indeed struck once again,” the young man acknowledged grimly.

“Well, I’ll be a sheep-killing dog,” Crockett exclaimed. “Where in the nation is the cap’n?”

“With the victim,” said Carlton. “Come. I will show you the way.”

Instructing his companions to await his return, the young officer motioned for us to follow, then turned on his heels and conducted us through an arched passageway and into an adjoining gallery. In the middle of this lofty and capacious hall loomed the reconstructed fossil of the towering, great-tusked mastodon whose bones had been exhumed from their primordial resting place in rural New York by the elder Mr. Peale.

Passing this monstrous skeleton in awestruck silence, we came at length to a latched wooden door, situated in the extreme northeast corner of the hallway. This door was of the sort that might conceal a small storage area or closet. Upon its being opened by Carlton, however, there stood revealed—not, as I had anticipated, a storeroom—but rather a steep, exceedingly narrow wooden staircase that descended into the subterranean reaches of the building.

On the wall beside the door, at approximately shoulder-level, a lantern hung from a wooden peg. Carlton now took hold of this appliance and—after lighting it by means of a phosphorous match—turned to us and said: “Follow me, gentlemen. And please be careful where you step.”