At this point in our investigations, we had come to a massive bookcase that stood against one wall of the chamber. Examining the rows of dusty, antique volumes that lined the shelves, I was forcibly struck by the degree to which they conformed—in their exceedingly anomalous subject matter—to the unhallowed paintings that constituted Asher’s art collection. Among the many rare and curious editions that filled the towering bookcase, I recognized such grotesque, even sinister, works as the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud; the Malleus Malifacarum of Jakob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer; Robert Scots Demonogly; the Practica Inquisitionis Heretice Pravitatis of Bernadus Guidonis; and—perhaps most remarkable of all—a small octavo edition of the Virgliœ Mortuorum secundum Chorum Eccksiæ Maguntinœ.

As I inspected the titles of this astonishing library, my eyes fell upon a strangely familiar book, gold-stamped and bound in rich, green leather. Emitting a cry of surprise, I reached out and snatched the volume from its place.

“What’s the matter, Poe?” Crockett exclaimed.

“Look!” I cried. “It is a copy of the very work that I was in the process of perusing when you first arrived at my domicile several days ago to confront me with your astonishing and ill-considered ultimatum!”

Taking the book from my hands, Crockett opened the cover, his face assuming a most singular expression of bafflement and wonder as he scrutinized the title page.

“In-hu-mation Afore Death,” he read. He glanced up at me. “What the devil does it signify, Poe?”

“It is a treatise about the awful—the ghastly—the unspeakable—calamity of premature burial!”

“Premature burial!” Crockett exclaimed. “You mean plantin’ a feller six foot under afore he’s even given up the ghost?”

A tremor of horror ran through my frame. “That, indeed, is the dire, the appalling circumstance denoted by the phrase,” I replied. “Of all the horrors that may be visited upon mortals, it is the one whose mere contemplation is most assured to fill our souls with unendurable anxiety and overpowering dread!”

“It’s a corker, all right,” Crockett conceded. “Poe, there ain’t nuthin’ ’bout this Asher feller that sits right with me.”

Clapping the volume shut, he thrust it back into my hands; whereupon I restored it to its place on the shelf. As I turned back towards Crockett, I perceived by the glow of my candelabrum that he was frowning at something that lay just beyond the limits of the massive bookcase. Following his gaze, I saw that it was directed at a small recess or nook which, until that moment, had been obscured by the pervading gloom of the chamber.