The Reaper’s Image by Stephen King
The Reaper’s Image
by Stephen King
“We moved it last year, and quite an operation it was, too,” Mr. Carlin said as they
mounted the stairs. “Had to move it by hand, of course. No other way. We insured it against
accident with Lloyd’s before we even took it out of the case in the drawing room. Only firm that
would insure for the sum we had in mind.”
Spangler said nothing. The man was a fool. Johnson Spangler had learned a long time
ago that the only way to talk to a fool was to ignore him.
“Insured it for a quarter of a million dollars,” Mr. Carlin resumed when they reached the second-floor landing. His mouth quirked in a half-bitter, half-humorous line. “And a pretty
penny it cost, too.” He was a little man, not quite fat, with rimless glasses and a tanned baldhead that shone like a varnished volleyball. A suit of armor, guarding the mahogany shadows of the
second-floor corridor, stared at them impassively.
It was a long corridor, and Spangler eyed the walls and hangings with a cool professional
eye. Samuel Claggert had bought in copious quantities, but he had not bought well. Like so
many of the self-made industry emperors of the late 1800’s, he had been little more than a
pawnshop rooter masquerading in collector’s clothing, a connoisseur of canvas monstrosities,
trashy novels and poetry collections in expensive cowhide bindings, and atrocious pieces of
sculpture, all of which he considered Art.
Up here the walls were hung — festooned was perhaps a better word — with imitation
Moroccan drapes, numberless (and, no doubt, anonymous) madonnas holding numberless haloed
babes while numberless angels flitted hither and thither in the background, grotesque scrolled
candelabra, and one monstrous and obscenely ornate chandelier surmounted by a salaciously
grinning nymphet.
Of course the old pirate had come up with a few interesting items; the law of averages
demanded it. And if the Samuel Claggert Memorial Private Museum (Guided Tours on the Hour
— Admission $1.00 Adults, $.50 Children — nauseating) was 98 percent blatant junk, there was
always that other two percent, things like the Coombs long rifle over the hearth in the kitchen,
the strange little camera obscure in the parlor, and of course the —
“The Delver looking-glass was removed from downstairs after a rather unfortunate…
incident,” Mr. Carlin said abruptly, motivated apparently by a ghastly glaring portrait of no one in particular at the base of the next staircase. “There had been others — harsh words, wild statements — but this was an attempt to actually destroy the mirror. The woman, a Miss Sandra Bates, came in with a rock in her pocket. Fortunately her aim was bad and she only cracked a
corner of the case. The mirror was unharmed. The Bates girl had a brother — ”
“No need to give me the dollar tour,” Spangler said quietly. “I’m conversant with the history of the Delver glass.”
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Carlin cast him an odd, oblique look. “There was that English duchess in 1709… and the Pennsylvania rug merchant in 1746… not to mention — ”
“I’m conversant with the history,” Spangler repeated quietly. “It’s the workmanship I’m interested in. And then, of course, there’s the question of authenticity — ”
“Authenticity!” Mr. Carlin chuckled, a dry sound, as if bones had stirred in a cupboard below the stairs. “It’s been examined by experts, Mr. Spangler.” “So was the Lemlier Stradivarius.” “So true,” Mr. Carlin said with a sigh. “But no Stradivarius ever had quite the… the unsettling effect of the Delver glass.”
“Yes, quite,” Spangler said in his softly contemptuous voice. He understood now that
there would be no stopping Carlin; he had a mind, which was perfectly in tune with the age.
“Quite.”
They climbed the third and fourth flights in silence. As they drew closer to the roof of the
rambling structure, it became oppressively hot in the dark upper galleries. With the heat came a
creeping stench that Spangler knew well, for he had spent all his adult life working in it — a
smell of long-dead flies in shadowy corners, of wet rot and creeping wood lice behind the