The Poe Shadow Page 10

  “Very well. But how did you know the cake would return, and at this very spot?” the man asked.

  “You may have noticed,” continued Duponte, seeming to talk more to himself than to either of us, “that upon entering the grounds of the gardens, there was a larger group of officers of the garden in the vicinity of the zoological attractions than usual. Perhaps you remember reading of one of the bears, ‘Martin,’ having recently devoured a soldier who leaned over too far and fell into their domain.”

  “Indeed! I remember,” said the man.

  “No doubt these guards were stationed to prevent young men and boys from any longer climbing the parapets to get close to the monsters.”

  “Yes! You are likely right, monsieur!” The man stood open-mouthed.

  “It might have been further essayed, then, that if a boy had in fact taken possession of your cake, the same lad would be turned away from his plan by these vigilant guardians within the first few minutes of the bears’ stirring, and the bandit would return by the most direct path—a path which crosses the grounds where we now stand—to the attraction second in popularity only to the wells of the bears for this sort of spectator: I mean the wire house of the monkeys, who, at the delivery of a bright piece of cloth or item of food, could be made to chase one another in, presumably, a manner almost as enchanting as the bears’ climbing of the pole. None of the other popular holdings, the wolves or the parrots, will make such an exhibition over one’s cake.”

  As delighted by this explanation as if it had been his own, the grateful man, with a magnanimous air, invited us to share in his cake, even though it had been in the grubby hands of the boy and had since been made flat by the rain. I politely declined, but Duponte, after a moment of thought, accepted and sat with him upon a bench. They ate with great relish as I held the man’s umbrella over them.

  That evening, I met the same man at a crowded café near my hotel. The bright lights of the interior presented a dazzling effect. He was playing a game of dominoes with a friend, whom he dismissed when he saw me come in.

  “Monsieur, bravely done,” I said joyfully. “Quite well done!”

  I had met this man the day before in the same Jardin des Plantes. He was one of the chiffonniers of Paris, men whose occupation was to search through the rubbish heaps put out from the houses of Paris. They would use sticks and baskets with great expertise to collect anything of remote value. “Bones, scraps of paper, linen, cloth, bits of iron, broken glass, broken china, corks of wine bottles…” he explained. These men were not vagrants; rather, they were registered for this activity with the police.

  I had inquired of the fellow how much he collected each day.

  “Under King Philippe,” he said of the former monarch, “thirty sous’worth a day! But now, under the Republic, only fifteen.” He explained, with a sad tone of nostalgia for the monarchy, “People throw away less bones and paper now! When there is no luxury we who are poor can do nothing.”

  I would remember his words strongly in the months to come.

  Because he could legally ply his trade only between five and ten in the morning, and was bent on earning money, I thought he would be agreeable to the scheme I had conceived. I had instructed him that when he saw me walking with my companion the following afternoon, he should exclaim in our hearing over the loss of some object of value and beg Duponte for assistance. In this way, Duponte might be jolted into some small undertaking.

  Now, at the café where we had agreed to meet, as my part of the bargain I informed the waiter that I would pay for the meal of my accomplice’s choice. And what a meal! He called for the tout ensemble of the place: poulet en fricassée, ragout, cauliflower, bonbons, melons, cream cheese! As was the practice in France, each new item of food came with a new plate, for the French abhorred the American practice of mixing tastes—for instance, vegetables and the sauces of meat—on one plate. I watched his feast happily, for his performance at the gardens had pleased me greatly.

  “I did not think, at first, cake would work,” I admitted to him. “I thought it a strange choice! Yet you managed quite well with that boy.”

  “No, no, monsieur!” he said. “I had nothing to do with that boy. The cake was truly stolen from me!”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  The chiffonnier said that he had planned to position his umbrella in some concealed spot and report the missing umbrella to Duponte to fulfill our agreement. It had been during the time he searched for a hiding place for the umbrella near the bench that his cake had vanished.

  “How did he know what happened to it?” he asked. “Had you told your friend to watch me that whole time?”

  “Of course not!” I shook my head. “I wanted to see if he would solve the mystery, and that would spoil the experiment, wouldn’t it!”

  The incident had clearly weighed on his mind. “He is an odd stick. Yet I suppose when a body is hungry, he shall do what he must.”

  I reflected on this axiom after parting from the man. I had been too excited about Duponte’s promising behavior to consider why Duponte had performed his task of analysis. Perhaps Duponte, who had skipped dinner, had just been hungry for the cake, his share of the spoils, all along.

  This was hardly the end of that line of attempts on my part to provoke Duponte into renewing his abilities. I had brought from America the pamphlet of The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe. I marked the first page of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and left it for Duponte, hoping that his interests would be captured. I rejoiced when it seemed that all my tactics were having an impact. The first true indication that Duponte was changing in some extraordinary way came one evening when I followed him to Café Belge. Two or three times a week he would sit on a bench, ignoring the billiards games and the chatter, comfortably lost in the ugly bustle and brawls around him. I had followed him here before. Something seemed different as soon as I saw him this time. His glance had already become less vacant.

  I lost sight of him after he turned into the small, narrow café. Mirrors lining the walls exaggerated the confusion of people inside. This was where the best billiards players in the city congregated to play. There was one roguish fellow who was said to be the best of all the players. He was wildly red all over—his hair, his brow, his irritated, picked skin. He almost always played his game alone, I suppose because he was too good for the others who came only for leisure and gaiety. He shouted encouragement to himself on a good shot, and cursed himself mercilessly when he fell short.

  Café Belge was the only billiards café in the city to allow women to play—though, it will surprise many who have not visited Paris, it was not the only café to permit the smoking of cigarettes by ladies. True, the unsuspecting American might blanch just by walking past many of the illustrations displayed in the windows of print-shops, or after witnessing scenes of maternal activities, usually confined to the nursery, displayed for all the world to see in the middle of the Tuileries gardens.

  As I searched for Duponte, a young lady threw her hand on top of mine.

  “Monsieur, you wish to play a game with us?”

  “Mademoiselle?”

  She pointed to the three other nymphs at her table. “You wish to play billiards, I suppose. Come, here is a stick. You are an Englishman?”

  She propelled me in front of the table. “Do not fret. Nobody plays for money in Paris, only for drinks!”

  “You see”—I leaned in to speak as quietly as possible—“I am not married.” I had learned that in France unmarried women were to be seen with single men at great risk to their reputation; the compensation was that married women could freely be seen doing all manner of things.

  “Ah, that is all very well,” the damsel reassured me in a loud, smoked whisper. “I am.” She and her companions laughed, and their French grew too rapid for me to follow. I struggled to cross the room, colliding with the elbows of a few of the men surrounding the billiards tables.

  After a few moments, I noticed another young woman
in the room, standing apart from the others. Although she looked to be of the same modest class, she held herself up with elegance unknown to her peers in the café. And unknown, for that matter, to the “unrivaled beauties” that paraded themselves along Baltimore Street. She was shorter than me, and her deep-set eyes seemed almost to anticipate my path through the crowd. She carried a basket with blooming flowers and stood quietly. A man would raise his hand and she would walk close, where the man would toss a copper coin or two into the basket.

  As I searched my own pockets for a coin to contribute to this lovely vision, I bumped into the next table, knocking a player as he shot at a ball.

  “What in hell?” It was the roguish red-haired fellow. The best player in the arrondissement. Standing near him was a beautiful, but pale woman, with dark hair, who consoled him by stroking his arm.

  The other nymphs I had encountered pointed and giggled at me from across the room. “Monsieur Englishman!” they kept repeating.

  “You’ve ruined my game,” he said. “I’ll crack your skull into two! Get back to England.”

  “Actually, monsieur, I come from America. Accept my apologies.”

  “A ‘Yankee Doodle,’ are you? Maybe you think you’re back with the Indians then? What do you want here, stirring trouble?”

  He shoved me hard several times. I nearly fell backward, barely regaining my balance. Somewhere during this ordeal—whether here or in the more dire later stages—my hat disappeared. With the next shove, I lost my balance, falling against a table, and watched myself sink to the floor in the café’s mirrors.

  In my next bit of memory, I was flat on my back. I thought it best to remain low, looking up to the ceiling where the old cigarette smoke of the place peacefully collected and continued forever in the mirrors like a fog rolling over the ocean.

  A pair of arms broke through the cover of smoke and yanked me to my feet. The room seemed hotter, louder, smaller. Shouts and laughter floated in the background—though part of the raucousness was directed to one of the nymphs, who was now on top of a table and tripping the light fantastic with a dance. These shouts emboldened the Red Rogue. His sloppy mouth formed a sickly grin right against my face.

  His breath was painfully sharp. “My best game ever,” he said threateningly. Or at least whatever it was he was saying, it had a threatening ring, as I cannot be sure of the words—he was, naturally, speaking French and, for the moment, that language was all but lost to me. I hoped the elegant girl with the flower basket was not watching.

  Then a voice came from behind me. “Monsieur, if you please!”

  The rogue looked over my shoulder.

  “I challenge you in a game of billiards, monsieur,” said the same voice behind me. “And we shall wager whatever amount you choose.”

  Red Rogue seemed to forget me altogether, and pushed aside his girl, who wheeled around anxiously at the scene and pulled at his elbow.

  “At my table?” said the rogue, pointing to the billiards table where we had collided.

  “None other would be as suitable,” replied Duponte, bowing precisely.

  An amount of money was called out. This scene quickly attracted an audience, not only because an unknown player had dared to take on the champion, but because there was money—rather than the customary drinks—at stake, and significant money.

  As though this might be a second Duponte, I looked around the café to make sure he was not somewhere else. Though overwhelmed with relief at my escape from harm, I instantly felt Duponte’s mistake. In the first place, I knew from my observations of Duponte that he had no money should he lose. Secondly, there was the matter of this fellow’s talent for the game of billiards. As if to remind me of this, one of the bystanders behind me whispered to his friend, “Red Rogue is one of the best players in Paris.” Except he used the fellow’s real name, which, from the mayhem of events, I no longer remember.

  Red Rogue slapped his money on a chair. Duponte was busy selecting his stick.

  “Monsieur?” the rogue demanded, banging three times on the chair.

  “The money is my reward,” explained Duponte. “Not yours.”

  “And what if I win?!” shouted his opponent, the red in his face turning purple.

  Duponte motioned a hand at me. “If you are the winner of our game without forfeit,” replied Duponte, “then you may resume your business with this gentleman unhindered.”

  Much to my despair, the rogue turned to me and seemed to savor the barbaric license that would be afforded by a victory. He even offered Duponte the honor of beginning the game. I tried desperately to think if Poe’s stories had ever mentioned skill in billiards on the part of the analyst hero; on the contrary, Dupin professed a dislike for mathematical games like chess and pronounced the superiority of simple matches of whist in showing the real skills of ratiocination.

  Duponte opened with a shot so terrible that several onlookers laughed.

  Red Rogue became perfectly serious, even graceful, as he struck the ball with ease turn after turn. If I had ruined his best game ever, surely this was his second best. I held on to the hope that Duponte would suddenly grow skilled, or reveal that his ineptness was but an act of trickery. Not so; he became worse. And then there were only three or maybe four turns left on the part of Red Rogue before the game would be finished to his advantage. I was searching my pockets, with the thought of replacing my part in the wager with silver, but I hadn’t brought more than a few francs with me.

  This was most remarkable: through all of this, Duponte remained utterly composed. With each awful turn, his expression stayed perfectly untroubled and confident. This was increasingly upsetting to his opponent, though it did not in the least affect his excellent play. One reward of triumph is to watch the loser deflate. And Duponte was refusing to comply with this. I believe Red Rogue even slowed his victory in order to attempt to induce the proper degradation.

  Finally, the villain turned to the table with renewed speed and a flash of anger at Duponte. “Here we finish,” he said, then directed a boiling gaze of hatred at me.

  “Yes? Very well then.” Duponte, to my horror, shrugged.

  In my state of fear, I did not at first even hear the commotion at the street door. In fact, it did not gain my attention until there were several people pointing in our direction. Then there burst in a man with a bushy orange beard who, other than the beard and a much larger frame, looked similar to Red Rogue. I saw Red Rogue’s greedy, flushed face whiten pathetically and I knew something was wrong. My French had returned enough to make out the fact that Red Rogue had, according to this enraged newcomer, directed his romantic passion toward this man’s lover, the girl standing nervously near the table. She now screamed at the larger man to forgive her, and Red Rogue fled into the streets.

  Duponte had already collected the money from the chair and was departing by the time I regained my bearings.

  If you are the winner without forfeit… The words circled my head. Forfeit. He had known—from the beginning—how this would turn out. I followed Duponte into the street.

  “Monsieur, I might have been killed! You could have never won the game!”

  “Certainly not!”

  “How did you know that man would come?”

  “I didn’t. The girl on Red Rogue’s arm had earlier been peering out the window every few moments but, if you observed, always keeping herself away from view of someone outside the window. Moreover, she did not merely hold Red’s arm; she squeezed it, as though to protect him, and upon my challenge pleaded with him to leave—certainly not because she thought anyone could defeat him at this child’s game. She knew—from having encountered him earlier in a state of anger, or having carelessly left one of Red Rogue’s letters on her dresser, perhaps—that her other lover was looking for her. I merely observed her, and counted on the fact that he would soon enough come. When someone else knows something, it is usually unnecessary to discover it for yourself. There was nothing to worry about.”

&nb
sp; “But what if he had come only after you had lost the game?”

  “I see you are of a very sensitive constitution.”

  “Would he not have committed some monstrous violence against me?”

  “Agreed,” Duponte admitted after a moment, “that would have been quite troublesome for you, monsieur. We should be grateful it was avoided.”

  One morning soon after, my knocking at Duponte’s door met with no reply. I tried the handle and found it open. I entered, thinking he had not heard me, and called out.

  “A walk today, monsieur?” I paused and glanced around.

  Duponte was hunched over his bed as though in prayer, his hand gripping his forehead like a vise. Stepping closer, I could see he was reading in a troubling state of intensity.

  “What have you done?” he demanded.

  I stumbled back and said, “Only come to look for you, monsieur. I thought perhaps a walk by the Seine today would be pleasant. Or to the Tuileries to see the horse-chestnuts!”

  His eyes locked straight on mine, the effect unsettling.

  “I explained to you, Monsieur Clark, that I do not engage in these avocations you imagine. You have not seemed to comprehend this simplest of statements regarding this matter. You insist on confusing your literature and my reality. Now you shall do me a good turn by leaving me alone.”