The Poe Shadow Read online

  “The primary method,” he continued, “is not to tell the public what should concern them, but to make it seem you are answering the concerns already burning in their breasts. I have done that for Poe now, too. The editors of the newspapers have begun to seek more on Poe, as you have seen. The booksellers find a need for new editions, and Poe shall one day be on every shelf in the land, in every family library, read by the old to the young and kept by the young next to their Bibles. I have walked the street…or, sometimes, I walk the street.” He held the false nose to his face and, with stunning alacrity, was now talking in a counterfeit Americanized voice. “And whisper about Poe’s death in restaurants, churches, markets, hackney cabs”—he paused—“and athenaeum reading rooms…Now the suffering classes all believe, they all doubt, and in city and country they shall all be clamoring for the truth. Who shall give it to them?”

  “You wish only to stir up a spectacle for your own gain. You have no concern for finding the truth, Monsieur Baron; you’ve come only to try your fortune in Baltimore!” I replied.

  He mocked being hurt—but mocked it, I should add, with a most sincere and guilt-provoking face. “Truth is my only concern. But—truth must be hauled and carted from people’s heads. You have a quixotic sense of the honorable, Brother Quentin, I admire that. But truth does not exist, my misguided friend, until you find it. It does not thunder down from the benevolent gods, as some people believe.” Here he put his arm on Duponte’s shoulder and looked askew at my companion. “Tell me, Duponte, where have you been these years?”

  “Waiting,” Duponte answered evenly.

  “I suppose that we have all been, and grown tired of it,” said the Baron. “But it is too late for your assistance here, Monsieur Duponte.” He paused. “As usual.”

  “I think I should like to stay, nonetheless,” said Duponte calmly, “if there are not presently objections.”

  The Baron frowned patronizingly, but apparently could not help being flattered by the deference. “I must suggest you stay away from this matter and keep your handsome American pet on a leash—for he seems to have all the loyalty of a versatile monkey. I have already begun to gather the true facts of what befell Poe. Hear me now, Duponte, and you will remain safe. I must admit, my dear wife will slice the neck of any who try to inhibit me—isn’t this love, though? Do not speak with any of the parties with information on the subject.”

  “What are you driving at?” I exclaimed, feeling my face redden, perhaps in defiance at his demand or perhaps in embarrassment at being called a pet. “How do you dare to talk to Auguste Duponte in this manner? Do you not know we have more mettle than that?”

  Duponte’s reply to the Baron, however, shook my nerves more than the threat itself.

  “I’ll exceed your wishes,” said Duponte. “We shall not speak with any witnesses.”

  The Baron was insufferably pleased with his victory. “I see you do finally understand what is best, Duponte. This will be the greatest literary question of our day—and it will be my role to be its judge. I have begun a try at my memoirs. It shall be titled Memories of Baron Claude Dupin, the upholder of justice for Edgar A. Poe and the true life model for the personage of C. Auguste Dupin of the Rue Morgue Murders. Being a literary appreciator, I should be interested in whether that seems fitting—Brother Quentin?”

  “It is ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue,’” I corrected him. “And here before you, Auguste Duponte, is the true source for Poe’s hero!”

  The Baron laughed. There was a hackney carriage now waiting for him, and a young black servant held the door for the Baron as though he were an actual royal personage. The Baron ran a finger across the door of the carriage and the spirals along its woodwork.

  “A fine coach. The comforts of your city, Brother Quentin, are hardly to be surpassed, as is the case in all the wickedest cities in the world.” As he said this, his hand shifted to grasp that of Bonjour, who was already sitting comfortably in the coach.

  The Baron turned back to us. “Let us not be filled with so much friction. Let us at least be civil. Have a ride somewhere, rather than stumbling through the dark. I would take the reins myself, but since my London years I cannot remember to stay to the right side of the road. You see, we are not villains; you need not nullify fellowship with us. Come aboard.”

  “How about,” began Duponte suddenly, in the tone of a revelation, drawing the Baron’s full attention. “How about Duke? Think of it: if they love a baron, they should love a duke to a correspondingly greater degree. ‘Duke Dupin’ has a certain glorious ring to it in its double sound, doesn’t it?”

  The Baron’s expression hardened again before he slammed the door.

  For several minutes after their carriage rolled away, I stood bewildered. Duponte gazed with downcast eyes in the direction we had first seen the Baron approaching us.

  “He was angry we did not go. Do you think he planned to take us somewhere to do us harm?” I asked.

  Duponte crossed the street and studied an old building with a rudely constructed, plain brick façade. As he did, I realized that we were on the same block of Lombard Street as Ryan’s hotel and tavern, where Poe was discovered and brought to the hospital. Muted sounds of nighttime gatherings could be heard from that building. Duponte now stood across from Ryan’s. I joined him there.

  “Perhaps the Baron was angry not because he wanted to take us somewhere, but because his aim was to take us away from somewhere,” he said. “Is this the building where the Baron and the young lady came from?”

  It was, but I had no answer when Duponte inquired about the ownership and character of that address. After having offered my expert services as guide to Baltimore! I explained that the building adjoined an engine house for one of the city’s fire engine companies, the Vigilant Fire Company, and said perhaps it was part of the company.

  The street door of the place from which the Baron and Bonjour had emerged was stiff but unlocked. It opened onto a dark corridor that slanted down to another door. A heavy-set man, perhaps one of the firemen from the adjoining company, opened the door from the other side. From the long stairwell behind him came down fleeting shouts of joy. Or of terror, it was hard to decide which.

  The doorkeeper’s sheer width was impenetrable. He stared menacingly. I thought to remain quiet and still. Only when he motioned with his hand did it seem necessary to move closer.

  “Pass-word,” he said.

  I looked anxiously at Duponte, who was now peering down at the floor.

  “Pass-word to go upstairs,” the doorkeeper continued in an undertone that was meant to frighten—and did.

  Duponte had entered a sort of trance, letting his eyes glide over the floor, around the walls, up the stairs, and to the doorkeeper himself. What a moment to lose attention! Meanwhile, from the doorkeeper’s throat there could be heard a canine grumble as though at the slightest movement from us he would strike out.

  With an explosive thrust, the doorkeeper grabbed my wrist.

  “I’ll ask you jack-dandies for the last time, ’cause I ain’t joking. The pass-word!” It felt like the bone would snap if I tried to move.

  “Release the young man, good sir,” said Duponte quietly, looking up, “and I shall provide you with your pass-word.”

  The doorkeeper blinked dryly a few times at Duponte, then cranked open his grip. I pulled my arm to safety. The man said to Duponte, as though he had never pronounced the words before, and would certainly not pronounce them again without murdering someone, “Pass-word.” The doorkeeper and I both stared at my companion doubtfully.

  Duponte squared his body to his confronter and spoke two words.

  “Rosy God.”

  13

  EVEN WITH MY unshakable faith in Duponte’s analytic talents; even with the breathless tales I had heard of his achievements from newspapers, commissionnaires, and policemen in Paris; even remembering what I had witnessed in the Parisian gardens and in the revelation of the stowaway on the steamship; even remem
bering that Poe himself had pointed in his direction through his tales as a genius separate from all others; even with all this, still I could not believe what happened in the damp corridor of this building. The doorkeeper glared, stepped aside, then motioned us forward to the threshold behind him….

  The signal that had admitted us—as in some nursery tale of magic—this “Rosy God,” I had heard occasionally on the street as a low phrase for red wine. What extraordinary cipher could have been seen in the floors, in the walls, in the stairs, in the doorkeeper’s countenance or dress, that had led Duponte to decipher the code of entrance—a password that might change with the season or every hour—into this private and well-guarded den?

  “How did you,” I said, stopping midway on the creaking stairs. “Monsieur, the pass-word—”

  “Aside! Aside!” A man lurching over the stairs from above squeezed past us. Duponte accelerated our climb. The raucous shouts from above became clearer.

  The upper floor was a small room filled with smoke and noise. Firemen and tottering rowdies sat at gaming tables and called for more drinks from thinly clad bargirls, dresses only barely covering the milky white of their necks. One rogue sprawled out flat on a bed of sharp oyster shells, while one of his comrades kicked him over to the left for a better place to stand for a billiards game.

  Duponte found a small, broken table more or less right at the center, where we were conspicuous. Heated stares followed us into our rickety chairs. Duponte sat and nodded to a waitress as though entering a respectable café on the sidewalks of Paris.

  “Monsieur,” I whispered, taking a seat, “you must tell me directly—how is it you knew the pass-word to admit us?”

  “The explanation is rather simple. I did not give the pass-word.”

  “My dear Duponte! It was like an ‘open sesame’! If this were two centuries earlier, you would have burned as a witch. I cannot stand to continue without being enlightened as to this point!”

  Duponte rubbed one of his eyes as though just waking up. “Monsieur Clark. Why have we come here to this building?” he asked.

  I did not mind playing the student if it would provide answers. “To see if Baron Dupin had also come in here, and if so what he was looking for tonight before we happened upon him.”

  “You are right—all right. Now, if you were the proprietor of a secret or private association, would you be most interested in talking with a visitor who gave the correct pass-word, as was given by every simpleton and sot you see in this rum-hole”—this he said without lowering his voice, causing some heads to swivel—“or talking with that one peculiar person who arrives out of place and, quite brashly, provides an absolutely incorrect pass-word?”

  I paused. “I suppose the latter,” I admitted. “Do you mean to say that you invented a phrase, knowing plainly it was wrong; and that because it was wrong we would be as readily admitted?”

  “Exactly. ‘Rosy God’ was as good as another. We could have chosen almost any word, as long as our demeanor was equally interested. They would know we were not part of their usual community, and yet be aware that we seriously desired entrance. Now, these suppositions accepted, if our intent was thought to be possibly aggressive, even violent, as they must initially consider, they would rather us inside here, surrounded by their rather large-sized allies and whatever weapons are kept here, than downstairs, where, they might imagine, our own friends could be hiding outside the street door. Would you not think in the same way? Of course, we seek no violent confrontation. Our time here will be brief, and we need no more than a few moments to begin to understand the Baron’s interest.”

  “But how shall you be led to the proprietor here?”

  “He shall approach us, if I am right,” Duponte answered.

  After a few minutes, a paternal man with a white beard stood before us. The menacing doorkeeper lumbered to our other side, closing us in. We rose from the table. The first man, in tones harsher than seemed possible from his looks, introduced himself only as the president of the Whigs of the Fourth Ward and asked why we were there.

  “Only to aid you, sir.” Duponte bowed. “I believe there was a gentleman trying to enter here in the last hour, probably offering money to your doorkeeper for information.”

  The proprietor turned to his doorkeeper. “Is it true, Tindley?”

  “He waved some hard cash, Mr. George.” The doorkeeper nodded sheepishly. “I turned the blockhead away, sir.”

  “What was it he was asking?” Duponte inquired. Though my companion had no authority here, the doorkeeper seemed to forget that and answered.

  “He was all agog to know if we had been interfering in the elections in October of two years ago, laying pipe with voters and such. I told him we were a private Whig club and he would do well to give the pass-word or lope.”

  “Did you take his money?” asked his chief sternly.

  “Course not! I was on the sharp, Mr. George!”

  Mr. George glanced peevishly at the doorkeeper at the use of his name. “What do you two have to do with this? Are you sent by the Democrats?”

  I could see Duponte was satisfied with what had been so readily revealed: what sort of club this was, what the Baron had wanted, and the name of the leader of this society. Now Duponte’s face lit up with a new idea.

  “I live far from America, and could not tell a Whig from a Democrat. We have come merely to proffer a friendly caution,” said Duponte reassuringly. “That gentleman who called earlier tonight will not be satisfied with your doorkeeper’s answer. I think I can put you in the way of detecting the villain of this rascality. He means to quarrel with you over the moral principles of your club.”

  “That so?” the proprietor said, contemplating this. “Well, thank you kindly for your concern. Now you two cap your luck before there are any more quarrels here.”

  “Your servant, Mr. George,” Duponte said with a bow.

  14

  THE NEXT DAY, I pressed Duponte on why he had so easily agreed to the Baron Dupin’s demand that he refrain from talking to witnesses. It would now be a race to gather information, and we could afford no encumbrance. I was anxious to know Duponte’s plans to combat the Baron.

  “You intend to deceive him, I suppose? You will, of course, speak to persons who know something of Poe’s last visit?”

  “I shall remain quite faithful to my pledge. No, I will not interview his witnesses.”

  “Why? Baron Dupin has done nothing to merit your pledge. He has certainly done nothing to claim any witnesses as his alone. How shall we possibly understand what happened to Poe if we cannot speak to those who saw him personally?”

  “They will be useless.”

  “But would their memories not be fresh from the time of Poe’s death, which was but two years ago?”

  “Their memories, monsieur, hardly exist at present, but are subsumed by the Baron’s tales. The Baron has infected the newspapers and the whispers of Baltimore with his sophistry and craft. All actual witnesses will have become tainted, if they are not already, by the time we would be able to locate them.”

  “Do you believe they would lie?”

  “Not purposefully. Their genuine memories of those events, and the stories they can tell from them, will irrevocably reshape themselves in the image of the Baron’s. They are as much his witnesses now as though he has recruited them into a trial and paid them for testimony. No, we cannot gain very much beyond the most basic facts provided by those witnesses, and I suspect we will gather that information through the natural course of events.”

  You’d probably guess that Duponte was a formal sort of person. You are right and wrong. He did not subscribe to rules of manners and meaningless pleasantries. He smoked cigars inside the house, regardless of who was in the room. He was inclined to ignore you if he had nothing to say, and answer with a single word when he felt it was sufficient. He was in a way a fast friend, for he was your companion without any of the usual rituals or demands of friendship. However, he always bowe
d and sat with absolutely correct posture (though upon standing there was a noticeable slant of the shoulders). And in his labors he was most strict and serious. In fact, it made you quite uneasy to interrupt him when he was at all occupied. It could be the least important task imaginable, it could be stirring oatmeal, but it would seem leagues more critical than anything you might have to say to break his concentration were the house burning down around his ears.

  Yet he grew attached to some of the strangest frivolities. When he was out on the city streets, a distinguished gentleman with a fancy cravat fastened in voluminous folds exclaimed aloud that Duponte was the queerest specimen of man he had ever seen. Duponte, taking no offense, invited the man, who was a painter of some renown here in Baltimore, to share a table with us at a nearby restaurant.

  “And tell me your story, dear sir,” said the man.

  “I would gladly, monsieur,” replied Duponte apologetically, “but then there is the likely danger that I would have to hear yours.”

  “Fascinating!” said the man, unruffled.

  The man expressed his eagerness to paint Duponte. It was soon arranged that he would call at Glen Eliza to begin a Duponte portrait. This seemed to me quite absurd considering our other occupations, but I did not object since Duponte was fervent about it.

  Rather than coming to find me in the house when he had something to say, Duponte would often send one of the servants to me with a note. Glen Eliza was large and rambling but not so terribly mammoth as to require a messenger through its corridors! I did not know what to think when a servant first handed me the note, whether it was done out of the height of sloth or an excess of concentration.

  The times when we ventured out of the house and into public establishments, Duponte refused to be waited on by slaves without paying them some small amount. I had seen instances of this over the years when visitors from Europe came to Baltimore, though during extended stays custom would soon wear down their finer sensibilities and the habit would gradually cease. Duponte’s action, however, was not out of any sentimentality, I believe, nor a point of principle, for he had said that more people are slaves than realized it and some far more enslaved than the blacks of our South; rather than sentimental reasons, Duponte did this, he said, because service without payment would never be as valuable to either party. Many of the slaves would be extremely grateful, others timid, and some strangely hostile to Duponte’s subsidies.