Matthew Pearl - The Poe Shadow

It did not seem inconceivable to me that the concierge for a person of this stature would dissuade casual callers. "I require his skills in a matter of moment," I replied, at which a strange hissing sound emanated from the man and revealed itself as laughter as he informed me that Duponte no longer lived here, had left no further information, and that Columbus probably couldn't find him now.

As I took my leave, I thought about the "Dupin" I had known well. I mean from Poe's tales-that liaison who had opened the portal into Poe by convincing me the inexplicable must yet be understood. "My French hero" was Poe's reference to the character in one of the letters he wrote to me. If only I had happened to inquire to Poe about the identity of the real Dupin; if only I had exhibited more curiosity-it would have saved me the last year and more that had been required to trace this singular man to Paris!

In his tales, Poe never physically described the character of Dupin. I realized this only after freshly reviewing this trio of particular tales of detection with that question in mind. Previously, if asked of this, I might have answered, as if talking to a perfect ass, "Of course Poe describes one of his most important characters, the character that embodies perfectly his writing, and in great detail, too!" But on the contrary, Dupin's form, you see, is strikingly imparted-but only to the careful and estimable reader who enters the tale with his full heart.

I mention here as illustration a rather frothy short tale by Poe called "The Man That Was Used Up." It features a celebrated army general whose sturdy physical appearance is widely admired. But the general has an unfortunate secret: each night he falls apart physically from his old war wounds and must have his body parts stitched back together by his Negro manservant before breakfast. I believe this was Poe's shove at those lesser writers, mere blots in the deep shadows of his genius, who thought physical description of features the key to enlivening their characters. Likewise, it was from the untellable soul of C. Auguste Dupin's character, not his choice of waistcoat, that he had long ago stepped into my consciousness.

When I had first received the newspaper cutting mentioning the real Dupin from the athenaeum clerk in Baltimore, I'd found fruitless all my attempts to secure the investigator's name from the New York newspaper where the column had appeared. However, a mere few weeks of research into French periodicals and directories produced a fairly impressive list of possible models for Poe's character.

All of their personal histories matched in some manner the two sources: the cutting's description as well as the traits of Poe's character. One possibility I turned up was a Parisian mathematical celebrity who wrote textbooks used to solve various scientific problems; and there was the lawyer, called sometimes the Baron, who acquitted persons accused of the most scandalous crimes, who had since gone to London; another, a former thief who acted as a secret agent of the Parisian police before operating a paper factory in Brussels. Each one of these and other possibilities were considered dispassionately and objectively and with the expectation that one would rise above the others as the clear source for Dupin.

And yet, another year and a half passed from the start of that research. Correspondence across the Atlantic proved slow and inconclusive. Promising candidates accumulated quickly before each one gradually dropped into a well of doubt after further inquires and exchanges.

Until one clear day in the spring of 1851. That's when I discovered in the French journal L' --the name Auguste Duponte. The name naturally caught my attention, but it was not the sound of the name only that struck a distinct harmony with Poe's C. Auguste Dupin. This fellow, Auguste Duponte, had gained prominence in France in the sensational case of Monsieur Lafarge, a gentleman of strong physical constitution and some local importance found mysteriously dead in his home. After some useless maneuvers by the Parisian police, one officer invited in his acquaintance, the young tutor Duponte, to translate the comments of a Spanish visitor who was a witness in the case (though that angle ultimately proved irrelevant).

Within the space of ten or twelve minutes after hearing the facts from the police officer, it was said Duponte conclusively showed the police that the dead man had been poisoned by Madame Lafarge at the end of a meal. Madame L. was convicted for the murder of her husband. She was later spared from death by sympathetic officials.

(Asked by the French newspaper La Presse what he thought about the murderess's sentence having been commuted, Duponte reportedly said, "Nothing at all. Punishment has little relation to the fact of a crime, and the least to do with the analysis of the crime.")

The news of Auguste Duponte's feat spread widely through France. The government officials, police, and citizens in Paris sought his analysis of other incidents. This swift introduction to the public eye-I discovered with immense satisfaction-occurred a few years before the appearance in an 1841 issue of an American journal of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." Poe's description of Dupin's rise to fame in the second of the tales could be used with equal effect to describe the real history of Auguste Duponte: It thus happened that he found himself the cynosure of the policial eyes; and the cases were not few in which attempt was made to engage his services at the Prefecture.

My confidence that I had identified the right man was bolstered further when I happened to meet a knowledgeable Frenchman who had been living in America for the last few years, since the overthrow of King Louis-Philippe, as part of a diplomatic corps for the new French republic. This was Henri Montor. I was in Washington City researching Auguste Duponte in its libraries when he noticed with interest that I was struggling through some French newspapers. I explained my purpose and asked if he had known Duponte.

"Whenever there was a crime of great impact," Monsieur Montor said animatedly, "the people of Paris had always called for Duponte-and the criminal on the street would curse the year Duponte was born. A treasure of Paris is Duponte, Monsieur Clark."

During my subsequent visits, Henri Montor tutored me in French over supper and engaged me in long hours of conversation, comparing the French and American governments and people. He found Washington City rather desolate compared to Paris, the climate positively stifling and injurious to one's health.

By this time, when I met Monsieur Montor, I had already written to Duponte himself. I had outlined the events of Poe's death and described the urgent need to resolve the matter before Poe's sickly reputation worsened. After another week had passed, I had written Duponte two more letters, both marked "Immediate," with addendums and more details of the unwritten history of Poe.

Though our acquaintance was short, Montor invited me to join him at a dress ball that hosted several hundred guests at a lofty mansion near Washington City where I could meet numerous French ladies and gentlemen. Most had one title or another, and some, to my delight, humored my unpolished French, which I sought to perfect as much as possible. Jérôme Bonaparte was there-he was the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, born to an American woman whom Napoleon's younger brother Jérôme the senior met nearly fifty years before while on excursion in the United States. This regal offspring was now standing before me dressed in a garish Turkish costume, with two curved swords hanging from his belt. After we had been introduced, I complimented his costume.

"No need for ‘monsieurs,' anyway, Mr. Clark; we are in America," Jérôme Bonaparte said, his dark eyes lit with good humor. Henri Montor fidgeted at this a bit. "As for this monstrosity," Bonaparte continued with a sigh, "it was my wife's pretty idea. She is in the next room somewhere."