Matthew Pearl - The Poe Shadow

"I mean your involvement in all of this. You say this Baron pursues the mystery of Poe to feather his own nest. Very well. What do you pursue?"

I thought of the past reactions, the disappointed gazes of my lost friends, of Peter Stuart and of Hattie Blum, and hesitated to reply. But Edwin did not seem to want to judge me. His open manner had put me at ease. "I suppose my reasons are not very different from yours for helping me tonight. Poe freed me from the idea that life had to follow a fixed path. He was America -an independence that defied control, even when being controlled would have benefited him. Somehow, Poe-truth is all personal to me, and all-important."

"Then brisk up, sir. There may still be more for you to do for the good cause." Edwin signaled the waiter, who placed a steaming cup of tea in front of me. I don't believe I'd ever tasted anything so marvelous.

MY WAY HOMEwas more leisurely than you would think after a night like this. I was filled with relief. I had left both of my pursuers far behind somewhere in Baltimore. Yet there was more than this, more even than Edwin's camaraderie, that brought me my new sense of relief.

The day had been long. I had been brought into the Baron Dupin's sanctum, had heard the painful secret of Auguste Duponte's past, had discovered something of Poe through revelations of dress and cane, the full meaning of which my mind was still receiving. Something else had happened, too. As I walked through the streets, through a rain that was now no more than an occasional mist, I saw that particular flyer-a yellow flyer with black print, hanging on boards and lampposts all over the city. Some were floating in puddles from the storm. There was a vagrant looking at one under the trickle of gaslight, with his hands deep in the pockets of his threadbare suit.

I stepped in front of him and touched the paper to ensure that it was real. I saw that he was shivering and removed my overcoat, which he wrapped around himself with a grateful nod.

"What does it say?" he asked. He took off his bent hat, which had the crown knocked in. I realized the pauper could not read. "Something remarkable," I commented, and read aloud with a vibrancy that would have rivaled any one of the Baron's presentations.

What a sight I must have been. In my shredded, drenched, untailored, unmatched suit, coatless, my hair uncovered and straggled down the middle, leaning my tired body on the precious but bruised Malacca cane. The glimpse of myself in the looking-glass inside the front hall of Glen Eliza seemed to be from another world. I smiled at this thought as I climbed the stairs.

"Poe was not robbed," I said to Duponte even before any salutation. "I see your drift now. The cane he had, this type of Malacca, has a sword concealed inside. He had ‘played' with the cane at Dr. Carter's office in Richmond, according to the press. That means he would have known of the sword. If he had been robbed of his clothes, or violently treated, he would have tried to use it."

Duponte nodded. I wanted to show him more.

"And the clothes. His clothes, Duponte, would have been soaked through from the weather the day he was discovered. There are clothiers across the city who would change his suit for another."

"Clothing is a unique commodity," said Duponte, agreeing. "It is one of the few possessions that can be worthless and valuable at the same time. When wet, a suit of clothing is quite worthless to the wearer; but, as experience teaches us it will inevitably dry, it is just as valuable as a comparable dry suit in the eyes of the clothier, for whom the value comes only when he sells it later."

On the table, there was a pile of the yellow flyers I had seen outside. I picked one up.

"You are ready," I said. "You are ready! When did you have these printed, monsieur?"

"There is more to do first," said Duponte. "In the morning."

I read the flyer again. Duponte was announcing that he would present to the public a lecture explaining the death of Edgar A. Poe. The source for the celebrated character of Dupin, it read. The analyst of great fame in Paris, who sought out the infamous murderer of Monsieur Lafarge, the famous victim of poisoning, will present an exposition detailing all that happened to Edgar A. Poe on October 3d, 1849, in the city of Baltimore. All facts gathered by personal examination and reflection.

Presented free to the public.

The next morning, the day of Duponte's lecture, I left before Duponte woke in order to distribute more flyers. I placed them on many stores, gates, and poles. I had sent for Edwin and, after hearing about Duponte, he agreed to help spread the notices around various quarters of the city while out and about for his newspaper jobs. I handed the flyers to passersby and watched their faces react with interest as they read.

As a hand reached for one, I looked up into the stern face before me. He grabbed for the flyer.

Henry Herring narrowed his eyes at me over the top of the flyer. "Mr. Clark. What is this all about?"

"Everything will now be understood," I said, "about your cousin's death."

"I hardly consider myself a relation, to speak the truth."

"Then you need not concern yourself," I answered, taking the flyer back. "Yet you were enough of a relation to be one of the few people to watch his burial."

Herring's lips compressed into a tight line. "You do not understand him."

"You mean Poe?"

"Yes," he grumbled. "Do you know that when he lived here in Baltimore, before marrying Virginia, Eddie courted my daughter? Did your friend Eddie tell you of that infamous conduct? Wrote her poems, one after another, declaring his love," he said distastefully. "My Elizabeth!"

Herring starting clucking in the hollow of his cheek. By this time, though, my attention had drifted. Filled with the excitement of the day that was about to occur, I had been imagining the face of the Baron Dupin upon seeing the flyer-assuming the French assailants had not yet caught him. Henry Herring said a few more words to the effect that it seemed unsavory to pull up the affairs of a dead man from a dishonorable grave.

I stared out at a tree bough weaving in and out of the wind. Looking around, I saw Duponte's flyers in glorious abundance at every corner. That is what filled me with alarm.

If the Baron did know about Duponte's lecture and the flyers, would he not be sending Bonjour and whatever rascals he might hire to tear them down, or cover them with his own notices? He would at least do that. It would only be fair, from his perspective. But not a single one of the notices had been removed. Would the Baron allow that? Would he back out so easily…?Unless…

"The Baron!" I cried.

"Where in the deuce are you going?" Herring called out to me as I broke into a run.

"Monsieur? Monsieur Duponte!"

I called while still clutching the latch of my street door. I scurried through the front hall anxiously, climbed up the stairs, and rushed into the library. He was not there. I knew something had come to pass.

No, not Duponte.

I heard the light steps of Daphne in the hall with another servant. I ran after her and asked her where Duponte was.

She shook her head. She seemed frightened, or perhaps just bewildered. "His friends took him, Mr. Clark."

No, no, I thought, the words clutching my chest.

A young man had come to the door and said there was a caller for Mr. Duponte; but, he explained, the caller was lame, so Mr. Duponte would have to come to the gate to see him. The carriage was waiting there. Daphne replied that it would be better for the caller to come to the door, as was the custom. But the driver insisted. She informed Duponte and, after giving the matter some thought, he went.