Matthew Pearl - The Poe Shadow

"But Poe's words from the hospital," I said. "His shouts of ‘Reynolds'-could this not be an indication of some responsibility or knowledge on the part of Henry Reynolds, that carpenter who served as ward judge for the election in the location where Poe was found?"

Duponte's face broke out in genuine amusement.

"Do you not believe it?" I asked.

"I haven't a reason to disbelieve it as a factual possibility, if that is your meaning, Monsieur Clark. Others will think they can guess what is unusual in Poe's mind-an impossibility to do for anyone, much less for a genius. To do that, read his tales, read his poems; you shall get all that is extraordinary and singular-that is, not repeated in mental currents outside of Poe. But to understand the steps in his death, you must accept what is ordinary in him, in anyone, and in all around him that crash into his genius-these will be answers.

"That Poe called this word, ‘Reynolds,' for many hours the night of his death in the hospital is exactly what we should not pay attention to-if our purpose is to understand how he died. Poe was not in his clear mind, arising from the joining of disparate circumstances that we have already enumerated. That the Baron, that other observers might fixate on it demonstrates the common lack of understanding about how and why people think and act as they do. Even without profound consideration of the matter, we may remember that Poe is in a state of feeling completely alone. In truth, he could have been calling for anybody. It might have been the last name he had heard, perhaps belonging to that same carpenter who visited us in your parlor, or it might have been the name of a man whose part in a deadly affair of several years past renders it far too dangerous for either of us to speak about. [2]Most likely, though, it has something to do with a matter far distant from his death that we must never know about, for that is what Poe would be thinking about, just as a man trapped in a pit would be thinking of escape, not of the pit. Not about the death that is all too close upon him, but about life left behind.

"You understand now. All this, all that he did in the days since stepping off the boat from Richmond, was an escape from Baltimore-from his lack of home. This city had once been his home, the land of his father and grandfather, the birthplace of his wife and adored mother-in-law, whom he called Muddy, Mother, yet he had no home there any longer-

"I reach'd my home - my home no more -

For all had flown who made it so."

Here Duponte seemed ready, quite unconscious of me, to recite more of Poe's verses, but stopped himself. "No, he had no home here. Not this Baltimore, where he did not trust his remaining relatives of the name Poe even to inform them of his presence, and indeed they were afterward ashamed enough of their response to his demise to say so little about it as to appear suspicious. Nor was home New York, where his wife, Virginia, was dead and buried and he was preparing to flee forever; not the city of Richmond either, where the marriage with a childhood love was still only a plan, however attractive, and his memories of losing that place as a home once before and losing his mother and adoptive parents were still strong. Not Philadelphia, where he once resided and wrote, where he was obliged to use another name or risk losing the last loving letter of the one relation still devoted to him, where somehow he found now that he could not even reach it on a train.

"You see clearly now the map of Poe's attempted movements in his last epoch of life-from Richmond to try to go to New York, from Baltimore trying to go to Philadelphia -it is no small fact that these four cities were all ones where he had once lived and was rolling incessantly between. If there were twenty men named Reynolds standing around in his hospital room, Poe's Reynolds, man or idea, would still be far away from there-not of sickness, not of death-somewhere he would long to be. That name, monsieur, reveals to us nothing of the circumstances of Poe's death, and will ever remain the possession only of Poe himself. In that way, it is the most crucial and most secret of all the particulars."

Forty minutes after the court had been abandoned, when it was found that the doors to the courtroom were fastened from the inside, there was another commotion. It was later declared that I was mad as a March hare for risking such behavior toward the judge, who was indeed irate. But I had not yet finished with Duponte when the doors began violently rattling. After the analyst concluded in full his demonstration, which presented but a few more details than transcribed faithfully above, Duponte looked at the door, and then turned back to me.

"You may tell this to the court," he said. "I mean, all we have said. You will not lose your fortune; you will not surrender Glen Eliza. All the precise points shall not be comprehended by some of the simpletons among your peers, of course, but it will do."

"I am not dramatist enough to claim these ideas were mine, not huckster enough to say they were the Baron's. I must speak of you, monsieur, must reveal your genius, if I tell them this. And if I did I might by chance reveal something that leads those men back to you. If they hunt you out-"

"You may tell them all," interrupted Duponte. He nodded slowly to show he understood the risk to himself and was genuine in granting his permission.

"Monsieur Duponte," I began with gratitude.

I looked at the fragments of faces and hollering mouths through the windows in the doors to the courtroom. The crowd was demanding them opened. I suppose the sight mesmerized me. When the doors were finally unbolted, I lost sight of Duponte in the stream of people. Peter rushed to me and pulled me aside.

"Was that…who was that man with you?" he asked.

I did not reply.

"It was him. Auguste Duponte. Wasn't it?" he asked.

I denied it, but was not very convincing.

"Quentin, it was!" Peter said with unchecked exuberance. "Then he has told you! He has given you all you need to know to uncover the mystery of Poe's death? And to extricate yourself from all troubles! A miracle!"

I nodded. Peter did not stop smiling as I was led back to the witness stand. The judge, apologizing for the interruption, reprimanding me for bolting the doors, and assuring us that the vagrant outside the building had been disarmed, now asked me to resume my testimony.

"No," I whispered.

"What, Mr. Clark?" the judge said. "We must hear the balance of your testimony. Speak up, please!"

I stood up. The skin around the judge's eyes wrinkled in irritation. The onlookers whispered across to one another. Peter's smile dropped from his face. He closed his eyes at what he realized was about to happen and rolled his head into his hand.

I looked across the crowd to my great-aunt. Peter began waving demoniacally for me to sit. I pointed my cane right at her. "The memory of my parents belongs to me, and Glen Eliza and all that is in it belongs to the name I bear. I shall fight for all this, Great-Aunt, even though I will probably not win. I will live happily if I can, and die poor if I must. I shall not, not by you or Auntie Blum or the whole arsenal of Fort McHenry, be compelled to give up. A man named Edgar Poe died in Baltimore once, and perhaps it was because he was a man with dreams better than our own and we used him for it-used him all up until there was nothing left. He shall watch no one use him again. And," I thought I might as well add, swinging the aim of my cane elsewhere in the audience, "I shall marry Miss Hattie Blum come tomorrow morning in the valley below Glen Eliza, at sunset, with all of Baltimore invited, and all will be right!"

I thought I heard one of Hattie's sisters fall to the floor in a faint. Hattie, who was beaming despite being wrapped by her aunt's vise-like arms, shook herself free and rushed toward me. Peter was required to hold back the Blum family with explanations and assurances.