Poe shadow (22 page)

Duponte followed my gaze.

“That is the man whom I’ve met at the reading room!”

Just then I could see the dark gaze of Bonjour. Her hands were hidden in her shawl, and she was trailing menacingly behind the unsuspecting man. I thought of the stories of ruthlessness Duponte had enumerated to me about this woman. I thrilled at the sight of her, and trembled for the man walking in front of her.

The Poe enthusiast had turned suddenly and was approaching our position.

Duponte nodded at him. “Dupin,” he said, touching his hat.

The man replied loudly with a blowing of his nose; this time the bulbous front of his nose came off in the handkerchief. Then the Baron Claude Dupin removed his false eyebrows. His charming English-French accent reappeared. “Baron,” he said, correcting my companion. “Baron Dupin, if you please, Monsieur Duponte.”

“Baron? Ah, yes, so it is. Perhaps a bit formal for Americans though,” said Duponte.

“Not so.” The Baron showed his brilliant smile. “Everybody loves a baron.”

Bonjour joined her master in the circle of light. The Baron spoke some orders to her, and she disappeared from view.

My shock at the true identity of the Poe enthusiast was instantly surpassed by a second realization. “You and Baron Dupin have met before?” I asked Duponte.

“Many years past, Monsieur Clark, in Paris,” the Baron said with a quaint smile, as he shook his wig and lifted it off with his hat. “Under much less promising circumstances. I hope your voyage from Paris, gentlemen, was half as pleasant as our own. Nobody bothered you on the seaworthy
Humboldt,
I hope?”

“How did you know which…” I stood aghast. “The stowaway! You had us followed by that bald-headed rogue, monsieur? He was in your pay?”

The Baron shrugged playfully. His long black hair, which was slightly wet and waxy looking, fell into curls. “What rogue? I merely stay informed of the lists of passengers arriving to port. I do read newspapers, as you know especially well, Monsieur Clark.”

The Baron removed the shaggy, stuffed coat he had worn, which with the now liberated nose, wig, and eyebrows had completed his crude costume. I felt disgusted that I could have been fooled by the disguise.

Yet, I am not merely defending myself by adding that there was far more to it—there was a sort of metamorphosis difficult to impress upon someone who has never met Claude Dupin. The Baron possessed an uncanny ability to modify his voice and gait and even, it seemed, the shape and appearance of his head to a degree that would have embarrassed the most respected phrenologist; and through complex positioning of the jaw, lips, and neck muscles, he was able to obscure himself better than with a mask. Each face seemed made of steel, with the soul of a hundred human beings waiting beneath. His voice was flexible, too, in unnatural ways; it seemed to change completely depending on what he was saying. As much as Duponte could control what he observed of others, the Baron Dupin seemed capable of controlling others’ observation of him.

“I wish to know all other deceptions you have enacted in this matter, monsieur!” I demanded, trying to conceal a rush of mortification.

“When I take up the case of a downtrodden defendant on behalf of the suffering class, I make the world care. That defendant’s bad luck is the world’s bad luck; his fate, its fate. This is why I, the Baron Dupin, have never lost a case. Not one case of the lowliest man or woman. The louder we shout in advocating justice, the more insistent the people will be for it to arrive.

“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.”

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 remembering 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?