The Poe Shadow

the vicinity. Yet no sooner had Snodgrass done this than Henry Herring was standing at the foot of the stairs- before Snodgrass had sent for him. Snodgrass, occupied with his private concerns and with the state of Poe's health, did not seem to think much of this startling fact when relating it in your presence. But we know better.

'George Herring, Henry's uncle, has been identified as the president of the Whigs of the Fourth Ward, the group who used Ryan's hotel on several occasions in the weeks before the election for a rally, including once two days before the election. The Baron makes the assumption that after such efforts, George Herring would have also certainly been at Ryan's, this Whig fortress, on election day itself, the day Poe was found. In this his reasoning is sound. However, the Baron then determines that Henry and George Herring, knowing that Edgar Poe experienced bad effects from any intoxicant, conspired to chose him to ‘coop' and thus become one of their voters to be brought throughout the city.'

'Still, it is remarkably coincidental, I would venture to say suspicious, Monsieur Duponte, if George and Henry Herring were both present at Ryan's before Dr. Snodgrass even called for Poe's relatives!'

'There is one coincidental event there, Monsieur Clark, and this one in fact is rather merely a coincidence, and renders the other occurrence quite natural. The coincidence I mean is George Herring's presence in the same place that Poe is discovered. George Herring is here because he is the president of the Fourth Ward Whigs, and Ryan's is the Fourth Ward polling station on that day. His presence is natural. Why Poe is present here we will address in a moment. Henry Herring is Poe's cousin by marriage, to a woman who has now been deceased for some years; and whose decease was followed, very shortly after, by another marriage, contributing, we can presume, to Poe's characterization of Monsieur Henry in a letter as a man of ‘unprincipled character.' Generally speaking, then, Poe ends up in quite a threefold busy place-that is, a hotel, tavern, and polling station-with a man who is the uncle of a former cousin. I fear this is not in itself so much a coincidence as the Baron would like.

'At all events, the Baron proposes that George Herring selects Poe to be a member of this voting coop because Monsieur George possesses from his family knowledge of Poe's vulnerability when under the influence of even normal intoxicants. A notorious idea! Because Monsieur George is likely to know of Poe's unpredictability with intoxicants, that would be the precise reason not to choose Poe for a coop, where only men who could tolerate alcohol well would do!

'But, leaving behind the Baron's tales of the coop, we return to our so-called coincidences. Given that George Herring would have some knowledge and perhaps acquaintance with Poe through Henry Herring, upon seeing Poe in distress, Monsieur George would almost certainly send for Monsieur Henry Herring. Our mere coincidence, the presence of George Herring and Edgar Poe in the same tri-purpose building, gives rise very naturally to our second incident, the odd arrival of Henry Herring before Snodgrass has called for him.

'And what mean the subsequent events that led to Poe's being sent to the hospital? Snodgrass has offered to engage a room upstairs in the hotel portion of the building. George Herring would not want Poe to stay at Ryan's in poor condition, for as Whig president he would want to avoid precisely the sort of accusations of fraudulent or rough use of voters that the Baron would in fact later allege. Henry Herring was not particularly a boon companion to Poe, as the Baron is right to say-and would rather not invite Poe to his house, where Monsieur Henry still remembers with disapproval Poe's courtship of his daughter Elizabeth years before. Snodgrass could not remember whether there were one or two relatives of Poe's at Ryan's-this is almost certainly because both Henry and George Herring stood before him. Poe is therefore sent to the hospital, whose attendants then send word to Neilson Poe.'

'If there was nothing insidious, if the Herrings did nothing, Monsieur Duponte, then why would Henry Herring and Neilson Poe, cousin to Henry Herring as well as Edgar Poe, be so reluctant to speak on the matter, or for the police to make inquiries?'

'You have answered your question in asking it, Monsieur Clark. Because they did nothing-that is, strikingly little-they had no wish to call attention to the matter. Think of it. George and then Henry Herring were present even before Dr. Snodgrass, and did nothing. When something was done, it was to send Poe to the hospital alone, in the prostrate position across the carriage seats. They forgot, even, to pay the driver, as you heard from Dr. Moran. They have sealed his fate, too, by assuming Poe was merely boozy, and excessively in liquor, for they no doubt passed this assumption to the doctors through the note that accompanied Poe to the hospital-so that the care given to the patient, rather than for the complex illness and perhaps multitude of illnesses that have set in from his exhaustion and exposure, would be that superficial kind given to all those who come in with too much drink. Neilson Poe came to the hospital, but could not even see the patient.

'This narrative is not one of pride for the family, particularly for an ambitious man like Monsieur Neilson, who did not want to tarnish the name Poe. This explains, too, the lack of attempt from the family to produce a larger funeral. They would not wish to draw attention to their roles in his final days, nor wish to remind anyone that Edgar Poe himself had formerly said caustic words about both Henry Herring and Neilson Poe. There is some ‘shame' in it, which is the word Snodgrass writes in his poem on the subject. The methods by which it is often necessary to understand someone's motives are not by what they have done, but what they have simply omitted to do and neglected to consider.'

'And yet,' continued Duponte, 'the Baron is not wholly misguided in looking to the fact of Poe's discovery falling on an election day as more than chance. The Baron wishes to find cause and effect; we, on the other hand, shall look for cause and cause. How, monsieur, would you describe the city of Baltimore on days elections are held?'

'A bit unpredictable,' I admitted, 'wild at times. Dangerous, in certain quarters. But does this mean Poe was kidnapped?'

'Of course not. The mistake of men like the Baron, who apply their giddy thoughts to creating violence, is to imagine that most violence contains sense and reason, when, by its nature, this is just what it is lacking. Yet we must not dismiss the secondary effects that may come from outside disruptions. Think of Monsieur Poe. Exposed to the deplorable weather, having failed to secure the ready money from Philadelphia, his constitution weakened and confused by his single glass of spirits, Poe would have been vulnerable to the greatest detriments to our health: first, fear, and second, dread.

'Now, those local newspapers that you went out to collect shortly after our arrival from Paris, will you put them on this table?'

***

The first cutting that Duponte selected was from the Baltimore Sun, October 4, the day after the election. Very little excitement, it read, reporting the events of the election. We heard of no disturbance of the polls or elsewhere.

Another cutting from the same day read as follows:

Yesterday afternoon a fellow with about as much liquor in him as he could conveniently carry, stationed himself at the foot of Lexington market, and for an hour assailed and assaulted every man that passed by, all of whom, very fortunately for the poor inebriate, appeared to be exceedingly good-natured, or they would have 'tripped him up.' He struck several of them in the face, but they forbore to resent it on account of his having 'seen the elephant.' He afterwards went in a tavern, and thence proceeded to the office of Justice Root, which was closed (it being dinner hour) seeking perhaps for justice.

And finally this, reported of the same afternoon:

Assault. About dusk on Wednesday evening, as a carriage containing four persons amongst whom was Mr. Martin Rudolph, engineer of the steamer Columbia, was proceeding past the corner of Lombard and Light Street, some atrocious miscreant threw a large stone, which struck Mr. R on the head, fortunately occasioning nothing more than a severe bruise.

'The first article,' Duponte said, 'insists there was no disturbance anywhere in the city. Yet here, separately, we find some samples of what we can only label disturbances. You see, in a newspaper, especially the finest ones, one hand hardly notices the other or, rather, one column hardly notices the other, and