The Poe Shadow

Red Rogue slapped his money on a chair. Duponte was busy selecting his stick.

'Monsieur?' the rogue demanded, banging three times on the chair.

'The money is my reward,' explained Duponte. 'Not yours.'

'And what if I win?!' shouted his opponent, the red in his face turning purple.

Duponte motioned a hand at me. 'If you are the winner of our game without forfeit,' replied Duponte, 'then you may resume your business with this gentleman unhindered.'

Much to my despair, the rogue turned to me and seemed to savor the barbaric license that would be afforded by a victory. He even offered Duponte the honor of beginning the game. I tried desperately to think if Poe's stories had ever mentioned skill in billiards on the part of the analyst hero; on the contrary, Dupin professed a dislike for mathematical games like chess and pronounced the superiority of simple matches of whist in showing the real skills of ratiocination.

Duponte opened with a shot so terrible that several onlookers laughed.

Red Rogue became perfectly serious, even graceful, as he struck the ball with ease turn after turn. If I had ruined his best game ever, surely this was his second best. I held on to the hope that Duponte would suddenly grow skilled, or reveal that his ineptness was but an act of trickery. Not so; he became worse. And then there were only three or maybe four turns left on the part of Red Rogue before the game would be finished to his advantage. I was searching my pockets, with the thought of replacing my part in the wager with silver, but I hadn't brought more than a few francs with me.

This was most remarkable: through all of this, Duponte remained utterly composed. With each awful turn, his expression stayed perfectly untroubled and confident. This was increasingly upsetting to his opponent, though it did not in the least affect his excellent play. One reward of triumph is to watch the loser deflate. And Duponte was refusing to comply with this. I believe Red Rogue even slowed his victory in order to attempt to induce the proper degradation.

Finally, the villain turned to the table with renewed speed and a flash of anger at Duponte. 'Here we finish,' he said, then directed a boiling gaze of hatred at me.

'Yes? Very well then.' Duponte, to my horror, shrugged.

In my state of fear, I did not at first even hear the commotion at the street door. In fact, it did not gain my attention until there were several people pointing in our direction. Then there burst in a man with a bushy orange beard who, other than the beard and a much larger frame, looked similar to Red Rogue. I saw Red Rogue's greedy, flushed face whiten pathetically and I knew something was wrong. My French had returned enough to make out the fact that Red Rogue had, according to this enraged newcomer, directed his romantic passion toward this man's lover, the girl standing nervously near the table. She now screamed at the larger man to forgive her, and Red Rogue fled into the streets.

Duponte had already collected the money from the chair and was departing by the time I regained my bearings.

If you are the winner without forfeit… The words circled my head. Forfeit. He had known-from the beginning-how this would turn out. I followed Duponte into the street.

'Monsieur, I might have been killed! You could have never won the game!'

'Certainly not!'

'How did you know that man would come?'

'I didn't. The girl on Red Rogue's arm had earlier been peering out the window every few moments but, if you observed, always keeping herself away from view of someone outside the window. Moreover, she did not merely hold Red's arm; she squeezed it, as though to protect him, and upon my challenge pleaded with him to leave-certainly not because she thought anyone could defeat him at this child's game. She knew-from having encountered him earlier in a state of anger, or having carelessly left one of Red Rogue's letters on her dresser, perhaps-that her other lover was looking for her. I merely observed her, and counted on the fact that he would soon enough come. When someone else knows something, it is usually unnecessary to discover it for yourself. There was nothing to worry about.'

'But what if he had come only after you had lost the game?'

'I see you are of a very sensitive constitution.'

'Would he not have committed some monstrous violence against me?'

'Agreed,' Duponte admitted after a moment, 'that would have been quite troublesome for you, monsieur. We should be grateful it was avoided.'

One morning soon after, my knocking at Duponte's door met with no reply. I tried the handle and found it open. I entered, thinking he had not heard me, and called out.

'A walk today, monsieur?' I paused and glanced around.

Duponte was hunched over his bed as though in prayer, his hand gripping his forehead like a vise. Stepping closer, I could see he was reading in a troubling state of intensity.

'What have you done?' he demanded.

I stumbled back and said, 'Only come to look for you, monsieur. I thought perhaps a walk by the Seine today would be pleasant. Or to the Tuileries to see the horse-chestnuts!'

His eyes locked straight on mine, the effect unsettling.

'I explained to you, Monsieur Clark, that I do not engage in these avocations you imagine. You have not seemed to comprehend this simplest of statements regarding this matter. You insist on confusing your literature and my reality. Now you shall do me a good turn by leaving me alone.'

'But Monsieur Duponte…please…'

It was only then that I could see what he had been reading so attentively: 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue.' The pamphlet I had left for him. Then he pushed me by the arm into the hall and closed the door. My heart sank fast.

In the hall, I pressed my eye against the space between the door and the frame. Duponte was sitting up on the bed. His silhouette was surprisingly expressive as he continued to read. With each page he turned, it seemed his posture improved by just that much, and the shadow of his figure seemed to swell.

I waited a few moments in bewildered silence. Then I knocked lightly and tried to appeal to his reason.

I knocked harder until I was pounding; then I pulled on the handle until the concierge appeared and pried me from the door while threatening to call for the police. Monsieur Montor, back in Washington, had warned that under no circumstances should I allow the police to find me in some act of disturbance. 'They are by no means like the police here in America,' he said. 'When they set themselves against someone…Well!'

I surrendered for the moment and allowed myself to be removed down the stairs.

***

Speaking through keyholes and windows, rapping the door, pushing notes into the apartment…these were activities in the long painful days after this. I trailed Duponte when he took walks through Paris, but he ignored me. Once, when I followed in Duponte's steps to the door of his lodging house, he stopped in the doorway and said, 'Do not allow entrance to this impertinent young gentlemen again.'

Though he was looking at me, he was speaking to his concierge. Duponte turned away and continued upstairs.

I learned when the concierge tended to be out, and that his wife was content to let me through with no questions for a few sous. There is no time to lose, I wrote to Duponte in one of my unread notes to his door that would invariably be slipped back into the hall.

During this time, another letter arrived from Peter back home. His tone had noticeably improved, and he urged that I should return immediately to Baltimore and that I would be welcomed back having finished with my wild oats. He even sent a letter of credit for a generous amount of money at the French bank so I could arrange my trip back without delay. I returned this directly to him, of course, and I wrote back that I would accomplish what I had come to do. I would, at length, successfully deliver Poe from those who would destroy him, and I would do all credit to the name of our legal practice by achieving this promised goal.

Peter wrote subsequently that he was now very seriously considering coming to Paris to find me and bring me back, even if he had to drag me home with his two hands.