The Poe Shadow

'Yes.'

'But why would Poe direct his mother-in-law to write him with a false name, E. S. T. Grey?'

'Perhaps this shall be our second proof,' Duponte said, though he seemed content, for the moment, to close the topic there.

Duponte had been taking more walks outside. He was liberated from Glen Eliza when, after many arguments and much ranting by Von Dantker over Duponte's queer demands, the artist decided he could finish the painting without further sittings. Not wishing for any more distractions from the man, I sent word that I would make payment for his labors, but he replied that he was to be paid by another party that afternoon. Because this made no sense whatsoever, I went to Von Dantker's chambers, only to witness the Baron Dupin exiting. The Baron touched his hat and smiled.

I frantically related this information to Duponte, who only laughed at the notion of Von Dantker as spy.

'Monsieur Duponte, he could have been listening to every word we would have said, even as he sat there pretending to be concerned with the painting!'

'That simpleton, Von Dantker? Listening to anything! Ha!' That was all I could induce Duponte to say on the matter.

In making himself an observer of the 'spirit of the city,' Duponte proceeded with strides as slow as they had been around Paris. I usually accompanied him on these walks, not wanting to lose him, as had happened before. Often these excursions were in the evening. I could almost say, as the narrator of 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' said of C. Auguste Dupin, that we sought our quiet observation 'amid the wild lights and shadows of the populous city.' Except for the wild lights. You have seen already that Baltimore, unlike Paris, is quite hard on the eyes after dark.

Indeed once, I remember, in the poor lighting, I collided headlong with a smartly dressed stranger. 'Many apologies,' I said, looking up at him. The man was muffled in an old-fashioned black coat. His response stayed in my mind the rest of that night: he looked down and walked away without a word.

Duponte did not mind the bad lighting in Baltimore. 'I see in the daylight,' he would say, 'but I see through in the night.' He was a human owl; his mental outings were nocturnal hunts.

On two occasions during these meanderings, including the one in which I collided with that stranger, we happened upon the Baron Claude Dupin out with Bonjour. Baltimore was a large and growing city of more than one hundred and fifty thousand; therefore, the odds of any two parties intersecting paths at the right time must have been mathematically modest. There was a magnetism of purpose that brought our groups together, I suppose. Or the Baron went out of his way to taunt us. The Baron had begun to look different, around the face and a bit in the eyes-I wondered whether he had gained weight? Or perhaps lost some?

The Baron liked to demonstrate the 'enormous' amount of knowledge he had accumulated about Poe's death.

'A very fine walking stick,' the Baron said to me once. 'Is that all the go these days?'

'It is Malacca,' I replied proudly.

'Malacca? Like Poe's when he was found. Oh yes, anything you have discovered we already know, my dear friends. Like why he used the name E. S. T. Grey. And of his clothes that did not fit? You have read in the papers they were his disguise? True, but not by Poe's own choice-' And then the Baron would end enigmatically in mid- sentence, or share a laugh with Bonjour. She stared toward Duponte and me, not subscribing to the policy of false politeness shown by her husband. Then the Baron would say, 'What enormous discoveries are at hand, my friends! We shall find our passport to glory in this!' He liked to do everything on a big figure.

'My good Brother Duponte,' the Baron greeted my companion on an after-breakfast stroll, grasping his hand vigorously, 'it is awfully good to see you in fine health. You shall have a quiet voyage returning to Paris, I can assure you. We have made enormous strides, and are about to complete all the work needed here.'

Duponte was polite. 'I shall have had a very fine visit to Baltimore, then.'

'Indeed! I do believe,' the Baron said in a loud whisper, swiveling his head in a showy fashion, 'that nowhere else have I seen so many beautiful women at one glance as in Baltimore.'

I winced at the tone of his comment. Bonjour was not with him on this occasion, but I wished she were.

After we parted from the Baron, Duponte turned to me. He put a heavy hand on my shoulder and stood for a while without saying a word. A chill went through me.

'What are you prepared for, Monsieur Clark?' he said quietly.

'How do you mean?'

'You are treading closer to the center of the examination, extraordinarily closer each day.'

'Monsieur, I wish to assist any way I might.' The truth is, I did not feel I was treading anywhere near the center of Duponte's labors or plans, in fact hardly at its circumference, and I certainly had not yet felt us anywhere but at the outskirts of detecting the truth of Poe's death.

Duponte shook his head fatally, as though giving up on the possibility that I could understand. 'I want you to look further in on his affairs, if you are agreeable.'

Taken by complete surprise, I asked for elaboration.

'It would aid us to know the tactics being employed by the Baron,' said Duponte. 'Just as you discovered Monsieur Reynolds.'

'But you disapproved forcefully of my contact with Reynolds!'

'You're right, monsieur. Your discovery of Reynolds was utterly meaningless. But as I have said before, one needs to know all that is meaningless, to know just what meaning we have found.'

I did not know exactly what Duponte imagined when he asked what I was prepared for. I did not know and I knew. There was the obvious fact that by following the Baron, I would be exposed more directly to the possibility of harm.

But I do not think that was all of it. He meant to ask whether I would want to reclaim the life I had before when this was finished. Would I have sent him back on the next steamer to Paris, would I have turned around and chosen the quiet sanctuary of Glen Eliza, had I known what was about to come?

Book IV. Phantoms Chased For Evermore

15

THAT IS HOW I became our secret agent.

The Baron Dupin changed his hotel every few days. I presumed his movements were spurred by constant fears that his enemies from Paris would trace him here, though this seemed far-fetched to me. But then I began noticing two men who seemed to be regularly observing the Baron. I was observing the Baron too, of course, and so it was difficult for me to watch them closely at the same time. They dressed as though in uniform: old- fashioned black dress coats, blue trousers, cocked derby hats hiding their faces. Though they did not resemble each other physically, both had the same unconscious stares, like the disdainful eyes of the Roman statues of the Louvre. These orbs were always trained on the same object: the Baron. At first I thought they might be working for the Baron, but I noticed that he strenuously avoided being in their proximity. After several times crossing their paths, I remembered where I had seen one of them. It had been on one of my walks with Duponte. I had tripped into him around the site of one of our encounters with the Baron. Perhaps that had been near the time they had first located their object.

They were not the only people in Baltimore now interested in the affairs of the Baron Dupin. There was also the doorkeeper from the 'Rosy God' club-the den of the Whigs of the Fourth Ward where we had met with Mr.