the steep arched ravine below.
31
LATER, I WOULD learn more about the Bonapartes and their quiet residence over the decades in Baltimore. Now, I wished only to find them. I could remember faintly my parents speaking of the scandal, so many years earlier-long before I was born-that ensued when the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte married Baltimore 's richest young beauty, Elizabeth Patterson. That brother had long returned to luxury in Europe. It was the American descendants of Napoleon's lighthearted brother that I had to confront-the Jerome Bonaparte I had met in costume and his family and allies-to see if they knew those rogues whose presence would prove my innocence.
But I had no particular concern for the Bonaparte family's history or ambitions at the moment. Today the question of my survival was too real.
These American Bonapartes and their offspring had multiplied and spread themselves around the city, and had maintained many homes across Baltimore through their great wealth from the Patterson family and the stipend the jilted wife received from Napoleon. The first address I visited no longer belonged to them at all-but the domestic who answered, a plump Irishwoman, received enough mistaken callers to know where to direct me. Still, it was several jaunts into different quarters, meeting various affiliated persons, before I found the most promising residence: one of the homes of Napoleon's brother's grandsons, estranged great-nephew to the legendary Napoleon himself and cousin, by my rough calculations, to the current French president.
Following the incident on the train, I felt confident I'd eluded any police agents from Washington, but I still proceeded slowly and methodically, which was maddening for such an urgent affair. It was not safe to be out in the light of day. After my escape from the train, I had waited until night in a frigid ditch and then found safe passage back to Baltimore in a covered mail-sleigh, lodging myself in the straw at the bottom of the cart with a few servants and a sleeping Hungarian peddler who, in the apparent throes of a dream, repeatedly kicked me in the stomach with a hobnailed boot. The driver rode through the night over rough stones and paths at a dashing rate as quick as any train.
Out of caution, I waited another day before going to the next Bonaparte address. The house was empty-or, rather, there were no servants and nobody responded to my knocking at the door. But I noticed the carriage house door was open and, as I stood outside, I could see shapes through the windows of the house. Propping myself on a ledge, I pressed against a window and thought I could hear men speaking in French.
When the door opened, I could see two of the figures inside more clearly. I knew one as the rogue who had almost killed me in the carriage factory, and the second to be his partner. The first wore a large bandage fastened around his arm where he had been crushed by the carriage after I had stabbed him.
A different man, the one closer to the street door, was handing over money to the two rogues, who were nodding and soon departed into the carriage house. This third man had the demeanor of being their leader. I waited until they had driven away and then rang.
The man returned to the door. He was grander than the two rogues. Not bigger, exactly, but better fashioned to provoke respect rather than mere fear, with perfectly squared shoulders. For a moment I stood paralyzed as he waited for some word from me. He looked back at me as I stared at him with a vague air of recognition.
'Mr. Bonaparte,' I said finally, choking back a gasp. 'You are Monsieur Bonaparte?'
He shook his head. 'My name is Rollin. Young Monsieur Bonaparte is away, at West Point. You would like to leave word?' He instructed more than asked this, but I declined. There was something in his tone…
I promised to return another day and hastily began backing away, terrified that one of the rogues would have occasion to return and see me at the door. But even more I feared that third one, the man calling himself Rollin. He lifted his hat, slowly, to bid me good evening, and before he returned it to its place I knew exactly where I had first seen him. It had been so brief, and long before, halfway across the world.
Remembering that first vision of him, I comprehended, gradually, as I walked through the street, how it had all happened, how it had all been connected from Paris until now. How the Bonapartes had come to be involved. How in one attempted assassination in Baltimore indeed lay the future of France…
As these thoughts gathered themselves together, I walked rapidly, but somewhat carelessly, toward another boardinghouse Edwin had arranged for me upon my return from Washington. Suddenly, I felt a stinging pain travel across my back. I fell forward, then rolled onto my back. Above me, I saw flashes of a white horse, rearing upward to the sky, and a tall and powerful man on top. He unrolled his whip and this time caught my arm.
'Mr. Clark, attorney, isn't it? What a thing to see such a finely bred man wanted for murder.' It was Slatter, the slave-trader, riding a perfect specimen of the largest Pennsylvania horse. I attempted to stand, but he kicked the side of my head with his boot. I writhed in pain on the ground and coughed up blood.
Slatter jumped down from the horse and, while holding me down with his dark mahogany cane, placed my wrists and ankles in shackles.
'Your sands are nearly run down, my friend! I've cleared two thousand dollars in the last month but will enjoy this even more.'
'I did not shoot anyone! And I have no business with you!' I cried.
'But you had business with me the other week, didn't you? With that woolly-head young friend of yours? No, your business is not with me. It is with the city. It is always a pleasure for me to serve the police of Baltimore.' The leading slave-traders often received the rolls of men and women wanted for arrest, since many of those were escaped slaves. 'Perhaps you'd like to spend a night in my pen with the stock that are about to be shipped off, before you go to the police. I'm sure they will be anxious to see you again-we know you're such an avowed lover of their kind. Perhaps you even speak their nigger-tongue.'
The shackles were immovable, and I had no choice but to walk along toward his slave pen as he pulled me by a long chain from his horse. Slatter seemed to relish the slow pace we took, as though he were parading me to thousands of onlookers, though, in fact, the flooded and dark streets were empty, and he bent his neck around often in order to take delight at the sight of me.
I was looking down in despair when I heard a sound of footsteps. I glanced up, and I suppose he must have seen my eyes widen with surprise. Turning around swiftly, he saw what I'd seen-a man springing from the ground with a yell to knock him over. Slatter's head hit the ground hard. He lifted his neck briefly, and then his eyes closed with a moan. Edwin Hawkins stood over him and searched Slatter's coat for the keys to my shackles.
'For goodness' sake!' I cried out. 'I am desperate glad to see you, Edwin!'
Retrieving the keys, he freed me from my restraints. 'Mr. Clark,' he said, interrupting my exclamations of gratitude, 'I must make tracks.' He looked back at Slatter.
'Do not worry. He is unconscious,' I said. 'He won't be awake for a while yet.'
'I have to leave Baltimore. Now, Mr. Clark. He knew me in my youth.'
Then I realized. If Slatter had seen Edwin, and recognized the attacker as a man whom he had sold years before, or had just looked long enough to remember his face…Edwin would not only be convicted, he would be entered back into slavery. 'Did he see you?'
'I don't know, Mr. Clark. But I can't risk finding out. I am sorry I won't be able to help you any longer. I know you will find the evidence you need.'
'Edwin.' I took his arm. 'If only I had not shown surprise! He would not have turned at all, and you would never have been at risk of him seeing you. You have done this for Poe!'
'No. This I have done for you.' He took my hand with a warm smile. 'You will prove your name, and that will be reward for this. For me, you must go ahead. With heaven speed.'
I nodded. 'Leave here quickly, my friend,' I whispered, 'and be silent on your way.' He disappeared into the streets.
I shackled Slatter's hands but left his feet and legs free so he could find help when he awoke. He did not look as tall as he had on the horse; in fact, he was a decrepit old man lying there, with a blank and sloppy expression. I could hardly move from this spot. With Edwin gone, I felt inconsolably alone, and I remembered longingly the comforts of Hattie's visits in prison, and Bonjour's appearance there, and the burst of strength I'd received from them.
