The Man Who Was Poe

by Avi

“Now go.”

  Disbelieving, Edmund remained seated.

  “Go!” Dupin suddenly shouted.

  Edmund leaped up and turned toward the door.

  But Dupin cried out, “Edmund!”

  Edmund stopped.

  “I … I am the man who was … is Dupin. I shall bring this … story to a satisfactory end. Now, be off!”

  Trying to fight the pain in his chest, Edmund turned and went.

  As soon as Dupin saw the boy go, he got to his feet and drew on his greatcoat. “Waiter!” he called.

  “Sir?”

  “Directions,” Dupin demanded. “Directions to the courthouse!”

  EDMUND, DETERMINED TO stay on Mr. Dupin’s good side so as to keep him looking for Sis, ran most of the way up Benefit Street to Number Eighty-eight. On the steps he went over his instructions, then, still breathless, he knocked on the door.

  A servant girl opened it. “Yes, please?”

  “Please, miss. I’ve a letter for a Mrs. Whitman.”

  “Thank you,” the girl said, and reached out.

  Edmund drew back, “I was told to give it only to her.”

  “And who gave you that particular instruction?” the girl demanded.

  “Mr. Dupin.”

  The girl examined Edmund suspiciously. “You’re very dirty,” she informed him.

  Edmund stammered, “I’m only doing what I’ve been asked, miss.”

  “If I let you in, will you promise not to touch anything, and make no dirt?”

  “Yes, miss. Of course not.”

  The girl led Edmund into the vestibule. “Stay here,” she said, but before she hurried off, she gave him another warning. “Don’t you be making a mess, now.”

  Grateful to be out of the cold but upset at having been spoken to in such a way, Edmund looked beyond the hall where he’d been left. The walls were covered with patterned wallpaper. The floors had carpets. Silver and books were on display. It made him feel uncomfortable to be in a wealthy home.

  The servant girl returned. “Come, boy,” she said tartly and brought him into a well-furnished room. There, on a chaise longue, a woman was reclining.

  Her face was fair, with soft brown eyes. Masses of ringlets reached her shoulders. The splendid silk dress she wore — and which was spread about her — the small book she held in one hand, made her look like a picture. Edmund had never seen anyone so grand.

  “Mrs. Whitman,” the servant said, “this is the boy who’s come.”

  Mrs. Whitman gazed at Edmund with friendly curiosity. “I’m told,” she said, “you have a letter for me.”

  Edmund, quite overwhelmed, merely nodded.

  “But you’ve been required to place it directly into my hands.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Is it about the afternoon tea Mrs. Powers — my mother — has arranged?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Whitman smiled. “May I have the letter then,” she said.

  “Please, ma’am,” Edmund managed, “I promised to give it only when you were alone.”

  “Who gave you these romantic orders?”

  “Mr. Dupin.”

  “Who,” Mrs. Whitman asked, “is Mr. Dupin?”

  Edmund didn’t know how to reply.

  Mrs. Whitman repeated the name several times. Then suddenly her face became red. “Ah!” she cried. “Catherine, you may go.”

  The girl gave Edmund what he took to be a frosty look — as if he’d done something wrong — then curtsied to her mistress and left.

  Mrs. Whitman smiled nervously. “So it is Mr. Dupin who has sent you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Edmund said, increasingly uncomfortable about the confusion his coming seemed to have caused. He wished he could leave.

  “Where is … Mr. Dupin?”

  “In Providence, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Whitman sat up. “Is he?”

  “He had me deliver a letter to you last night.”

  Her face paled. “Last night?”

  “It was very late.”

  Mrs. Whitman suddenly stood. “Let me have your letter,” she said with an air of alarm.

  Edmund gave it to her, wondering why she was so agitated. She started to open it, then stopped and hurried to the door.

  Edmund was sure she was checking to see if anyone was listening. Satisfied that no one was, she began to open the letter. But again she paused. “If anyone should ask you why you’ve come,” she warned, “tell them … it was Dupin who sent you.”

  Further perplexed by this statement of the obvious, Edmund only nodded.

  Mrs. Whitman studied the letter for a long time. At last she looked up. “Can you tell me,” she asked, “how … Mr. Dupin is?”

  “He’s fine.”

  A line of worry creased her brow. “Where is he now?”

  “In a café on Wickenden Street.”

  “Is he … drinking?”

  Edmund looked down at his feet.

  “Please. It’s very important. Was he drinking?”

  “A … little.”

  Mrs. Whitman sighed. “Mr. … Dupin is a genius. The most passionate, the most romantic of men. But …” Suddenly, she stopped. “What is your name?”

  “Edmund.”

  “Edmund what?”

  “Edmund Brimmer.”

  “Is that your real name?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Edmund replied, trying to grasp the meaning of these questions.

  “Edmund …” she began. A knock on the door interrupted. Mrs. Whitman turned to him. “Not a word about this to anyone!” she whispered urgently. “Do you understand? No one!”

  Edmund nodded.

  The door opened. It was the servant girl.

  “Yes, Catherine?” Mrs. Whitman asked.

  “Ma’am, your mother wishes to speak to you immediately.”

  After a moment Mrs. Whitman said, “Catherine, take this boy down to the kitchen and tell Cook to get him bread and butter. Then ask my mother to join me here.” She turned to Edmund. “I will call for you.”

  Edmund, feeling he had no choice, agreed. Besides, he was hungry.

  * * *

  Dupin stood amidst a crowd before the courthouse, gazing at the entrance and waiting for the doors to open. Absentmindedly he rubbed his chin and realized he hadn’t shaved. Nor did he feel particularly clean. That annoyed him. He knew he could not go to Mrs. Whitman’s looking and feeling as he did. He would have to find a way to bathe.

  Dupin wondered anew what had possessed him to take an interest in the boy and his predicament. Was there really a story to be written? The image of the drowned woman came into his mind. She had been, he recalled, quite beautiful.

  Was it, he asked himself, her beauty which made her dead? Or was it death which made her so beautiful?

  The courthouse doors swung open. The crowd surged forward. Trembling, Dupin went inside.

  * * *

  In Mrs. Whitman’s kitchen, a large black stove bloomed with heat. Edmund, sitting before it, held a slab of bread slathered with jam. Cook had her hands deep in bread dough.

  “All that gold,” the woman chatted, “and all those men digging it up in far away Californy, then bringing it to Providence where it disappears like so much green mist. Can you imagine, lad, what a body might do with such a pile as that? No pushing bread or delivering messages for you or me. Now there’s a providence I’d give my heart and soul to! You never do know what will happen next, do you? Well, a prayer for the living, say I.”

  Edmund ate his bread greedily. “Sis is alive,” he prayed under his breath. “She is alive!”

  * * *

  Dupin gazed over the gloomy chamber that was the court. The air was close and fetid, the walls streaked with soot, garlanded with dust-clogged webs. A few oil lamps oozed sickly yellow light over a silence stirred just occasionally by the flutter of legal papers.

  Spectators were slumped on benches, but it was too dark for Dupin to see their features. Were they th
ere, he mused, just to avoid the cold? Would any of them pay attention to the proceedings?

  Two court officers strolled in. A fat bailiff followed, then came Throck, bold dome of a head gleaming. He was followed by the bent, white-haired figure of Fortnoy, who looked about nervously as though fearful he was entering a trap.

  “All rise!” came a cry.

  People shuffled to their feet. The judge, black robes draped like a Roman toga about his thickset body, entered. Ponderously, he climbed up to his high seat, then hammered the gavel twice. “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Court of Inquest in session!” he intoned.

  “Inquest in the matter of unknown woman found dead in the bay!” chanted a court officer.

  The gavel banged again. “Proceed!”

  Dupin tried to concentrate on the barely murmured words spoken by now this officer, now that. They didn’t seem to care if anyone beyond the judge heard. And the judge, with partly lidded eyes, seemed asleep.

  Throck told how he was summoned by Fortnoy. How he had examined the dead woman. How he had called for the police wagon.

  Did he know who the woman was? “No.”

  Fortnoy gave his story. How he served as watchman on the ship, The Lady Liberty. How, when relieved of his watch, he had spied the body of the deceased as he rowed to shore. How he had hauled her in.

  Did he know who the woman was? “No.”

  The judge dismissed Throck and Fortnoy. They left.

  The talk continued. Endlessly. Waves of tiredness swept over Dupin. Sorry he had come, he struggled to keep his eyes open.

  A doctor was called to testify and did so while constantly pinching his nostrils with a hairy hand that muffled his words. Dupin decided he didn’t want to hear them. Instead, he tried to study the spectators. One, he noticed, was leaning forward, paying particular attention. Who was it?

  His eyes grew heavier. He heard the doctor say, “… marks on the throat … violence directed against the person unknown, by person or persons unknown, with malice aforethought …”

  A groan seemed to come from one of the spectators. Who — Dupin asked himself — was making that pitiable sound? Someone cares. That’s important. A clue. He strove to regain full consciousness but could not. As he sank deeper into torpor and confusion the vision of the drowned woman loomed up as if she herself was in the court observing her own inquest, crying for vengeance.

  Dupin pressed his hands to his eyes seeking to dispel the vision. Cries of objections. Cries demanding silence. A bang like the report of a pistol.

  A voice called out, “Judgment of willful murder of female unknown by persons unknown for reasons unknown!”

  In the darkness which was Dupin’s thought — or was it a dream? — he conjured the sound of footfalls, as if the phantom he’d just observed was fleeing the court, light hair trailing like a shroud. Then all became an abyss of dark.

  Behind Dupin a hand slowly reached out, moved forward, and grasped his shoulder. A spasm of terror tore through him. Leaping to his feet, he whirled around.

  “No sleeping, sir,” an aged court officer warned.

  Dupin looked about. The court was empty. Other than the officer, he was the only one there. He and a sense of inescapable death.

  EDMUND SAT ON his hands while Cook talked of little more than the bank robbery. He didn’t care a thing about that. He preferred to think about Mrs. Whitman. He thought she was kind. Perhaps he could tell her what was happening, even ask her advice about Mr. Dupin. They seemed to be friends.

  Before he could make up his mind, Cook finished her bread-making and left the kitchen, telling him that Catherine would soon return. When more time passed, however, and Catherine didn’t come, Edmund grew increasingly fretful that Mr. Dupin, waiting in the café, would be anxious about him. He decided he should tell Mrs. Whitman he must leave.

  Unsure which way to go, he made his way out of the kitchen and found a closed door. He was about to push it open when he heard urgent voices from the other side.

  “… but when I intercepted that note last night,” came a woman’s whisper, “I felt obliged to send for you. The man insists upon seeing her. And when you didn’t reply … I’m so glad I noticed you next door in the cemetery.”

  “Does she know he’s coming?” a man’s voice answered.

  “You may be certain I didn’t give her the note.”

  “But can you put him off?” the man asked.

  “We must try,” the woman said. “Despite her infatuation, Mr. Poe is totally unsuitable for her. If she is to marry again, you, Mr. Arnold, should be her husband.”

  “I’m in perfect agreement,” the man said. “I’m sure I can provide far better for her, and you.”

  “All the more reason to act quickly,” the woman went on. “Everything must be done to get her to see the truth about him. He plans to call upon her this very afternoon. Naturally, I made it my business to invite other people. They mustn’t be alone. You must be here, Mr. Arnold. I’m counting on you to expose him. Reveal him for what he is, an irresponsible drunkard with not a shred of decency.”

  “Mrs. Powers, I will be only too happy,” the man replied. “If he arrives unexpectedly, send Catherine to the hotel.”

  Their voices drifted away. Edmund wondered who they were and what they were talking about. Expose whom?

  Chiding himself that it was, after all, the business of adults and not his, he cautiously pushed open the door. Now he found himself in a little foyer. A scrap of paper lay upon the floor. Not wanting the servant to think he had left it there, he picked the scrap up. And when he did he saw that it had odd writing on it.

  988; 98 5; ;48 4‡ ;80 6 45¶8 9‡¶ 8 36(O 5* 3‡ O 9?); 085¶ 8 )?*(6)8 5; )6# 59

  Even as Edmund tried to make sense of what he read, Catherine burst upon him, “There you are!” she said. “I’ve been looking all about for you. Quickly now. Madam is waiting.”

  Edmund hastily shoved the paper into his pocket and followed.

  * * *

  Dupin stood outside the courthouse, taking in great gulps of cold air, his thoughts reverberating with what he had heard: Edmund was right, his aunt had been murdered. That thought quickly fused with the fantastical image he’d concocted in the courtroom, the vision of the murdered woman haunting the inquest.

  Dupin tried to shake his head clear. The murder was the last thing he needed to think about. If he was to marry Mrs. Whitman he must remain fixed to that purpose, clear-headed, sober. It was drink that deflected him, confused him, he told himself. He put his hand to his heart and swore that he would not drink again. Ever.

  So resolved, Dupin decided it would do him good to walk briskly back to the café where the boy would be waiting.

  As Dupin crossed to the east side of the Providence River, he couldn’t help but observe the row of fine buildings directly across the way, snug beneath the bluff of College Hill. One building in particular caught his eye, a brick structure with an unusually graceful gable roof. Drawing closer he realized it was the Providence Bank, the same bank in which last night’s robbery had taken place. And on the same night, he noted, that the murder had occurred. Wasn’t it Throck who had mentioned all of that? Dupin snorted. Criminals often drew attention to their own criminal acts.

  His interest piqued, Dupin studied the building. It was a structure three and a half floors high whose central door — there were not others — was large and flanked by two pillars. To either side were small windows covered with bars. The floors above had five windows each — also barred. Dupin remembered the café waiter saying something about the gold having “disappeared like magic.”

  Other people seemed to be curious too. Loiterers were hanging about the bank’s entrance, a sufficient number to require posting a guard from the regular Providence Police. When Dupin approached, the man held up a hand.

  “Sorry, sir. You must have particular business to enter today.”

  “My name,” Dupin announced grandly, “is Auguste Dupin of the Lowe
ll Insurance Company. I have a particular concern in the matters at hand.”

  The policeman saluted. “Very good, sir,” he said, stepping back. “You may pass.”

  Dupin, watched with curiosity by the loiterers, entered the bank.

  * * *

  When Edmund returned to the drawing room, Mrs. Whitman was alone and standing by a window. From the nervous way she pressed her hands together, he could see she was even more agitated than before.

  “Here’s the boy, ma’am,” Catherine announced.

  “Very good,” Mrs. Whitman replied, without turning. “You may go.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” As she left, Catherine gave Edmund yet another hostile glance. Again he wondered what he’d done to deserve it.

  For a moment Mrs. Whitman remained where she was, staring out the window, Edmund studied her, waiting for the right moment to talk to her about his plight. But the longer she kept her back turned, the greater grew his uncertainty. She appeared so very upset. It seemed hardly right for him to intrude upon her thoughts.

  At last she faced him. “Edmund,” she began. “I wish to ask you something about … Mr. Dupin.”

  Edmund’s heart sank. She seemed so preoccupied with Mr. Dupin — how could his concern about Sis interest her?

  “You said that he had been drinking,” Mrs. Whitman continued. “A great deal?”

  Edmund was not sure how to answer.

  “Edmund,” she pressed, “I need to know the truth no matter how unpleasant. There … there is a possibility — a likelihood — that your friend, Mr. Dupin, and I may be …” She paused and shook her head. “I have the greatest admiration for the man and his work. Perhaps you’re not aware that I write poetry. It was I who reached out …” Again she broke off. “Edmund, would you trust a person who drinks?”

  It was a question Edmund had asked himself about Mr. Dupin. As for answering, he didn’t know what to say. Here was an adult seeking advice from him! He was too startled to speak.

  Mrs. Whitman, however, took his silence as an affirmation of her concern. She sighed. “Yes. Even a little is too much. You call him Mr. Dupin. May I ask why?”

  The question surprised Edmund. Perhaps Mrs. Whitman and Dupin were not friends after all. … Then he recollected that when he first came she seemed to have forgotten the man’s name. “It’s his name, ma’am.”