The Poe Shadow

by Matthew Pearl

  A Baron Claude Dupin was one of these—a French attorney who, it was said, had never lost a single case, and who boasted distant royal lineage, wherein derived the dubious title of “Baron.” He had been among the most prominent jurists of Paris for many years, thought of as a hero for successfully advocating in favor of many accused but sympathetic wrongdoers. He was even a candidate for advocate-general at one time, and almost sent to the chamber of representatives by his district during one of the upheavals in French government. He was alleged by some to employ unsavory tactics and, soon, relinquished his work altogether in favor of biding his time with other enterprises in London. While there, he was sworn in as a special constable during a period of fear of an uprising, and acted bravely enough in that capacity to continue with that title in an honorary capacity.

  All of this information had been collected piecemeal during my careful searches of French periodicals. There was a time before I went to Paris when I was quite certain that Claude Dupin was the basis for C. Auguste Dupin, and I had sent several letters to Baron Dupin inquiring into further details of his history and describing the pressing situation at hand in Baltimore. Soon enough, however, I had stumbled upon the articles concerning Auguste Duponte and altered my theory. When Claude Dupin had replied to me, I had mailed him an apologetic letter explaining my mistake.

  One of the French periodicals I had seen included an illustrated portrait of Baron Dupin, which I had studied closely. Thus, I knew the man who was pressing my hand as though we were old friends. That’s when I yelled in alarm and astonishment: “Dupin!…You’re Claude Dupin!”

  “Please,” said he magnanimously, “call me Baron!”

  I yanked my hand away. I looked for my best chance at immediate escape. The carriage that had brought me there was now waiting in a temporary passage in the masonry, but I had no thought of being able to commandeer it, as my first captor had returned to the vehicle and was waiting there.

  The trench around Paris was part of the impenetrable fortification built to provide against future assaults on the city. A continuous enclosure surrounded the outskirts of Paris, with embankments for artillery, surrounded by ditches and trenches.

  In these daunting surroundings, Dupin now assured me of my complete safety and began explaining that his colleague Hartwick—that was the name of my captor, who’d nabbed me at Versailles and put me in his carriage—had merely wished to ensure my safe presence for this interview.

  “Hartwick can outswear Satan, and he has almost bitten a man’s arm clean off once, but taken together he’s not badly made up. Do forgive him.”

  “Forgive? Forgive this assault? I’m afraid, Dupin, I shall not do that!” I cried.

  “You see, it is already a great relief to know you,” said Claude Dupin. “After so much time living in London, I’m afraid it’s been a while since a soul has pronounced my name correctly, like a Frenchman!”

  “Listen, monsieur,” I reprimanded, though I liked the rare compliment to my French. “Do not butter me up. If you wished to speak with me, why not choose some civilized place in the city?”

  “It would have been my pleasure to share a demi-tasse of coffee, Monsieur Clark, I assure you. But shall I call you Quentin?” He had a dashing way of talking that conveyed a high degree of ardor.

  “No!”

  “Be easy, be easy. Let me explain myself more, good Quentin. You see, there are two types of friends in this world: friends and enemies. In Paris, I possess both. I am afraid one of those groups would like to see me a head shorter. I may have been involved with the wrong sort some years ago, and promised certain amounts of money that, at the end of a thorough and unforgiving mathematical evaluation, I failed to possess. I was as poor as Job’s turkey. Fortunately, though I was in a bad box, I have enough protection in London to prevent too much worry when I am there. You see where I am reduced to meeting when I wish to visit Paris,” he added, waving his hand around at the fortifications. “You have luck enough to have some fortune of your own, I believe, Brother Quentin. Business? Or born with a silver spoon? No matter, I guess.”

  It was surprising, and a bit troubling, to see Dupin remove my letters from his coat. Should I describe the physical appearance of the Baron here, you would see how difficult it was to deny him conversation despite the inexcusable treatment for which he had been responsible. He was expensively dressed, in a gaudy, almost dandyish white suit and gloves of the flash order, with a flower out of his button-hole, and very well groomed, wearing an orderly mustache. There were brilliant studs in his shirt-bosom and some glittering jewels on his watch-guard and on two or three rings on his fingers, but to his credit he seemed to take no pains to show them. His boots were polished so voluptuously they seemed to absorb all the warmth of the sun. He was dramatic and inviting; he was, in short, magazinish.

  Most of all, his mannerisms exuded an excess of civility and philanthropy—I mean by philanthropy the sort that would rescue prostitutes off the street by bringing one or two home with him. Although he had abducted me to a deserted fortress, I found myself worrying that I not appear rude in his presence. I calmly asked how he had found me in Paris.

  “Among those I still count as friends in Paris are several members of the police who survey visitors from abroad quite closely. Your final letter mentioned you would be searching for Auguste Duponte—and I only supposed you might look for him here. Bonjour confirmed you were indeed in the area.” He smiled at the beautiful nymph, now smoking a cigarette; she had previously followed me to Café Belge the evening of Duponte’s risky billiards game.

  “How is it she is called Bonjour?” I asked quietly, as though to avoid her hearing. I confess that even in the midst of all this, the question distracted me. I was presently ignored, however.

  I wonder if it was just the name that fascinated me. No, I do not think so. She was quite beautiful in the expressiveness of her small mouth and large eyes. She showed no particular interest either in me or in our proceedings, but this did not lessen my own fascination.

  “I am quite confident we can now complete our arrangement, Brother Quentin,” the Baron said, knocking me from my trance. He unfolded my letters and showed them to me.

  “Arrangement?”

  He rebuked me with a frown of disappointment. “Monsieur. The arrangement by which we shall together solve Edgar Poe’s death!”

  The forcefulness of his announcement almost made me forget why this was not possible. “There is a mistake here,” I said. “I am afraid you are not, in fact, the model for Poe’s tales of Dupin as I had once speculated. I have found the true one—Auguste Duponte. You did read that in my last letter?”

  “Was that what it meant to say? I only thought it was a jest for you to speak of Duponte. Monsieur Duponte has begun his analysis of the beloved Poe’s shocking and wrongful demise then, I suppose? He is determined to sift it to the utmost?”

  “Well…we have entered rather deeply into secret examinations. More I cannot say.” I spun around with renewed restlessness, but there was still nowhere to go. I admit that, perversely, I did not entirely want to escape from the predicament. It was thrilling to hear someone speak impassionedly of Poe’s death. It had been a long time of me talking of it to Duponte, with nothing granted in return.

  “I can tell, Monsieur Quentin, you have got yourself in an awkward position,” Dupin said. He pressed his hands together as though in prayer, then let them curl into a double fist. “But I am the real Dupin—I am the one you have sought all along.”

  “What a claim!”

  “Is it? I am a special constable for the English. What is that but the preserver of truth? I never lost a single case as an attorney—that record is as unbendable as iron. What is an attorney but an announcer of truth? Who is the real Dupin but truth’s protector? You and I are attorneys, Monsieur Clark; the whole world of justice is our territory. If we lived at the time when Aeneas descended into hell, we would have gone underneath the earth with him just to be present at an audie
nce of Minos, wouldn’t we?”

  “I suppose,” I said. “Though I usually tend to mortgages and the like.”

  “It is time to enter the financial arrangements you suggest in your letter for my service and begin. We all will profit in this together.”

  “I will do nothing of the sort. I have told you: I am loyal to Auguste Duponte. It is him in whom I believe.”

  Bonjour directed a quick warning glance at me.

  Dupin sighed and crossed his arms. “Duponte has flattened out long ago. He has the acute disease we may call precision, and throws a dead weight on all he does. Why, he is like the old, dying painter who can only pretend in his mind that he is the artist he once was. A puppet of his own brain.”

  “I suppose you are interested in this for the money so you may pay the debts,” I said indignantly. “Auguste Duponte is the original ‘Dupin,’ Monsieur Baron, however much you dare to use him up with insults. You are fortunate he is not present here.”

  The Baron stepped closer to me, and his next words dripped out slowly. “And what would your Duponte do if he were here now?”

  I wanted to tell him Duponte would crack his skull into two, but I could neither remember the French for it, nor convince myself it was true. Claude Dupin, mustache and jewels equally shining, grinned as he instructed Bonjour to bring me up to the carriage.

  She took my arm with a grip as surprisingly hard as Hartwick’s and led me ahead through the trench. In Paris, men are hardly needed at all for the operation of society. I had by this point seen women, unattended by any men, as hatters, drivers of huge carts, butchers, milkmen (or “milkwomen”), intriguers, and money-changers, even waiters at the baths. I had once heard a female-rights orator in Baltimore argue that if women held the occupations of men they would be more virtuous. Here was a young woman who might be happy to disagree.

  We had walked out of the hearing range of the Baron. I turned to Bonjour. “Why do you serve his wishes?”

  “You were told to speak?”

  I marveled to hear this from a lady who seemed a few years younger than Hattie, and with a voice as raspy as a decayed old man’s and oddly mesmerizing. “I suppose I wasn’t, but Bonjour—miss—mademoiselle. Mademoiselle Bonjour, you should ensure your safety from this man.”

  “You wish only to save your own bacon.”

  That would have been most wise, I suppose—but self-preservation had not been first on my mind. There had been in the gleam of her eyes a visible independence of spirit, to which I found myself instantly attached. The only blemish on the smooth skin of her face was a scar—or, properly speaking, more of a dent—that ran vertically over her lips, stretching above and below them and forming a rather enchanting cross with her smile.

  “They are coming fast!” a voice shouted in French from above. Hartwick was running toward his master with an elongated spyglass in his hand.

  “They’ve found us!” Dupin yelled. “Get to the carriage!”

  Apparently, some of the Baron’s less welcoming friends had come looking for him. All of my company began to run toward the carriage.

  “Make haste, you ass, cut dirt!” Dupin said as he ran past me.

  I saw Hartwick, standing closer to the carriage, fall at the sound of a shot, clumsily stumbling on the rocks. He had started to yell, “Dupin,” but the word was lost. When he was rolled lifelessly upon his side by one of the others, it could be seen that his ear was gone, replaced by a circle of dark red.

  As my eye caught the horror of this and the path to the carriage became steeper, I tripped and fell back down the side of the trench. I suppose this might have also been seen as strategic, so I could separate from my captors. In fact, it was the sight of the pistol drawn by the Baron Dupin that left my feet unbalanced. Bonjour swerved back for me.

  “Leave him!” ordered Dupin. Then, to me: “Next time, perhaps, we shall meet somewhere more congenial to our mutual interests, without such flusterations! In the meantime, go and seek glory, Brother Quentin!”

  Yes. I am aware it will seem fantastic to readers that these were Dupin’s words even while he was presently being fired upon and his chief henchman had just now been killed and he was climbing up this ditch, but I report it only as it happened.

  I raised my head to watch. All at once, I felt myself tackled and pulled down hard. My body crumpled to a heap, and I looked up to see that Bonjour had thrown herself over me. She held one of my arms down with her hand. Imagining Hattie watching me, and feeling a pang of guilt and temptation, I tried to wriggle away from under her but could not. I could not help shudder at the lightness but immovability of her body.

  “Stay down,” she said in English. “Even once I leave. Understand?”

  I nodded.

  She then pushed herself up and followed the Baron into their carriage without looking at me again. Their horses burst onto the path through the fortifications. After a few minutes, the trampling hoof-falls and rolling wheels of another carriage boomed along the fortifications. There followed more blasts of gunfire in the direction of the Baron’s escaping carriage. I covered my head with my arms and did not stir as splinters of rock rained down from all directions.

  My deliverance appeared in the form of a hired coach of German visitors who had come to see the fortifications; they kindly permitted me to ride back with them to Paris.

  Of course, part of me wanted to run straight to Duponte and tell him all about what had happened. But it would be of no use. If my encounter with Claude Dupin made me realize something, it was that all had become jumbled. The true analyst would not help for any price, and a charlatan like this “Baron” was too willing to pretend to help for a little money. I would do just as well never to see Auguste Duponte again.

  It turned out that the guide from Versailles had been correct about the police agents’ monitoring my residence in Paris. Shortly after that episode, my supply of cash dwindled and I moved to a less expensive lodging house. Upon arriving, I found two police officers waiting very politely to record my new address.

  It was only two days later that my decision to avoid Duponte changed, while I was sitting and having my boots blacked. With that distinct French politeness, the owner of the blacking shop had bowed slightly, alerting me to the fact that my boots were dusty. I had picked up a newspaper. There was a large looking-glass situated right behind the bench so the owner could see the paper as he blacked his customer’s shoes. I had heard it said that a certain species of boot-blacker in Paris had over the years learned to read newsprint backward to keep away boredom. I did not believe that anyone could develop such a skill of understanding words so twisted around. Not until that day.

  I hurried through the pages quickly but was interrupted by the boot-blacker.

  “Turn back a page, kind monsieur? Is it Claude Dupin in Paris again? He is dogged more fiercely in Paris than any animal in the forest. That is what they say.”

  On this word, I turned the pages back to an astounding item, a paid notice:

  Renowned attorney and solicitor Claude Dupin, having never lost a law case in his career, has been enlisted by some of the first citizens of America [I suppose that meant me] to solve the mystery surrounding the death of that country’s most beloved and brilliant genius of many literary treats—Edgar A. Poe. Claude Dupin was the basis and namesake, furthermore, for the famous character of “Dupin” from the tales of Mr. Poe, including “Les Crimes de la Rue Morgue,” a story known widely in both English and French tongues. Obligated to honor this connection, Claude Dupin has left for the United States and in exactly two months from this day in the year 1851, he will have resolved the enigmatic circumstances of Poe’s death completely and with all finality. Monsieur Dupin will return to Paris, the city of his birth, after being lavishly heralded and rewarded as a new hero of the New World…

  I felt a lump rise in my throat. I had to get back to Duponte immediately.

  I could not leave the continent with Duponte believing I had betrayed him by enlisting Claud
e Dupin, as he would surely think if he read that notice. Indeed, he could not fail to connect the matter with me. Even some of the language in the paper was my own, having been purloined by the Baron directly from my letters. I only hoped he had not seen it. I directed my carriage driver to Duponte’s lodgings and rushed through the gates and past the concierge’s chamber.

  “Hold there! You!” The concierge swiped his hand at me but missed. I took the stairs two at a time. I found Duponte’s door open but nobody inside.

  The gaslight over his bed smelled as though it had just been lately lighted, and there in the center of his bed was a newspaper. It was La Presse—a different newspaper than the one I had read at the boot-blacker’s stand—but it was opened to the very same notice. Other objects, papers and articles, had been pushed to the bottom of the bed. I imagined Duponte had sat down slowly, clearing the always-crowded surface of his quilt with one hand and clenching the article in his other, his eyes filling with—what would it have been to see this? Rage? Bitterness?—as he read about the recruitment of Baron Dupin. He had already convicted me of betrayal.

  “Monsieur!” The concierge had appeared at the door.

  “You! I will hear nothing from you!” I shouted, prodded by the anger I felt at Baron Dupin. “I am leaving Paris today, but I must and shall find Auguste Duponte first. You will tell me where he has gone at once, or you shall have me to face!”

  He shook his head no, and I almost flung my fist into his chin before he explained. “He is not here,” he panted. “Inside, I mean! Monsieur Duponte has left, with his baggage.”

  After further questioning, I learned that the concierge had assisted Duponte only minutes before with bringing his baggage into the courtyard. This after Duponte had studied the poisonous newspaper notice of the devious Baron. The treachery Duponte surely imagined from me had driven him to a melancholy so overwhelming that he could no longer remain in his place. I looked from the apartment’s windows for any sign of him before descending.