The Poe Shadow

by Matthew Pearl

  I did, and repeated them to Duponte. Poe had been asked to edit the poems of Mrs. Marguerite St. Leon Loud for publication, for which her wealthy husband, Mr. Loud, would pay a sum of one hundred dollars. It had been reported by the newspapers that Poe had agreed to this lucrative arrangement in his last weeks when Mr. Loud, a piano manufacturer, visited Richmond. Poe had even instructed Muddy Clemm to write him there, in Philadelphia, under the strange pseudonym of E. S. T. Grey, Esquire, adding, “I hope that our troubles are nearly over.”

  “One hundred dollars would be an enormous difference to Poe, for he was quite pushed for money for himself and his magazine,” I said. “One hundred dollars, to edit a small book of poems—for Poe, who had been the editor of some five periodicals, for which he was hardly rewarded enough to supply bread to his family, this was a task that could be done while sleeping. But how, with no evidence to the contrary, should we know when Poe made his visit to Philadelphia?”

  “Through Mrs. Loud, of course.”

  I frowned. “I’m afraid that has not been helpful. I penned a few letters to this woman, but have received no reply.”

  “You misunderstand my meaning. I would not think to write to Mrs. Loud. By the nature of her circumstance, aspiring poetess and wife of an affluent husband, she would likely in this season be in the country or on the shore, so correspondence would be rendered inefficient. We need not bother the poor woman herself in order to listen to her.”

  Duponte removed a thin, handsomely printed volume from inside his coat. Wayside Flowers: A Collection of Poems, by Mrs. M. St. Leon Loud, published by Ticknor, Reed, and Fields.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “Here is the very book of poems, we may presume, that Poe had agreed to edit, and that has been recently published with little attention—thankfully.”

  I opened up to the page listing its contents. I hesitate to print a sample. “I Wooed Thee,” “To a Friend on the Birth of a Son,” “The Dying Buffalo,” “Invitation to a Prayer Meeting,” “It Is I: Be Not Afraid,” “On Parting with a Friend,” “On Seeing a Monument,” “The First Day of Summer,” and, of course, “The Last Day of Summer.” The contents list alone went on for pages. Duponte explained that he had ordered this book from one of the local booksellers.

  “We know Monsieur Poe never arrived at Philadelphia to edit Madame Loud’s poems,” said Duponte.

  “How, monsieur?”

  “Because it is quite clear nobody has edited these poems, judging from the terrific numbers of them here included. If somebody had edited them, heaven forgive them, it was not a poet of experience and strong principles regarding the brevity and unity of verse, as we know Monsieur Poe to have been.”

  This did seem a fact. I saw now the practical gains that Duponte had made by spending hours in the parlor with Poe’s poetry.

  I had a doubt about his conclusions, however. “What if, Monsieur Duponte, Poe did go to Philadelphia and begin to edit the poems, and simply had a disagreement with the poetess, or balked at the quality of her work, and returned to Baltimore?”

  “An intelligent question, if also an unobservant one. It would be possible that Poe arrived at the Louds’ estate in order to fulfill his obligation, and once there could not agree on some final term of compensation or other fine point of the arrangement. However, we need only consider this possibility briefly before discarding it.”

  “I do not see why, monsieur.”

  “Search again through the book’s contents. I am confident this time you will know where to stop.”

  By this point we had taken a table at a restaurant. Duponte leaned over and looked at the title where my finger was pointing. “Very good, monsieur. Now, read the verses from those pages, if you would.”

  The poem was entitled “The Stranger’s Doom.” It began:

  They gathered round his dying bed,—

  His failing eye was glazed and dim;

  But ’mong the many gazers, there

  Were none who wept or cared for him.

  Oh! ’tis a sad, a fearful thing,

  To die with none but strangers near;

  To see within the darkened room

  No face, no form, to memory dear!

  “It sounds rather like the scene, as we know it, at the college hospital when Poe was dying!”

  “As our romancer imagines it, yes. Continue, please. I rather like your recitation. Spirited.”

  “Thank you, monsieur.” The next verses spoke of the man’s lonely demise with “no clasping hand, no farewell kiss.” It continued with the scene of death:

  Yet thus he died—afar from all

  Who might have mourned his early doom!

  Strange hands his drooping eyelids closed,

  And bore him to his nameless tomb.

  They laid him where tall forest trees

  Cast their dark shadows o’er his bed,

  And hurriedly, in silence, heaped

  The wild-grass turf above his head.

  None prayed, none wept, when all was o’er,

  Nor lingered near the sacred spot;

  But turned them to the world again,

  And soon his very name forgot.

  “His nameless tomb… the wild-grass turf of the grave that should be sacred… the quick burial, in which none lingered… surely this is Poe’s funeral at the Westminster burial yard! Described very much as I saw it!”

  “We have already surmised that Madame Loud is a traveler of some frequency, a probability supported by the subjects of several of her poems, and so we now assume from the details here that she has visited Baltimore sometime in the last two years since Poe’s death. Taking a natural interest in the death of a man she had been set to meet right around his demise, she has gathered this description of the funeral—so close to your own remembrance—by visiting the burial yard and questioning its sexton or grave digger, and perhaps individuals at the hospital, as well.”

  “Outstanding,” I said.

  “We may read closely and come to several conclusions. We may say she shares your own perspective, Monsieur Clark, faulting those who failed to honor him. The poem speaks with no special knowledge of Poe’s whereabouts or demeanor prior to his death. We know, then, that Madame Loud followed the tidings of Poe’s death from afar, not as one who had only just been separated from Poe with the privilege of hearing any of his plans. Moreover, his doom is that of a stranger, as declared in the poem’s title, not of one whom she has known. So we obtain even greater certainty that he did not meet Madame Loud, as he hoped to do, in Philadelphia. This shall only be our first document of proof of Poe’s failure to reach that city.”

  “Our first, Monsieur Duponte?”

  “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 usu
ally 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. George, the president of that group. This massive doorkeeper began to harass the Baron while the Baron was in disguise—the disguise that I had first seen in the athenaeum reading room. Not even the Baron would openly challenge this Whig agent, Tindley—far too pretty a designation for a monster. Everyone seemed a dwarf next to him.

  “What is it you want, good man?” the Baron asked his tormenter.

  “For you dandies to stop talking about our club!” Tindley answered.

  “Dear fellow, what makes you think I am concerned with your club?” the Baron asked magnanimously.

  Tindley’s mouth remained open, as he placed his finger into the folds of the Baron’s flowing black cravat. “We’ve been warned about you, after you tried to palm me to enter the club! Now I’m watching.”

  “Ah, you have been warned, have you,” said the Baron lightly. “Then I am afraid you have been terribly misled by this warning. Now,” he inquired with desperately concealed worry, “who in the wide world would have warned you?”

  Tindley didn’t have to say Duponte’s name—he didn’t know it, regardless; the Baron could guess. “Tall, unelegant Frenchman with an oval head? Was it him? He is a fraud, dear sir,” the Baron said of Duponte. “He’s more dangerous than you can imagine!”

  What a futile flash of anger in the Baron’s eyes, as he stood there, all the while silently damning the triumph of Duponte! Obstructed by Tindley wherever he went, the Baron soon had to retire that disguise of the sneezer and the informants he had established through it.…A small victory for us, I thought to myself vengefully, after the Baron’s successful infiltration into Glen Eliza by the Dutch portraitist.

  Speaking of how our Baron Dupin looked these days, what changes he was affecting before our eyes! I have mentioned in a past chapter his facility for altering his physical appearance with singular
effectiveness. On recent occasions seeing the Baron on the streets, I had noticed a new transformation about his face and general person, without being able to identify what exactly had changed. This was no matter of a falsely bulbed nose and wig—that former costume belonged with the third-rate summer performers in the Rue Madame in Paris. His entire countenance now seemed to have become altogether different, and at the same time eerily, breathtakingly familiar.

  One night I was adding some kindlers to the fire in the living room hearth. Duponte commented that he was comfortable enough. On this topic, I ignored him. In Paris, it’s said there is hardly a smoking chimney even on the worst nights of winter. We Americans are rather too sensitive to heat and cold, while in the Old World they seem hardly aware of it at all—but I would not sit wrapped in blankets like a Frenchman would insist on doing. This same evening, I received a note.

  It was from Auntie Blum. I opened it with some hesitation. She said she hoped that my unmannered French pastry cook (meaning Duponte) had been discharged. Chiefly, she wished to inform me, out of courtesy to her longtime friendship with the household of Glen Eliza, that Hattie was now engaged to marry another man, who was industrious and trustworthy.

  At first, I fell under a spell of shock at the news. Could Hattie really have found someone else? Could I have managed to forfeit a woman as wonderful as Hattie, while at the same time doing what seemed right and necessary?

  Then I realized. I thought back to Peter’s sage warning that it would not be easy to appease Auntie Blum, and recognized this letter as a ploy by that cunning woman to torment me into apologies and excessive confessions of my wrong toward her niece.

  I was not above this tactic, or beneath it, as the case might be.

  I sat upon the sofa, thinking whether I had by nature of my present endeavor given up all proper intercourse with society. I was, after all, now in the company of men of great intensity like Duponte and the Baron, who defied any social customs and sought action that could not be obtained by ordinary politeness.