I felt a type of relief after my interview with Benson—relief that someone else had attempted to find the truth behind Poe’s death. Benson’s undertaking had proven Peter Stuart and Auntie Blum wrong. I had not embarked on the quest of a madman. Here was another; an accountant.
Relief flooded me from another direction, too, regarding the Baron and Duponte. I had stopped just short of betraying my allegiance to Duponte in favor of a criminal, a false showman. For what, a series of narrow coincidences between the Baron and Poe’s tales? I had lost Hattie forever and would never find a person in the world who knew me as she did. The law practice that my father’s good name helped build was sinking into extinction. My friendship with Peter was no more. At least I’d not made a horrible mistake with Duponte, too. I felt, returning home from Benson’s, as if I had just awoken from a deep sleep.
How much trust, how much confidence, how much time I had placed in Duponte and his own confluences with Poe’s tales! If he were but more confrontational against the Baron Dupin’s activities; if he but provided more reason to think he progressed as well as the Baron Dupin; if only he did not stand idly by while the Baron Dupin spouted his own claims; if he were to take these measures upon himself, I would naturally be able to eject these dangerous revolutions in my thoughts!
I watched Duponte as he sat in my living room. I looked directly at him and questioned him as to his ongoing submission to the Baron Dupin’s aggressiveness. I asked him why he stood by as the Baron Dupin all but claimed victory in our contest. I had begun to recount this conversation prematurely at an earlier chapter. You remember. You’ll recall I suggested boxing the Baron’s ears, to which Duponte noted that it might not assist our cause.
“Just so,” said I. “It would remind him, I should think, that he is not alone playing this game. He believes, in the infinite deception of his brain, that he has already won, Monsieur Duponte!”
“He has subscribed to a mistaken belief, then. The situation is quite reversed. The Baron, I’m afraid for him, has already lost. He has come to the end, as have I.”
That is when my other fears suspended themselves. “What do you mean?”
“Poe drank,” said Duponte. “But he was not a drinking man. In fact, he was quite the opposite. On average, we can be confident he took less stimulus than any common man on the street.”
“Yes?”
“He was not intemperate, but he was intolerant, constitutionally, to spirits, to an extreme degree never witnessed by most ordinary persons.”
I sat upright. “How do you know this, Monsieur Duponte?”
“If only people would see, rather than just look. You will no doubt remember one of the few obituaries written by an acquaintance, rather than by a reporter. Therein was a report that, with a single glass of wine, Monsieur Poe’s ‘whole nature was reversed.’ Many would understand this to mean that Poe was habitually intoxicated, a reckless and constant drunkard. In fact, it is just opposite. The detractors have proved too much in this arena, and therefore prove nothing. It is likely—nay, almost certain—that Poe possessed a rare sensitivity to drink that would almost at an instant change and paralyze him. In a state of mental disarray, and in the company of low fellows, no doubt Poe sometimes followed this with further drinking, especially when in the midst of your aggressive southern conviviality, which requires that one not refuse such offers. But this last fact is irrelevant to us. It was the first drink, almost the first sip, that would send him into an attack of insensibility. Not madness from excessive drinking, but temporary madness from not being able to drink as does the next fellow.”
“So, on the day he was discovered at Ryan’s, monsieur, you believe he had taken some drink?”
“Perhaps one glass of indulgence. Not as the temperance writers would have it, who look upon human actions for their morality. I shall show you how they operate—indeed how they were operating at the very time that interests us.”
Duponte rummaged through one of his incomprehensibly organized piles of newspapers and brought out an issue of the Sun from October 2, 1849, the day before Poe was found.
“Do you know the name John Watchman, Monsieur Clark?”
At first I responded that I knew no one by that name. A vague memory recurred, and I corrected myself. The day I had been chasing after the Phantom—Mr. Benson of the Richmond Sons of Temperance—I had looked for him under the street in one of the city’s popular rum-holes. “Yes, I thought this Watchman was the Phantom because of a similar coat. Watchman was pointed out to me by another patron as one dangerously deep in the cups.”
“Not surprising. Monsieur Watchman’s hopes, his ambitions, for notoriety had been dashed not long before that. Here: a notice that would have interested you little two years ago, but may be of great value now.”
Duponte pointed to an article in the October 2 newspaper. The temperance Sunday law had been a prominent issue in that state election, though, as Duponte had surmised, I’d had no particular feeling about it at the time. I had seen examples enough of the effects of drinking to sympathize with the ideas of the temperance cause. But it seemed hard to squeeze together one’s energies into a single issue like temperance, to the exclusion of all other moral principles.
The Friends of the Sunday Law, an organization comprising the Baltimore temperance leaders of most consequence, had announced their own candidate for the House of Delegates to support their push for a Sunday law restricting the sale of alcohol: Mr. John Watchman. But Watchman was soon seen drinking at various taverns around town, and on October 2 the Friends withdrew their support of Watchman. Most interesting was the man who spoke in this column for the Friends of the Sunday Law committee: Dr. Joseph Snodgrass!
“This was only one day before Snodgrass would be called to Poe’s side at Ryan’s!” I said.
“Now you see the state of mind Snodgrass would possess. As a leader of this temperance faction, he had just been personally humiliated by his own candidate. Monsieur Watchman had been weak, no doubt. However, there is little doubt that the Friends of the Sunday Law suspected that Watchman had been purposely tempted by enemies of their political endeavor. Now, I should ask you also to look at the American and Commercial Advertiser from one week earlier to get a better view of Ryan’s inn and tavern in the days before Snodgrass and Edgar Poe met there.”
The first cutting Duponte pointed out to me spoke of
a large and enthusiastic meeting of the Whigs of the Fourth Ward of the city, held at Ryan’s Hotel.
“Then Ryan’s was not only a polling station,” I said, “it was also a place for Whigs of that ward to gather. And the place,” I sighed, “fated to be Poe’s last passage outside a hospital bed.” I thought of the group of Fourth Ward Whigs Duponte and I had observed at the den above the Vigilant engine house, near Ryan’s. That was their private place; Ryan’s, it appeared, their room for more public gatherings.
“Let us step backward even further,” said Duponte, “looking at several days before…when this meeting by the Fourth Ward Whigs was advertised. Read aloud. And note most of all how it is signed below.”
I did.
A Mass Meeting of the Whigs of the Fourth Ward will take place at Ryan’s Hotel, Lombard Street, opposite the Vigilant Engine House, on Tuesday. Geo. W. Herring, Pres.
Another extract advertised a meeting for October 1, two days before the election, at 7 1/2 o’clock, again at Ryan’s Hotel, across from the Engine House, with Full attendance earnestly requested; this one was also signed Geo. W. Herring, Pres.
“George Herring, president,” I read again. I remembered Tindley, the burly doorkeeper, obsequiously answering his superior at the Whig club: Mr. George…Mr. George. “The man we saw, that president, it was his Christian name that was George, not his surname…George Herring. Surely he is a relation to Henry Herring, Poe’s cousin by marriage! Henry Herring, who was the very man who came first to Poe’s side after Snodgrass and refused to board him in his own home.”
“Now you see
that whatever Poe drank was a small part only of what transpired in his final days, but still is of importance to us to place all else in order. It helps now that we are able to comprehend the whole sequence of events.”
“Monsieur Duponte,” I said, putting down the newspaper, “do you mean that you do comprehend the whole now? That we are ready to share it with the world before the Baron Dupin speaks out?”
Duponte rose from his chair and walked to the window. “Soon,” he said.
21
IT WAS SURPRISING, considering the Baron’s recent frantic activities, how quiet he had become. He was not to be seen; presumably he was preparing for the lecture in two days’ time—it was all Baltimore talked about. I took several circuitous walks around the city, trying to discover which hotel he had moved to.
While I was engaged in this way, my shoulder was tapped.
It was one of the men whom I had seen so many times following the Baron Dupin. Another man stood near him in a similar coat.
“Account for yourself,” said the first one, with a concealed accent. “Who are you?”
“Why is that your concern?” I replied. “Shall I ask you the same?”
“This is not a time to be bold, monsieur.”
Monsieur. They were French, then.
“We have seen you in past weeks. You seem always to be outside his hotel,” he said with suspicion, his eyebrows gesturing in that peculiar French manner Duponte sometimes exhibited.
“Yes, well, there is hardly anything extraordinary about that. Does not one visit his friend often?” A man who had in the past kidnapped, deceived, and intimidated me—to call that a friend!
Caught in their silence, I worried about the implications of my hasty statement. My spying on the Baron, it seemed, had made enemies of these enemies of the Baron! I added, “I know nothing of that man’s debts or his creditors, and have not the slightest interest in such matters.”
The two men exchanged a quick glance.
“Then tell us which hotel he’s putting up at now.”
“I do not know,” I said honestly.
“Do you have any idea, monsieur, the scope of his troubles? They shall become yours if you try to guard him. Do not protect him.”
I turned quickly and began walking away.
“We are not finished with you, monsieur,” he called out from behind me.
I looked over my shoulder; they were following. I wondered if I ran, whether they would do the same. Testing this, I accelerated my steps.
Crossing Madison Street, I neared the Washington Monument, where a small assembly of visitors was gathered. The massive marble column, twenty feet in diameter, rose up from the base and supported the grand statue of General George Washington at the summit. The pure white marble stood out not just for its massiveness, but as a contrast to the brickwork of the street. It seemed the safest place in Baltimore right now.
Entering the base of the monument, I joined others waiting to begin the passage on the stairwell that ascended in a spiral up the long, hollow column. After I’d climbed the first flight of steps, I paused at one of the curves, illumined by only a small square opening, and watched a few young boys race past me. I smiled to myself, satisfied that the men had let me be or not seen me enter—but just as I expressed this silent delight to myself, I heard the heavy steps of two pairs of boots.
“Il est là!” came a voice.
Without waiting for a glimpse of them, I turned and dashed up the stairs. My only advantage was that I had known the vast interior of the monument from the time I was young. The Frenchmen may have been stronger and quicker, but they were strangers here. Indeed, I imagine they’d compare this narrow flight to the wider compass of their Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Both places had the same reward for the sturdy climber—an unrivaled view of each city at the summit—but honored opposite achievements. The Parisian arch, Napoleon’s empire. The marble column, Washington resigning his commission as commander of the army, refusing to use his position to seek the permanent power of a despot.
I suppose none of this occurred to these men, who seemed to prefer thinking of throwing me off the top of the monument. They ran faster even than the group of young boys, who, chasing each other upward, had wearied by the middle of the ascent. The two men finally reached the observation gallery at the top, and walked around the circular platform, pushing past the visitors who stood looking across the Patapsco River to the Chesapeake in the distance. Though the two men inspected the face under the brim of each man’s hat, and peered around widely flounced dresses, they did not see their subject anywhere.
But I could see them. I’d already hidden 120 feet below: near where a narrow, unmarked door in the lower portion of the stairs opened onto a lower ledge used by those whose task it was to keep every crevice of the monument clean. It was a passage used also by persons who needed a bit of air on their journey upward. I waited on that ledge to ensure that both men appeared on that gallery platform far above, thus confirming that neither was lying in wait for me below.
Realizing they had been deceived, they now leaned upon the railing and found me standing below them. I smiled and saluted them before rushing back to the door.
My celebration was short. The door back to the stairs would not budge.
“For God’s sake!” I kicked at it.
The latch on the inside of the door had somehow fixed itself after I had closed it. I pounded at the heavy door for someone to open it from inside.
Observing my situation from their all-seeing view, one of the men started back to the stairwell, while the other waited and watched me from that omniscient perch. If the first made it down the stairs and to my door, I would certainly be trapped. I craned my neck and watched with faint hope that the band of older ladies emerging above from the stairs would delay his descent long enough for me to arrive at some miraculous plan for my deliverance.
The second man stood guard by leaning over the rail and keeping his eyes fixed on me. After another fruitless attempt to attract attention from the other side of the door, I returned to the railing and looked down below to assess my chances of jumping into the trees. Then I was met with a familiar face from below!
“Bonjour!” I exclaimed.
She looked up at me, then looked to the sky where that blackguard was peering down at me. “Back up toward the door,” she said.
“It is bolted from the other side. You must open it for me, mademoiselle!”
“Back up! More…more, monsieur…”
I did as instructed, moving away from the railing. The man above leaned farther over the railing so he could still watch me.
Bonjour took a breath and then shrieked, “He’s going to jump!” She pointed with hysterical gestures to the Frenchman, who was now nearly hanging from the railing 180 feet above the ground. The Frenchman’s face went pale as screams erupted from the gallery. The gallery-goers, in an effort to aid him, swarmed the man on the rail so forcefully as to almost push him off. Meanwhile, those sightseers rushing up from below to witness the human tragedy now herded the second Frenchman, who had just managed to enter the stairwell for his descent, back onto the gallery platform.
“Mademoiselle, ingenious! Now, if you can open this door!”
Bonjour entered the stairwell, and soon enough I could hear the door to the base unlatch. I gleefully swung the door open to thank my savior, perhaps the one woman left who cared about me.
She stepped through the doorway, the end of a small revolver pointed at me. “Time to come with me, monsieur.”
Bonjour did not say another word on the way to the hotel. She untied my hands and legs—which she had bound—upon our arrival at Barnum’s Hotel and rushed me through the anteroom without attracting notice. Upon reaching their rooms, where the Baron awaited, she spoke. “He was with them, very hand and glove together,” she said to the Baron. “I separated them, but they may have been signaling each other.”
“Who?” I asked confusedly. “Those two blackguards? I would n
ever have anything to do with men like that.”
“Very cozy, going into that monument together.”
“They were accosting me, mademoiselle! You rescued me!”
“I had no such intention, monsieur!” she assured me. “Perhaps Duponte leads them by a leash, too.”
The Baron had an agitated manner. “Make yourself scarce, my dear.”
Bonjour gave me a pitying glare before leaving us alone.
The Baron held up a glass of sherry cobbler. “The proportion of sherry is decidedly smaller at this hotel than the proportion of water. Still, at least the beds have curtains, a rare enough luxury in America. Do not mind mademoiselle. She believes she depends on me because I saved her, when in fact it is just the opposite. If she were ever to give me the bag, or to be harmed, I would go to pieces. Do not underestimate her arts.”
I had noticed on the writing-desk stacks of paper with widely scribbled notes on them.
“There,” said the Baron with a proud, mischievous grin, seeing my interest. “There lie all the answers you have been looking for, Brother Quentin, put down in black and white. Of course, I have not perfected my presentation yet, but I will, be sure. But I am afraid”—here he leaned close—“that in the meantime I have the burden of ensuring that nobody troubles me before it is brought into the light of day. Now, who are they, the men Bonjour saw you with? Why are they working with you and Duponte?”
“Baron Dupin,” I said with exasperation, “I do not know them, do not wish to, and certainly am not leagued with them in any way.”
“You have seen them though, as I have,” he said loftily. “They have been watching me. There is death upon their eyes. It is dangerous. You have noticed them, surely, while you yourself have acted the spy on me?”
I opened my mouth to speak but was caught off guard.
“I know,” he said, taking my silence as an admission. “Since I heard Bonjour happened upon you at the wharves, watching her quite closely. I hardly think that would be your usual place of leisure, among the drunkards and the slave-traders. Or perhaps”—he broke into laughter—“you will surprise me yet, Quentin Clark.”
The Poe Shadow Page 26