The Poe Shadow

"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 ma

"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 a

"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 ca

"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 a

"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, gri