When this bad fellow had drunk more than he'd intended, Duponte went downstairs for another bottle of wine and then returned to the cabinet with perfect calmness. Duponte reported to the convict that the barmaid had said she'd seen Auguste Duponte there, looking in on the private rooms. The villain was thrown into a wild fury at the news, and Duponte suggested that the fellow hide in the closet so he might come out and kill the investigator when he entered. When the villain stepped into the closet, Duponte locked it and fetched the police.

That had once been Duponte. It was that Duponte I had to bring to America. Nor had my limited communion with him proved totally void of his talents. One afternoon, during one of Duponte's walks, the heat was strong and I convinced him to share a coach with me. After some time driving through Paris in silence, he pointed out the window of our coach to a cemetery. "That," he said, "upon the other side of the wall, is the small burial place of your people, Monsieur Clark."

I saw a sign in French for the Jewish cemetery. "Yes, it is quite small…" I paused, leaving my statement in the air. Thinking of what had just been said to me, I turned in astonishment. "Monsieur Duponte!"

"Yes?"

"What did you say a moment ago? Of that burial place?"

"That in it are the people of your faith, or perhaps partially of your faith."

"But, monsieur, whatever leads you to believe I am Jewish? I have never said so to you."

"You are not?" Duponte asked in surprise.

"Well," I answered breathlessly, "my mother was Jewish. My father, Protestant; he has died too. But however did you think of that?"

Duponte, seeing I would press the question, explained. "When we neared a particular lodging house in Montmartre some days ago, you realized from the newspaper accounts that it was the place where a young girl was brutally murdered." Articles about the gruesome case, indeed, had daily pervaded the Paris newspapers I had been reading to improve my French. Duponte continued: "Feeling it was something of a sacred place, a place of recent death, you reached for your hat. However, rather than taking off your hat-as the Christian does automatically upon entering a church-you secured it tighter on your head-like the Jew in his synagogue. Then you fumbled with it for another moment, showing your uncertain instincts in the matter to remove or tighten it. This made me consider that you had worshipped, at times, in church and in synagogue."

He was correct. My mother had not yielded her Jewish heritage upon entering wedlock, despite the collective urgings of my father's family, and once the Lloyd Street Synagogue was completed in Baltimore she had brought me with her.

Duponte returned to his usual silence. I kept my excitement to myself. I had begun to break down Duponte's walls.

I tried delicately to solicit Duponte for more facts about his past, but his face would stiffen each time. We developed a friendly routine. Each morning I would knock at his door. If he was stretched on his bed with the newspaper, he would invite me inside for coffee. Usually, Duponte would announce his departure for a walk and I would ask permission to accompany him, to which he would assent by ignoring my question.

He had an impenetrability, a moral invisibility that made me want to see how he would be in all the possible variations of life: to see him in love, in a duel, to see what meal he would select at a certain establishment. I burned to know his thoughts and wished him to desire to know more of me.

Sometimes I would bring him an item related to my original purpose that I hoped might strike his interest. For example, I found a guidebook of Baltimore in one of the Paris bookstalls and showed it to him.

"You see, inside there is a folded map-and this part of town is where Edgar Poe lived in Baltimore when he won his first newspaper prize for a tale called ‘Ms. Found in a Bottle.' Here is where he was discovered in an insensible state in Baltimore. Look here, monsieur; that is his burial place!"

"Monsieur Clark," he said, "I am afraid such things are of as little interest to me as you can imagine."

You see how it was. I tried every approach to uplift him from his inactive trance. For example, one hot day when Duponte and I were walking across a bridge over the Seine, we decided to pay twelve sous each to one of the floating establishments on the river to take a bath under a canvas roofing. We plunged into the cooling water opposite each other. Duponte closed his eyes and leaned back, and I followed his example. Our bodies were rocked up and down by the happy splashing of children and young men.

Quentin: "Monsieur, surely you know the importance of Poe's tales of C. Auguste Dupin. You have heard of them. They were published in the French journals."

Duponte (inattentively, a question or statement?): "They were."

Q: "Your own achievements in analysis provide the character of the main figure with his abilities. That must mean something to you! The exploits involve the most intricate, seemingly impossible, and miraculous triumphs of reason."

D: "I have not read them, I believe."

Q: "Not read the literature of your own life? That which will make you immortal? How could this be?"

D: "It is of as little interest to me as I could imagine, monsieur."

Should that last comment have an exclamation mark? Perhaps a grammarian could answer; it was quite sharply enunciated but without any greater volume than a waiter at a restaurant repeating an order back to his customer.

It was just a few days later when there came an important turn in my companionship with Duponte. I had walked with Duponte through the Jardin des Plantes, where not only the finest plants and trees were enjoyed in the summer but one of Paris's best scientific zoological collections. After a tunnel of clouds had darkened above the trees, we had begun walking for the exit when a man rushed up behind us. He spoke with great consternation.

"Kind monsieurs," he said, panting out the words, "have you seen somebody with my cake?"

"Cake?" I repeated. "What do you mean, monsieur?"

He explained that he had walked to the street-vendors and purchased a seedcake, a rare indulgence for him, to enjoy on what had been a beautiful sunny day before the rain began. This fellow had placed his treat lovingly on the bench beside his person until such a time as he would feel his earlier dinner properly digested. He had turned his back only for a brief moment to secure his umbrella from the ground upon noticing the storm gathering overhead. However, when he turned back finally ready to savor his sweet luxury, it had vanished completely, and there was not a man around!

"Perhaps a bird picked it up, monsieur," I suggested. I tugged at Duponte's arm. "Come along. It is beginning to rain, Monsieur Duponte, and we haven't any umbrellas."

We parted from our cakeless friend, but after a few steps Duponte turned around. He called back this despondent man.

"Monsieur," said Duponte, "stand where I am now and likely your cake shall return in two to seven minutes. Approximately speaking." Duponte's voice exhibited neither joy nor particular interest in the matter.

"Indeed?" the man cried.

"Yes. I should think so," said Duponte, and he began walking away again.

"But-how?" the man now thought to ask.

I, too, was held dumbstruck by Duponte's proposition, and Duponte saw this.

"Imbeciles!" said Duponte to himself.

"What?" the man asked with offense.

"Pardon, Monsieur Duponte!" I said, also protesting the insult.