Book III. Baltimore 1851

11

Ratiocination. NOUN. The act of deliberate, calculated reasoning through the imagination and spirit; the intimate observation and forecasting of the complexities in human activity, especially the frequent simplicity in that activity. Not interchangeable with mere "calculus" or "logic."

IN THE BEGINNING, I watched constantly for some error on my part that would divert the path of Auguste Duponte's ratiocination (the above being my own definition, which Webster and other publishers might use to correct their own, and which I compiled as I watched Duponte on our transatlantic journey). I wanted to assist without being an obstacle. As it happened, I had made my first mistake long before we had begun.

I was sitting across from him in my library on our third morning after arriving in Baltimore. He was settled in the most comfortable armchair. I saw the analyst in a state of complete leisure. To say "leisure" conjures an incomplete impression, since he was constantly busying himself. But his efforts were unhurried and peaceful.

Duponte read through all the newspaper articles I had collected about Poe's death. I also gave him other materials relevant to Poe-biographical notices from journals and magazines, engravings, as well as my personal correspondence with the author. Duponte read the papers like the governor of a state would read the news over breakfast, with that strong grip on the page that suggested mastery over it.

On this day, when he acknowledged me from across the room, it was with such a sudden movement of the head that I half expected him to pronounce his conclusion about Poe's death.

"I shall need the rest," he said.

"Yes." I hesitated. I thought I understood his reference, and its surprising error, but I did not want to appear discouraging. "Monsieur Duponte, from the vagaries of the press, it is unlikely many additional items have been published about Poe's death."

Duponte handed my memorandum book to me and then tapped the large portfolio of cuttings. "Monsieur Clark, I require not just these articles-but the newspapers from which they were excised. And, perhaps, the numbers of those newspapers for a week before and after each article."

"But I examined the entire newspapers whenever possible for the smallest reference to the poet in the most out-of-the-way column, even the simple mention of his name. I assure you these were all the items concerning Poe that could be found."

"Dunce!" he said, sighing.

It is impossible to convey, I suppose, without knowing him personally, but I had grown accustomed to Duponte's frequent exclamations of this kind, and they no longer seemed like insults.

Duponte went on: "The cuttings are not enough, monsieur. There is as much to reveal from what surrounds information as the information itself. Skip the columns that make the heart of the populace palpitate with excitement-read everything besides this, and much shall be learned. You have sacrificed a great portion of the intelligence in each article by divorcing it from its sheet."

To be perfectly honest, it was difficult to keep from showing restlessness at Duponte's pace. I suppose I should have predicted it. Poe had recognized the requirements of an intelligence this sophisticated. In his tales, C. Auguste Dupin undertakes meticulous reviews of newspaper reports of the respective crimes before he ventures to resolve the cases.

But here was the difference, in the line of timing, between those literary tales and our undertaking: we were not alone. In the back of my mind at all times there stood the ghostly image of my kidnapper, Dupin. (Looking at that sentence, I see I must not write "Dupin" like that, or I shall think automatically of the C. Auguste Dupin of Poe's tales. Though it costs more in ink, "Claude Dupin" or "Baron Dupin" it shall be.) Sometimes, I even thought I saw his face, in the open window of a building, in a crowd on Baltimore Street, grinning cunningly at me. Had the Baron truly come to America, or had his announcement been a hoax to confuse his creditors in Paris?

I began to collect all the newspapers Duponte had requested. The imposing Baltimore Sun building had been the first iron structure in Baltimore. Although some judged the five-story edifice beautiful, that was the wrong sort of term. Impressive: that's what you thought while walking through the newspaper offices, the presses and steam engines whirling below in the basement, heating your boots; the cracking of telegraph machinery raining onto the ceiling from the second floor above. You were in the middle of something powerful, something demanded by the mass of our citizens.

Visiting also the Sun's competitors, the Whig papers Patriot and the American, and those known for Democratic leanings, the Clipper and the Daily Argus, I gradually furnished Duponte with everything he had asked for from Baltimore. Then I started for the athenaeum to search for more from other states and any new reports about Poe.

I had not yet sent word to Hattie or Peter of my return. Auntie Blum's prohibition on Hattie writing to me had remained for the balance of my time in Paris. Peter, in his last few letters, had said little of Hattie or anything else of interest, but had alluded to certain sensitive matters of business he needed to speak with me about. I had a strong desire to commune with both of them. But it was as though the world outside my involvement with Duponte was suspended; as though I had been caught in a universe made only from Duponte's mind and his ideas and could not return to my usual place until the task at hand had been achieved.

Though I had been abroad for only a season, I noticed every change in Baltimore acutely. The city was growing bigger by the day, so it seemed. There was the rubble, ladders, joists, and tools of construction in every direction. Warehouses five stories high had overtaken old mansions. All that was brand-new, like the dust of the construction, cast a dull pallor over the city. There was something else, I know not what to call it. An unrest. A cheerless restiveness. This is how it seemed passing through the street.

At the reading room, I situated myself at a table with my memorandum book and opened a newspaper. I scanned the columns, stopping several times to study some interesting bit of news that had transpired in my absence. Then I saw it. My heart quickened with-surprise, exhilaration, fear. I could not have said which. I switched to the next paper, then another. There was not just a chance mention in the back sheets of one paper. No. There were mentions everywhere! Each paper featured some item about the death of Poe! There were many details yet to learn in the mysterious circumstances of the late poet's death, wrote the Clipper. "The prominent topic of conversation in literary circles, has been the death of that melancholy man Edgar A. Poe," said a weekly dollar magazine. "He was altogether a strange and fearful being."

The articles provided almost no factual details. Instead, each page was like a newsboy who shouted ad infinitum of some sensational hanging without saying how it had come to be.

I rushed to the front of the room, where the ancient clerk sat. Another patron of the reading room stood across from the desk, but as he was not yet addressing the clerk, I felt free to proceed.

"What is all of this about Edgar Poe? How has this come about?" I asked.

"Mr. Clark," replied the clerk, with a look of great interest, "you have been away quite a while!"