She explained. First the Baron had placed notices in all the newspapers in the city, offering substantial rewards for "vital information" in the "mysterious and untoward death" of the poet Poe. He did not expect to actually hear from witnesses at once. Rather, the notices served their real purpose-to stir questions. The editors of the papers sensed excitement, and they followed its path. Now the people were clamoring for more and more Poe.

"We are helping to enliven the public's imagination," Bonjour said. "I believe Poe's books are met with a ready sale now."

I thought back to the woman in the park…the Poe enthusiast in the reading room…and now Bonjour planting books for more people to find.

She turned to leave, and I grabbed her. If anyone was watching us, my hand wrapped around the gloved wrist of a young woman, it would occasion a small scandal and would travel with the speed of a telegraph to Hattie Blum's aunt. In Baltimore, the cold breezes of the North met the hard etiquette of the South, and the gossip that came along with it.

It was a twofold compulsion that made me reach for her hand. First, being seized once again by her careless beauty, so strikingly relocated in Baltimore, so distinct from the normal lady's-magazine appearance of local girls. Second, she might know something of Poe's death already. Third-for I suppose the compulsion should be called threefold-I knew that where she came from in Paris, touching the hand of a lady was hardly a noticeable act, and this emboldened me. But her eyes burned at me, and at a breath I pulled my hand away.

I find it difficult to describe the sensation that passed through me upon touching, even for a moment, this lady. It was the sensation that at any moment I could be transported anywhere in the world, into anyone's life, almost that I was not restricted to my own body-it was a spiritual feeling, in a sense, feeling as light as a star in the sky.

Much to my surprise amid the bookstalls, as soon as I released her, both her hands sprung toward me and gripped me far more firmly than I had seized her. I could not pry her fingers off my hands, and we stood facing each other for a long moment.

"Sir! Remove your hand, if you please!" she burst out in an outraged, virginal voice.

Her cry prompted the Argus-eyed inquisitiveness of everyone in the store, at every table and bench. After she released me, I attempted to appear occupied by commonplace interest in the nearest books. By the time the stares dissipated, she was gone. I raced into the street and spotted her, the back of her head now covered by a striped parasol.

"Stay!" I called out, hurrying to her side. "I know you are well intentioned. You kept me safe from the shooting at the fortifications. You saved my life!"

"It seemed you wished to assist me when thinking the Baron forced my service to him. This was"-she tucked her lip under her small front teeth to consider this-"unusual."

"You must know that this is far too important a matter to cheaply excite the periodical press. No good shall come of that. Poe's genius deserves more. You must stop this now."

"Do you think you can shuffle us off from our task so easily? I have read some of your friend Poe. It seems it consists chiefly of him saying plain things in a fashion that makes them hard to understand, and commonplace things in a mysterious form which makes them seem oracular." Bonjour checked her speed momentarily to look at me. I also came to a stop. "Are you in love, Monsieur Clark?"

I had lost my concentration on Bonjour. My gaze had landed nearby, where a woman was striding along the sidewalk. She was woman of around forty, attractive enough. My eyes followed her path down the street.

"Are you in love, monsieur?" Bonjour repeated gently, following the object of my gaze.

"That woman…I saw her with Neilson Poe, a cousin of Edgar's, you see, and she looks remarkably like-"

I had not meant to blurt this out.

"Yes?" Bonjour said. Her softer tone compelled me to finish the sentence.

"Remarkably like a portrait I've seen of Virginia Poe, Edgar's deceased wife." The fact was, even seeing this woman seemed to bring me closer to the life of Edgar Poe.

My view of her was soon blocked by the rest of the crowd. I then realized that Bonjour was no longer standing by my side. Looking around, I saw that she was approaching the woman-that Virginia Poe copy!-and I felt angry at myself for having revealed what I had.

"Miss!" Bonjour called. "Miss!"

The woman turned and faced Bonjour. I stood aside, not believing that the woman had seen me at the police station house, but wishing to be safe.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Bonjour, in a convincing southern accent that she must have imitated from some of the belles she had heard around the city. She continued, "You looked so much like a lady I used to know-but I was mistaken. Perhaps it was only that lovely bonnet…"

The woman gave a kind smile and started to turn her back to Bonjour.

"But she looked so much like Virginia!" Bonjour now said as though to herself.

The woman turned back. "Virginia?" she asked with curiosity.

I could see a look of enjoyment spread across Bonjour's face, knowing that she had achieved her object. "Virginia Poe," Bonjour said, adopting a somber aspect.

"I see," the other woman said quietly.

"I met her only once, but Lethean waters will never erase it from my memory," gushed Bonjour. "You are as beautiful as she was!"

The woman lowered her eyes at the compliment.

"I am Mrs. Neilson Poe," the other woman said. "Josephine. I am afraid no one shall ever be as beautiful as my darling sister was when she was still alive."

"Your sister, ma'am?"

"Sissy. Virginia Poe, I mean. She was my half-sister. She was all courage and confidence even at her weakest. Whenever I see her portrait…!" She stopped, unable to continue the thought.

So that was it! Neilson was married to the sister of Edgar Poe's late wife. After a few words of condolence, they walked together and Josephine Poe quietly answered Bonjour's questions about Sissy. I followed behind to listen.

"One evening while Edgar and Sissy were residing happily in Philadelphia on Coates Street, darling Sissy was singing at her beloved piano when a blood vessel ruptured. She collapsed in the middle of her song. There was an almost hourly anticipation of her being lost. Especially by Edgar. The winter of her death, they were so poverty-stricken that the only thing that could keep Sissy warm in their badly heated rooms was to be wrapped in his great-coat with a tortoise-shell cat lying on her bosom."

"What happened to her husband since?"

"Edgar? The oscillation between hope and despair for so many years had driven him insane, I believe. He needed womanly devotion. He said he would not live another year without true and tender love. People say he ran about the country looking to find a wife several times since Sissy's death, but I believe his heart still bled for Sissy. He was engaged to be married again only a few weeks before his death."

The women exchanged a few more words before Josephine departed with a graceful farewell. Bonjour turned back to me with a girlish giggle. "It is too bad for you, that you must be against the Baron in one of his plots, Monsieur Clark. You see, we do not hide in the shadows, lingering over small details."

"Mademoiselle, please! Here, in Baltimore, in America, you do not have to retain your association with the Baron and his schemes! I would flee him at once. There are no bonds here!"

Her eyes widened with interest. "Is there not slavery?"

She was clever.

"Just so!" I said. "There are no bonds for a free Frenchwoman. You do not owe any duty to the Baron."

"I do not have duty to my husband?" she said. "This is useful to remember."