AB: Mr. Clark! But I know Mr. Clark quite well, sir! Have known him practically from his infancy! Indeed, I have just heard of his return from Europe and wish to see him.
AD: Ah.
AB: Very well. I shall play along at this game, though you are a stranger, and insolent. Who is Mr. Clark, sir?
AD: Mr. Clark is my associate in this present matter.
AB: You are an attorney then?
AD: Heavens!
AB: Then what matter do you speak of?
AD: You do mean the present matter occupying me quite well, until you came in?
AB: Yes-Yes, but-Are you going to light that cigar, sir, indoors? While I am standing here before you just so?
AD: I suppose. Unless I cannot find a matchbook; then I shall not think of it.
AB: Mr. Clark shall hear of this treatment! Mr. Clark shall-
AD: Here! Here is a match after all, madame.
I left word for Peter, spurred in part by the awful account of Auntie Blum's visit, and after several times missing each other we had a meeting arranged in his chambers. He was quite brotherly. He looked around his office once we were seated, with a sudden pang.
"Perhaps this is the wrong place to discuss-well, but, Quentin, I suppose we must talk openly." He blew a windy sigh. "In the first place, if I have ever grown warm with you, it was in the hopes that I have been helping you, and doing as your father would have wanted."
"Impudent!"
"What, Quentin?" Peter was utterly startled.
I realized Duponte's odd habits of speech had infected me. "I mean," I said quickly, "that I understand the matter perfectly, Peter."
"Well, just so. Because you were away from Baltimore, and things change, by the bye. Quentin…"
I leaned forward with interest.
"I must tell you, though it is not comfortable…"
"Peter?"
"I have begun speaking with another fellow from Washington about taking your place here," he managed to blurt out. "He is a good lawyer. He reminds me of you. Understand, Quentin, that I am simply overwhelmed with all the work."
I sat in silence and surprise-not surprise that Peter would be engaging another attorney, but surprise that, after all my yearnings to leave these chambers, this would stir something sad in me.
"This is good news, Peter," I said after a moment.
"The practice is in peril-there have been some financial hitches, and we are hard pushed. It is all knocked into a cocked hat and could crumble in the next year if something isn't done. The firm your father built for us."
"I know you will manage," I said with a slight waver in my voice that seemed to invite Peter to plead his case.
"You must realize, Quentin, that you can have your position back. Today, any hour, if you wish! We are all quite glad to hear of your return. Hattie especially-you must address that situation immediately, you know. Her aunt has practically built a fortress around her to prevent you from seeing her."
"Of course, she is merely trying to guard her welfare. Now that you mention the topic, there is a matter of Auntie Blum calling at my house…I am certain I can sway her away from any bitterness, though."
Peter glared in a manner that suggested he did not agree.
Indeed, I knew that while I was so immersed in my undertaking, any attempt to reconcile with Hattie's family, even if successful, would only reverse its course once the demands for attention to the various questions of the future could not be met. I would have to wait a bit longer before repairing those relations. I adjourned my interview with Peter, promising to explain more later.
Meanwhile, I was now frequenting the athenaeum reading rooms, where the very same loquacious gentleman whom I had encountered before, the mysterious Poe enthusiast, continued his regular appearances, reading the newspapers and gushing over the inept articles appearing in print on Edgar Poe.
One morning, I took a seat on the stone steps of the athenaeum before it opened and waited for the doors to be unlatched. Once inside, I chose a chair across from the place where I knew the gentleman preferred, so I could watch him more closely. When he arrived, though, he, seemingly oblivious to my motives, found a different table. I did not want it to seem like I was following him, so I kept a distance. The next day, I loitered near the clerk's desk, to see where the other gentleman would situate himself. I claimed a nearby place. I could now observe his every movement.
He was most galling in the joyfulness he exhibited at reading about the circumstances of Poe's death.
"Ah, did you see this one now?" He turned to a woman at the neighboring table, holding up a newspaper. "They're wondering what happened to all the money he scraped together from lecturing in Richmond. If it had been on Poe's person, where is it now? That's a question. The editors of the press are shrewd." There he laughed as if at an infinitely witty jest.
Shrewd, he says! "Sir, how is it you laugh in such a manner?" I asked, knowing I should instead keep to myself. "Do you not think this a subject of the most serious gravity, deserving higher decorum?"
"It is most serious," he said, his unruly eyebrows straightening on command. "Serious as a judge. Yet most critical, too, that we shall be told in full what happened to him."
"And do you not take these reports with a considerable modicum of salt? Do you think every item you read proclaims the truth, as some prophet of a Gospel?"
He gave the idea of his credulity strenuous thought. "Why else would they waste fine ink on it, dear man, if it weren't true? I should not think like the Hebrews, and not believe that newer testaments are also smarter, instead chasing all false Messiahs with ‘lo here, lo there!'"
In my agitation, I left the athenaeum for the remainder of the day. I suspected that the pest's desire to gawk would expire quickly, and was relieved when there came days he failed to appear; but then he would be resurrected the following day. Sometimes, given some reminder to a certain poem by Poe, he would rise and spontaneously recite verses to the room. For instance, one afternoon a church bell tolled outside for a funeral. He jumped up with Poe's words on his lips:
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
He would usually sit among the papers, interrupting himself only to blow his nose ferociously into his handkerchief, or one he borrowed from an unlucky patron. I became excessively friendly with strangers I happened to meet at the reading room, based only on their virtue of not being that sneezing, supercilious man.
I complained to the clerk, pacing in front of his table. "Why should he be so concerned with articles about Poe?" I asked.
"Who, Mr. Clark?"
I blinked at the kind old clerk. "Who? Why that man who comes in nearly every day-"
"Ah, I thought you were speaking of the man who had given me those articles about Edgar Poe some time ago," he replied, "which I ordered delivered to you."
I brought my pacing to a stop as I thought of the package of cuttings the clerk had sent me before I left for Paris-a selection that included the first mention I had seen of a real Dupin. "I had naturally assumed you had collected those yourself."
"No, Mr. Clark."
"But who was it that gave them to you?"
"It must have been some two years ago now," he meditated. "Which pigeon-hole of my brain did that go into?" he laughed.
"Please try to recall. I should be most interested." The clerk agreed that he would tell me if he was able to remember. Someone, I presumed, who cared about Poe before the morbid sensation and vulgar curiosity that had been caused by the Baron's manipulation. Before men like this enthusiast who was now forever stationed across the room from me.