It was, but I had no answer when Duponte inquired about the ownership and character of that address. After having offered my expert services as guide to Baltimore! I explained that the building adjoined an engine house for one of the city's fire engine companies, the Vigilant Fire Company, and said perhaps it was part of the company.

The street door of the place from which the Baron and Bonjour had emerged was stiff but unlocked. It opened onto a dark corridor that slanted down to another door. A heavy-set man, perhaps one of the firemen from the adjoining company, opened the door from the other side. From the long stairwell behind him came down fleeting shouts of joy. Or of terror, it was hard to decide which.

The doorkeeper's sheer width was impenetrable. He stared menacingly. I thought to remain quiet and still. Only when he motioned with his hand did it seem necessary to move closer.

"Pass-word," he said.

I looked anxiously at Duponte, who was now peering down at the floor.

"Pass-word to go upstairs," the doorkeeper continued in an undertone that was meant to frighten-and did.

Duponte had entered a sort of trance, letting his eyes glide over the floor, around the walls, up the stairs, and to the doorkeeper himself. What a moment to lose attention! Meanwhile, from the doorkeeper's throat there could be heard a canine grumble as though at the slightest movement from us he would strike out.

With an explosive thrust, the doorkeeper grabbed my wrist.

"I'll ask you jack-dandies for the last time, 'cause I ain't joking. The pass-word!" It felt like the bone would snap if I tried to move.

"Release the young man, good sir," said Duponte quietly, looking up, "and I shall provide you with your pass-word."

The doorkeeper blinked dryly a few times at Duponte, then cranked open his grip. I pulled my arm to safety. The man said to Duponte, as though he had never pronounced the words before, and would certainly not pronounce them again without murdering someone, "Pass-word." The doorkeeper and I both stared at my companion doubtfully.

Duponte squared his body to his confronter and spoke two words.

"Rosy God."

13

EVEN WITH MY unshakable faith in Duponte's analytic talents; even with the breathless tales I had heard of his achievements from newspapers, commissionnaires, and policemen in Paris; even remembering what I had witnessed in the Parisian gardens and in the revelation of the stowaway on the steamship; even remembering that Poe himself had pointed in his direction through his tales as a genius separate from all others; even with all this, still I could not believe what happened in the damp corridor of this building. The doorkeeper glared, stepped aside, then motioned us forward to the threshold behind him…

The signal that had admitted us-as in some nursery tale of magic-this "Rosy God," I had heard occasionally on the street as a low phrase for red wine. What extraordinary cipher could have been seen in the floors, in the walls, in the stairs, in the doorkeeper's countenance or dress, that had led Duponte to decipher the code of entrance-a password that might change with the season or every hour-into this private and well-guarded den?

"How did you," I said, stopping midway on the creaking stairs. "Monsieur, the pass-word-"

"Aside! Aside!" A man lurching over the stairs from above squeezed past us. Duponte accelerated our climb. The raucous shouts from above became clearer.

The upper floor was a small room filled with smoke and noise. Firemen and tottering rowdies sat at gaming tables and called for more drinks from thinly clad bargirls, dresses only barely covering the milky white of their necks. One rogue sprawled out flat on a bed of sharp oyster shells, while one of his comrades kicked him over to the left for a better place to stand for a billiards game.

Duponte found a small, broken table more or less right at the center, where we were conspicuous. Heated stares followed us into our rickety chairs. Duponte sat and nodded to a waitress as though entering a respectable café on the sidewalks of Paris.

"Monsieur," I whispered, taking a seat, "you must tell me directly-how is it you knew the pass-word to admit us?"

"The explanation is rather simple. I did not give the pass-word."

"My dear Duponte! It was like an ‘open sesame'! If this were two centuries earlier, you would have burned as a witch. I cannot stand to continue without being enlightened as to this point!"

Duponte rubbed one of his eyes as though just waking up. "Monsieur Clark. Why have we come here to this building?" he asked.

I did not mind playing the student if it would provide answers. "To see if Baron Dupin had also come in here, and if so what he was looking for tonight before we happened upon him."

"You are right-all right. Now, if you were the proprietor of a secret or private association, would you be most interested in talking with a visitor who gave the correct pass-word, as was given by every simpleton and sot you see in this rum-hole"-this he said without lowering his voice, causing some heads to swivel-"or talking with that one peculiar person who arrives out of place and, quite brashly, provides an absolutely incorrect pass-word?"

I paused. "I suppose the latter," I admitted. "Do you mean to say that you invented a phrase, knowing plainly it was wrong; and that because it was wrong we would be as readily admitted?"

"Exactly. ‘Rosy God' was as good as another. We could have chosen almost any word, as long as our demeanor was equally interested. They would know we were not part of their usual community, and yet be aware that we seriously desired entrance. Now, these suppositions accepted, if our intent was thought to be possibly aggressive, even violent, as they must initially consider, they would rather us inside here, surrounded by their rather large-sized allies and whatever weapons are kept here, than downstairs, where, they might imagine, our own friends could be hiding outside the street door. Would you not think in the same way? Of course, we seek no violent confrontation. Our time here will be brief, and we need no more than a few moments to begin to understand the Baron's interest."

"But how shall you be led to the proprietor here?"

"He shall approach us, if I am right," Duponte answered.

After a few minutes, a paternal man with a white beard stood before us. The menacing doorkeeper lumbered to our other side, closing us in. We rose from the table. The first man, in tones harsher than seemed possible from his looks, introduced himself only as the president of the Whigs of the Fourth Ward and asked why we were there.

"Only to aid you, sir." Duponte bowed. "I believe there was a gentleman trying to enter here in the last hour, probably offering money to your doorkeeper for information."

The proprietor turned to his doorkeeper. "Is it true, Tindley?"

"He waved some hard cash, Mr. George." The doorkeeper nodded sheepishly. "I turned the blockhead away, sir."

"What was it he was asking?" Duponte inquired. Though my companion had no authority here, the doorkeeper seemed to forget that and answered.

"He was all agog to know if we had been interfering in the elections in October of two years ago, laying pipe with voters and such. I told him we were a private Whig club and he would do well to give the pass-word or lope."

"Did you take his money?" asked his chief sternly.

"Course not! I was on the sharp, Mr. George!"

Mr. George glanced peevishly at the doorkeeper at the use of his name. "What do you two have to do with this? Are you sent by the Democrats?"

I could see Duponte was satisfied with what had been so readily revealed: what sort of club this was, what the Baron had wanted, and the name of the leader of this society. Now Duponte's face lit up with a new idea.