"I live far from America, and could not tell a Whig from a Democrat. We have come merely to proffer a friendly caution," said Duponte reassuringly. "That gentleman who called earlier tonight will not be satisfied with your doorkeeper's answer. I think I can put you in the way of detecting the villain of this rascality. He means to quarrel with you over the moral principles of your club."

"That so?" the proprietor said, contemplating this. "Well, thank you kindly for your concern. Now you two cap your luck before there are any more quarrels here."

"Your servant, Mr. George," Duponte said with a bow.

14

THE NEXT DAY, I pressed Duponte on why he had so easily agreed to the Baron Dupin's demand that he refrain from talking to witnesses. It would now be a race to gather information, and we could afford no encumbrance. I was anxious to know Duponte's plans to combat the Baron.

"You intend to deceive him, I suppose? You will, of course, speak to persons who know something of Poe's last visit?"

"I shall remain quite faithful to my pledge. No, I will not interview his witnesses."

"Why? Baron Dupin has done nothing to merit your pledge. He has certainly done nothing to claim any witnesses as his alone. How shall we possibly understand what happened to Poe if we cannot speak to those who saw him personally?"

"They will be useless."

"But would their memories not be fresh from the time of Poe's death, which was but two years ago?"

"Their memories, monsieur, hardly exist at present, but are subsumed by the Baron's tales. The Baron has infected the newspapers and the whispers of Baltimore with his sophistry and craft. All actual witnesses will have become tainted, if they are not already, by the time we would be able to locate them."

"Do you believe they would lie?"

"Not purposefully. Their genuine memories of those events, and the stories they can tell from them, will irrevocably reshape themselves in the image of the Baron's. They are as much his witnesses now as though he has recruited them into a trial and paid them for testimony. No, we cannot gain very much beyond the most basic facts provided by those witnesses, and I suspect we will gather that information through the natural course of events."

You'd probably guess that Duponte was a formal sort of person. You are right and wrong. He did not subscribe to rules of manners and meaningless pleasantries. He smoked cigars inside the house, regardless of who was in the room. He was inclined to ignore you if he had nothing to say, and answer with a single word when he felt it was sufficient. He was in a way a fast friend, for he was your companion without any of the usual rituals or demands of friendship. However, he always bowed and sat with absolutely correct posture (though upon standing there was a noticeable slant of the shoulders). And in his labors he was most strict and serious. In fact, it made you quite uneasy to interrupt him when he was at all occupied. It could be the least important task imaginable, it could be stirring oatmeal, but it would seem leagues more critical than anything you might have to say to break his concentration were the house burning down around his ears.

Yet he grew attached to some of the strangest frivolities. When he was out on the city streets, a distinguished gentleman with a fancy cravat fastened in voluminous folds exclaimed aloud that Duponte was the queerest specimen of man he had ever seen. Duponte, taking no offense, invited the man, who was a painter of some renown here in Baltimore, to share a table with us at a nearby restaurant.

"And tell me your story, dear sir," said the man.

"I would gladly, monsieur," replied Duponte apologetically, "but then there is the likely danger that I would have to hear yours."

"Fascinating!" said the man, unruffled.

The man expressed his eagerness to paint Duponte. It was soon arranged that he would call at Glen Eliza to begin a Duponte portrait. This seemed to me quite absurd considering our other occupations, but I did not object since Duponte was fervent about it.

Rather than coming to find me in the house when he had something to say, Duponte would often send one of the servants to me with a note. Glen Eliza was large and rambling but not so terribly mammoth as to require a messenger through its corridors! I did not know what to think when a servant first handed me the note, whether it was done out of the height of sloth or an excess of concentration.

The times when we ventured out of the house and into public establishments, Duponte refused to be waited on by slaves without paying them some small amount. I had seen instances of this over the years when visitors from Europe came to Baltimore, though during extended stays custom would soon wear down their finer sensibilities and the habit would gradually cease. Duponte's action, however, was not out of any sentimentality, I believe, nor a point of principle, for he had said that more people are slaves than realized it and some far more enslaved than the blacks of our South; rather than sentimental reasons, Duponte did this, he said, because service without payment would never be as valuable to either party. Many of the slaves would be extremely grateful, others timid, and some strangely hostile to Duponte's subsidies.

At Glen Eliza, we had difficulties with the domestics I had hired upon my return from Paris. No doubt, our peculiar practice of sending letters from the parlor to the library made extra work for them, though this was not the only source for discontent. Many of my servants immediately rebelled against Duponte. One colored girl, in particular, a free Negress named Daphne, occasionally refused to wait on him. When I asked Daphne for the reason, she said that she thought the houseguest most cruel. Had he ever abused her? Scolded her for a mistake, perhaps? No. He had hardly addressed her at all, and when he did he was very polite. Something was not right, she said, nonetheless. "He is cruel. I can see it."

In between household duties, I called on Hattie's house more than once without success. Peter's pessimistic remarks about rectifying that situation had rendered me quite anxious. Her mother, who had always been of delicate health and in her bed when not away recuperating in the country or at a spring, had been further debilitated over the summer. After a stay by the seaside, she was now largely confined, which meant more duties for Hattie. It also gave Auntie Blum fuller swing over the household. Each time I called, a servant would inform me that neither Miss Hattie nor Auntie Blum was present. Finally, I was able to speak with Hattie one day as she was ascending a carriage outside her house.

"Dear Hattie, have you not received my notes?"

Hattie glanced around and spoke stealthily, leading me away from the gates. "You must not be here, Quentin. Things are quite different here, now that Mother has been worse. I am needed by my sisters, my aunt."

"I understand," I said, fearing that my endeavors had only added to the strain that had fallen on poor Hattie's shoulders. "Of our plans…I need only a bit more time…"

She shook her head, silencing me. "Things are different," she repeated. "We cannot speak about it now, but we will. I will find you when I can, dear Quentin-I promise. Do not speak to my aunt. Wait for me to find you."

Noises came from the house. Hattie directed me to return to the street and make a hasty exit. I did so. I could hear Auntie Blum (and could almost hear the wide bird feathers I pictured in her hat ruffling, too) ask in her big tones, "Who was that, dear girl?" I kept my back to them and quickened my stride, having the distinct feeling that if I turned to look back, the older woman inside the carriage might direct her driver to flatten me.