Along the sides of the omnibuses waited other blacks, perpetually stopping to put their arms up to the windows of the omnibuses, and then running to keep up with them, to touch or speak with the occupants one final time. It could not be determined whether a greater amount of weeping occurred inside or out. From within, a voice shouted hysterically, loud enough for anyone who would listen. She tried to make clear that she had been sold to Slatter by her owner with the express provision that she not be separated from her family, as he was now doing.

I steered Newman away from this whole scene, but he was dangerously transfixed by the sight, perhaps the last of its kind he would see before leaving for the North.

The slave-trader and his assistants held up their whips and warned those surrounding the vehicles not to delay their pace. One man had climbed up to a window of the omnibus and was clinging to it, calling for his wife, whom he could not see. She pushed her way through other slaves in the bus to the window.

Slatter, spying this, pressed his horse around from the other side. "Do not continue!" he warned the man.

The climber ignored this, reaching inside to embrace his wife.

Out came Slatter's cane, its strap wrapped closely around his wrist. He knocked the man in the back and then the stomach and left him writhing on the ground. "Away, little dog, before I call for your arrest! You do not wish what would follow that!"

As Slatter steered his horse to step around from the fallen man, his eyes drifted to my position-or, rather, to the young black standing with me.

"Who is this?" he asked gravely from his high saddle as he approached us. He pointed his cane down at Newman.

Newman's lips trembled terribly; he tried to speak but failed. I hoped the man would simply continue on with his other horrid task, but that was not to be.

He pointed his cane at Newman's mouth, and then across his body as though he were lecturing at the medical college. "A likely Negro, aren't you. Fine mouth, generally good teeth, no broken bones to be seen. Good coachman, I'd bet, or a waiter, if he can be careful and honest." Addressing me, he said, "I could sell him for at least six hundred dollars, with a commission to me, my friend."

"I am not his owner," I replied. "Nor is he for sale."

"Then perhaps he is your bastard child?" he said sarcastically.

"I am Quentin Clark, an attorney of this city. This young man you see is manumitted."

"I'm a free man, boss," Newman finally said in a tiny whisper.

"Oh?" Slatter asked musingly, reversing his horse and peering down again at Newman. "Let us see your certificates then."

At this Newman, who had received all the necessary papers that morning, merely trembled and stammered.

"Come on now." Slatter prodded Newman in the shoulder with his cane.

"Leave him," I cried out. "He is freed by my own hand. A man with more freedom than you, Mr. Slatter, for he knows what it is not to have it."

Slatter was about to hit Newman in the shoulder harder when I raised my cane and blocked his instrument with it. "Tell me, Mr. Slatter," I said. "I wonder, if you are so interested in papers, if you should like to have the authorities inspect your slaves on the bus and ensure that all are being sold in accordance with their particular deeds."

Slatter grinned darkly at me. He withdrew his cane with an air of courtesy and, without saying another word to us, dug his heels into his horse's sides to catch up with the train of vehicles heading down into the harbor. Newman was breathing rapidly.

"Why not show him your papers?" I asked insistently. "You do have them on you?"

He pointed to his head, where he wore a ragged hat-he had sewn the papers into the brim. Newman then told of the many traders like Slatter who asked to inspect their certificates of freedom and, once they had them in hand, destroyed the documents. They'd then conceal the rightfully free men and women in their pens until they were sold as legal slaves to another state, far away from any evidence to the contrary.

19

"MONSIEUR DUPONTE, I must ask something at once."

I said this after one of our many recent silent suppers in the large rectangular dining room of Glen Eliza.

Duponte nodded.

I continued. "When the Baron holds his lecture on Poe's death, it may irrevocably pollute the truth. Perhaps, when he delivers his speech, I should cause some distraction to him outside the hall, and you could claim the stage and reveal the truth to the people!"

"No, monsieur," said Duponte, shaking his head. "We shall do nothing of the kind. There is more here than you realize."

I nodded sadly, and did not touch another morsel of food. That had been my experiment. Duponte had failed. He went on with his undisturbed silence.

I was entirely absorbed in distraction. To my visible displeasure, the dronish fellows who were overseeing some of my father's investments came to the door and I sent them away at once. I could not think about numbers and annual accounts.

"The Purloined Letter": the second sequel to "The Murders in the

Rue Morgue." That's what I was thinking about with such a wistful air. C. Auguste Dupin has discovered the secret location of the letter stolen by Minister D--, hidden most ingeniously by being placed right in front of everyone's eyes. It was the ordinary aspect of the spot that eluded all but one man. The analyst uses an unnamed collaborator to fire a gun in the street and raise a commotion. The collaborator's distraction allows C. Auguste Dupin to retrieve the letter, and put a false one in its place.

I relate this to bring out a point. C. Auguste Dupin trusts his collaborator there; and, besides, puts increasingly great trust in the work of his faithful assistant in all of Poe's Dupin trilogy.

Yet Auguste Duponte, my own companion, hardly gave credence to my role as collaborator and quietly dismissed my numerous ideas and suggestions, whether it was questioning Henry Reynolds, for which he made a mockery of me, or my latest design regarding the disruption of the Baron's lecture. On the other hand, Baron Dupin in all he endeavored constantly favored employing accomplices!

Then there was the interesting fact to consider of Baron Dupin's gift for disguises and alterations. A similarity might be noted, that the literary Dupin uses his green spectacles as another way to dupe his brilliant opponent, Minister D--, in "The Purloined Letter."

And how about Baron Dupin's profession as a lawyer? I had begun in the last few days to underline certain lines in the trilogy. "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" implies to the careful reader, in certain key passages, that C. Auguste Dupin was deeply acquainted with the law, perhaps hinting for us at his past practice as a lawyer. Like Baron Dupin.

Then there is that initial, so uninteresting to the uninformed eye: C. Auguste Dupin. C. Dupin. Could it not remind the reader of one Claude Dupin? And is not Poe's character of the genius analyst known by the time of the second tale by the dignified title of "Chevalier"? Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin. Baron C. Dupin.

"But what of the Baron Dupin's cold penchant for money?" I asked myself. Alas, recall that C. Auguste Dupin profits monetarily, and most deliberately, from the employment of his skills in each of the three tales!

Above all, here was the Baron Claude Dupin confronting Snodgrass, boldly denying the notion of Poe expiring through a disgraceful debauch. While on that same day in Glen Eliza Auguste Duponte was allowing for the merits of that shameful position. His nonchalant comment about Poe's drinking resounded in my mind again and again until bitterness and regret reigned over me. "I had never said he had not."