I acknowledged the seeds of my idea and allowed it to germinate: what if the Baron Dupin, all this time, were the real Dupin. And would not Poe have enjoyed this jolly, philosophical, hoaxing rogue, who had so thrilled and plagued me? Poe had written in a letter to me that the Dupin tales were ingenious not just for their method but their "air of method." Didn't the Baron understand the importance of appearance in gaining the awe of those around him, whereas Duponte ignored and alienated to no end? What a great, strange relief these thoughts suddenly provided me. I had miscalculated all along.

Though it was late at night when these ideas culminated in me, I descended the stairs soundlessly and stole out of Glen Eliza. I reached the Baron Dupin's hotel room a half hour late and stood at the door. I was breathing deeply, too deeply, my breathing an echo of my frantic thoughts. I knocked, too exhilarated and fearful to be articulate. There was a rustle from the other side of the door.

"I've possibly been mistaken," I said softly. "Some words, please, just a few moments." I looked behind me to make sure I had not been followed.

The room door nudged opened, and I put my foot in front of it.

I knew I would have only a brief hearing to state my position. "Baron Dupin, please! I believe we must speak at once. I believe-I know you are the one."

20

"BARON! IS THERE a real baron staying in this hotel?"

A thickly bearded man in nightclothes and slippers stood at the door, holding up his candle.

"This is not the room of Baron Dupin?"

"We have not seen him!" replied the man with disappointment, looking over his shoulder as though perhaps there was a baron in his bed-quilt he had neglected to notice. "But we've only arrived this afternoon from Philadelphia."

I mumbled my apologies and returned hurriedly through the hall and to the street. The Baron had changed hotels again and, in my distraction,

I had missed it. My thoughts ran quick and conflicting as I emerged from the hotel. Immediately I felt eyes upon the back of my neck and slowed my walk. It was not merely the intensity of my mood. There was the handsome black whom I had seen before, hands deep in his coat pockets, standing under the streetlamp. Or was it? He remained within the scope of the light only momentarily; then I could find him no more.

Turning to the other side, I thought I saw one of the two men in the old-fashioned dress I had seen following the Baron. My heart thumped violently at the vague feeling of being surrounded. I marched away as quickly as possible, jumping nearly headlong into a hackney coach, which I directed back to Glen Eliza.

After a night of sleeplessness, images of Duponte and the Baron

Dupin alternating and mixing in my mind with the sweeter sounds of

Hattie's sonorous laugh, a messenger arrived in the morning with a note from the athenaeum clerk. It concerned the man who had handed him those Poe-related articles-that first hint of the existence of the real

Dupin. The clerk had indeed remembered or, rather, had seen the very man himself, and when doing so had requested his calling card to send to me.

The man who had passed along the articles was Mr. John Benson, a name meaningless to me. The enameled calling card was from Richmond but had a Baltimore address written in a man's hand. Had someone wanted me to find the real Dupin? Had someone possessed a motive in seeing him brought to Baltimore to resolve Poe's death? Had I been chosen for this?

To say sooth, though, my hopes for elucidation were dim. It seemed to me likely that the ancient clerk, however well-meaning, may have simply mistaken this fellow as the man he had met so briefly two years ago.

I thought of the figures who'd seemed to creep from the shadows around me the night before. Prior to venturing outside on this day, I had secured a revolver that my father had kept in a box to bring on his business visits to the less cultivated countries that traded with Baltimore. I placed the weapon in the pocket of my coat and started for the address printed on Benson's card.

Walking through Baltimore Street, I saw, from a distance, Hattie standing in front of the sign for a fashionable store. I signaled her halfheartedly, not knowing if she would simply walk away without addressing me.

With great abruptness, she ran ahead and embraced me warmly. Though I thrilled at her affection, and the comfort of being close to her again, I imagined with true torment and anxiety that she would brush against the revolver in my coat and develop again the doubts about my behavior that had plagued her. She pulled back as quickly as she had reached for me, as though afraid of spying eyes.

"Dear Hattie," I said, "you do not abhor the very sight of me?"

"Oh, Quentin. I know that you have found new worlds for yourself, new experiences outside the ones we could have together."

"You do not understand who that was. She is a thief, a burglar! Please, I must make you understand. Let us talk together somewhere quiet."

I took her arm to lead her. She gently pulled away.

"It is far too late. I had only come to Glen Eliza that night to explain. I have told you things are quite different."

This could not be! "Hattie, I needed to follow what seemed right. But soon all will be returned to normal."

"Auntie wishes that I never say your name again, and has instructed all of our friends that they are never to mention our engagement with a single living breath."

"But surely Auntie Blum can be readily convinced…What she wrote in her note to me about you finding someone else…it is not true?"

Hattie gave a small nod. "I am to be married to another man, Quentin."

"It is not because of what you saw at Glen Eliza."

She shook her head no, her face motionless and ambivalent.

"Who?"

Here was my answer.

Peter stepped from inside the store where Hattie stood, counting out some coins given to him by the shop-girl. Seeing me, he turned away guiltily.

"Peter?" I cried. "No."

He let his gaze drift aimlessly. "Hello, Quentin."

"You are…engaged to marry Peter!" I moved forward and whispered to Hattie so that he could not hear. "Dear Miss Hattie, Hattie, just tell me one thing-are you happy? Just tell me."

She paused, then nodded brightly, putting out her hand to me.

"Quentin, let us all talk together," Peter said.

But I did not wait. I rushed forward, passing Peter without so much as touching my hat. I wished that both of them would disappear.

"Quentin! Please!" Peter called out. He followed me for a few feet, but he gave up when he saw I would not stop-or perhaps when he saw the anger that flashed in my eyes.

I almost forgot the gun hidden in my coat, considering the mortal weight of this new discovery. On my way to Mr. Benson's address, I passed through some of the finer, most well-appointed streets of Baltimore.

After explaining that I was a stranger with some brief business to discuss with the gentleman of the house, and apologizing for possessing no letter of introduction, I was ushered inside by a colored servant to a sofa in the parlor. The rooms were sparser than was the fashion of the day, with rather exotic paper of an Oriental flavor on the walls, the background for several small silhouettes; the only large portrait loomed behind the sofa, and at first it did not strike me as anything worth noticing.

I do not know, scientifically speaking, if one's senses can detect the eyes of a painting looking upon them, but as I waited for the master of the house, a curious sensation arose in me that made me crane my head. The position of the lamps threw a vivid light around the picture. I rose to my feet as the painted eyes met mine. The face was full, wearied but still alive with vivacity, as though from some idealistic past. The eyes, though…No, how foolish of me. It was an excitable spell at work from the strains of the last days. The shadowy face was older, the hair whiter, the chin thick, whereas his was gaunt and almost pointed. Yet the eyes! It was as though they had been transplanted from the dark orbs of the Phantom, the man whose image still invaded my mind at regular intervals, telling me not to meddle and having started, almost single-handedly, the quest that had taken me this far. I quickly shook away this unhealthy notion of recognition, yet remained in a bothered state. As I waited longer, I remembered how little faith I had in the use of the present visit, and felt the formal setting of the receiving room to be suffocating. I decided to leave my calling card and return to Glen Eliza.