But upon hearing someone coming, I halted.

Slow steps led down the stairway, and from around its bend Mr. Benson appeared.

I gasped. "The Phantom!"

There he stood. The singular man who so many months earlier had warned me away from the case of Poe. A younger version of the eyes on the wall behind me. The man who had seemed to dissolve himself into smoke and mist as I pursued his shadows through the street. Without thinking about it, without considering what I might do next, my hand plunged into the pocket of my coat and my fingers found the handle of my revolver.

"What's that?" he asked, turning one ear toward me doubtfully. "Fenton, do you say? Benson, sir. John Benson…"

I imagined myself pointing the gun at his mouth. That, after all, was the mouth that provoked me to investigate Poe, that had led to all this, to all these decisions, to the neglect of my friends, to Hattie and Peter's irreversible betrayal of me!

"No, not Fenton." I do not know what perverse urge led me to correct a man into knowing he was my long-sought foe. I clenched my teeth around the word: "Phantom."

He studied me carefully, lifting a finger to his lips in thoughtful contemplation of my reply. "Ah." Then, raising his eyes in the operation of remembering some lines, he recited:

"Mr. Clark, isn't it? This is a surprise."

"Why did you give me that article? Did you want me to find him? What sort of madman-Was this some sort of plan all along?" I demanded.

"Mr. Clark, I confess confusion," answered John Benson. "If I may ask a question in return, what brings you here?"

"You warned me not to meddle in the business of Poe's death. You cannot deny it, sir!"

Benson leaned back with a sad grin. "May I suppose from your manner that you did not listen to me?"

"I demand you explain!"

"Happily. But first…" He extended his hand. Hesitating for a moment at the gesture, I removed my hand from its pocket, yielding the ready grip on the revolver, and watched his hand as though he might throttle me. "Pleased to properly make your acquaintance, Mr. Clark. I'll certainly explain how you came to my personal attention. But tell me something I had been wondering at the very time we first met: what is your interest in Edgar Poe?"

"To protect his name from the vermin and false friends," I replied, looking him over suspiciously for a reaction.

"Then we did indeed have some common interest, Mr. Clark. When we spoke that day near Saratoga Street, I was visiting Baltimore. I live in Virginia, you see. In Richmond I am an officer of the Sons of Temperance. Edgar Poe was visiting Richmond that summer, as you may know, and had met some of our members at the Swan Inn, where he was lodging, including a Mr. Tyler, who invited the writer to tea."

I thought of the clipping from the Raleigh newspaper describing Poe joining the temperance men. We mention the fact, conceiving that it will be gratifying to the friends of temperance to know that a gentleman of Mr. Poe's fine talents and rare attainments has been enlisted in the cause. That was only a month and three days before he'd turn up in distress at Ryan's.

"Mr. Poe took our pledge never to sip the juice again. He stepped up to the desk and attached his signature with unusual firmness. He was the newest son, and one we took pride in among our ‘children.' There were those who were skeptical. I was not among them. I heard that after the vigilance committee secretly followed him for a few days in Richmond, they found him honest to his word. Not long after Mr. Poe's departure from Richmond late the next month, we were shocked to hear of his death at a hospital here, and more shocked to read that it was the result of a spree he commenced on reaching this city. We of the temperance order tried to reach the facts from Richmond, and the consensus had been he was not drinking. But we were too far from the facts to try to change the public opinion.

"Being as I was only a few years younger than Poe, and had met him on occasion and had greatly admired his writing, our council suggested that I travel here to inquire after the circumstances of what happened to him. You see, I was born in Baltimore, and lived here until I was twenty-one, so it was thought I would have the better chance of discovering what had happened than any other of our members. I was determined to make a careful investigation, and bring back the truth about Poe's death to Richmond."

"What did you find, Mr. Benson?"

"First, I spoke to the doctor at the hospital where I heard Poe had died."

"John Moran?"

"Yes-Moran." Benson looked me over, perhaps a bit impressed by my knowledge. "Dr. Moran admitted that he could not say that Poe had been drinking, but that Poe was in such an agitated and insensible state Moran could not prove that he was not."

It was the same comment I had heard Moran say, which made me trust Benson's account more. "When did you make this visit, Mr. Benson?"

"A week after Poe's death, perhaps."

It began to settle upon me that this man, the devious Phantom of months past, had entered the mystery even before I had.

"The newspapers," he sighed. "The way they cut up Poe. Those fictions they were printing! The temperance unions here and in New York were keen on using him up. You have seen the articles, perhaps. As though to defeat a dead man to teach a lesson was a triumph. Well, Mr. Clark, believing that Poe was innocent, and knowing his genius, I felt rather-"

"Enraged," I completed his thought.

He nodded. "I am by habit a man of calm and reserve, but yes: I was enraged. I left word in many quarters that I wished to discover the details of Poe's final days as corroboration that he had held his pledge to the Sons of Temperance. It happened, while doing some researches, that I overheard you one afternoon, in the athenaeum, request the reading room clerk to reserve for you all articles about Poe's death. I presumed you were among those taking pleasure in reading these venomous reports of Poe's supposed demoralization and sin. I asked the clerk your name, and I learned from others that you were a local lawyer, gifted with a bright mind but known to be under the thumb of people more assertive than yourself. And that you had represented some local periodicals before. I suspected, at that point, that you were engaged by the Baltimore temperance press, who wished to portray Poe as a drunkard as a moral lesson against drinking. I imagined that perhaps you had been paid by them to counter my own mission and to disrupt the aim of the Richmond Sons of Temperance. And so, when I observed you on a different day coming toward the athenaeum, I proffered to you a caution not to meddle in it."

"You thought I was part of the ruin of Poe's name?" I asked, astounded.

"It seemed at the time I was the only one who was not, Mr. Clark! Do you know what that feels like? I tried to visit the offices of the editors of some of the city's newspapers. They would not hear of correcting the misleading information they were printing. I compiled a selection of positive extracts and articles on Poe from years past-praising him, praising his writings-and handed these to the editors to try to persuade them that the late Mr. Poe deserved more honor. Some of these articles I left in the care of the athenaeum clerk for you, as well, with the same purpose. I believe this is one of the articles you referred to earlier."