The Man Who Was Poe

by Avi

  It would be easy, Dupin saw, for a horse and carriage to go down that alley and so come directly against the rear of the bank. Moreover, if one stood atop the carriage it would be just as easy to climb onto the bank’s roof.

  Dupin scanned the roof with meticulous care, searching for the opening of the air shaft which he knew rose from the vault. There, he saw it. No grown person could go down that narrow shaft.

  Ah, thought Dupin, but a child — just the idea of it made Dupin shudder — a child could be lowered down. That child could then have loaded gold, brick by brick, into a basket which would be hauled away. Then that same child could have been pulled up too. Nothing would be left.

  And yet — Dupin reminded himself — two things had been left. A button. And … Dupin’s fingers reached for the string. Not string, he told himself, but a bit of rope, rope used to lower the child down the shaft which was so much like a deep and narrow grave. Dupin shuddered again.

  * * *

  When Dupin reappeared on the street, Edmund was enormously relieved. But the closer Dupin drew to Mrs. Whitman’s house, the more slowly he walked. Edmund hung back. Sometimes Dupin stopped completely as if not sure whether to proceed. Once he did an about-face and started retracing his steps. That sent Edmund scurrying. The next moment, however, showing more determination than ever, the man strode purposefully to Mrs. Whitman’s. And once there, he passed down Church Street. Mr. Dupin had done, after all, what he said he would do.

  Edmund let out a sigh. He felt so much better, in fact, that he made up his mind to go after the information Mr. Dupin wanted about The Lady Liberty.

  But no sooner did he start to turn than the front door of Mrs. Whitman’s house opened. Out burst Catherine, the maid, a coat held about her head and shoulders. And she didn’t walk, but rather ran up the street.

  Watching her, Edmund remembered her hostility. He didn’t know the reason for it but hadn’t Mrs. Whitman herself warned him? Now, just as Mrs. Whitman was about to meet Mr. Dupin, Catherine was rushing from the house. Edmund felt it would be a good notion to see where she was going.

  Catherine hurried up the steep incline of the street called Jenkes. At the corner she turned and moved along Congdon Street. Then, just before Meeting Street, she darted into a large building.

  Curious, but cautious, Edmund studied the sign over its door.

  HOTEL AMERICAN HOUSE

  * * *

  Dupin stood before the rusty iron gate to the small cemetery. The old burial ground — crowded with gravestones and even a small mausoleum — had been cut from the side of the hill in the space between Mrs. Whitman’s house and the rear of a church. A large willow tree, trailing leafless branches, dripped tears of rain like a professional mourner on ground already soggy underfoot. Untrimmed bramble hedges rose on all sides, creating a compressed wilderness.

  Through the clinging mist Dupin examined the rear of the house. He wondered if Edmund had understood the message right, that he was to meet her in such a place. Not that he was displeased with the notion. He rather liked it. To speak of love amidst death and decay seemed correct, even proper for him. It fit his mood. His facts. His life.

  But should he or should he not propose to her?

  Dupin reminded himself that a marriage was a good idea, a necessary one. Normality. Stability. Money. Once again he vowed to move forward with the plan. Still, he wished he had a drink.

  Hands trembling, Dupin pushed the cemetery gate open. His boots squashed into the soft ground and made him wonder on whose bones he trod.

  He approached the mausoleum. It was no more than five feet in height, with columns around its central door, and looked like an ancient Roman temple.

  Dupin decided that if he stood at the mausoleum entrance it would create the impression that he was just emerging from it. The image — emerging from death — pleased him enormously. The perfect place for Mrs. Whitman to find him. Wasn’t that exactly what his love was?

  Dupin took another step toward the tomb. He stopped, astonished. The temple door was opening, a figure emerging. It was a woman. Her dress was dark, her hair long and fair, her face chalky white, ghost-like.

  Heart hammering, Dupin called, “Helen? Is that you?”

  The woman stood motionless. She seemed to be staring right at him. Into him.

  Dupin took another step forward. Suddenly he realized that it was not Mrs. Whitman but someone all his senses insisted was a person he had only recently seen.

  “My children,” the figure whispered hoarsely.

  Dupin’s blood ran cold.

  “Where are my children!”

  With a gasp, Dupin realized who was standing before him: the woman taken from the bay. The murdered woman.

  “What have you done with my children!” the woman cried again. She was creeping toward Dupin, reaching at him with long, pale fingers.

  “I don’t have them,” Dupin stammered, too horrified to move. “I don’t!”

  “Give them to me!” the woman pleaded, still advancing. Abruptly she stopped. Her eyes grew wide with terror. She seemed to be looking through Dupin, beyond him. With a scream she turned and fled into the fog and brambles.

  Dupin flung himself in the opposite direction, tripping over a fallen gravestone. Regaining his balance, he plunged forward wildly, only to be grasped by huge, powerful hands.

  “Help!” Dupin screamed. “Help!” Frantically, he twisted about to see who held him. It was Throck.

  EDMUND WAS STILL standing behind a hedge, the entrance of the Hotel American House, when Catherine came rushing out. This time a man was with her. Against the weather he wore a tall hat and a muffler which all but hid his great spread of whiskers. As Edmund looked on, the two hurried off the same way Catherine had come. Edmund tagged behind, keeping his distance.

  Suddenly, he realized who the man was. It was the one he’d seen trying on a coat at the clothier that morning, the very one Mr. Dupin claimed was Mr. Rachett, his stepfather! Astounded, Edmund stopped short, then came back to his senses just in time to see the two enter Mrs. Whitman’s house.

  Panting for breath, Edmund stood before the closed door trying to decide what action to take. He could steal back behind the house where, he assumed, Mr. Dupin was meeting Mrs. Whitman and tell Mr. Dupin about Mr. Rachett. Then he remembered the man’s words, that he must keep away. The last thing Edmund wanted to do was antagonize him again. No, news of Mr. Rachett would have to wait while he went in search of information about The Lady Liberty. Resolved, Edmund started off for the docks.

  But so preoccupied was the boy with thoughts of Mr. Rachett he never noticed that since he’d turned his back on the Hotel American House, he himself was being followed.

  * * *

  “Let me go!” Dupin gasped, trying to wrench free from Throck’s iron grip.

  “Here now,” the night watchman returned. “It’s you who ran into me!” All the same he took his hands from Dupin’s shoulders.

  Set free, Dupin instantly swung about, gazing with terrified eyes through the brambles and fog at the mausoleum. Whatever it was that he had seen had vanished. “Did you see anything?” he demanded of Throck.

  “What are you talking about?” the night watchman growled suspiciously.

  “There!” cried Dupin, pointing where he had seen the figure. “The ghost of a woman. Standing before the mausoleum. Demanding her children.”

  “I don’t see a thing.”

  “There was!”

  “You’re daft.”

  Dupin, legs shaking, walked back toward the mausoleum but stopped when he saw that its door was still open. He made a nervous half turn toward Throck. The night watchman stood a few feet behind, peering at Dupin with intense puzzlement.

  Dupin pushed himself forward again, edging closer to the tomb. “Is someone there?” he called nervously.

  All he heard was his own labored breathing and the monotonous dripping of the rain.

  Fighting against the terror he felt, Dupin climbed the step
s to the mausoleum and placed his hand on the door. The cold iron drove a spike of chill through him. Summoning what strength remained to him, he grasped the door handle and pulled.

  With a rasping, grating sound the door opened further. Dupin, leaning forward, attempted to look into the dark. The stench of decay brought a wave of nausea. It forced him to back out.

  Sweating profusely, he clung to the door frame and leaned forward. “Hello!” he called in a hoarse whisper. Only an echo answered.

  Gradually, his eyes grew accustomed to the dark. There on the floor he saw — long and narrow — what appeared to be a body.

  With a hammering heart, Dupin crept inside the mausoleum. As he did so his eyes remained fixed upon the form on the floor. Tentatively, he put his foot forward. There was a soft, crinkling sound. Steeling himself, he touched the object with shaking fingers. It was a straw mattress.

  As he bent to examine it, Dupin sensed that someone was in the doorway. With a start, he stood up and turned. Throck had followed him into the mausoleum.

  Dupin recalled the man as he’d first seen him at the docks, hovering over the dead woman. A feeling of dread engulfed him. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “You’re the odd one to be asking that,” Throck retorted dryly.

  “What do you mean?” Dupin said.

  Throck, his mouth fixed in a leer, took a step forward, his powerful form completely blocking the way. “I seen you in court this morning,” he said. “You were spying on me, weren’t you?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Two can play this game, can’t they?” Throck continued. “Well, this time, I followed you. Not that you knew it. And where do you go? Right to the Providence Bank. Where that robbery took place, wasn’t it? How’s that for detail?

  “Then off you go back down to Fox Point to be with that boy? That boy. Always that boy. Makes a man wonder. Makes me wonder. Are you his father? I says to myself. Then you come back — trailing that boy — and stop to take a gander at the back of that same bank. So, never mind what I’m doing here. What I’m asking you is this. What are you doing in this abandoned graveyard where no one ever comes?”

  Dupin attempted to draw himself up. “I am here … to meet someone,” he replied.

  “Far as I can see,” Throck sneered, “you and me, we’re alone. Saving the dead, of course, but then, they won’t help you none. Not now.”

  “I don’t care what you see,” Dupin cried. “I’m telling the truth!”

  “And what,” Throck said, coming further into the crypt, “what if I happen not to believe you?”

  Dupin looked for a way past him. As he did a figure loomed up behind the night watchman. The woman again.

  “There!” Dupin screamed, pointing and shrinking back. “There!”

  Throck spun around.

  “Is that you, Mr. Poe?” Mrs. Whitman asked.

  Pushing by Throck, Dupin stepped out of the mausoleum. Mrs. Whitman stood at the foot of the steps, gazing up, shawl over her shoulders to protect herself from the drizzle. For a moment she and Dupin simply looked at each other.

  Then Dupin, struggling to pull himself together, turned to Throck. “You see,” he said in a voice not altogether firm, “there is a woman.”

  Throck scrutinized Mrs. Whitman. “Is this man,” he asked, “some friend of yours?”

  “He is,” she replied.

  “And were you to meet him here?”

  “I was. Is something the matter?” she asked.

  “No, nothing,” Dupin quickly answered. “I think you may go,” he said to Throck.

  Throck began to speak, but saw Mrs. Whitman’s stern eyes upon him and changed his mind. Sullenly, he walked to the gate and out to the street. There he turned and leveled a finger at Dupin. “Don’t you forget. I’ll be watching,” he called. “Throck sees it through.”

  Dupin kept his eyes upon Throck until the night watchman lumbered out of sight. Then, leaning against the mausoleum door, he tried to calm himself.

  Mrs. Whitman watched him anxiously. “Mr. Poe,” she said, “what is happening? Why are you looking so ghastly? Who was that dreadful man? Why was he here? No one ever comes here.”

  “I can’t explain,” Dupin replied weakly.

  “You look as if you had seen a ghost.”

  Dupin started. “I have.”

  Mrs. Whitman stood a little straighter. “Mr. Poe,” she demanded in a shocked but urgent whisper, “have you been drinking?”

  Dupin shook his head.

  “Then what is it?”

  “I’m in dreadful pain,” he said, reaching out. “Great pain. Please, give me your hand.”

  “Mr. Poe …”

  “I have been so alone, so …”

  “Mr. Poe. It’s not wise for us to remain here. My mother has invited people for tea. They are gathering in the parlor at this very minute.”

  “Just a few moments,” Dupin begged. He was not sure he could walk even the short distance to the house. “Helen, my life has been miserable without you.”

  Mrs. Whitman took a step toward him, but stopped herself and glanced back over her shoulder. “Please,” she insisted. “We cannot remain here. I can’t have scandal.”

  Dupin sighed, closed his eyes and again held out a hand. “There is so much I need to tell you.”

  Mrs. Whitman began to reach toward him.

  “I sent you a note last night,” he said.

  Her hand halted. “I never received it,” she said.

  Dupin opened his eyes.

  “My mother intercepted it,” Mrs. Whitman explained. “But you mustn’t say anything about it. Now, please, Mr. Poe, take possession of yourself, and come with me into the house. And be warned: We will be surrounded by enemies.” So saying, she forced herself to turn about and walk up the path toward the rear door of the house.

  Dupin, pausing only to look wonderingly back at the mausoleum, followed.

  “WILL YOU BE all right?” Mrs. Whitman asked the moment they were inside.

  Dupin pressed trembling hands over his face, then withdrew them. “Helen, I love as I’ve never loved …”

  “I beg you,” she whispered urgently. “Not now. I will be missed. Follow me.”

  Dupin held her back. “You said they were enemies. I’m not sure I can. You don’t know how weak I am.”

  “You must. They are testing us and we are expected.” She reached up and gently touched his face. “Come,” she said softly. “If you believe in me. And us.”

  Sweating, almost overwhelmed by tension, Dupin followed her into the parlor. Five people were there, all dressed in black. All had teacups in their hands. All were talking genially. But when Dupin entered, conversation ceased.

  “May I present,” Mrs. Whitman announced, “Mr. Edgar Allan Poe.”

  Dupin made a slight bow but as he did a shock went through him. Every one of the women he saw had the face of the apparition in the tomb. Every man resembled Edmund. Yet even as he gazed at them, they shifted and blurred into a single death’s-head. Then one by one they changed again, each becoming some distinct spectral figure.

  Dupin knew then where he had come: He had descended into a gathering of demons, a masque of black death.

  “Mr. Poe,” Dupin heard Mrs. Whitman say as if at a great distance, “here is my mother, Mrs. Powers.” She indicated an elderly woman who from her chair acknowledged Dupin with a curt nod. Dupin saw only her arm, the same ghost-like arm he had seen taking his letter at the door the night before.

  “This is Dr. Dillard,” Mrs. Whitman continued, turning toward a plump man with very pink cheeks. He wore a clerical collar. “His orations at funerals are famous here in Providence.”

  “How do you do, sir,” Dr. Dillard said, his lips pressed into a tight smile.

  Dupin noted only a hideous, satanic grin.

  “And Mrs. Dillard,” Mrs. Whitman went on, referring to a tiny woman who sat by the minister’s side. She offered a nervous smile in Dupin’s direction.r />
  In her, Dupin saw Death’s consort.

  “And here is Mr. Arnold,” Mrs. Whitman said.

  When Dupin looked at the whiskered man he saw nothing but a figure gross with greed and lust.

  “A great pleasure to meet the celebrated Mr. Poe,” Arnold intoned boldly. “Mr. Poe of ‘The Raven,’ and ‘The Gold Bug.’ I am, sir, your literary admirer. You have informed me much about the darker passions.”

  Dupin managed a stiff smile. “Thank you, sir,” he said.

  “And finally,” Mrs. Whitman concluded, “Mr. McFarlane. Mr. McFarlane is one of our own Providence poets.”

  “But not so fortunate in glory or genius as the famous Mr. Poe,” said McFarlane, a bald, cheerful-looking man. Dupin took him for a devil.

  Introductions over, Dupin felt them all staring at him with venomous eyes.

  “Catherine,” Mrs. Whitman called anxiously. “Some tea for Mr. Poe.”

  Arnold approached Dupin, offered his hand, and said, “I have long wanted to meet you, sir.”

  Dupin turned, wondering what torture this monstrous creature had prepared for him.

  “I have read much of your work,” Arnold continued, his voice growing loud as he warmed to his inquiry, “and I have always wondered how you came up with your ideas. That is to say, Mr. Poe, your tales have the most fantastical notions. All these stories of crime, brutality, death …” Arnold shifted about to catch Mrs. Powers’s eye. “Do these things,” he said, turning back to Dupin, “come from within you, sir? Why so much concern with evil?”

  Dupin was reminded of the fright he’d just experienced in the cemetery, and wondered what this beast might have to do with it.

  “Or perhaps,” Arnold pressed when Dupin did not answer, “the question upsets you?”

  “No,” Dupin forced himself to say. “Not so.”

  “Please,” Arnold urged. “I wish you would explain.”