The Man Who Was Poe

by Avi

  Suddenly eager to tell Mr. Dupin what had happened, that — slight as his evidence was, he had after all learned something of Mr. Fortnoy — Edmund set off toward Mrs. Whitman’s house.

  EDMUND STAMPED HIS feet, hoped it wouldn’t rain again, and wondered what Mr. Dupin was doing inside Mrs. Whitman’s house. Whatever it was, Edmund was sure the man was warmer than he was.

  Thinking he could knock on the back door and ask Cook to allow him into the warm kitchen, Edmund started down the narrow side street. There he came upon the cemetery. It was the place, he remembered, where Mr. Dupin was to have met Mrs. Whitman.

  Though it was difficult to see — the only light came from candles in the windows of the house — Edmund stood, one hand on the gate, and peered into the graveyard. It didn’t seem a suitable place for a meeting. But as he looked he gradually became aware of some kind of shimmering whiteness among the tombstones and brambles.

  Puzzled, he finally realized it was a kneeling figure. For a moment Edmund believed that the person was digging, as if about to bury something. But he decided that was absurd. The person must be praying.

  Not wanting to intrude, Edmund backed away. As he did the gate clinked. The noise caused the figure to jump up and stare in Edmund’s direction.

  At first the man — so blond that his hair seemed to be almost white — seemed startled to see Edmund. But the next moment he offered a cheerful look and a ready smile. “Hello,” he said.

  “I’m sorry to have bothered you,” Edmund offered.

  “Doesn’t matter,” the man said, approaching the gate. “I was finished.”

  “I’m just waiting for someone,” Edmund explained.

  The man’s smile vanished. “Someone here?” he asked.

  “In the house.”

  The man glanced at the building. Even as he did, the rear door opened and a knife of light cut across the cemetery.

  “I must be going,” the man said hastily. He pushed by Edmund and started up the hill, moving with such abruptness that a little book he’d been holding behind his back fell from his hand.

  Edmund hurried to pick it up. When he did he saw that its cover was embossed with the words:

  FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH

  “You dropped your prayer book!” Edmund called. The man, however, continued to hurry away.

  Edmund was about to run after him when he looked toward Mrs. Whitman’s house. Mr. Dupin had just emerged and was staring fixedly into the cemetery.

  For a while Edmund watched the man closely, even followed his gaze. But when he saw nothing to warrant such rapt attention he called, “Mr. Dupin?”

  Without replying or even acknowledging Edmund’s presence, Dupin continued to stare.

  “Mr. Dupin,” Edmund said, drawing closer, “when I was at the dock I …”

  Dupin cut him short. “Look over there,” he said, pointing.

  Edmund looked.

  “What do you see?” Dupin demanded.

  “The mausoleum.”

  “Edmund,” Dupin said after a moment, “I want you to go inside it.”

  “Why?”

  “You must tell me what you see.”

  “What’s there?”

  “Do as I say!” Dupin cried.

  Suddenly anxious, Edmund stuffed the little prayer book into a pocket and made his way along the path to the mausoleum. At the steps he stopped and looked back. Mr. Dupin, watching intently, waved him on. Edmund went up the steps. Reaching the entrance, he halted and strained to see inside. The crypt was dank and dark and appeared to be empty.

  Relieved, Edmund called back, “There’s nothing here.”

  “Inside,” Dupin insisted.

  Edmund, feeling increasingly frustrated but wanting to placate Mr. Dupin so he could tell him about the wharf, took a step beyond the threshold. Still he saw nothing. He returned to the door.

  “Anything?” Dupin asked.

  Edmund shook his head.

  “There has to be something.”

  “Mr. Dupin …”

  “On the floor,” Dupin suggested, “a mattress?”

  “Nothing,” Edmund assured him.

  Dupin, his face broken by shadows, continued to stare at the mausoleum. Edmund came back to him. The light from the house revealed how haggard Mr. Dupin had become; his mouth was drawn, his brow furrowed, his eyes bloodshot.

  “What is it?” Edmund asked.

  When Dupin spoke he said, “I believe I have gone mad.”

  “What?” Edmund said.

  “If it is a madness to see ghosts then … I am mad.”

  “What do you mean, ghosts? Whose ghost?”

  Dupin looked at Edmund in such a way that the boy was seized with fright. “Is it my aunty’s?” he asked in a hushed whisper. “My sister’s?”

  “The story is over,” Dupin announced. “Done.” Then, as though coming back to life, he suddenly wheeled about, pushed past Edmund, and started down the hill.

  Edmund called out, “Where are you going?”

  “I must have a daguerreotype made,” Dupin answered without pausing.

  “Mr. Dupin!”

  Dupin stopped and looked back.

  “My sister isn’t dead,” Edmund insisted. “She isn’t!”

  “You are perfectly free to believe what you want,” Dupin replied and once more turned down the hill.

  Edmund ran after him. Though he raged, shouted, even pulled at Dupin’s coat to detain him from going, the man refused to stop. He continued to march on, saying not a word as he reached the bottom of the hill, crossed the Providence River to the business section, and made his way up Weybosset Street.

  Half a dozen times during this rapid walk Edmund came to a stop, determined to let Mr. Dupin go on. Each time, however, after watching Dupin disappear around a corner, he followed again. It was as if, by losing sight of him, Edmund would in some fashion acknowledge the truth of what Dupin had implied about his sister. He could not do it.

  Dupin paused before the Providence Arcade. “I’m going in here,” Dupin announced.

  Edmund gazed at the huge stone columns looming over his head. “What for?” he asked, close to exhaustion.

  “I’m in need of a portrait.”

  After checking a registry in the Arcade’s central section, Dupin climbed two flights. Not understanding what the man was doing or why, but afraid that if he lost him it would be forever, Edmund kept a step behind.

  On the top level Dupin went into a shop which bore the sign:

  MASURY AND HARTSHORN STUDIO DAGUERREOTYPES

  Inside, Edmund saw ferns, dark curtains, a large candelabra with none of its candles lit. Against one wall was a chair on a platform, and opposite, a big wooden box with a tube sticking out of it. The tube was pointed at the chair. Behind this machine was a wall covered with small portraits.

  As soon as they entered the studio a formally dressed man, red-faced and with a large mustache, scurried out from a back room. “‘How do you do, sir,” he said with a stiff bow. “I am Mr. Masury.”

  “I should like a portrait made,” Dupin said.

  “At your pleasure,” Masury returned. “It will cost only a dollar.”

  Dupin paid and, after handing Edmund his greatcoat, allowed himself to be directed by Masury to the chair on the platform. There he took a seat and adjusted his cravat, making sure the top button of his jacket was open, while he buttoned the second.

  “Very good,” Masury said. “If you are thoroughly composed I shall make sure the plate is ready.” He ducked behind the rear curtains.

  Edmund took a seat off to the side, glad for the rest.

  Masury returned and placed what looked like a thin box into the rear of the wooden machine. That done he hastened to light all the candles. They made the room as bright as day.

  “Now, sir,” he said to Dupin — by this time he was standing at the side of the box — “look this way. It will be necessary to hold still for an entire minute. If I may suggest it, set your gaze right over my
shoulder. At these portraits, if you will. Are you ready, sir?”

  “I am,” Dupin replied, taking a breath.

  “Eyes forward then,” Masury called. “Ready, start!”

  Dupin froze. He was, as Masury had told him to do, staring right at the portraits on the opposite wall.

  As the count of seconds progressed Edmund saw Mr. Dupin grow pale. The man’s hands clutched with tension. Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead. A look of undisguised horror came into his eyes.

  Masury, unperturbed, monotonously continued counting. “Fifty-one, fifty two, fifty-three … Done!” he cried.

  At the word Dupin leaped from the chair, took three steps across the floor, and pointed to one of the portraits on the wall.

  “When was this made?” he cried.

  Masury was so startled by the force of the question that he almost dropped the box he had removed from the machine. “I must put this in the mercuralizer,” he explained, “or the image will be lost.”

  Dupin reached out, grabbed the man’s shoulder, and forced him to look. “When was this made?” he demanded a second time, jabbing a finger at a small portrait on the wall.

  Thoroughly frightened, the man peered at the picture. “Why … months ago,” he sputtered, then broke free of Dupin’s grip and hurried behind the curtain as if his life depended upon it.

  Dupin now turned on Edmund. “When did you come to Providence with your aunt?” he cried.

  Edmund was too terrified to reply.

  “Answer me!” Dupin shouted.

  “A month ago,” Edmund got out, shrinking back.

  “Then who is this?” Dupin insisted, snatching at the boy with one hand, pointing toward the portrait with the other. “Who is it?”

  Ready to bolt if Dupin became more violent, Edmund crept a step closer.

  “Tell me!” Dupin shouted in a rage of impatience.

  Edmund, trying to understand what Mr. Dupin was getting at, squinted at the picture. Suddenly he felt faint. “Why,” he stammered, “it’s my mother.”

  Dupin dropped his arm. “Your mother?” he cried. “I thought it was your aunt.”

  Edmund kept staring at the portrait. “It is my mother,” he said, finding it difficult to speak. “I know it is.”

  “But she looks exactly like your aunt,” Dupin protested.

  Edmund couldn’t take his eyes from the image. “Not exactly. But they are twins.”

  “Twins?” Dupin gasped in a shocked whisper.

  “Like Sis and me. I told you we were.”

  The whiteness of Dupin’s face gave way to redness. “My God!” he cried. “Twins!”

  “What’s the matter with that?” Edmund demanded indignantly, unable to cope with yet another shift in the man.

  At that moment Masury came out of the back room. “A few more minutes and it will be ready,” he announced cheerfully.

  “I can’t wait,” Dupin shouted. “I’ll be back.” Grabbing Edmund’s hand, he rushed out the door.

  “Your name, sir!” called Masury, following. “Your name!”

  Dupin paused only long enough to call, “Poe! Mr. Edgar Allan Poe!” And down the steps he fled.

  No matter how Edmund tried to make Dupin explain what he was doing — even what he meant by giving a different name — Dupin would not listen. Instead, he rushed back to the cemetery behind Mrs. Whitman’s house. There, before the gate, he stopped.

  “Now Edmund,” he announced, struggling for breath, “we must look everywhere.”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know,” Dupin returned. “Something. Anything. It will be her. It must be! It has to be!”

  Edmund gazed at him, baffled. Not that Dupin waited. He pushed through the gate and began to search wildly about the grounds. After a moment he looked back at Edmund. “Are you going to help or not?”

  Though he had no idea what it was that he was supposed to find, Edmund started to search too.

  Suddenly Dupin bent over. “Straw!” he cried out. “Straw from the mattress! Someone has removed and scattered it!” Immediately he turned to the mausoleum, went up the steps, pulled open the door, and stood looking in. Gingerly, Edmund followed.

  “On your knees,” Dupin commanded. “Feel around.” Again Edmund held back. “Do it!” Dupin shouted at him as he himself crouched down on hands and knees. “Every inch.”

  In moments Dupin gave a triumphant cry. “There!” he shouted, picking up something and hurrying again to the doorway.

  “What is it?” Edmund said behind him.

  “Look!” Dupin said and thrust out his hand. In his palm lay a white button.

  “MY SISTER’S!” EDMUND cried.

  “Exactly,” Dupin said. “Now come. We are done here.”

  As they hurried down Benefit Street toward the Fox Point district Edmund could hardly contain his excitement. “Mr. Dupin,” he kept asking, “was my sister there?”

  Dupin said nothing.

  “Was she?”

  Silence.

  Edmund stopped short. He could bear it no longer. “Talk to me!” he shouted. “Tell me what you know!”

  Dupin paused to look back where the boy was standing stubbornly. “Edmund, I am trying to think!”

  “But it must have meant something. How did you know to look there?”

  “It suggests but one thing: until very recently your sister was alive.”

  Edmund’s breath felt sucked away. “Isn’t she alive now?” he whispered.

  Instead of answering, Dupin turned and continued on.

  Edmund raced after him. “Is she?” he shouted, clutching hold of Dupin’s arm.

  Dupin jerked himself free and kept walking.

  Something inside of Edmund broke. With a burst of rage he leaped in front of Dupin, preventing him from moving. “What did that daguerreotype tell you?” he cried. “I don’t understand anything you say to me! You treat me well and then you speak and do awful things. I don’t even know who you are or what your name is.” He was screaming now, unable to stop the torrent of words and tears his anger spewed out.

  “You drink so I can’t tell whether to believe you or not. All I want is my sister and mother to be alive with me. Why do you keep scaring me? Why do you keep changing?” Spent, trembling, Edmund leaned against a building, pressed his burning face into his arms, and sobbed.

  Dupin swore under his breath, then clumsily attempted to turn the boy from the wall.

  Edmund shrugged him off. “Just tell me what you know,” he sobbed.

  “No matter how bad?”

  Edmund pushed himself from the wall, wiped his face, and gazed at Dupin searchingly. “Is … is it bad?”

  “I don’t know,” Dupin admitted. “Your aunt was murdered. I had believed your mother was too. And your sister as well.”

  “All three?” Edmund said, aghast.

  “But what that daguerreotype told me was that your mother and your aunt were twins and looked alike.”

  “I don’t think they do,” a sniffling Edmund said.

  “Do you recall what you said last night when you saw the body?”

  Edmund shook his head.

  “You said, ‘It’s not her dress.’ Edmund, I am no longer sure if that murdered woman was your aunt or your mother. What I do know is that one of them is alive.”

  “One of them?” Edmund cried, hardly able to speak.

  “I have seen her.”

  “Where? When?” Edmund cried. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Today … in the court. In the cemetery. Do they both have fair hair? A little shorter than I? Slender? Thin face?”

  Edmund nodded to it all.

  “I saw one of them.”

  “And my sister …?”

  “Did you do as I told you?” Dupin said by way of an answer. “Did you find out about that ship, The Lady Liberty?”

  “Yes. But my sister …”

  “And am I correct in believing there is no such ship, that all of that is a profound lie?�
��

  Edmund shook his head. “Captain Elias said there is a Lady Liberty. From Nova Scotia, Halifax. She carries fish. Mr. Davis is her master. And that Mr. Fortnoy you spoke about, he’s her watchman when she’s in port. He’d been on her three days with no way to get off. Only when he was coming ashore did he find … that body.”

  Dupin stared at him. “Are you sure? Three days?”

  “Captain Elias went to relieve him of his watch. Why did you need to know? And what does it have to do with Sis? Where is the woman you saw?” Edmund demanded.

  Dupin, lost in thought, said nothing.

  “Tell me!”

  “I believed,” Dupin replied, “there would be no such boat.” So saying, he began to walk slowly away.

  Edmund called out, “I was going to tell you something else.”

  Dupin stopped. “What is it?” he said in a gloomy, sulky voice.

  Edmund told him about the man who had followed him at the docks and what he had done about it.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Dupin asked.

  “You’re just interested in your own thoughts.”

  “Nonsense! Did you see who the man was?” Dupin asked.

  “Only that he had white hair. Do you think it was Mr. Fortnoy?”

  “Edmund, are you absolutely positive your man said there’s a ship called The Lady Liberty and that Fortnoy was on her for three days?”

  “I don’t lie,” Edmund said.

  Dupin let out his breath. “I need a drink,” he said, and began walking again.

  “Tell me more about the woman you saw!” Edmund screamed at him.

  When Dupin kept walking Edmund ran after him. “Mr. Dupin, we have to find Sis.”

  “I work better with drink,” Dupin murmured.

  “When you drink you act badly.”

  Dupin swung about in anger. “Edmund,” he cried, “lead me to a place where I can drink!”

  “Tell me about the woman you saw!”

  For a moment the two confronted each other, gazing into one another’s eyes. Edmund saw a terrible sadness there. “Who are you?” he asked. “What is your real name?”

  “Poe. Edgar Allan Poe.”

  “Why is it a secret?”