Poe shadow (31 page)

“I am quite well here, miss, thank you, only looking out at these dreadful rain clouds,” I said in my loud voice, and then quietly: “Auguste Duponte imitates no man. He shall resolve this in a manner deserving of Monsieur Poe. He can help you, too, if you wish, more than that thief, mademoiselle, your so-called husband and master.”

Bonjour, forgetting the necessities of her charade, slammed the door closed. “I think not!
Duponte
is a thief of true measure, Monsieur Clark—he steals people’s thoughts, their faults. The Baron is a great man because he is himself in all things. The most freedom I can have is by being with him.”

“You believe that by ensuring the Baron’s victory here you will have repaid the debt you owe him for releasing you from prison, and will be free from this marriage he has compelled.”

Bonjour threw her head back in amusement. “Well! You are firing into the wrong flock. I’d suggest you not judge me by mathematical analysis. You are becoming too much like your companion.”

“Monsieur Clark!” Duponte called hoarsely from the study.

I shifted my weight anxiously from one foot to the other.

Bonjour moved closer and studied me. “You do not have a wife, Monsieur Clark?”

My thoughts darkened. “I will,” I replied without confidence. “And I will treat her well and ensure our mutual happiness.”

“Monsieur, the French girl possesses no freedom. In America a girl is free and honored for her independence until she is married. In France, the tables are turned. She is only free once she marries—and then with a freedom never to be imagined. A wife can even have as many lovers as her husband.”

“Mademoiselle!”

“Sometimes, a man in Paris is far more jealous of his mistress than his wife, and a woman more true to her lover than her husband.”

“But why remain a thief for him, mademoiselle?”

“In Paris you must get what you want from others by hook or crook, or others will get what they want from you first.” She paused. “Your master is calling, monsieur.”

I started for the door. Bonjour lingered a moment before stepping aside with a mocking curtsy. As I re-entered the study, Duponte said, “Monsieur, here is the note that perhaps tells us more than anything else, the one you heard read in part at the harbor. Write
every word and every comma
in your memorandum book. And quickly: I believe I hear the wheels of another carriage coming up the path. Write then: ‘Dear Sir, There is a gentleman, rather the worse for wear, at Ryan’s…’”

Upon the completion of our transcriptions, Bonjour led us downstairs rapidly.

“There is a back entrance?” I whispered.

“Dr. Snodgrass is just in the carriage house.” We all turned around. It was the downstairs girl, who had appeared among us suddenly. “The Duke shan’t leave now?”

“I’m afraid my schedule has become conflicted,” said Duponte. “I shall have to see Dr. Snodgrass another time.”

“I shall be certain to tell him you were here, then,” she replied dryly, “
and
sitting in his study
alone
among his private things for nearly half of an hour.”

Duponte and I froze at this warning, and I glanced over questioningly at Bonjour, who would no doubt be implicated as well.

Bonjour stared at her fellow domestic almost dreamily. When I turned back to Duponte, I saw he had entered into a private conversation with the Irish girl, whispering somberly to her. At the end of his comments, she nodded slightly, a faint crimson blush splashed on her cheeks.

“The other door, then?” I asked, noticing that she and Duponte seemed to have reached some accord.

“This way,” said the maid, motioning to us. We crossed through the rear hall even as we could hear the boots of Dr. Snodgrass on the steps to the street door. As we climbed down to the pathway, Duponte turned back and touched his hat to the two ladies in farewell. “Bonjour,” he said.

“Monsieur, how did you persuade the doctor’s chambermaid to cooperate so Bonjour would not be caught?” I asked as we walked up the street.

“First, you are on the wrong scent. It was not for Bonjour’s sake, as you assume. Second, I explained to the chambermaid that, in all honesty, we were not in fact leaving for another appointment.”

“Indeed? You told her the truth then,” I said with surprise.

“I explained that her interest, or infatuation, with you was highly inappropriate, and I wished to leave discreetly and quietly before her employer returned and might notice it first-hand.”

“Infatuation with me?”
I repeated. “Wherever did such an idea come from, monsieur? Had she said something I did not hear?”

“No, but she certainly contemplated it upon my mention and, thinking something must have shown to that effect in her expression, she
thought
it must indeed be true. She will remain quiet about our visit, I assure you.”

“Monsieur Duponte! I cannot begin to understand this tactic!”

“You are the model of the handsome young man,” he replied, then added, “at least by Baltimore standards. That you are hardly aware of it only allows it to enter more decidedly in the eyes of a young female. Certainly the chambermaid noted this upon our entrance; indeed, her eyes flitted, as it were, immediately. Even if she did not consider it directly—until I mentioned it.”

“Monsieur, still—”

“No more talk of this, Monsieur Clark. We must continue our work in relation to Dr. Snodgrass.”

“But what do you mean by ‘it was not for Bonjour’s sake’?”

“Bonjour hardly needs our assistance, nor would she hesitate to cross us for her purposes when given the opportunity. You would be especially wise to remember this. It was for the sake of the other girl I did that.”

“How do you mean?”

“If the chambermaid had attempted to allege misconduct against Bonjour, I do not suppose the poor girl would have fared well against mademoiselle. Certainly, it is wise to save lives whenever you can.”

I reflected a moment on my naïve understanding of the situation.

“Where shall we go next, monsieur?”

He gestured to my memorandum book. “To read, of course.”

Meanwhile, a new obstacle awaited us. While we had been occupied, my great-aunt had arrived at Glen Eliza. Her purpose here was no mystery: word had reached her of my return to Baltimore and she came to see why I had not yet been married after my notorious lapse. She had a long fellowship with Hattie Blum’s aunt (a conspiracy of these creatures!) and would have heard the odd bits of half-truth that the other woman had collected about my goings-on.

Nearly two hours passed after we returned home before I learned of her presence. After our endeavors at the Snodgrass home, we had adjourned to the athenaeum to match some of the records we had discovered with articles from the press. We continued on at Glen Eliza in fastidious conversation regarding our various discoveries made there. Because Duponte and I were organizing the intelligence we had gathered at the Snodgrass house, I gave firm orders that we were not to be interrupted. The table in the library had grown thick with newspapers, lists, and notes, and therefore we remained in the massive drawing room, which stretched out over half of the second floor of the house. At length, around twilight, I went to the other side of the house to consult something, but was stopped by Daphne, my best chambermaid.

“You must not go inside, sir,” she said.

“Not go in my library? But why?”

“Ma’am insists she must not be disturbed, sir.”

I obediently released the handle of the door. “Ma’am? What ‘ma’am’?”

“Your aunt. She arrived with her bags at Glen Eliza while you were out, sir. She has been exhausted by her trip, as it was frightfully cold and her baggage nearly lost by the railroad men.”

I was confounded. “I have been sitting in the drawing room without knowing this. Why have you not told me?”

“You declared in great hurryment you must not be disturbed even before stepping through the street door, didn’t you, sir!”

“I must greet her properly,” I said, straightening my neck-cloth and smoothing my vest.

“Well, go about it quietly—she needs strict quiet to cure her sick-headache to which she is subject, sir. I’m sure she was quite displeased at the other disturbance.”

“Daphne, the other disturbance?” I then remembered that, not more than an hour earlier, Duponte had retrieved a book he had remembered was in the library. Surely my faithful maid had instituted my great-aunt’s domineering orders against Duponte as well?

“The gentleman would not heed my words! He went right in….” Daphne explained with heated disapproval and a fresh revival of her Duponte misgivings.

I thought about Duponte and Auntie Blum’s encounter some weeks earlier, and imagining my great-aunt’s reaction to any similar conversation made my own head throb. I now thought better of my desire to greet her—especially given the humor any woman of her advanced age was likely in, between the delayed train and Monsieur Duponte. I returned to the drawing room. Great-Aunt’s presence would be no small disruption. Indeed, I could not guess the influence that elder relation would ultimately have over all this.

The next vivid memory I possess of that evening was when I stirred awake. I had fallen into an uncomfortable sleep on one of the drawing room’s long sofas. The papers I had been reviewing had scattered on the carpet below. It was an hour or so past nightfall and Glen Eliza was eerie with silence. Duponte, it seemed, had retired to the third floor to his chambers. A loud bump jolted me to a greater state of consciousness. The wind was blowing through the long curtains, and a feeling of great anxiety flitted inside my stomach.

The corridors on this side of the house were deserted. Remembering my great-aunt, I ascended the winding stairs and crept past the chambers where she would have been placed by the servants, but found the door open and the bedclothes undisturbed. Walking back down directly to the library, I quietly pushed open the doors to the dimly lighted room.

“Great-Auntie Clark,” I said softly, “I hope you are not still awake after such a difficult day.”

The room was unoccupied—but not undisturbed. It was all but ransacked, papers overturned and books scattered around the room. No trace of the old woman was to be seen. In the corridor, I saw a darkly cloaked figure race past at a strong pace. I gave chase to the figure’s shadow through the long halls of Glen Eliza. The figure dove through an open window near the kitchen on the first floor and ran toward a trail in the wooded area behind the house.

“Burglary!” I cried. “Auntie,” I gasped to myself in sudden dread.

Following the little glen that ran along the house toward the gravel street, the burglar slowed to decide which way to run, leaving himself entirely vulnerable. I pounced, and wrestled him down with a giant leap and a groan.

“You shall not get away!” I yelled.

We fell together into a heap and I turned his body to face me, locking his wrist in my hand and struggling to throw off the hood of his velvet cloak. But this was no man.

“You? How? What have you done with Great-Auntie Clark?” I demanded. Then I realized my own stupidity. “It was you the whole time, mademoiselle? My aunt hasn’t come?”

“If you wrote more frequently, perhaps she would,” Bonjour scolded me. “I daresay there is reading in your library far more interesting dredged up by your master Duponte than in all your Monsieur Poe’s tales.”

“We saw you still at the Snodgrass house upon our departure!” Then I recalled our stop at the athenaeum.

“I was faster. That is your flaw—you hesitate always. Do not be angry, Monsieur Quentin. We are now even. You and your master wished to be in my territory in the Snodgrasses, and now I have entered yours. This is familiar, too.” She writhed a bit under my grip, as I had done at the Paris fortifications in opposite positions. The velvet of her cloak and the silk of her dress rustled against my shirt.

I quickly released my grip. “You knew I could not send for the police. Why did you run then?”

“I like to see you run. You are not half slow, you know, monsieur, without a proper hat to hinder you.” She passed her hand playfully through my hair.

My heart wild with bewilderment, I jumped up from our entangled position on the ground.

“Heavens!” I cried, looking ahead at the street.

“Is that all?” Bonjour laughed.

There was a small conveyance lurking on the hilly side of the street. Hattie stood calmly in front of it. I did not know when she had arrived, and could not imagine what she thought she saw before her.

“Quentin,” she said, taking a cautious step forward. Her voice was unsteady. “I asked one of the stablemen to drive me. I have managed to get away from my house a few times but, until now, have not found you at home.”

“I have been away much,” I replied dumbly.

“I thought nightfall would provide us privacy to meet.” She glanced at Bonjour, who lingered on the cold grass before hopping up. “Quentin? Who is this?”

“This is Bon—” I stopped myself, realizing her name would sound like a queer invention on my part. “A visitor from Paris.”

“You met this young lady in Paris, and now she has come to call on you?”