The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl

Author:Matthew Pearl
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2005-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

Dear Sir,—There is a gentleman, rather the worse for wear, at Ryan’s 4th Ward polls, who goes under the cognomen of Edgar A. Poe, and who appears in great distress, & he says he is acquainted with you, and I assure you, he is in need of immediate assistance.

♦

A LOCAL PRINTER named Walker had signed this note in an urgent scrawl that had almost sent the pencil through the coarse paper. It was dated 3 October 1849 and addressed to Dr. Joseph Snodgrass, who lived close to Ryan’s, which on that election day when Poe was found also served as a polling place for the Congressional and state election.

A few days after Duponte and I occupied the study of Dr. Snodgrass, and Hattie stood dazed as I lay entangled with another woman, the Baron Dupin called on Snodgrass again.

I had been watching the Baron when he suddenly idled at a corner of Baltimore Street as though he had forgotten that he had any cares in the world. I was across the street, remaining inconspicuous among the crowds of people heading to hotels and restaurants for supper and the high baskets balanced on the heads of laborers and slaves. After a seemingly unending time waiting for the Baron to do something, I was distracted by the rumble of a carriage that swerved suddenly to the side near me.

From inside the carriage, I heard a voice:

“What are you doing? Driver! Why are you stopping here?”

Confirming that the Baron had not moved from his position, I decided to investigate the identity of the perturbed passenger. When I was nearing the carriage, I came to a standstill. I knew him instantly as a man I’d first seen at the burial ground on Green and Fayette. He’d stood restlessly that day, shifting from foot to foot, at the funeral of Edgar Poe.

“Do you hear me, driver?” continued his complaint. “Driver?”

Here, by some strange ordering of the universe, the mourner had left that dark dream-land, a place of fog and mud, and had been driven right to me in the clear of day. After my meetings with Neilson Poe and Henry Herring, I was now with the third of the four mourners. Only the fourth remained, Z. Collins Lee—a classmate of Poe’s from college who, as I’d recently heard, had been appointed a United States district attorney.

I stepped to the side of the coach. But the man had now wriggled to the other side, shouting out at the driver and fidgeting with the handle to open the door. I was about to speak, to call his attention through the window. Then his door opened.

“Isn’t it Dr. Snodgrass!” a voice bellowed.

I wheeled away from the window and hid myself near the horses.

It was the Baron Dupin’s voice.

“You again,” Snodgrass said contemptuously, stepping down. “What are you doing here?”

“Nothing at all,” the Baron said innocently. “You?”

“Sir, I beg your leave. I have another appointment. And this rascal driver—”

Leaning over, I could see the Baron’s light-skinned slave Newman on the driver’s seat and I understood.

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