I do so, I would not wish others to know of my involvement."
The Baron promised not to talk to the press about Duponte's assistance.
Duponte did investigate the Gautier sister's death, as promised. He promptly discovered, with no trace of a doubt, the chronicle of events that led to the murder. His conclusions pointed indisputably at his lover, Catherine Gautier, as the perpetrator. He passed on his information to the prefect, producing a witness undetected by the police and ruining all of Baron Dupin's chances to win by other means. This turn made the Baron more desperate. He was too proud to accept defeat gracefully. He expended many favors, and many thousand francs beyond what was already a deepening debt, to manipulate the case. But it was to no effect. Duponte's evidence was too strong to be tarnished. The Baron was now ruined in his finances and reputation.
Meanwhile, Officer Delacourt, ambitious to advance in the prefecture, assured Duponte and Gautier that with the new evidence, which painted the young woman as confused and deluded but by no means demonic, and taking into account her sex, there would be leniency in her sentencing. And yet, a few months later she was executed, with Dupin and Duponte, along with three-quarters of Paris, attending.
***
"First of all," I said, "it was Duponte more than you who suffered in this matter. Not only did it sap him of an ability to pursue the work of his genius, he also lost the one woman he loved-at his own hands! You shall not avenge yourself for your disgrace by plaguing Duponte now. You cannot use Poe's death for that purpose. I shall not stand by!"
The Baron retorted, "Recollect that fine legal axiom super subjectum materiam: no man can be held professionally responsible for opinions which have been founded on the facts submitted to him by others." The Baron stood over my chair. "I didn't start this, monsieur. You did. You prompted me to look into Poe's fall. You stand in your own light, do you realize it? Feel your oats, Brother Quentin! You made me see that I could renew myself. My name was crushed by detractors and defamers because the shadow of my genius grew too large and refused to conform to their small lives, so the eyes upon us make every small peccadillo into a mortal sin to stop me-why, it is like our dear Poe."
"Will you compare yourself to Poe?" I asked, openly aghast.
"I do not have to, because Brother Poe has already. Why do you think he chose the character of Dupin as his finest hero? He saw in the genius of the decipherer his own divine abilities to understand what gods and men could never fathom. And with what credit? The prefect of the police, not the hero Dupin, receives the praise of all parties. Even as other writers half as good as Poe found themselves winning gold from the magazines, Poe struggled one last time to overcome adversity, struggled until the end, until finally cut-from existence."
"Do you truly believe, monsieur, that you are worthy as the model for Dupin?"
"You did, before having the misfortune to find Duponte, seduced by talents that he uses only for his own interests. Duponte is an anarchist. Have you ever, since meeting him, had any doubts that...perhaps..." He stretched out the words. "Perhaps you know there was another reason I gave you leave to act the spy on us, my friend. So you might see first-hand, Brother Quentin, that you passed something up in Paris, at the fortifications, when you chose him over me."
I wondered if he knew-if the Baron had had someone observing me when I had come to what I thought was his hotel that night. That free black standing under the lamp? "Duponte is the one. You cannot hold a candle to him," I said. I could not let him have the mental victory of knowing how close I had come to giving up hope in Duponte only a few days earlier. I think my expression might have been transparent, though.
"Well," he said, smiling a little, "only Edgar A. Poe could answer who the original Dupin is, and he is gone. How does one solve something when the solution is unreachable? The real Dupin is whoever convinces the world of it; he shall be the remaining one."
Chapter 22
I FOUND MYSELF fearing Duponte for the first time. Wondering if-indeed-his talents, when released unrestrained and unharnessed, could turn disastrous, as they had against Mademoiselle Gautier. I