could not help calling to mind the finale of "The Gold-Bug," Poe's rousing tale of a hunt for treasure-it had always seemed to me, rumbling beneath the surface, that in the triumphant ending there was the clue that Legrand, the master thinker, was about to murder his servant and his friend now that their mission was achieved. The last ominous words of that story-"Who shall tell?"-reverberated in my head.
I called to mind one peculiar evening during my stay in Paris. I was walking behind Auguste Duponte into an area of the city Madame Fouche had warned was not safe at night. Your cries, Madame Fouche had said, would bring no police, who are often in league with the bad people. I remember I was stopped by an object inside a store window that seemed to shift as though on its own power. There was a circle of artificial jaws representing every state of the human mouth: one with bright gums and spotless milky teeth, another with decayed and wilting gums, and so on. Each rotated and opened and shut at different speeds through some unseen mechanical ingenuity. Above the jaws were revolving wax heads showing a toothless, collapsed face and then one boasting a fresh and sturdy mouth with shining teeth, presumably repaired by a dentist with his office behind this window.
Before I could pull myself away from the mesmerizing sight, I felt a tightness around my ears. Everything went black. My hat had been thrust down over my eyes to blind me, and I could feel hands burrowing into my coat from behind. As I cried out for help, I managed to knock the narrow portion of my hat up from my eyes. I saw an old woman with a threadbare dress of rags and blackened teeth. After having tried to blind me with my hat to rob me, she had stepped back and now only stood staring. I followed her gaze to Duponte, standing a few feet from the attacker. Once she had run off, I turned gratefully to Duponte. What had so frightened her away? If he knew, he never shared it with me.
I now considered that the wretched being must have recognized Duponte from a former era. A criminal enterprise that Duponte must have spoiled-perhaps she had once been part of some grand assassination plan (for it was said of Duponte that in his time he had uncovered more than one plan to kill the head of France) and, in consequence of his acumen long ago, was in the interim reduced to animal desperation. It was no physical fear of Duponte that had prompted her flight from me. She could have thrust a blade through my heart ten times before Duponte stopped her (if stopping her was his intention). It was not fear of his strength or agility. It was raw, impulsive fear of his pure intellect-a fear of his genius.
Who shall tell?
After leaving the Baron's hotel, I found Duponte sitting by the large window in the drawing room of Glen Eliza, intently facing the door. I began to tell him all that had occurred at Barnum's Hotel.
"Take this," Duponte interrupted, holding up a leather bag. "Bring it to the address on this paper." He handed me a slip of paper.
"Monsieur, have you not listened to the intelligence I bring? Baron Dupin-"
"You must go out at once, Monsieur Clark," he said. "It is time."
I looked down at the address and did not recognize it. "Very well... What should I say once I arrive?"
"You shall know."
Such was the extent of my distraction that I did not notice that it was three times as dark as it should have been for that hour. By the time it was starting to rain I was already too far on my walk to return for an umbrella. The water grew deeper along the way until it was lapping at my ankles. I trudged ahead, the brim of my hat sheltering my face as much as possible.
I took an omnibus part of the way to the address Duponte had written down. Still, I was drenched walking through the downpour. The address was a small office where a man behind a desk dispatched telegraph messages. "Sir?" he turned to me.
Not knowing what to say, I merely asked whether this was the address I sought.
"Downstairs," he said blandly.
I walked down the steps, to the next sign, which was dripping with streams of water. It was a clothier. Well! This was the urgent mission, perhaps