kept saying it when she told me over supper, and on our plates were the last good soft-shell crabs of the season."
I asked him to think hard and be certain.
"'Reynolds, Reynolds, Reynolds!'" he said with some offense at my doubt. "That's how he was calling it out, all through the night. She said she couldn't pluck it out of her brain after she heard of it. Creaky ol' hospital-should be burnt down, I say. I knew a Reynolds in my youth who threw stones at infantrymen-he was a demonish character, no mistake, Squire Clark."
"But did Poe ever mention a Reynolds before?" I asked myself out loud. "A family member, or..."
The fish dealer's enjoyment of the scene lessened, and he stared at me. "This Mr. Poe was a friend of yours?"
"A friend," I said, "and a friend of all who read him."
I bid my client a hasty good evening with much gratitude for the remarkable service he had provided me. I had been permitted to hear Poe's very last utterance to this earth (or nearly the last, anyhow), and in it some retort, some revelation, some remedy to the slashing and the cutting of the press might be recovered. That single word meant there was something to be found, some life left of Poe's for me to discover.
***
Reynolds!
I spent countless hours searching through Poe's letters to me and through all of his tales and verse to detect any sign of Reynolds. Tickets to exhibitions and concerts went unused; if Jenny Lind, the "Swedish Nightingale," were singing in town, I would have been among my books all the same. I could almost hear my father direct me to put all this away and return to my law books. He would say (so I imagined), "Young men like yourself should observe that Industry and Enterprise can slowly do anything Genius does with impatience-and many things Genius cannot. Genius needs Industry as much as Industry needs Genius." I felt suddenly, each time I opened another Poe document, as though I was in an argument with Father, that he was trying to tear the very books out of my hands. It was not a wholly unwelcome feeling to encounter: in fact, I think it actually pushed me forward. Besides, in my capacity as a man of business I had promised Poe, a prospective client, that I would defend him. Perhaps Father would have commended me.
Hattie Blum, meanwhile, called at Glen Eliza with her aunt frequently. Whatever disapproval on their part had developed from my recent transgression had passed, or at least been suspended. Hattie was as thoughtful and generous in our conversations as ever. Her aunt, perhaps, was more watchful than usual, and seemed to have developed the dark eyes of a secret agent. Of course, my intense preoccupations, along with my general tendency to grow quiet when others talked, meant the women in my drawing room addressed each other more than me.
"I do not know how you bear it," said Hattie, looking up at the high domed ceiling. "I could not suffer a house as enormous as Glen Eliza alone, Quentin. It takes bravery to have too much space for yourself. Don't you think, Auntie?"
Auntie Blum snorted out a laugh. "Dear Hattie becomes terribly lonesome when I leave her for an hour with only the help for company. They can be dreadful."
One of my domestics came from the hall and refreshed the ladies' tea.
"Not so, Auntie! But with my sisters gone," Hattie began, then paused, with a slight and uncharacteristic blush.
"Because they've all married," her aunt said quietly.
"Of course," I agreed after a long pause from both Blum ladies suggested a comment on my part.
"With my three sisters out of the house, well, it can seem awfully desolate at times, like I must fend for myself but I do not even know against what. Haven't you ever had a feeling like that?"
"On the other hand," I said, "dear Miss Hattie, there is a certain peace to it, separated from the bustle of the streets and the concerns of other people."
"Oh, Auntie!" She turned jovially to the other woman. "Perhaps I crave the bustle too much. Do you think our family blood runs too warm for Baltimore after all, Auntie?"
A word about the woman being addressed, the one sitting in front of the hearth on an armchair as if it were a throne, the stately dame with a shawl wrapped around her as though it were a monarch's robe, Auntie Blum-yes, a word more about