SERIES I: THE MURDER OF ROSE ACTON

PART II OF IV
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This section would be inserted in Chapter 7 of The Poe Shadow immediately following 
the section in which Duponte has recovered the lost cake. (In the US and UK hardcover 
editions, this is p. 82)
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	Around this time, I had paid five francs for a fortnight's worth of access to the 
Galignani and Co.'s reading room in the Rue Vivienne, which had the widest selection of 
French and English periodicals.
	French newspapers, besides lacking the quality of printing in America, often 
featured continued stories, or novels, on the same pages that also contained news of the 
day. This mingled fiction and truth in an unwise way that seemed to encourage greater 
sensationalism in the rest of the sheet. Since I found myself with many free hours while 
still trying to persuade Duponte to examine Poe's death, I wrote letters at my secretary, 
taking the opportunity to practice my formal French, recommending to the editors a better 
separation of their newspaper's departments.
	The more I read of the Montmartre murder, the more appalled I became, the more 
I thought it was ideal. Ideal to stimulate Duponte – the culmination of the small 
temptations and experiments I had presented to him so far since my arrival in Paris. 
Therefore, I collected the best articles I could find on the Acton murder. Whenever I saw 
Duponte, I shared a few more details, hoping they might spark his interest.
	Of course, I had other projects during my time in Paris; some relating to sundry 
personal affairs and others touching on the Poe predicament. Rumors of a great poet 
visiting from the United States were repeated on several occasions in cafés and museums 
when the subject of my own nationality was introduced. One Frenchwoman I met insisted 
the esteemed visitor was none other than Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 
	In connection with this, I should say, that whenever my being American was 
mentioned, I was certain to receive added politeness and, if in a restaurant or some other 
place, far better service. There was an instant change of manners and some indefinite 
longing addressed to me, as though with my country of birth and residence I carried some 
secret I might be willing to share. When I needed to replace a ruined pair of cuffs, a 
shopkeeper asked a high price. She had mistaken me for an Englishman, and upon 
learning I was in fact American, she named a sum much lower. Perhaps, in this case, the 
change came from sheer relief that I was not English. "Oh!" she said, smiling, "you come 
from the Grand Republic!"
	To return. H. W. Longfellow had long been the enemy of Poe. Or rather, Poe had 
made Longfellow into an enemy. What the poet from New England thought of it, I cannot 
say, but was prepared to find out. Poe had written some of his mystifying critical pieces 
that tomahawked Longfellow, accusing him of plagiarism. I never could imagine Poe 
reading – I envisioned that as he would start to read too many ideas would come into his 
imagination to write, for the true writer is never a reader, or is an extraordinarily violent 
reader. This was why Poe's critical pieces were perhaps too caustic, because he was 
compelled to read through an entire book.  
	Although I had never seen a response to Poe in the press from Longfellow, James 
Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes and other Boston litterateurs, also attacked in the 
article, vigorously defended themselves and Longfellow against Poe in the columns of 
various newspapers. If Longfellow, known for his even temper, could overlook Poe's 
actions now and publish an article praising his work, its impact would be enormous. You 
see, then, my singular aim after hearing that Longfellow was presently somewhere in 
Paris.
	Whenever I was about the city upon other errands, including my gathering of 
articles on the Acton murder, I visited hotels known to be preferred by American 
travelers to inquire whether Longfellow was a guest. At one of these, the hotel clerk 
shook his head apologetically before I even spoke.
	"Monsieur, il n'y a pas de place."
	"No," I replied also in French, "I am not looking for a room, Monsieur. I would 
like to find an American visitor, a poet. Henry Longfellow."
	"Longfellow? There is no Monsieur Longfellow."
	"You are certain?"
	During our exchange, I heard a voice speaking confident, incorrect French that 
plainly belonged to American. I peered around the corner. It was a sturdy gentleman 
handing bedclothes to a hotel porter and requesting various items. I recognized him from 
many magazine engravings through the years: James Russell Lowell, one of America's 
rising young poets. His hair and suit were quite less tidy than in his engravings. I 
reproached myself for crediting any accuracy to the assertion that the poet visiting Paris 
was Longfellow! Yet the truth could prove a stroke of great fortune. Lowell, more a 
magazine man than Longfellow, could provide even greater assistance than his friend. 
Lowell had years earlier published a favorable biography of Poe for Graham's; although 
it had been paired with a very ugly, nearly defamatory engraving of Poe. Then came their 
feud and, well, their sad literary battles.
	"Here comes Poe with his Raven, like Barnaby Rudge,
	Three fifths of him genius and two fifths sheer fudge."
	That is what Lowell had written of Poe in his satire, Fable for the Critics.
	"Mr. Lowell?" I interrupted him as he finished making demands of the porter.
	"I am. Who are you?"
	I introduced myself and requested a private talk in the table-d'hôte. He looked 
pale and weary, but he agreed to my invitation.
	"I'm afraid," he said, "I'm rather not in a talking spirit – rare for me, but the truth. 
Tell me about you then." 
	"I have read your poetry, Mr. Lowell. I imagine Paris has received you quite 
splendidly." 
	He laughed. "As an author I am nothing particular in Europe. But as Henry 
Longfellow's neighbor, it is good as knowing a lord here. Tell me, isn't there something 
to talk about other than books tonight?" He tapped the table loudly for the waiter to serve 
us.
	"Oh, but I am a great admirer, and Edgar Poe was, as well," I replied.
	He glared meditatively into the smoky room as the waiter brought his sherry 
cobbler (ordering that was the surest signal you were an American, I had been told, but 
Lowell did not seem to mind). "My boy died a few weeks ago, Mr. Clark. He saw some 
of the greatness of the world, at least. He knew my darling Maria; that alone shall bless 
him, I suppose. She is half of earth and more than half of heaven." 
	I did not know whether he wished a response to this morose news and wished at 
once that I could respond more adeptly, or that Hattie were there to add a voice of 
composure. Lowell continued. "Do you know how it feels to lose your only son, your 
baby, and to watch it slowly kill your wife? It is not a 'fair shake,' as they would say at 
home. The Old World will cannibalize the New."
	Abruptly changing his tone, Lowell looked right at me. "Did you say something 
about Edgar Poe, Clark?"
	"I did," I replied eagerly.
	"The 'jingle-man,' Emerson calls him. It must have been, I think, in 1843 when I 
saw Poe, when I was in New York gathering articles for a magazine. I had just before 
published his 'Tell-Tale Heart' and 'Lenore'."
	I could not contain my interest. "Indeed?" Poe would have been thirty-two or so, 
only a few years older than me. "What was he like then?"
	I had my own image of Poe. A turned-down collar and black cravat, one arm 
thrown lightly over the back of his chair. He keeps a cold demeanor when at rest, 
reserving himself for private meditations and dreamings. The pale complexion suggests a 
nervousness that could arise at any moment. But upon finding someone near him who 
promised genuine interest, the gray eyes would turn a shade warmer, and standing at his 
full height – there he is, a fine slender figure in the middle of the room, straightening his 
black vest, straightening himself to about an average height, five feet eight, perfectly 
straight – here he would present a hand that was more delicate and beautiful than any 
woman's. His speech would be low, nearly a whisper, so that only if you lean forward, 
and exclude all other sounds from your attention, you are able to hear what he was saying 
and know opinions that he had told no one else about some popular politician or poem. If 
reciting a poem of his own to the room, he would not speak, he would positively sing, 
always perfect and pure in enunciation.
	"Poe was small, smaller than you, my friend," Lowell said, talking at a theatrical 
volume that swatted aside his introspective mood. "I'd call his complexion Clammy-
White. Fine, dark eyes, and fine head, very broad at the temples," he positioned his palms 
a fair width apart, "but receding sharply from the brows backwards – something 
snakelike about it. His manner was rather formal, even pompous, but I have the 
impression he must have been a little soggy with drink when I saw him. Not tipsy. But as 
if he had been holding his head under a pump to cool it. I suppose, according to 
Griswold, he was in the cups even to the end."
	"Not so. That biography by Griswold is quite scandalous. I threw my own copies 
to the fire." (Though that was not quite true, unfortunately, as you shall note later.)
	"Ill-timed, perhaps," Lowell admitted. "But Mr. Griswold was Poe's chosen 
executor for such matters."
"Executioner, too – of Poe's name. Did you know Poe took a pledge of 
temperance while in Richmond, only some months before his death? I have a newspaper 
article reporting it at the time." I removed this article from my memorandum book.
	Lowell looked at it, then put it down and turned to me with new interest. "How in 
the land do you happen to keep this with you on a tour of Paris?"
As I thought my time with Lowell might be short, I tried to raise points of more 
importance. "Did you know, Mr. Lowell, that despite what he might have put into print 
he praised you highly in a letter to me. I am certain that if he had begun his new 
magazine, The Stylus, as he planned, you would have been the very first asked to 
contribute."
	"My dear fellow, were you so arm-in-arm with Edgar Poe?" He hesitated. "This is 
all about him?" His face reddened and he looked ready to stand up. "I thought you 
wished to drink with a fellow countryman."
	"Mr. Lowell, it is my honor! But I believe a new article written by you about 
Poe's character, placed in a first class journal, would make a world of difference."
	"Obstinate—! What sort of difference could you mean?"
	"His future."
	"He is dead, Mr. Clark. Very much so, from what I understand."
	"People in America this day run after the Channings and the Adamses and 
Irvings, but their children, in referring back to our time in literature, will say 'that, that 
was the time of Poe!' This I know, if it is all I know."
	Lowell looked upset. I worried for a moment I had offended him. Then he 
laughed. "Do you know Mrs. Clemm, Poe's mother-in-law, wrote to me some months 
ago asking my forgiveness for Poe? – he was in a frenzy when I met him, she said, he 
was not himself, because his wife was dying. The poor old woman still cries over all his 
troubles and disappointments, I imagine. As though I would still hold it against him. 
Nothing can help him now, certainly nothing I might concoct in my own sad state."
	"Please, Mr. Lowell, consider granting your assistance. Your word has sway. I 
know Poe came down on Professor Longfellow, but perhaps even he could be persuaded 
to say a good word about his character in the journals, too."
	"Poe is dead and gone, and Longfellow alive and still writing – I think that is the 
end of the controversy between them."
	"Something more can be done, Mr. Lowell, before it is too late."
	Lowell had a faraway aspect to him. "My wife is upstairs and is very ill. She 
probably asks for me even now." He would not listen to my further pleading. He added 
these words before he left. "Mr. Clark, I made Poe my enemy by doing him a service 
once. His literary lamp must die out – and will – because he lacked simple character. 
That is the very thing no man can favorably write about him, the thing that as poets, as 
writers, we all seek to find. What ailed Poe? Had he been neglected, like Dryden? 
Persecuted, like Dante? Had he been blind, like Milton? The character of those men 
transcended their circumstances, while Poe thought too intently on his circumstances to 
ever escape them. The mind squeezed out the heart. Poe, you see, wished to kick down 
the ladder by which he rose – or rather, was rising. If he were alive, and knew you were 
set on helping, you would be next to land flat, depend upon that."

*

	Of course, this did not dissuade me from my hopes in relation to either Poe. One 
afternoon, when Duponte was unusually obstinate against leaving his dwelling place, I 
decided to view some of the settings of Poe's Dupin tales, beginning with Murders in the 
Rue Morgue. I signaled a carriage. The horse, whose collar was ornamented with bells, 
tinkled to a stop.
	"Montez, Monsieur!" the driver waved me inside with his hairy cap.
	"To the Rue Morgue, please, Monsieur."
	The driver stared ahead without offering a reply.
	Here I remembered clearly Monsieur Montor's counsel from our time in 
Washington: The coachmen of Paris can be careless, and sometimes aim for pedestrians, 
but once reminded of the regulations, posted inside each cab by order of the police, they 
fall easily into submission. I therefore very politely reminded my driver that he was 
required to promptly take me to any destination named.
	"The Rue Morgue?" he asked in confusion.
	"Precisely, Monsieur." I sat back contentedly as we drove. But after I found that 
we had been driving in circles, I firmly accused my coachman of trying to extort a greater 
fare through a circuitous route. It was at length explained to me after a sad sigh that there 
was no such street as Rue Morgue in all of Paris though the coachman greatly wished to 
please his American visitor. Remembering a scene from the second tale of Dupin, The 
Mystery of Marie Roget, I directed the driver instead to the Rue de Drômes, with the 
same response.
	Later, I happened upon the French translations of the Dupin tales and found that 
the translators corrected the street names of Paris. Poe, writing from his home in 
Philadelphia at the time, invented his own locales of Paris, including the title street of the 
first tale (Rue Morgue was changed in one of the French versions to the Rue de l'Ouest). 
At the Livingston company reading rooms, I found a column in an issue of Graham's 
from five years before, in which Poe acknowledged the objection of the French press, but 
admitted only that no street by that name existed in Paris to the knowledge of the Parisian 
editors. To Poe, the Paris of imagination could have as detailed and useful a map as the 
city of the same name in France.
	At the end of my dizzying and futile carriage ride, I dismissed the driver and 
found I was once again near the boarding house where the poor girl had been murdered. 
As I walked toward it, I happened to see the chiffonier, who went by the name Kalfon, I 
had previously engaged to provoke Duponte with his lost piece of cake. 
	"Monsieur," I saluted the chiffonier, "are you here? Is this one of your regions?"
	Pausing as he picked through a pile of rubbish, he nodded but said nothing to me.
	"But you do remember me, Monsieur Kalfon. Do you know about the murder at 
that house?" I looked down the street and gestured toward it. No doubt he was disturbed 
by such a calamity being near his own collection territory.
	When I turned back, he was walking away hurriedly. "My friend! Monsieur 
Kalfon! Where are you going?"
	He turned back to look at me and shook his head. He was unshaven and it looked 
as though he had not slept in days. His faced had turned milky white. "I saw nothing…" 
he murmured. "No. I saw…"
	I could not keep up with his pace down the street.
Later, I found Duponte sitting on a chair in one of his favorite public gardens. I 
told him about the strange reaction of Kalfon to my questions.
	"Do you think, Monsieur Duponte, that simple man had something to do with it? 
With the girl's extraordinary murder?"
	"Not at all," he replied. "But he knows quite well who did."
	"What? But how? Do you mean to say the police can find nothing, but the 
chiffonier knows who murdered the girl? Will you tell the prefect?"
	"Of course not! He knows as well."
	Duponte would say nothing further on the subject. He merely sat reading the 
newspaper.