“From this point forward” I explained, “I wish to be called by my actual cognomen. I can—I will—no longer tolerate your repeated denomination of me as a member of that vexatious order of orthoptera known scientifically as Gryllus domesticus.”

For several moments, the frontiersman simply regarded me with a look of open-mouthed wonderment, as though stunned into an awed silence by the sheer vehemence of my declaration. At last, his face brightened and a broad grin spread slowly over his countenance. “Why, it took me a minute to cipher your meanin’,” he chuckled. “But I am happy to oblige, Cr—er, Poe!” Then, as if to ratify our new understanding, he extended his powerful right hand.

I shook it politely. Then, with a parting farewell, he threw open the door, stepped into the fog-shrouded night, and took leave of me until the morrow.

CHAPTER 9

My efforts to heed the parting advice proffered by the frontiersman—that, in his quaint phraseology, I “get some shut-eye”—met with only meagre success. My slumbers were fitful in the extreme: sporadic periods of vexed and restless sleep, interrupted by long, dreary hours of wakefulness. Like an injured man who picks compulsively at a scabbed-over wound, my harried brain could not cease from dwelling on the dismaying events of the day just past—or from speculating on the difficulties and perils still to come.

Foremost among the subjects of these latter speculations were the two individuals that Crockett and I proposed to visit on the morrow. What little knowledge I possessed of Roger and Marilynne Asher derived largely from hearsay, for I had never so much as set eyes on either member of this notoriously reclusive pair. I knew that—as unmarried siblings who had already passed well into the middle years of their allotted spans—the two represented the ultimate termination of the eminent Asher line, whose family name would utterly perish with their own inevitable extinction. I knew further that—while their widely reported proclivity for erratic and even bizarre behavior had earned them a reputation as difficult, if not exceedingly disagreeable, human beings—their personal failings were at least partly offset by a deeply ingrained sense of civic obligation, which manifested itself in repeated deeds of munificent patronage, particularly in the realm of cultural pursuits. As a result, their family name could be found on opera houses, musical academies, and theatres throughout the city, including the glorious Asher Playhouse on Fayette Street.

Indeed, in their dedication to the cultural life of their native city, the Ashers—somewhat ironically—shared a close, common bond with their family’s archenemy, the late Junius Macready, who had likewise been, in the heyday of his fortunes, an unstintingly generous supporter of the theatrical arts in Baltimore.