"Attacked for his lack of literary morals? Indeed he was," Zeldin said. "It was another source of his great despair. When Poe's critics accused him of plagiarism, he was barred from some of New York's most important literary salons."

"No wonder his characters so often resort to revenge in his stories," I said. "Poor Mr. Poe must have dreamed about it often."

"You've got that right. Of course, he took it out on other writers, Miss Cooper. He viewed everything as a personal wound. Have you ever read his volumes of literary criticism?"

"No, I haven't."

"He published quite a lot of it, and went after many of his contemporaries-quite mercilessly."

"Which ones?" I asked.

"He had absolute contempt for Longfellow. Hated him as much for the heiress he married and all the private volumes of work that her wealth enabled him to get published as for his derivative and mediocre poetry. Then there was William Cullen Bryant and Washington Irving. I could go on and on."

I thought of the Hall of Fame. Poe might have used the surrounding busts as a shooting gallery himself-taking potshots at his rivals-had it existed in his day.

"So what's the big deal to the Raven Society?" Mike asked. "People had heard this criticism before."

"Our members come to praise Caesar, not to bury him, if you will. We gather to celebrate the genius and originality of Poe, which is far outweighed by a few youthful indiscretions. We're very collegial and quite admiring of the master. We didn't need Mr. Tormey to put a spotlight on these things again. I don't know that anyone was ready to kill the young professor for that sort-"

Zeldin stopped himself with that thought. "Sorry, I shouldn't use language like that around the three of you. You might take me seriously. They just didn't want Tormey in their mix. He knew the poetry, but he didn't love the poet quite as unequivocally as the rest of us do."

"Talk about holding a grudge," Mike said. "You guys are tough. You hear anything lately from Mr. Tormey?"

The morning papers had lowballed yesterday's shooting at the Hall of Fame. It took place in the Bronx, after all, and to crime reporters, that might as well have been Siberia. An outer-borough triple homicide might earn a paragraph in the Times and space within the first ten pages of the tabloids. But there was no reason Zeldin would have heard about this assault.

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

"So the people on this last page-the ones you've blackballed- are they all here for reasons like this?" Mercer asked.

"More or less, Detective. Some aren't really committed to serious scholarship, some can't afford the dues. Why? What did you think?"

Mercer hesitated.

"Ah, were they dangerous? Is that what you mean? You're thinking that whoever killed the woman in Greenwich Village might be one of us?" Zeldin said. "Not very likely. The closest we've ever come to an actual crime was-Phelps, are you there? When was that shooting?"

The groundskeeper reappeared and leaned on the doorframe. "Outside the main gate? It must be almost ten years now."

"What did it have to do with the society?" Mike asked.

"There was a detective with whom I'd spoken on the phone several times. I don't recall his name. He was quite interested in meeting with me."

"About the Raven Society?"

"Oh, no. I doubt he knew of its existence. Ratiocination it was. He was quite intrigued with ratiocination."

"What?" Mike asked.

"The process of deductive reasoning. Old hat to you and Mr. Wallace, perhaps, but when Poe wrote his first tale of ratiocination- 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'-the word 'detective' had not yet been used in the English language. The first professional police department in the world had only been set up in London twelve years earlier."

"What did this cop want?"

"He wanted to talk to me about Poe's detective stories, he told me. Use the archives for some research, I assumed. And I thought, in return, that it might be interesting to have him address the society, with these tales as background to the work that police detectives do today. After all, Poe's works are the first time in literature that you see some of these techniques used-postmortem examinations, ballistics discussions, locked-room mysteries."

"And there was a shooting near the gardens, you say?"

"Yes. Really dreadful. The officer claimed some kids tried to rob him right outside the main gate, on his way in to meet with me. Turned out one of them was a young fellow who had done some part-time work here on the grounds. Phelps, you remember any of the details?"

"Just like you said, sir. The boy who was killed was a pretty decent kid, according to everyone who knew him. Shot in the back, from quite a fair distance away. That's the main thing I remember."

"That's why we screen everyone who approaches the society so carefully now. The last thing we need is to attract any attention to ourselves-certainly not any scandal. I never returned the officer's calls after that. He was a damn good shot, I'll tell you that."

"Well," Mike said, standing and reaching for Zeldin's hand, "thanks for your time. We'll let you know if we need to speak with you again."

"Wouldn't you like me to arrange for you to see Poe's cottage, as long as you're so close?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," I said, at the exact moment Mike answered with a "No thanks."

"We really got some ground to cover, Coop," Mike said to me. "Another time."

Zeldin wheeled himself out to the main room. "Phelps will drive you back to your car. You just let me know when it would be convenient for you to stop by. The cottage is open five days a week, or if you'd prefer a private tour, I'll just call Mr. Guidi's office and they'll accommodate you."

Mike was as startled as I. "Guidi? Gino Guidi?"

"You know him?"

"I've heard the name," Mike said. "Investment banker-is that the one?"

"Bronx boy makes good, Mr. Chapman. That's our Gino Guidi."

"I didn't see his name on the list," Mike said, unfolding the copy of the Raven Society membership for a second look.

"No. You won't find it there," Zeldin said. "You probably know him from the business pages of the newspapers. He's made a fortune on Wall Street, but luckily for us he chairs the board of the Bronx Historical Society. They oversee the management of the cottage."

"He's into Poe, too?"

"Not that I'm aware of, Detective. I've met him at a few fund-raising events here at the conservatory, but we've never talked about literature."

Mike winked at me. "On second thought, what's half an hour? You wanna see the place?"

If a visit to Poe's home hadn't whetted his appetite, the Guidi connection had.

"Why don't you stop for some coffee in our cafeteria? Your car is parked right near there. The cottage isn't normally open for tours until one o'clock on weekdays. I'll make sure they send someone over to show you around. Mind you, Mr. Chapman, it's a tiny, little place-I don't imagine it would take you five minutes to walk through, even if you tried to stretch it."

Phelps dropped us in front of the Garden Café and the three of us went in to nurse a cup of coffee, chart the next few days' work, and await Zeldin's call. Fifty minutes later he rang me on my cell to say that we were expected.

At eleven-thirty, we drove away from the Botanical Gardens and headed to the intersection of the Grand Concourse and Kings-bridge Road. The eighteenth-century farms that once graced the area had given way to elegant apartment buildings in the early twentieth century, and were now replaced by grim-looking tenements whose doors and windows were covered with the roll-down metal gratings so omnipresent in Third World countries. Waves of immigrants had peopled this neighborhood on their way to more successful, suburban lives. Now all the printed signs were written in Spanish, from pepito's payayas to miguel's fritas, and watched over by a giant billboard with the beaming smile of J. Lo in her latest, tightest jeans.