The Poe Shadow October 8, 1849. He had previously corresponded with Poe about providing legal support for a new publication, "The Stylus". Clark feels obliged to look into the mysterious circumstances surrounding Poe's death, despite protests from his fiancée Hattie Blum and his friend Peter Stuart. Clark's journey takes him to Paris to seek out the real-life inspiration for Poe's character C. Auguste Dupin, a man of intellect who could help unravel the mystery. After eliminating several possibilities, he meets Baron C.A. Dupin, a famous lawyer, and a detective with a similar name, Auguste Duponte. After a confrontation with the Baron Dupin and
Police procedural gathering evidence, search warrants, interrogation and adherence to legal restrictions and procedure. The roots of the police procedural have been traced to at least the mid-1880s. Wilkie Collins's novel "The Moonstone" (1868), a tale of a Scotland Yard detective investigating the theft of a valuable diamond, has been described as perhaps the earliest clear example of the genre. As detective fiction rose to worldwide popularity in the late 1800s and early 1900s, many of the pioneering and most popular characters, at least in the English-speaking world, were private investigators or amateurs. See C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade, Miss