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by Edgar Allan Poe
At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18â, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in company with my friend, C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library, or book-closet, au troisiĂšme, No. 33 Rue DunĂŽt, Faubourg St. Germain. For one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence, while each, to any casual observer, might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of the chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally discussing certain topics which had formed matter for conversation between us at an earlier period of the evening; I mean the affair of the Rue Morgue, and the mystery attending the murder of Marie RogĂȘt. I looked upon it, therefore, as something of a coincidence, when the door of our apartment was thrown open and admitted our old acquaintance, Monsieur Gââ, the Prefect of the Parisian police.
We gave him a hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, and we had not seen him for several years. We had been sitting in the dark, and Dupin now arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down again, without doing so, upon Gâââs saying that he had called to consult us, or rather to ask the opinion of my friend, about some official business which had occasioned a great deal of trouble.
âIf it is any point requiring reflection,â observed Dupin, as he forebore to enkindle the wick, âwe shall examine it to better purpose in the dark.â
âThat is another of your odd notions,â said the Prefect, who had the fashion of calling everything âoddâ that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of âoddities.â
âVery true,â said Dupin, as he supplied his visitor with a pipe, and rolled toward him a comfortable chair.
âAnd what is the difficulty now?â I asked. âNothing more in the assassination way, I hope?â
âOh no, nothing of that nature. The fact is, the business is VERY simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently well ourselves; but then I thought Dupin would like to hear the details of it, because it is so excessively ODD.â
âSimple and odd,â said Dupin.
âWhy, yes; and not exactly that, either. The fact is, we have all been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet baffles us altogether.â
âPerhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you at fault,â said my friend.
âWhat nonsense you DO talk!â replied the Prefect, laughing heartily.
âPerhaps the mystery is a little TOO plain,â said Dupin.
âOh, good heavens! who ever heard of such an idea?â
âA little TOO self-evident.â
âHa! ha! ha!âha! ha! ha!âho! ho! ho!â roared our visitor, profoundly amused, âOh, Dupin, you will be the death of me yet!â
âAnd what, after all, IS the matter on hand?â I asked.
âWhy, I will tell you,â replied the Prefect, as he gave a long, steady, and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair. âI will tell you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me caution you that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, and that I should most probably lose the position I now hold were it known that I confided it to any one.â
âProceed,â said I.
âOr not,â said Dupin.
âWell, then; I have received personal information, from a very high quarter, that a certain document of the last importance has been purloined from the royal apartments. The individual who purloined it is known; this beyond a doubt; he was seen to take it. It is known, also, that it still remains in his possession.â
âHow is this known?â asked Dupin.
âIt is clearly inferred,â replied the Prefect, âfrom the nature of the document, and from the non-appearance of certain results which would at once arise from its passing OUT of the robberâs possessionâthat is to say, from his employing it as he must design in the end to employ it.â
âBe a little more explicit,â I said.
âWell, I may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its holder a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is immensely valuable.â The Prefect was fond of the cant of diplomacy.
âStill I do not quite understand,â said Dupin.
âNo? Well, the disclosure of the document to a third person, who shall be nameless, would bring in question the honor of a personage of the most exalted station, and this fact gives the holder of the document an ascendancy over the illustrious personage whose honor and peace are so jeopardized.â
âBut this ascendancy,â I interposed, âwould depend upon the robberâs knowledge of the loserâs knowledge of the robber. Who would dareââ
âThe thief,â said Gââ, âis the Minister Dââ, who dares all things, those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. The method of the theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document in questionâa letter, to be frankâhad been received by the personage robbed while alone in the royal boudoir. During its perusal she was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of the other exalted personage from whom especially it was her wish to conceal it. After a hurried and vain endeavor to thrust it in a drawer, she was forced to place it, open as it was, upon a table. The address, however, was uppermost, and, the contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped notice. At this juncture enters the Minister Dââ. His lynx eye immediately perceives the paper, recognizes the handwriting of the address, observes the confusion of the personage addressed, and fathoms her secret. After some business transactions, hurried through in his ordinary manner, he produces a letter somewhat similar to the one in question, opens it, pretends to read it, and then places it in close juxtaposition to the other. Again he converses, for some fifteen minutes, upon the public affairs. At length, in taking leave, he takes also from the table the letter to which he had no claim. Its rightful owner saw, but of course, dared not call attention to the act, in the presence of the third personage who stood at her elbow. The Minister decamped, leaving his own letterâone of no importanceâupon the table.â
âHere, then,â said Dupin to me, âyou have precisely what you demand to make the ascendancy completeâthe robberâs knowledge of the loserâs knowledge of the robber.â
âYes,â replied the Prefect, âand the power thus attained has, for some months past, been wielded, for political purposes, to a very dangerous extent. The personage robbed is more thoroughly convinced, every day, of the necessity of reclaiming her letter. But this, of course, cannot be done openly. In fine, driven to despair, she has committed the matter to me.â
âThan whom,â said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind of smoke, âno more sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired, or even imagined.â
âYou flatter me,â replied the Prefect; âbut it is possible that some such opinion may have been entertained.â
âIt is clear,â said I, âas you observe, that the letter is still in the possession of the Minister; since it is this possession, and not any employment of the letter, which bestows the power. With the employment the power departs.â
âTrue,â said Gââ; âand upon this conviction I proceeded. My first care was to make thorough search of the Ministerâs hotel; and here my chief embarrassment lay in the necessity of searching without his knowledge. Beyond all things, I have been warned of the danger which would result from giving him reason to suspect our design.â
âBut,â said I, âyou are quite au fait in these investigations. The Parisian police have done this thing often before.â
âOh yes, and for this reason I did not despair. The habits of the Minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently absent from home all night. His servants are by no means numerous. They sleep at a distance from their masterâs apartment, and, being chiefly Neapolitans, are readily made drunk. I have keys, as you know, with which I can open any chamber or cabinet in Paris. For three months a night has not passed during the greater part of which I have not been engaged, personally, in ransacking the Dââ Hotel. My honor is interested, and, to mention a great secret, the reward is enormous. So I did not abandon the search until I had become fully satisfied that the thief is a more astute man than myself. I fancy that I have investigated every nook and corner of the premises in which it is possible that the paper can be concealed.â
âBut is it not possible,â I suggested, âthat although the letter may be in the possession of the Minister, as it unquestionably is, he may have concealed it elsewhere than upon his own premises?â
âThis is barely possible,â said Dupin. âThe present peculiar condition of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues in which Dââ is known to be involved, would render the instant availability of the documentâits susceptibility of being produced at a momentâs noticeâa point of nearly equal importance with its possession.â
âIts susceptibility of being produced?â said I.
âThat is to say, of being DESTROYED,â said Dupin.
âTrue,â I observed; âthe paper is clearly, then, upon the premises. As for its being upon the person of the Minister, we may consider that as out of the question.â
âEntirely,â said the Prefect. âHe has been twice waylaid, as if by footpads, and his person rigidly searched under my own inspection.â
âYou might have spared yourself this trouble,â said Dupin. âDââ, I presume, is not altogether a fool; and, if not, must have anticipated these waylayings, as a matter of course.â
âNot ALTOGETHER a fool,â said Gââ; âbut, then, he is a poet, which I take to be only one remove from a fool.â
âTrue,â said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from his meerschaum, âalthough I have been guilty of certain doggrel myself.â
âSuppose you detail,â said I, âthe particulars of your search.â
âWhy, the fact is, we took our time, and we searched EVERYWHERE. I have had long experience in these affairs. I took the entire building, room by room, devoting the nights of a whole week to each. We examined, first, the furniture of each apartment. We opened every possible drawer; and I presume you know that, to a properly trained police-agent, such a thing as a âsecretâ drawer is impossible. Any man is a dolt who permits a âsecretâ drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The thing is so plain. There is a certain amount of bulkâof spaceâto be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we have accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not escape us. After the cabinets we took the chairs. The cushions we probed with the fine long needles you have seen me employ. From the tables we removed the tops.â
âWhy so?â
âSometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged piece of furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal an article; then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity, and the top replaced. The bottoms and tops of bedposts are employed in the same way.â
âBut could not the cavity be detected by sounding?â I asked.
âBy no means, if, when the article is deposited, a sufficient wadding of cotton be placed around it. Besides, in our case, we were obliged to proceed without noise.â
âBut you could not have removedâyou could not have taken to pieces ALL articles of furniture in which it would have been possible to make a deposit in the manner you mention. A letter may be compressed into a thin spiral roll, not differing much in shape or bulk from a large knitting-needle, and in this form it might be inserted into the rung of a chair, for example. You did not take to pieces all the chairs?â
âCertainly not; but we did betterâwe examined the rungs of every chair in the hotel, and, indeed, the jointings of every description of furniture, by the aid of a most powerful microscope. Had there been any traces of recent disturbance we should not have failed to detect it instantly. A single grain of gimlet-dust, for example, would have been as obvious as an apple. Any disorder in the gluingâany unusual gaping in the jointsâwould have sufficed to insure detection.â
âI presume you looked to the mirrors, between the boards and the plates, and you probed the beds and the bedclothes, as well as the curtains and carpets.â
âThat, of course; and when we had absolutely completed every particle of the furniture in this way, then we examined the house itself. We divided its entire surface into compartments, which we numbered, so that none might be missed; then we scrutinized each individual square inch throughout the premises, including the two houses immediately adjoining, with the microscope, as before.â
âThe two houses adjoining!â I exclaimed. âYou must have had a great deal of trouble.â
âWe had; but the reward offered is prodigious.â
âYou include the GROUNDS about the houses?â
âAll the grounds are paved with brick. They gave us comparatively little trouble. We examined the moss between the bricks, and found it undisturbed.â
âYou looked among Dâââs papers, of course, and into the books of the library?â
âCertainly; we opened every package and parcel; we not only opened every book, but we turned over every leaf in each volume, not contenting ourselves with a mere shake, according to the fashion of some of our police officers. We also measured the thickness of every book-COVER, with the most accurate admeasurement, and applied to each the most jealous scrutiny of the microscope. Had any of the bindings been recently meddled with, it would have been utterly impossible that the fact should have escaped observation. Some five or six volumes, just from the hands of the binder, we carefully probed, longitudinally, with the needles.â
âYou explored the floors beneath the carpets?â
âBeyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined the boards with the microscope.â
âAnd the paper on the walls?â
âYes.â
âYou looked into the cellars?â
âWe did.â
âThen,â I said, âyou have been making a miscalculation, and the letter is NOT upon the premises, as you suppose.â
âI fear you are right there,â said the Prefect. âAnd now, Dupin, what would you advise me to do?â
âTo make a thorough research of the premises.â
âThat is absolutely needless,â replied Gââ. âI am not more sure that I breathe than I am that the letter is not at the hotel.â
âI have no better advice to give you,â said Dupin. âYou have, of course, an accurate description of the letter?â
âOh yes!â And here the Prefect, producing a memorandum book, proceeded to read aloud a minute account of the internal, and especially of the external, appearance of the missing document. Soon after finishing the perusal of this description, he took his departure, more entirely depressed in spirits than I had ever known the good gentleman before.
â-
In about a month afterward he paid us another visit, and found us occupied very nearly as before. He took a pipe and a chair, and entered into some ordinary conversation. At length I said:
âWell, but, Gââ, what of the purloined letter? I presume you have at last made up your mind that there is no such thing as overreaching the Minister?â
âConfound him, say Iâyes; I made the re-examination, however, as Dupin suggestedâbut it was all labor lost, as I knew it would be.â
âHow much was the reward offered, did you say?â asked Dupin.
âWhy, a very great dealâa VERY liberal rewardâI donât like to say how much, precisely; but one thing I WILL say, that I wouldnât mind giving my individual check for fifty thousand francs to any one who could obtain me that letter. The fact is, it is becoming of more and more importance every day; and the reward has been lately doubled. If it were trebled, however, I could do no more than I have done.â
âWhy, yes,â said Dupin, drawling, between the whiffs of his meerschaum, âI reallyâthink, Gââ, you have not exerted yourselfâto the utmost in this matter. You mightâdo a little more, I think; eh?â
âHow?âin what way?â
âWhyââpuff, puffââyou mightââpuff, puffââemploy counsel in the matter, ehââpuff, puff, puff. âDo you remember the story they tell of Abernethy?â
âNo; hang Abernethy!â
âTo be sure! Hang him and welcome. But, once upon a time, a certain miser conceived the design of spunging upon this Abernethy for a medical opinion. Getting up, for this purpose, an ordinary conversation in a private company, he insinuated his case to the physician as that of an imaginary individual.â
ââWe will suppose,â said the miser, âthat his symptoms are such and such; now, doctor, what would YOU have directed him to take?â
ââTake!â said Abernethy. âWhy, take ADVICE, to be sure.ââ
âBut,â said the Prefect, a little discomposed, âI am PERFECTLY willing to take advice, and to pay for it. I would REALLY give fifty thousand francs to any one who would aid me in the matter.â
âIn that case,â replied Dupin, opening a drawer, and producing a check-book, âyou may as well fill me up a check for the amount mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter.â
I was astounded. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunder-stricken. For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed starting from their sockets; then apparently recovering himself in some measure, he seized a pen, and after several pauses and vacant stares, finally filled up and signed a check for fifty thousand francs, and handed it across the table to Dupin. The latter examined it carefully and deposited it in his pocket-book; then, unlocking an escritoire, took thence a letter and gave it to the Prefect. This functionary grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with a trembling hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and then, scrambling and struggling to the door, rushed at length unceremoniously from the room and from the house, without having uttered a syllable since Dupin had requested him to fill up the check.
When he had gone, my friend entered into some explanation.
âThe Parisian police,â he said, âare exceedingly able in their way. They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thoroughly versed in the knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to demand. Thus, when Gââ detailed to us his mode of searching the premises at the Hotel Dââ, I felt entire confidence in his having made a satisfactory investigationâso far as his labors extended.â
âSo far as his labors extended?â said I.
âYes,â said Dupin. âThe measures adopted were not only the best of their kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. Had the letter been deposited within the range of their search, these fellows would, beyond a question, have found it.â
I merely laughedâbut he seemed quite serious in all that he said.
âThe measures, then,â he continued, âwere good in their kind, and well executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the case and to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources are, with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he forcibly adapts his designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too shallow for the matter in hand, and many a school-boy is a better reasoner than he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the game of âeven and oddâ attracted universal admiration. This game is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is even or odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course, he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand, asks, âAre they even or odd?â Our school-boy replies, âOdd,â and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to himself: âThe simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd upon the second; I will therefore guess oddâ; he guesses odd, and wins. Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, he would have reasoned thus;
âThis fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd, and, in the second, he will propose to himself, upon the first impulse, a simple variation from even to odd, as did the first simpleton; but then a second thought will suggest that this is too simple a variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even as before. I will therefore guess evenâ; he guesses even, and wins. Now this mode of reasoning in the school-boy, whom his fellows termed âLucky,â what, in its last analysis, is it?â
âIt is merely,â I said, âan identification of the reasonerâs intellect with that of his opponent.â
âIt is,â said Dupin; âand, upon inquiring of the boy by what means he effected the THOROUGH identification in which his success consisted, I received answer as follows: âWhen I wish to find out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked, is any one, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.â This response of the school-boy lies at the bottom of all the spurious profundity which has been attributed to Rochefoucault, to La Bougive, to Machiavelli, and to Campanella.â
âAnd the identification,â I said, âof the reasonerâs intellect with that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright, upon the accuracy with which the opponentâs intellect is admeasured.â
âFor its practical value it depends upon this,â replied Dupin; âand the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by default of this identification, and, secondly, by ill-admeasurement, or rather through non-admeasurement, of the intellect with which they are engaged. They consider only their OWN ideas of ingenuity; and, in searching for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which THEY would have hidden it. They are right in this muchâthat their own ingenuity is a faithful representative of that of the MASS; but when the cunning of the individual felon is diverse in character from their own, the felon foils them of course. This always happens when it is above their own, and very usually when it is below. They have no variation of principle in their investigations; at best, when urged by some unusual emergencyâby some extraordinary rewardâthey extend or exaggerate their old modes of PRACTICE, without touching their principles.
âWhat, for example, in this case of Dââ, has been done to vary the principle of action? What is all this boring, and probing, and sounding, and scrutinizing with the microscope, and dividing the surface of the building into registered square inchesâwhat is it all but an exaggeration of the application of the one principle or set of principles of search, which are based upon the one set of notions retarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine of his duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see he had taken it for granted that ALL men proceed to conceal a letter, not exactly in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg, but, at least, in SOME out-of-the-way hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of thought which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg? And do you not see, also, that such recherchĂ© nooks for concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions, and would be adopted only by ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of concealment, a disposal of the article concealedâa disposal of it in this recherchĂ© mannerâis, in the very first instance, presumable and presumed; and thus its discovery depends, not at all upon the acumen, but altogether upon the mere care, patience, and determination of the seekers; and where the case is of importanceâor, when the reward is of magnitudeâthe qualities in question have NEVER been known to fail.
âYou will now understand what I meant in suggesting that, had the purloined letter been hidden anywhere within the limits of the Prefectâs examinationâin other words, had the principle of its concealment been comprehended within the principles of the Prefectâits discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond question. This functionary, however, has been thoroughly mystified; and the remote source of his defeat lies in the supposition that the Minister is a fool, because he has acquired renown as a poet. All fools are poets; this the Prefect FEELS; and he is merely guilty of a ânon distributio mediiâ in thence inferring that all poets are fools. I mean to say, that if the Minister had been no more than a mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no necessity of giving me this check. I knew him, however, as both mathematician and poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference to the circumstances by which he was surrounded.
âI knew him as a courtier, too, and as a bold intriguant. Such a man, I considered, could not fail to be aware of the ordinary political modes of action. He could not have failed to anticipateâand events have proved that he did not fail to anticipateâthe waylayings to which he was subjected. He must have foreseen, I reflected, the secret investigations of his premises. His frequent absences from home at night, which were hailed by the Prefect as certain aids to his success, I regarded only as RUSES, to afford opportunity for thorough search to the police, and thus the sooner to impress them with the conviction to which Gââ, in fact, did finally arriveâthe conviction that the letter was not upon the premises.
âI felt, also, that the whole train of thought, which I was at some pains in detailing to you just now, concerning the invariable principle of political action in searches for articles concealedâI felt that this whole train of thought would necessarily pass through the mind of the Minister. It would imperatively lead him to despise all the ordinary NOOKS of concealment. HE could not, I reflected, be so weak as not to see that the most intricate and remote recess of his hotel would be as open as his commonest closets to the eyes, to the probes, to the gimlets, and to the microscopes of the Prefect. I saw, in fine, that he would be driven, as a matter of course, to SIMPLICITY, if not deliberately induced to it as a matter of choice. You will remember, perhaps, how desperately the Prefect laughed when I suggested, upon our first interview, that it was just possible this mystery troubled him so much on account of its being so VERY self-evident.â
âYes,â said I, âI remember his merriment well. I really thought he would have fallen into convulsions.â
âThe material world,â continued Dupin, âabounds with very strict analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been given to the rhetorical dogma that metaphor, or simile, may be made to strengthen an argument as well as to embellish a description. The principle of the âvis inertiaeâ, for example, seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more true, in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one, and that its subsequent MOMENTUM is commensurate with this difficulty, than it is, in the latter, that intellects of the vaster capacity, while more forcible, more constant, and more eventful in their movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less readily moved, and more embarrassed, and full of hesitation in the first few steps of their progress. Again: have you ever noticed which of the street signs, over the shop doors, are the most attractive of attention?â
âI have never given the matter a thought,â I said.
âThere is a game of puzzles,â he resumed, âwhich is played upon a map. One party playing requires another to find a given wordâthe name of town, river, state, or empireâany word, in short, upon the motley and perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game generally seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them the most minutely lettered names; but the adept selects such words as stretch, in large characters, from one end of the chart to the other. These, like the over-largely lettered signs and placards of the street, escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably self-evident. But this is a point, it appears, somewhat above or beneath the understanding of the Prefect. He never once thought it probable, or possible, that the Minister had deposited the letter immediately beneath the nose of the whole world, by way of best preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it.
âBut the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and discriminating ingenuity of Dââ; upon the fact that the document must always have been AT HAND, if he intended to use it to good purpose; and upon the decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect, that it was not hidden within the limits of that dignitaryâs ordinary search, the more satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter, the Minister had resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not attempting to conceal it.
âFull of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of green spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by accident, at the Ministerial hotel. I found Dââ at home, yawning, lounging, and dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in the last extremity of ennui. He is, perhaps, the most really energetic human being now aliveâbut that is only when nobody sees him.
âTo be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and lamented the necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which I cautiously and thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment, while seemingly intent only upon the conversation of my host.
âI paid especial attention to a large writing-table near which he sat, and upon which lay confusedly some miscellaneous letters and other papers, with one or two musical instruments and a few books. Here, however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw nothing to excite particular suspicion.
âAt length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a trumpery filigree card-rack of pasteboard that hung dangling by a dirty blue ribbon from a little brass knob just beneath the middle of the mantelpiece. In this rack, which had three or four compartments, were five or six soiled cards and a solitary letter. This last was much soiled and crumpled. It was torn nearly in two, across the middleâas if a design, in the first instance, to tear it entirely up as worthless had been altered or stayed in the second. It had a large black seal, bearing the Dââ cipher VERY conspicuously, and was addressed, in a diminutive female hand, to Dââ, the Minister, himself. It was thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed, contemptuously, into one of the uppermost divisions of the rack.
âNo sooner had I glanced at this letter than I concluded it to be that of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all appearance, radically different from the one of which the Prefect had read us so minute a description. Here the seal was large and black, with the Dââ cipher; there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the Sââ family. Here the address, to the Minister, was diminutive and feminine; there the superscription, to a certain royal personage, was markedly bold and decided; the size alone formed a point of correspondence. But, then, the RADICALNESS of these differences, which was excessive; the dirt; the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with the TRUE methodical habits of Dââ, and so consistent of a design to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the documentâthese things, together with the hyperobtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of every visitor, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrivedâthese things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion in one who came with the intention to suspect.
âI protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I maintained a most animated discussion with the Minister upon a topic which I knew well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention riveted upon the letter. In this examination I committed to memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack, and also fell, at length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I observed them to be more CHAFED than seemed necessary. They presented the BROKEN appearance which is manifested when a stiff paper, having been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which formed the original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me that the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed and re-sealed. I bade the Minister good-morning, and took my departure at once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the table.
âThe next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed, quite eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus engaged, however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately beneath the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of fearful screams and the shoutings of a terrified mob. Dââ rushed to a casement, threw it open, and looked out. In the mean time I stepped to the card-rack, took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced it by a facsimile (so far as regards externals), which I had carefully prepared at my lodgingsâimitating the Dââ cipher, very readily, by means of a seal formed of bread.
âThe disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the frantic behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd of women and children. It proved, however, to have been without ball, and the fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When he had gone, Dââ came from the window, whither I had followed him immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon afterward I bade him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay.â
âBut what purpose had you,â I asked, âin replacing the letter by a facsimile? Would it not have been better, at the first visit, to have seized it openly and departed?â
âDââ,â replied Dupin, âis a desperate man and a man of nerve. His hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests. Had I made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never have left the Ministerial presence alive. The good people of Paris might have heard of me no more. But I had an object apart from these considerations. You know my political prepossessions. In this matter I act as a partisan of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the Minister has had her in his power. She has now him in hersâsince, being unaware that the letter is not in his possession, he will proceed with his exactions as if it was. Thus will he inevitably commit himself, at once, to his political destruction. His downfall, too, will not be more precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to talk about the âfacilis descensus Averniâ; but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to come down. In the present instance I have no sympathyâat least no pityâfor him who descends. He is that monstrum horrendum, an unprincipled man of genius. I confess, however, that I should like very well to know the precise character of his thoughts, when, being defied by her whom the Prefect terms âa certain personage,â he is reduced to opening the letter I left for him in the card-rack.â
âHow? Did you put anything particular in it?â
âWhyâit did not seem altogether right to leave the interior blankâthat would have been insulting. Dââ, at Vienna once, did me an evil turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I should remember. So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity in regard to the identity of the person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not to give him a clew. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just copied into the middle of the blank sheet the words:
ââââ ... Un dessein si funeste, Sâil nâest digne dâAtrĂ©e, este digne de Thyeste.â
They are to be found in CrĂ©billonâs AtrĂ©e.â