Edgar Allan Poe
Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio.
Seneca.
AT Paris,
just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18, 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 troisiκme,
No. 33, Rue Dunτt, 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 Rogκt. 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 G, 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 G.'s 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.
"If it is any point requiring reflection,"
observed Dupin, as he forebore to enkindle the wick, "we shall examine it
to better purpose in the dark."
"That is another of your odd notions,"
said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling every thing "odd" that
was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of
"oddities."
"Very true," said Dupin, as he supplied
his visiter with a pipe, and rolled towards him a comfortable chair.
"And what is the difficulty now?" I asked.
"Nothing more in the assassination way, I hope?"
"Oh 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."
"Simple and odd," said Dupin.
"Why, 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."
"Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing
which puts you at fault," said my friend.
"What nonsense you do talk!"
replied the Prefect, laughing heartily.
"Perhaps the mystery is a little too
plain," said Dupin.
"Oh, good heavens! who ever heard of such an
idea?"
"A little too self-evident."
"Ha! ha! ha ha! ha! ha! ho! ho! ho!"
roared our visiter, profoundly amused, "oh, Dupin, you will be the death
of me yet!"
"And what, after all, is the matter on
hand?" I asked.
"Why, I will tell you," replied the
Prefect, as he gave a long, steady, and contemplative puff, and settled himself
in his chair. "I 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."
"Proceed," said I.
"Or not," said Dupin.
"Well, 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."
"How is this known?" asked Dupin.
"It is clearly inferred," replied the
Prefect, "from the nature of the document, and from the non-appearance of
certain results which would at once arise from its passing out of the
robber's possession; that is to say, from his employing it as he must design
in the end to employ it."
"Be a little more explicit," I said.
"Well, 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." The Prefect was fond of the cant of diplomacy.
"Still I do not quite understand," said
Dupin.
"No? Well; the disclosure of the document to a
third person, who shall be nameless, would bring in question the honor of a
personage of 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."
"But this ascendancy," I interposed,
"would depend upon the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the
robber. Who would dare "
"The thief," said G., "is the
Minister D, 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 question a letter, to be frank had 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 D. His lynx eye
immediately perceives the paper, recognises 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 letter one of no importance upon the table."
"Here, then," said Dupin to me, "you
have precisely what you demand to make the ascendancy complete the robber's
knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber."
"Yes," replied the Prefect; "and 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."
"Than whom," said Dupin, amid a perfect
whirlwind of smoke, "no more sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired,
or even imagined."
"You flatter me," replied the Prefect;
"but it is possible that some such opinion may have been
entertained."
"It is clear," said I, "as you
observe, that the letter is still in 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."
"True," said G.; "and upon this
conviction I proceeded. My first care was to make thorough search of the
minister's 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."
"But," said I, "you are quite au
fait in these investigations. The Parisian police have done this thing
often before."
"O 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 master's 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 D 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."
"But is it not possible," I suggested,
"that although the letter may be in possession of the minister, as it
unquestionably is, he may have concealed it elsewhere than upon his own
premises?"
"This is barely possible," said Dupin.
"The present peculiar condition of affairs at court, and especially of
those intrigues in which D is known to be involved, would render the instant
availability of the document its susceptibility of being produced at a
moment's notice a point of nearly equal importance with its possession."
"Its susceptibility of being produced?"
said I.
"That is to say, of being destroyed,"
said Dupin.
"True," I observed; "the 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."
"Entirely," said the Prefect. "He has
been twice waylaid, as if by footpads, and his person rigorously searched under
my own inspection."
"You might have spared yourself this
trouble," said Dupin. "D, I presume, is not altogether a fool, and,
if not, must have anticipated these waylayings, as a matter of course."
"Not altogether a fool," said G.,
"but then he's a poet, which I take to be only one remove from a
fool."
"True," said Dupin, after a long and
thoughtful whiff from his meerschaum,
"although I have been guilty of certain doggrel myself."
"Suppose you detail," said I, "the
particulars of your search."
"Why the fact is, we took our time, and we
searched every where. 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 secret drawer is impossible. Any man is a dolt
who permits a 'secret' drawer to escape him in a search of this kind.
The thing is so plain. There is a certain amount of bulk of space to
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."
"Why so?"
"Sometimes 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."
"But could not the cavity be detected by
sounding?" I asked.
"By 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."
"But you could not have removed you 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?"
"Certainly not; but we did better we 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 glueing any unusual gaping in the joints would have
sufficed to insure detection."
"I presume you looked to the mirrors, between
the boards and the plates, and you probed the beds and the bed-clothes, as well
as the curtains and carpets."
"That 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."
"The two houses adjoining!" I exclaimed;
"you must have had a great deal of trouble."
"We had; but the reward offered is
prodigious!"
"You include the grounds about the
houses?"
"All the grounds are paved with brick. They
gave us comparatively little trouble. We examined the moss between the bricks,
and found it undisturbed."
"You looked among D's papers, of course, and
into the books of the library?"
"Certainly; 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."
"You explored the floors beneath the
carpets?"
"Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and
examined the boards with the microscope."
"And the paper on the walls?"
"Yes."
"You looked into the cellars?"
"We did."
"Then," I said, "you have been making
a miscalculation, and the letter is not upon the premises, as you
suppose."
"I fear you are right there," said the
Prefect. "And now, Dupin, what would you advise me to do?"
"To make a thorough re-search of the
premises."
"That is absolutely needless," replied
G. "I am not more sure that I breathe than I am that the letter is not
at the Hotel."
"I have no better advice to give you,"
said Dupin. "You have, of course, an accurate description of the
letter?"
"Oh yes!" 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.
In about a month afterwards 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,
"Well, but G, 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?"
"Confound him, say I yes; I made the
re-examination, however, as Dupin suggested but it was all labor lost, as I
knew it would be."
"How much was the reward offered, did you
say?" asked Dupin.
"Why, a very great deal a very liberal
reward I don't like to say how much, precisely; but one thing I will
say, that I wouldn't 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."
"Why, yes," said Dupin, drawlingly,
between the whiffs of his meerschaum, "I really think, G, you have not
exerted yourself to the utmost in this matter. You might do a little more,
I think, eh?"
"How? in what way?'
"Why puff, puff you might puff, puff
employ counsel in the matter, eh? puff, puff, puff. Do you remember the story
they tell of Abernethy?"
"No; hang Abernethy!"
"To be sure! hang him and welcome. But, once
upon a time, a certain rich 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.
" 'We will suppose,' said the miser, 'that his
symptoms are such and such; now, doctor, what would you have directed
him to take?'
" 'Take!' said Abernethy, 'why, take advice,
to be sure.' "
"But," said the Prefect, a little
discomposed, "I 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."
"In that case," replied Dupin, opening a
drawer, and producing a check-book, "you may as well fill me up a check
for the amount mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the
letter."
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
explanations.
"The Parisian police," he said, "are
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 G detailed to us his mode of searching the premises at the Hotel
D, I felt entire confidence in his having made a satisfactory investigation
so far as his labors extended."
"So far as his labors extended?" said I.
"Yes," said Dupin. "The 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."
I merely laughed but he seemed quite serious in
all that he said.
"The measures, then," he continued, "
were 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 schoolboy is a better reasoner than
he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the game
of 'even and odd' 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, 'are they even or odd?' Our schoolboy replies, 'odd,'
and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to himself, 'the
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
odd;' he guesses odd, and wins. Now, with a simpleton a degree above the
first, he would have reasoned thus: 'This 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 even;' he guesses even, and wins. Now this mode of reasoning
in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed 'lucky,' what, in its last
analysis, is it?"
"It is merely," I said, "an
identification of the reasoner's intellect with that of his opponent."
"It is," said Dupin; "and, upon
inquiring of the boy by what means he effected the thorough
identification in which his success consisted, I received answer as follows:
'When 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.' This response of the schoolboy
lies at the bottom of all the spurious profundity which has been attributed to
Rochefoucault, to La Bougive, to Machiavelli, and to Campanella."
"And the identification," I said, "of
the reasoner's intellect with that of his opponent, depends, if I understand
you aright, upon the accuracy with which the opponent's intellect is
admeasured."
"For its practical value it depends upon
this," replied Dupin; "and 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 much that 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 emergency by some extraordinary reward they extend or exaggerate their
old modes of practice, without touching their principles. What, for
example, in this case of D, 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
inches what 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 regarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine
of his duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see he has 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 recherchιs 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 concealed a disposal of it in this recherchι
manner, is, 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
importance or, what amounts to the same thing in the policial eyes, when the
reward is of magnitude, the qualities in question have never been known
to fail. You will now understand what I meant in suggesting that, had the
purloined letter been hidden any where within the limits of the Prefect's
examination in other words, had the principle of its concealment been
comprehended within the principles of the Prefect its 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 non distributio medii
in thence inferring that all poets are fools."
"But is this really the poet?" I asked.
"There are two brothers, I know; and both have attained reputation in
letters. The Minister I believe has written learnedly on the Differential
Calculus. He is a mathematician, and no poet."
"You are mistaken; I know him well; he is both.
As poet and mathematician, he would reason well; as mere mathematician,
he could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of the
Prefect."
"You surprise me," I said, "by these
opinions, which have been contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not
mean to set at naught the well-digested idea of centuries. The mathematical
reason has long been regarded as the reason par excellence."
" 'Il y a ΰ pariθr,' " replied
Dupin, quoting from Chamfort, " 'que toute idιe publique, toute
convention reηue est une sottise, car elle a convenue au plus grand nombre.'
The mathematicians, I grant you, have done their best to promulgate the popular
error to which you allude, and which is none the less an error for its
promulgation as truth. With an art worthy a better cause, for example, they have
insinuated the term 'analysis' into application to algebra. The French are the
originators of this particular deception; but if a term is of any importance
if words derive any value from applicability then 'analysis' conveys
'algebra' about as much as, in Latin, 'ambitus' implies 'ambition,' 'religio'
'religion,' or 'homines honesti,' a set of honorable men."
"You have a quarrel on hand, I see," said
I, "with some of the algebraists of Paris; but proceed."
"I dispute the availability, and thus the
value, of that reason which is cultivated in any especial form other than the
abstractly logical. I dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathematical
study. The mathematics are the science of form and quantity; mathematical
reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity. The
great error lies in supposing that even the truths of what is called pure
algebra, are abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious that
I am confounded at the universality with
which it has been received. Mathematical axioms are not axioms of
general truth. What is true of relation of form and quantity is
often grossly false in regard to morals, for example. In this latter science it
is very usually untrue that the aggregated parts are equal to the whole.
In chemistry also the axiom fails. In the consideration of motive it fails; for
two motives, each of a given value, have not, necessarily, a value when united,
equal to the sum of their values apart. There are numerous other mathematical
truths which are only truths within the limits of relation. But the
mathematician argues, from his finite truths, through habit, as if they
were of an absolutely general applicability as the world indeed imagines them
to be. Bryant, in his very learned 'Mythology,' mentions an analogous source of
error, when he says that 'although the Pagan fables are not believed, yet we
forget ourselves continually, and make inferences from them as existing
realities.' With the algebraists, however, who are Pagans themselves, the
'Pagan fables' are believed, and the inferences are made, not so much
through lapse of memory, as through an unaccountable addling of the brains. In
short, I never yet encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out
of equal roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his
faith that x2+px
was absolutely and unconditionally equal to q. Say to one of these
gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you please, that you believe occasions may
occur where x2+px
is not altogether equal to q, and, having made him understand
what you mean, get out of his reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond
doubt, he will endeavor to knock you down.
"I mean to say," continued Dupin, while I
merely laughed at his last observations, "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. I 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 policial
modes of action. He could not have failed to anticipate and events have proved
that he did not fail to anticipate the 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 G, in fact, did finally arrive the
conviction that the letter was not upon the premises. I 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 policial action in searches for articles
concealed I 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."
"Yes," said I, "I remember his
merriment well. I really thought he would have fallen into convulsions."
"The material world," continued Dupin,
"abounds 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 vis inertiζ, 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?"
"I have never given the matter a thought,"
I said.
"There is a game of puzzles," he resumed,
"which is played upon a map. One party playing requires another to find a
given word the name of town, river, state or empire any 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.
"But the more I reflected upon the daring,
dashing, and discriminating ingenuity of D; 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 dignitary's 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 at all.
"Full 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 D 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 alive but that is only
when nobody sees him.
"To 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.
"I 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.
"At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the
room, fell upon a trumpery fillagree card-rack of pasteboard, that hung
dangling by a dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just beneath the
middle of the mantel-piece. In this rack, which had three or four compartments,
were five or six visiting cards and a solitary letter. This last was much
soiled and crumpled. It was torn nearly in two, across the middle as 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 D
cipher very conspicuously, and was addressed, in a diminutive female
hand, to D, the minister, himself. It was thrust carelessly, and even, as it
seemed, contemptuously, into one of the uppermost divisions of the rack.
"No 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 D
cipher; there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the S family.
Here, the address, to the Minister, 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 D, and so suggestive of a design to delude the beholder into an idea of
the worthlessness of the document; these things, together with the
hyper-obtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of every visiter,
and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously
arrived; these things, I say, were strongly
corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with the intention to
suspect.
"I 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 really 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 had 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.
"The 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. D rushed to a casement, threw
it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped to the card-rack took the
letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced it by a fac-simile, (so far as
regards externals,) which I had carefully prepared at my lodgings imitating
the D cipher, very readily, by means of a seal formed of bread.
"The 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, D came from the window, whither I had followed him
immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon afterwards I bade him
farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay."
"But what purpose had you," I asked,
"in replacing the letter by a fac-simile? Would it not have been
better, at the first visit, to have seized it openly, and departed?"
"D," replied Dupin, "is 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 hers since, 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 facilis descensus Averni; 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 sympathy at least no pity for 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 'a certain
personage' he is reduced to opening the letter which I left for him in the
card-rack."
"How? did you put any thing particular in
it?"
"Why it did not seem altogether right to
leave the interior blank that would have been insulting. D, 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
clue. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just copied into the middle of
the blank sheet the words
"
'
Un dessein si funeste,
S'il n'est digne d'Atrιe, est digne de Thyeste.
They are to be found in Crιbillon's 'Atrιe.' "