第1章 共23章

THE PURLOINED LETTER

Nil sapientiæ 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 troisième, No. 33, _Rue Dunôt,

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 Rogêt. 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 visitor 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 visitor,

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.”

“Oh, 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 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 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 recherchés 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 recherché 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 political 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 à parièr,’” replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort, “‘que

toute idée publique, toute convention reçue 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 know 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 inertiæ, 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 visitor,

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’Atrée, est digne de Thyeste.

They are to be found in Crébillon’s ‘Atrée.’”