CHAPTER I

[Frontispiece: Robert Louis Stevenson]

GREAT

SHORT STORIES

Edited by William Patten

A NEW COLLECTION

OF FAMOUS EXAMPLES

FROM THE

LITERATURES OF FRANCE,

ENGLAND AND AMERICA

VOLUME I

DETECTIVE

STORIES

P. F. COLLIER & SON

NEW YORK

[Illustration: Title page]

COPYRIGHT, 1906

BY P. F. COLLIER & SON

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE _By Edgar Allan Poe_

THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET _By Edgar Allan Poe_

THE PURLOINED LETTER _By Edgar Allan Poe_

THE SIGN OF THE FOUR _By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle_

I. The Science of Deduction

II. The Statement of the Case

III. In Quest of a Solution

IV. The Story of the Bald-headed Man

V. The Tragedy of Pondicherry Lodge

VI. Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration

VII. The Episode of the Barrel

VIII. The Baker Street Irregulars

IX. A Break in the Chain

X. The End of the Islander

XI. The Great Agra Treasure

XII. The Strange Story of Jonathan Small

A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA _By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle_

THE DOCTOR, HIS WIFE, AND THE CLOCK _By Anna Katharine Green_

THE RAJAH'S DIAMOND _By Robert Louis Stevenson_

Story of the Bandbox

Story of the Young Man in Holy Orders

Story of the House with the Green Blinds

The Adventure of Prince Florizel and a Detective

THE MYSTERY OF THE STEEL DISK _By Broughton Brandenburg_

THE CHRONICLES OF ADDINGTON PEACE _By B. Fletcher Robinson_

The Vanished Millionaire

THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

_This and the two stories that follow it constitute a trilogy of

stories with related methods of construction. They were the first

detective stories, and are still considered the most famous models of

their kind. Written by a poor struggling, underpaid hack journalist

at a time when literary inspiration was derived principally from

abroad, they were first published 1841-5. Soon afterward "The

Murders in the Rue Morgue" was translated into French and appeared in

several French journals, notably the "Charivari." This constituted

Poe's introduction to a French audience, and it won for him a warmer

and a more general recognition than he has ever had in this country.

Judged by the extent of his influence on writers of short stories,

both here and abroad, Poe is the most important figure in American

literature._

THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE

By EDGAR ALLAN POE

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid

himself among women, although puzzling questions, are not beyond all

conjecture.--_Sir Thomas Browne_

The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are in

themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them

only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that

they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a

source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his

physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles

into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which

disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the most trivial

occupations bringing his talent into play. He is fond of enigmas, of

conundrums, hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a

degree of acumen which appears to the ordinary apprehension

preternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul and

essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air of intuition.

The faculty of resolution is possibly much invigorated by

mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it

which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde operations,

has been called, as if par excellence, analysis. Yet to calculate is

not in itself to analyze. A chess-player, for example, does the one,

without effort at the other. It follows that the game of chess, in

its effects upon mental character, is greatly misunderstood. I am

not now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar

narrative by observations very much at random; I will, therefore,

take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective

intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the

unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity

of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and

bizarre motions, with various and variable values, what is only

complex, is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The

attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for an

instant, an oversight is committed, resulting in injury or defeat.

The possible moves being not only manifold, but involute, the chances

of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten, it

is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who

conquers. In draughts, on the contrary, where the moves are unique

and have but little variation, the probabilities of inadvertence are

diminished, and the mere attention being left comparatively

unemployed, what advantages are obtained by either party are obtained

by superior acumen. To be less abstract, let us suppose a game of

draughts where the pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of

course, no oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the

victory can be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some

recherché movement, the result of some strong exertion of the

intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws

himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself

therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole

methods (sometimes indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may

seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.

Whist has long been known for its influence upon what is termed the

calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect have

been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in it, while

eschewing chess as frivolous. Beyond doubt there is nothing of a

similar nature so greatly tasking the faculty of analysis. The best

chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player

of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in

all these more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind.

When I say proficiency, I mean that perfection in the game which

includes a comprehension of all the sources whence legitimate

advantage may be derived. These are not only manifold, but

multiform, and lie frequently among recesses of thought altogether

inaccessible to the ordinary understanding. To observe attentively

is to remember distinctly; and, so far, the concentrative

chess-player will do very well at whist; while the rules of Hoyle

(themselves based upon the mere mechanism of the game) are

sufficiently and generally comprehensible. Thus to have a retentive

memory, and proceed by "the book," are points commonly regarded as

the sum total of good playing. But it is in matters beyond the

limits of mere rule that the skill of the analyst is evinced. He

makes, in silence, a host of observations and inferences. So,

perhaps, do his companions; and the difference in the extent of the

information obtained, lies not so much in the validity of the

inference as in the quality of the observation. The necessary

knowledge is that of what to observe. Our player confines himself

not at all; nor, because the game is the object, does he reject

deductions from things external to the game. He examines the

countenance of his partner, comparing it carefully with that of each

of his opponents. He considers the mode of assorting the cards in

each hand; often counting trump by trump, and honor by honor, through

the glances bestowed by their holders upon each. He notes every

variation of face as the play progresses, gathering a fund of thought

from the differences in the expression of certainty, of surprise, of

triumph, or chagrin. From the manner of gathering up a trick he

judges whether the person taking it can make another in the suit. He

recognizes what is played through feint, by the manner with which it

is thrown upon the table. A casual or inadvertent word; the

accidental dropping or turning of a card, with the accompanying

anxiety or carelessness in regard to its concealment; the counting of

the tricks, with the order of their arrangement; embarrassment,

hesitation, eagerness, or trepidation--all afford, to his apparently

intuitive perception, indications of the true state of affairs. The

first two or three rounds having been played, he is in full

possession of the contents of each hand, and thenceforward puts down

his cards with as absolute a precision of purpose as if the rest of

the party had turned outward the faces of their own.

The analytical power should not be confounded with simple ingenuity;

for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is

often remarkably incapable of analysis. The constructive or

combining power, by which ingenuity is usually manifested, and to

which the phrenologists (I believe erroneously) have assigned a

separate organ, supposing it a primitive faculty, has been so

frequently seen in those whose intellect bordered otherwise upon

idiocy, as to have attracted general observation among writers on

morals. Between ingenuity and the analytic ability there exists a

difference far greater, indeed, than that between the fancy and the

imagination, but of a character very strictly analogous. It will be

found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly

imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in the

light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.

Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of 18--, I

there became acquainted with a Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin. This young

gentleman was of an excellent, indeed of an illustrious family, but,

by a variety of untoward events, had been reduced to such poverty

that the energy of his character succumbed beneath it, and he ceased

to bestir himself in the world, or to care for the retrieval of his

fortunes. By courtesy of his creditors, there still remained in his

possession a small remnant of his patrimony; and, upon the income

arising from this, he managed, by means of a rigorous economy, to

procure the necessaries of life, without troubling himself about its

superfluities. Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries, and in Paris

these are easily obtained.

Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue Montmartre,

where the accident of our both being in search of the same very rare

and very remarkable volume, brought us into closer communion. We saw

each other again and again. I was deeply interested in the little

family history which he detailed to me with all that candor which a

Frenchman indulges whenever mere self is the theme. I was

astonished, too, at the vast extent of his reading; and, above all, I

felt my soul enkindled within me by the wild fervor, and the vivid

freshness of his imagination. Seeking in Paris the objects I then

sought, I felt that the society of such a man would be to me a

treasure beyond price; and this feeling I frankly confided to him.

It was at length arranged that we should live together during my stay

in the city; and as my worldly circumstances were somewhat less

embarrassed than his own, I was permitted to be at the expense of

renting, and furnishing in a style which suited the rather fantastic

gloom of our common temper, a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long

deserted through superstitions into which we did not inquire, and

tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate portion of the

Faubourg St. Germain.

Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the world, we

should have been regarded as madmen--although, perhaps, as madmen of

a harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no

visitors. Indeed, the locality of our retirement had been carefully

kept a secret from my own former associates; and it had been many

years since Dupin had ceased to know or be known in Paris, We existed

within ourselves alone.

It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call it?)

to be enamored of the night for her own sake; and into this

bizarrerie, as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving myself up

to his wild whims with a perfect abandon. The sable divinity would

not herself dwell with us always; but we could counterfeit her

presence. At the first dawn of the morning we closed all the massy

shutters of our old building; lighted a couple of tapers which,

strongly perfumed, threw out only the ghastliest and feeblest of

rays, By the aid of these we then busied our souls in

dreams--reading, writing, or conversing, until warned by the clock of

the advent of the true Darkness. Then we sallied forth into the

streets, arm in arm, continuing the topics of the day, or roaming far

and wide until a late hour, seeking, amid the wild lights and shadows

of the populous city, that infinity of mental excitement which quiet

observation can afford.

At such times I could not help remarking and admiring (although from

his rich ideality I had been prepared to expect it) a peculiar

analytic ability in Dupin. He seemed, too, to take an eager delight

in its exercise--if not exactly in its display--and did not hesitate

to confess the pleasure thus derived. He boasted to me, with a low

chuckling laugh, that most men, in respect to himself, wore windows

in their bosoms, and was wont to follow up such assertions by direct

and very startling proofs of his intimate knowledge of my own. His

manner at these moments was frigid and abstract; his eyes were vacant

in expression; while his voice, usually a rich tenor, rose into a

treble which would have sounded petulant but for the deliberateness

and entire distinctness of the enunciation. Observing him in these

moods, I often dwelt meditatively upon the old philosophy of the

Bi-Part Soul, and amused myself with the fancy of a double Dupin--the

creative and the resolvent.

Let it not be supposed, from what I have just said, that I am

detailing any mystery, or penning any romance. What I have described

in the Frenchman was merely the result of an excited, or perhaps of a

diseased, intelligence. But of the character of his remarks at the

periods in question an example will best convey the idea.

We were strolling one night down a long dirty street, in the vicinity

of the Palais Royal. Being both, apparently, occupied with thought,

neither of us had spoken a syllable for fifteen minutes at least.

All at once Dupin broke forth with these words:

"He is a very little fellow, that's true, and would do better for the

Theatre Variétés."

"There can be no doubt of that," I replied, unwittingly, and not at

first observing (so much had I been absorbed in reflection) the

extraordinary manner in which the speaker had chimed in with my

meditations. In an instant afterward I recollected myself, and my

astonishment was profound.

"Dupin," said I, gravely, "this is beyond my comprehension. I do not

hesitate to say that I am amazed, and can scarcely credit my senses.

How was it possible you should know that I was thinking of--?" Here

I paused, to ascertain beyond a doubt whether he really knew of whom

I thought.

"---- of Chantilly," said he, "why do you pause? You were remarking

to yourself that his diminutive figure unfitted him for tragedy."

This was precisely what had formed the subject of my reflections.

Chantilly was a quondam cobbler of the Rue St. Dennis, who, becoming

stage-mad, had attempted the rôle of Xerxes, in Crébillon's tragedy

so called, and been notoriously Pasquinaded for his pains.

"Tell me, for Heaven's sake," I exclaimed, "the method--if method

there is--by which you have been enabled to fathom my soul in this

matter." In fact, I was even more startled than I would have been

willing to express.

"It was the fruiterer," replied my friend, "who brought you to the

conclusion that the mender of soles was not of sufficient height for

Xerxes _et id genus omne_."

"The fruiterer!--you astonish me--I know no fruiterer whomsoever."

"The man who ran up against you as we entered the street--it may have

been fifteen minutes ago."

I now remembered that, in fact, a fruiterer, carrying upon his head a

large basket of apples, had nearly thrown me down, by accident, as we

passed from the Rue C---- into the thoroughfare where we stood; but

what this had to do with Chantilly I could not possibly understand.

There was not a particle of charlatânerie about Dupin. "I will

explain," he said, "and that you may comprehend all clearly, we will

first retrace the course of your meditations, from the moment in

which I spoke to you until that of the recontre with the fruiterer in

question. The larger links of the chain run thus--Chantilly, Orion,

Dr. Nichols, Epicurus, Stereotomy, the street stones, the fruiterer."

There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives,

amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular

conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is

often full of interest; and he who attempts it for the first time is

astonished by the apparently illimitable distance and incoherence

between the starting-point and the goal. What, then, must have been

my amazement, when I heard the Frenchman speak what he had just

spoken, and when I could not help acknowledging that he had spoken

the truth. He continued:

"We had been talking of horses, if I remember aright, just before

leaving the Rue C----. This was the last subject we discussed. As

we crossed into this street, a fruiterer, with a large basket upon

his head, brushing quickly past us, thrust you upon a pile of

paving-stones collected at a spot where the causeway is undergoing

repair. You stepped upon one of the loose fragments, slipped,

slightly strained your ankle, appeared vexed or sulky, muttered a few

words, turned to look at the pile, and then proceeded in silence. I

was not particularly attentive to what you did; but observation has

become with me, of late, a species of necessity.

"You kept your eyes upon the ground--glancing, with a petulant

expression, at the holes and ruts in the pavement (so that I saw you

were still thinking of the stones), until we reached the little alley

called Lamartine, which has been paved, by way of experiment, with

the overlapping and riveted blocks. Here your countenance brightened

up, and, perceiving your lips move, I could not doubt that you

murmured the word 'stereotomy,' a term very affectedly applied to

this species of pavement. I knew that you could not say to yourself

'stereotomy' without being brought to think of atomies, and thus of

the theories of Epicurus; and since, when we discussed this subject

not very long ago, I mentioned to you how singularly, yet with how

little notice, the vague guesses of that noble Greek had met with

confirmation in the late nebular cosmogony, I felt that you could not

avoid casting your eyes upward to the great nebula in Orion, and I

certainly expected that you would do so. You did look up; and I was

now assured that I had correctly followed your steps. But in that

bitter tirade upon Chantilly, which appeared in yesterday's 'Musée,'

the satirist, making some disgraceful allusions to the cobbler's

change of name upon assuming the buskin, quoted a Latin line about

which we have often conversed. I mean the line

Perdidit antiquum litera prima sonum.

I had told you that this was in reference to Orion, formerly written

Urion; and, from certain pungencies connected with this explanation,

I was aware that you could not have forgotten it. It was clear,

therefore, that you would not fail to combine the two ideas of Orion

and Chantilly. That you did combine them I saw by the character of

the smile which passed over your lips. You thought of the poor

cobbler's immolation. So far, you had been stooping in your gait;

but now I saw you draw yourself up to your full height. I was then

sure that you reflected upon the diminutive figure of Chantilly. At

this point I interrupted your meditations to remark that as, in fact,

he was a very little fellow--that Chantilly--he would do better at

the Théâtre des Variétés."

Not long after this, we were looking over an evening edition of the

"Gazette des Tribunaux," when the following paragraphs arrested our

attention.

"_Extraordinary Murder_.--This morning, about three o'clock, the

inhabitants of the Quartier St. Roch were roused from sleep by a

succession of terrific shrieks, issuing, apparently, from the fourth

story of a house in the Rue Morgue, known to be in the sole occupancy

of one Madame L'Espanaye, and her daughter, Mademoiselle Camille

L'Espanaye. After some delay, occasioned by a fruitless attempt to

procure admission in the usual manner, the gateway was broken in with

a crowbar, and eight or ten of the neighbors entered, accompanied by

two gendarmes. By this time the cries had ceased; but, as the party

rushed up the first flight of stairs, two or more rough voices, in

angry contention, were distinguished, and seemed to proceed from the

upper part of the house. As the second landing was reached, these

sounds, also, had ceased, and everything remained perfectly quiet.

The party spread themselves, and hurried from room to room. Upon

arriving at a large back chamber in the fourth story (the door of

which, being found locked; with the key inside, was forced open), a

spectacle presented itself which struck every one present not less

with horror than with astonishment.

"The apartment was in the wildest disorder--the furniture broken and

thrown about in all directions. There was only one bedstead; and

from this the bed had been removed, and thrown into the middle of the

floor. On a chair lay a razor, besmeared with blood. On the hearth

were two or three long and thick tresses of gray human hair, also

dabbled with blood, and seeming to have been pulled out by the roots.

Upon the floor were found four Napoleons, an ear-ring of topaz, three

large silver spoons, three smaller of metal d'Alger, and two bags,

containing nearly four thousand francs in gold. The drawers of a

bureau, which stood in one corner, were open, and had been,

apparently, rifled, although many articles still remained in them. A

small iron safe was discovered under the bed (not under the

bedstead). It was open, with the key still in the door. It had no

contents beyond a few old letters, and other papers of little

consequence.

"Of Madame L'Espanaye no traces were here seen; but an unusual

quantity of soot being observed in the fireplace, a search was made

in the chimney, and (horrible to relate!) the corpse of the daughter,

head downward, was dragged therefrom; it having been thus forced up

the narrow aperture for a considerable distance. The body was quite

warm. Upon examining it, many excoriations were perceived, no doubt

occasioned by the violence with which it had been thrust up and

disengaged. Upon the face were many severe scratches, and, upon the

throat, dark bruises, and deep indentations of finger nails, as if

the deceased had been throttled to death.

"After a thorough investigation of every portion of the house without

further discovery, the party made its way into a small paved yard in

the rear of the building, where lay the corpse of the old lady, with

her throat so entirely cut that, upon an attempt to raise her, the

head fell off. The body, as well as the head, was fearfully

mutilated--the former so much so as scarcely to retain any semblance

of humanity.

"To this horrible mystery there is not as yet, we believe, the

slightest clue."

The next day's paper had these additional particulars:

"_The Tragedy in the Rue Morgue_.--Many individuals have been

examined in relation to this most extraordinary and frightful affair"

[the word "affaire" has not yet, in France, that levity of import

which it conveys with us], "but nothing whatever has transpired to

throw light upon it. We give below all the material testimony

elicited.

"_Pauline Dubourg_, laundress, deposes that she has known both the

deceased for three years, having washed for them during that period.

The old lady and her daughter seemed on good terms--very affectionate

toward each other. They were excellent pay. Could not speak in

regard to their mode or means of living. Believed that Madame L.

told fortunes for a living. Was reputed to have money put by. Never

met any person in the house when she called for the clothes or took

them home. Was sure that they had no servant in employ. There

appeared to be no furniture in any part of the building except in the

fourth story.

"_Pierre Moreau_, tobacconist, deposes that he has been in the habit

of selling small quantities of tobacco and snuff to Madame L'Espanaye

for nearly four years. Was born in the neighborhood, and has always

resided there. The deceased and her daughter had occupied the house

in which the corpses were found for more than six years. It was

formerly occupied by a jeweler, who under-let the upper rooms to

various persons. The house was the property of Madame L. She became

dissatisfied with the abuse of the premises by her tenant, and moved

into them herself, refusing to let any portion. The old lady was

childish. Witness had seen the daughter some five or six times

during the six years. The two lived an exceedingly retired

life--were reputed to have money. Had heard it said among the

neighbors that Madame L. told fortunes--did not believe it. Had

never seen any person enter the door except the old lady and her

daughter, a porter once or twice, and a physician some eight or ten

times.

"Many other persons, neighbors, gave evidence to the same effect. No

one was spoken of as frequenting the house. It was not known whether

there were any living connections of Madame L. and her daughter. The

shutters of the front windows were seldom opened. Those in the rear

were always closed, with the exception of the large back room, fourth

story. The house was a good house--not very old.

"_Isidore Muset_, gendarme, deposes that he was called to the house

about three o'clock in the morning, and found some twenty or thirty

persons at the gateway, endeavoring to gain admittance. Forced it

open, at length, with a bayonet--not with a crowbar. Had but little

difficulty in getting it open, on account of its being a double or

folding gate, and bolted neither at bottom nor top. The shrieks were

continued until the gate was forced--and then suddenly ceased. They

seemed to be screams of some person (or persons) in great agony--were

loud and drawn out, not short and quick. Witness led the way

upstairs. Upon reaching the first landing, heard two voices in loud

and angry contention--the one a gruff voice, the other much

shriller--a very strange voice. Could distinguish some words of the

former, which was that of a Frenchman. Was positive that it was not

a woman's voice. Could distinguish the words '_sacre_' and

'_diable_.' The shrill voice was that of a foreigner. Could not be

sure whether it was the voice of a man or of a woman. Could not make

out what was said, but believed the language to be Spanish. The

state of the room and of the bodies was described by this witness as

we described them yesterday.

"_Henri Duval_, a neighbor, and by trade a silversmith, deposes that

he was one of the party who first entered the house. Corroborates

the testimony of Muset in general. As soon as they forced an

entrance, they reclosed the door, to keep out the crowd, which

collected very fast, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour. The

shrill voice, this witness thinks, was that of an Italian. Was

certain it was not French. Could not be sure that it was a man's

voice. It might have been a woman's. Was not acquainted with the

Italian language. Could not distinguish the words, but was convinced

by the intonation that the speaker was an Italian. Knew Madame L.

and her daughter. Had conversed with both frequently. Was sure that

the shrill voice was not that of either of the deceased.

"---- _Odenheimer, restaurateur_.--This witness volunteered his

testimony. Not speaking French, was examined through an interpreter.

Is a native of Amsterdam. Was passing the house at the time of the

shrieks. They lasted for several minutes--probably ten. They were

long and loud--very awful and distressing. Was one of those who

entered the building. Corroborated the previous evidence in every

respect but one. Was sure that the shrill voice was that of a

man--of a Frenchman. Could not distinguish the words uttered. They

were loud and quick--unequal--spoken apparently in fear as well as in

anger. The voice was harsh--not so much shrill as harsh. Could not

call it a shrill voice. The gruff voice said repeatedly, '_sacre_,'

'_diable_,' and once '_mon Dieu_.'

"_Jules Mignaud_, banker, of the firm of Mignaud et Fils, Rue

Deloraine. Is the elder Mignaud. Madame L'Espanaye had some

property. Had opened an account with his banking house in the spring

of the year--(eight years previously). Made frequent deposits in

small sums. Had checked for nothing until the third day before her

death, when she took out in person the sum of 4,000 francs. This sum

was paid in gold, and a clerk sent home with the money.

"_Adolphe Le Bon_, clerk to Mignaud et Fils, deposes that on the day

in question, about noon, he accompanied Madame L'Espanaye to her

residence with the 4,000 francs, put up in two bags. Upon the door

being opened, Mademoiselle L. appeared and took from his hands one of

the bags, while the old lady relieved him of the other. He then

bowed and departed. Did not see any person in the street at the

time. It is a by-street--very lonely.

"_William Bird_, tailor, deposes that he was one of the party who

entered the house. Is an Englishman. Has lived in Paris two years.

Was one of the first to ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in

contention. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Could make out

several words, but can not now remember all. Heard distinctly

'_sacre_' and '_mon Dieu_.' There was a sound at the moment as if of

several persons struggling--a scraping and scuffling sound. The

shrill voice was very loud--louder than the gruff one. Is sure that

it was not the voice of an Englishman. Appeared to be that of a

German. Might have been a woman's voice. Does not understand German.

"Four of the above-named witnesses being recalled, deposed that the

door of the chamber in which was found the body of Mademoiselle L.

was locked on the inside when the party reached it. Everything was

perfectly silent--no groans or noises of any kind. Upon forcing the

door no person was seen. The windows, both of the back and front

room, were down and firmly fastened from within. A door between the

two rooms was closed but not locked. The door leading from the front

room into the passage was locked, with the key on the inside. A

small room in the front of the house, on the fourth story, at the

head of the passage, was open, the door being ajar. This room was

crowded with old beds, boxes, and so forth. These were carefully

removed and searched. There was not an inch of any portion of the

house which was not carefully searched. Sweeps were sent up and down

the chimneys. The house was a four-story one, with garrets

(_mansardes_). A trap-door on the roof was nailed down very

securely--did not appear to have been opened for years. The time

elapsing between the hearing of the voices in contention and the

breaking open of the room door was variously stated by the witnesses.

Some made it as short as three minutes--some as long as five. The

door was opened with difficulty.

"_Alfonzo Garco_, undertaker, deposes that he resides in the Rue

Morgue. Is a native of Spain. Was one of the party who entered the

house. Did not proceed upstairs. Is nervous, and was apprehensive

of the consequences of agitation. Heard the voices in contention.

The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Could not distinguish what

was said. The shrill voice was that of an Englishman--is sure of

this. Does not understand the English language, but judges by the

intonation.

"_Alfonzo Garcio_, undertaker, deposes that he was among the first to

ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in question. The gruff voice

was that of a Frenchman. Distinguished several words. The speaker

appeared to be expostulating. Could not make out the words of the

shrill voice. Spoke quick and unevenly. Thinks it the voice of a

Russian. Corroborates the general testimony. Is an Italian. Never

conversed with a native of Russia.

"Several witness, recalled, here testified that the chimneys of all

the rooms on the fourth story were too narrow to admit the passage of

a human being. By 'sweeps,' were meant cylindrical sweeping-brushes,

such as are employed by those who clean chimneys. These brushes were

passed up and down every flue in the house. There is no back passage

by which any one could have descended while the party proceeded

upstairs. The body of Mademoiselle L'Espanaye was so firmly wedged

in the chimney that it could not be got down until four or five of

the party united their strength.

"_Paul Dumas_, physician, deposes that he was called to view the

bodies about daybreak. They were both then lying on the sacking of

the bedstead in the chamber where Mademoiselle L. was found. The

corpse of the young lady was much bruised and excoriated. The fact

that it had been thrust up the chimney would sufficiently account for

these appearances. The throat was greatly chafed. There were

several deep scratches just below the chin, together with a series of

livid spots which were evidently the impression of fingers. The face

was fearfully discolored, and the eyeballs protruded. The tongue had

been partially bitten through. A large bruise was discovered upon

the pit of the stomach, produced, apparently, by the pressure of a

knee. In the opinion of M. Dumas, Mademoiselle L'Espanaye had been

throttled to death by some person or persons unknown. The corpse of

the mother was horribly mutilated. All the bones of the right leg

and arm were more or less shattered. The left tibia much splintered,

as well as all the ribs of the left side. Whole body dreadfully

bruised and discolored. It was not possible to say how the injuries

had been inflicted. A heavy club of wood, or a broad bar of iron--a

chair--any large, heavy, and obtuse weapon would have produced such

results, if wielded by the hands of a very powerful man. No woman

could have inflicted the blows with any weapon. The head of the

deceased, when seen by witness, was entirely separated from the body,

and was also greatly shattered. The throat had evidently been cut

with some very sharp instrument--probably with a razor.

"_Alexandre Etienne_, surgeon, was called with M. Dumas to view the

bodies. Corroborated the testimony, and the opinions of M. Dumas.

"Nothing further of importance was elicited, although several other

persons were examined. A murder so mysterious, and so perplexing in

all its particulars, was never before committed in Paris--if indeed a

murder has been committed at all. The police are entirely at

fault--an unusual occurrence in affairs of this nature. There is

not, however, the shadow of a clue apparent."

The evening edition of the paper stated that the greatest excitement

still continued in the Quartier St. Roch--that the premises in

question had been carefully researched, and fresh examinations of

witnesses instituted, but all to no purpose. A postscript, however,

mentioned that Adolphe Le Bon had been arrested and

imprisoned--although nothing appeared to criminate him beyond the

facts already detailed.

Dupin seemed singularly interested in the progress of this affair--at

least so I judged from his manner, for he made no comments. It was

only after the announcement that Le Bon had been imprisoned, that he

asked me my opinion respecting the murders.

I could merely agree with all Paris in considering them an insoluble

mystery. I saw no means by which it would be possible to trace the

murderer.

"We must not judge of the means," said Dupin, "by this shell of an

examination. The Parisian police, so much extolled for acumen, are

cunning, but no more. There is no method in their proceedings,

beyond the method of the moment. They make a vast parade of

measures; but, not infrequently, these are so ill-adapted to the

objects proposed, as to put us in mind of Monsieur Jourdain's calling

for his robe-de-chambre--_pour mieux entendre la musique_. The

results attained by them are not infrequently surprising, but, for

the most part, are brought about by simple diligence and activity.

When these qualities are unavailing, their schemes fail. Vidocq, for

example, was a good guesser, and a persevering man. But, without

educated thought, he erred continually by the very intensity at his

investigations. He impaired his vision by holding the object too

close. He might see, perhaps, one or two points with unusual

clearness, but in so doing he, necessarily, lost sight of the matter

as a whole. Thus there is such a thing as being too profound. Truth

is not always in a well. In fact, as regards the more important

knowledge, I do believe that she is invariably superficial. The

depth lies in the valleys where we seek her, and not upon the

mountain-tops where she is found. The modes and sources of this kind

of error are well typified in the contemplation of the heavenly

bodies. To look at a star by glances--to view it in a sidelong way,

by turning toward it the exterior portions of the retina (more

susceptible of feeble impressions of light than the interior), is to

behold the star distinctly--is to have the best appreciation of its

lustre--a lustre which grows dim just in proportion as we turn our

vision fully upon it. A greater number of rays actually fall upon

the eye in the latter case, but in the former, there is the more

refined capacity for comprehension. By undue profundity we perplex

and enfeeble thought; and it is possible to make even Venus herself

vanish from the firmament by a scrutiny too sustained, too

concentrated, or too direct.

"As for these murders, let us enter into some examinations for

ourselves, before we make up an opinion respecting them. An inquiry

will afford us amusement" [I thought this an odd term, so applied,

but said nothing], "and besides, Le Bon once rendered me a service

for which I am not ungrateful. We will go and see the premises with

our own eyes. I know G----, the Prefect of Police, and shall have no

difficulty in obtaining the necessary permission."

The permission was obtained, and we proceeded at once to the Rue

Morgue. This is one of those miserable thoroughfares which intervene

between the Rue Richelieu and the Rue St. Roch. It was late in the

afternoon when we reached it, as this quarter is at a great distance

from that in which we resided. The house was readily found; for

there were still many persons gazing up at the closed shutters, with

an objectless curiosity, from the opposite side of the way. It was

an ordinary Parisian house, with a gateway, on one side of which was

a glazed watch-box, with a sliding panel in the window, indicating a

loge de concierge. Before going in we walked up the street, turned

down an alley, and then, again turning, passed in the rear of the

building--Dupin, meanwhile, examining the whole neighborhood, as well

as the house, with a minuteness of attention for which I could see no

possible object.

Retracing our steps we came again to the front of the dwelling, rang,

and, having shown our credentials, were admitted by the agents in

charge. We went upstairs--into the chamber where the body of

Mademoiselle L'Espanaye had been found, and where both the deceased

still lay. The disorders of the room had, as usual, been suffered to

exist. I saw nothing beyond what had been stated in the "Gazette des

Tribunaux." Dupin scrutinized everything--not excepting the bodies

of the victims. We then went into the other rooms, and into the

yard; a gendarme accompanying us throughout. The examination

occupied us until dark, when we took our departure. On our way home

my companion stepped in for a moment at the office of one of the

daily papers.

I have said that the whims of my friend were manifold, and that _Je

les menagais_:--for this phrase there is no English equivalent. It

was his humor, now, to decline all conversation on the subject of the

murder, until about noon the next day. He then asked me, suddenly,

if I had observed anything peculiar at the scene of the atrocity.

There was something in his manner of emphasizing the word "peculiar,"

which caused me to shudder, without knowing why.

"No, nothing peculiar," I said; "nothing more, at least, than we both

saw stated in the paper."

"The 'Gazette'," he replied, "has not entered, I fear, into the

unusual horror of the thing. But dismiss the idle opinions of this

print. It appears to me that this mystery is considered insoluble,

for the very reason which should cause it to be regarded as easy of

solution--I mean for the _outre_ character of its features. The

police are confounded by the seeming absence of motive--not for the

murder itself--but for the atrocity of the murder. They are puzzled,

too, by the seeming impossibility of reconciling the voices heard in

contention, with the facts that no one was discovered upstairs but

the assassinated Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, and that there were no

means of egress without the notice of the party ascending. The wild

disorder of the room; the corpse thrust, with the head downward, up

the chimney; the frightful mutilation of the body of the old lady;

these considerations, with those just mentioned, and others which I

need not mention, have sufficed to paralyze the powers, by putting

completely at fault the boasted acumen, of the government agents.

They have fallen into the gross but common error of confounding the

unusual with the abstruse. But it is by these deviations from the

plane of the ordinary, that reason feels its way, if at all, in its

search for the true. In investigations such as we are now pursuing,

it should not be so much asked 'what has occurred?' as 'what has

occurred that has never occurred before?' In fact, the facility with

which I shall arrive, or have arrived, at the solution of this

mystery, is in the direct ratio of its apparent insolubility in the

eyes of the police."

I stared at the speaker in mute astonishment.

"I am now awaiting," continued he, looking toward the door of our

apartment--"I am now awaiting a person who, although perhaps not the

perpetrator of these butcheries, must have been in some measure

implicated in their perpetration. Of the worst portion of the crimes

committed, it is probable that he is innocent. I hope that I am

right in this supposition; for upon it I build my expectation of

reading the entire riddle. I look for the man here--in this

room--every moment. It is true that he may not arrive; but the

probability is that he will. Should he come, it will be necessary to

detain him. Here are pistols; and we both know how to use them when

occasion demands their use."

I took the pistols, scarcely knowing what I did, or believing what I

heard, while Dupin went on, very much as if in a soliloquy. I have

already spoken of his abstract manner at such times. His discourse

was addressed to myself; but his voice, although by no means loud,

had that intonation which is commonly employed in speaking to some

one at a great distance. His eyes, vacant in expression, regarded

only the wall.

"That the voices heard in contention," he said, "by the party upon

the stairs, were not the voices of the women themselves, was fully

proved by the evidence. This relieves us of all doubt upon the

question whether the old lady could have first destroyed the

daughter, and afterward have committed suicide. I speak of this

point chiefly for the sake of method; for the strength of Madame

L'Espanaye would have been utterly unequal to the task of thrusting

her daughter's corpse up the chimney as it was found; and the nature

of the wounds upon her own person entirely precludes the idea of

self-destruction. Murder, then, has been committed by some third

party; and the voices of this third party were those heard in

contention. Let me now advert--not to the whole testimony respecting

these voices--but to what was peculiar in that testimony. Did you

observe anything peculiar about it?"

I remarked that, while all the witnesses agreed in supposing the

gruff voice to be that of a Frenchman, there was much disagreement in

regard to the shrill, or, as one individual termed it, the harsh

voice.

"That was the evidence itself," said Dupin, "but it was not the

peculiarity of the evidence. You have observed nothing distinctive.

Yet there was something to be observed. The witnesses, as you

remark, agreed about the gruff voice; they were here unanimous. But

in regard to the shrill voice, the peculiarity is--not that they

disagreed--but that, while an Italian, an Englishman, a Spaniard, a

Hollander, and a Frenchman attempted to describe it, each one spoke

of it as that of a foreigner. Each is sure that it was not the voice

of one of his own countrymen. Each likens it--not to the voice of an

individual of any nation with whose language he is conversant--but

the converse. The Frenchman supposes it the voice of a Spaniard, and

'might have distinguished some words had he been acquainted with the

Spanish.' The Dutchman maintains it to have been that of a

Frenchman; but we find it stated that 'not understanding French this

witness was examined through an interpreter.' The Englishman thinks

it the voice of a German, and 'does not understand German.' The

Spaniard 'is sure' that it was that of an Englishman, but 'judges by

the intonation' altogether, 'as he has no knowledge of the English.'

The Italian believes it the voice of a Russian, but 'has never

conversed with a native of Russia.' A second Frenchman differs,

moreover, with the first, and is positive that the voice was that of

an Italian; but, not being cognizant of that tongue, is, like the

Spaniard, 'convinced by the intonation.' Now, how strangely unusual

must that voice have really been, about which such testimony as this

could have been elicited!--in whose tones, even, denizens of the five

great divisions of Europe could recognize nothing familiar! You will

say that it might have been the voice of an Asiatic--of an African.

Neither Asiatics nor Africans abound in Paris; but, without denying

the inference, I will now merely call your attention to three points.

The voice is termed by one witness 'harsh rather than shrill.' It is

represented by two others to have been 'quick and unequal.' No

words--no sounds resembling words--were by any witness mentioned as

distinguishable.

"I know not," continued Dupin, "what impression I may have made, so

far, upon your own understanding; but I do not hesitate to say that

legitimate deductions even from this portion of the testimony--the

portion respecting the gruff and shrill voices--are in themselves

sufficient to engender a suspicion which should give direction to all

further progress in the investigation of the mystery. I said

'legitimate deductions'; but my meaning is not thus fully expressed.

I designed to imply that the deductions are the sole proper ones, and

that the suspicion arises inevitably from them as the single result.

What the suspicion is, however, I will not say just yet. I merely

wish you to bear in mind that, with myself, it was sufficiently

forcible to give a definite form--a certain tendency--to my inquiries

in the chamber.

"Let us now transport ourselves, in fancy, to this chamber. What

shall we first seek here? The means of egress employed by the

murderers. It is not too much to say that neither of us believes in

preternatural events. Madame and Mademoiselle L'Espanaye were not

destroyed by spirits. The doers of the deed were material and

escaped materially. Then how? Fortunately there is but one mode of

reasoning upon the point, and that mode must lead us to a definite

decision. Let us examine, each by each, the possible means of

egress. It is clear that the assassins were in the room where

Mademoiselle L'Espanaye was found, or at least in the room adjoining,

when the party ascended the stairs. It is, then, only from these two

apartments that we have to seek issues. The police have laid bare

the floors, the ceiling, and the masonry of the walls, in every

direction. No secret issues could have escaped their vigilance.

But, not trusting to their eyes, I examined with my own. There were,

then, no secret issues. Both doors leading from the rooms into the

passage were securely locked, with the keys inside. Let us turn to

the chimneys. These, although of ordinary width for some eight or

ten feet above the hearths, will not admit, throughout their extent,

the body of a large cat. The impossibility of egress, by means

already stated, being thus absolute, we are reduced to the windows.

Through those of the front room no one could have escaped without

notice from the crowd in the street. The murderers must have passed,

then, through those of the back room. Now, brought to this

conclusion in so unequivocal a manner as we are, it is not our part,

as reasoners, to reject it on account of apparent impossibilities.

It is only left for us to prove that these apparent 'impossibilities'

are, in reality, not such.

"There are two windows in the chamber. One of them is unobstructed

by furniture, and is wholly visible. The lower portion of the other

is hidden from view by the head of the unwieldy bedstead which is

thrust close up against it. The former was found securely fastened

from within. It resisted the utmost force of those who endeavored to

raise it. A large gimlet-hole had been pierced in its frame to the

left, and a very stout nail was found fitted therein, nearly to the

head. Upon examining the other window, a similar nail was seen

similarly fitted in it; and a vigorous attempt to raise this sash

failed also. The police were now entirely satisfied that egress had

not been in these directions. And, therefore, it was thought a

matter of supererogation to withdraw the nails and open the windows.

"My own examination was somewhat more particular, and was so for the

reason I have just given--because here it was, I knew, that all

apparent impossibilities must be proved to be not such in reality.

"I proceeded to think thus--_a posteriori_. The murderers did escape

from one of these windows. This being so, they could not have

refastened the sashes from the inside, as they were found

fastened;--the consideration which put a stop, through its

obviousness, to the scrutiny of the police in this quarter. Yet the

sashes were fastened. They must, then, have the power of fastening

themselves. There was no escape from this conclusion. I stepped to

the unobstructed casement, withdrew the nail with some difficulty,

and attempted to raise the sash. It resisted all my efforts, as I

had anticipated. A concealed spring must, I now knew, exist; and

this corroboration of my idea convinced me that my premises, at

least, were correct, however mysterious still appeared the

circumstances attending the nails. A careful search soon brought to

light the hidden spring. I pressed it, and, satisfied with the

discovery, forbore to upraise the sash.

"I now replaced the nail and regarded it attentively. A person

passing out through this window might have reclosed it, and the

spring would have caught--but the nail could not have been replaced.

The conclusion was plain, and again narrowed in the field of my

investigations. The assassins must have escaped through the other

window. Supposing, then, the springs upon each sash to be the same,

as was probable, there must be found a difference between the nails,

or at least between the modes of their fixture. Getting upon the

sacking of the bedstead, I looked over the head-board minutely at the

second casement. Passing my hand down behind the board, I readily

discovered and pressed the spring, which was, as I had supposed,

identical in character with its neighbor. I now looked at the nail.

It was as stout as the other, and apparently fitted in the same

manner--driven in nearly up to the head.

"You will say that I was puzzled; but, if you think so, you must have

misunderstood the nature of the inductions. To use a sporting

phrase, I had not been once 'at fault.' The scent had never for an

instant been lost. There was no flaw in any link of the chain. I

had traced the secret to its ultimate result--and that result was the

nail. It had, I say, in every respect, the appearance of its fellow

in the other window; but this fact was an absolute nullity

(conclusive as it might seem to be) when compared with the

consideration that here, at this point, teminated the clue. 'There

must be something wrong,' I said, 'about the nail.' I touched it;

and the head, with about a quarter of an inch of the shank, came off

in my fingers. The rest of the shank was in the gimlet-hole, where

it had been broken off. The fracture was an old one (for its edges

were incrusted with rust), and had apparently been accomplished by

the blow of a hammer, which had partially embedded, in the top of the

bottom sash, the head portion of the nail. I now carefully replaced

this head portion in the indentation whence I had taken it, and the

resemblance to a perfect nail was complete--the fissure was

invisible. Pressing the spring, I gently raised the sash for a few

inches; the head went up with it, remaining firm in its bed. I

closed the window, and the semblance of the whole nail was again

perfect.

"This riddle, so far, was now unriddled. The assassin had escaped

through the window which looked upon the bed. Dropping of its own

accord upon his exit (or perhaps purposely closed), it had become

fastened by the spring; and it was the retention of this spring which

had been mistaken by the police for that of the nail--further inquiry

being thus considered unnecessary.

"The next question is that of the mode of descent. Upon this point I

had been satisfied in my walk with you around the building. About

five feet and a half from the casement in question there runs a

lightning-rod. From this rod it would have been impossible for any

one to reach the window itself, to say nothing of entering it. I

observed, however, that the shutters of the fourth story were of the

peculiar kind called by Parisian carpenters ferrades--a kind rarely

employed at the present day, but frequently seen upon very old

mansions at Lyons and Bordeaux. They are in the form of an ordinary

door (a single, not a folding door), except that the lower half is

latticed or worked in open trellis--thus affording an excellent hold

for the hands. In the present instance these shutters are fully

three feet and a half broad. When we saw them from the rear of the

house, they were both about half open--that is to say, they stood off

at right angles from the wall. It is probable that the police, as

well as myself, examined the back of the tenement; but, if so, in

looking at these ferrades in the line of their breadth (as they must

have done), they did not perceive this great breadth itself, or, at

all events, failed to take it into due consideration. In fact,

having once satisfied themselves that no egress could have been made

in this quarter, they would naturally bestow here a very cursory

examination. It was clear to me, however, that the shutter belonging

to the window at the head of the bed would, if swung fully back to

the wall, reach to within two feet of the lightning-rod. It was also

evident that, by exertion of a very unusual degree of activity and

courage, an entrance into the window, from the rod, might have been

thus effected. By reaching to the distance of two feet and a half

(we now suppose the shutter open to its whole extent) a robber might

have taken a firm grasp upon the trellis-work. Letting go, then, his

hold upon the rod, placing his feet securely against the wall, and

springing boldly from it, he might have swung the shutter so as to

close it, and, if we imagine the window open at the time, might even

have swung himself into the room.

"I wish you to bear especially in mind that I have spoken of a very

unusual degree of activity as requisite to success in so hazardous

and so difficult a feat. It is my design to show you, first, that

the thing might possibly have been accomplished:--but, secondly and

chiefly, I wish to impress upon your understanding the very

extraordinary--the almost preternatural character of that agility

which could have accomplished it.

"You will say, no doubt, using the language of the law, that 'to make

out my case,' I should rather undervalue than insist upon a full

estimation of the activity required in this matter. This may be the

practise in law, but it is not the usage of reason. My ultimate

object is only the truth. My immediate purpose is to lead you to

place in juxtaposition, that very unusual activity of which I have

just spoken, with that very peculiar shrill (or harsh) and unequal

voice, about whose nationality no two persons could be found to

agree, and in whose utterance no syllabification could be detected."

At these words a vague and half-formed conception of the meaning of

Dupin flitted over my mind. I seemed to be upon the verge of

comprehension, without power to comprehend--as men, at times, find

themselves upon the brink of remembrance, without being able, in the

end, to remember. My friend went on with his discourse.

"You will see," he said, "that I have shifted the question from the

mode of egress to that of ingress. It was my design to convey the

idea that both were effected in the same manner, at the same point.

Let us now revert to the interior of the room. Let us survey the

appearances here. The drawers of the bureau, it is said, had been

rifled, although many articles of apparel still remained within them.

The conclusion here is absurd. It is a mere guess--a very silly

one--and no more. How are we to know that the articles found in the

drawers were not all these drawers had originally contained? Madame

L'Espanaye and her daughter lived an exceedingly retired life--saw no

company--seldom went out--had little use for numerous changes of

habiliment. Those found were at least of as good quality as any

likely to be possessed by these ladies. If a thief had taken any,

why did he not take the best--why did he not take all? In a word,

why did he abandon four thousand francs in gold to encumber himself

with a bundle of linen? The gold was abandoned. Nearly the whole

sum mentioned by Monsieur Mignaud, the banker, was discovered, in

bags, upon the floor. I wish you, therefore, to discard from your

thoughts the blundering idea of motive, engendered in the brains of

the police by that portion of the evidence which speaks of money

delivered at the door of the house. Coincidences ten times as

remarkable as this (the delivery of the money, and murder committed

within three days upon the party receiving it), happen to all of us

every hour of our lives, without attracting even momentary notice.

Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of

that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the

theory of probabilities--that theory to which the most glorious

objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of

illustration. In the present instance, had the gold been gone, the

fact of its delivery three days before would have formed something

more than a coincidence. It would have been corroborative of this

idea of motive. But, under the real circumstances of the case, if we

are to suppose gold the motive of this outrage, we must also imagine

the perpetrator so vacillating an idiot as to have abandoned his gold

and his motive together.

"Keeping now steadily in mind the points to which I have drawn your

attention--that peculiar voice, that unusual agility, and that

startling absence of motive in a murder so singularly atrocious as

this--let us glance at the butchery itself. Here is a woman

strangled to death by manual strength, and thrust up a chimney head

downward. Ordinary assassins employ no such mode of murder as this.

Least of all do they thus dispose of the murdered. In the manner of

thrusting the corpse up the chimney, you will admit that there was

something excessively outre--something altogether irreconcilable with

our common notions of human action, even when we suppose the actors

the most depraved of men. Think, too, how great must have been that

strength which could have thrust the body up such an aperture so

forcibly that the united vigor of several persons was found barely

sufficient to drag it down!

"Turn, now, to other indications of the employment of a vigor most

marvelous. On the hearth were thick tresses--very thick tresses--of

gray human hair. These had been torn out by the roots. You are

aware of the great force necessary in tearing thus from the head even

twenty or thirty hairs together. You saw the locks in question as

well as myself. Their roots (a hideous sight!) were clotted with

fragments of the flesh of the scalp--sure token of the prodigious

power which had been exerted in uprooting perhaps half a million of

hairs at a time. The throat of the old lady was not merely cut, but

the head absolutely severed from the body: the instrument was a mere

razor. I wish you also to look at the brutal ferocity of these

deeds. Of the bruises upon the body of Madame L'Espanaye I do not

speak. Monsieur Dumas, and his worthy coadjutor Monsieur Etienne,

have pronounced that they were inflicted by some obtuse instrument;

and so far these gentlemen are very correct. The obtuse instrument

was clearly the stone pavement in the yard, upon which the victim had

fallen from the window which looked in upon the bed. This idea,

however simple it may now seem, escaped the police for the same

reason that the breadth of the shutters escaped them--because, by the

affair of the nails, their perceptions had been hermetically sealed

against the possibility of the windows having ever been opened at all.

"If now, in addition to all these things, you have properly reflected

upon the odd disorder of the chamber, we have gone so far as to

combine the ideas of an agility astounding, a strength superhuman, a

ferocity brutal, a butchery without motive, a grotesquerie in horror

absolutely alien from humanity, and a voice foreign in tone to the

ears of men of many nations, and devoid of all distinct or

intelligible syllabification. What result, then, has ensued? What

impression have I made upon your fancy?"

I felt a creeping of the flesh as Dupin asked me the question. "A

madman," I said, "has done this deed--some raving maniac, escaped

from a neighboring Maison de Santé."

"In some respects," he replied, "your idea is not irrelevant. But

the voices of madmen, even in their wildest paroxysms, are never

found to tally with that peculiar voice heard upon the stairs.

Madmen are of some nation, and their language, however incoherent in

its words, has always the coherence of syllabification. Besides, the

hair of a madman is not such as I now hold in my hand. I

disentangled this little tuft from the rigidly clutched fingers of

Madame L'Espanaye. Tell me what you can make of it."

"Dupin!" I said, completely unnerved; "this hair is most

unusual--this is no human hair."

"I have not asserted that it is," said he; "but, before we decide

this point, I wish you to glance at the little sketch I have here

traced upon this paper. It is a facsimile drawing of what has been

described in one portion of the testimony as 'dark bruises and deep

indentations of finger nails' upon the throat of Mademoiselle

L'Espanaye, and in another (by Messrs. Dumas and Etienne) as a

'series of livid spots, evidently the impression of fingers.'

"You will perceive," continued my friend, spreading out the paper

upon the table before us, "that this drawing gives the idea of a firm

and fixed hold. There is no slipping apparent. Each finger has

retained--possibly until the death of the victim--the fearful grasp

by which it originally embedded itself. Attempt, now, to place all

your fingers, at the same time, in the respective impressions as you

see them."

I made the attempt in vain.

"We are possibly not giving this matter a fair trial," he said. "The

paper is spread out upon a plane surface; but the human throat is

cylindrical. Here is a billet of wood, the circumference of which is

about that of the throat. Wrap the drawing around it, and try the

experiment again."

I did so; but the difficulty was even more obvious than before.

"This," I said, "is the mark of no human hand."

"Read now," replied Dupin, "this passage from Cuvier."

It was a minute anatomical and generally descriptive account of the

large fulvous Orang-Outang of the East Indian Islands. The gigantic

stature, the prodigious strength and activity, the wild ferocity, and

the imitative propensities of these mammalia are sufficiently well

known to all. I understood the full horrors of the murder at once.

"The description of the digits," said I, as I made an end of the

reading, "is in exact accordance with his drawing. I see that no

animal but an Orang-Outang, of the species here mentioned, could have

impressed the indentations as you have traced them. This tuft of

tawny hair, too, is identical in character with that of the beast of

Cuvier. But I cannot possibly comprehend the particulars of this

frightful mystery. Besides, there were two voices heard in

contention, and one of them was unquestionably the voice of a

Frenchman."

"True; and you will remember an expression attributed almost

unanimously, by the evidence, to this voice--the expression, '_mon

Dieu!_' This, under the circumstances, has been justly characterized

by one of the witnesses (Montani, the confectioner) as an expression

of remonstrance or expostulation. Upon these two words, therefore, I

have mainly built my hopes of a full solution of the riddle. A

Frenchman was cognizant of the murder. It is possible--indeed it is

far more than probable--that he was innocent of all participation in

the bloody transactions which took place. The Orang-Outang may have

escaped from him. He may have traced it to the chamber; but, under

the agitating circumstances which ensued, he could never have

recaptured it. It is still at large. I will not pursue these

guesses--for I have no right to call them more--since the shades of

reflection upon which they are based are scarcely of sufficient depth

to be appreciable by my own intellect, and since I could not pretend

to make them intelligible to the understanding of another. We will

call them guesses, then, and speak of them as such. If the Frenchman

in question is indeed, as I suppose, innocent of this atrocity, this

advertisement, which I left last night, upon our return home, at the

office of 'Le Monde' (a paper devoted to the shipping interest, and

much sought by sailors), will bring him to our residence."

He handed me a paper, and I read thus:

"CAUGHT--_In the Bois de Boulogne, early in the morning of the ----

inst._ (the morning of the murder), _a very large, tawny Orang-Outang

of the Bornese species. The owner_ (_who is ascertained to be a

sailor, belonging to a Maltese vessel_) _may have the animal again,

upon identifying it satisfactorily, and paying a few charges arising

from its capture and keeping. Call at No. ---- Rue ----, Faubourg

St. Germain--au troisieme._"

"How was it possible," I asked, "that you should know the man to be a

sailor, and belonging to a Maltese vessel?"

"I do not know it," said Dupin. "I am not sure of it. Here,

however, is a small piece of ribbon, which from its form, and from

its greasy appearance, has evidently been used in tying the hair in

one of those long queues of which sailors are so fond. Moreover,

this knot is one which few besides sailors can tie, and it is

peculiar to the Maltese. I picked the ribbon up at the foot of the

lightning-rod. It could not have belonged to either of the deceased.

Now if, after all, I am wrong in my induction from this ribbon, that

the Frenchman was a sailor belonging to a Maltese vessel, still I can

have done no harm in saying what I did in the advertisement. If I am

in error, he will merely suppose that I have been misled by some

circumstance into which he will not take the trouble to inquire. But

if I am right, a great point is gained. Cognizant although innocent

of the murder, the Frenchman will naturally hesitate about replying

to the advertisement--about demanding the Orang-Outang. He will

reason thus:--'I am innocent; I am poor; my Orang-Outang is of great

value--to one in my circumstances a fortune of itself--why should I

lose it through idle apprehensions of danger? Here it is, within my

grasp. It was found in the Bois de Boulogne--at a vast distance from

the scene of that butchery. How can it ever be suspected that a

brute beast should have done the deed? The police are at fault--they

have failed to procure the slightest clue. Should they even trace

the animal, it would be impossible to prove me cognizant of the

murder, or to implicate me in guilt on account of that cognizance.

Above all, I am known. The advertiser designates me as the possessor

of the beast. I am not sure to what limit his knowledge may extend.

Should I avoid claiming a property of so great value, which it is

known that I possess, it will render the animal at least liable to

suspicion. It is not my policy to attract attention either to myself

or to the beast. I will answer the advertisement, get the

Orang-Outang, and keep it close until this matter has blown over."

At this moment we heard a step upon the stairs.

"Be ready," said Dupin, "with your pistols, but neither use them nor

show them until at a signal from myself."

The front door of the house had been left open, and the visitor had

entered, without ringing, and advanced several steps upon the

staircase. Now, however, he seemed to hesitate. Presently we heard

him descending. Dupin was moving quickly to the door, when we again

heard him coming up. He did not turn back a second time, but stepped

up with decision, and rapped at the door of our chamber.

"Come in," said Dupin, in a cheerful and hearty tone.

A man entered. He was a sailor, evidently--a tall, stout, and

muscular-looking person, with a certain dare-devil expression of

countenance, not altogether unprepossessing. His face, greatly

sunburned, was more than half-hidden by whisker and mustachio. He

had with him a huge oaken cudgel, but appeared to be otherwise

unarmed. He bowed awkwardly, and bade us "good-evening," in French

accents, which, although somewhat Neufchatelish, were still

sufficiently indicative of a Parisian origin.

"Sit down, my friend," said Dupin. "I suppose you have called about

the Orang-Outang. Upon my word, I almost envy you the possession of

him; a remarkably fine, and no doubt a very valuable animal. How old

do you suppose him to be?"

The sailor drew a long breath, with the air of a man relieved of some

intolerable burden, and then replied, in an assured tone:

"I have no way of telling--but he can't be more than four or five

years old. Have you got him here?"

"Oh, no; we had no conveniences for keeping him here. He is at a

livery stable in the Rue Dubourg, just by. You can get him in the

morning. Of course you are prepared to identify the property?"

"To be sure I am, sir."

"I shall be sorry to part with him," said Dupin.

"I don't mean that you should be at all this trouble for nothing,

sir," said the man. "Couldn't expect it. Am very willing to pay a

reward for the finding of the animal--that is to say, anything in

reason."

"Well," replied my friend, "that is all very fair, to be sure. Let

me think!--what should I have? Oh! I will tell you. My reward

shall be this. You shall give me all the information in your power

about these murders in the Rue Morgue."

Dupin said the last words in a very low tone, and very quietly. Just

as quietly, too, he walked toward the door, locked it, and put the

key in his pocket. He then drew a pistol from his bosom and placed

it, without the least flurry, upon the table.

The sailor's face flushed up as if he were struggling with

suffocation. He started to his feet and grasped his cudgel; but the

next moment he fell back into his seat, trembling violently, and with

the countenance of death itself. He spoke not a word. I pitied him

from the bottom of my heart.

"My friend," said Dupin, in a kind tone, "you are alarming yourself

unnecessarily--you are, indeed. We mean you no harm whatever. I

pledge you the honor of a gentleman, and of a Frenchman, that we

intend you no injury. I perfectly well know that you are innocent of

the atrocities in the Rue Morgue. It will not do, however, to deny

that you are in some measure implicated in them. From what I have

already said, you must know that I have had means of information

about this matter--means of which you could never have dreamed. Now,

the thing stands thus. You have done nothing which you could have

avoided--nothing, certainly, which renders you culpable. You were

not even guilty of robbery, when you might have robbed with impunity.

You have nothing to conceal. You have no reason for concealment. On

the other hand, you are bound by every principle of honor to confess

all you know. An innocent man is now imprisoned, charged with that

crime of which you can point out the perpetrator."

The sailor had recovered his presence of mind, in a great measure,

while Dupin uttered these words; but his original boldness of bearing

was all gone.

"So help me God!" said he, after a brief pause, "I will tell you all

I know about this affair;--but I do not expect you to believe

one-half I say--I would be a fool indeed if I did. Still, I am

innocent, and I will make a clean breast if I die for it."

What he stated was, in substance, this. He had lately made a voyage

to the Indian Archipelago. A party, of which he formed one, landed

at Borneo, and passed into the interior on an excursion of pleasure.

Himself and a companion had captured the Orang-Outang. This

companion dying, the animal fell into his own exclusive possession.

After a great trouble, occasioned by the intractable ferocity of his

captive during the home voyage, he at length succeeded in lodging it

safely at his own residence in Paris, where, not to attract toward

himself the unpleasant curiosity of his neighbors, he kept it

carefully secluded, until such time as it should recover from a wound

in the foot, received from a splinter on board ship. His ultimate

design was to sell it.

Returning home from some sailor's frolic on the night, or rather in

the morning, of the murder, he found the beast occupying his own

bedroom, into which it had broken from a closet adjoining, where it

had been, as was thought, securely confined. Razor in hand, and

fully lathered, it was sitting before a looking-glass, attempting the

operation of shaving, in which it had no doubt previously watched its

master through the keyhole of the closet. Terrified at the sight of

so dangerous a weapon in the possession of an animal so ferocious,

and so well able to use it, the man, for some moments, was at a loss

what to do. He had been accustomed, however, to quiet the creature,

even in its fiercest moods, by the use of a whip, and to this he now

resorted. Upon sight of it, the Orang-Outang sprang at once through

the door of the chamber, down the stairs, and thence, through a

window, unfortunately open, into the street.

The Frenchman followed in despair; the ape, razor still in hand,

occasionally stopping to look back and gesticulate at his pursuer,

until the latter had nearly come up with it. It then again made off.

In this manner the chase continued for a long time. The streets were

profoundly quiet, as it was nearly three o'clock in the morning. In

passing down an alley in the rear of the Rue Morgue, the fugitive's

attention was arrested by a light gleaming from the open window of

Madame L'Espanaye's chamber, in the fourth story of her house.

Rushing to the building, it perceived the lightning-rod, clambered up

with inconceivable agility, grasped the shutter, which was thrown

fully back against the wall, and, by its means, swung itself directly

upon the headboard of the bed. The whole feat did not occupy a

minute. The shutter was kicked open again by the Orang-Outang as it

entered the room.

The sailor, in the meantime, was both rejoiced and perplexed. He had

strong hopes of now recapturing the brute, as it could scarcely

escape from the trap into which it had ventured, except by the rod,

where it might be intercepted as it came down. On the other hand,

there was much cause for anxiety as to what it might do in the house.

This latter reflection urged the man still to follow the fugitive. A

lightning-rod is ascended without difficulty, especially by a sailor;

but, when he had arrived as high as the window, which lay far to his

left, his career was stopped; the most that he could accomplish was

to reach over so as to obtain a glimpse of the interior of the room.

At this glimpse he nearly fell from his hold through excess of

horror. Now it was that those hideous shrieks arose upon the night,

which had startled from slumber the inmates of the Rue Morgue.

Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter, habited in their night clothes,

had apparently been occupied in arranging some papers in the iron

chest already mentioned, which had been wheeled into the middle of

the room. It was open, and its contents lay beside it on the floor.

The victims must have been sitting with their backs toward the

window; and, from the time elapsing between the ingress of the beast

and the screams, it seems probable that it was not immediately

perceived. The flapping to of the shutter would naturally have been

attributed to the wind.

As the sailor looked in, the gigantic animal had seized Madame

L'Espanaye by the hair (which was loose, as she had been combing it),

and was flourishing the razor about her face, in imitation of the

motions of a barber. The daughter lay prostrate and motionless; she

had swooned. The screams and struggles of the old lady (during which

the hair was torn from her head) had the effect of changing the

probably pacific purposes of the Orang-Outang into those of wrath.

With one determined sweep of its muscular arm it nearly severed her

head from her body. The sight of blood inflamed its anger into

frenzy. Gnashing its teeth, and flashing fire from its eyes, it flew

upon the body of the girl and imbedded its fearful talons in her

throat, retaining its grasp until she expired. Its wandering and

wild glances fell at this moment upon the head of the bed, over which

the face of its master, rigid with horror, was just discernible. The

fury of the beast, who no doubt bore still in mind the dreaded whip,

was instantly converted into fear. Conscious of having deserved

punishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its bloody deeds, and

skipped about the chamber in an agony of nervous agitation; throwing

down and breaking the furniture as it moved, and dragging the bed

from the bedstead. In conclusion, it seized first the corpse of the

daughter, and thrust it up the chimney, as it was found; then that of

the old lady, which it immediately hurled through the window headlong.

As the ape approached the casement with its mutilated burden, the

sailor shrank aghast to the rod, and, rather gliding than clambering

down it, hurried at once home--dreading the consequences of the

butchery, and gladly abandoning, in his terror, all solicitude about

the fate of the Orang-Outang. The words heard by the party upon the

staircase were the Frenchman's exclamations of horror and affright,

commingled with the fiendish jabberings of the brute.

I have scarcely anything to add. The Orang-Outang must have escaped

from the chamber, by the rod, just before the breaking of the door.

It must have closed the window as it passed through it. It was

subsequently caught by the owner himself, who obtained for it a very

large sum at the Jardin des Plantes. Le Bon was instantly released,

upon our narration of the circumstances (with some comments from

Dupin) at the bureau of the Prefect of Police. This functionary,

however well disposed to my friend, could not altogether conceal his

chagrin at the turn which affairs had taken, and was fain to indulge

in a sarcasm or two about the propriety of every person minding his

own business.

"Let him talk," said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to

reply. "Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience. I am

satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle. Nevertheless,

that he failed in the solution of this mystery, is by no means that

matter for wonder which he supposes it; for, in truth, our friend the

Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be profound. In his wisdom is no

_stamen_. It is all head and no body, like the pictures of the

Goddess Laverna--or, at best, all head and shoulders, like a codfish.

But he is a good creature after all. I like him especially for one

master stroke of cant, by which he has attained his reputation for

ingenuity; I mean the way he has '_de nier ce qui est, et d'expliquer

ce qui n'est pas_.'"*

* Rousseau--Nouvelle Heloise.

THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

_This is quite properly designated, in the sub-title, as a sequel to

the story that precedes it, though, as M. Dupin himself points out,

the case presented is a far more intricate one._

_Explanations as to the origin of the story are omitted from this

note, as they already appear with sufficient completeness in the

foot-notes which accompany the opening of the story._

THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET[1]

A SEQUEL TO "THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE"

By EDGAR ALLAN POE

[1] Upon the original publication of "Marie Roget," the footnotes now

appended were considered unnecessary; but the lapse of several years

since the tragedy upon which the tale is based, renders it expedient

to give them, and also to say a few words in explanation of the

general design. A young girl, _Mary Cecilia Rogers_, was murdered in

the vicinity of New York; and although her death occasioned an

intense and long-enduring excitement, the mystery attending it had

remained unsolved at the period when the present paper was written

and published (November, 1842). Herein, under pretense of relating

the fate of a Parisian _grisette_, the author has followed, in minute

detail, the essential, while merely paralleling the inessential facts

of the real murder of Mary Rogers. Thus all argument founded upon

the fiction is applicable to the truth: and the investigation of the

truth was the object.

The "Mystery of Marie Roget" was composed at a distance from the

scene of the atrocity, and with no other means of investigation than

the newspapers afforded. Thus much escaped the writer of which he

could have availed himself had he been upon the spot and visited the

localities. It may not be improper to record, nevertheless, that the

confessions of two persons (one of them the Madame Deluc of the

narrative), made at different periods, long subsequent to the

publication, confirmed, in full, not only the general conclusion, but

absolutely all the chief hypothetical details by which that

conclusion was attained.

Es giebt eine Reihe idealischer Begebenheiten, die der Wirklichkeit

parallel lauft. Selten fallen sie zusammen. Menschen und zufalle

modificiren gewohnlich die idealische Begebenheit, so dass sie

unvollkommen erscheint, und ihre Folgen gleichfalls unvollkommen

sind. So bei der Reformation; statt des Protestantismus kam das

Lutherthum hervor.

There are ideal series of events which run parallel with the real

ones. They rarely coincide. Men and circumstances generally modify

the ideal train of events, so that it seems imperfect, and its

consequences are equally imperfect. Thus with the Reformation;

instead of Protestantism came Lutheranism.--_Novalis_.[2] "_Moral

Ansichten_."

[2] The _nom de plume_ of Von Hardenburg.

There are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers who have not

occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling half-credence

in the supernatural, by _coincidences_ of so seemingly marvelous a

character that, as _mere_ coincidences, the intellect has been unable

to receive them. Such sentiments--for the half-credences of which I

speak have never the full force of thought--such sentiments are

seldom thoroughly stifled unless by reference to the doctrine of

chance, or, as it is technically termed, the Calculus of

Probabilities. Now, this Calculus is, in its essence, purely

mathematical; and thus we have the anomaly of the most rigidly exact

in science applied to the shadow and spirituality of the most

intangible in speculation.

The extraordinary details which I am now called upon to make public,

will be found to form, as regards sequence of time, the primary

branch of a series of scarcely intelligible _coincidences_, whose

secondary or concluding branch will be recognized by all readers in

the late murder of Marie Cecilia Rogers, at New York.

When, in an article entitled "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," I

endeavored, about a year ago, to depict some very remarkable features

in the mental character of my friend, the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin,

it did not occur to me that I should ever resume the subject. This

depicting of character constituted my design; and this design was

thoroughly fulfilled in the wild train of circumstances brought to

instance Dupin's idiosyncrasy. I might have adduced other examples,

but I should have proved no more. Late events, however, in their

surprising development, have startled me into some further details,

which will carry with them the air of extorted confession. Hearing

what I have lately heard, it would be indeed strange should I remain

silent in regard to what I both heard and saw so long ago.

Upon the winding up of the tragedy involved in the deaths of Madame

L'Espanaye and her daughter, the Chevalier dismissed the affair at

once from his attention, and relapsed into his old habits of moody

reverie. Prone, at all times, to abstraction, I readily fell in with

his humor; and continuing to occupy our chambers in the Faubourg

Saint Germain, we gave the Future to the winds, and slumbered

tranquilly in the Present, weaving the dull world around us into

dreams.

But these dreams were not altogether uninterrupted. It may readily

be supposed that the part played by my friend in the drama at the Rue

Morgue had not failed of its impression upon the fancies of the

Parisian police. With its emissaries, the name of Dupin had grown

into a household word. The simple character of those inductions by

which he had disentangled the mystery never having been explained

even to the Prefect, or to any other individual than myself, of

course it is not surprising that the affair was regarded as little

less than miraculous, or that the Chevalier's analytical abilities

acquired for him the credit of intuition. His frankness would have

led him to disabuse every inquirer of such prejudice; but his

indolent humor forbade all further agitation of a topic whose

interest to himself had long ceased. It thus happened that he found

himself the cynosure of the political eyes; and the cases were not

few in which attempt was made to engage his services at the

Prefecture. One of the most remarkable instances was that of the

murder of a young girl named Marie Rogêt.

This event occurred about two years after the atrocity in the Rue

Morgue. Marie, whose Christian and family name will at once arrest

attention from their resemblance to those of the unfortunate "cigar

girl," was the only daughter of the widow Estelle Rogêt. The father

had died during the child's infancy, and from the period of his

death, until within eighteen months before the assassination which

forms the subject of our narrative, the mother and daughter had dwelt

together in the Rue Pavée Saint Andrée[3]; Madame there keeping a

_pension_, assisted by Marie. Affairs went on thus until the latter

had attained her twenty-second year, when her great beauty attracted

the notice of a perfumer, who occupied one of the shops in the

basement of the Palais Royal, and whose custom lay chiefly among the

desperate adventurers infesting that neighborhood. Monsieur Le

Blanc[4] was not unaware of the advantages to be derived from the

attendance of the fair Marie in his perfumery; and his liberal

proposals were accepted eagerly by the girl, although with somewhat

more of hesitation by Madame.

[3] Nassau Street.

[4] Anderson.

The anticipations of the shopkeeper were realized, and his rooms soon

became notorious through the charms of sprightly _grisette_. She had

been in his employ about a year, when her admirers were thrown into

confusion by her sudden disappearance from the shop. Monsieur Le

Blanc was unable to account for her absence, and Madame Rogêt was

distracted with anxiety and terror. The public papers immediately

took up the theme, and the police were upon the point of making

serious investigations when, one fine morning after the lapse of a

week, Marie in good health, but with a somewhat saddened air, made

her reappearance at her usual counter in the perfumery. All inquiry,

except that of a private character, was, of course, immediately

hushed. Monsieur Le Blanc professed total ignorance, as before.

Marie, with Madame, replied to all questions, that the last week had

been spent at the house of a relation in the country. Thus the

affair died away, and was generally forgotten; for the girl,

ostensibly to relieve herself from the impertinence of curiosity,

soon bade a final adieu to the perfumer, and sought the shelter of

her mother's residence in the Rue Pavée Saint Andrée.

It was about five months after this return home that her friends were

alarmed by her sudden disappearance for the second time. Three days

elapsed, and nothing was heard of her. On the fourth her corpse was

found floating in the Seine,[5] near the shore which is opposite the

Quartier of the Rue Saint Andrée, and at a point not very far distant

from the secluded neighborhood of the Barrière du Roule.[6]

[5] The Hudson.

[6] Weehawken.

The atrocity of this murder (for it was at once evident that murder

had been committed), the youth and beauty of the victim and, above

all, her previous notoriety, conspired to produce intense excitement

in the minds of the sensitive Parisians. I can call to mind no

similar occurrence producing so general and so intense an effect.

For several weeks, in the discussion of this one absorbing theme,

even the momentous political topics of the day were forgotten. The

Prefect made unusual exertions; and the powers of the whole Parisian

police, were, of course, tasked to the utmost extent.

"Upon the first discovery of the corpse, it was not supposed that the

murderer would be able to elude, for more than a very brief period,

the inquisition which was immediately set on foot. It was not until

the expiration of a week that it was deemed necessary to offer a

reward; and even then this reward was limited to a thousand francs.

In the meantime the investigation proceeded with vigor, if not always

with judgment, and numerous individuals were examined to no purpose;

while, owing to the continual absence of all clue to the mystery, the

popular excitement greatly increased. At the end of the tenth day it

was thought advisable to double the sum originally proposed; and, at

length, the second week having elapsed without leading to any

discoveries, and the prejudice which always exists in Paris against

the police having given vent to itself in several serious _emeutes_,

the Prefect took it upon himself to offer the sum of twenty-thousand

francs "for the conviction of the assassin," or, if more than one

should prove to have been implicated, "for the conviction of any one

of the assassins." In the proclamation setting forth this reward, a

full pardon was promised to any accomplice who should come forward in

evidence against his fellow; and to the whole was appended, wherever

it appeared, the private placard of a committee of citizens, offering

ten thousand francs in addition to the amount proposed by the

Prefecture. The entire reward thus stood at no less than thirty

thousand francs, which will be regarded as an extraordinary sum when

we consider the humble condition of the girl, and the great

frequency, in large cities, of such atrocities as the one described.

No one doubted now that the mystery of this murder would be

immediately brought to light. But although, in one or two instances,

arrests were made which promised elucidation, yet nothing was

elicited which could implicate the parties suspected; and they were

discharged forthwith. Strange as it may appear, the third week from

the discovery of the body had passed, and passed without any light

being thrown upon the subject, before even a rumor of the events

which had so agitated the public mind reached the ears of Dupin and

myself. Engaged in researches which had absorbed our whole

attention, it had been nearly a month since either of us had gone

abroad, or received a visitor, or more than glanced at the leading

political articles in one of the daily papers. The first

intelligence of the murder was brought us by G----, in person. He

called upon us early in the afternoon of the thirteenth of July,

18--, and remained with us until late in the night. He had been

piqued by the failure of all his endeavors to ferret out the

assassins. His reputation--so he said with a peculiarly Parisian

air--was at stake. Even his honor was concerned. The eyes of the

public were upon him; and there was really no sacrifice which he

would not be willing to make for the development of the mystery. He

concluded a somewhat droll speech with a compliment upon what he was

pleased to term the _tact_ of Dupin, and made him a direct and

certainly a liberal proposition, the precise nature of which I do not

feel myself at liberty to disclose, but which has no bearing upon the

proper subject of my narrative.

The compliment my friend rebutted as best he could, but the

proposition he accepted at once, although its advantages were

altogether provisional. This point being settled, the Prefect broke

forth at once, into explanations of his own views, interspersing them

with long comments upon the evidence; of which latter we were not yet

in possession. He discoursed much, and, beyond doubt, learnedly;

while I hazarded an occasional suggestion as the night wore drowsily

away. Dupin, sitting steadily in his accustomed armchair, was the

embodiment of respectful attention. He wore spectacles during the

whole interview; and an occasional glance beneath their green glasses

sufficed to convince me that he slept not the less soundly, because

silently, throughout the seven or eight leaden-footed hours which

immediately preceded the departure of the Prefect.

In the morning I procured, at the Prefecture, a full report of all

the evidence elicited, and, at the various newspaper offices, a copy

of every paper in which, from first to last, had been published any

decisive information in regard to this sad affair. Freed from all

that was positively disproved, this mass of information stood thus:

Marie Rogêt left the residence of her mother, in the Rue Pavée St.

Andrée, about nine o'clock in the morning of day, June the

twenty-second, 18--. In going out, she gave notice to a Monsieur

Jacques St. Eustache,[7] and to him only, of her intention to spend

the day with an aunt, who resided in the Rue des Drômes. The Rue des

Drômes is a short and narrow but populous thoroughfare, not far from

the banks of the river, and at a distance of some two miles, in the

most direct course possible, from the _pension_ of Madame Rogêt. St.

Eustache was the accepted suitor of Marie, and lodged, as well as

took his meals, at the _pension_. He was to have gone for his

betrothed at dusk, and to have escorted her home. In the afternoon,

however, it came on to rain heavily; and, supposing that she would

remain all night at her aunt's (as she had done under similar

circumstances before), he did not think it necessary to keep his

promise. As night drew on, Madame Rogêt (who was an infirm old lady,

seventy years of age) was heard to express a fear "that she should

never see Marie again"; but this observation attracted little

attention at the time.

[7] Payne.

On Monday it was ascertained that the girl had not been to the Rue

des Drômes; and when the day elapsed without tidings of her, a tardy

search was instituted at several points in the city and its environs.

It was not, however, until the fourth day from the period of her

disappearance that anything satisfactory was ascertained respecting

her. On this day (Wednesday, the twenty-fifth of June) a Monsieur

Beauvais,[8] who, with a friend, had been making inquiries for Marie

near the Barrière du Roule, on the shore of the Seine which is

opposite the Rue Pavée St. Andrée, was informed that a corpse had

just been towed ashore by some fishermen, who had found it floating

in the river. Upon seeing the body, Beauvais, after some hesitation,

identified it as that of the perfumery girl. His friend recognized

it more promptly.

[8] Crommelin.

The face was suffused with dark blood, some of which issued from the

mouth. No foam was seen, as in the case of the merely drowned.

There was no discoloration in the cellular tissue. About the throat

were bruises and impressions of fingers. The arms were bent over on

the chest, and were rigid. The right hand was clenched; the left

partially open. On the left wrist were two circular excoriations,

apparently the effect of ropes, or of a rope in more than one

volution. A part of the right wrist, also, was much chafed, as well

as the back throughout its extent, but more especially at the

shoulder-blades. In bringing the body to the shore the fishermen had

attached to it a rope, but none of the excoriations had been effected

by this. The flesh of the neck was much swollen. There were no cuts

apparent, or bruises which appeared the effect of blows. A piece of

lace was found tied so tightly around the neck as to be hidden from

sight; it was completely buried in the flesh, and was fastened by a

knot which lay just under the left ear. This alone would have

sufficed to produce death. The medical testimony spoke confidently

of the virtuous character of the deceased. She had been subjected,

it is said, to brutal violence. The corpse was in such condition

when found that there could have been no difficulty in its

recognition by friends.

The dress was much torn and otherwise disordered. In the outer

garment, a slip, about a foot wide, had been torn upward from the

bottom hem to the waist, but not torn off. It was wound three times

around the waist, and secured by a sort of hitch in the back. The

dress immediately beneath the frock was of fine muslin; and from this

a slip eighteen inches wide had been torn entirely out--torn very

evenly and with great care. It was found around her neck, fitting

loosely, and secured with a hard knot. Over this muslin slip and the

slip of lace the strings of a bonnet were attached, the bonnet being

appended. The knot by which the strings of the bonnet were fastened

was not a lady's, but a slip or sailor's knot.

After the recognition of the corpse, it was not, as usual, taken to

the Morgue (this formality being superfluous), but hastily interred

not far from the spot at which it was brought ashore. Through the

exertions of Beauvais, the matter was industriously hushed up, as far

as possible; and several days had elapsed before any public emotion

resulted. A weekly paper,[9] however, at length took up the theme;

the corpse was disinterred, and a reexamination instituted; but

nothing was elicited beyond what has been already noted. The

clothes, however, were now submitted to the mother and friends of the

deceased, and fully identified as those worn by the girl upon leaving

home.

[9] The New York "Mercury."

Meantime, the excitement increased hourly. Several individuals were

arrested and discharged. St. Eustache fell especially under

suspicion; and he failed, at first, to give an intelligible account

of his whereabouts during the Sunday on which Marie left home.

Subsequently, however, he submitted to Monsieur G----, affidavits,

accounting satisfactorily for every hour of the day in question. As

time passed no discovery ensued, a thousand contradictory rumors were

circulated, and journalists busied themselves in _suggestions_.

Among these, the one which attracted the most notice was the idea

that Marie Rogêt still lived--that the corpse found in the Seine was

that of some other unfortunate. It will be proper that I submit to

the reader some passages which embody the suggestion alluded to.

These passages are _literal_ translations from "L'Etoile,"[10] a

paper conducted, in general, with much ability.

[10] The New York "Brother Jonathan," edited by H. Hastings Weld, Esq.

"Mademoiselle Rogêt left her mother's house on Sunday morning, June

the twenty-second, 18--, with the ostensible purpose of going to see

her aunt, or some other connection, in the Rue des Drômes. From that

hour nobody is proved to have seen her. There is no trace or tidings

of her at all.... There has no person, whatever, come forward, so

far, who saw her at all on that day, after she left her mother's

door.... Now, though we have no evidence that Marie Rogêt was in the

land of the living after nine o'clock on Sunday, June the

twenty-second, we have proof that, up to that hour, she was alive.

On Wednesday noon, at twelve, a female body was discovered afloat on

the shore of the Barrière du Roule. This was, even if we presume

that Marie Rogêt was thrown into the river within three hours after

she left her mother's house, only three days from the time she left

her home--three days to an hour. But it is folly to suppose that the

murder, if murder was committed on her body, could have been

consummated soon enough to have enabled her murderers to throw the

body into the river before midnight. Those who are guilty of such

horrid crimes choose darkness rather than light.... Thus we see that

if the body found in the river was that of Marie Rogêt, it could only

have been in the water two and a half days, or three at the outside.

All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into

the water immediately after death by violence, require from six to

ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to

the top of the water. Even where a cannon is fired over a corpse,

and it rises before at least five or six days' immersion, it sinks

again, if left alone. Now, we ask, what was there in this case to

cause a departure from the ordinary course of nature? ... If the body

had been kept in its mangled state on shore until Tuesday night, some

trace would be found on shore of the murderers. It is a doubtful

point, also, whether the body would be so soon afloat, even were it

thrown in after having been dead two days. And, furthermore, it is

exceedingly improbable that any villains who had committed such a

murder as is here supposed, would have thrown the body in without

weight to sink it, when such a precaution could have so easily been

taken."

The editor here proceeds to argue that the body must have been in the

water "not three days merely, but, at least, five times three days,"

because it was so far decomposed that Beauvais had great difficulty

in recognizing it. This latter point, however, was fully disproved.

I continue the translation:

"What, then, are the facts on which M. Beauvais says that he has no

doubt the body was that of Marie Rogêt? He ripped up the gown

sleeve, and says he found marks which satisfied him of the identity.

The public generally supposed those marks to have consisted of some

description of scars. He rubbed the arm and found hair upon

it--something as indefinite, we think, as can readily be imagined--as

little conclusive as finding an arm in the sleeve. M. Beauvais did

not return that night, but sent word to Madame Rogêt, at seven

o'clock, on Wednesday evening, that an investigation was still in

progress respecting her daughter. If we allow that Madame Rogêt,

from her age and grief, could not go over (which is allowing a great

deal), there certainly must have been some one who would have thought

it worth while to go over and attend the investigation, if they

thought the body was that of Marie. Nobody went over. There was

nothing said or heard about the matter in the Rue Pavée St. Andrée,

that reached even the occupants of the same building. M. St.

Eustache, the lover and intended husband of Marie, who boarded in her

mother's house, deposes that he did not hear of the discovery of the

body of his intended until the next morning, when M. Beauvais came

into his chamber and told him of it. For an item of news like this,

it strikes us it was very coolly received."

In this way the journal endeavored to create the impression of an

apathy on the part of the relatives of Marie, inconsistent with the

supposition that these relatives believed the corpse to be hers. Its

insinuations amount to this: that Marie, with the connivance of her

friends, had absented herself from the city for reasons involving a

charge against her chastity; and that these friends upon the

discovery of a corpse in the Seine, somewhat resembling that of the

girl, had availed themselves of the opportunity to impress the public

with the belief of her death. But "L'Etoile" was again overhasty.

It was distinctly proved that no apathy, such as was imagined,

existed; that the old lady was exceedingly feeble, and so agitated as

to be unable to attend to any duty; that St. Eustache, so far from

receiving the news coolly, was distracted with grief, and bore

himself so frantically, that M. Beauvais prevailed upon a friend and

relative to take charge of him, and prevent his attending the

examination at the disinterment. Moreover, although it was stated by

"L'Etoile" that the corpse was reinterred at the public expense, that

an advantageous offer of private sepulture absolutely declined by the

family, and that no member of the family attended the

ceremonial;--although, I say, all this was asserted by "L'Etoile" in

furtherance of the impression it designed to convey--yet all this was

satisfactorily disproved. In a subsequent number of the paper, an

attempt was made to throw suspicion upon Beauvais himself. The

editor says:

"Now, then, a change comes over the matter. We are told that, on one

occasion, while a Madame B---- was at Madame Rogêt's house, M.

Beauvais, who was going out, told her that a gendarme was expected

there, and that she, Madame B., must not say anything to the gendarme

until he returned, but let the matter be for him.... In the present

posture of affairs, M. Beauvais appears to have the whole matter

locked up in his head. A single step can not be taken without M.

Beauvais, for, go which way you will, you run against him.... For

some reason he determined that nobody shall have anything to do with

the proceedings but himself, and he has elbowed the male relatives

out of the way, according to their representations, in a very

singular manner. He seems to have been very much averse to

permitting the relatives to see the body."

By the following fact, some color was given to the suspicion thus

thrown upon Beauvais. A visitor at his office, a few days prior to

the girl's disappearance, and during the absence of its occupant, had

observed a rose in the keyhole of the door, and the name "_Marie_"

inscribed upon a slate which hung near at hand.

The general impression, so far as we were enabled to glean it from

the newspapers, seemed to be, that Marie had been the victim of a

gang of desperadoes--that by these she had been borne across the

river, maltreated, and murdered.

"Le Commerciel,"[11] however, a print of extensive influence, was

earnest in combating this popular idea. I quote a passage or two

from its columns:

[11] New York "Journal of Commerce."

"We are persuaded that pursuit has hitherto been on a false scent, so

far as it has been directed to the Barrière du Roule. It is

impossible that a person so well known to thousands as this young

woman was, should have passed three blocks without some one having

seen her; and any one who saw her would have remembered it, for she

interested all who knew her. It was when the streets were full of

people, when she went out.... It is impossible that she could have

gone to the Barrière du Roule, or to the Rue des Drômes, without

being recognized by a dozen persons; yet no one has come forward who

saw her outside her mother's door, and there is no evidence, except

the testimony concerning her _expressed intentions_, that she did go

out at all. Her gown was torn, bound round her, and tied; and by

that the body was carried as a bundle. If the murder had been

committed at the Barrière du Roule, there would have been no

necessity for any such arrangement. The fact that the body was found

floating near the Barrière is no proof as to where it was thrown into

the water.... A piece of one of the unfortunate girl's petticoats,

two feet long and one foot wide, was torn out and tied under her chin

around the back of her head, probably to prevent screams. This was

done by fellows who had no pocket-handkerchief."

A day or two before the Prefect called upon us, however, some

important information reached the police, which seemed to overthrow,

at least, the chief portion of "Le Commerciel's" argument. Two small

boys, sons of a Madame Deluc, while roaming among the woods near the

Barrière du Roule, chanced to penetrate a close thicket, within which

were three or four large stones, forming a kind of seat with a back

and footstool. On the upper stone lay a white petticoat; on the

second, a silk scarf. A parasol, gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief

were also here found. The handkerchief bore the name "Marie Rogêt."

Fragments of dress were discovered on the brambles around. The earth

was trampled, the bushes were broken, and there was every evidence of

a struggle. Between the thicket and the river, the fences were found

taken down, and the ground bore evidence of some heavy burden having

been dragged along it.

A weekly paper, "Le Soleil,"[12] had the following comments upon this

discovery--comments which merely echoed the sentiment of the whole

Parisian press:

[12] Philadelphia "Saturday Evening Post," edited by C. I. Peterson,

Esq.

"The things had all evidently been there at least three or four

weeks; they were all mildewed down hard with the action of the rain,

and stuck together from mildew. The grass had grown around and over

some of them. The silk on the parasol was strong, but the threads of

it were run together within. The upper part, where it had been

doubled and folded, was all mildewed and rotten, and tore on its

being opened.... The pieces of her frock torn out by the bushes were

about three inches wide and six inches long. One part was the hem of

the frock, and it had been mended; the other piece was part of the

skirt, not the hem. They looked like strips torn off, and were on

the thorn bush, about a foot from the ground.... There can be no

doubt, therefore, that the spot of this appalling outrage has been

discovered."

Consequent upon this discovery, new evidence appeared. Madame Deluc

testified that she keeps a roadside inn not far from the bank of the

river, opposite the Barrière du Roule. The neighborhood is

secluded--particularly so. It is the usual Sunday resort of

blackguards from the city, who cross the river in boats. About three

o'clock, in the afternoon of the Sunday in question, a young girl

arrived at the inn, accompanied by a young man of dark complexion.

The two remained here for some time. On their departure, they took

the road to some thick woods in the vicinity. Madame Deluc's

attention was called to the dress worn by the girl, on account of its

resemblance to one worn by a deceased relative. A scarf was

particularly noticed. Soon after the departure of the couple, a gang

of miscreants made their appearance, behaved boisterously, ate and

drank without making payment, followed in the route of the young man

and girl, returned to the inn about dusk, and recrossed the river as

if in great haste.

It was soon after dark, upon this same evening, that Madame Deluc, as

well as her eldest son, heard the screams of a female in the vicinity

of the inn. The screams were violent but brief. Madame D.

recognized not only the scarf which was found in the thicket, but the

dress which was discovered upon the corpse. An omnibus driver,

Valence,[13] now also testified that he saw Marie Rogêt cross a ferry

on the Seine, on the Sunday in question, in company with a young man

of dark complexion. He, Valence, knew Marie, and could not be

mistaken in her identity. The articles found in the thicket were

fully identified by the relatives of Marie.

[13] Adam.

The items of evidence and information thus collected by myself, from

the newspapers, at the suggestion of Dupin, embraced only one more

point--but this was a point of seemingly vast consequence. It

appears that, immediately after the discovery of the clothes as above

described, the lifeless or nearly lifeless body of St. Eustache,

Marie's betrothed, was found in the vicinity of what all now supposed

the scene of the outrage. A phial labeled "laudanum," and emptied,

was found near him. His breath gave evidence of the poison. He died

without speaking. Upon his person was found a letter, briefly

stating his love for Marie, with his design of self-destruction.

"I need scarcely tell you," said Dupin, as he finished the perusal of

my notes, "that this is a far more intricate case than that of the

Rue Morgue; from which it differs in one important respect. This is

an _ordinary_, although an atrocious, instance of crime. There is

nothing peculiarly _outre_ about it. You will observe that, for this

reason, the mystery has been considered easy, when, for this reason,

it should have been considered difficult, of solution. Thus, at

first, it was thought unnecessary to offer a reward. The myrmidons

of G---- were able at once to comprehend how and why such an atrocity

_might have been_ committed. They could picture to their

imaginations a mode--many modes--and a motive--many motives; and

because it was not impossible that either of these numerous modes and

motives could have been the actual one, they have taken it for

granted that one of them must. But the ease with which these

variable fancies were entertained, and the very plausibility which

each assumed, should have been understood as indicative rather of the

difficulties than of the facilities which must attend elucidation. I

have, therefore, observed that it is by prominences above the plane

of the ordinary, that reason feels her way, if at all, in her search

for the true, and that the proper question in cases such as this, is

not so much 'what has occurred?' as 'what has occurred that has never

occurred before?' In the investigations at the house of Madame

L'Espanaye,[14] the agents of G---- were discouraged and confounded

by that very _unusualness_ which, to a properly regulated intellect,

would have afforded the surest omen of success; while this same

intellect might have been plunged in despair at the ordinary

character of all that met the eye in the case of the perfumery girl,

and yet told of nothing but easy triumph to the functionaries of the

Prefecture.

[14] See "Murders in the Rue Morgue."

"In the case of Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter, there was, even

at the beginning of our investigation, no doubt that murder had been

committed. The idea of suicide was excluded at once. Here, too, we

are freed, at the commencement, from all supposition of self-murder.

The body found at the Barrière du Roule was found under such

circumstances as to leave us no room for embarrassment upon this

important point. But it has been suggested that the corpse

discovered is not that of the Marie Rogêt for the conviction of whose

assassin, or assassins, the reward is offered, and respecting whom,

solely, our agreement has been arranged with the Prefect. We both

know this gentleman well. It will not do to trust him too far. If,

dating our inquiries from the body found, and then tracing a

murderer, we yet discover this body to be that of some other

individual than Marie; or if, starting from the living Marie, we find

her, yet find her unassassinated--in either case we lose our labor;

since it is Monsieur G---- with whom we have to deal. For our own

purpose, therefore, if not for the purpose of justice, it is

indispensable that our first step should be the determination of the

identity of the corpse with the Marie Rogêt who is missing.

"With the public the arguments of 'L'Etoile' have had weight; and

that the journal itself is convinced of their importance would appear

from the manner in which it commences one of its essays upon the

subject--'Several of the morning papers of the day,' it says, 'speak

of the _conclusive_ article in Monday's "'Etoile."' To me, this

article appears conclusive of little beyond the zeal of its inditer.

We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the object of our

newspapers rather to create a sensation--to make a point--than to

further the cause of truth. The latter end is only pursued when it

seems coincident with the former. The print which merely falls in

with ordinary opinion (however well founded this opinion may be)

earns for itself no credit with the mob. The mass of the people

regard as profound only him who suggests _pungent contradictions_ of

the general idea. In ratiocination, not less than in literature, it

is the _epigram_ which is the most immediately and the most

universally appreciated. In both, it is of the lowest order of merit.

"What I mean to say is, that it is the mingled epigram and melodrame

of the idea, that Marie Rogêt still lives, rather than any true

plausibility in this idea, which have suggested it to 'L'Etoile,' and

secured it a favorable reception with the public. Let us examine the

heads of this journal's argument; endeavoring to avoid the

incoherence with which it is originally set forth.

"The first aim of the writer is to show, from the brevity of the

interval between Marie's disappearance and the finding of the

floating corpse, that this corpse can not be that of Marie. The

reduction of this interval to its smallest possible dimension,

becomes thus, at once, an object with the reasoner. In the rash

pursuit of this object, he rushes into mere assumption at the outset.

'It is folly to suppose,' he says, 'that the murder, if murder was

committed on her body, could have been consummated soon enough to

have enabled her murderers to throw the body into the river before

midnight.' We demand at once, and very naturally, _Why?_ Why is it

folly to suppose that the murder was committed _within five minutes_

after the girl's quitting her mother's house? Why is it folly to

suppose that the murder was committed at any given period of the day?

There have been assassinations at all hours. But, had the murder

taken place at any moment between nine o'clock in the morning of

Sunday and a quarter before midnight, there would still have been

time enough 'to throw the body into the river before midnight.' This

assumption, then, amounts precisely to this--that the murder was not

committed on Sunday at all--and, if we allow 'L'Etoile' to assume

this, we may permit it any liberties whatever. The paragraph

beginning 'It is folly to suppose that the murder, etc.,' however it

appears as printed in 'L'Etoile,' may be imagined to have existed

actually _thus_ in the brain of its inditer: 'It is folly to suppose

that the murder, if murder was committed on the body, could have been

committed soon enough to have enabled her murderers to throw the body

into the river before midnight; it is folly, we say, to suppose all

this, and to suppose at the same time (as we are resolved to

suppose), that the body was _not_ thrown in until _after_

midnight'--a sentence sufficiently inconsequential in itself, but not

so utterly preposterous as the one printed.

"Were it my purpose," continued Dupin, "merely to _make out a case_

against this passage of 'L'Etoile's' argument, I might safely leave

it where it is. It is not, however, with 'L'Etoile' that we have to

do, but with the truth. The sentence in question has but one

meaning, as it stands; and this meaning I have fairly stated; but it

is material that we go behind the mere words, for an idea which these

words have obviously intended, and failed to convey. It was the

design of the journalists to say that at whatever period of the day

or night of Sunday this murder was committed, it was improbable that

the assassins would have ventured to bear the corpse to the river

before midnight. And herein lies, really, the assumption of which I

complain. It is assumed that the murder was committed at such a

position, and under such circumstances, that _the bearing it_ to the

river became necessary. Now, the assassination might have taken

place upon the river's brink, or on the river itself; and, thus, the

throwing the corpse in the water might have been resorted to at any

period of the day or night, as the most obvious and most immediate

mode of disposal. You will understand that I suggest nothing here as

probable, or as coincident with my opinion. My design, so far, has

no reference to the facts of the case. I wish merely to caution you

against the whole tone of _'L'Etoile's' suggestion_, by calling your

attention to its _ex-parte_ character at the outset.

"Having prescribed thus a limit to suit its own preconceived notions;

having assumed that, if this were the body of Marie, it could have

been in the water but a very brief time, the journal goes on to say:

"'All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into

the water immediately after death by violence, require from six to

ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to

the top of the water. Even when a cannon is fired over a corpse, and

it rises before at least five or six days' immersion, it sinks again

if let alone.'

"These assertions have been tacitly received by every paper in Paris,

with the exception of 'Le Moniteur.'[15] This latter print endeavors

to combat that portion of the paragraph which has reference to

'drowned bodies' only, by citing some five or six instances in which

the bodies of individuals known to be drowned were found floating

after the lapse of less time than is insisted upon by 'L'Etoile.'

But there is something excessively unphilosophical in the attempt, on

the part of 'Le Moniteur,' to rebut the general assertion of

'L'Etoile,' by a citation of particular instances militating against

that assertion. Had it been possible to adduce fifty instead of five

examples of bodies found floating at the end of two or three days,

these fifty examples could still have been properly regarded only as

exceptions to 'L'Etoile's' rule, until such time as the rule itself

should be confuted. Admitting the rule (and this 'Le Moniteur' does

not deny, insisting merely upon its exceptions), the argument of

'L'Etoile' is suffered to remain in full force; for this argument

does not pretend to involve more than a question of the _probability_

of the body having risen to the surface in less than three days; and

this probability will be in favor of 'L'Etoile's' position until the

instances so childishly adduced shall be sufficient in number to

establish an antagonistical rule.

[15] The New York "Commercial Advertiser" edited by Colonel Stone.

"You will see at once that all argument upon this head should be

urged, if at all, against the rule itself; and for this end we must

examine the _rationale_ of the rule. Now the human body, in general,

is neither much lighter nor much heavier than the water of the Seine;

that is to say, the specific gravity of the human body, in its

natural condition, is about equal to the bulk of fresh water which it

displaces. The bodies of fat and fleshy persons, with small bones,

and of women generally, are lighter than those of the lean and

large-boned, and of men; and the specific gravity of the water of a

river is somewhat influenced by the presence of the tide from the

sea. But, leaving this tide out of the question, it may be said that

_very_ few human bodies will sink at all, even in fresh water, _of

their own accord_. Almost any one, falling into a river, will be

enabled to float, if he suffer the specific gravity of the water

fairly to be adduced in comparison with his own--that is to say, if

he suffer his whole person to be immersed, with as little exception

as possible. The proper position for one who can not swim is the

upright position of the walker on land, with the head thrown fully

back, and immersed; the mouth and nostrils alone remaining above the

surface. Thus circumstanced, we shall find that we float without

difficulty and without exertion. It is evident, however, that the

gravities of the body, and of the bulk of water displaced, are very

nicely balanced, and that a trifle will cause either to preponderate.

An arm, for instance, uplifted from the water, and thus deprived of

its support, is an additional weight sufficient to immerse the whole

head, while the accidental aid of the smallest piece of timber will

enable us to elevate the head so as to look about. Now, in the

struggles of one unused to swimming, the arms are invariably thrown

upward, while an attempt is made to keep the head in its usual

perpendicular position. The result is the immersion of the mouth and

nostrils, and the inception, during efforts to breathe while beneath

the surface, of water into the lungs. Much is also received into the

stomach, and the whole body becomes heavier by the difference between

the weight of the air originally distending these cavities, and that

of the fluid which now fills them. This difference is sufficient to

cause the body to sink, as a general rule; but is insufficient in the

case of individuals with small bones and an abnormal quantity of

flaccid or fatty matter. Such individuals float even after drowning.

"The corpse, being supposed at the bottom of the river, will there

remain until, by some means, its specific gravity again becomes less

than that of the bulk of water which it displaces. This effect is

brought about by decomposition or otherwise. The result of

decomposition is the generation of gas, distending the cellular

tissues and all the cavities, and giving the puffed appearance which

is so horrible. When this distension has so far progressed that the

bulk of the corpse is materially increased without a corresponding

increase of mass or weight, its specific gravity becomes less than

that of the water displaced, and it forthwith makes its appearance at

the surface. But decomposition is modified by innumerable

circumstances--is hastened or retarded by innumerable agencies; for

example, by the heat or cold of the season, by the mineral

impregnation or purity of the water, by its depth or shallowness, by

its currency or stagnation, by the temperament of the body, by its

infection or freedom from disease before death. Thus it is evident

that we can assign no period, with anything like accuracy, at which

the corpse shall rise through decomposition. Under certain

conditions this result would be brought about within an hour; under

others it might not take place at all. There are chemical infusions

by which the animal frame can be preserved forever from corruption;

the bichloride of mercury is one. But, apart from decomposition,

there may be, and very usually is, a generation of gas within the

stomach, from the acetous fermentation of vegetable matter (or within

other cavities from other causes), sufficient to induce a distension

which will bring the body to the surface. The effect produced by the

firing of a cannon is that of simple vibration. This may either

loosen the corpse from the soft mud or ooze in which it is embedded,

thus permitting it to rise when other agencies have already prepared

it for so doing; or it may overcome the tenacity of some putrescent

portions of the cellular tissue, allowing the cavities to distend

under the influence of the gas.

"Having thus before us the whole philosophy of this subject, we can

easily test by it the assertions of 'L'Etoile.' 'All experience

shows,' says this paper, 'that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into

the water immediately after death by violence, require from six to

ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to

the top of the water. Even when a cannon is fired over a corpse, and

it rises before at least five or six days' immersion, it sinks again

if let alone.'

"The whole of this paragraph must now appear a tissue of

inconsequence and incoherence. All experience does _not_ show that

'drowned bodies' _require_ from six to ten days for sufficient

decomposition to take place to bring them to the surface. Both

science and experience show that the period of their rising is, and

necessarily must be, indeterminate. If, moreover, a body has risen

to the surface through firing of cannon, it will _not_ 'sink again if

let alone,' until decomposition has so far progressed as to permit

the escape of the generated gas. But I wish to call your attention

to the distinction which is made between 'drowned bodies,' and

'bodies thrown into the water immediately after death by violence.'

Although the writer admits the distinction, he yet includes them all

in the same category. I have shown how it is that the body of a

drowning man becomes specifically heavier than its bulk of water, and

that he would not sink at all, except for the struggle by which he

elevates his arms above the surface, and his gasps for breath while

beneath the surface--gasps which supply by water the place of the

original air in the lungs. But these struggles and these gasps would

not occur in the body 'thrown into the water immediately after death

by violence.' Thus, in the latter instance, _the body, as a general

rule, would not sink at all_--a fact of which 'L'Etoile' is evidently

ignorant. When decomposition had proceeded to a very great

extent--when the flesh had in a great measure left the bones--then,

indeed, but not _till_ then, should we lose sight of the corpse.

"And now what are we to make of the argument, that the body found

could not be that of Marie Rogêt, because, three days only having

elapsed, this body was found floating? If drowned, being a woman,

she might never have sunk; or, having sunk, might have reappeared in

twenty-four hours or less. But no one supposes her to have been

drowned; and, dying before being thrown into the river, she might

have been found floating at any period afterward whatever.

"'But,' says 'L'Etoile,' 'if the body had been kept in its mangled

state on shore until Tuesday night, some trace would be found on

shore of the murderers.' Here it is at first difficult to perceive

the intention of the reasoner. He means to anticipate what he

imagines would be an objection to his theory--viz.: that the body was

kept on shore two days, suffering rapid decomposition--_more_ rapid

than if immersed in water. He supposes that, had this been the case,

it_ might_ have appeared at the surface on the Wednesday, and thinks

that _only_ under such circumstances it could have so appeared. He

is accordingly in haste to show that it was not kept on shore; for,

if so, 'some trace would be found on shore of the murderers.' I

presume you smile at the _sequitur_. You can not be made to see how

the mere _duration_ of the corpse on the shore could operate to

_multiply traces_ of the assassins. Nor can I.

"'And furthermore it is exceedingly improbable,' continues our

journal, 'that any villains who had committed such a murder as is

here supposed, would have thrown the body in without weight to sink

it, when such a precaution could have so easily been taken.'

Observe, here, the laughable confusion of thought! No one--not even

'L'Etoile'--disputes the murder committed _on the body found_. The

marks of violence are too obvious. It is our reasoner's object

merely to show that this body is not Marie's. He wishes to prove

that Marie is not assassinated--not that the corpse was not. Yet his

observation proves only the latter point. Here is a corpse without

weight attached. Murderers, casting it in, would not have failed to

attach a weight. Therefore it was not thrown in by murderers. This

is all which is proved, if any thing is. The question of identity is

not even approached, and 'L'Etoile' has been at great pains merely to

gainsay now what it has admitted only a moment before. 'We are

perfectly convinced,' it says, 'that the body found was that of a

murdered female.'

"Nor is this the sole instance, even in this division of his subject,

where our reasoner unwittingly reasons against himself. His evident

object, I have already said, is to reduce, as much as possible, the

interval between Marie's disappearance and the finding of the corpse.

Yet we find him _urging_ the point that no person saw the girl from

the moment of her leaving her mother's house. 'We have no evidence,'

he says, 'that Marie Rogêt was in the land of the living after nine

o'clock on Sunday, June the twenty-second.' As his argument is

obviously an _ex parte_ one, he should, at least, have left this

matter out of sight; for had any one been known to see Marie, say on

Monday, or on Tuesday, the interval in question would have been much

reduced, and, by his own ratiocination, the probability much

diminished of the corpse being that of the _grisette_. It is,

nevertheless, amusing to observe that 'L'Etoile' insists upon its

point in the full belief of its furthering its general argument.

"Reperuse now that portion of this argument which has reference to

the identification of the corpse by Beauvais. In regard to the hair

upon the arm, 'L'Etoile' has been obviously disingenuous. M.

Beauvais, not being an idiot, could never have urged in

identification of the corpse, simply _hair upon its arm_. No arm is

without hair. The _generality_ of the expression of 'L'Etoile' is a

mere perversion of the witness's phraseology. He must have spoken of

some _peculiarity_ in this hair. It must have been a peculiarity of

color, of quantity, of length, or of situation.

"'Her foot,' says the journal, 'was small--so are thousands of feet.

Her garter is no proof whatever--nor is her shoe--for shoes and

garters are sold in packages. The same may be said of the flowers in

her hat. One thing upon which M. Beauvais strongly insists is, that

the clasp on the garter found had been set back to take it in. This

amounts to nothing; for most women find it proper to take a pair of

garters home and fit them to the size of the limbs they are to

encircle, rather than to try them in the store where they purchase.'

Here it is difficult to suppose the reasoner in earnest. Had M.

Beauvais, in his search for the body of Marie, discovered a corpse

corresponding in general size and appearance to the missing girl, he

would have been warranted (without reference to the question of

habiliment at all) in forming an opinion that his search had been

successful. If, in addition to the point of general size and

contour, he had found upon the arm a peculiar hairy appearance which

he had observed upon the living Marie, his opinion might have been

justly strengthened; and the increase of positiveness might well have

been in the ratio of the peculiarity, or unusualness, of the hairy

mark. If, the feet of Marie being small, those of the corpse were

also small, the increase of probability that the body was that of

Marie would not be an increase in a ratio merely arithmetical, but in

one highly geometrical, or accumulative. Add to all this shoes such

as she had been known to wear upon the day of her disappearance, and,

although these shoes may be 'sold in packages,' you so far augment

the probability as to verge upon the certain. What, of itself, would

be no evidence of identity, becomes through its corroborative

position, proof most sure. Give us, then, flowers in the hat

corresponding to those worn by the missing girl, and we seek for

nothing further. If only _one_ flower, we seek for nothing

further--what then if two or three, or more? Each successive one is

multiple evidence--proof not _added_ to proof, but _multiplied_ by

hundreds or thousands. Let us now discover, upon the deceased,

garters such as the living used, and it is almost folly to proceed.

But these garters are found to be tightened, by the setting back of a

clasp, in just such a manner as her own had been tightened by Marie

shortly previous to her leaving home. It is now madness or hypocrisy

to doubt. What 'L'Etoile' says in respect to this abbreviation of

the garters being an unusual occurrence, shows nothing beyond its own

pertinacity in error. The elastic nature of the clasp-garter is

self-demonstration of the _unusualness_ of the abbreviation. What is

made to adjust itself, must of necessity require foreign adjustment

but rarely. It must have been by an accident, in its strictest

sense, that these garters of Marie needed the tightening described.

They alone would have amply established her identity. But it is not

that the corpse was found to have the garters of the missing girl, or

found to have her shoes, or her bonnet, or the flowers of her bonnet,

or her feet, or a peculiar mark upon the arm, or her general size and

appearance--it is that the corpse had each, and _all collectively_.

Could it be proved that the editor of 'L'Etoile' _really_ entertained

a doubt, under the circumstances, there would be no need, in his

case, of a commission _de lunatico inquirendo_. He has thought it

sagacious to echo the small talk of the lawyers, who, for the most

part, content themselves with echoing the rectangular precepts of the

courts. I would here observe that very much of what is rejected as

evidence by a court, is the best of evidence to the intellect. For

the court, guided itself by the general principles of evidence--the

recognized and booked principles--is averse from swerving at

particular instances. And this steadfast adherence to principle,

with rigorous disregard of the conflicting exception, is a sure mode

of attaining the _maximum_ of attainable truth, in any long sequence

of time. The practise, _en masse_, is therefore philosophical; but

it is not the less certain that it engenders vast individual

error.[16]

[16] "A theory based on the qualities of an object, will prevent its

being unfolded according to its objects; and he who arranges topics

in reference to their causes, will cease to value them according to

their results. Thus the jurisprudence of every nation will show

that, when law becomes a science and a system, it ceases to be

justice. The errors into which a blind devotion to _principles_ of

classification has led the common law will be seen by observing how

often the legislature has been obliged to come forward to restore the

equity its scheme had lost."--_Landor_.

"In respect to the insinuations leveled at Beauvais, you will be

willing to dismiss them in a breath. You have already fathomed the

true character of this good gentleman. He is a _busybody_, with much

of romance and little of wit. Any one so constituted will readily so

conduct himself, upon occasion of _real_ excitement, as to render

himself liable to suspicion on the part of the over-acute, or the

ill-disposed. M. Beauvais (as it appears from your notes) had some

personal interviews with the editor of 'L'Etoile' and offended him by

venturing an opinion that the corpse, notwithstanding the theory of

the editor, was, in sober fact, that of Marie. 'He persists,' says

the paper, 'in asserting the corpse to be that of Marie, but can not

give a circumstance, in addition to those which we have commented

upon, to make others believe.' Now, without readverting to the fact

that stronger evidence 'to make others believe' could _never_ have

been adduced, it may be remarked that a man may very well be

understood to believe, in a case of this kind, without the ability to

advance a single reason for the belief of a second party. Nothing is

more vague than impressions of individual identity. Each man

recognizes his neighbor, yet there are few instances in which any one

is prepared _to give a reason_ for his recognition. The editor of

'L'Etoile' had no right to be offended at M. Beauvais's unreasoning

belief.

"The suspicious circumstances which invest him will be found to tally

much better with my hypothesis of _romantic busybodyism_ than with

the reasoner's suggestion of guilt. Once adopting the more

charitable interpretation, we shall find no difficulty in

comprehending the rose in the key-hole; the 'Marie' upon the slate;

the 'elbowing the male relatives out of the way'; the 'aversion to

permitting them to see the body'; the caution given to Madame B----,

that she must hold no conversation with the _gendarme_ until his

(Beauvais's) return; and, lastly, his apparent determination 'that

nobody should have anything to do with the proceedings except

himself.' It seems to me unquestionable that Beauvais was a suitor

of Marie's; that she coquetted with him; and that he was ambitious of

being thought to enjoy her fullest intimacy and confidence. I shall

say nothing more upon this point; and, as the evidence fully rebuts

the assertion of 'L'Etoile,' touching the matter of _apathy_ on the

part of the mother and other relatives--an apathy inconsistent with

the supposition of their believing the corpse to be that of the

perfumery girl--we shall now proceed as if the question of _identity_

were settled to our perfect satisfaction."

"And what," I here demanded, "do you think of the opinions of 'Le

Commerciel'?"

"That, in spirit, they are far more worthy of attention than any

which have been promulgated upon the subject. The deductions from

the premises are philosophical and acute; but the premises, in two

instances, at least, are founded in imperfect observation. 'Le

Commerciel' wishes to intimate that Marie was seized by some gang of

low ruffians not far from her mother's door. 'It is impossible,' it

urges, 'that a person so well known to thousands as this young woman

was, should have passed three blocks without some one having seen

her.' This is the idea of a man long resident in Paris--a public

man--and one whose walks to and fro in the city have been mostly

limited to the vicinity of the public offices. He is aware that he

seldom passes so far as a dozen blocks from his own _bureau_, without

being recognized and accosted. And, knowing the extent of his

personal acquaintance with others, and of others with him, he

compares his notoriety with that of the perfumery girl, finds no

great difference between them, and reaches at once the conclusion

that she, in her walks, would be equally liable to recognition with

himself in his. This could only be the case were her walks of the

same unvarying, methodical character, and within the same _species_

of limited region as are his own. He passes to and fro, at regular

intervals, within a confined periphery, abounding in individuals who

are led to observation of his person through interest in the kindred

nature of his occupation with their own. But the walks of Marie may,

in general, be supposed discursive. In this particular instance, it

will be understood as most probable, that she proceeded upon a route

of more than average diversity from her accustomed ones. The

parallel which we imagine to have existed in the mind of 'Le

Commerciel' would only be sustained in the event of the two

individuals traversing the whole city. In this case, granting the

personal acquaintance to be equal, the chances would be also equal

that an equal number of personal rencontres would be made. For my

own part, I should hold it not only as possible, but as far more than

probable, that Marie might have proceeded, at any given period, by

any one of the many routes between her own residence and that of her

aunt, without meeting a single individual whom she knew, or by whom

she was known. In viewing this question in its full and proper

light, we must hold steadily in mind the great disproportion between

the personal acquaintances of even the most noted individual in

Paris, and the entire population of Paris itself.

"But whatever force there may still appear to be in the suggestion of

'Le Commerciel,' will be much diminished when we take into

consideration _the hour_ at which the girl went abroad. 'It was when

the streets were full of people,' says 'Le Commerciel,' 'that she

went out.' But not so. It was at nine o'clock in the morning. Now

at nine o'clock of every morning in the week, _with the exception of

Sunday_, the streets of the city are, it is true, thronged with

people. At nine on Sunday, the populace are chiefly within doors

_preparing for church_. No observing person can have failed to

notice the peculiarly deserted air of the town, from about eight

until ten on the morning of every Sabbath. Between ten and eleven

the streets are thronged, but not at so early a period as that

designated.

"There is another point at which there seems a deficiency of

_observation_ on the part of 'Le Commerciel.' 'A piece,' it says,

'of one of the unfortunate girl's petticoats, two feet long, and one

foot wide, was torn out and tied under her chin, and around the back

of her head, probably to prevent screams. This was done by fellows

who had no pocket-handkerchiefs.' Whether this idea is or is not

well founded, we will endeavor to see hereafter; but by 'fellows who

have no pocket-handkerchiefs,' the editor intends the lowest class of

ruffians. These, however, are the very description of people who

will always be found to have handkerchiefs even when destitute of

shirts. You must have had occasion to observe how absolutely

indispensable, of late years, to the thorough blackguard, has become

the pocket-handkerchief."

"And what are we to think," I asked, "of the article in 'Le Soleil'?"

"That it is a vast pity its inditer was not born a parrot--in which

case he would have been the most illustrious parrot of his race. He

has merely repeated the individual items of the already published

opinion; collecting them, with a laudable industry, from this paper

and from that. 'The things had all _evidently_ been there,' he says,

'at least three or four weeks, and there can be _no doubt_ that the

spot of this appalling outrage has been discovered.' The facts here

restated by 'Le Soleil' are very far indeed from removing my own

doubts upon this subject, and we will examine them more particularly

hereafter in connection with another division of the theme.

"At present we must occupy ourselves with other investigations. You

can not have failed to remark the extreme laxity of the examination

of the corpse. To be sure, the question of identity was readily

determined, or should have been; but there were other points to be

ascertained. Had the body been in any respect _despoiled_? Had the

deceased any articles of jewelry about her person upon leaving home?

If so, had she any when found? These are important questions utterly

untouched by the evidence; and there are others of equal moment,

which have met with no attention. We must endeavor to satisfy

ourselves by personal inquiry. The case of St. Eustache must be

reexamined. I have no suspicion of this person; but let us proceed

methodically. We will ascertain beyond a doubt the validity of the

_affidavits_ in regard to his whereabouts on the Sunday. Affidavits

of this character are readily made matter of mystification. Should

there be nothing wrong here, however, we will dismiss St. Eustache

from our investigations. His suicide, however corroborative of

suspicion, were there found to be deceit in the affidavits, is,

without such deceit, in no respect an unaccountable circumstance, or

one which need cause us to deflect from the line of ordinary analysis.

"In that which I now propose, we will discard the interior points of

this tragedy, and concentrate our attention upon its outskirts. Not

the least usual error in investigations such as this is the limiting

of inquiry to the immediate, with total disregard of the collateral

or circumstantial events. It is the malpractice of the courts to

confine evidence and discussion to the bounds of apparent relevancy.

Yet experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show,

that a vast, perhaps the larger, portion of truth arises from the

seemingly irrelevant. It is through the spirit of this principle, if

not precisely through its letter, that modern science has resolved to

_calculate upon the unforeseen_. But perhaps you do not comprehend

me. The history of human knowledge has so uninterruptedly shown that

to collateral, or incidental, or accidental events we are indebted

for the most numerous and most valuable discoveries, that it has at

length become necessary, in prospective view of improvement, to make

not only large, but the largest, allowances for inventions that shall

arise by chance, and quite out of the range of ordinary expectation.

It is no longer philosophical to base upon what has been a vision of

what is to be. _Accident_ is admitted as a portion of the

substructure. We make chance a matter of absolute calculation. We

subject the unlooked for and unimagined to the mathematical formulæ

of the schools.

"I repeat that it is no more than fact that the _larger_ portion of

all truth has sprung from the collateral; and it is but in accordance

with the spirit of the principle involved in this fact that I would

divert inquiry, in the present case, from the trodden and hitherto

unfruitful ground of the event itself to the contemporary

circumstances which surround it. While you ascertain the validity of

the affidavits, I will examine the newspapers more generally than you

have as yet done. So far, we have only reconnoitred the field of

investigation; but it will be strange, indeed, if a comprehensive

survey, such as I propose, of the public prints will not afford us

some minute points which shall establish a _direction_ for inquiry."

In pursuance of Dupin's suggestion, I made scrupulous examination of

the affair of the affidavits. The result was a firm conviction of

their validity, and of the consequent innocence of St. Eustache. In

the meantime my friend occupied himself, with what seemed to me a

minuteness altogether objectless, in a scrutiny of the various

newspaper files. At the end of a week he placed before me the

following extracts:

"About three years and a half ago, a disturbance very similar to the

present was caused by the disappearance of this same Marie Rogêt from

the _parfumerie_ of Monsieur Le Blanc, in the Palais Royal. At the

end of a week, however, she reappeared at her customary _comptoir_,

as well as ever, with the exception of a slight paleness not

altogether usual. It was given out by Monsieur Le Blanc and her

mother that she had merely been on a visit to some friend in the

country; and the affair was speedily hushed up. We presume that the

present absence is a freak of the same nature, and that, at the

expiration of a week or, perhaps, of a month, we shall have her among

us again."--Evening Paper, Monday, June 23.[17]

[17] New York "Express."

"An evening journal of yesterday refers to a former mysterious

disappearance of Mademoiselle Rogêt. It is well known that, during

the week of her absence from Le Blanc's _parfumerie_, she was in the

company of a young naval officer much noted for his debaucheries. A

quarrel, it is supposed, providentially, led to her return home. We

have the name of the Lothario in question, who is at present

stationed in Paris, but for obvious reasons forbear to make it

public."--"Le Mercurie," Tuesday Morning, June 24.[18]

[18] New York "Herald."

"An outrage of the most atrocious character was perpetrated near this

city the day before yesterday. A gentleman, with his wife and

daughter, engaged, about dusk, the services of six young men, who

were idly rowing a boat to and fro near the banks of the Seine, to

convey him across the river. Upon reaching the opposite shore the

three passengers stepped out, and had proceeded so far as to be

beyond the view of the boat, when the daughter discovered that she

had left in it her parasol. She returned for it, was seized by the

gang, carried out into the stream, gagged, brutally treated, and

finally taken to the shore at a point not far from that at which she

had originally entered the boat with her parents. The villains have

escaped for the time, but the police are upon their trail, and some

of them will soon be taken."--Morning Paper, June 25.[19]

[19] New York "Courier and Inquirer."

"We have received one or two communications, the object of which is

to fasten the crime of the late atrocity upon Mennais[20]; but as

this gentleman has been fully exonerated by a legal inquiry, and as

the arguments of our several correspondents appear to be more zealous

than profound, we do not think it advisable to make them

public."--Morning Paper, June 28.[21]

[20] Mennais was one of the parties originally suspected and

arrested, but discharged through total lack of evidence.

[21] New York "Courier and Inquirer."

"We have received several forcibly written communications, apparently

from various sources, and which go far to render it a matter of

certainty that the unfortunate Marie Rogêt has become a victim of one

of the numerous bands of blackguards which infest the vicinity of the

city upon Sunday. Our own opinion is decidedly in favor of this

supposition. We shall endeavor to make room for some of these

arguments hereafter."--Evening Paper, Tuesday, June 31.[22]

[22] New York "Evening Post."

"On Monday, one of the bargemen connected with the revenue service

saw an empty boat floating down the Seine. Sails were lying in the

bottom of the boat. The bargeman towed it under the barge office.

The next morning it was taken from thence without the knowledge of

any of the officers. The rudder is now at the barge office."--"Le

Diligence," Thursday, June 26.[23]

[23] New York "Standard."

Upon reading these various extracts, they not only seemed to me

irrelevant, but I could perceive no mode in which any one of them

could be brought to bear upon the matter in hand. I waited for some

explanation from Dupin.

"It is not my present design," he said, "to _dwell_ upon the first

and second of these extracts. I have copied them chiefly to show you

the extreme remissness of the police, who, as far as I can understand

from the Prefect, have not troubled themselves, in any respect, with

an examination of the naval officer alluded to. Yet it is mere folly

to say that between the first and second disappearance of Marie there

is no _supposable_ connection. Let us admit the first elopement to

have resulted in a quarrel between the lovers, and the return home of

the betrayed. We are now prepared to view a second _elopement_ (if

we _know_ that an elopement has again taken place) as indicating a

renewal of the betrayer's advances, rather than as the result of new

proposals by a second individual--we are prepared to regard it as a

'making up' of the old _amour_, rather than as the commencement of a

new one. The chances are ten to one that he who had once eloped with

Marie would again propose an elopement, rather than that she to whom

proposals of an elopement had been made by one individual should have

them made to her by another. And here let me call your attention to

the fact, that the time elapsing between the first ascertained and

the second supposed elopement is a few months more than the general

period of the cruises of our men-of-war. Had the lover been

interrupted in his first villainy by the necessity of departure to

sea, and had he seized the first moment of his return to renew the

base designs not yet altogether accomplished--or not yet altogether

accomplished _by him_? Of all these things we know nothing.

"You will say, however, that, in the second instance, there was no

elopement as imagined. Certainly not--but are we prepared to say

that there was not the frustrated design? Beyond St. Eustache, and

perhaps Beauvais, we find no recognized, no open, no honorable

suitors of Marie. Of none other is there anything said. Who, then,

is the secret lover, of whom the relatives (_at least most of them_)

know nothing, but whom Marie meets upon the morning of Sunday, and

who is so deeply in her confidence that she hesitates not to remain

with him until the shades of the evening descend, amid the solitary

groves of the Barrière du Roule? Who is that secret lover, I ask, of

whom, at least, _most_ of the relatives know nothing? And what means

the singular prophecy of Madame Rogêt on the morning of Marie's

departure?--'I fear that I shall never see Marie again.'

"But if we can not imagine Madame Rogêt privy to the design of

elopement, may we not at least suppose this sign entertained by the

girl? Upon quitting home, she gave it to be understood that she was

about to visit her aunt in the Rue des Drômes, and St. Eustache was

requested to call for her at dark. Now, at first glance, this fact

strongly militates against my suggestion--but let us reflect. That

she _did_ meet some companion, and proceed with him across the river,

reaching the Barrière du Roule at so late an hour as three o'clock in

the afternoon, is known. But in consenting so to accompany this

individual (_for whatever purpose--to her mother known or unknown_),

she must have thought of her expressed intention when leaving home,

and of the surprise and suspicion aroused in the bosom of her

affianced suitor, St. Eustache, when, calling for her, at the hour

appointed, in the Rue des Drômes, he should find that she had not

been there, and when, moreover, upon returning to the _pension_ with

this alarming intelligence, he should become aware of her continued

absence from home. She must have thought of these things, I say.

She must have foreseen the chagrin of St. Eustache, the suspicion of

all. She could not have thought of returning to brave this

suspicion; but the suspicion becomes a point of trivial importance to

her, if we suppose her _not_ intending to return.

"We may imagine her thinking thus--'I am to meet a certain person for

the purpose of elopement, or for certain other purposes known only to

myself. It is necessary that there be no chance of

interruption--there must be sufficient time given us to elude

pursuit--I will give it to be understood that I shall visit and spend

the day with my aunt at the Rue des Drômes--I will tell St. Eustache

not to call for me until dark--in this way, my absence from home for

the longest possible period, without causing suspicion or anxiety,

will be accounted for, and I shall gain more time than in any other

manner. If I bid St. Eustache call for me at dark, he will be sure

not to call before; but if I wholly neglect to bid him call, my time

for escape will be diminished, since it will be expected that I

return the earlier, and my absence will the sooner excite anxiety.

Now, if it were my design to return _at all_--if I had in

contemplation merely a stroll with the individual in question--it

would not be my policy to bid St. Eustache call; for calling, he will

be _sure_ to ascertain that I have played him false--a fact of which

I might keep him forever in ignorance, by leaving home without

notifying him of my intention, by returning before dark, and by then

stating that I had been to visit my aunt in the Rue des Drômes. But,

as it is my design _never_ to return--or not for some weeks--or not

until certain concealments are effected--the gaining of time is the

only point about which I need give myself any concern.'

"You have observed, in your notes, that the most general opinion in

relation to this sad affair is, and was from the first, that the girl

had been the victim of a _gang_ of blackguards. Now, the popular

opinion, under certain conditions, is not to be disregarded. When

arising of itself--when manifesting itself in a strictly spontaneous

manner--we should look upon it as analogous with that _intuition_

which is the idiosyncrasy of the individual man of genius. In

ninety-nine cases from the hundred I would abide by its decision.

But it is important that we find no palpable traces of _suggestion_.

The opinion must be rigorously _the public's own_; and the

distinction is often exceedingly difficult to perceive and to

maintain. In the present instance, it appears to me that this

'public opinion,' in respect to a _gang_, has been superinduced by

the collateral event which is detailed in the third of my extracts.

All Paris is excited by the discovered corpse of Marie, a girl young,

beautiful, and notorious. This corpse is found bearing marks of

violence, and floating in the river. But it is now made known that,

at the very period, or about the very period, in which it is supposed

that the girl was assassinated, an outrage similar in nature to that

endured by the deceased, although less in extent, was perpetrated by

a gang of young ruffians upon the person of a second young female.

Is it wonderful that the one known atrocity should influence the

popular judgment in regard to the other unknown? This judgment

awaited direction, and the known outrage seemed so opportunely to

afford it! Marie, too, was found in the river; and upon this very

river was this known outrage committed. The connection of the two

events had about it so much of the palpable, that the true wonder

would have been a _failure_ of the populace to appreciate and to

seize it. But, in fact, the one atrocity, known to be so committed,

is, if anything, evidence that the other, committed at a time nearly

coincident, was not so committed. It _would_ have been a miracle if,

while a gang of ruffians were perpetrating, at a given locality, a

most unheard-of wrong, there should have been another similar gang,

in a similar locality, in the same city, under the same

circumstances, with the same means and appliances, engaged in a wrong

of precisely the same aspect, at precisely the same period of time!

Yet in what, if not in this marvelous train of coincidence, does the

accidentally _suggested_ opinion of the populace call upon us to

believe?

"Before proceeding further, let us consider the supposed scene of the

assassination, in the thicket at the Barrière du Roule. This

thicket, although dense, was in the close vicinity of a public road.

Within were three or four large stones, forming a kind of seat with a

back and a footstool. On the upper stone was discovered a white

petticoat; on the second, a silk scarf. A parasol, gloves, and a

pocket-handkerchief were also here found. The handkerchief bore the

name 'Marie Rogêt.' Fragments of dress were seen on the branches

around. The earth was trampled, the bushes were broken, and there

was every evidence of a violent struggle.

"Notwithstanding the acclamation with which the discovery of this

thicket was received by the press, and the unanimity with which it

was supposed to indicate the precise scene of the outrage, it must be

admitted that there was some very good reason for doubt. That it

_was_ the scene, I may or I may not believe--but there was excellent

reason for doubt. Had the _true_ scene been, as 'Le Commerciel'

suggested, in the neighborhood of the Rue Pavée St. Andrée, the

perpetrators of the crime, supposing them still resident in Paris,

would naturally have been stricken with terror at the public

attention thus acutely directed into the proper channel; and, in

certain classes of minds, there would have arisen, at once, a sense

of the necessity of some exertion to redivert this attention. And

thus, the thicket of the Barrière du Roule having been already

suspected, the idea of placing the articles where they were found

might have been naturally entertained. There is no real evidence,

although 'Le Soleil' so supposes, that the articles discovered had

been more than a very few days in the thicket; while there is much

circumstantial proof that they could not have remained there, without

attracting attention, during the twenty days elapsing between the

fatal Sunday and the afternoon upon which they were found by the

boys. 'They were all _mildewed_ down hard,' says 'Le Soleil,'

adopting the opinions of its predecessors, 'with the action of the

rain and stuck together from mildew. The grass had grown around and

over some of them. The silk of the parasol was strong, but the

threads of it were run together within. The upper part, where it had

been doubled and folded, was all _mildewed_ and rotten, and tore on

being opened.' In respect to the grass having 'grown around and over

some of them,' it is obvious that the fact could only have been

ascertained from the words, and thus from the recollections, of two

small boys; for these boys removed the articles and took them home

before they had been seen by a third party. But the grass will grow,

especially in warm and damp weather (such as was that of the period

of the murder), as much as two or three inches in a single day. A

parasol lying upon a newly turfed ground, might, in a single week, be

entirely concealed from sight by the upspringing grass. And touching

that _mildew_ upon which the editor of 'Le Soleil' so pertinaciously

insists that he employs the word no less than three times in the

brief paragraph just quoted, is he really unaware of the nature of

this mildew? Is he to be told that it is one of the many classes of

_fungus_, of which the most ordinary feature is its upspringing and

decadence within twenty-four hours?

"Thus we see, at a glance, that what has been most triumphantly

adduced in support of the idea that the articles had been 'for at

least three or four weeks' in the thicket, is most absurdly null as

regards any evidence of that fact. On the other hand, it is

exceedingly difficult to believe that these articles could have

remained in the thicket specified for a longer period than a single

week--for a longer period than from one Sunday to the next. Those

who know anything of the vicinity of Paris know the extreme

difficulty of finding seclusion, unless at a great distance from its

suburbs. Such a thing as an unexplored or even an unfrequently

visited recess, amid its woods or groves, is not for a moment to be

imagined. Let any one who, being at heart a lover of nature, is yet

chained by duty to the dust and heat of this great metropolis--let

any such one attempt, even during the week-days, to slake his thirst

for solitude amid the scenes of natural loveliness which immediately

surround us. At every second step he will find the growing charm

dispelled by the voice and personal intrusion of some ruffian or

party of carousing blackguards. He will seek privacy amid the

densest foliage, all in vain. Here are the very nooks where the

unwashed most abound--here are the temples most desecrate. With

sickness of the heart the wanderer will flee back to the polluted

Paris as to a less odious because less incongruous sink of pollution.

But if the vicinity of the city is so beset during the working days

of the week, how much more so on the Sabbath! It is now especially

that, released from the claims of labor, or deprived of the customary

opportunities of crime, the town blackguard seeks the precincts of

the town, not through love of the rural, which in his heart he

despises, but by way of escape from the restraints and

conventionalities of society. He desires less the fresh air and the

green trees, than the utter license of the country. Here, at the

roadside inn, or beneath the foliage of the woods, he indulges

unchecked by any eye except those of his boon companions, in all the

mad excess of a counterfeit hilarity--the joint offspring of liberty

and of rum. I say nothing more than what must be obvious to every

dispassionate observer, when I repeat that the circumstance of the

articles in question having remained undiscovered for a longer period

than from one Sunday to another in any thicket in the immediate

neighborhood of Paris is to be looked upon as little less than

miraculous.

"But there are not wanting other grounds for the suspicion that the

articles were placed in the thicket with the view of diverting

attention from the real scene of the outrage. And first, let me

direct your notice to the date of the discovery of the articles.

Collate this with the date of the fifth extract made by myself from

the newspapers. You will find that the discovery followed, almost

immediately, the urgent communications sent to the evening paper.

These communications, although various, and apparently from various

sources, tended all to the same point--viz.: the directing of

attention to a gang as the perpetrators of the outrage, and to the

neighborhood of the Barrière du Roule as its scene. Now, here, of

course, the situation is not that, in consequence of these

communications, or of the public attention by them directed, the

articles were found by the boys; but the suspicion might and may well

have been that the articles were not before found by the boys, for

the reason that the articles had not before been in the thicket;

having been deposited there only at so late a period as at the date,

or shortly prior to the date of the communication, by the guilty

authors of these communications themselves.

"This thicket was a singular--an exceedingly singular one. It was

unusually dense. Within its naturally walled inclosure were three

extraordinary stones, _forming a seat with a back and a footstool_.

And this thicket, so full of art, was in the immediate vicinity,

_within a few rods_, of the dwelling of Madame Deluc, whose boys were

in the habit of closely examining the shrubberies about them in

search of the bark of the sassafras. Would it be a rash wager--a

wager of one thousand to one--that a _day_ never passed over the

heads of these boys without finding at least one of them ensconced in

the umbrageous hall, and enthroned upon its natural throne? Those

who would hesitate at such a wager have either never been boys

themselves or have forgotten the boyish nature. I repeat--it is

exceedingly hard to comprehend how the articles could have remained

in this thicket undiscovered for a longer period than one or two

days; and that thus there is good ground for suspicion, in spite of

the dogmatic ignorance of 'Le Soleil,' that they were, at a

comparatively late date, deposited where found.

"But there are still other and stronger reasons for believing them so

deposited, than any which I have as yet urged. And, now, let me beg

your notice to the highly artificial arrangement of the articles. On

the _upper_ stone lay a white petticoat; on the _second_ a silk

scarf; scattered around were a parasol, gloves, and a

pocket-handkerchief bearing the name 'Marie Rogêt.' Here is just

such an arrangement as would naturally be made by a not overacute

person wishing to dispose the articles naturally. But it is by no

means a really natural arrangement. I should rather have looked to

see the things _all_ lying on the ground and trampled under foot. In

the narrow limits of that bower it would have been scarcely possible

that the petticoat and scarf should have retained a position upon the

stones, when subjected to the brushing to and fro of many struggling

persons. 'There was evidence,' it is said, 'of a struggle; and the

earth was trampled, the bushes were broken'--but the petticoat and

the scarf are found deposited as if upon shelves. 'The pieces of the

frock torn out by the bushes were about three inches wide and six

inches long. One part was the hem of the frock, and it had been

mended. They _looked like strips torn off_.' Here, inadvertently,

'Le Soleil' has employed an exceedingly suspicious phrase. The

pieces, as described, do indeed 'look like strips torn off'; but

purposely and by hand. It is one of the rarest of accidents that a

piece is 'torn off,' from any garment such as is now in question, by

the agency _of a thorn_. From the very nature of such fabrics, a

thorn or nail becoming tangled in them, tears them

rectangularly--divides them into two longitudinal rents, at right

angles with each other, and meeting at an apex where the thorn

enters--but it is scarcely possible to conceive the piece 'torn off.'

I never so knew it, nor did you. To tear a piece _off_ from such

fabric, two distinct forces, in different directions, will be, in

almost every case, required. If there be two edges to the

fabric--if, for example, it be a pocket-handkerchief, and it is

desired to tear from it a slip, then, and then only, will the one

force serve the purpose. But in the present case the question is of

a dress, presenting but one edge. To tear a piece from the interior,

where no edge is presented, could only be effected by a miracle

through the agency of thorns, and no _one_ thorn could accomplish it.

But, even where an edge is presented, two thorns will be necessary,

operating, the one in two distinct directions, and the other in one.

And this in the supposition that the edge is unhemmed. If hemmed,

the matter is nearly out of the question. We thus see the numerous

and great obstacles in the way of pieces being 'torn off' through the

simple agency of 'thorns'; yet we are required to believe not only

that one piece but that many have been so torn. 'And one part,' too,

'_was the hem of the frock!_' Another piece was '_part of the skirt,

not the hem_'--that is to say, was torn completely out, through the

agency of thorns, from the unedged interior of the dress! These, I

say, are things which one may well be pardoned for disbelieving; yet,

taken collectedly, they form, perhaps, less of reasonable ground for

suspicion than the one startling circumstance of the articles having

been left in this thicket at all, by any _murderers_ who had enough

precaution to think of removing the corpse. You will not have

apprehended me rightly, however, if you suppose it my design to

_deny_ this thicket as the scene of the outrage. There might have

been a wrong _here_, or more possibly an accident at Madame Deluc's.

But, in fact, this is a point of minor importance. We are not

engaged in an attempt to discover the scene, but to produce the

perpetrators of the murder. What I have adduced, notwithstanding the

minuteness with which I have adduced it, has been with the view,

first, to show the folly of the positive and headlong assertions of

'Le Soleil,' but secondly, and chiefly, to bring you, by the most

natural route, to a further contemplation of the doubt whether this

assassination has, or has not, been the work of a _gang_.

"We will resume this question by mere allusion to the revolting

details of the surgeon examined at the inquest. It is only necessary

to say that his published _inferences_, in regard to the number of

the ruffians, have been properly ridiculed as unjust and totally

baseless, by all the reputable anatomists of Paris. Not that the

matter _might not_ have been as inferred, but that there was no

ground for the inference--was there not much for another?

"Let us reflect now upon 'the traces of a struggle'; and let me ask

what these traces have been supposed to demonstrate. A gang. But do

they not rather demonstrate the absence of a gang? What _struggle_

could have taken place--what struggle so violent and so enduring as

to have left its 'traces' in all directions--between a weak and

defenseless girl and a _gang_ of ruffians imagined? The silent grasp

of a few rough arms and all would have been over. The victim must

have been absolutely passive at their will. You will here bear in

mind that the arguments urged against the thicket as the scene, are

applicable, in chief part, only against it as the scene of an outrage

committed by _more than a single individual_. If we imagine but one

violator, we can conceive, and thus only conceive, the struggle of so

violent and so obstinate a nature as to have left the 'traces'

apparent.

"And again. I have already mentioned the suspicion to be excited by

the fact that the articles in question were suffered to remain _at

all_ in the thicket where discovered. It seems almost impossible

that these evidences of guilt should have been accidentally left

where found. There was sufficient presence of mind (it is supposed)

to remove the corpse; and yet a more positive evidence than the

corpse itself (whose features might have been quickly obliterated by

decay) is allowed to lie conspicuously in the scene of the outrage--I

allude to the handkerchief with the _name_ of the deceased. If this

was accident, it was not the accident _of a gang_. We can imagine it

only the accident of an individual. Let us see. An individual has

committed the murder. He is alone with the ghost of the departed.

He is appalled by what lies motionless before him. The fury of his

passion is over, and there is abundant room in his heart for the

natural awe of the deed. His is none of that confidence which the

presence of numbers inevitably inspires. He is _alone_ with the

dead. He trembles and is bewildered. Yet there is a necessity for

disposing of the corpse. He bears it to the river, and leaves behind

him the other evidences of his guilt; for it is difficult, if not

impossible, to carry all the burden at once, and it will be easy to

return for what is left. But in his toilsome journey to the water

his fears redouble within him. The sounds of life encompass his

path. A dozen times he hears or fancies he hears the step of an

observer. Even the very lights from the city bewilder him. Yet, in

time, and by long and frequent pauses of deep agony, he reaches the

river's brink, and disposes of his ghastly charge--perhaps through

the medium of a boat. But _now_ what treasure does the world

hold--what threat of vengeance could it hold out--which would have

power to urge the return of that lonely murderer over that toilsome

and perilous path, to the thicket and its blood-chilling

recollections? He returns _not_, let the consequences be what they

may. He _could_ not return if he would. His sole thought is

immediate escape. He turns his back _forever_ upon those dreadful

shrubberies, and flees as from the wrath to come.

"But how with a gang? Their number would have inspired them with

confidence; if, indeed, confidence is ever wanting in the breast of

the arrant blackguard; and of arrant blackguards alone are the

supposed _gangs_ ever constituted. Their number, I say, would have

prevented the bewildering and unreasoning terror which I have

imagined to paralyze the single man. Could we suppose an oversight

in one, or two, or three, this oversight would have been remedied by

a fourth. They would have left nothing behind them; for their number

would have enabled them to carry _all_ at once. There would have

been no need of _return_.

"Consider now the circumstance that, in the outer garment of the

corpse when found, 'a slip, about a foot wide, had been torn upward

from the bottom hem to the waist, wound three times round the waist,

and secured by a sort of hitch in the back.' This was done with the

obvious design of affording a _handle_ by which to carry the body.

But would any _number_ of men have dreamed of resorting to such an

expedient? To three or four, the limbs of the corpse would have

afforded not only a sufficient, but the best possible, hold. The

device is that of a single individual; and this brings us to the fact

that 'between the thicket and the river the rails of the fences were

found taken down, and the ground bore evident traces of some heavy

burden having been dragged along it!' But would a _number_ of men

have put themselves to the superfluous trouble of taking down a

fence, for the purpose of dragging through it a corpse which they

might have _lifted over_ any fence in an instant? Would a _number_

of men have so _dragged_ a corpse at all as to have left evident

_traces_ of the dragging?

"And here we must refer to an observation of 'Le Commerciel'; upon

which I have already, in some measure, commented. 'A piece,' says

this journal, 'of one of the unfortunate girl's petticoats was torn

out and tied under her chin, and around the back of her head,

probably to prevent screams. This was done by fellows who had no

pocket-handkerchiefs.'

"I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never _without_

a pocket-handkerchief. But it is not to this fact that I now

especially advert. That it was not through want of a handkerchief

for the purpose imagined by 'Le Commerciel,' that this bandage was

employed, is rendered apparent by the handkerchief left in the

thicket; and that the object was not 'to prevent screams' appears,

also, from the bandage having been employed in preference to what

would so much better have answered the purpose. But the language of

the evidence speaks of the strip in question as 'found around the

neck, fitting loosely, and secured with a hard knot.' These words

are sufficiently vague, but differ materially from those of 'Le

Commerciel.' The slip was eighteen inches wide, and therefore,

although of muslin, would form a strong band when folded or rumpled

longitudinally. And thus rumpled it was discovered. My inference is

this. The solitary murderer, having borne the corpse for some

distance (whether from the thicket or elsewhere) by means of the

bandage _hitched_ around its middle, found the weight, in this mode

of procedure, too much for his strength. He resolved to drag the

burden--the evidence goes to show that it _was_ dragged. With this

object in view, it became necessary to attach something like a rope

to one of the extremities. It could be best attached about the neck,

where the head would prevent its slipping off. And now the murderer

bethought him, unquestionably, of the bandage about the loins. He

would have used this, but for its volution about the corpse, the

_hitch_ which embarrassed it, and the reflection that it had not been

'torn off' from the garment. It was easier to tear a new slip from

the petticoat. He tore it, made it fast about the neck, and so

_dragged_ his victim to the brink of the river. That this 'bandage,'

only attainable with trouble and delay, and but imperfectly answering

its purpose--that this bandage was employed _at all_, demonstrates

that the necessity for its employment sprang from circumstances

arising at a period when the handkerchief was no longer

attainable--that is to say, arising, as we have imagined, after

quitting the thicket (if the thicket it was), and on the road between

the thicket and the river.

"But the evidence, you will say, of Madame Deluc (!) points

especially to the presence of _a gang_ in the vicinity of the

thicket, at or about the epoch of the murder. This I grant. I doubt

if there were not a _dozen gangs_, such as described by Madame Deluc,

in and about the vicinity of the Barrière du Roule at _or about_ the

period of this tragedy. But the gang which has drawn upon itself the

pointed animadversion, through the somewhat tardy and very suspicious

evidence, of Madame Deluc, is the _only_ gang which is represented by

that honest and scrupulous old lady as having eaten her cakes and

swallowed her brandy, without putting themselves to the trouble of

making her payment. _Et hinc illæ iræ?_

"But what _is_ the precise evidence of Madame Deluc? 'A gang of

miscreants made their appearance, behaved boisterously, ate and drank

without making payment, followed in the route of the young man and

the girl, returned to the inn _about dusk_, and recrossed the river

as if in great haste.'

"Now this 'great haste' very possibly seemed _greater_ haste in the

eyes of Madame Deluc, since she dwelt lingeringly and lamentingly

upon her violated cakes and ale--cakes and ale for which she might

still have entertained a faint hope of compensation. Why, otherwise,

since it was _about dusk_, should she make a point of the _haste_?

It is no cause for wonder, surely, that even a gang of blackguards

should make _haste_ to get home when a wide river is to be crossed in

small boats, when storm impends, and when night _approaches_.

"I say _approaches_; for the night had _not yet arrived_. It was

only _about dusk_ that the indecent haste of these 'miscreants'

offended the sober eyes of Madame Deluc. But we are told that it was

upon this very evening that Madame Deluc, as well as her eldest son,

'heard the screams of a female in the vicinity of the inn.' And in

what words does Madame Deluc designate the period of the evening at

which these screams were heard? 'It was _soon after dark_' she says.

But 'soon _after_ dark' is, at least, _dark_; and '_about dusk_,' is

as certainly daylight. Thus it is abundantly clear that the gang

quitted the Barrière du Roule _prior_ to the screams overheard (?) by

Madame Deluc. And although, in all the many reports of the evidence,

the relative expressions in question are distinctly and invariably

employed just as I have employed them in this conversation with

yourself, no notice whatever of the gross discrepancy has, as yet,

been taken by any of the public journals, or by any of the myrmidons

of police.

"I shall add but one to the arguments against _a gang_; but this

_one_ has, to my own understanding at least, a weight altogether

irresistible. Under the circumstances of large reward offered, and

full pardon to any king's evidence, it is not to be imagined, for a

moment, that some member of _a gang_ of low ruffians, or of any body

of men, would not long ago have betrayed his accomplices. Each one

of a gang, so placed, is not so much greedy of reward, or anxious for

escape, as _fearful of betrayal_. He betrays eagerly and early that

_he may not himself be betrayed_. That the secret has not been

divulged is the very best of proof that it is, in fact, a secret.

The horrors of this dark deed are known only to _one_ or two living

human beings, and to God.

"Let us sum up now the meagre yet certain fruits of our long

analysis. We have attained the idea either of a fatal accident under

the roof of Madame Deluc, or of a murder perpetrated, in the thicket

at the Barrière du Roule, by a lover, or at least by an intimate and

secret associate of the deceased. This associate is of swarthy

complexion. This complexion, the 'hitch' in the bandage, and the

'sailor's knot' with which the bonnet-ribbon is tied, point to a

seaman. His companionship with the deceased--a gay but not an abject

young girl--designates him as above the grade of the common sailor.

Here the well-written and urgent communications to the journals are

much in the way of corroboration. The circumstance of the first

elopement, as mentioned by 'Le Mercurie,' tends to blend the idea of

this seaman with that of the 'naval officer' who is first known to

have led the unfortunate into crime.

"And here, most fitly, comes the consideration of the continued

absence of him of the dark complexion. Let me pause to observe that

the complexion of this man is dark and swarthy; it was no common

swarthiness which constituted the _sole_ point of remembrance, both

as regards Valence and Madame Deluc. But why is this man absent?

Was he murdered by the gang? If so, why are there only _traces_ of

the assassinated _girl_? The scene of the two outrages will

naturally be supposed identical. And where is his corpse? The

assassins would most probably have disposed of both in the same way.

But it may be said that this man lives, and is deterred from making

himself known, through dread of being charged with the murder. This

consideration might be supposed to operate upon him now--at this late

period--since it has been given in evidence that he was seen with

Marie, but it would have had no force at the period of the deed. The

first impulse of an innocent man would have been to announce the

outrage, and to aid in identifying the ruffians. This _policy_ would

have suggested. He had been seen with the girl. He had crossed the

river with her in an open ferry-boat. The denouncing of the

assassins would have appeared, even to an idiot, the surest and sole

means of relieving himself from suspicion. We can not suppose him,

on the night of the fatal Sunday, both innocent himself and

incognizant of an outrage committed. Yet only under such

circumstances is it possible to imagine that he would have failed, if

alive, in the denouncement of the assassins.

"And what means are ours of attaining the truth? We shall find these

means multiplying and gathering distinctness as we proceed. Let us

sift to the bottom this affair of the first elopement. Let us know

the full history of 'the officer,' with his present circumstances,

and his whereabout at the precise period of the murder. Let us

carefully compare with each other the various communications sent to

the evening paper, in which the object was to inculpate _a gang_.

This done, let us compare these communications, both as regards style

and MS., with those sent to the morning paper, at a previous period,

and insisting so vehemently upon the guilt of Mennais. And, all this

done, let us again compare these various communications with the

known MSS. of the officer. Let us endeavor to ascertain, by repeated

questionings of Madame Deluc and her boys, as well as of the

omnibus-driver, Valence, something more of the personal appearance

and bearing of the 'man of dark complexion.' Queries, skilfully

directed, will not fail to elicit, from some of these parties,

information on this particular point (or upon others)--information

which the parties themselves may not even be aware of possessing.

And let us now trace _the boat_ picked up by the bargeman on the

morning of Monday the twenty-third of June, and which was removed

from the barge-office, without the cognizance of the officer in

attendance, and _without the rudder_, at some period prior to the

discovery of the corpse. With a proper caution and perseverance we

shall infallibly trace this boat; for not only can the bargeman who

picked it up identify it, but the _rudder is at hand_. The rudder of

a _sail boat_ would not have been abandoned, without inquiry, by one

altogether at ease in heart. And here let me pause to insinuate a

question. There was no _advertisement_ of the picking up of this

boat. It was silently taken to the barge-office and as silently

removed. But its owner or employer--how _happened_ he, at so early a

period as Tuesday morning, to be informed, without the agency of

advertisement, of the locality of the boat taken up on Monday, unless

we imagine some connection with the _navy_--some personal permanent

connection leading to cognizance of its minute interests--its petty

local news?

"In speaking of the lonely assassin dragging his burden to the shore,

I have already suggested the probability of his availing himself _of

a boat_. Now we are to understand that Marie Rogêt _was_

precipitated from a boat. This would naturally have been the case.

The corpse could not have been trusted to the shallow waters of the

shore. The peculiar marks on the back and shoulders of the victim

tell of the bottom ribs of a boat. That the body was found without

weight is also corroborative of the idea. If thrown from the shore a

weight would have been attached. We can only account for its absence

by supposing the murderer to have neglected the precaution of

supplying himself with it before pushing off. In the act of

consigning the corpse to the water, he would unquestionably have

noticed his oversight; but then no remedy would have been at hand.

Any risk would have been preferred to a return to that accursed

shore. Having rid himself of his ghastly charge, the murderer would

have hastened to the city. There, at some obscure wharf, he would

have leaped on land. But the boat--would he have secured it? He

would have been in too great haste for such things as securing a

boat. Moreover, in fastening it to the wharf, he would have felt as

if securing evidence against himself. His natural thought would have

been to cast from him, as far as possible, all that had held

connection with his crime. He would not only have fled from the

wharf, but he would not have permitted _the boat_ to remain.

Assuredly he would have cast it adrift. Let us pursue our fancies.

In the morning, the wretch is stricken with unutterable horror at

finding that the boat has been picked up and detained at a locality

which he is in the daily habit of frequenting--at a locality,

perhaps, which his duty compels him to frequent. The next night,

_without daring to ask for the rudder_, he removes it. Now _where_

is that rudderless boat? Let it be one of our first purposes to

discover. With the first glimpse we obtain of it, the dawn of our

success shall begin. This boat shall guide us, with a rapidity which

will surprise even ourselves, to him who employed it in the midnight

of the fatal Sabbath. Corroboration will rise upon corroboration,

and the murderer will be traced."

[For reasons which we shall not specify, but which to many readers

will appear obvious, we have taken the liberty of here omitting, from

the MSS. placed in our hands, such portion as details the _following

up_ of the apparently slight clue obtained by Dupin. We feel it

advisable only to state, in brief, that the result desired was

brought to pass; and that the Prefect fulfilled punctually, although

with reluctance, the terms of his compact with the Chevalier. Mr.

Poe's article concludes with the following words.--_Eds._[24]]

[24] Of the Magazine in which the article was originally published.

It will be understood that I speak of coincidences and _no more_.

What I have said above upon this topic must suffice. In my own heart

there dwells no faith in preternature. That Nature and its God are

two, no man who thinks will deny. That the latter, creating the

former, can, at will, control or modify it, is also unquestionable.

I say "at will"; for the question is of will, and not, as the

insanity of logic has assumed, of power. It is not that the Deity

_can not_ modify his laws, but that we insult him in imagining a

possible necessity for modification. In their origin these laws were

fashioned to embrace _all_ contingencies which _could_ lie in the

Future. With God all is _Now_.

I repeat, then, that I speak of these things only as of coincidences.

And further: in what I relate it will be seen that between the fate

of the unhappy Mary Cecilia Rogers, so far as that fate is known, and

the fate of one Marie Rogêt up to a certain epoch in her history,

there has existed a parallel in the contemplation of whose wonderful

exactitude the reason becomes embarrassed. I say all this will be

seen. But let it not for a moment be supposed that, in proceeding

with the sad narrative of Marie from the epoch just mentioned, and in

tracing to its _denouement_ the mystery which enshrouded her, it is

my covert design to hint at an extension of the parallel, or even to

suggest that the measures adopted in Paris for the discovery of the

assassin of a grisette, or measures founded in any similar

ratiocination, would produce any similar result.

For, in respect to the latter branch of the supposition, it should be

considered that the most trifling variation in the facts of the two

cases might give rise to the most important miscalculations, by

diverting thoroughly the two courses of events; very much as, in

arithmetic, an error which, in its own individuality, may be

inappreciable, produces, at length, by dint of multiplication at all

points of the process, a result enormously at variance with truth.

And, in regard to the former branch, we must not fail to hold in view

that the very Calculus of Probabilities to which I have referred,

forbids all idea of the extension of the parallel--forbids it with a

positiveness strong and decided just in proportion as this parallel

has already been long-drawn and exact. This is one of those

anomalous propositions which, seemingly appealing to thought

altogether apart from the mathematical, is yet one which only the

mathematician can fully entertain. Nothing, for example, is more

difficult than to convince the merely general reader that the fact of

sixes having been thrown twice in succession by a player at dice, is

sufficient cause for betting the largest odds that sixes will not be

thrown in the third attempt. A suggestion to this effect is usually

rejected by the intellect at once. It does not appear that the two

throws which have been completed, and which lie now absolutely in the

Past, can have influence upon the throw which exists only in the

Future. The chance for throwing sixes seems to be precisely as it

was at any ordinary time--that is to say, subject only to the

influence of the various other throws which may be made by the dice.

And this is a reflection which appears so exceedingly obvious that

attempts to controvert it are received more frequently with a

derisive smile than with anything like respectful attention. The

error here involved--a gross error redolent of mischief--I can not

pretend to expose within the limits assigned me at present; with the

philosophical it needs no exposure. It may be sufficient here to say

that it forms one of an infinite series of mistakes which arise in

the path of Reason through her propensity for seeking truth in

_detail_.

THE PURLOINED LETTER

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

_This story, as may be seen from the opening paragraph, also concerns

itself with that remarkable detective, M. Dupin._

_Edmund Clarence Stedman considers it superior to the two stories

that precede it, but Brander Matthews says that nothing better of

their kind has ever been done than "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"

and "The Purloined Letter"; thus awarding equal praise to the first

story and the third story._

THE PURLOINED LETTER

By EDGAR ALLAN POE

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 troisieme_, No. 33 _Rue Dunot_, _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 the

fashion of calling everything "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 toward 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 ascendency over the illustrious personage whose honor and

peace are so jeopardized."

"But this ascendency," 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, 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

letter--one of no importance--upon the table."

"Here, then," said Dupin to me, "you have precisely what you demand

to make the ascendency 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, can not 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

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."

"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 rigidly 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 is 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 doggerel 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 department. 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

gluing--any unusual gaping in the joints--would have sufficed to

ensure detection."

"I 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."

"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 _ground_ 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 research 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 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:

"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 reexamination, 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 sponging 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 school-boy, 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 Rochefoucauld, 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 _practise_, 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 _recherche_ 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 _recherche_ 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 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 anywhere 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 a parier_,'" replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort, "'_que

toute idee publique, toute convention recue, 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 special 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 _un_true 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 _x^2+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 _x^2+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 political 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

political 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 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 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, 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 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,

redirected and resealed. 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 _facsimile_ (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 afterward 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

_facsimile_. 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 partizan 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 were. Thus will he

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 _monstram

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 anything 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' Atree, est digne de Thyeste.'

They are to be found in Crébillon's 'Atrée.'"

THE SIGN OF THE FOUR

BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

_Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is undoubtedly the most popular living writer

of detective fiction. Sherlock Holmes is said to have been suggested

to the author by a study of the character and talents of Joseph Bell,

M.D., F.R.C.S., a professor, while Dr. Doyle was a student at

Edinburgh University. He was particularly strong on what the author

calls "the science of deduction." He used to tell the students their

symptoms, and would even give them details of their past life. No

collection of famous detective stories would be complete that omitted

"The Sign of the Four."_

THE SIGN OF THE FOUR

By SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

CHAPTER I

_The Science of Deduction_

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece

and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his

long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and

rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes

rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and

scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp

point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sunk back into the

velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction.

Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance,

but custom had not reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary, from

day to day I had become more irritable at the sight, and my

conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked

the courage to protest. Again and again I had registered a vow that

I should deliver my soul upon the subject, but there was that in the

cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last man with

whom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His

great powers, his masterly manner, and the experience which I had had

of his many extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and

backward in crossing him.

Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the claret which I had taken

with my lunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme

deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no

longer.

"Which is it to-day?" I asked. "Morphine or cocaine?"

He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which

he had opened. "It is cocaine," he said; "a seven per cent solution.

Would you care to try it?"

"No, indeed," I answered, bruskly. "My constitution has not got over

the Afghan campaign yet. I can not afford to throw any extra strain

upon it."

He smiled at my vehemence. "Perhaps you are right, Watson," he said.

"I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it,

however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind

that its secondary action is a matter of small moment."

"But consider!" I said, earnestly. "Count the cost! Your brain may,

as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and

morbid process, which involves increased tissue-change, and may at

last leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black

reaction comes upon you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle.

Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those

great powers with which you have been endowed? Remember that I speak

not only as one comrade to another, but as a medical man to one for

whose constitution he is to some extent answerable."

He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his finger-tips

together and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who

has a relish for conversation.

"My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me

work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate

analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere, I can dispense then

with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of

existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen

my own particular profession--or rather created it, for I am the only

one in the world."

"The only unofficial detective?" I said, raising my eyebrows.

"The only unofficial consulting detective," he answered. "I am the

last and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson, or

Lestrade, or Athelney Jones are out of their depths--which, by the

way, is their normal state--the matter is laid before me. I examine

the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist's opinion. I

claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The

work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers,

is my highest reward. But you have yourself had some experience of

my methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case."

"Yes, indeed," said I, cordially. "I was never so struck by anything

in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat

fantastic title of 'A Study in Scarlet.'"

He shook his head sadly. "I glanced over it," said he. "Honestly, I

can not congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an

exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional

manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which

produces much the same effect as if you worked a love story or an

elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid."

"But the romance was there," I remonstrated. "I could not tamper

with the facts."

"Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of

proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in

the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning

from effects to causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it."

I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially

designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the

egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should

be devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the

years that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a

small vanity underlay my companion's quiet and didactic manner. I

made no remark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had had a

Jezail bullet through it some time before, and though it did not

prevent me from walking, it ached wearily at every change of the

weather.

"My practise has extended recently to the Continent," said Holmes,

after a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe. "I was consulted

last week by François le Villard, who, as you probably know, has come

rather to the front lately in the French detective service. He has

all the Celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the

wide range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher

developments of his art. The case was concerned with a will, and

possessed some features of interest. I was able to refer him to two

parallel cases; the one at Riga in 1857, and the other at St. Louis

in 1871, which have suggested to him the true solution. Here is the

letter which I had this morning acknowledging my assistance." He

tossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign note-paper. I

glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of notes of admiration,

with stray "magnifiques," "coup-de-maîtres," and "tours-de-force,"

all testifying to the ardent admiration of the Frenchman.

"He speaks as a pupil to his master," said I.

"Oh, he rates my assistance too highly," said Sherlock Holmes,

lightly. "He has considerable gifts himself. He possesses two out

of the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the

power of observation and that of deduction. He is only wanting in

knowledge; and that may come in time. He is now translating my small

works into French."

"Your works?"

"Oh, didn't you know?" he cried, laughing. "Yes, I have been guilty

of several monographs. They are all upon technical subjects. Here,

for example, is one 'Upon the Distinction Between the Ashes of the

Various Tobaccos.' In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of

cigar, cigarette, and pipe tobacco, with colored plates illustrating

the difference in the ash. It is a point which is continually

turning up in criminal trials, and which is sometimes of supreme

importance as a clue. If you can say definitely, for example, that

some murder has been done by a man who was smoking an Indian lunkah,

it obviously narrows your field of search. To the trained eye there

is as much difference between the black ash of a Trichinopoly and the

white fluff of bird's-eye as there is between a cabbage and a potato."

"You have an extraordinary genius for minutiæ," I remarked.

"I appreciate their importance. Here is my monograph upon the

tracing of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of

Paris as a preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a curious little

work upon the influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with

lithotypes of the hands of slaters, sailors, cork-cutters,

compositors, weavers, and diamond-polishers. That is a matter of

great practical interest to the scientific detective--especially in

cases of unclaimed bodies, or in discovering the antecedents of

criminals. But I weary you with my hobby."

"Not at all," I answered, earnestly. "It is of the greatest interest

to me, especially since I have had the opportunity of observing your

practical application of it. But you spoke just now of observation

and deduction. Surely the one to some extent implies the other."

"Why, hardly," he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his armchair,

and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. "For example,

observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street

Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there

you despatched a telegram."

"Right!" said I. "Right on both points! But I confess that I don't

see how you arrived at it. It was a sudden impulse upon my part, and

I have mentioned it to no one."

"It is simplicity itself," he remarked, chuckling at my surprise; "so

absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may

serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction.

Observation tells me that you have a little reddish mold adhering to

your instep. Just opposite the Wigmore Street Office they have taken

up the pavement and thrown up some earth which lies in such a way

that it is difficult to avoid treading in it in entering. The earth

is of this peculiar reddish tint which is found, so far as I know,

nowhere else in the neighborhood. So much is observation. The rest

is deduction."

"How, then, did you deduce the telegram?"

"Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat

opposite to you all the morning. I see also in your open desk there

that you have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of post-cards.

What could you go into the postoffice for, then, but to send a wire?

Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the

truth."

"In this case it certainly is so," I replied, after a little thought.

"The thing, however, is, as you say, of the simplest. Would you

think me impertinent if I were to put your theories to a more severe

test?"

"On the contrary," he answered, "it would prevent me from taking a

second dose of cocaine. I should be delighted to look into any

problem which you might submit to me."

"I have heard you say that it is difficult for a man to have any

object in daily use without leaving the impress of his individuality

upon it in such a way that a trained observer might read it. Now, I

have here a watch which has recently come into my possession. Would

you have the kindness to let me have an opinion upon the character or

habits of the late owner?"

I handed him the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in my

heart, for the test was, as I thought, an impossible one, and I

intended it as a lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which he

occasionally assumed. He balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard

at the dial, opened the back, and examined the works, first with his

naked eyes and then with a powerful convex lens. I could hardly keep

from smiling at his crestfallen face, when he finally snapped the

case to and handed it back.

"There are hardly any data," he remarked. "The watch has been

recently cleaned, which robs me of my most suggestive facts."

"You are right," I answered. "It was cleaned before being sent to

me." In my heart I accused my companion of putting forward a most

lame and impotent excuse to cover his failure. What data could he

expect from an uncleaned watch?

"Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren," he

observed, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy, lack-lustre eyes.

"Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged

to your elder brother, who inherited it from your father."

"That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. upon the back?"

"Quite so. The W. suggests your own name. The date of the watch is

nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch; so

it was made for the last generation. Jewelry usually descends to the

eldest son, and he is most likely to have the same name as his

father. Your father has, if I remember right, been dead many years.

It has, therefore, been in the hands of your eldest brother."

"Right, so far," said I. "Anything else?"

"He was a man of untidy habits--very untidy and careless. He was

left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for

some time in poverty, with occasional short intervals of prosperity,

and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather."

I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with

considerable bitterness in my heart.

"This is unworthy of you, Holmes," I said. "I could not have

believed that you would have descended to this. You have made

inquiries into the history of my unhappy brother, and you now pretend

to deduce this knowledge in some fanciful way. You can not expect me

to believe that you have read all this from his old watch! It is

unkind, and, to speak plainly, has a touch of charlatanism in it."

"My dear doctor," said he kindly, "pray accept my apologies. Viewing

the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how personal and

painful a thing it might be to you. I assure you, however, that I

never even knew that you had a brother until you handed me the watch."

"Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get all these

facts? They are absolutely correct in every particular."

"Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what was the balance of

probability. I did not at all expect to be so accurate."

"But it was not mere guesswork?"

"No, no; I never guess. It is a shocking habit--destructive to the

logical faculty. What seems strange to you is only so because you do

not follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which

large inferences may depend. For example, I began by stating that

your brother was careless. When you observe the lower part of that

watch-case you notice that it is not only dented in two places, but

it is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard

objects, such as coins or keys, in the same pocket. Surely it is no

great feat to assume that a man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so

cavalierly must be a careless man. Neither is it a very far-fetched

inference that a man who inherits one article of such value is pretty

well provided for in other respects."

I nodded to show that I followed his reasoning.

"It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a

watch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the

inside of the case. It is more handy than a label, as there is no

risk of the number being lost or transposed. There are no less than

four such numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case.

Inference--that your brother was often at low water. Secondary

inference--that he had occasional bursts of prosperity, or he could

not have redeemed the pledge. Finally, I ask you to look at the

inner plate which contains the keyhole. Look at the thousands of

scratches all around the hole--marks where the key has slipped. What

sober man's key could have scored those grooves? But you will never

see a drunkard's watch without them. He winds it at night, and he

leaves these traces of his unsteady hand. Where is the mystery in

all this?"

"It is as clear as daylight," I answered. "I regret the injustice

which I did you. I should have had more faith in your marvelous

faculty. May I ask whether you have any professional inquiry on foot

at present?"

"None. Hence the cocaine. I can not live without brain-work. What

else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such

a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls

down the street and drifts across dun-colored houses. What could be

more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having

powers, doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them?

Crime is commonplace, and existence is commonplace, and no qualities

save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth."

I had opened my mouth to reply to his tirade, when, with a crisp

knock, our landlady entered, bearing a card upon a brass salver.

"A young lady for you, sir," she said, addressing my companion.

"Miss Mary Morstan," he read. "Hum! I have no recollection of that

name. Ask the young lady to step up, Mrs. Hudson. Don't go, doctor.

I prefer that you remain."