“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
the 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 afterwards
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
preclude 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 witnesses
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 farther 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 believe in praeternatural
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 ceilings, 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 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 into it; and
a vigorous attempt to raise this sash, failed also. The police are now
entirely satisfied that egress had not been in these directions. And,
_therefore_, it was thought a matter of superogation 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 re-fastened
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,
forebore to upraise the sash.
“I now replaced the nail and regulated 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 headboard 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, terminated
the clew, ‘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 imbedded, 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.
“The 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—farther 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 anyone 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 upper 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
praeternatural character of the 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 practice 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 juxta-position
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 suggest 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
change 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. Ordinarily
assassins employ no such modes 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 grey
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 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 have 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 Sante_.”
“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 _fac-simile_ 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 imbedded itself. Attempt, now, to place all your
fingers, at the same time, in the respective impressions as you see them.”