Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio.--SENECA.
At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18--, I was
enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and 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 Roget. 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 forbore
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 anyone."
"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 honour of a personage of most
exalted station; and this fact gives the holder of the document an
ascendency over the illustrious personage whose honour 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
endeavour 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, cannot be
done openly. In fine, driven to despair, she has committed the matter to
me."
"Than whom," said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind of smoke, "no more
sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired or even imagined."
"You flatter me," replied the Prefect; "but it is possible that some
such opinion may have been entertained."
"It is clear," said I, "as you observe, that the letter is still in 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 honour 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 apartment. We opened every possible drawer;
and I presume you know that, to a properly trained police-agent, such a
thing as a 'secret' drawer is impossible. Any man is a dolt who permits
a 'secret' drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The thing is
so plain. There is a certain amount of bulk, of space, to be accounted
for in every cabinet. Then we have accurate rules. The fiftieth part of
a line could not escape us. After the cabinets we took the chairs. The
cushions we probed with the fine long needles you have seen me employ.
From the tables we removed the tops."
"Why so?"
"Sometimes the top of a table or other similarly arranged piece of
furniture is removed by the person wishing to conceal an article; then
the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity, and the
top replaced. The bottoms and tops of bedposts are employed in the same
way."
"But could not the cavity be detected by sounding?" I asked.
"By no means, if, when the article is deposited, a sufficient wadding of
cotton be placed around it. Besides, in our case, we were obliged to
proceed without noise."
"But you could not have removed, you could not have taken to pieces all
articles of furniture in which it would have been possible to make a
deposit in the manner you mention. A letter may be compressed into a
thin spiral roll, not differing much in shape or bulk from a large
knitting-needle, and in this form it might be inserted into the rung of
a chair, for example. You did not take to pieces all the chairs?"
"Certainly not, but we did better: we examined the rungs of every chair
in the hotel, and, indeed, the jointings of every description of
furniture, by the aid of a most powerful microscope. Had there been any
traces of recent disturbance we should not have failed to detect it
instantly. A single grain of gimlet-dust, for example, would have been
as obvious as an apple. Any disorder in the gluing, any unusual gaping
in the joints, would have sufficed to insure detection."
"I presume you looked to the mirrors, between the boards and the plates,
and you probed the beds and the 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 grounds about the houses?"
"All the grounds are paved with brick. They gave us comparatively little
trouble. We examined the moss between the bricks and found it
undisturbed."
"You looked among D----'s papers, of course, and into the books of the
library?"
"Certainly; we opened every package and parcel; we not only opened every
book, but we turned over every leaf in each volume, not contenting
ourselves with a mere shake, according to the fashion of some of our
police officers. We also measured the thickness of every book-cover with
the most accurate measurement, 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 re-examination, however, as Dupin
suggested, but it was all labour 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 anyone 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 anyone who would aid me in the matter."
"In that case," replied Dupin, opening a drawer and producing a
checkbook, "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 thunderstricken. 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 pocketbook; 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 labours extended."
"'So far as his labours 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."