"The measures, then," he continued, "were good in their kind, and well
executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the case,
and to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources are, with
the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed to which he forcibly adapts his
designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too shallow, for
the matter in hand; and many a schoolboy is a better reasoner than
he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in
the game of 'even and odd' attracted universal admiration. This game
_is_ simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand
a number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is
even or odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one; if wrong, he
loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the
school. Of course he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in
mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his
opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and,
holding up his closed hand asks, 'Are they even or odd?' Our schoolboy
replies, 'Odd' and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he
then says to himself, 'the simpleton had them even upon the first
trial, and his amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have
them odd upon the second; I will therefore guess odd;' he guesses odd,
and wins. Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first he would have
reasoned thus: 'This fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed
odd, and, in the second, he will propose to himself, upon the first
impulse, a simple variation from even to odd, as did the first
simpleton; but then a second thought will suggest that this is too
simple a variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even as
before. I will therefore guess even;' he guesses even, and wins. Now
this mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows term
'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 Bruyère,
to Machiavelli, and to Campanella."
"And the identification," I said, "of the reasoner's intellect with
that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright, upon the
accuracy with which the opponent's intellect is admeasured."
"For its practical value it depends upon this," replied Dupin, "and
the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by default of
this identification, and, secondly, by ill-admeasurement, or rather
through non-admeasurement, of the intellect with which they are
engaged. They consider only their _own_ ideas of ingenuity; and, in
searching for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which
_they_ would have hidden it. They are right in this much--that their
own ingenuity is a faithful representative of that of _the mass_: but
when the cunning of the individual felon is diverse in character from
their own, the felon foils them, of course. This always happens when
it is above their own, and very usually when it is below. They have no
variation of principle in their investigations; at best, when urged by
some unusual emergency--by some extraordinary reward--they extend or
exaggerate their old modes of _practice_, without touching their
principles. What, for example, in this case of D----, has been done
to vary the principle of action? What is all this boring, and probing,
and sounding, and scrutinizing with the microscope, and dividing the
surface of the building into registered square inches--what is it all
but an exaggeration _of the application_ of the one principle or set
of principles of search, which are based upon the one set of notions
regarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine
of his duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see he has taken it for
granted that _all_ men proceed to conceal a letter,--not exactly in a
gimlet-hole bored in a chair leg--but, at least, in _some_
out-of-the-way hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of thought
which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole bored in a
chair-leg? And do you not see, also, that such _recherchés_ nooks for
concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions and would be
adopted only by ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of concealment,
a disposal of the article concealed--a disposal of it in this
_recherché_ manner--is, in the very first instance, presumable and
presumed; and thus its discovery depends, not at all upon the acumen,
but altogether upon the mere care, patience, and determination of the
seekers; and where the case is of importance--or, what amounts to the
same thing in policial eyes, when the reward is of magnitude--the
qualities in question have _never_ been known to fail. You will now
understand what I meant in suggesting that, had the purloined letter
been hidden 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 à parier_,'" replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort, "'_que
toute idée publique, toute convention reçue, est une sottise, car elle
a convenue au plus grand nombre_.' The mathematicians, I grant you,
have done their best to promulgate the popular error to which you
allude, and which is none the less an error for its promulgation as
truth. With an art worthy a better cause, for example, they have
insinuated the term 'analysis' into application to algebra. The French
are the originators of this particular deception ; but if a term is of
any importance--if words derive any value from applicability--then
'analysis' conveys 'algebra,' about as much as, in Latin, '_ambitus_'
implies 'ambition,' '_religio_,' 'religion,' or '_homines honesti_,'a
set of honorable men."
"You have a quarrel on hand, I see," said I, "with some of the
algebraists of Paris; but proceed."
"I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that reason which
is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly
logical. I dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathematical
study. The mathematics are the science of form and quantity;
mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon
form and quantity. The great error lies in supposing that even the
truths of what is called _pure_ algebra are abstract or general
truths. And this error is so egregious that I am confounded at the
universality with which it has been received. Mathematical axioms are
_not_ axioms of general truth. What is true of _relation_--of form and
quantity--is often grossly false in regard to morals, for example. In
this latter science it is very usually _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 neyer yet
encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out of equal
roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his
faith that _x²+px_ was absolutely and unconditionally equal to _q_.
Say to one of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you please,
that you believe occasions may occur where _x²+px_ is _not_
altogether equal to _q_, and, having made him understand what you
mean, get out of his reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond
doubt, he will endeavor to knock you down.
"I mean to say," continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at his last
observations, "that if the Minister had been no more than a
mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no necessity of
giving me this check. I knew him, however, as both mathematician and
poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference to
the circumstances by which he was surrounded. I knew him as courtier,
too, and as a bold _intriguant_. Such a man, I considered, could not
fail to be aware of the ordinary policial modes of action. He could
not have failed to anticipate--and events have proved that he did not
fail to anticipate--the waylayings to which he was subjected. He must
have foreseen, I reflected, the secret investigations of his
premises. His frequent absences from home at night, which were hailed
by the Prefect as certain aids to his success, I regarded only as
ruses, to afford opportunity for thorough search to the police, and
thus the sooner to impress them with the conviction to which G----, in
fact, did finally arrive--the conviction that the letter was not upon
the premises. I felt, also, that the whole train of thought, which I
was at some pains in detailing to you just now, concerning the
invariable principle of policial action in searches for articles
concealed--I felt that this whole train of thought would necessarily
pass through the mind of the Minister. It would imperatively lead him
to despise all the ordinary _nooks_ of concealment. _He_ could not, I
reflected, be so weak as not to see that the most intricate and remote
recess of his Hotel would be as open as his commonest closets to the
eyes, to the probes, to the gimlets, and to the microscopes of the
Prefect. I saw, in fine, that he would be driven, as a matter of
course, to _simplicity_, if not deliberately induced to it as a matter
of choice. You will remember, perhaps, how desperately the Prefect
laughed when I suggested, upon our first interview, that it was just
possible this mystery troubled him so much on account of its being so
_very_ self-evident."
"Yes," said I, "I remember his merriment well. I really thought he
would have fallen into convulsions."
"The material world," continued Dupin, "abounds with very strict
analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been
given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may be made
to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a description. The
principle of the _vis inertiæ_, for example, seems to be identical in
physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a
large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one,
and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with this difficulty,
than it is, in the latter, that intellects of the vaster capacity,
while more forcible, more constant, and more eventful in their
movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less readily
moved, and more embarrassed and full of hesitation in the first few
steps of their progress. Again: have you ever noticed which of the
street signs, over the shop-doors, are the most attractive of
attention?"
"I have never given the matter a thought," I said.
"There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, "which is played upon a
map. One party playing requires another to find a given word--the name
of town, river, state, or empire--any word, in short, upon the motley
and perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game generally
seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them the most minutely
lettered names; but the adept selects such words as stretch, in large
characters, from one end of the chart to the other. These, like the
over-largely lettered signs and placards of the street, escape
observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here the
physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral
inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those
considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably
self-evident. But this is a point, it appears, somewhat above or
beneath the understanding of the Prefect. He never once thought it
probable, or possible, that the Minister had deposited the letter
immediately beneath the nose of the whole world, by way of best
preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it.
"But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and discriminating
ingenuity of D----; upon the fact that the document must always have
been _at hand,_ if he intended to use it to good purpose; and upon the
decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect, that it was not hidden
within the limits of that dignitary's ordinary search--the more
satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter, the Minister had
resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not
attempting to conceal it at all.
"Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of green
spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by accident, at the
Ministerial Hotel. I found D---- at home, yawning, lounging, and
dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in the last extremity of
ennui. He is, perhaps, the most really energetic human being now
alive--but that is only when nobody sees him.
"To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and lamented the
necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which I cautiously and
thoroughly surveyed the 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 upper 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
hyperobtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of every
visitor, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which
I had previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly
corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with the intention to
suspect.
"I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I maintained a
most animated discussion with the Minister, upon a topic which I knew
well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention
really riveted upon the letter. In this examination, I committed to
memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack; and also
fell, at length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial
doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the
paper, I observed them to be more _chafed_ than seemed necessary. They
presented the _broken_ appearance which is manifested when a stiff
paper, having been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded
in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which had formed
the original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me
that the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed,
and re-sealed. I bade the Minister good-morning, and took my departure
at once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the table.
"The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed, quite
eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus engaged,
however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately
beneath the windows of the Hotel, and was succeeded by a series of
fearful screams, and the shoutings of a 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 afterwards I bade
him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay."
"But what purpose had you," I asked, "in replacing the letter by a
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 30 people of Paris might have
heard of me no more. But I had an object apart from these
considerations. You know my political prepossessions. In this matter,
I act as a partisan of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the
Minister has had her in his power. She has now him in hers--since,
being unaware that the letter is not in his possession, he will
proceed with his exactions as if it was. Thus will he inevitably
commit himself, at once, to his political destruction. His downfall,
too, will not be more precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to
talk about the _facilis descensus Averni_; but in all kinds of
climbing, as Catalani said of singing, it is far more easy to get up
than to come down. In the present instance I have no sympathy--at
least no pity--for him who descends. He is that _monstrum horrendum_,
an unprincipled man of genius. I confess, however, that I should like
very well to know the precise character of his thoughts, when, being
defied by her whom the Prefect terms 'a certain personage,' he is
reduced to opening the letter which I left for him in the card-rack."
"How? Did you put 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 clew. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just
copied into the middle of the blank sheet the words--
'--Un dessein si funeste,
S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, est digne de Thyeste.'