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,—_à 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,
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, 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,—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 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
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
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 illustrations. 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 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 outré_;
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
marvellous. 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 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 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 Ourang-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 reading,
“is in exact accordance with this drawing. I see that no animal but
an Ourang-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 Ourang-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 Ourang-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 troisième._
“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 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 Ourang-Outang.
He will reason thus: ‘I am innocent; I am poor; my Ourang-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 clew. 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 Ourang-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 daredevil expression of
countenance, not altogether unprepossessing. His face, greatly sunburnt,
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
Ourang-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?”
“O 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 into
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.”