 | Tales |  |
THE PURLOINED LETTER.
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 a
meerschaum, in company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in
his little back library, or book-closet, au troisiême, No. 33, Rue
Dunôto, 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 a fashion of calling every thing “odd” that was beyond his
comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of “oddities.”
“Very true,” said Dupin, as he supplied his visiter with a
pipe, and rolled towards 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
visiter, 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 ascendancy over the illustrious personage
whose honor and peace are so jeopardized.”
“But this ascendancy,” 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 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 ascendancy 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
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.”
“O 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 rigorously 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's a poet, which
I take to be only one remove from a fool.”
“True,” said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from
myself.”
“Suppose you detail,” said I, “the particulars of your search.”
“Why the fact is, we took our time, and we searched every
where. 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 bed-posts
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
for example, would have been as obvious as an apple. Any disorder
in the glueing—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 bed-clothes, 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 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 re-search 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 afterwards 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 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 spunging 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
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, 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 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 reponse of the schoolboy lies
at the bottom of all the spurious profundity which has been attributed
to Rochefoucault, 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
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 the 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 any where 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
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 parièr,' ” 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
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 untrue 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 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 a 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
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 though 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-ev-ident.”
“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:
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
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 fillagree card-rack of pasteboard, that hung dangling
by a dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just beneath the
middle of the mantel-piece. 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
visiter, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to
which I had previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly
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 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 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
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 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 any thing 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—
S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, est digne de Thyeste.
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