APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/authors/poe/marieroget/MARIEROGET

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                 The Mystery of Marie Roget  <1>


       A SEQUEL TO 'THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE'


Es giebt eine Reihe idealischer Begebenheiten, die der Wirklichkeit
parallel lauft.  Selten fallen sie zusammen.  Menschen und Zufalle
modificeren gewohnlich die idealische Begebenheit, so dass sie
unvollkommem erscheint, und ihre Folgen gleichfalls unvollkommen sind.
So bei der Reformation; statt des Protestantismus kam das Lutherthum
hervor.

There are ideal series of events which run parallel with the real ones.
They rarely coincide.  Men and circumstances generally modify the ideal
train of events, so that it seems imperfect, and its consequences are
equally imperfect.  Thus with the Reformation; instead of Protestantism
came Lutheranism.  --NOVALIS.  Moral Ansichten


There are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have not
occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling half-credence in
the supernatural, by coincidences of so seemingly marvellous a character
that, as mere coincidences, the intellect has


<1> Upon the original publication of Marie Roget, the foot-notes now
appended were considered unnecessary; but the lapse of several years
since the tragedy upon which the tale is based, renders it expedient to
give them, and also to say a few words in explanation of the general
design.  A young girl, Mary Cecilia Rogers, was murdered in the vicinity
of New York; and although her death occasioned an intense and
long-enduring excitement, the mystery attending it had remained unsolved
at the period when the present paper was written and published
(November, 1842).  Herein, under pretence of relating the fate of a
Parisian grisette, the author has followed, in minute detail, the
essential, while merely paralleling the inessential, facts of the real
murder of Mary Rogers.  Thus all argument upon the fiction is applicable
to the truth; and the investigation of the truth was the object.

The Mystery of Marie Roget was composed at a distance from the scene of
the atrocity, and with no other means of investigation than the
newspapers afforded.  Thus much escaped the writer of which he could
have availed himself had he been upon the spot and visited the
localities.  It may not be improper to record, nevertheless, that the
confessions of two persons (one of them the Madame Deluc of the
narrative), made, at different periods, long subsequent to the
publication, confirmed, in full, not only the general conclusion, but
absolutely all the chief hypothetical details by which that conclusion
was attained.

<p 446 been unable to receive them.  Such sentiments--for the half-
credences of which I speak have never the full force of <i thought--such
sentiments are seldom thoroughly stifled unless by reference to the
doctrine of chance, or, as it is technically termed, the Calculus of
Probabilities.  Now this Calculus is, in its essence, purely
mathematical; and thus we have the anomaly of the most rigidly exact in
science applied to the shadow and spirituality of the most intangible in
speculation.

The extraordinary details which I am now called upon to make public,
will be found to form, as regards sequences of time, the primary branch
of a series of scarcely intelligible <i coincidences, whose secondary or
concluding branch will be recognized by all readers in the late murder
of MARY CECILIA ROGERS, at New York.

When, in an article entitled, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, I
endeavoured, about a year ago, to depict some very remarkable features
in the mental character of my friend, the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin, it
did not occur to me that I should ever resume the subject.  This
depicting of character constituted my design; and this design was
thoroughly fulfilled in the wild train of circumstances brought to
instance Dupin's idiosyncrasy.  I might have adduced other examples, but
I should have proven no more.  Late events, however, in their surprising
development, have startled me into some further details, which will
carry with them the air of extorted confession.  Hearing what I have
lately heard, it would be indeed strange should I remain silent in
regard to what I both heard and saw long ago.

Upon the winding up of the tragedy involved in the deaths of Madame
L'Espanaye and her daughter, the Chevalier dismissed the affair at once
from his attention, and relapsed into his old habits of moody reverie.
Prone, at all times, to abstraction, I readily fell in with his humour;
and continuing to occupy our chambers in the Faubourg Saint Germain, we
gave the Future to the winds, and slumbered tranquillity in the Present,
weaving the dull world around us into dreams.

But these dreams were not altogether uninterrupted.  It may readily be
supposed that the part played by my friend, in the drama at the Rue
Morgue, had not failed of its impression upon <p 447 the fancies of the
Parisian police.  With its emissaries, the name of Dupin had grown into
a household word.  The simple character of those inductions by which he
had disentangled the mystery never having been explained even to the
Prefect, or to any other individual than myself, of course it is not
surprising that the affair was regarded as little less than miraculous,
or that the Chevalier's analytical abilities acquired for him the credit
of intuition.  His frankness would have led him to disabuse every
inquirer of such prejudice; but his indolent humour forbade all further
agitation of a topic whose interest to himself had long ceased.  It thus
happened that he found himself the cynosure of the political eyes; and
the cases were not few in which attempt was made to engage his services
at the Prefecture.  One of the most remarkable instances was that of the
murder of a young girl named Marie Roget.

This event occurred about two years after the atrocity in the Rue
Morgue.  Marie, whose Christian and family name will at once arrest
attention from their resemblance to those of the unfortunate
'cigar-girl', was the only daughter of the widow Estelle Roget.  The
father had died during the child's infancy, and from the period of his
death, until within eighteen months before the assassination which forms
the subject of our narrative, the mother and daughter had dwelt together
in the Rue Pavee Saint Andree;<1 Madame there keeping a pension,
assisted by Marie.  Affairs went on thus until the latter had attained
her twenty-second year, when her great beauty attracted the notice of a
perfumer, who occupied one of the shops in the basement of the Palais
Royal, and whose custom lay chiefly among the desperate adventurers
infesting that neighbourhood.  Monsieur Le Blanc<2 was not unaware of
the advantages to be derived from the attendance of the fair Marie in
his perfumery; and his liberal proposals were accepted eagerly by the
girl, although with somewhat more of hesitation by Madame.

The anticipations of the shopkeeper were realized, and his rooms soon
became notorious through the charms of the sprightly <i grisette.  She
had been in his employ about a year, when her


<1Nassau Street.

<2Anderson.

<p 448 admirers were thrown into confusion by her sudden disappearance
from the shop.  Monsieur Le Blanc was unable to account for her absence,
and Madame Roget was distracted with anxiety and terror.  The public
papers immediately took up the theme, and the police were upon the point
of making serious investigations, when, one morning, after the lapse of
a week, Marie, in good health, but with a somewhat saddened air, made
her reappearance at her usual counter in the perfumery.  All inquiry,
except that of a private character, was, of course, immediately hushed.
Monsieur Le Blanc professed total ignorance, as before.  Marie, with
Madame, replied to all questions, that the last week had been spent at
the house of a relation in the country.  Thus the affair died away, and
was generally forgotten; for the girl, ostensibly to relieve herself
from the impertinence of curiosity, soon bade a final adieu to the
perfumer, and sought the shelter of her mother's residence in the Rue
Pavee Saint Andree.

It was about five months after this return home, that her friends were
alarmed by her sudden disappearance for the second time.  Three days
elapsed, and nothing was heard of her.  On the fourth her corpse was
found floating in the Seine,<1 near the shore which is opposite the
Quartier of the Rue Saint Andree, and at a point not very far distant
from the secluded neighbourhood of the Barriere du Roule.<2

The atrocity of this murder (for it was at once evident that murder had
been committed), the youth and beauty of the victim, and, above all, her
previous notoriety, conspired to produce intense excitement in the minds
of the sensitive Parisians.  I can call to mind no similar occurrence
producing so general and intense an effect.  For several weeks, in the
discussion of this one absorbing theme, even the momentous political
topics of the day were forgotten.  The Prefect made unusual exertions;
and the powers of the whole Parisian police were, of course, tasked to
the utmost extent.

Upon the first discovery of the corpse, it was not supposed that the
murderer would be able to elude, for more than a very brief


<1The Hudson.

<2Weehawken.

<p 449 period, the inquisition which was immediately set on foot.  It
was not until the expiration of a week that it was deemed necessary to
offer a reward; and even then this reward was limited to a thousand
francs.  In the meantime the investigation proceeded with vigour, if not
always with judgment, and numerous individuals were examined to no
purpose; while, owing to the continual absence of all clue to the
mystery, the popular excitement greatly increased.  At the end of the
tenth day it was thought advisable to double the sum originally
proposed; and, at length, the second week having elapsed without leading
to any discoveries, and the prejudice which always exists in Paris
against the police having given vent to itself in several serious
emeutes, the Prefect took it upon himself to offer the sum of twenty
thousand francs 'for the conviction of the assassin', or, if more than
one should prove to have been implicated, 'for the conviction of any one
of the assassins'.  In the proclamation setting forth this reward, a
full pardon was promised to any accomplice who should come forward in
evidence against his fellow; and to the whole was appended, wherever it
appeared, the private placard of a committee of citizens, offering ten
thousand francs, in addition to the amount proposed by the Prefecture.
The entire reward thus stood at no less than thirty thousand francs,
which will be regarded as an extraordinary sum when we consider the
humble condition of the girl, and the great frequency, in large cities,
of such atrocities as the one described.

No one doubted now that the mystery of this murder would be immediately
brought to light.  But although, in one or two instances, arrests were
made which promised elucidation, yet nothing was elicited which could
implicate the parties suspected; and they were discharged forthwith.
Strange as it may appear, the third week from the discovery of the body
had passed, and passed without any light being thrown upon the subject,
before even a rumour of the events which had so agitated the public mind
reached the ears of Dupin and myself.  Engaged in researches which had
absorbed our whole attention, it had been nearly a month since either of
us had gone abroad, or received a visitor, or more than glanced at the
leading political articles in one of the daily papers.  The first
intelligence of the murder was brought us <p 450 by G----, in person.
He called upon us early in the afternoon of the thirteenth of July 18--,
and remained with us until late in the night.  He had been piqued by the
failure of all his endeavours to ferret out the assassins.  His
reputation--so he said with a peculiarly Parisian air--was at stake.
Even his honour was concerned.  The eyes of the public were upon him;
and there was really no sacrifice which he would not be willing to make
for the development of the mystery.  He concluded a somewhat droll
speech with a compliment upon what he was pleased to term the tact of
Dupin, and made him a direct and certainly a liberal proposition, the
precise nature of which I do not feel myself at liberty to disclose, but
which has no bearing upon the proper subject of my narrative.

The compliment my friend rebutted as best he could, but the proposition
he accepted at once, although its advantages were altogether
provisional.  This point being settled, the Prefect broke forth at once
into explanations of his own views, interspersing them with long
comments upon the evidence; of which latter we were not yet in
possession.  He discoursed much and, beyond doubt, learnedly; while I
hazarded an occasional suggestion as the night wore drowsily away.
Dupin, sitting steadily in his accustomed arm-chair, was the embodiment
of respectful attention.  He wore spectacles, during the whole
interview; and an occasional glance beneath their green glasses sufficed
to convince me that he slept not the less soundly, because silently,
throughout the seven or eight leaden-footed hours which immediately
preceded the departure of the Prefect.

In the morning, I procured, at the Prefecture, a full report of all the
evidence elicited, and, at the various newspaper offices, a copy of
every paper in which, from first to last, had been published any
decisive information in regard to this sad affair.  Freed from all that
was positively disproved, the mass of information stood thus:

Marie Roget left the residence of her mother, in the Rue Pavee St
Andree, about nine o'clock in the morning of Sunday, June the
twenty-second, 18--.  In going out, she gave notice to a Monsieur
Jacques St Eustache,<1 and to him only, of her intention to spend the
day with an aunt, who resided in the Rue des Dromes.  The Rue


<1Payne.

<p 451 des Dromes is a short and narrow but populous thoroughfare, not
far from the banks of the river, and at a distance of some two miles, in
the most direct course possible, from the pension of Madame Roget.  St
Eustache was the accepted suitor of Marie, and lodged, as well as took
his meals, at the pension.  He was to have gone for his betrothed at
dusk, and to have escorted her home.  In the afternoon, however, it came
on to rain heavily; and, supposing that she would remain at her aunt's
(as she had done under similar circumstances before), he did not think
it necessary to keep his promise.  As night drew on, Madame Roget (who
was an infirm old lady, seventy years of age) was heard to express a
fear 'that she should never see Marie again'; but this observation
attracted little attention at the time.

On Monday it was ascertained that the girl had not been to the Rue des
Dromes; and when the day elapsed without tidings of her, a tardy search
was instituted at several points in the city and its environs.  It was
not, however, until the fourth day from the period of her disappearance
that anything satisfactory was ascertained respecting her.  On this day
(Wednesday, the twenty- fifth of June) a Monsieur Beauvais,<1 who, with
a friend, had been making inquiries for Marie near the Barriere du
Roule, on the shore of the Seine which is opposite the Rue Pavee St
Andree, was informed a corpse had just been towed ashore by some
fishermen, who had found it floating in the river.  Upon seeing the
body, Beauvais, after some hesitation, identified it as that of the
perfumery girl.  His friend recognized it more promptly.

The face was suffused with dark blood, some of which issued from the
mouth.  No foam was seen, as in the case of the merely drowned.  There
was no discoloration in the cellular tissue.  About the throat were
bruises and impressions of fingers.  The arms were bent over on the
chest, and were rigid.  The right hand was clenched; the left partially
open.  On the left wrist were two circular excoriations, apparently the
effect of ropes, or of a rope in more than one volution.  A part of the
right wrist, also, was much chafed, as well as the back throughout its
extent, but more especially at the shoulder-blades.  In bringing the
body to the shore the


<1Crommelin.

<p 452 fishermen had attached to it a rope, but none of the excoriations
had been effected by this.  The flesh of the neck was much swollen.
There were no cuts apparent, or bruises which appeared the effect of
blows.  A piece of lace was found tied so tightly around the neck as to
be hidden from sight; it was completely buried in the flesh, and was
fastened by a knot which lay just under the left ear.  This alone would
have sufficed to produce death.  The medical testimony spoke confidently
of the virtuous character of the deceased.  She had been subjected, it
said, to brutal violence.  The corpse was in such condition when found
that there could have been no difficulty in its recognition by friends.

The dress was much torn and otherwise disordered.  In the outer garment,
a slip, about a food wide, had been torn upward from the bottom hem to
the waist, but not torn off.  It was wound three times around the waist,
and secured by a sort of hitch in the back.  The dress immediately
beneath the frock was of fine muslin; and from this a slip eighteen
inches wide had been torn entirely out-- torn very evenly and with great
care.  It was found around her neck, fitting loosely, and secured with a
hard knot.  Over this muslin slip and the slip of lace the strings of a
bonnet were attached, the bonnet being apprehended.  The knot by which
the strings of the bonnet were fastened was not a lady's, but a slip or
sailor's knot.

After the recognition of the corpse, it was not, as usual, taken to the
Morgue (this formality being superfluous), but hastily interred not far
from the spot at which it was brought ashore.  Through the exertions of
Beauvais, the matter was industriously hushed up, as far as possible;
and several days had elapsed before any public emotion resulted.  A
weekly paper,<1 however, at length took up the theme; the corpse was
disinterred, and a re-examination instituted; but nothing was elicited
beyond what has been already noted.  The clothes, however, were now
submitted to the mother and friends of the deceased and fully identified
as those worn by the girl upon leaving home.

Meantime, the excitement increased hourly.  Several individuals were
arrested and discharged.  St Eustache fell especially under


<1The New York Mercury.

<p 453 suspicion; and he failed, at first, to give an intelligible
account of his whereabouts during the Sunday on which Marie left home.
Subsequently, however, he submitted to Monsieur G----, affidavits,
accounting satisfactorily for every hour of the day in question.  As
time passed and no discovery ensued, a thousand contradictory rumours
were circulated, and journalists busied themselves in <i suggestions.
Among these, the one which attracted the most notice, was the idea that
Marie Roget still lived--that the corpse found in the Seine was that of
some other unfortunate.  It will be proper that I submit to the reader
some passages which embody the suggestion alluded to.  These passages
are literal translations from L'Etoile,<1 a paper conducted, in general,
with much ability.

'Mademoiselle Roget left her mother's house on Sunday morning, June the
twenty-second, 18--, with the ostensible purpose of going to see her
aunt, or some other connection in the Rue des Dromes.  From that hour,
nobody is proved to have seen her.  There is no trace or tidings of her
at all. . . .  There has no person, whatever, come forward, so far, who
saw her at all, on that day, after she left her mother's door. . . .
Now, though we have no evidence that Marie Roget was in the land of the
living after nine o'clock on Sunday, June the twenty-second, we have
proof that, up to that hour, she was alive.  On Wednesday noon, at
twelve, a female body was discovered afloat on the shore of the Barriere
du Roule.  This was, even if we presume that Marie Roget was thrown into
the river within three hours after she left her mother's house, only
three days from the time she left her home--three days to an hour.  But
it is folly to suppose that the murder, if murder was committed on her
body, could have been consummated soon enough to have enabled her
murderers to throw the body into the river before midnight.  Those who
are guilty of such horrid crimes choose darkness rather than light. . .
.  Thus we see that if the body found in the river was that of Marie
Roget, it could only have been in the water two and a half days, or
three at the outside.  All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or
bodies thrown into the water immediately after death by violence,
require from six to


<1The New York Brother Jonathan, edited by H. Hastings Weld, Esq.

<p 454 ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them
to the top of the water.  Even where a cannon is fired over a corpse,
and it rises before, at least, five or six days' immersion, it sinks
again, if let alone.  Now, we ask what was there in this case to cause a
departure from the ordinary course of nature? . . . if the body had been
kept in its mangled state on shore until Tuesday night, some trace would
be found on shore of the murderers.  It is a doubtful point, also,
whether the body would be so soon afloat, even were it thrown in after
having been dead two days.  And, furthermore, it is exceedingly
improbable that any villains who had committed such a murder as is here
supposed, would have thrown the body in without weight to sink it, when
such a precaution could have so easily been taken.'

The editor here proceeds to argue that the body must have been in water
'not three days merely, but, at least, five times three days', because
it was so far decomposed that Beauvais had great difficulty in
recognizing it.  This latter point, however, was fully disproved.  I
continued the translation:

'What, then, are the facts on which M. Beauvais says that he has no
doubt the body was that of Marie Roget?  He ripped up the gown sleeve,
and says he found marks which satisfied him of the identity.  The public
generally supposed those marks to have consisted of some description of
scars.  He rubbed the arm and found hair upon it--something as
indefinite, we think, as can readily be imagined--as little conclusive
as finding an arm in the sleeve.  M. Beauvais did not return that night,
but sent word to Madame Roget, at seven o'clock, on Wednesday evening,
that an investigation was still in progress respecting her daughter.  If
we allow that Madame Roget, from her age and grief, could not go over
(which is allowing a great deal), there certainly must have been some
one who would have thought it worth while to go over and attend the
investigation, if they thought the body was that of Marie.  Nobody went
over.  There was nothing said or heard about the matter in the Rue Pavee
St Andree, that reached even the occupants of the same building.  M St
Eustache, the lover and intended husband of Marie, who boarded in her
mother's house, deposes that he did not hear of the discovery of the
body of his intended until the next morning, when M. Beauvais came into
his <p 455 chamber and told him of it.  For an item of news like this,
it strikes us it was very coolly received.'

In this way the journal endeavoured to create the impression of an
apathy on the part of the relatives of Marie, inconsistent with the
supposition that these relatives believed the corpse to be hers.  Its
insinuations amount to this; that Marie, with the connivance of her
friends, had absented herself from the city for reasons involving a
charge against her chastity; and that these friends upon the discovery
of a corpse in the Seine, somewhat resembling that of the girl, had
availed themselves of the opportunity to impress the public with the
belief of her death.  But L'Etoile was again over-hasty.  It was
distinctly proved that no apathy, such as was imagined, existed; that
the old lady was exceedingly feeble, and so agitated as to be unable to
attend to any duty; that St Eustache, so far from receiving the news
coolly, was distracted with grief, and bore himself so frantically, that
M. Beauvais prevailed upon a friend and relative to take charge of him,
and prevent his attending the examination at the disinterment.
Moreover, although it was stated by L'Etoile, that the corpse was
re-interred at public expense, that an advantageous offer of private
sepulture was absolutely declined by the family, and that no member of
the family attended the ceremonial;--although, I say, all this was
asserted by L'Etoile in furtherance of the impression it designed to
convey--yet all this was satisfactorily disproved.  In a subsequent
number of the paper, an attempt was made to throw suspicion upon
Beauvais himself.  The editor says:

'Now, then, a change comes over the matter.  We are told that, on one
occasion, while a Madame B---- was at Madame Roget's house, M. Beauvais,
who was going out, told her that a gendarme was expected there, and that
she, Madame B----, must not say anything to the gendarme until he
returned, but let the matter be for him. . . .  In the present posture
of affairs M. Beauvais appears to have the whole matter locked up in his
head.  A single step cannot be taken without M. Beauvais, for go which
way you will, you run against him. . . .  For some reason he determined
that nobody shall have anything to do with the proceedings but himself,
and he has elbowed the male relatives out of the way, according to their
representations, in a very singular manner.  He seems <p 456 to have
been very much averse to permitting the relatives to see the body.'

By the following fact, some colour was given to the suspicion thus
thrown upon Beauvais.  A visitor at his office, a few days prior to the
girl's disappearance, and during the absence of its occupant, had
observed a rose in the key-hole of the door, and the name 'Marie'
inscribed upon a slate which hung near at hand.

The general impression, so far as we were enabled to glean it from the
newspapers, seemed to be, that Marie had been the victim of a gang of
desperadoes--that by these she had been borne across the river,
maltreated, and murdered.  Le Commerciel,<1 however, a print of
extensive influence, was earnest in combating this popular idea.  I
quote a passage or two from its columns:

'We are persuaded that pursuit has hitherto been on a false scent so far
as it has been directed to the Barriere du Roule.  It is impossible that
a person so well known to thousands as this young woman was, should have
passed three blocks without someone having seen her; and any one who saw
her would have remembered it, for she interested all who knew her.  It
was when the streets were full of people, when she went out. . . .  It
is impossible that she could have gone to the Barriere du Roule, or to
the Rue des Dromes, without being recognized by a dozen persons; yet no
one has come forward who saw her outside her mother's door, and there is
no evidence except the testimony concerning her expressed intentions,
that she did go out at all.  Her gown was torn, bound round her, and
tied; and by that the body was carried as a bundle.  If the murder had
been committed at the Barriere du Roule, there would have been no
necessity for any such arrangement.  The fact that the body was found
floating near the Barriere is no proof as to where it was thrown into
the water. . . .  A piece of one of the unfortunate girl's petticoats,
two feet long and one foot wide, was torn out and tied under her chin
around the back of her head, probably to prevent screams.  This was done
by fellows who had no pocket-handkerchief.'

A day or two before the Prefect called upon us, however, some important
information reached the police, which seemed to over-


<1New York Journal of Commerce.

<p 457 throw, at least, the chief portion of Le Commerciel's argument.
Two small boys, sons of a Madame Deluc, while roaming among the woods
near the Barriere du Roule, chanced to penetrate a close thicket, within
which were three or four large stones, forming a kind of seat with a
back and footstool.  On the upper stone lay a white petticoat; on the
second, a silk scarf.  A parasol, gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief were
also here found.  The handkerchief bore the name 'Marie Roget'.
Fragments of dress were discovered on the brambles around.  The earth
was trampled, the bushes were broken, and there was every evidence of a
struggle.  Between the thicket and the river, the fences were found
taken down, and the ground bore evidence of some heavy burthen having
been dragged along it.

A weekly paper, Le Soleil,<1 had the following comments upon this
discovery--comments which merely echoed the sentiment of the whole
Parisian press:

'The things had all evidently been there at least three or four weeks;
they were all mildewed down hard with the action of the rain, and stuck
together from mildew.  The grass had grown around and over some of them.
The silk on the parasol was strong, but the threads of it were run
together within.  The upper part, where it had been doubled and folded,
was all mildewed and rotten, and tore on its being opened. . . .  The
pieces of her frock torn out by the bushes were about three inches wide
and six inches long.  One part was the hem of the frock, and it had been
mended; the other piece was part of the skirt, not the hem.  They looked
like strips torn off, and were on the thorn bush, about a foot from the
ground. . . .  There can be no doubt, therefore, that the spot of this
appalling outrage has been discovered.'

Consequent upon this discovery, new evidence appeared.  Madame Deluc
testified that she keeps a roadside inn not far from the bank of the
river, opposite the Barriere du Roule.  The neighbourhood is
secluded--particularly so.  It is the usual Sunday resort of blackguards
from the city, who cross the river in boats.  About three o'clock, in
the afternoon of the Sunday in question, a young girl arrived at the inn
accompanied by a young man of dark


<1Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post, edited by C. L. Peterson, Esq.

<p 458 complexion.  The two remained here for some time.  On their
departure, they took the road to some thick woods in the vicinity.
Madame Deluc's attention was called to the dress worn by the girl, on
account of its resemblance to one worn by a deceased relative.  A scarf
was particularly noticed.  Soon after the departure of the couple, a
gang of miscreants made their appearance, behaved boisterously, ate and
drank without making payment, followed in the route of the young man and
girl, returned to the inn about dusk, and re-crossed the river as if in
great haste.

It was soon after dark, upon this same evening, that Madame Deluc, as
well as her eldest son, heard the screams of a female in the vicinity of
the inn.  The screams were violent but brief.  Madame D. recognized not
only the scarf which was found in the thicket, but the dress which was
discovered upon the corpse.  An omnibus driver, Valence,<1 now also
testified that he saw Marie Roget cross a ferry on the Seine, on the
Sunday in question.  He, Valence, knew Marie, and could not be mistaken
in her identity.  The articles found in the thicket were fully
identified by the relatives of Marie.

The items of evidence and information thus collected by myself, from the
newspapers, at the suggestion of Dupin, embraced only one more
point--but this was a point of seemingly vast consequence.  It appears
that, immediately after the discovery of the clothes as above described,
the lifeless or nearly lifeless body of St Eustache, Marie's betrothed,
was found in the vicinity of what all now supposed the scene of the
outrage.  A phial labelled 'laudanum', and emptied, was found near him.
His breath gave evidence of the poison.  He died without speaking.  Upon
his person was found a letter, briefly stating his love for Marie, with
his design of self-destruction.

'I need scarcely tell you,' said Dupin, as he finished the perusal of my
notes, 'that this is a far more intricate case than that of the Rue
Morgue; from which it differs in one important respect.  This is an
ordinary, although an atrocious, instance of crime.  There is nothing
peculiarly outre about it.  You will observe that, for this reason, the
mystery has been considered easy, when for this


<1Adam.

<p 459 reason, it should have been considered difficult of solution.
Thus, at first, it was thought unnecessary to offer a reward.  The
myrmidons of G---- were able at once to comprehend how and why such an
atrocity might have been committed.  They could picture to their
imaginations a mode--many modes,--and a motive--many motives; and
because it was not impossible that either of these numerous modes and
motives could have been the actual one, they have taken it for granted
that one of them must.  But the ease with which these variable fancies
were entertained, and the very plausibility which each assumed, should
have been understood as indicative rather of the difficulties than of
the facilities which must attend elucidation.  I have therefore observed
that it is by prominences above the plane of the ordinary, that reason
feels her way, if at all, in her search for the true, and that the
proper question in cases such as this is not so much "what has
occurred?" as "what has occurred that has never occurred before?"  In
the investigations at the house of Madame L'Espanaye,<1 the agents of
G---- were discouraged and confounded by that very unusualness which, to
a properly regulated intellect, would have afforded the surest omen of
success; while this same intellect might have been plunged in despair at
the ordinary character of all that met the eye in the case of the
perfumery-girl, and yet told of nothing but easy triumph to the
functionaries of the Prefecture.

'In the case of Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter, there was, even at
the beginning of our investigation, no doubt that murder had been
committed.  The idea of suicide was excluded at once.  Here, too, we are
freed, at the commencement, from all supposition of self-murder.  The
body found at the Barriere du Roule was found under such circumstances
as to leave us no room for embarrassment upon this important point.  But
it has been suggested that the corpse discovered is not that of the
Marie Roget for the conviction of whose assassin, or assassins, the
reward is offered, and respecting whom, solely, our agreement has been
arranged with the Prefect.  We both know this gentleman well.  It will
not do to trust him too far.  If, dating our inquiries from the


<1See Murders in the Rue Morgue.

<p 460 body found, and then tracing a murderer, we yet discover this
body to be that of some other individual than Marie; or if, starting
from the living Marie, we find her, yet find her unassassinated--in
either case we lose our labour; since it is Monsieur G---- with whom we
have to deal.  For our own purpose, therefore, if not for the purpose of
justice, it is indispensable that our first step should be the
determination of the identity of the corpse with the Marie Roget who is
missing.

'With the public the arguments of L'Etoile have had weight; and that the
journal itself is convinced of their importance would appear from the
manner in which it commences one of its essays upon the
subject--"Several of the morning papers of the day," it says, "speak of
the conclusive article in Monday's Etoile."  To me, this article appears
conclusive of little beyond the zeal of its inditer.  We should bear in
mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers rather to
create a sensation--to make a point--than to further the cause of truth.
The latter end is only pursued when it seems coincident with the former.
The print which merely falls in with ordinary opinion (however well
founded this opinion may be) earns for itself no credit with the mob.
The mass of the people regard as profound only him who suggests pungent
contradictions of the general idea.  In ratiocination, not less than in
literature, it is the <i epigram which is the most immediately and the
most universally appreciated.  In both, it is of the lowest order of
merit.

'What I mean to say is, that it is the mingled epigram and melodrame of
the idea, that Marie Roget still lives, rather than any true
plausibility in this idea, which have suggested it to <i L'Etoile, and
secured it a favourable reception with the public.  Let us examine the
heads of this journal's argument; endeavouring to avoid the incoherence
with which it is originally set forth.

'The first aim of the writer is to show, from the brevity of the
interval between Marie's disappearance and the finding of the floating
corpse, that this corpse cannot be that of Marie.  The reduction of this
interval to its smallest possible dimension, becomes thus, at once, an
object with the reasoner.  In the rash pursuit of this object, he rushes
into mere assumption at the outset.  "It is folly to suppose," he says,
"that the murder, if <p 461 murder was committed on her body, could have
been consummated soon enough to have enabled her murderers to throw the
body into the river before midnight."  We demand at once, and very
naturally, why?  Why is it folly to suppose that the murder was
committed within five minutes after the girl's quitting her mother's
house?  Why is it folly to suppose that the murder was committed at any
given period of the day?  There have been assassinations at all hours.
But, had the murder taken place at any moment between nine o'clock in
the morning of Sunday and a quarter before midnight, there would still
have been time enough "to throw the body into the river before
midnight".  This assumption, then, amounts precisely to this--that the
murder was not committed on Sunday at all--and, if we allow L'Etoile to
assume this, we may permit it any liberties whatever.  The paragraph
beginning "It is folly to suppose that the murder, etc.," however it
appears as printed in <i L'Etoile, may be imagined to have existed
actually thus in the brain of the inditer: "It is folly to suppose that
the murder, if murder was committed on the body, could have been
committed soon enough to have enabled her murderers to throw the body
into the river before midnight; it is folly, we say, to suppose all
this, and to suppose at the same time (as we are resolved to suppose),
that the body was not thrown in until after midnight"--a sentence
sufficiently inconsequential in itself, but not so utterly preposterous
as the one printed.

'Were it my purpose,' continued Dupin, 'merely to make out a case
against this passage of L'Etoile's argument, I might safely leave it
where it is.  It is not, however, with L'Etoile that we have to do, but
with the truth.  The sentence in question has but one meaning, as it
stands; and this meaning I have fairly stated; but it is material that
we go behind the mere words for an idea which these words have obviously
intended, and failed to convey.  It was the design of the journalists to
say that at whatever period of the day or night of Sunday this murder
was committed, it was improbable that the assassins would have ventured
to bear the corpse to the river before midnight.  And herein lies,
really, the assumption of which I complain.  It is assumed that the
murder was committed at such a position, and under such circumstances,
that the bearing it to the river became necessary.  Now, the <p 462
assassination might have taken place upon the river's brink, or on the
river itself; and thus, the throwing the corpse in the water might have
been resorted to at any period of the day or night, as the most obvious
and most immediate mode of disposal.  You will understand that I suggest
nothing here as probable, or as coincident with my own opinion.  My
design, so far, has no reference to the facts of the case.  I wish
merely to caution you against the whole tone of L'Etoile's suggestion,
by calling your attention to its ex-parte character at the outset.

'Having prescribed thus a limit to suit its own preconceived notions;
having assumed that, if this were the body of Marie, it could have been
in the water but a very brief time, the journal goes on to say:

'"All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into
the water immediately after death by violence, require from six to ten
days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to the top
of the water.  Even when a cannon is fired over a corpse, and it rises
before at least five or six days' immersion, it sinks again if let
alone."

'These assertions have been tacitly received by every paper in Paris,
with the exception of Le Moniteur.<1  This latter print endeavours to
combat that portion of the paragraph which has reference to "drowned
bodies" only, by citing some five or six instances in which the bodies
of individuals known to be drowned were found floating after the lapse
of less time than is insisted upon by L'Etoile.  But there is something
excessively unphilosophical in the attempt, on the part of Le Moniteur,
to rebut the general assertion of L'Etoile, by a citation of particular
instances militating against that assertion.  Had it been possible to
adduce fifty instead of five examples of bodies found floating at the
end of two or three days, these fifty examples could still have been
properly regarded only as exceptions to L'Etoile's rule, until such time
as the rule itself should be confuted.  Admitting the rule (and this Le
Moniteur does not deny, insisting merely upon its exceptions), the
argument of <i L'Etoile is suffered to remain in full force; for this
argument does not pretend to involve more than a ques-


<1The New York Commercial Advertiser, edited by Col. Stone.

<p 463 tion of the probability of the body having risen to the surface
in less than three days; and this probability will be in favour of
L'Etoile's position until the instances so childishly adduced shall be
sufficient in number to establish an antagonistical rule.

'You will see at once that all argument upon this head should be urged,
if at all, against the rule itself; and for this end we must examine the
rationale of the rule.  Now the human body, in general, is neither much
lighter nor much heavier than the water of the Seine; that is to say,
the specific gravity of the human body, in its natural condition, is
about equal to the bulk of fresh water which it displaces.  The bodies
of fat and fleshy persons, with small bones, and of women generally, are
lighter than those of the lean and large-boned, and of men; and the
specific gravity of the water of a river is somewhat influenced by the
presence of the tide from the sea.  But, leaving this tide out of
question, it may be said that very few human bodies will sink at all,
even in fresh water, of their own accord.  Almost any one, falling into
a river, will be enabled to float, if he suffer the specific gravity of
the water fairly to be adduced in comparison with his own--that is to
say, if he suffer his whole person to be immersed, with as little
exception as possible.  The proper position for one who cannot swim, is
the upright position of the walker on land, with the head thrown fully
back, and immersed; the mouth and nostrils alone remaining above the
surface.  Thus circumstanced, we shall find that we float without
difficulty and without exertion.  It is evident, however, that the
gravities of the body, and of the bulk of water displaced, are very
nicely balanced, and that a trifle will cause either to preponderate.
An arm, for instance, uplifted from the water, and thus deprived of its
support, is an additional weight sufficient to immerse the whole head,
while the accidental aid of the smallest piece of timber will enable us
to elevate the head so as to look about.  Now, in the struggles of one
unused to swimming, the arms are invariably thrown upward, while an
attempt is made to keep the head in its usual perpendicular position.
The result is the immersion of the mouth and nostrils, and the
inception, during efforts to breathe while beneath the surface, of water
into the lungs.  Much is also received into the stomach, and the whole
body becomes heavier by the difference between the weight of the air <p
464 originally distending these cavities, and that of the fluid which
now fills them.  This difference is sufficient to cause the body to
sink, as a general rule; but is insufficient in the cases of individuals
with small bones and an abnormal quantity of flaccid or fatty matter.
Such individuals float even after drowning.

'The corpse, being supposed at the bottom of the river, will there
remain until, by some means, its specific gravity again becomes less
than that of the bulk of water which it displaces.  This effect is
brought about by decomposition, or otherwise.  The result of
decomposition is the generation of gas, distending the cellular tissues
and all the cavities, and giving the puffed appearance which is so
horrible.  When this distension has so far progressed that the bulk of
the corpse is materially increased without a corresponding increase of
mass or weight, its specific gravity becomes less than that of the water
displaced, and it forthwith makes its appearance at the surface.  But
decomposition is modified by innumerable circumstances--is hastened or
retarded by innumerable agencies; for example, by the heat or cold of
the season, by the mineral impregnation or purity of the water, by its
depth or shallowness, by its currency or stagnation, by the temperament
of the body, by its infection or freedom from disease before death.
Thus it is evident that we can assign no period, with anything like
accuracy, at which the corpse shall rise through decomposition.  Under
certain conditions this result would be brought about within an hour;
under others it might not take place at all.  There are chemical
infusions by which the animal frame can be preserved for ever from
corruption; the bichloride of mercury is one.  But, apart from
decomposition, there may be, and very usually is, a generation of gas
within the stomach, from the acetous fermentation of vegetable matter
(or within other cavities from other causes), sufficient to induce a
distension which will bring the body to the surface.  The effect
produced by the firing of a cannon is that of simple vibration.  This
may either loosen the corpse from the soft mud or ooze in which it is
embedded, thus permitting it to rise when other agencies have already
prepared it for so doing: or it may overcome the tenacity of some
putrescent portions of the cellular tissues, allowing the cavities to
distend under the influence of the gas. <p 465

'Having thus before us the whole philosophy of this subject, we can
easily test by it the assertions of L'Etoile.  "All experience shows,"
says this paper, "that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into the water
immediately after death by violence, require from six to ten days for
sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to the top of the
water.  Even when a cannon is fired over a corpse, and it rises before
at least five or six days' immersion, it sinks again if let alone."

'The whole of this paragraph must now appear a tissue of inconsequence
and incoherence.  All experience does not show that "drowned bodies"
require from six to ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place
to bring them to the surface.  Both science and experience show that the
period of their rising is, and necessarily must be, indeterminate.  If,
moreover, a body has risen to the surface through firing of cannon, it
will not "sink again is let alone", until decomposition has so far
progressed as to permit the escape of the generated gas.  But I wish to
call your attention to the distinction which is made between "drowned
bodies", and "bodies thrown into water immediately after death by
violence".  Although the writer admits the distinction, he yet includes
them all in the same category.  I have shown how it is that the body of
a drowning man becomes specifically heavier than its bulk of water, and
that he would not sink at all, except for the struggle by which he
elevates his arms above the surface, and his gasps for breath while
beneath the surface--gasps which supply by water the place of the
original air in the lungs.  But these struggles and these gasps would
not occur in the body "thrown into the water immediately after death by
violence".  Thus, in the latter instance, the body, as a general rule,
would not sink at all--a fact of which L'Etoile is evidently ignorant.
When decomposition had proceeded to a very great extent--when the flesh
had in a great measure left the bones- -then, indeed, but not till then,
should we lose sight of the corpse.

'And now what are we to make of the argument, that the body found could
not be that of Marie Roget, because, three days only having elapsed,
this body was found floating?  If drowned, being a woman, she might
never have sunk; or, having sunk, might have reappeared in twenty-four
hours or less.  But no one supposes her to have been drowned; and, dying
before being thrown into the <p 466 river, she might have been found
floating at any period afterward whatever.

'"But," says L'Etoile, "if the body had been kept in its mangled state
on shore until Tuesday night, some trace would be found on shore of the
murderers."  Here it is at first difficult to perceive the intention of
the reasoner.  He means to anticipate what he imagines would be an
objection to his theory--viz.: that the body was kept on shore two days,
suffering rapid decomposition- -more rapid than if immersed in water.
He supposes that, had this been the case, it might have appeared at the
surface on the Wednesday, and thinks that only under such circumstances
it could have so appeared.  He is accordingly in haste to show that it
was not kept on shore; for, if so, "some trace would be found on shore
of the murderers."  I presume you smile at the <i sequitur.  You cannot
be made to see how the mere duration of the corpse on the shore could
operate to multiply traces of the assassins.  Nor can I.

'"And furthermore it is exceedingly improbable," continues our journal,
"that any villains who had committed such a murder as is here supposed,
would have thrown the body in without weight to sink it, when such a
precaution could have so easily been taken."  Observe, here, the
laughable confusion of thought!  No one--not even L'Etoile--disputes the
murder committed on the body found.  The marks of violence are too
obvious.  It is our reasoner's object merely to show that this body is
not Marie's.  He wishes to prove that Marie is not assassinated--not
that the corpse was not.  Yet his observation proves only the latter
point.  Here is a corpse without weight attached.  Murderers, casting it
in, would not have failed to attach a weight.  Therefore it was not
thrown in by murderers.  This is all which is proved, if anything is.
The question of identity is not even approached, and <i L'Etoile has
been at great pains merely to gainsay now what it has admitted only a
moment before.  "We are perfectly convinced," it says, "that the body
found was that of a murdered female."

'Nor is this the sole instance, even in this division of his subject,
where our reasoner unwittingly reasons against himself.  His evident
object, I have already said, is to reduce, as much as possible, the
interval between Marie's disappearance and the finding of the corpse.
Yet we find him urging the point that no person saw the <p 467 girl from
the moment of her leaving her mother's house.  "We have no evidence," he
says, "that Marie Roget was in the land of the living after nine o'clock
on Sunday, June the twenty-second."  As his argument is obviously an
ex-parte one, he should, at least, have left this matter out of sight;
for had any one been known to see Marie, say on Monday, or on Tuesday,
the interval in question would have been much reduced, and, by his own
ratiocination, the probability much diminished of the corpse being that
of the grisette.  It is, nevertheless, amusing to observe that L'Etoile
insists upon its point in the full belief of its furthering its general
argument.

'Re-peruse now that portion of this argument which has reference to the
identification of the corpse by Beauvais.  In regard to the hair upon
the arm, L'Etoile has been obviously disingenuous.  M. Beauvais, not
being an idiot, could never have urged in identification of the corpse,
simply hair upon its arm.  No arm is without hair.  The generality of
the expression of L'Etoile is a mere perversion of the witness'
phraseology.  He must have spoken of some peculiarity in this hair.  It
must have been a peculiarity of colour, of quantity, of length, or of
situation.

'"Her foot," says the journal, "was small"--so are thousands of feet.
Her garter is no proof whatever--nor is her shoe--for shoes and garters
are sold in packages.  The same may be said of the flowers in her hat.
One thing upon which M. Beauvais strongly insists is, that the clasp of
the garter found had been set back to take it in.  This amounts to
nothing; for most women find it proper to take a pair of garters home
and fit them to the size of the limbs they are to encircle, rather than
to try them in the store where they purchase."  Here it is difficult to
suppose the reasoner in earnest.  Had M. Beauvais, in his search for the
body of Marie, discovered a corpse corresponding in general size and
appearance to the missing girl, he would have been warranted (without
reference to the question of habiliment at all) in forming an opinion
that his search had been successful.  If, in addition to the point of
general size and contour, he had found upon the arm a peculiar hairy
appearance which he had observed upon the living Marie, his opinion
might have been justly strengthened; and the increase of positiveness
might well have been in the ratio of the peculiarity, or unusualness <p
468 of the hairy mark.  If the feet of Marie being small, those of the
corpse were also small, the increase of probability that the body was
that of Marie would not be an increase in a ratio merely arithmetical,
but in one highly geometrical, or accumulative.  Add to all this shoes
such as she had been known to wear upon the day of her disappearance,
and, although these shoes may be "sold in packages", you so far augment
the probability as to verge upon the certain.  What, of itself, would be
no evidence of identity, becomes, through its corroborative position,
proof most sure.  Give us then, flowers in the hat corresponding to
those worn by the missing girl, and we seek for nothing further.  If
only one flower, we seek for nothing further--what then if two or three,
or more?  Each successive one is multiple evidence--proof not added to
proof, but multiplied by hundreds or thousands.  Let us now discover,
upon the deceased, garters such as the living used, and it is almost
folly to proceed.  But these garters are found to be tightened, by the
setting back of a clasp, in just such a manner as her own had been
tightened by Marie shortly previous to her leaving home.  It is now
madness or hypocrisy to doubt.  What L'Etoile says in respect to this
abbreviation of the garters being an unusual occurrence, shows nothing
beyond its own pertinacity in error.  The elastic nature of the
clasp-garter is self- demonstration of the unusualness of the
abbreviation.  What is made to adjust itself, must of necessity require
foreign adjustment but rarely.  It must have been by an accident, in its
strictest sense, that these garters of Marie needed the tightening
described.  They alone would have amply established her identity.  But
it is not that the corpse was found to have the garters of the missing
girl, or found to have her shoes, or her bonnet, or the flowers of her
bonnet, or her feet, or a peculiar mark upon the arm, or her general
size and appearance--it is that the corpse had each, and <i all
collectively.  Could it be proved that the editor of <i L'Etoile really
entertained a doubt, under the circumstances, there would be no need, in
his case, of a commission de lunatico inquirendo.  He has thought it
sagacious to echo the small talk of the lawyers, who, for the most part,
content themselves with echoing the rectangular precepts of the courts.
I would here observe that very much of what is rejected as evidence by a
court is the best of evidence to the intellect.  For <p 469 the court,
guided itself by the general principles of evidence--the recognized and
booked principles--is averse from swerving at particular instances.  And
this steadfast adherence to principle, with rigorous disregard of the
conflicting exception, is a sure mode of attaining the maximum of
attainable truth, in any long sequence of time.  The practice, en masse,
is therefore philosophical; but it is not the less certain that it
engenders vast individual error.<1

'In respect to the insinuations levelled at Beauvais, you will be
willing to dismiss them in a breath.  You have already fathomed the true
character of this good gentleman.  He is a busy-body, with much of
romance and little of wit.  Any one so constituted will readily so
conduct himself, upon occasion of real excitement, as to render himself
liable to suspicion on the part of the over-acute, or the ill-disposed.
M. Beauvais (as it appears from your notes) had some personal interviews
with the editor of <i L'Etoile, and offended him by venturing an opinion
that the corpse, notwithstanding the theory of the editor, was, in sober
fact, that of Marie.  "He persists," says the paper, "in asserting the
corpse to be that of Marie, but cannot give a circumstance, in addition
to those which we have commented upon, to make others believe."  Now,
without re-adverting to the fact that stronger evidence "to make others
believe", could never have been adduced, it may be remarked that a man
may very well be understood to believe, in a case of this kind, without
the ability to advance a single reason for the belief of a second party.
Nothing is more vague than impressions of individual identity.  Each man
recognizes his neighbour, yet there are few instances in which any one
is prepared to give a reason for his recognition.  The editor of
L'Etoile had no right to be offended at M. Beauvais' unreasoning belief.

'The suspicious circumstances which invest him, will be found to tally
much better with my hypothesis of romantic busy- bodyism,


<1'A theory based on the qualities of an object, will prevent its being
unfolded according to its objects; and he who arranges topics in
reference to their causes, will cease to value them according to their
results.  Thus the jurisprudence of every nation will show that, when
law becomes a science and a system, it ceases to be justice.  The errors
into which a blind devotion to <i principles of classification has led
the common law, will be seen by observing how often the legislature has
been obliged to come forward to restore the equity its scheme had lost.'
--Landor.

<p 470 than with the reasoner's suggestion of guilt.  Once adopting the
more charitable interpretation, we shall find no difficulty in
comprehending the rose in the key-hole; the "Marie" upon the slate; the
"elbowing the male relatives out of the way"; the "aversion to
permitting them to see the body"; the caution given to Madame B---, that
she must hold no conversation with the gendarme until his (Beauvais')
return; and, lastly, his apparent determination, "that nobody should
have anything to do with the proceedings except himself".  It seems to
me unquestionable that Beauvais was a suitor of Marie's; that she
coquetted with him; and that he was ambitious of being thought to enjoy
her fullest intimacy and confidence.  I shall say nothing more upon this
point; and, as the evidence fully rebuts the assertion of L'Etoile,
touching the matter of <i apathy on the part of the mother and other
relatives--an apathy inconsistent with the supposition of their
believing the corpse to be that of the perfumery-girl--we shall now
proceed as if the question of identity were settled to our perfect
satisfaction.'

'And what,' I here demanded, 'do you think of the opinions of Le
Commerciel?'

'That, in spirit, they are far more worthy of attention than any which
have been promulgated upon the subject.  The deductions from the
premises are philosophical and acute; but the premises, in two
instances, at least, are founded in imperfect observation.  <i Le
Commerciel wishes to intimate that Marie was seized by some gang of low
ruffians not far from her mother's door.  "It is impossible," it urges,
"that a person so well known to thousands as this young woman was,
should have passed three blocks without some one having seen her."  This
is the idea of a man long resident in Paris--a public man--and one whose
walks to and fro in the city have been mostly limited to the vicinity of
the public offices.  He is aware that he seldom passes so far as a dozen
blocks from his own bureau, without being recognized and accosted.  And,
knowing the extent of his personal acquaintance with others, and of
others with him, he compares his notoriety with that of the
perfumery-girl, finds no great difference between them, and reaches at
once the conclusion that she, in her walks, would be equally liable to
recognition with himself in his.  This could only be the case were her
walks of the same unvarying methodical <p 471 character, and within the
same species of limited region as are his own.  He passes to and fro, at
regular intervals, within a confined periphery, abounding in individuals
who are led to observation of his person through interest in the kindred
nature of his occupation with their own.  But the walks of Marie may, in
general, be supposed discursive.  In this particular instance, it will
be understood as most probable that she proceeded upon a route of more
than average diversity, from her accustomed ones.  The parallel which we
imagine to have existed in the mind of Le Commerciel would only be
sustained in the event of the two individuals traversing the whole city.
In this case, granting the personal acquaintances to be equal, the
chances would be also equal that an equal number of personal rencontres
would be made.  For my own part, I should hold it not only as possible,
but as far more than probable, that Marie might have proceeded, at any
given period, by any one of the many routes between her own residence
and that of her aunt, without meeting a single individual whom she knew,
or by whom she was known.  In viewing this question in its full and
proper light, we must hold steadily in mind the great disproportion
between the personal acquaintances of even the most noted individual in
Paris, and the entire population of Paris itself.

'But whatever force there may still appear to be in the suggestion of Le
Commerciel, will be much diminished when we take into consideration the
hour at which the girl went abroad.  "It was when the streets were full
of people," says Le Commerciel, "that she went out."  But not so.  It
was nine o'clock in the morning.  Now at nine o'clock of every morning
in the week, with the exception of Sunday, the streets in the city are,
it is true, thronged with people.  At nine on Sunday, the populace are
chiefly within doors preparing for church.  No observing person can have
failed to notice the peculiarly deserted air of the town, from about
eight until ten on the morning of every Sabbath.  Between ten and eleven
the streets are thronged, but not at so early a period as that
designated.

'There is another point at which there seems a deficiency of observation
on the part of Le Commerciel.  "A piece," it says, "of one of the
unfortunate girl's petticoats, two feet long, and one <p 472 foot wide,
was torn out and tied under her chin, and around the back of her head,
probably to prevent screams.  This was done by fellows who had no
pocket-handkerchief."  Whether this idea is or is not well founded, we
will endeavour to see hereafter; but by "fellows who have no
pocket-handkerchiefs", the editor intends the lowest class of ruffians.
These, however, are the very description of people who will always be
found to have handkerchiefs even when destitute of shirts.  You must
have had occasion to observe how absolutely indispensable, of late
years, to the thorough blackguard, has become the pocket-handkerchief.'

'And what are we to think,' I said, 'of the article in Le Soleil?'

'That it is a vast pity its inditer was not born a parrot--in which case
he would have been the most illustrious parrot of his race.  He has
merely repeated the individual items of the already published opinion;
collecting them, with a laudible industry, from this paper and from
that.  "The things had all evidently been there," he says, "at least
three or four weeks, and there can be <i no doubt that the spot of this
appalling outrage has been discovered."  The facts here re-stated by Le
Soleil are very far indeed from removing my own doubts upon this
subject, and we will examine them more particularly hereafter in
connection with another division of the theme.

'At present we must occupy ourselves with other investigations.  You
cannot fail to have remarked the extreme laxity of the examination of
the corpse.  To be sure, the question of identity was readily
determined, or should have been; but there were other points to be
ascertained.  Had the body been in any respect despoiled?  Had the
deceased any articles of jewellery about her person upon leaving home?
if so, had she any when found?  These are important questions utterly
untouched by the evidence; and there are others of equal moment, which
have met with no attention.  We must endeavour to satisfy ourselves by
personal inquiry.  The case of St Eustache must be re-examined.  I have
no suspicion of this person; but let us proceed methodically.  We will
ascertain beyond a doubt the validity of the affidavits in regard to his
whereabouts on the Sunday.  Affidavits of this character are readily
made matter of mystification.  Should there be nothing wrong here,
however, we will dismiss St Eustache from our investigations.  His
suicide, however, corroborative of suspicion, <p 473 were there found to
be deceit in the affidavits, is, without such deceit, in no respect an
unaccountable circumstance, or one which need cause us to deflect from
the line of ordinary analysis.

'In that which I now propose, we will discard the interior points of
this tragedy, and concentrate our attention upon its outskirts.  Not the
least usual error in investigations such as this is the limiting of
inquiry to the immediate, with total disregard of the collateral or
circumstantial events.  It is the malpractice of the courts to confine
evidence and discussion to the bounds of apparent relevancy.  Yet
experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a
vast, perhaps the larger, portion of truth arises from the seemingly
irrelevant.  It is through the spirit of this principle, if not
precisely through its letter, that modern science has resolved to
calculate upon the unforeseen.  But perhaps you do not comprehend me.
The history of human knowledge has so uninterruptedly shown that to
collateral, or incidental, or accidental events we are indebted for the
most numerous and valuable discoveries, that it has at length become
necessary, in prospective view of improvement, to make not only large,
but the largest, allowances for inventions that shall arise by chance,
and quite out of the range of ordinary expectation.  It is no longer
philosophical to base upon what has been a vision of what is to be.
Accident is admitted as a portion of the substructure.  We make chance a
matter of absolute calculation.  We subject the unlookedfor and
unimagined to the mathematical <i formulae of the schools.

'I repeat that it is more than fact that the larger portion of all truth
has sprung from the collateral; and it is but in accordance with the
spirit of the principle involved in this fact that I would divert
inquiry, in the present case, from the trodden and hitherto unfruitful
ground of the event itself to the contemporary circumstances which
surround it.  While you ascertain the validity of the affidavits, I will
examine the newspapers more generally than you have as yet done.  So
far, we have only reconnoitred the field of investigation; but it will
be strange, indeed, if a comprehensive survey, such as I propose, of the
public prints will not afford us some minute points which shall
establish a direction for inquiry.'

In pursuance of Dupin's suggestion, I made scrupulous examination of the
affair of the affidavits.  The result was a firm <p 474 conviction of
their validity, and of the consequent innocence of St Eustache.  In the
meantime my friend occupied himself, with what seemed to me a minuteness
altogether objectless, in a scrutiny of the various newspaper files.  At
the end of a week he placed before me the following extracts:

'About three years and a half ago, a disturbance very similar to the
present was caused by the disappearance of this same Marie Roget from
the parfumerie of Monsieur Le Blanc, in the Palais Royal.  At the end of
a week, however, she re-appeared at her customary comptoir, as well as
ever, with the exception of a slight paleness not altogether usual.  It
was given out by Monsieur Le Blanc and her mother that she had merely
been on a visit to some friend in the country; and the affair was
speedily hushed up.  We presume that the present absence is a freak of
the same nature, and that, at the expiration of a week or, perhaps, of a
month, we shall have her among us again.'  --Evening Paper, Monday, June
23.<1

'An evening journal of yesterday refers to a former mysterious
disappearance of Mademoiselle Roget.  It is well known that, during the
week of her absence from Le Blanc's parfumerie, she was in the company
of a young naval officer much noted for his debaucheries.  A quarrel, it
is supposed, providentially led to her return home.  We have the name of
the Lothario in question, who is at present stationed in Paris, but for
obvious reasons forbear to make it public.'  --Le Mercurie, Tuesday
morning, June 24.<2

'An outrage of the most atrocious character was perpetrated near this
city the day before yesterday.  A gentleman, with his wife and daughter,
engaged about dusk, the services of six young men, who were idly rowing
a boat to and fro near the banks of the Seine, to convey him across the
river.  Upon reaching the opposite shore the three passengers stepped
out, and had proceeded so far as to be beyond the view of the boat, when
the daughter discovered that she had left in it her parasol.  She
returned for it, was seized by the gang, carried out into the stream,
gagged, brutally treated, and finally taken to the shore at a point not
far from that at which she had originally entered the boat with her
parents.  The


<1New York Express.

<2New York Herald.

<p 475 villains have escaped for the time, but the police are upon their
trail, and some of them will soon be taken.'  --Morning Paper, June
25.<1

'We have received one or two communications, the object of which is to
fasten the crime of the late atrocity upon Mennais;<2 but as this
gentleman has been fully exonerated by a legal inquiry, and as the
arguments of our several correspondents appear to be more zealous than
profound, we do not think it advisable to make them public.'  --Morning
Paper, June 28.<3

'We have received several forcibly written communications, apparently
from various sources, and which go far to render it a matter of
certainty that the unfortunate Marie Roget has become a victim of one of
the numerous bands of blackguards which infest the vicinity of the city
upon Sunday.  Our own opinion is decidedly in favour of this
supposition.  We shall endeavour to make room for some of these
arguments hereafter.'  --Evening Paper--Tuesday, June 30.<4

'On Monday, one of the bargemen connected with the revenue service saw
an empty boat floating down the Seine.  Sails were lying in the bottom
of the boat.  The bargeman towed it under the barge office.  The next
morning it was taken from thence without the knowledge of any of the
officers.  The rudder is now at the barge office.'  --La Diligence,
Thursday, June 26.<5

Upon reading these various extracts, they not only seemed to me
irrelevant, but I could perceive no mode in which any one of them could
be brought to bear upon the matter in hand.  I waited for some
explanation from Dupin.

'It is not my present opinion,' he said, 'to dwell upon the first and
second of these extracts.  I have copied them chiefly to show you the
extreme remissness of the police, who, as far as I can understand from
the Prefect, have not troubled themselves, in any respect, with an
examination of the naval officer alluded to.  Yet it


<1New York Courier and Inquirer.

<2Mennais was one of the parties originally suspected and arrested, but
discharged through total lack of evidence.

<3New York Courier and Inquirer.

<4New York Evening Post.

<5New York Standard.

<p 476 is mere folly to say that between the first and second
disappearance of Marie there is no supposable connection.  Let us admit
the first elopement to have resulted in a quarrel between the lovers,
and the return home of the betrayed.  We are now prepared to view a
second elopement (if we know that an elopement has again taken place) as
indicating a renewal of the betrayer's advances, rather than as the
result of new proposals by a second individual--we are prepared to
regard it as a "making up" of the old amour, rather than as the
commencement of a new one.  The chances are ten to one, that he who had
once eloped with Marie would again propose an elopement, rather than
that she to whom proposals of elopement had been made by one individual,
should have them made to her by another.  And here let me call your
attention to the fact, that the time elapsing between the first
ascertained and the second supposed elopement is a few months more than
the general period of the cruises of our men-of-war.  Had the lover been
interrupted in his first villainy by the necessity of departure to sea,
and had he seized the first moment of his return to renew the base
designs not yet altogether accomplished--or not yet altogether
accomplished by him?  Of all these things we know nothing.

'You will say, however, that, in the second instance, there was no
elopement as imagined.  Certainly not--but are we prepared to say that
there was not the frustrated design?  Beyond St Eustache, and perhaps
Beauvais, we find no recognized, no open, no honourable suitors of
Marie.  Of none other is there anything said.  Who, then, is the secret
lover, of whom the relatives (at least most of them) know nothing, but
whom Marie meets upon the morning of Sunday, and who is so deeply in her
confidence, that she hesitates not to remain with him until the shades
of the evening descend, amid the solitary groves of the Barriere du
Roule?  Who is that secret lover, I ask, of whom, at least, most of the
relatives know nothing?  And what means the singular prophecy of Madame
Roget on the morning of Marie's departure--"I fear that I shall never
see Marie again."

'But if we cannot imagine Madame Roget privy to the design of elopement,
may we not at least suppose this design entertained by the girl?  Upon
quitting home, she gave it to be understood that she <p 477 was about to
visit her aunt in the Rue des Dromes, and St Eustache was requested to
call for her at dark.  Now, at first glance, this fact strongly
militates against my suggestion;--but let us reflect.  That she did meet
some companion, and proceed with him across the river, reaching the
Barriere du Roule at so late an hour as three o'clock in the afternoon,
is known.  But in consenting so to accompany this individual (for
whatever purpose--to her mother known or unknown), she must have thought
of her expressed intention when leaving home, and of the surprise and
suspicion aroused in the bosom of her affianced suitor, St Eustache,
when, calling for her, at the hour appointed, in the Rue des Dromes, he
should find that she had not been there, and when, moreover, upon
returning to the pension with this alarming intelligence, he should
become aware of her continued absence from home.  She must have thought
of these things, I say.  She must have foreseen the chagrin of St
Eustache, the suspicion of all.  She could not have thought of returning
to brave this suspicion; but the suspicion becomes a point of trivial
importance to her, if we suppose her not intending to return.

'We may imagine her thinking thus--"I am to meet a certain person for
the purpose of elopement, or for certain other purposes known only to
myself.  It is necessary that there be no chance of interruption--there
must be a sufficient time given us to elude pursuit--I will give it to
be understood that I shall visit and spend the day with my aunt at the
Rue des Dromes--I will tell St Eustache not to call for me until
dark--in this way, my absence from home for the longest possible period,
without causing suspicion or anxiety, will be accounted for, and I shall
gain more time than in any other manner.  If I bid St Eustache call for
me at dark, he will be sure not to call before; but if I wholly neglect
to bid him call, my time for escape will be diminished, since it will be
expected that I return the earlier, and my absence will the sooner
excite anxiety.  Now, if it were my design to return at all--if I had in
contemplation merely a stroll with the individual in question--it would
not be my policy to bid St Eustache call; for, calling, he will be sure
to ascertain that I have played him false--a fact of which I might keep
him for ever in ignorance, by leaving home without notifying him of my
intention, by returning before dark, <p 478 and by then stating that I
had been to visit my aunt in the Rue des Dromes.  But, as it is my
design never to return--or not for some weeks--or not until certain
concealments are effected--the gaining of time is the only point about
which I need give myself any concern."

'You have observed, in your notes, that the most general opinion in
relation to this sad affair is, and was from the first, that the girl
had been the victim of a gang of blackguards.  Now, the popular opinion,
under certain conditions, is not to be disregarded.  When arising of
itself--when manifesting itself in a strictly spontaneous manner--we
should look upon it as analogous with that intuition which is the
idiosyncrasy of the individual man of genius.  In ninety-nine cases from
the hundred I would abide by its decision.  But it is important that we
find no palpable traces of suggestion.  The opinion must be rigorously
the public's own; and the distinction is often exceedingly difficult to
perceive and to maintain.  In the present instance, it appears to me
that this "public opinion", in respect to a gang, has been superinduced
by the collateral event which is detailed in the third of my extracts.
All Paris is excited by the discovered corpse of Marie, a girl young,
beautiful, and notorious.  This corpse is found, bearing marks of
violence, and floating in the river.  But it is now made known that, at
the very period, or about the very period, in which it is supposed that
the girl was assassinated, an outrage similar in nature to that endured
by the deceased, although less in extent, was perpetrated, by a gang of
young ruffians, upon the person of a second young female.  Is it
wonderful that the one known atrocity should influence the popular
judgment in regard to the other unknown?  This judgment awaited
direction, and the known outrage seemed so opportunely to afford it!
Marie, too, was found in the river; and upon this very river was this
known outrage committed?  The connection of the two events had about it
so much of the palpable that the true wonder would have been a failure
of the populace to appreciate and to seize it.  But, in fact, the one
atrocity, known to be so committed, is, if anything, evidence that the
other, committed at a time nearly coincident, was not so committed.  It
would have been a miracle, indeed, if, while a gang of ruffians were
perpetrating, at a given locality, a most unheard-of wrong, <p 479 there
should have been another similar gang, in a similar locality, in the
same city, under the same circumstances, with the same means and
appliances, engaged in a wrong of precisely the same aspect, at
precisely the same period of time!  Yet in what, if not in this
marvellous train of coincidence, does the accidentally <i suggested
opinion of the populace call upon us to believe?

'Before proceeding further, let us consider the supposed scene of the
assassination, in the thicket at the Barriere du Roule.  This thicket,
although dense, was in the close vicinity of a public road.  Within were
three or four large stones forming a kind of seat with a back and a
footstool.  On the upper stone was discovered a white petticoat; on the
second, a silk scarf.  A parasol, gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief were
also here found.  The handkerchief bore the name "Marie Roget".
Fragments of dress were seen on the branches around.  The earth was
trampled, the bushes were broken, and there was every evidence of a
violent struggle.

'Notwithstanding the acclamation with which the discovery of this
thicket was received by the press, and the unanimity with which it was
supposed to indicate the precise scene of the outrage, it must be
admitted that there was some very good reason for doubt.  That it was
the scene, I may or I may not believe--but there was excellent reason
for doubt.  Had the true scene been, as <i Le Commerciel suggested, in
the neighbourhood of the Rue Pavee St Andree, the perpetrators of the
crime, supposing them still resident in Paris, would naturally have been
stricken with terror at the public attention thus acutely directed into
the proper channel; and, in certain classes of minds, there would have
arisen, at once, a sense of the necessity of some exertion to redivert
the attention.  And thus, the thicket of the Barriere du Roule having
been already suspected, the idea of placing the articles where they were
found, might have been naturally entertained.  There is no real
evidence, although Le Soleil so supposes, that the articles discovered
had been more than a few days in the thicket; while there is much
circumstantial proof that they could not have remained there, without
attracting attention, during the twenty days elapsing between the fatal
Sunday and the afternoon upon which they were found by the boys.  "They
were all mildewed down hard," says Le Soleil, adopting the opinions of
its predecessors, "with the action <p 480 of the rain and stuck together
from mildew.  The grass had grown around and over some of them.  The
silk of the parasol was strong, but the threads of it were run together
within.  The upper part, where it had been doubled and folded, was all
mildewed and rotten, and tore on being opened."  In respect to the grass
having "grown around and over some of them", it is obvious that the fact
could only have been ascertained from the words, and thus from the
recollections, of two small boys; for these boys removed the articles
and took them home before they had been seen by a third party.  But the
grass will grow, especially in warm and damp weather (such as was that
of the period of the murder), as much as two or three inches in a single
day.  A parasol lying upon a newly turfed ground, might, in a single
week, be entirely concealed from sight by the upspringing grass.  And
touching that mildew upon which the editor of Le Soleil so
pertinaciously insists, that he employs the words no less than three
times in the brief paragraph just quoted, is he really unaware of the
nature of this mildew?  Is he to be told that it is one of many classes
of fungus, of which the most ordinary feature is its upspringing and
decadence within twenty-four hours?

'Thus we see, at a glance, that what has been most triumphantly adduced
in support of the idea that the articles had been "for at least three or
four weeks" in the thicket, is most absurdly null as regards any
evidence of that fact.  On the other hand, it is exceedingly difficult
to believe that these articles could have remained in the thicket
specified for a longer period than a single week--for a longer period
than from one Sunday to the next.  Those who know anything of the
vicinity of Paris, know the extreme difficulty of finding seclusion,
unless at a great distance from its suburbs.  Such a thing as an
unexplored or even an unfrequently visited recess, amid its woods or
groves, is not for a moment to be imagined.  Let any one who, being at
heart a lover of nature, is yet chained by duty to the dust and heat of
this great metropolis--let any such one attempt, even during the
week-days, to slake his thirst for solitude amid the scenes of natural
loveliness which immediately surround us.  At every second step, he will
find the growing charm dispelled by the voice and personal intrusion of
some ruffian or party of carousing blackguards.  He will seek privacy
amid the <p 481 densest foliage all in vain.  Here are the very nooks
where the unwashed most abound--here are the temples most desecrate.
With sickness of the heart the wanderer will flee back to the polluted
Paris as to a less odious because less incongruous sink of pollution.
But if the vicinity of the city is so beset during the working days of
the week, how much more so on the Sabbath!  It is now especially that,
released from the claims of labour, or deprived of the customary
opportunities of crime, the town blackguard seeks the precincts of the
town, not through love of the rural, which in his heart he despises, but
by way of escape from the restraints and conventionalities of society.
He desires less the fresh air and the green trees, than the utter
licence of the country.  Here at the roadside inn, or beneath the
foliage of the woods, he indulges, unchecked by any eye except those of
his boon companions, in all the mad excess of a counterfeit
hilarity--the joint offspring of liberty and of rum.  I say nothing more
than what must be obvious to every dispassionate observer, when I repeat
that the circumstance of the articles in question having remained
undiscovered, for a longer period than from one Sunday to another, in
any thicket in the immediate neighbourhood of Paris, is to be looked
upon as little less than miraculous.

'But there are not wanting other grounds for the suspicion that the
articles were placed in the thicket with the view of diverting attention
from the real scene of the outrage.  And, first, let me direct your
notice to the date of the discovery of the articles.  Collate this with
the date of the fifth extract made by myself from the newspapers.  You
will find that the discovery followed, almost immediately, the urgent
communications sent to the evening paper.  These communications,
although various, and apparently from various sources, tended all to the
same point-- viz., the directing of attention to a gang as the
perpetrators of the outrage, and to the neighbourhood of the Barriere du
Roule as its scene.  Now, here, of course, the situation is not that, in
consequence of these communications, or of the public attention by them
directed, the articles were found by the boys; but the suspicion might
and may well have been, that the articles were not before found by the
boys, for the reason that the articles had not before been in the
thicket; having been deposited there only at so late a period as at <p
482 the date, or shortly prior to the date of the communications, by the
guilty authors of these communications themselves.

'This thicket was a singular--an exceedingly singular one.  It was
unusually dense.  Within its natural walled enclosure were three
extraordinary stones, forming a seat with a back and a footstool.  And
this thicket, so full of art, was in the immediate vicinity, within a
few rods, of the dwelling of Madame Deluc, whose boys were in the habit
of closely examining the shrubberies about them in search of the bark of
the sassafras.  Would it be a rash wager--a wager of one thousand to
one--that a day never passed over the heads of these boys without
finding at least one of them ensconced in the umbrageous hall, and
enthroned upon its natural throne?  Those who would hesitate at such a
wager, have either never been boys themselves, or have forgotten the
boyish nature.  I repeat--it is exceedingly hard to comprehend how the
articles could have remained in this thicket undiscovered, for a longer
period than one or two days; and that thus there is good ground for
suspicion, in spite of the dogmatic ignorance of Le Soleil, that they
were, at a comparatively late date, deposited where found.

But there are still other and stronger reasons for believing them so
deposited, than any which I have as yet urged.  And, now, let me beg
your notice to the highly artificial arrangement of the articles.  On
the upper stone lay a white petticoat; on the <i second, a silk scarf;
scattered around, were a parasol, gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief
bearing the name "Marie Roget".  Here is just such an arrangement as
would naturally be made by a not- over-acute person wishing to dispose
the articles naturally.  But it is by no means a really natural
arrangement.  I should rather have looked to see the things all lying on
the ground and trampled under foot.  In the narrow limits of that bower,
it would have been scarcely possible that the petticoat and scarf should
have retained a position upon the stones, when subjected to the brushing
to and fro of many struggling persons.  "There was evidence," it is
said, "of a struggle; and the earth was trampled, the bushes were
broken,"--but the petticoat and the scarf are found deposited as if upon
shelves.  "The pieces of the frock torn out by the bushes were about
three inches wide and six inches long.  One part was the hem <p 483 of
the frock, and it had been mended.  They looked like strips torn off."
Here, inadvertently, Le Soleil has employed an exceedingly suspicious
phrase.  The pieces, as described, do indeed "look like strips torn
off"; but purposely and by hand.  It is one of the rarest of accidents
that a piece is "torn off", from any garment such as is now in question,
by the agency of a thorn.  From the very nature of such fabrics, a thorn
or nail becoming tangled in them, tears them rectangularly-- divides
them into two longitudinal rents, at right angles with each other, and
meeting at an apex where the thorn enters--but it is scarcely possible
to conceive the piece "torn off".  I never so knew it, nor did you.  To
tear a piece off from such fabric, two distinct forces, in different
directions, will be, in almost every case, required.  If there be two
edges to the fabric--if, for example, it be a pocket-handkerchief, and
it is desired to tear from it a slip, then, and then only, will the one
force serve the purpose.  But in the present case the question is of a
dress, presenting but one edge.  To tear a piece from the interior,
where no edge is presented, could only be effected by a miracle through
the agency of thorns, and no one thorn could accomplish it.  But, even
where an edge is presented, two thorns will be necessary, operating, the
one in two distinct directions, and the other in one.  And this in the
supposition that the edge is unhemmed.  If hemmed, the matter is nearly
out of the question.  We thus see the numerous and great obstacles in
the way of pieces being "torn off" through the simple agency of
"thorns"; yet we are required to believe not only that one piece but
that many have been so torn.  "And one part," too, "was the hem of the
frock!"  Another piece was "part of the skirt, not the hem",--that is to
say, was torn completely out, through the agency of thorns, from the
unedged interior of the dress!  These, I say, are things which one may
well be pardoned for disbelieving; yet, taken collectedly, they form,
perhaps, less of reasonable ground for suspicion, than the one startling
circumstance of the articles having been left in this thicket at all, by
any murderers who had enough precaution to think of removing the corpse.
You will not have apprehended me rightly, however, if you suppose it my
design to deny this thicket as the scene of the outrage.  There might
have been a wrong here, or, more possibly, an accident at Madame
Deluc's.  But, in fact, this is a point of <p 484 minor importance.  We
are not engaged in an attempt to discover the scene, but to produce the
perpetrators of the murder.  What I have adduced, notwithstanding the
minuteness with which I have adduced it, has been with the view, first,
to show the folly of the positive and headlong assertions of Le Soleil,
but secondly and chiefly, to bring you, by the most natural route, to
further contemplation of the doubt whether this assassination has, or
has not, been the work of a gang.

'We will resume this question by mere allusion to the revolting details
of the surgeon examined at the inquest.  It is only necessary to say
that his published inferences, in regard to the number of the ruffians,
have been properly ridiculed as unjust and totally baseless, by all the
reputable anatomists of Paris.  Not that the matter might not have been
as inferred, but that there was no ground for the inference:--was there
not much for another?

'Let us now reflect upon "the traces of a struggle"; and let me ask what
these traces have been supposed to demonstrate.  A gang.  But do they
not rather demonstrate the absence of a gang?  What struggle could have
taken place--what struggle so violent and so enduring as to have left
its "traces" in all directions-- between a weak and defenceless girl and
the gang of ruffians imagined?  The silent grasp of a few rough arms and
all would have been over.  The victim must have been absolutely passive
at their will.  You will here bear in mind that the arguments used
against the thicket as the scene, are applicable, in chief part, only
against it as the scene of an outrage committed by more than a single
individual.  If we imagine but one violator, we can conceive, and thus
only conceive, the struggle of so violent and so obstinate a nature as
to have left the "traces" apparent.

'And again.  I have already mentioned the suspicion to be excited by the
fact that the articles in question were suffered to remain at all in the
thicket where discovered.  It seems almost impossible that these
evidences of guilt should have been accidentally left where found.
There was sufficient presence of mind (it is supposed) to remove the
corpse; and yet a more positive evidence than the corpse itself (whose
features might have been quickly obliterated by decay), is allowed to
lie conspicuously in the scene of the outrage--I allude to the
handkerchief with the <i name of the <p 485 deceased.  If this was
accident, it was not the accident of a gang.  We can imagine it only the
accident of an individual.  Let us see.  An individual has committed the
murder.  He is alone with the ghost of the departed.  He is appalled by
what lies motionless before him.  The fury of his passion is over, and
there is abundant room in his heart for the natural awe of the deed.
His is none of that confidence which the presence of numbers inevitably
inspires.  He is alone with the dead.  He trembles and is bewildered.
Yet there is a necessity for disposing of the corpse.  He bears it to
the river, and leaves behind him the other evidences of his guilt; for
it is difficult, if not impossible, to carry all the burthen at once,
and it will be easy to return for what is left.  But in his toilsome
journey to the water his fears redouble within him.  The sounds of life
encompass his path.  A dozen times he hears or fancies he hears the step
of an observer.  Even the very lights from the city bewilder him.  Yet,
in time, and by long and frequent pauses of deep agony, he reaches the
river's brink, and disposes of his ghastly charge-- perhaps through the
medium of a boat.  But now what treasure does the world hold--what
threat of vengeance could it hold out-- which would have power to urge
the return of that lonely murderer over that toilsome and perilous path,
to the thicket and its blood- chilling recollections?  He returns not,
let the consequences be what they may.  He could not return if he would.
His sole thought is immediate escape.  He turns his back for ever upon
those dreadful shrubberies, and flees as from the wrath to come.

'But how with a gang?  Their number would have inspired them with
confidence; if, indeed, confidence is ever wanting in the breast of the
arrant blackguard; and of arrant blackguards alone are the supposed
gangs ever constituted.  Their number, I say, would have prevented the
bewildering and unreasoning terror which I have imagined to paralyse the
single man.  Could we suppose an oversight in one, or two, or three,
this oversight would have been remedied by a fourth.  They would have
left nothing behind them; for their number would have enabled them to
carry all at once.  There would have been no need of return.

'Consider now the circumstance that, in the outer garment of the corpse
when found, "a slip, about a foot wide, had been torn upward from the
bottom hem to the waist, wound three times <p 486 round the waist, and
secured by a sort of hitch in the back".  This was done with the obvious
design of affording a handle by which to carry the body.  But would any
number of men have dreamed of resorting to such an expedient?  To three
or four, the limbs of the corpse would have afforded not only a
sufficient, but the best possible, hold.  The device is that of a single
individual; and this brings us to the fact that "between the thicket and
the river the rails of the fences were found taken down, and the ground
bore evident traces of some heavy burden having been dragged along it"!
But would a number of men have put themselves to the superfluous trouble
of taking down a fence, for the purpose of dragging through it a corpse
which they might have lifted over any fence in an instant?  Would a
number of men have so <i dragged a corpse at all as to have left evident
traces of the dragging?

'And here we must refer to an observation of Le Commerciel; an
observation upon which I have already, in some measure, commented.  "A
piece," says this journal, "of one of the unfortunate girl's petticoats
was torn out and tied under her chin, and around the back of her head,
probably to prevent screams.  This was done by fellows who had no
pocket-handkerchiefs."

'I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never <i without a
pocket-handkerchief.  But it is not to this fact that I now specially
advert.  That it was not through want of a handkerchief for the purpose
imagined by Le Commerciel, that this bandage was employed, is rendered
apparent by the handkerchief left in the thicket; and that the object
was not "to prevent screams" appears, also, from the bandage having been
employed in preference to what would so much better have answered the
purpose.  But the language of the evidence speaks of the strip in
question as "found round the neck, fitting loosely, and secured with a
hard knot".  These words are sufficiently vague, but differ materially
from those of Le Commerciel.  The slip was eighteen inches wide, and
therefore, although of muslin, would form a strong band when folded or
rumpled longitudinally.  And thus rumpled it was discovered.  My
inference is this.  The solitary murderer, having borne the corpse for
some distance (whether from the thicket or elsewhere) by means of the
bandage hitched around its middle, found the weight, in this mode of
procedure, too much for his <p 487 strength.  He resolved to drag the
burthen--the evidence goes to show that it was dragged.  With this
object in view, it became necessary to attach something like a rope to
one of the extremities.  It could be best attached about the neck, where
the head would prevent its slipping off.  And now the murderer bethought
him, unquestionably, of the bandage about the loins.  He would have used
this, but for its volution about the corpse, the <i hitch which
embarrassed it, and the reflection that it had not been "torn off" from
the garment.  It was easier to tear a new slip from the petticoat.  He
tore it, made it fast about the neck, and so dragged his victim to the
brink of the river.  That this "bandage", only attainable with trouble
and delay, and but imperfectly answering its purpose--that this bandage
was employed at all, demonstrates that the necessity for its employment
sprang from circumstances arising at a period when the handkerchief was
no longer attainable--that is to say, arising, as we have imagined,
after quitting the thicket (if the thicket it was), and on the road
between the thicket and the river.

'But the evidence, you will say, of Madame Deluc (!) points especially
to the presence of a gang in the vicinity of the thicket, at or about
the epoch of the murder.  This I grant.  I doubt if there were not a
dozen gangs, such as described by Madame Deluc, in and about the
vicinity of the Barriere du Roule at or about the period of this
tragedy.  But the gang which has drawn upon itself the pointed
animadversion, although the somewhat tardy and very suspicious evidence
of Madame Deluc, is the only gang which is represented by that honest
and scrupulous old lady as having eaten her cakes, and swallowed her
brandy, without putting themselves to the trouble of making her payment.
Et hinc illae irae?

'But what is the precise evidence of Madame Deluc?  "A gang of
miscreants made their appearance, behaved boisterously, ate and drank
without making payment, followed in the route of the young man and the
girl, returned to the inn about dusk, and re- crossed the river as if in
great haste."

'Now, this "great haste" very possibly seemed greater haste in the eyes
of Madame Deluc, since she dwelt lingeringly and lamentingly upon her
violated cakes and ale,--cakes and ale for <p 488 which she might still
have entertained a faint hope of compensation.  Why, otherwise, since it
was about dusk, should she make a point of the haste?  It is no cause
for wonder, surely, that a gang of blackguards should make haste to get
home when a wide river is to be crossed in small boats, when storm
impends, and when night approaches

'I say approaches; for the night had not yet arrived.  It was only about
dusk that the indecent haste of these "miscreants" offended the sober
eyes of Madame Deluc.  But we are told that it was upon this very
evening that Madame Deluc, as well as her eldest son, "heard the screams
of a female in the vicinity of the inn".  And in what words does Madame
Deluc designate the period of the evening at which these screams were
heard?  "It was soon after dark," she says.  But "soon after dark" is at
least dark; and "about dusk" is as certainly daylight.  Thus it is
abundantly clear that the gang quitted the Barriere du Roule prior to
the screams overheard (?) by Madame Deluc.  And although, in all the
many reports of the evidence, the relative expressions in question are
distinctly and invariably employed just as I have employed them in this
conversation with yourself, no notice whatever of the gross discrepancy
has, as yet, been taken by any of the public journals, or by any of the
myrmidons of police.

'I shall add but one to the arguments against a gang; but this one has,
to my own understanding at least, a weight altogether irresistible.
Under the circumstances of large reward offered, and full pardon to any
king's evidence, it is not to be imagined, for a moment, that some
member of a gang of low ruffians, or of any body of men, would not long
ago have betrayed his accomplices.  Each one of a gang, so placed, is
not so much greedy of reward, or anxious for escape, as fearful of
betrayal.  He betrays eagerly and early that he may not himself be
betrayed.  That the secret has not been divulged is the very best of
proof that it is, in fact, a secret.  The horrors of this dark deed are
known only to one, or two, living human beings, and to God.

'Let us sum up now the meagre yet certain fruits of our long analysis.
We have attained the idea either of a fatal accident under the roof of
Madame Deluc, or of a murder perpetrated in the thicket at the Barriere
du Roule, by a lover, or at least by an <p 489 intimate and secret
associate of the deceased.  The associate is of swarthy complexion.
This complexion, the "hitch" in the bandage, and the "sailor's knot"
with which the bonnet-ribbon is tied, point to a seaman.  His
companionship with the deceased--a gay but not abject young
girl--designates him as above the grade of the common sailor.  Here the
well-written and urgent communications to the journals are much in the
way of corroboration.  The circumstance of the first elopement, as
mentioned by Le Mercure, tends to blend the idea of this seaman with
that of the "naval officer" who is first known to have led the
unfortunate into crime.

'And here, most fitly, comes the consideration of the continued absence
of him of the dark complexion.  Let me pause to observe that the
complexion of this man is dark and swarthy; it was no common swarthiness
which constituted the sole point of resemblance, both as regards Valence
and Madame Deluc.  But why is this man absent?  Was he murdered by the
gang?  If so, why are there only traces of the assassinated girl?  The
scene of the two outrages will naturally be supposed identical.  And
where is his corpse?  The assassins would most probably have disposed of
both in the same way.  But it may be said that this man lives, and is
deterred from making himself known through dread of being charged with
the murder.  This consideration might be supposed to operate upon him
now--at this late period--since it has been given in evidence that he
was seen with Marie, but it would have had no force at the period of the
deed.  The first impulse of an innocent man would have been to announce
the outrage, and to aid in identifying the ruffians.  This policy would
have suggested.  He had been seen with the girl.  He had crossed the
river with her in an open ferry-boat.  The denouncing of the assassins
would have appeared, even to an idiot, the surest and sole means of
relieving himself from suspicion.  We cannot suppose him, on the night
of the fatal Sunday, both innocent himself and incognizant of an outrage
committed.  Yet only under such circumstances is it possible to imagine
that he would have failed, if alive, in the denouncement of the
assassins.

'And what means are ours of attaining the truth?  We shall find these
means multiplying and gathering distinctness as we proceed.  Let us sift
to the bottom this affair of the first elopement.  Let <p 490 us know
the full history of "the officer", with his present circumstances, and
his whereabouts at the precise period of the murder.  Let us carefully
compare with each other the various communications sent to the evening
paper, in which the object was to inculpate a gang.  This done, let us
compare these communications, both as regards style and MS, with those
sent to the morning paper, at a previous period, and insisting so
vehemently upon the guilt of Mennais.  And, all this done, let us again
compare these various communications with the known MSS of the officer.
Let us endeavour to ascertain, by repeated questionings of Madame Deluc
and her boys, as well as of the omnibus-driver, Valence, something more
of the personal appearance and bearing of the "man of dark complexion".
Queries, skilfully directed, will not fail to elicit, from some of these
parties, information on this particular point (or upon
others)--information which the parties themselves may not even be aware
of possessing.  And let us now trace the boat picked up by the bargeman
on the morning of Monday the twenty-third of June, and which was removed
from the barge-office, without the cognizance of the officer in
attendance, and without the rudder, at some period prior to the
discovery of the corpse.  With a proper caution and perseverance we
shall infallibly trace this boat; for not only can the bargeman who
picked it up identify it, but the rudder is at hand.  The rudder of a
sail boat would not have been abandoned without inquiry, by one
altogether at ease in heart.  And here let me pause to insinuate a
question.  There was no advertisement of the picking up of this boat.
It was silently taken to the barge- office, and as silently removed.
But its owner or employer--how <i happened he, at so early a period on
Tuesday morning, to be informed, without the agency of advertisement, of
the locality of the boat taken up on Monday, unless we imagine some
connection with the navy--some personal permanent connection leading to
cognizance of its minute interests--its petty local news?

'In speaking of the lonely assassin dragging his burden to the shore, I
have already suggested the probability of his availing himself of a
boat.  Now we are to understand that Marie Roget was precipitated from a
boat.  This would naturally have been the case.  The corpse could not
have been trusted to the shallow waters <p 491 of the shore.  The
peculiar marks on the back and shoulders of the victim tell of the
bottom ribs of a boat.  That the body was found without weight is also
corroborative of the idea.  If thrown from the shore a weight would have
been attached.  We can only account for its absence by supposing the
murderer to have neglected the precaution of supplying himself with it
before pushing off.  In the act of consigning the corpse to the water he
would unquestionably have noticed his oversight; but then no remedy
would have been at hand.  Any risk would have been preferred to a return
to that accursed shore.  Having rid himself of his ghastly charge, the
murderer would have hastened to the city.  There, at some obscure wharf,
he would have leaped on land.  But the boat, would he have secured it?
He would have been in too great haste for such things as securing a
boat.  Moreover, in fastening it to the wharf, he would have felt as if
securing evidence against himself.  His natural thought would have been
to cast from him, as far as possible, all that held connection with his
crime.  He would not only have fled from the wharf, but he would have
cast it adrift.  Let us pursue our fancies.--  In the morning, the
wretch is stricken with unutterable horror at finding that the boat has
been picked up and detained at a locality which he is in the daily habit
of frequenting--at a locality, perhaps, which his duty compels him to
frequent.  The next night, without daring to ask for the rudder, he
removes it.  Now where is that rudderless boat?  Let it be one of our
first purposes to discover.  With the first glimpse we obtain of it, the
dawn of our success shall begin.  This boat shall guide us, with a
rapidity which will surprise even ourselves, to him who employed it in
the midnight of the fatal Sabbath.  Corroboration will rise upon
corroboration, and the murderer will be traced.'


[For reasons which we shall not specify, but which to many readers will
appear obvious, we have taken the liberty of here omitting, from the MSS
placed in our hands, such portion as details the following up of the
apparently slight clue obtained by Dupin.  We feel it advisable only to
state, in brief, that the result desired was brought to pass; and that
the Prefect fulfilled punctually, although with reluctance, the terms of
his compact with the <p 492 Chevalier.  Mr Poe's article concludes with
the following words.  --Eds.<1

It will be understood that I speak of coincidences and no more.  What I
have said above upon this topic must suffice.  In my own heart there
dwells no faith in praeter-nature.  That Nature and its God are two, no
man who thinks will deny.  That the latter, creating the former, can, at
will, control or modify it, is also unquestionable.  I say 'at will';
for the question is of will, and not, as the insanity of logic has
assumed, of power.  It is not that the Deity cannot modify his laws, but
that we insult him in imagining a possible necessity for modification.
In their origin these laws were fashioned to embrace all contingencies
which could lie in the Future.  With God all is Now.

I repeat, then, that I speak of these things only as of coincidences.
And further: in what I relate it will be seen that between the fate of
the unhappy Mary Cecilia Rogers, so far as that fate is known, and the
fate of one Marie Roget up to a certain epoch in her history, there has
existed a parallel in the contemplation of whose wonderful exactitude
the reason becomes embarrassed.  I say all this will be seen.  But let
it not for a moment be supposed that, in proceeding with the sad
narrative of Marie from the epoch just mentioned, and in tracing to its
<i denouement the mystery which enshrouded her, it is my covert design
to hint at an extension of the parallel, or even to suggest that the
measures adopted in Paris for the discovery of the assassin of a
grisette, or measures founded in any similar ratiocination, would
produce any similar result.

For, in respect to the latter branch of the supposition, it should be
considered that the most trifling variation in the facts of the two
cases might give rise to the most important miscalculations, by
diverting thoroughly the two courses of events; very much as, in
arithmetic, an error which, in its own individuality, may be
inappreciable, produces at length, by dint of multiplication at all
points of the process, a result enormously at variance with truth.  And,
in regard to the former branch, we must not fail to hold in view that
the very Calculus of Probabilities to which I have


<1Of Snowden's Lady's Companion.

<p 493 referred, forbids all idea of the extension of the parallel,--
forbids it with a positiveness strong and decided just in proportion as
this parallel has been already long-drawn and exact.  This is one of
those anomalous propositions which, seemingly, appealing to thought
altogether apart from the mathematical, is yet one which only the
mathematician can fully entertain.  Nothing, for example, is more
difficult than to convince the merely general reader that the fact of
sixes having been thrown twice in succession by a player at dice, is
sufficient cause for betting the largest odds that sixes will not be
thrown in the third attempt.  A suggestion to this effect is usually
rejected by the intellect at once.  It does not appear that the two
throws which have been completed, and which lie now absolutely in the
Past, can have influence upon the throw which exists only in the Future.
The chance for throwing sixes seems to be precisely as it was at any
ordinary time--that is to say, subject only to the influence of the
various other throws which may be made by the dice.  And this is a
reflection which appears so exceedingly obvious that attempts to
controvert it are received more frequently with a derisive smile than
with anything like respectful attention.  The error here involved--a
gross error redolent of mischief--I cannot pretend to expose within the
limits assigned me at present; and with the philosophical it needs no
exposure.  It may be sufficient here to say that it forms one of an
infinite series of mistakes which arise in the path of Reason through
her propensity for seeking truth <i in detail.