APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/authors/poe/purloinltr/PURLOINLTR

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                      The Purloined Letter

     Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio.--Seneca

At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18--, I was
enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in company
with my friend, C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library, or
book-closet, au troisi⇩me, No. 33 Rue Dun›t, Faubourg St. Germain. For
one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence; while each, to
any casual observer, might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied
with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of the
chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally discussing certain topics
which had formed matter for conversation between us at an earlier period
of the evening; I mean the affair of the Rue Morgue, and the mystery
attending the murder of Marie Rog⇦t. I looked upon it, therefore, as
something of a coincidence, when the door of our apartment was thrown
open and admitted our old acquaintance, Monsieur G----, the Prefect of
the Parisian police.

We gave him a hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as much of the
entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, and we had not seen
him for several years. We had been sitting in the dark, and Dupin now
arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down again, without
doing so, upon G.'s saying that he had called to consult us, or rather
to ask the opinion of my friend, about some official business which had
occasioned a great deal of trouble.

"If it is any point requiring reflection," observed Dupin, as he forbore
to enkindle the wick, "we shall examine it to better purpose in the
dark."

"That is another one of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had the
fashion of calling everything "odd" that was beyond his comprehension,
and thus lived amid an absolute legion of "oddities."

"Very true," said Dupin, as he supplied his visitor with a pipe, and
rolled toward him a comfortable chair.

"And what is the difficulty now?" I asked. "Nothing more in the
assassination way I hope?"

"Oh, no; nothing of that nature. The fact is, the business is very
simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently
well ourselves; but then I thought Dupin would like to hear the details
of it because it is so excessively odd."

"Simple and odd," said Dupin.

"Why, yes; and not exactly that either. The fact is, we have all been a
good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet baffles us
altogether."

"Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you at
fault," said my friend.

"What nonsense you do talk!" replied the Prefect, laughing heartily.

"Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain," said Dupin.

"Oh, good heavens! who ever heard of such an idea?"

"A little too self-evident."

"Ha! ha! ha!--ha! ha! ha!--ho! ho! ho!" roared our visitor, profoundly
amused, "oh, Dupin, you will be the death of me yet!"

"And what, after all, is the matter on hand?" I asked.

"Why, I will tell you," replied the Prefect, as he gave a long, steady,
and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair. "I will tell
you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me caution you that this is
an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, and that I should most
probably lose the position I now hold, were it known that I confided it
to any one."

"Proceed," said I.

"Or not," said Dupin.

"Well, then; I have received personal information, from a very high
quarter, that a certain document of the last importance has been
purloined from the royal apartments. The individual who purloined it is
known; that beyond a doubt; he was seen to take it. It is known, also,
that it still remains in his possession."

"How is this known?" asked Dupin.

"It is clearly inferred," replied the Prefect, "from the nature of the
document, and from the non-appearance of certain results which would at
once arise from its passing out of the robber's possession--that is to
say, from his employing it as he must design in the end to employ it."

"Be a little more explicit," I said.

"Well, I may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its holder a
certain power in a certain quarter where such power is immensely
valuable." The Prefect was fond of the cant of diplomacy.

"Still I do not quite understand," said Dupin.

"No? Well; the disclosure of the document to a third person, who shall
be nameless, would bring in question the honor of a personage of most
exalted station; and this fact gives the holder of the document an
ascendancy over the illustrious personage whose honor and peace are so
jeopardized."

"But this ascendancy," I interposed, "would depend upon the robber's
knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber. Who would dare--"

"The thief," said G., "is the Minister D----, who dares all things,
those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. The method of the
theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document in question--a
letter, to be frank--had been received by the personage robbed while
alone in the royal boudoir. During its perusal she was suddenly
interrupted by the entrance of the other exalted personage from whom
especially it was her wish to conceal it. After a hurried and vain
endeavor to thrust it in a drawer, she was forced to place it, open it
was, upon a table. The address, however, was uppermost, and, the
contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped notice. At this juncture
enters the Minister D----. His lynx eye immediately perceives the paper,
recognizes the handwriting of the address, observes the confusion of the
personage addressed, and fathoms her secret. After some business
transactions, hurried through in his ordinary manner, he produces a
letter somewhat similar to the one in question, opens it, pretends to
read it, and then places it in close juxtaposition to the other. Again
he converses, for some fifteen minutes, upon the public affairs. At
length, in taking leave, he takes also from the table the letter to
which he has no claim. Its rightful owner saw, but, of course, dared not
call attention to the act, in the presence of the third person who stood
at her elbow. The minister decamped; leaving his own letter--of no
importance--upon the table."

"Here, then," said Dupin to me, "you have precisely what you demand to
make the ascendancy complete--the robber's knowledge of the loser's
knowledge of the robber."

"Yes," replied the Prefect; "and the power thus attained has, for some
months past, been wielded, for political purposes, to a very dangerous
extent. The personage robbed is more thoroughly convinced, every day, of
the necessity of reclaiming her letter. But this, of course, cannot be
done openly. In fine, driven to despair, she has committed the matter to
me."

"Than whom," said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind of smoke, "no more
sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired, or even imagined."

"You flatter me," replied the Prefect; "but it is possible that some
such opinion may have been entertained."

"It is clear," said I, "as you observe, that the letter is still in the
possession of the minister; since it is this possession, and not any
employment of the letter, which bestows the power. With the employment
the power departs."

"True," said G.; "and upon this conviction I proceeded. My first care
was to make a thorough search of the minister's hotel; and here my chief
embarrassment lay in the necessity of searching without his knowledge.
Beyond all things, I have been warned of the danger which would result
from giving him reason to suspect our design."

"But," said I, "you are quite au fait in these investigations. The
parisian police have done this thing often before."

"Oh, yes; and for this reason I did not despair. The habits of the
minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently absent from
home all night. His servants are no means numerous. They sleep at a
distance from their master's apartment, and, being chiefly Neapolitans,
are readily made drunk. I have keys, as you know, with which I can open
any chamber or cabinet in Paris. For three months a night has not
passed, during the greater part of which I have not been engaged,
personally, in ransacking the D---- Hotel. My honor is interested, and,
to mention a great secret, the reward is enormous. So I did not abandon
the search until I had become fully satisfied that the thief is a more
astute man than myself. I fancy that I have investigated every nook and
corner of the premises in which it is possible that the paper can be
concealed."

"But is it not possible," I suggested, "that although the letter may be
in possession of the minister, as it unquestionably is, he may have
concealed it elsewhere than upon his own premises?"

"This is barely possible," said Dupin. "The present peculiar condition
of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues in which D---- is
known to be involved, would render the instant availability of the
document--its susceptibility of being produced at a moments notice--a
point of nearly equal importance with its possession."

"Its susceptibility of being produced?" said I.

"That is to say, of being destroyed," said Dupin.

"True," I observed; "the paper is clearly then upon the premises. As for
its being upon the person of the minister, we may consider that as out
of the question."

"Entirely," said the Prefect. "He has been twice waylaid, as if by
footpads, and his person rigidly searched for my own inspection."

"You might have spared yourself this trouble," said Dupin. "D----, I
presume, is not altogether a fool, and, if not, must have anticipated
these waylayings, as a matter of course."

"Not altogether a fool," said G., "but then he is a poet, which I take
to be only one removed from a fool."

"True," said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from his
meerschaum, "although I have been guilty of certain doggerel myself."

"Suppose you detail," said I, "the particulars of your search."

"Why, the fact is, we took our time, and we searched everywhere. I have
had long experience in these affairs. I took the entire building, room
by room; devoting the nights of a whole week to each. We examined, first
the furniture of each apartment. We opened every possible drawer; and I
presume you know that, to a properly trained police-agent, such a thing
as a 'secret' drawer is impossible. Any man is a dolt who permits a
'secret' drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The thing is so
plain. There is a certain amount of bulk--of space--to be accounted for
in every cabinet. Then we have accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a
line could not escape us. After the cabinets we took the chairs. The
cushions we probed with the fine ling needles you have seen me employ.
From the tables we removed the tops."

"Why so?"

"Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged piece of
furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal an article; then
the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity, and the
top replaced. The bottoms and tops of bedposts are employed in the same
way."

"But could not the cavity be detected by sounding?" I asked.

"By no means, if, when the article is deposited, a sufficient wadding of
cotton be placed around it. Besides, in our case, we were obliged to
proceed without noise."

"But you could not have removed--you could not have taken to pieces all
articles of furniture in which it would have been possible to make a
deposit in the manner you mention. A letter may be compressed into a
thin spiral roll, not differing much in shape or bulk from a large
knitting-needle, and in this form it might be inserted into the rung of
a chair, for example. You did not take to pieces all the chairs?"

"Certainly not; but we did better--we examined the rungs of every chair
in the hotel, and, indeed, the jointings of every description of
furniture, by the aid of a most powerful microscope. Had there been any
traces of recent disturbance we should not have failed to detect it
instantly. A single grain of gimlet-dust, for example, would have been
as obvious as an apple. Any disorder in the gluing--any unusual gap in
the joints--would have sufficed to insure detection."

"I presume you looked to the mirrors, between the boards and the plates,
and you probed the beds and the bedclothes, as well as the curtains and
carpets."

"That of course; and when we had absolutely completed every particle of
the furniture in this way, then we examined the house itself. We divided
its entire surface into compartments, which we numbered, so that none
might be missed; then we scrutinized each individual square inch
throughout the premises, including the two houses immediately adjoining,
with the microscope, as before."

"The two houses adjoining!" I exclaimed; "you must have had a great deal
of trouble."

"We had; but the reward offered is prodigious."

"You included the grounds about the houses?"

"All the grounds are paved with brick. They give us comparatively little
trouble. We examined the moss between the bricks, and found it
undisturbed."

"You looked among D----'s papers, of course, and into the books of the
library?"

"Certainly; we opened every package and parcel; we not only opened every
book, but we turned over every leaf in each volume, not contenting
ourselves with a mere shake, according to the fashion of some of our
police officers. We also measured the thickness of every book-cover,
with the most accurate admeasurement, and applied to each the most
jealous scrutiny of the microscope. Had any of the bindings been
recently meddled with, it would have been utterly impossible that the
fact should have escaped observation. Some five or six volumes, just
from the hands of the binder, we carefully probed, longitudinally, with
the needles."

"You explored the floors beneath the carpets?"

"Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined the boards with the
microscope."

"And the paper on the walls?"

"Yes."

"You looked into the cellars?"

"We did."

"Then," I said, "you have been making a miscalculation, and the letter
is not upon the premises, as you suppose."

"I fear you are right there," said the Prefect. "And now, Dupin, what
would you advise me to do?"

"To make a thorough research of the premises."

"That is absolutely needless," replied G----. "I am not more sure that I
breathe than I am that the letter is not at the hotel."

"I have no better advice to give you," said Dupin. "You have, of course,
an accurate description of the letter?"

"Oh, yes!"--And here the Prefect, producing a memorandum-book, proceeded
to read aloud a minute account of the internal, and especially of the
external, appearance of the missing document. Soon after finishing the
perusal of this description, he took his departure, more entirely
depressed in spirits than I have ever known the good gentleman before.

In about a month afterward he paid another visit, and found us occupied
very nearly as before. He took a pipe and a chair and entered into some
ordinary conversation. At length I said:

"Well, but G., what of the purloined letter? I presume you have at last
made up your mind that there is no such thing as overreaching the
Minister?"

"Confound him, say I--yes; I made the re-examination, however, as Dupin
suggested--but it was all labor lost, as I knew it would be."

"How much was the reward offered, did you say?" asked Dupin.

"Why, a very great deal--a very liberal reward--I don't like to say how
much precisely; but one thing I will say, that I wouldn't mind giving my
individual check for fifty thousand francs to any one who could obtain
me that letter. The fact is, it is becoming of more and more importance
every day; and the reward has been lately doubled. If it were trebled,
however, I could do no more than I have done."

"Why, yes," said Dupin, drawlingly, between the whiffs of his
meerschaum, "I really--think, G., you have not exerted yourself--to the
utmost in the matter. You might--do a little more, I think, eh?"

"How?--in what way?"

"Why--puff, puff--you might--puff, puff--employ counsel in the matter,
eh?--puff, puff, puff. Do you remember the story they tell of
Abernethy?"

"No; hang Abernethy!"

"To be sure! hang him and welcome. But, once upon a time, a certain rich
miser conceived the design of spunging upon this Abernethy for a medical
opinion. Getting up, for this purpose, an ordinary conversation in a
private company, he insinuated his case to the physician, as that of an
imaginary individual.

"'We will suppose,' said the miser, 'that his symptoms are such and
such; now, doctor, what would you have directed him to take?'

"'Take!' said Abernethy, 'why, take advice, to be sure.'"

"But," said the Prefect, a little discomposed, "I am perfectly willing
to take advice, and to pay for it. I would really give fifty thousand
francs to any one who would aid me in the matter."

"In that case," replied Dupin, opening a drawer, and producing a
check-book, "you may as well fill me up a check for the amount
mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter."

I was astonished. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunder-stricken. For
some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking
incredulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed
startling from their sockets; then apparently recovering himself in some
measure, he seized a pen, and after several pauses and vacant stares,
finally filled up and signed a check for fifty thousand francs, and
handed it across the table to Dupin. The latter examined it carefully
and deposited it in his pocket-book; then, unlocking an escritoire, took
thence a letter and gave it to the Prefect. This functionary grasped it
in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with a trembling hand, cast a rapid
glance at its contents, and then, scrambling and struggling to the door,
rushed at length unceremoniously from the room and from the house,
without having uttered a syllable since Dupin had requested him to fill
up the check.

When he had gone, my friend entered into some explanations.

"The Parisian police," he said, "are exceedingly able in their way. They
are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thoroughly versed in the
knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to demand. Thus, when G----
detailed to us his mode of searching the premises at the Hotel D----, I
felt entire confidence in his having made a satisfactory
investigation--so far as his labors extended."

"So far as his labors extended?" said I.

"Yes," said Dupin. "The measures adopted were not only the best of their
kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. Had the letter been
deposited within the range of their search, these fellows would, beyond
a question, have found it."

I merely laughed--but he seemed quite serious in all that he said.

"The measures, then," he continued, "were good in their kind, and well
executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the case and
to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources are, with the
Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he forcibly adapts his
designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too shallow for
the matter in hand; and many a school-boy is a better reasoner than he.
I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the
game of 'even and odd' attracted universal admiration. This game is
simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a
number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is even
or odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses
one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the school. Of
course he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere
observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For
example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed
hand, asks, 'Are they even or odd?' Our school-boy replies, 'Odd,' and
loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to himself:
'The simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his amount of
cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd upon the second; I
will therefore guess odd';--he guesses odd and wins. Now, with a
simpleton a degree above the first, he would have reasoned thus: 'This
fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd, and, in the
second, he will propose to himself, upon the first impulse, a simple
variation from even to odd, as did the first simpleton; but then a
second thought will suggest that this is too simple a variation, and
finally he will decide upon putting it even as before. I will therefore
guess even';--he guesses even, and wins. Now this mode of reasoning in
the school-boy, whom his fellows termed 'lucky,'--what, in its last
analysis, is it?"

"It is merely," I said, "an identification of the reasoner's intellect
with that of his opponent."

"It is," said Dupin; "and, upon inquiring of the boy by what means he
effected the thorough identification in which his success consisted, I
received answer as follows: 'When I wish to find out how wise, or how
stupid, or how good, or how wicked is any one, or what are his thoughts
at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as
possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see
what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to match or
correspond with the expression.' This response of the school-boy lies at
the bottom of all the spurious profundity which has been attributed to
Rochefoucault, to La Bougive, to Machiavelli, and to Campanella."

"And the identification," I said, "of the reasoner's intellect with that
of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright, upon the accuracy
with which the opponent's intellect is admeasured."

"For its practical value it depends upon this," replied Dupin; "and the
Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by default of this
identification, and, secondly, by ill-admeasurement, or rather through
non-admeasurement, of the intellect with which they are engaged. They
consider only their own ideas of ingenuity; and, in searching for any
thing hidden, advert only to the modes in which they would have hidden
it. They are right in this much--that their own ingenuity is a faithful
representative of that of the mass; but when the cunning of the
individual felon is diverse in character from their own, the felon foils
them, of course. This always happens when it is above their own, and
very usually when it is below. They have no variation of principle in
their investigations; at best, when urged by some unusual emergency--by
some extraordinary reward--they extend or exaggerate their old modes of
practice, without touching their principles. What, for example, in this
case of D----, has been done to vary the principle of action? What is
all this boring, and probing, and sounding, and scrutinizing with the
microscope, and dividing the surface of the building into registered
square inches--what is it all but an exaggeration of the application of
the one principle or set of principles of search, which are based upon
the one set of notions regarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect,
in the long routine of his duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see he
has taken it for granted that all men proceed to conceal a letter, not
exactly in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg, but, at least, in some
out-of-the-way hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of thought
which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole bored in a
chair-leg? And do you not see also, that such recherchŵs nooks for
concealment ar adapted only for ordinary occasions, and would be adopted
by ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of concealment, a disposal of
the article concealed--a disposal in this recherchŵ manner,--is, in the
very first instance, presumable and presumed; and thus its discovery
depends, not at all upon the acumen, but altogether upon the mere care,
patience, and determination of the seekers; and where the case is of
importance--or, what amounts to the same thing in the political eyes,
when the reward is of magnitude,--the qualities in question have never
been known to fail. You will now understand what I mean in suggesting
that, had the purloined letter been hidden anywhere within the limits of
the Prefect's examination--in other words, had the principle of its
concealment been comprehended within the principles of the Prefect--its
discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond question. This
functionary, however, has been thoroughly mystified; and the remote
source of his defeat lies in the supposition that the Minister is a
fool, because he has acquired renown as a poet. All fools are poets;
this the Prefect feels; and he is merely guilty of a non distributio
medii in thence inferring that all poets are fools."

"But is this really the poet?" I asked. "There are two brothers, I know;
and both have attained reputation in letters. The minister I believe has
written learnedly on the Differential Calculus. He is a mathematician,
and no poet."

"You are mistaken; I know him well; he is both. As a poet and as a
mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could
not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of the
Prefect."

"You surprise me," I said, "by these opinions, which have been
contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not mean to set at naught
the well-digested ideas of centuries. The mathematical reason has long
been regarded as the reason par excellence."

"'Il y a Ŷ parier,'" replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort, "'que toute
idŵe publique, toute convention reue, est une sottise, cor elle a
convenue au plus grand nombre.' The mathematicians, I grant you, have
done their best to promulgate the popular error to which you allude, and
which is none the less an error for its promulgation as truth. With an
art worthy a better cause, for example, they have insinuated the term
'analysis' into application to algebra. The French are the originators
of this particular deception; but if a term is of any importance--if
words derive any value from applicability--then 'analysis' conveys
'algebra' about as much as, in Latin, 'ambitus' implies 'ambition,'
'religio' 'religion,' or 'homines honesti' a set of honorable men."

"You have a quarrel on hand, I see," said I, "with some of the
algebraists of Paris; but proceed."

"I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that reason which is
cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly logical. I
dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathematical study. The
mathematics are the science of form and quantity; mathematical reasoning
is merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity. The great
error lies in supposing that even the truths of what is called pure
algebra are abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious
that I am confounded at the universality with which it has been
received. Mathematical axioms are not axioms of general truth. What is
true of relation--of form and quantity--is often grossly false in regard
to morals, for example. In this latter science it is very usually untrue
that the aggregated parts are equal to the whole. In chemistry also the
axiom fails. In the consideration of motive it fails; for two motives,
each of a given value, have not, necessarily, a value when united, equal
to the sum of their values apart. There are numerous other mathematical
truths which are only truths within the limits of relation. But the
mathematician argues from his finite truths, through habit, as if they
were of an absolutely general applicability--as the world indeed
imagines them to be. Bryant, in his very learned 'Mythology,' mentions
an analogous source of error, when he says that 'although the pagan
fables are not believed, yet we forget ourselves continually, and make
inferences from them as existing realities.' With the algebraists,
however, who are pagans themselves, the 'pagan fables' are believed, and
the inferences are made, not so much through lapse of memory as through
an unaccountable addling of the brains. In short, I never yet
encountered the mere mathematician who would be trusted out of equal
roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his faith
that x2 + px was absolutely and unconditionally equal to q. Say to one
of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you please, that you
believe occasions may occur when x2 + px is not altogether equal to q,
and, having made him understand what you mean, get out of his reach as
speedily as convenient, for beyond doubt, he will endeavor to knock you
down.

"I mean to say," continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at his last
observations, "that if the Minister had been no more than a
mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no necessity of giving
me this check. I knew him, however, as both mathematician and poet, and
my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference to the
circumstances by which he was surrounded. I knew him as a courtier, too,
and as a bold intriguant. Such a man, I considered, could not fail to be
aware of the ordinary political modes of action. He could not fail to be
anticipate--and events have proved he did not fail to anticipate--the
waylayings to which he was subjected. He must have foreseen, I
reflected, the secret investigations of his premises. His frequent
absences from home at night, which were hailed by the Prefect as certain
aids to his success, I regarded only as ruses, to afford opportunity for
thorough search to the police, and thus sooner to impress them with the
conviction to which G----, in fact, did finally arrive--the conviction
that the letter was not upon the premises. I felt, also, that the whole
train of thought, which I was at some pains in detailing to you just
now, concerning the invariable principle of political action in searches
for articles concealed--I felt that this whole train of thought would
necessarily pass through the mind of the minister. It would imperatively
lead him to despise all the ordinary nooks of concealment. He could not,
I reflected, be so weak as not to see that the most intricate and remote
recess of his hotel would be as open as his commonest closets to the
eyes, to the probes, to the gimlets, and to the microscopes of the
Prefect. I saw, in fine, that he would be driven, as a matter of course,
to simplicity, if not deliberately induced to it as a matter of choice.
You will remember, perhaps, how desperately the Prefect laughed when I
suggested, upon our first interview, that it was just possible this
mystery troubled him so much on account of its being so very
self-evident."

"Yes," said I, "I remember his merriment well. I really thought he would
have fallen into convulsions."

"The material world," continued Dupin, "abounds with very strict
analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been given
to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may be made to
strengthen an argument as well as to embellish a description. The
principle of the vis inertiae, for example, seems to be identical in
physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, than a large
body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one, and that
its subsequent momentum is commensurate with this difficulty, than it
is, in the latter, that intellects of the vaster capacity, while more
forcible, more constant, and more eventful in their movements than those
of inferior grade, are yet the less readily moved, and more embarrassed,
and full of hesitation in the first few steps of their progress. Again:
have you ever noticed which of the street signs, over the shop doors,
are the most attractive of attention?"

"I have never given the matter a thought," I said.

"There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, "which is played upon a map.
One party playing requires another to find a given word--the name of
town, river, state, or empire--any word, in short, upon the motley and
perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game generally seeks to
embarrass his opponents by giving them the most minutely lettered names;
but the adept selects such words as stretch, in large characters, from
one end of the chart to the other. These, like the over-largely lettered
signs and placards of the street, escape observation by dint of being
excessively obvious; and here the physical oversight is precisely
analogous with the moral inapprehension by which the intellect suffers
to pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and too
palpably self-evident. But this is a point, it appears, somewhat above
or beneath the understanding of the Prefect. He never once thought it
probable, or possible, that the minister had deposited the letter
immediately beneath the nose of the whole world, by way of best
preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it.

"But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and discriminating
ingenuity of D----; upon the fact that the document must always have
been at hand, if he intended to use it to good purpose; and upon the
decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect, that it was not hidden
within the limits of that dignitary's ordinary search--the more
satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter, the minister had
resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not attempting
to conceal it at all.

"Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of green spectacles,
and called one fine morning, quite by accident, at the Ministerial
hotel. I found D---- at home, yawning, lounging, and dawdling, as usual,
and pretending to be in the last extremity of ennui. He is, perhaps, the
most really energetic human being now alive--but that is only when
nobody sees him.

"To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and lamented the
necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which I cautiously and
thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment, while seemingly intent only
upon the conversation of my host.

"I paid especial attention to a large writing-table near where he sat,
and upon which lay confusedly, some miscellaneous letters and other
papers, with one or two musical instruments and a few books. Here,
however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw nothing to
excite particular suspicion.

"At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a
trumpery filigree card-rack of pasteboard, that hung dangling by a dirty
blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just beneath the middle of the
mantelpiece. In this rack, which had three or four compartments, were
five or six visiting cards and a solitary letter. The last was much
soiled and crumpled. It was torn nearly in two, across the middle--as if
a design, in the first instance, to tear it entirely up as worthless,
had been altered, or stayed, in the second. It had a large black seal,
bearing the D---- cipher very conspicuously, and was addressed, in a
diminutive female hand, to D----, the minister, himself. It was thrust
carelessly, and even, as it seemed, contemptuously, into one of the
uppermost divisions of the rack.

"No sooner had I glanced at this letter than I concluded it to be that
of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all appearance,
radically different from the one of which the Prefect had read to us so
minute a description. Here the seal was large and black, with the D----
cipher; there it was small and read, with the ducal arms of the S----
family. Here, the address, to the minister, was diminutive and feminine;
there the superscription, to a certain royal personage, was markedly
bold and decided; the size alone formed a point of correspondence. But,
then, the radicalness of these differences, which was excessive; the
dirt; the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with
the true methodical habits of D----, and so suggestive of a design to
delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the
document;--these things, together with the hyperobtrusive situation of
this document, full in the view of every visitor, and thus exactly in
accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived; these
things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, in one who came
with the intention to suspect.

"I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I maintained a
most animated discussion with the minister, upon a topic which I knew
well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention
really riveted upon the letter. In examination, I committed to memory
its external appearance and arrangement in the rack; and also fell, at
length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I
might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I
observed them to be more chafed than seemed necessary. They presented
the broken appearance which is manifested when a stiff paper, having
been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded in a reversed
direction, in the same creases or edges which had formed the original
fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me that the letter
had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed and re-sealed. I
bade the minister good-morning, and took my departure at once, leaving a
gold snuff-box upon the table.

"The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed, quite
eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus engaged,
however, a large report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately
beneath the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of
fearful screams, and the shoutings of a terrified mod. D---- rushed to a
casement, threw it open, and looked out. In the meantime I stepped to
the card-rack, took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced it by
a fac-simile, (so far as regards externals) which I had carefully
prepared at my lodgings--imitating the D---- cipher, very readily, by
means of a seal formed of bread.

"The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the frantic
behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd of women
and children. It proved, however, to have been without ball, and the
fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When he
had gone, D---- came from the window, whither I had followed him
immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon afterward I bade him
farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay."

"But what purpose had you," I asked, "in replacing the letter by a
fac-simile? Would it not have been better, at the first visit, to have
seized it openly, and departed?"

"D----," replied Dupin, "is a desperate man, and a man of nerve. His
hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests. Had I
made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never have left the
Ministerial presence alive. The good people of Paris might have heard of
me no more. But I had an object apart from these considerations. You
know my political prepossessions. In this matter, I act as a partisan of
the lady concerned. For eighteen months the Minister has had her in his
power. She has now him in hers--since, being unaware that the letter is
not in his possession, he will proceed with his exactions as if it was.
Thus will he inevitably commit himself, at once, to his political
destruction. His downfall, too, will not be more precipitate than
awkward. It is all very well to talk about the facilis descensus Averni;
but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani said of singing, it is far
more easy to get up than to come down. In the present instance I have no
sympathy--at least no pity--for him who descends. He is that monstrum
horrendum, an unprincipled man of genius. I confess, however, that I
should like very well to know the precise character of his thoughts,
when, being defied by her whom the Prefect terms 'a certain personage,'
he is reduced to opening the letter which I left for him in the
card-rack."

"How? did you put any thing particular in it?"

"Why--it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior blank--that
would have been insulting. D----, at Vienna once, did me an evil turn,
which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I should remember. So, as I
knew he would feel some curiosity in regard to the identity of the
person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not to give him a
clew. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just copied into the
middle of the blank sheet the words--

     "'----    ----Un dessein si funeste,
          S'il n'est digne d'Atrŵe, est digne de Thyeste.'

They are to be found in Crŵbillon's 'Atrŵe.'"