the evening of a dark and stormy afternoon in the fall of 18 ... I was in Paris, enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in a small room behind the library, au troisième, No. 33, Rue Dunot, in the Faubourg St. Germain. For an hour at least, had maintained a profound silence, to any casual observer might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied with the wreaths of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of the room. I, however, was mentally discussing certain topics which had formed matter for conversation between us was few hours only, I mean the affair of the Rue Morgue and mystery of the murder of Marie Roget. Somehow the thought of matching, 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 because this man had almost as much fun as negligible, and for several years since we saw him. It was dark when he arrived, and Dupin now arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down again without doing so, because G *** said he had gone to consult us, or rather to ask the opinion of a friend, about a matter officer who had caused a great deal of trouble.
"If it is any point requiring reflection," observed Dupin, refraining from giving fire to the wick, "we will look better in the dark.
"That's another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had a habit of calling "odd" everything that was beyond his comprehension, and lived, therefore, amid an absolute legion of "oddities."
"Very true," said Dupin, his visitor with a pipe, and rolled towards him a comfortable chair.
- And what is the difficulty now? "I asked Hopefully not another murder.
- Oh, no, nothing like that!. The issue is very simple indeed, and I have no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently well ourselves, but then I thought Dupin would like to know the details of it, because it is so excessively odd.
-Simple and unique, "said Dupin.
"Well, yes, and not just one but both things at once. It happens that we have been puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet baffles us altogether.
"Perhaps it is the simplicity that puts you at fault," said my friend.
- What nonsense you! "Replied the Prefect, laughing wholeheartedly.
"Perhaps the mystery is a little too simple," said Dupin.
- Oh, good heavens ...! Who ever heard such an idea?
"A little too obvious.
- Ja, ja, ja! ... Ha, ha, ha! ... Ho, ho, ho! "Roared our visitor, profoundly amused," oh, Dupin, you will make me burst out laughing!.
- And what, finally, the matter at issue? I asked.
"I'll tell you," replied the Prefect, he gave a long, steady and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair "I tell at a glance, but before I begin, let me caution you that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, and probably lose my job if it were known that I confided it to anyone.
-continue-I.
-Or not, "said Dupin.
"Okay, I received a personal report of a high character, that a document of great importance has been purloined from the royal apartments. The individual who purloined it is known, on this point there is the slightest doubt, was seen in the act of taking him away. We also know that it still remains in his possession.
- How do you know this? "Asked Dupin. He
clearly inferred, "replied the Prefect, the nature of the document and the nonappearance of certain results which would at once arise passed into other hands, ie the job because it would, if to use it.
-Be a little more explicit, "I said.
"Well, I can 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 cannot of diplomacy.
"Still not quite understand," said Dupin.
- No? Well, the predestination of the document to a third person, it is impossible to name, will 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 "would depend upon the thief know that person knows. Who dares ...?
"The thief said ***- G *** D is the minister who dares all things, those unbecoming as well as men. The method of theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document in question, a letter, to be frank, had been received by the personage robbed circumstances was only in the royal boudoir. During its perusal she was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of another high character, who especially wanted to hide it. After a hurried and vain endeavor to thrust it in a drawer, she was forced to place, as it was open on a table. The address, however, was visible, and the content, so shed, was that attention was not fixed in the letter. 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 has been addressed, and fathoms her secret. After some business transactions, quickly, as usual, takes a letter somewhat similar to the other, opens it, pretends to read, and then places it in close juxtaposition with which he coveted. He begins to talk again, for a fifteen minutes on public affairs. Finally, rising to leave, take the card table that does not belong. Its rightful owner saw, but as we understand, no one dares to call attention to the act in the presence of the third personage who stood at his side. The minister decamped, leaving his letter, which was not of importance, on the table.
"Here, then," said Dupin, "what you demand to make the ascendancy of the thief was complete, the thief knows that is known the owner of the paper.
"Yes," replied the Prefect, and thus gained power in recent months has been employed for political purposes, to a very dangerous extent. The personage robbed is increasingly convinced of the necessity of reclaiming her letter. But this, of course, can not be done openly. In short, reduced to despair, she has committed the matter.
- Who may want, "said Dupin, throwing a thick puff of smoke, or even imagine, more sagacious than you?
"You flatter me," replied the Prefect, but it is possible that some such opinion may have been entertained me.
"Obviously," I said, as you observe, that the letter is still in possession of the minister, since it is this possession, not use, which gives the letter its power. With the employment the power departs.
"True," said G ***-, and this conviction which I proceeded. My first thought was to make a thorough search of the residence of the minister, and my main obstacle was the necessity of searching without his knowledge. Also, I have been warned of the danger that would result from giving him reason to suspect our design.
"But," I said, you are quite au fait in these investigations. The Parisian police have done this thing often before.
"I think, and for that reason I do not despair. The habits of the minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently absent from home all night. His servants are not numerous. They sleep at a distance from the rooms of his master, and, being chiefly Neapolitans, are readily made drunk. I have keys, as you know, with whom I can open any chamber or cabinet in Paris. For three months, has not spent a night without having been personally engaged in ransacking the D ***. My honor is at stake and, to mention a great secret the payoff is huge. So I did not abandon the search until fully satisfied that the thief is smarter than myself. I suppose that I have investigated every nook and caches all sites where it is possible that the paper can be concealed.
- But it is not possible, "I said, although the letter may be in the possession of the minister as it unquestionably is, he may have hidden somewhere outside your home?
-is unlikely, "said Dupin," The present peculiar condition of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues in which it is known that D *** is involved, would render the instant availability of the document, the possibility of exhibido en un momento dado, un punto de casi tanta importancia como su posesión.
—¿La posibilidad de ser exhibido? —dije.
—Es decir, de ser destruido —dijo Dupin.
—Cierto —observé—; el papel tiene que estar claramente al alcance de la mano. Supongo que podemos descartar la hipótesis de que el ministro la lleva encima.
—Enteramente —dijo el prefecto— Ha sido dos veces asaltado por malhechores, y su persona rigurosamente registrada bajo mí propia inspección.
—Se podía usted haber ahorrado ese trabajo —dijo Dupin— D***, presumo, no está loco del todo; y si no lo está, debe haber anticipated these pitfalls, that's clear.
"It's not crazy at all," said G ***-; but a poet, which I believe is only a step away from madness.
"True," said Dupin, after a long and restful puff of smoke from his pipe, though I have been guilty of certain doggerel.
"Suppose I said, you detail the particulars of your search.
"The fact is, we took our time and look everywhere. I have had long experience in these businesses. Took the entire building, room by room, spending nights a week each. Examined first, the furniture each room. We opened every possible drawer, and I presume you know that for a properly trained police agent, secret drawer is impossible. Anyone in search of this kind allows you to escape a secret drawer, is a fool. The thing is so simple. There is a certain amount of capacity, space, that count in a cabinet. In this case, accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not escape. After the cabinets we took the chairs. The cushions we probed with the fine long needles you have seen me employ. From the tables we removed the tops.
- Why?
"Sometimes a table table, or other similarly arranged piece of furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal an object, then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity, and the top replaced. The ends of the pillars of the beds are used for the same purpose.
- But could not the cavity be detected by sounding? I asked.
"Not if, when the object is placed is placed around enough cotton. Furthermore, in our case, we were obliged to proceed without noise.
"But you could not have removed, can not be taken to pieces all articles of furniture on which it was possible to deposit an object in the manner you mention. A letter can be compressed into a thin spiral roll, not differing much in shape or volume to a knitting needle, and thus can be inserted into the rung of a chair, for example. You did not break all the chairs, is not it?
"Certainly not, but we did better, we examined the rungs of every chair in the house, and indeed, all the binding sites of all kinds of furniture, with the help of a powerful microscope. Had there been any traces of recent disturbance, we would not have failed to detect it instantly. A single grain of sawdust produced by a drill in the wood, have been tan visible como una manzana. Cualquier alteración en las encoladuras, cualquier desusado agujerito en las uniones, habría bastado para un seguro descubrimiento.
—Presumo que observarían ustedes los espejos, entre los bordes y las láminas, y examinarían los lechos, y las ropas de los lechos, así como las cortinas y las alfombras.
—Eso, por sabido; y cuando hubimos registrado absolutamente todas las partículas del mobiliario de esa manera, examinamos la casa misma. Dividimos su entera superficie en compartimentos, que numeramos para que ninguno pudiera escapársenos, después registramos pulgada por pulgada el terreno de la pesquisa, incluso las dos casas adyacentes, con el microscopio, as before.
- The two houses adjoining! I exclaimed, "you must have had a major upheaval.
-the cause, but the reward offered is prodigious.
- You include the grounds about the houses?
"All the grounds are paved with brick, gave us comparatively little work. We examined the moss between the joints of bricks, and we found it undisturbed.
- You looked through the papers of D ***, therefore, among the books in your library?
"Certainly, we opened every package and parcel, and not only opened every book, but we turned all the leaves of 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 each book cover, with the most accurate, and applied to each the most jealous scrutiny of the microscope. If any of the bindings been recently meddled with, it would have been utterly impossible that the fact should have escaped observation. About five or six volumes, just from the binder, carefully examined, plumbing caps.
- You explored the floors beneath the carpets?
"No doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined the edges with microscope.
- And the wallpaper?
"Yes."
- You looked into the cellars? Yes
"Then I said you have done a miscalculation, and the letter is not upon the premises, as you suppose.
"I fear you are right," said the Prefect. And now, Dupin, what would you advise me to do?
-Make a new review of the minister's house.
"That is absolutely unnecessary," said G ***-;'m as sure as I breathe, that the letter is not in the house.
"I have no better advice to give," said Dupin You have, of course, an accurate description of the letter?
- yes!
And here the Prefect, producing a memorandum, we read aloud a minute account of the letter, especially the external appearance of the missing document. Shortly after this description, he took his hat and went, much more discouraged than he had ever seen before.
In about a month afterwards, when we made another visit, and found occupied exactly the same way as last time. He took a pipe and a chair, and began a conversation about ordinary things. Finally, I said
"Well, Mr G ***, what is on the purloined letter? I presume that you will be convinced at last that nothing is more difficult to surprise the minister.
- That Confound him! that's the truth, I did the review, however, as Dupin suggested it, but has been lost, as I supposed.
- How much is the reward offered, did you? "Asked Dupin.
- How? a lot, a very liberal reward, not to say how much exactly, but I will say one thing and would be willing to give my individual check for fifty thousand francs to any one to give me the letter. The case is being made every day more and more important, and the reward has been lately doubled. If it were trebled, could do more than what I've done.
"Well," said Dupin slowly from one to another puff of smoke, I really think, G ***, you have not done everything he could on the subject. Do not think you could do a little more?
- How? How?
- Pst! I, puff, puff, you could, puff, puff, seek advice on this matter; puff, puff, puff. Do you remember what they tell of Abernethy!
- No! Fuck Abernethy!
- Okay! to hell with it and good luck. But here's the fact. Once, a certain rich miser conceived the idea of \u200b\u200bgetting free of this Abernethy for a medical opinion. Getting up that object to be alone with him in ordinary conversation, he insinuated his case as an individual imagination.
"Suppose," said the miser, that his symptoms are such and such, now a doctor, what would you advise?
- What would you advise? Abernethy said, "psh! I see a doctor.
"But," said the Prefect, a little puzzled, I am willing to take advice, and pay. I would really give fifty thousand francs to anyone who would help me in this matter.
"In that case," replied Dupin, opening a drawer and pulling out a checkbook, "you may as well write me a check for the amount mentioned. When you have signed, will deliver the letter.
I was stunned. The prefect seemed as if struck by lightning. For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth and eyes that seemed starting from their sockets, then, apparently recovering himself, he seized a pen, and after several pauses and stares, finally did and signed a check for 50,000 francs, and handed it across the table to Dupin. The latter examined it carefully and put it in your wallet, then opening a escritoire, took thence a letter and handed it to the prefect. This functionary grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with trembling hand, cast a quick glance at its contents, and then, scrambling and out of it, opened the door without ceremony of any kind out of the room and home, without having uttered a syllable since Dupin had requested him to do the check.
When we were alone, my friend entered into some explanations.
"The Parisian police, he said, is extremely good at their specialty. 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 made of searching the premises at the D ***, I had every confidence that had made a satisfactory investigation, as far as his labors.
- How far can you allowed? I asked.
"Yes," said Dupin, "The measures adopted were not only the best of its kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. If the letter had been hidden in the radio of their search, police officers, undoubtedly, have found.
I smiled in reply, but he seemed quite serious in everything he said.
"The measures, then," continued he, "were good in their kind, and well executed, their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the case and the man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources are the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he forcibly adapts his designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too superficial in matters entrusted to it, and many school children are better reasoner than he. I knew one about eight years old, whose success at guessing in the game of 'even and odd' attracted universal admiration worldwide. 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 asked guess, win a, otherwise it loses. 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 calculation of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and raising a fist, and asks, 'are they even or odd? Our schoolboy replies, 'odd' and loses, but the second trial he wins, he then says to himself, 'the simpleton had them even the first time, and his amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd upon the second; therefore guess odd;' odd bet , and wins. Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, would have reasoned thus: 'This fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd, and the second will occur in the first impulse, a simple variation from even to odd, as did the first, but then a second thought will suggest that this is too simple a variation, and finally decide upon putting it even as before. Therefore guess even '; guesses even, and wins. However, this mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed 'lucky, what is in the final analysis?
"It's simply," I said identification of the reasoner's intellect with that of his opponent.
"That," said Dupin, "and after asking the child how he effected the thorough identification in which his success consisted, I received the following reply:" When I want to know how wise or how stupid, or how good or how bad someone is, or what are your thoughts at any given moment, I fashion the expression on my face, as accurately as I can, according to the expression of his face, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind, that match or correspond with the expression on my face. "The response of the schoolboy that even éxpurea depth has been attributed to La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Machiavelli and Campanella.
"And I said identification of the reasoner's intellect with that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you well, how accurately measure the intelligence of the latter.
"For its practical value depends," replied Dupin, "and the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by this identification, and second, poor assessment, or rather not to measure intelligence with which they are measured. They consider only their own ideas of ingenuity, and searching for anything hidden, taking into account only the means by which they would have hidden. They are right in everything that their own ingenuity is a faithful representation of the masses, but when the cunning of the accused is different in character from their own, the felon foils them, of course. That happens whenever it is above that of theirs, and very usually when it is below. They have no variation of principle in their investigations, as they do, when urged by some unusual emergency by some extraordinary reward they extend or exaggerate their old modes of practice, without touching their principles. For example, in this case, D ***, what has been done to modify the principle of action? What is all this drilling, testing, sound and with the microscope, and dividing the surface of the building into square inches? What is all this but an exaggeration of the application of a principle or set of principles of search, which is based on a set of notions regarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine of his duty, been accustomed? Do not you see that G *** assumes that all men to conceal a letter, if not exactly in a gimlet hole in the leg of a chair, they do, at least in some hidden hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of thought which a man's idea of \u200b\u200bhiding in a hole in the leg of a chair? What you also do not see such places for concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions, and are adopted only by ordinary intellects; Because in all cases of concealment can be assumed that in principle has been made in these coordinates, and its discovery depends, not so much insight, but the mere care, patience and determination of the seekers, and when the case is of importance, or what means the same thing in the policial eyes, when the reward is of magnitude, the qualities in question never fails. You will now understand what I meant, suggesting that if the purloined letter been hidden anywhere within the confines of consideration of the prefect, or in other words, if the principle of its concealment been comprehended within the principles of prefect, its discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond question. This official, however, has been completely deceived, and the source of his failure lies in the assumption that the Minister is a fool because he has acquired fame. All fools are poets; this is what creates the prefect, and is merely guilty of a non distributio medii in thence inferring that all poets are mad.
- 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 not a poet.
"You are mistaken, I know him well, is both. As poet and mathematician, he would reason well; as simple mathematical absolutely could not have reasoned, and would have been at the mercy of the Prefect.
"You surprise me," I said to these opinions, which have been contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not mean well digested destroy centuries-old idea. The mathematical reason has long been regarded as the reason par excellence.
-Il as outcasts, "replied Dupin, quoting Chamfort," that toute idée publique, toute convention reçu, est une sottise, car elle a au plus grand convenue name. The mathematicians, I grant, have done their best to promulgate the popular error to which you allude, and that is no less an error for its promulgation as truth. With an art worthy a better cause, for example, have introduced the term 'analysis' into application to algebra. The French are to blame of this particular deception, but if a term is of any importance, if words derive any value from applicability, 'analysis' conveys 'algebra', more or less, as in Latin ambitus implies 'ambition' religio 'religion' , homines honesty, "a set of honorable men."
"I'm afraid you have a quarrel," I said to one of the algebraists of Paris, but continue.
"I dispute the validity, and therefore the value of that reason which is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly logical. Dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathematical study. Mathematics is the science of form and quantity, mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity. The big mistake is to assume 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 was received. Mathematical axioms are not axioms of general validity. What is true of the relationship (of form and quantity) is often grossly false in regard to morality, for example. In this latter science usually is uncertain that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts. In chemistry the axiom fails. In the case of a driver fails also, as two engines of a given value is not necessarily achieved by joining a power equal to the sum of their values \u200b\u200bapart. There are many other mathematical truths which are only truths within the limits of the relationship. But the mathematician argues, from his finite truths, as usual, as if they were of an absolutely general applicability, as if the world indeed imagines that they are. Bryant, in 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. " Between algebraists, however, who are Pagans themselves, the 'Pagan fables' are believed, and the inferences are made, not so much because of the memory, but by an unaccountable mental disturbance. In short, I have never found a simple mathematical who could be trusted, outside of their roots and equations, or do not have per article of faith that x2 + px is absolutely and unconditionally equal to q. Tell me one of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you want, that you believe may occur where x2 + px is not altogether equal to q, and having made him understand what you mean, get to run as soon as possible, because, no doubt, will to pound.
"I mean -" continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at his last remark, that if the Minister had been nothing more than a mathematician, the Prefect would have needed to give me this check. I know him, however, as a mathematician and poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference to the circumstances of which he was surrounded. I knew him as a courtier, as a bold and intriguing. A man, I must know the ordinary methods of police action. There could be no longer provide, and events have proven that you did not, the records he was subjected. He must have foreseen secret investigations of his house. His frequent absences night, which were hailed by the Prefect as certain aids to his success, I regarded only as ruses, to afford the police the opportunity to make a complete record, and send them as soon as possible to the conviction of the G *** finally arrived, that the letter was not at home. I also understood that the entire set of ideas that have some pains in detailing to you now, concerning the invariable principle of policial action in searches for hidden objects would necessarily pass through the mind of the minister. That would lead, in a way inevitable, to despise all regular caches. He could not, I reflected, be so as not to see the most intricate and remote recess of his hotel would be as open as most ordinary corners of the eyes, the tests, the drills and microscopes of the Prefect. I saw, that would be driven, as a matter of logic, simplicity, if not deliberately chosen for his own personal taste. You remember, perhaps, how the governor wins laughed when I suggested at our first meeting it was quite possible that this mystery troubled him so much by its being so very obvious.
"Yes," I said, I remember his merriment well. I thought really convulsions.
"The material world," continued Dupin, "abounds with very strict analogies to the immaterial, and this has given some color of truth to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor or simile, may be used to give more strength to a thought or embellish a description. The principle of vis inertiæ, for example, seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. Is no more true in the first, that a large body is put in motion a little more difficulty, and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with this difficulty, than it is in the second, that intellects of the vaster capacity, while more powerful, 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 early stages of their progress. Another thing: have you ever noticed what are the signs of shops that attract the most attention?
-thought never occurred to me I said.
"There's a guessing game," he replied that is played with a map. One player asks another to find a given word, the name of a city, river, state or empire, a word, in short, upon the motley and perplexed surface of a map. A novice in the game generally seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them names written in smaller letters, but the adept selects such words as stretch, in large characters, from one extreme to another map. These, like the signs and placards in the streets largely lettered, escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious, and here the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral intelligibility, which allows the intellect pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably self. But it seems that this is a point which is somewhat above or beneath the understanding of the Prefect. Never thought likely or possible that the Minister had deposited the letter immediately under the noses of everyone, in order to prevent part of that world from perceiving it.
"But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and discriminating ingenuity of D ***, on the fact that the document should have been at hand when trying to use it to good purpose, and upon the decisive evidence, obtained by Prefect, that it was not hidden within the ordinary limits of its findings, the more convinced 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, put on my green glasses and a beautiful morning, quite by accident, at the minister's house. Found D *** yawn, stretched full length, idle talk, as usual, and pretending to be suffering the most overwhelming ennui. However, it is one of the men who are really active, but only when nobody sees.
"To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and lamented the necessity of having to wear glasses under the cover of which I cautiously and thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment, while seemingly intent only upon the conversation with my host.
"I paid special attention to a large writing-table near which he sat ***, and on which lay confusedly some miscellaneous letters and other papers, one or two musical instruments and some books. It, however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw nothing to excite suspicion.
"Finally, my eyes, the circuit of the room, fell on a miserable filigree card-board, hanging by a dirty blue ribbon, a brass knob, positioned just above the mantelpiece. In this rack, which had three or four compartments, were five or six cards and a solitary letter. This last was much soiled and crumpled. It was torn nearly in two by the middle, as if a first attempt to tear it entirely up as worthless, had been altered and arrested. He had a large black seal, with the D ***, very visible, and on written and directed the minister, himself a diminutive female. It was thrust carelessly, and even seemed, contemptuously, into one of the top divisions of the rack.
"As soon as I found the letter in question, I realized that was what he wanted. Indeed, it was apparently radically different from that which the Prefect had read us so minute a description. Here the seal was large and black, with the D ***, on the other was small and red, with the ducal arms of the family S ***. Here the direction of the Minister, diminutive and feminine, in the superscription of the envelope, addressed to a certain royal personage, was markedly bold and decided, the size alone formed a point of similarity. But the radical nature of these differences, which was excessive, stains, soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with the true methodical habits of D ***, and so suggestive of an idea of \u200b\u200bthe worthlessness of the document to a indiscreet; these things, along with the visible situation in which he was, in view of all visitors, and so coincides with the conclusions I had previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, who came with the intention to suspect.
"It took me my visit as much 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 poured my attention really on the letter. In this examination, I committed to memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack, and finally, made a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I noticed that more chafed than seemed necessary. Had a broken appearance which results when a stiff paper, having been once bent and tight, is refolded in a reversed direction, with the same folds that formed the original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me that the letter had been turned, like a glove, inside out, a new direction and a new label had been added. Say good morning to the minister, and went at once, leaving on the table a gold snuff.
"The next morning I called for the snuff box, eagerly, the conversation resumed the previous day. While thus engaged, a loud bang like a pistol, was heard immediately beneath the windows of the building, and was followed by a series of fearful screams, and cries of a terrified mob. D *** is rushed to a window, opened it and looked out. As I stepped to the card, took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced by a facsimile (so far as external) that had carefully prepared at home, imitating the D ***, very easily, through a seal formed of bread.
"The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the frantic behavior of a man with a gun. He had fired it among a crowd of women and children. It proved, however, that the gun was unloaded, and allowed to go his way, as a lunatic or a drunkard. When he had gone, D *** it from the window, whither I had followed him immediately upon securing the object. Soon afterwards I bade him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man whom I had paid to produce the tumult.
"But what purpose had you," I asked to replace the letter by a facsimile? Would not it have been better, at the first visit, seized it openly, and departed?
-D *** "replied Dupin," is a brave and courageous man. His hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests. Had I made the bold attempt you suggest, would never live out there and the good people of Paris might have heard more than me. You know my political views. But I had an object apart from these considerations. In this matter, I act as a partisan of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the Minister has had in his possession. She is that which is now in his possession: as D *** do not know that the letter is not already available, he will proceed with his exactions as if it was. Thus will he, his political destruction. His downfall, too, will be more precipitate than awkward. It is equally accurate to talk about his case, from facilis descensus Avernis, but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani said of singing, it is much easier to get that down. In this case I have no sympathy, no pity for him who descends. D *** is that monstrum horrendum, unprincipled man of genius. I confess, however, I would like to know the precise character of his thoughts when, being defied by her whom the Prefect terms' a certain person ", being forced to open the letter which I left for him on the rack.
- How? Did you write something special in it?
- clearly. It did not seem quite right to leave it blank, it would have been insulting .. Once, D *** in Vienna, played a trick on me, about which I told him, without losing his good humor, that I should remember. So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity about the identity of the person who had outwitted him, I thought it was a shame not to give him a clue who knew her. Well acquainted with my letter, I just copied into the middle of the page these words:
... A dessein if fatal,
S'il n'est digne d'Atre, est digne of Thyestes,
that can be found in the Atreus of Crebillon.
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