The Slender Poe Anthology (17 page)

This is the last of the three Dupin tales of detection, and the one I prefer the most. First published in
The Gift: A Christmas, New Year, and Birthday Present
in 1844, it features a delightfully comic portrayal of Monsieur G—, the Prefect of the Parisian Police, who informs Dupin, “I have keys, as you know, with which I can open any chamber or cabinet in Paris.” And yet he cannot unlock the mystery of where might be the compromising letter stolen from the “royal boudoir,” even though he knows who the thief is. He is “the Minister D—, who dares all things,” which includes the writing of poetry. The Prefect considers that “all poets are fools,” but it may be the poet in the thief that is baffling him.

Dupin admits, “I have been guilty of certain doggrel myself,” and if the reader suspects that Minster D— is somehow a double of Dupin, rest assured there is plenty of doubling going on everywhere in Poe.

And in the right light, aren't we all doubled by our shadows?

In the end, the story is a provocative investigation of the power that pertains to language, as well as a fitting homage to the secrecy of the obvious.

THE PURLOINED LETTER

“Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio.”
—Seneca

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

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

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

“That is another of your odd notions,” said the Prefect, who had a
fashion of calling every thing “odd” that was beyond his comprehension,
and thus lived amid an absolute legion of “oddities.”

“Very true,” said Dupin, as he supplied his visiter with a pipe, and
rolled towards him a comfortable chair.

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

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

“Simple and odd,” said Dupin.

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

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

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

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

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

“A little
too
self-evident.”

“Ha! ha! ha
—
ha! ha! ha!
—
ho! ho! ho!” roared our visiter, profoundly
amused, “oh, Dupin, you will be the death of me yet!”

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

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

“Proceed,” said I.

“Or not,” said Dupin.

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

“How is this known?” asked Dupin.

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

“Be a little more explicit,” I said.

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

“Still I do not quite understand,” said Dupin.

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

“But this ascendancy,” I interposed, “would depend upon the robber's
knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber. Who would dare
—
”

“The thief,” said G., “is the Minister D
—
, who dares all things, those
unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. The method of the theft was
not less ingenious than bold. The document in question
—
a letter, to
be frank
—
had been received by the personage robbed while alone in the
royal
boudoir
. During its perusal she was suddenly interrupted by the
entrance of the other exalted personage from whom especially it was her
wish to conceal it. After a hurried and vain endeavor to thrust it in
a drawer, she was forced to place it, open as it was, upon a table. The
address, however, was uppermost, and, the contents thus unexposed, the
letter escaped notice. At this juncture enters the Minister D
—
. His
lynx eye immediately perceives the paper, recognises 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 had no claim. Its rightful
owner saw, but, of course, dared not call attention to the act, in the
presence of the third personage who stood at her elbow. The minister
decamped; leaving his own letter
—
one of no importance
—
upon the table.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Its susceptibility of being produced?” said I.

“That is to say, of being
destroyed
,” said Dupin.

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

“Entirely,” said the Prefect. “He has been twice waylaid, as if by
footpads, and his person rigorously searched under my own inspection.”

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

“Not
altogether
a fool,” said G., “but then he's a poet, which I take to
be only one remove from a fool.”

“True,” said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from
his meerschaum, “although I have been guilty of certain doggrel 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 long needles you have seen me employ.
From the tables we removed the tops.”

“Why so?”

“Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged piece of
furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal an article; then
the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity, and the
top replaced. The bottoms and tops of 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 glueing
—
any unusual gaping
in the joints
—
would have sufficed to insure detection.”

“I presume you looked to the mirrors, between the boards and the plates,
and you probed the beds and the bed-clothes, as well as the curtains and
carpets.”

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