Selected Tales (Oxford World's Classics) (48 page)

‘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 desposited, 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.’

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

‘We had; but the reward offered is prodigious.’

‘You include the
grounds
about the houses?’

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

‘You looked among D—’s papers, of course, and into the books of the library?’

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

‘You explored the floors beneath the carpets?’

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

‘And the paper on the walls?’

‘Yes.’

‘You looked into the cellars?’

‘We did.’

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

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

‘To make a thorough re-search of the premises.’

‘That is absolutely needless,’ replied G—. ‘I am not more sure that I breathe than I am that the letter is not at the Hotel.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘How?—in what way?’

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

‘No; hang Abernethy!’

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

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

‘“Take!” said Abernethy, “why, take
advice
, to be sure.”’

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

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

I was astounded. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunder-stricken. For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed starting from their sockets; then, apparently recovering himself in some measure, he seized a pen. and after several pauses and vacant stares, finally filled up and signed a check for fifty thousand francs, and handed it across the table to Dupin. The latter examined it carefully and deposited it in his pocket-book; then, unlocking an
escritoire
, took thence a letter and gave it to the Prefect. This functionary grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with a trembling hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and then, scrambling and struggling to the door, rushed at length unceremoniously from the room and 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 schoolboy is a better reasoner than he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the game of “even and odd” attracted universal admiration. This game is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is even or odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one: if wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand, asks, “are they even or odd?” Our schoolboy replies, “odd,” and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to himself, “the simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd 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 schoolboy, whom his fellows termed “lucky,”—what, in its last analysis, is it?’

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

‘It is,’ said Dupin; ‘and, upon inquiring of the boy by what means he effected the
thorough
identification in which his success consisted, I received answer as follows: “When I wish to find out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked is any one, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.” This response of the schoolboy lies at the bottom of all the spurious profundity which has been attributed to Rochefoucault, to La Bruyère, to Machiavelli, and to Campanella.
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‘And the identification,’ I said, ‘of the reasoner’s intellect with that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright, upon the accuracy with which the opponent’s intellect is admeasured.’

‘For its practical value it depends upon this,’ replied Dupin; ‘and the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by default of this identification, and, secondly, by ill-admeasurement, or rather through non-admeasurement, of the intellect with which they are engaged. They consider only their
own
ideas of ingenuity; and, in searching for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which
they
would have hidden it. They are right in this much—that their own ingenuity is a faithful representative of that of
the mass;
but when the cunning of the individual felon 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
recherchés
nooks for concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions, and would be adopted only by ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of concealment, a disposal of the article concealed—a disposal of it in this
recherché
manner,—is, in the very first instance, presumable and presumed; and thus its discovery depends, not at all upon the acumen, but altogether upon the mere care, patience, and determination of the seekers; and where the case is of importance—or, what amounts to the same thing in the policial eyes, when the reward is of magnitude,—the qualities in question have
never
been known to fail. You will now understand what I meant in suggesting that, had the purloined letter been hidden any where within the limits of the Prefect’s examination—in other words, had the principle of its concealment been comprehended within the principles of the Prefect—its discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond question. This functionary, however, has been thoroughly mystified; and the remote source of his defeat lies in the supposition that the Minister is a fool, because he has acquired renown as a poet. All 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.’
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