Mystery & Suspense - Daily Short Stories

The Purloined Letter

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Duration:: 38m
Broadcast on:: 02 Jul 2024
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Sponsored by Chumbakocino, no purchase necessary, VGW Group, void where prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and conditions apply. The Proloined Letter by Edgar Allen Poe At Paris, just after dark, when gusty evening in the autumn of 18, I was enjoying the two-fold luxury of meditation and a mirishum. In company with my friend, C. Augustine Dupin, in his little back library or book closet, I'll trust in May, number 33, Rue Denau, Farberg, Saint Germain. For one hour at least, we had maintained a profound silence, while each to any casual observer might have seen an intently exclusively occupied with the curling eddies of smoke that oppress 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 Roget. I looked upon it, therefore, as something of a coincidence when the door of our apartment was thrown open and emitted our old acquaintance, Mansur 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 rose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down again without doing so, upon G saying that he had called to consult us, or rather to ask the opinion of my friend, about some official business which in occasion a great deal of trouble. If it is of any point requiring reflection observed Dupin as he forebored to unkindle 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 everything odd that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived the men in absolute legion of oddities." "Very true," said Dupin, as he supplied his visitor 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 a very simplicity of the thing which put 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 have ever heard of such an idea?" "A little too self-evident." "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, oh," roared our visitor, profoundly amused, "Oh, Dupin, you will be the death of me yet." "And what, after all, is the matter at hand?" I asked. "Well, I will tell you," replied the prefect, as he gave a long, steady, and contemplative puff, and settled himself into the chair. "I will tell you in a few words, but before I begin, let me caution you that this is an affair to manning the greatest secrecy, and that I should most probably lose the position that I now hold were it known that I confided it to anyone." "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 is 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 it 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 can't of diplomacy. Still, I do not quite understand," said Dupin. "No? Well, the disclosure of a 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 a 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 rob 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 into 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 links I immediately perceive the paper, recognizes a handwriting of the address, observes the confusion of the person it addressed, and fathoms her secret. After some business transaction, 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 a 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 owners 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 decant, leaving his own letter, one of no importance, upon the table. Here then, said Dpindamy, "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, been wielded, for political purposes to a very dangerous extent. The person is robbed as 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." Then whom, said Dpind, "a met a perfect whirlwind of smoke, no more sagacious agent could, should 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 proceed, 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 off-fed 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 by no means numerous. They sleep at a distance from their master's apartment, and being chief of the 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 is 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 am investigated every nook and corner of the premises in which it is possible that a paper can be concealed. But is it not possible, I suggested, that although the letter may be in possession of the minister, as it unquestioningly is, he may have concealed it elsewhere than upon his own premises?" "This is barely possible," said Deppen. The present peculiar condition of affairs at court, and especially those entrees 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. "It's susceptibility of being produced," said I. "That is to say, of being destroyed," said Deppen. "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 search under my own inspection. You might have spared yourself this treble," said Deppen. "D," I presume, "is not altogether a fool, and, if not, must have anticipated these wailangs as a matter of course." "Not altogether a fool," said G., "but then he's a poet, which I take to be only one removed from a fool." "True," said Deppen, after a long and thoughtful whiff from his Mirsham, "although I have been guilty of a certain dogroll myself." "Suppose you details," 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. Many men as adults who permit a secret drawer to escape them 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 chairs. The cushions we probe with fine long needles you have seen me employ. From the tables we remove 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 bed-post 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, the 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 impossible to make a deposit in the manner you mentioned. 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 disordered to the gluing, any unusual gapping in the joints, would have sufficed to ensure detection. I presume you looked to the mirrors, between the boards and the plates, seeing you probe 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 include the grounds about the houses. All the grounds are paged with brick. They gave us comparatively little trouble. We examined the moss between the bricks and found it undisturbed. You looked among these papers, of course, sent into the books of the library. Certainly, we opened every package in parcel. We not only opened every book, but we turned over every leaf in each volume, not contending 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 end measurement, 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 faction of escaped observation. From 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, Du Pen, 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 than I breathe than I am that letter is not at the hotel." "I have no better advice to give you," said Du Pen. "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 afterwards he paid us another visit, and found us occupied very nearly as before. He took a pipe in a chair, and entered into some ordinary conversation. At length, I said, "Well, but, Gee, what of the purloin letter? I presume you have it last made up your mind that there is no such thing as overreaching the minister." "Confound him, say I. Yes. I made the reexamination, however, as Du Pen suggested, but it was all labor-lost, as I knew it would be." "How much was the reward offered, did you say?" asked Du Pen. "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 anyone 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 troubled, however, I could do no more than I have done." "Why, yes," said Du Pen, drawingly between the wis of Asmarshum, "I really think, Gee, you have not exerted yourself to the utmost in this manner. You might do a little more, I think, eh?" "How? In what way?" "Why, you might employ counsel in the matter, eh? Do you remember the story they tell of Abernathy?" "No, hang Abernathy. To be sure, hang him and welcome. But once upon a time a certain rich miser conceived the design of sponging upon this Abernathy for a medical opinion. Getting up for this purpose, an ordinary conversation in a private company, he insinuated his case to the position, as that of an ordinary individual. "We all suppose," said the miser, "that his symptoms are such and such. Now, doctor, what would you have directed him to take? Take," said Abernathy, "why, take advice, to be sure. What?" said the Prefect a little discomposed, "I am perfectly willing to take advice and pay for it. I would really give fifty thousand francs to anyone who would aid me in the matter." "In that case," replied to Penn, opening a drawer and producing a checkbook, "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 at steam staring from their sockets. Then apparently recovering himself in some measure, he seized a pin, 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 dew pin. The letter examined it carefully and deposited in his pocketbook. Then unlocking an escritois, took then a letter and gave it to the Prefect. This functioner 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 DuPonty 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 labour is extended. So far as his labour is extended, said I? "Yes," said DePenn. 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 procrastion bed, to which he forcibly adopts 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 of about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the game of even an odd, attracted universal admiration. This game is simple and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hands 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 elude won all the marbles of the school. Of course he has some principle of guessing, and this lay in mere observation and had measurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an errant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand to ask, are they even or odd? Our schoolboy replies odd, and loses. But upon the second trial he wins, for then he 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 fellow is termed lucky, what, in its last analysis, is it? It is merely I said, an identification of the reasoner's intellect without of his opponent. It is said to pen, and upon inquiring, of the boy by what means he affected the thorough identification in which his success consisted, I received an answer as follows. When I wish to find out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked is anyone, 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 Rushvaco, to Labugiv, to Machiavelli, and to Compagnela. And the identification, I said, of the reasoner's intellect without of his opponent depends if I understand your right, upon the accuracy from which the opponent's intellect is at measure. For its practical value it depends upon this, replied to pen, and the prefect in his cohorts fail so frequently first by default of this identification, and secondly, by illed measurement are rather through knotted measurement of the intellect with which they are engaged. They consider only their own ideas of ingenuity, and in searching for anything hidden, avert 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 but an exaggeration of the application of one principle, or a 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 day 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 board than 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 secret a letter in a gimlet hole board than a chair leg? And do you not see also that such research 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 research 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 cases of importance are 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 meant in suggesting that, had the purlowing 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 functionery, 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-distributiomedii, and then is 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 differential calculus. He is a mathematician, and no poet. You were mistaken; I know him well; he is both. As poet and mathematician he would reason well, as 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 it not the well-digested idea of centuries; the mathematical reason has long been regarded as the reason par excellence. El Aya Parrier, replied to Penn, quoting from Chan 4, "Katut id public, tu converzion recutest un sotis car el a convanu a pragon nombre. The mathematicians I grant you have done their best to promulgate the popular error to which you elude, and which is nonetheless an error for its promulgation as truth." With an art worthy of 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, ambitis implies ambition, religio, religion, or hominase anestai, a set of honorable men. "You have a quarrel in hand, I see," said I, "with some of the algebraist of Paris, but proceed. I dispute the availability, and thus the value of that reason which is cultivating in any especial form other than abstractly logical. I dispute, in particular, the reason adduced 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. In this era 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 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 united equal to the sum of their values apart. There are numerous other mathematical truths which are only truths within the limits of relation. The mathematician argues from his finite truths through habit as if they were of 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 algebraist however, who are pagans themselves, the pagan fables are believed, and inferences are made, not so much through lapse of memory, as through an unaccountable addling of the brains. In short, I never yet encountered a mere mathematician who could be trusted out of equal roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of faith that x2 plus 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 where x2 plus 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 to pen, 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 known necessity of giving me this check. I know 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 and trigant; such a man, I considered, would not fail to be aware of the ordinary political modes of action. He could not have failed to anticipate, and events have proved that he did not fail to anticipate, the way laying 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 regard only as ruses, to afford opportunity for thorough search to the police, and thus the sooner to impress them with a conviction to which 'G' in fact didn't 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 and 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 dispense with all the ordinary nooks of concealment. He could not, I reflected, be so weak as to not 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 and find 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 to 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 to pen, abounds with very strict analogies to the material, and thus some color of truth has been given to the rhetorical dogma that metaphor, similarly, may be made to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a description. The principle of the viz' inertia, for example, seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one, and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with its 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 of 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 in the placards of the street, escape observation by dent to 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 obtrusive and too pappably 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 us 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 have always been at hand, if he intended to use it for 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 doggling as usual, and pretending to be in the last extremity of on we. 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 a special attention to a large writing-table near which he sat, and upon which lay, confusingly, 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 and going the circuit of the room, fell upon a trumpery filigree card rack of pace-board 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. This 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-cypher 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 searched. To be sure it was, to all appearance, radically different from the one of which the prefected retisome I knew to description. Here the seal was large and black, with the D-cypher. There it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the S-family. Here the address to the minister, diminutive and feminine. There the superscription to a certain royal personage was markedly bold and decided. The sighs 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 hyper-of-trusive situation of this document, fall 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 sternly corroborative of suspicion, and 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 to have never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention really riveted upon the letter. In this examination I committed the memory, its external appearance, and arrangement in the rack. And also fell at length upon a discovery which said at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I observed them to be more chaff than seemed necessary. They presented the broken appearance which is manifested when a stiff paper, having been folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded in a reverse 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, redirected and resealed. 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 mocks, when we resumed quite eagerly the conversation of the preceding day. While this engaged, however, allowed 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 mob. D rushed to the 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 facsimile, so far as regards externals, which I 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, whether I had followed him immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon afterwards 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 facsimile? Would it have not 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 attendance devoted to his interest. 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 pre-possessions. In this matter I act as a partisan of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the minister has had her and his power. He now has 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 facilistic hints of Verney. But in all kinds of climbing, as Catalini said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to come down. In the present instance I had no sympathy, at least no pity, for him who descends. He is at Monstrum Horindom, and a principal man of genius. I confess, however, that I should like very well to know the precise nature 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 anything 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 humourly, 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 at a pity not to give him a clue. He is well acquainted with my manuscript, and I just copied into the middle of the blank sheet the words, on the San Sifunest, Sindanine Dattri, Adine Dithiest. 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