 |
The
Purloined Letter
Story
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"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
Gxx detailed to us his made of searching the premises at the
Hotel
Dxx, I felt entire confidence in his having made a
satisfactory
investigation - so far as his labours extended."
"So far as his labours 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
measurement 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
Bougive,
to Machiavelli, and to Campanella."
"And the identification," I said, "of the reasoner's
intellect with
that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright,
upon the
accuracy with which the opponent's intellect is admeasured."
"For its practical value it depends upon this," replied
Dupin; "and
the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by
default of
this identification, and, secondly, by ill-measurement, or
rather
through non-measurement, 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 Dxx,
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 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 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."
"But is this really the poet?" I asked. "There are two
brothers, I
know; and both have attained reputation in letters. The
Minister I
believe has written learnedly on the Differential Calculus.
He is a
mathematician, and no poet."
"You are mistaken; I know him well; he is both. As 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 at
naught the well-digested idea of centuries. The mathematical
reason
has long been regarded as the reason par excellence."
" 'Il y a à parièr,' " replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort,
" 'que
toute idée publique, toute convention reçue est une sottise,
car elle
a convenue au plus grand nombre.' The mathematicians, I
grant you,
have done their best to promulgate the popular error to
which you
allude, and which is none the less an error for its
promulgation as
truth. With an art worthy a better cause, for example, they
have
insinuated the term 'analysis' into application to algebra.
The
French are the originators of this particular deception; but
if a
term is of any importance - if words derive any value from
applicability - then 'analysis' conveys 'algebra' about as
much as,
in Latin, 'ambitus' implies 'ambition,' 'religio'
'religion,' or
'homines honesti,' a set of honorablemen."
"You have a quarrel on hand, I see," said I, "with some of
the
algebraists of Paris; but proceed."
"I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that
reason which
is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly
logical.
I dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathematical
study.
The mathematics are the science of form and quantity;
mathematical
reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form
and
quantity. The great error lies in supposing that even the
truths of
what is called pure algebra, are abstract or general truths.
And this
error is so egregious that I am confounded at the
universality with
which it has been received. Mathematical axioms are
notaxioms of
general truth. What is true of relation - of form and
quantity - is
often grossly false in regard to morals, for example. In
this latter
science it is very usually untrue that the aggregated parts
are equal
to the whole. In chemistry also the axiom fails. In the
consideration
of motive it fails; for two motives, each of a given value,
have not,
necessarily, a value when united, equal to the sum of their
values
apart. There are numerous other mathematical truths which
are only
truths within the limits of relation. But the mathematician
argues,
from his finite truths, through habit, as if they were of an
absolutely general applicability - as the world indeed
imagines them
to be. Bryant, in his very learned 'Mythology,' mentions an
analogous
source of error, when he says that 'although the Pagan
fables are not
believed, yet we forget ourselves continually, and make
inferences
from them as existing realities.' With the algebraists,
however, who
are Pagans themselves, the 'Pagan fables' are believed, and
the
inferences are made, not so much through lapse of memory, as
through
an unaccountable addling of the brains. In short, I never
yet
encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out
of equal
roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point
of his
faith that x2+px was absolutely and unconditionally equal to
q. Say
to one of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you
please, that
you believe occasions may occur where x2+px is not
altogether equal
to q, and, having made him understand what you mean, get out
of his
reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond doubt, he will
endeavour
to knock you down.
"I mean to say," continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at
his last
observations, "that if the Minister had been no more than a
mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no
necessity of
giving me this check. I 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 intriguant. Such a man, I
considered,
could 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 waylayings to which he
was
subjected. He must have foreseen, I reflected, the secret
investigations of his premises. His frequent absences from
home at
night, which were hailed by the Prefect as certain aids to
his
success, I regarded only as ruses, to afford opportunity for
thorough
search to the police, and thus the sooner to impress them
with the
conviction to which G--, in fact, did finally arrive - the
conviction
that the letter was not upon the premises. I felt, also,
that the
whole train of thought, which I was at some pains in
detailing to you
just now, concerning the invariable principle of political
action in
searches for articles concealed - I felt that this whole
train of
thought would necessarily pass through the mind of the
Minister. It
would imperatively lead him to despise all the ordinary
nooks of
concealment. He could not, I reflected, be so weak as not to
see that
the most intricate and remote recess of his hotel would be
as open as
his commonest closets to the eyes, to the probes, to the
gimlets, and
to the microscopes of the Prefect. I saw, in fine, that he
would be
driven, as a matter of course, to simplicity, if not
deliberately
induced to it as a matter of choice. You will remember,
perhaps, how
desperately the Prefect laughed when I suggested, upon our
first
interview, that it was just possible this mystery troubled
him so
much on account of its being so very self-evident."
"Yes," said I, "I remember his merriment well. I really
thought he
would have fallen into convulsions."
"The material world," continued Dupin, "abounds with very
strict
analogies to the immaterial; and thus some colour of truth
has been
given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may
be made
to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a
description. The
principle of the vis inertiae, for example, seems to be
identical in
physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former,
that a
large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a
smaller one,
and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with this
difficulty, than it is, in the latter, that intellects of
the vaster
capacity, while more forcible, more constant, and more
eventful in
their movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the
less
readily moved, and more embarrassed and full of hesitation
in the
first few steps of their progress. Again: have you ever
noticed which
of the street signs, over the shop- doors, are the most
attractive of
attention?"
"I have never given the matter a thought," I said.
"There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, "which is played
upon a
map. One party playing requires another to find a given word
- the
name of town, river, state or empire - any word, in short,
upon the
motley and perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the
game
generally seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them
the most
minutely lettered names; but the adept selects such words as
stretch,
in large characters, from one end of the chart to the other.
These,
like the over-largely lettered signs and placards of the
street,
escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and
here the
physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral
inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass
unnoticed those
considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably
self-evident. But this is a point, it appears, somewhat
above or
beneath the understanding of the Prefect. He never once
thought it
probable, or possible, that the Minister had deposited the
letter
immediately beneath the nose of the whole world, by way of
best
preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it.
"But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and
discriminating ingenuity of D--; upon the fact that the
document must
always have been at hand, if he intended to use it to good
purpose;
and upon the decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect,
that it was
not hidden within the limits of that dignitary's ordinary
search -
the more satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter,
the
Minister had resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious
expedient of
not attempting to conceal it at all.
"Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of green
spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by accident,
at the
Ministerial hotel. I found Dxx- at home, yawning, lounging,
and
dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in the last
extremity of
ennui. He is, perhaps, the most really energetic human being
now
alive - but that is only when nobody sees him.
"To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and
lamented the
necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which I
cautiously and
thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment, while seemingly
intent only
upon the conversation of my host.
"I paid especial attention to a large writing-table near
which he
sat, and upon which lay confusedly, some miscellaneous
letters and
other papers, with one or two musical instruments and a few
books.
Here, however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, I
saw
nothing to excite particular suspicion.
"At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell
upon a
trumpery filigree card-rack of pasteboard, that hung
dangling by a
dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just beneath the
middle
of the mantel-piece. 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 Dxx cipher very
conspicuously,
and was addressed, in a diminutive female hand, to Dxx, the
minister,
himself. It was thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed,
contemptuously, into one of the uppermost divisions of the
rack.
"No sooner had I glanced at this letter, than I concluded it
to be
that of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all
appearance,
radically different from the one of which the Prefect had
read us so
minute a description. Here the seal was large and black,
with the
Dxx
cipher; there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of
the Sxx
family. Here, the address, to the Minister, diminutive and
feminine;
there the superscription, to a certain royal personage, was
markedly
bold and decided; the size alone formed a point of
correspondence.
But, then, the radical-ness of these differences, which was
excessive;
the dirt; the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so
inconsistent
with the true methodical habits of Dxx, 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-obtrusive
situation
of this document, full in the view of every visitor, and
thus exactly
in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously
arrived;
these things, I say, were strongly corroborative of
suspicion, in one
who came with the intention to suspect.
"I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I
maintained a
most animated discussion with the Minister upon a topic
which I knew
well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my
attention
really riveted upon the letter. In this examination, I
committed to
memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack;
and also
fell, at length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever
trivial
doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of
the
paper, I observed them to be more chafed than seemed
necessary. They
presented the broken appearance which is manifested when a
stiff
paper, having been once folded and pressed with a folder, is
refolded
in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which
had
formed the original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It
was clear
to me that the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside
out,
re-directed, and re-sealed. I bade the Minister good
morning, and
took my departure at once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the
table.
"The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we
resumed, quite
eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus
engaged,
however, a loud 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
a casement, threw it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I
stepped
to the card-rack took the letter, put it in my pocket, and
replaced
it by a facsimile, (so far as regards externals,) which I
had
carefully prepared at my lodgings - imitating the Dxx
cipher, very
readily, by means of a seal formed of bread.
"The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the
frantic
behaviour 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, Dxx came from the window, whither 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 not have been better, at the first
visit, to
have seized it openly, and departed?"
"Dxx," replied Dupin, "is a desperate man, and a man of
nerve. His
hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his
interests. Had I
made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never have left
the
Ministerial presence alive. The good people of Paris might
have heard
of me no more. But I had an object apart from these
considerations.
You know my political prepossessions. In this matter, I act
as a
partisan of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the
Minister has
had her in his power. She has now him in hers - since, being
unaware
that the letter is not in his possession, he will proceed
with his
exactions as if it was. Thus will he inevitably commit
himself, at
once, to his political destruction. His downfall, too, will
not be
more precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to talk
about the
facilis descensus Averni; but in all kinds of climbing, as
Catalani
said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to come
down. In
the present instance I have no sympathy - at least no pity -
for him
who descends. He is that monstrum horrendum, an unprincipled
man of
genius. I confess, however, that I should like very well to
know the
precise character of his thoughts, when, being defied by her
whom the
Prefect terms 'a certain personage' he is reduced to opening
the
letter which I left for him in the card-rack."
"How? did you put any thing particular in it?"
"Why - it did not seem altogether right to leave the
interior blank -
that would have been insulting. Dxx, at Vienna once, did me
an evil
turn, which I told him, quite good-humouredly, that I should
remember.
So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity in regard to the
identity
of the person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not
to give
him a clue. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just
copied into
the middle of the blank sheet the words -
" 'Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, est
digne
de Thyeste.
They are to be found in Crebillon's 'Atrée.' "
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