Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  well as all the ribs of the left side. Whole body dreadfully bruised

  and discolored. It was not possible to say how the injuries had been

  inflicted. A heavy club of wood, or a broad bar of iron - a chair -

  any large, heavy, and obtuse weapon would have produced such results,

  if wielded by the hands of a very powerful man. No woman could have

  inflicted the blows with any weapon. The head of the deceased, when

  seen by witness, was entirely separated from the body, and was also

  greatly shattered. The throat had evidently been cut with some very

  sharp instrument - probably with a razor.

  "_Alexandre Etienne_, surgeon, was called with M. Dumas to view the

  bodies. Corroborated the testimony, and the opinions of M. Dumas.

  "Nothing farther of importance was elicited, although several other

  persons were examined. A murder so mysterious, and so perplexing in

  all its particulars, was never before committed in Paris - if indeed

  a murder has been committed at all. The police are entirely at fault

  - an unusual occurrence in affairs of this nature. There is not,

  however, the shadow of a clew apparent."

  The evening edition of the paper stated that the greatest excitement

  still continued in the Quartier St. Roch - that the premises in

  question had been carefully re-searched, and fresh examinations of

  witnesses instituted, but all to no purpose. A postscript, however,

  mentioned that Adolphe Le Bon had been arrested and imprisoned -

  although nothing appeared to criminate him, beyond the facts already

  detailed.

  Dupin seemed singularly interested in the progress of this affair --

  at least so I judged from his manner, for he made no comments. It was

  only after the announcement that Le Bon had been imprisoned, that he

  asked me my opinion respecting the murders.

  I could merely agree with all Paris in considering them an insoluble

  mystery. I saw no means by which it would be possible to trace the

  murderer.

  "We must not judge of the means," said Dupin, "by this shell of an

  examination. The Parisian police, so much extolled for _acumen_, are

  cunning, but no more. There is no method in their proceedings, beyond

  the method of the moment. They make a vast parade of measures; but,

  not unfrequently, these are so ill adapted to the objects proposed,

  as to put us in mind of Monsieur Jourdain's calling for his

  _robe-de-chambre - pour mieux entendre la musique._ The results

  attained by them are not unfrequently surprising, but, for the most

  part, are brought about by simple diligence and activity. When these

  qualities are unavailing, their schemes fail. Vidocq, for example,

  was a good guesser and a persevering man. But, without educated

  thought, he erred continually by the very intensity of his

  investigations. He impaired his vision by holding the object too

  close. He might see, perhaps, one or two points with unusual

  clearness, but in so doing he, necessarily, lost sight of the matter

  as a whole. Thus there is such a thing as being too profound. Truth

  is not always in a well. In fact, as regards the more important

  knowledge, I do believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth

  lies in the valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops

  where she is found. The modes and sources of this kind of error are

  well typified in the contemplation of the heavenly bodies. To look at

  a star by glances - to view it in a side-long way, by turning toward

  it the exterior portions of the _retina_ (more susceptible of feeble

  impressions of light than the interior), is to behold the star

  distinctly - is to have the best appreciation of its lustre - a

  lustre which grows dim just in proportion as we turn our vision

  _fully_ upon it. A greater number of rays actually fall upon the eye

  in the latter case, but, in the former, there is the more refined

  capacity for comprehension. By undue profundity we perplex and

  enfeeble thought; and it is possible to make even Venus herself

  vanish from the firmanent by a scrutiny too sustained, too

  concentrated, or too direct.

  "As for these murders, let us enter into some examinations for

  ourselves, before we make up an opinion respecting them. An inquiry

  will afford us amusement," [I thought this an odd term, so applied,

  but said nothing] "and, besides, Le Bon once rendered me a service

  for which I am not ungrateful. We will go and see the premises with

  our own eyes. I know G----, the Prefect of Police, and shall have no

  difficulty in obtaining the necessary permission."

  The permission was obtained, and we proceeded at once to the Rue

  Morgue. This is one of those miserable thoroughfares which intervene

  between the Rue Richelieu and the Rue St. Roch. It was late in the

  afternoon when we reached it; as this quarter is at a great distance

  from that in which we resided. The house was readily found; for there

  were still many persons gazing up at the closed shutters, with an

  objectless curiosity, from the opposite side of the way. It was an

  ordinary Parisian house, with a gateway, on one side of which was a

  glazed watch-box, with a sliding panel in the window, indicating a

  _loge de concierge._ Before going in we walked up the street, turned

  down an alley, and then, again turning, passed in the rear of the

  building - Dupin, meanwhile examining the whole neighborhood, as well

  as the house, with a minuteness of attention for which I could see no

  possible object.

  Retracing our steps, we came again to the front of the dwelling,

  rang, and, having shown our credentials, were admitted by the agents

  in charge. We went up stairs - into the chamber where the body of

  Mademoiselle L'Espanaye had been found, and where both the deceased

  still lay. The disorders of the room had, as usual, been suffered to

  exist. I saw nothing beyond what had been stated in the "Gazette des

  Tribunaux." Dupin scrutinized every thing - not excepting the bodies

  of the victims. We then went into the other rooms, and into the yard;

  a _gendarme_ accompanying us throughout. The examination occupied us

  until dark, when we took our departure. On our way home my companion

  stepped in for a moment at the office of one of the daily papers.

  I have said that the whims of my friend were manifold, and that _Je

  les mΘnagais_: - for this phrase there is no English equivalent. It

  was his humor, now, to decline all conversation on the subject of the

  murder, until about noon the next day. He then asked me, suddenly, if

  I had observed any thing _peculiar_ at the scene of the atrocity.

  There was something in his manner of emphasizing the word "peculiar,"

  which caused me to shudder, without knowing why.

  "No, nothing _peculiar_," I said; "nothing more, at least, than we

  both saw stated in the paper."

  "The 'Gazette,' " he replied, "has not entered, I fear, into the

  unusual horror of the thing. But dismiss the idle opinions of this

  print. It appears to me that this mystery is considered insoluble,

  for the very reason which should cause it to be regarded as easy of

  solutio
n - I mean for the _outrΘ_ character of its features. The

  police are confounded by the seeming absence of motive - not for the

  murder itself - but for the atrocity of the murder. They are puzzled,

  too, by the seeming impossibility of reconciling the voices heard in

  contention, with the facts that no one was discovered up stairs but

  the assassinated Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, and that there were no

  means of egress without the notice of the party ascending. The wild

  disorder of the room; the corpse thrust, with the head downward, up

  the chimney; the frightful mutilation of the body of the old lady;

  these considerations, with those just mentioned, and others which I

  need not mention, have sufficed to paralyze the powers, by putting

  completely at fault the boasted _acumen_, of the government agents.

  They have fallen into the gross but common error of confounding the

  unusual with the abstruse. But it is by these deviations from the

  plane of the ordinary, that reason feels its way, if at all, in its

  search for the true. In investigations such as we are now pursuing,

  it should not be so much asked 'what has occurred,' as 'what has

  occurred that has never occurred before.' In fact, the facility with

  which I shall arrive, or have arrived, at the solution of this

  mystery, is in the direct ratio of its apparent insolubility in the

  eyes of the police."

  I stared at the speaker in mute astonishment.

  "I am now awaiting," continued he, looking toward the door of our

  apartment - "I am now awaiting a person who, although perhaps not the

  perpetrator of these butcheries, must have been in some measure

  implicated in their perpetration. Of the worst portion of the crimes

  committed, it is probable that he is innocent. I hope that I am right

  in this supposition; for upon it I build my expectation of reading

  the entire riddle. I look for the man here - in this room - every

  moment. It is true that he may not arrive; but the probability is

  that he will. Should he come, it will be necessary to detain him.

  Here are pistols; and we both know how to use them when occasion

  demands their use."

  I took the pistols, scarcely knowing what I did, or believing what I

  heard, while Dupin went on, very much as if in a soliloquy. I have

  already spoken of his abstract manner at such times. His discourse

  was addressed to myself; but his voice, although by no means loud,

  had that intonation which is commonly employed in speaking to some

  one at a great distance. His eyes, vacant in expression, regarded

  only the wall.

  "That the voices heard in contention," he said, "by the party upon

  the stairs, were not the voices of the women themselves, was fully

  proved by the evidence. This relieves us of all doubt upon the

  question whether the old lady could have first destroyed the daughter

  and afterward have committed suicide. I speak of this point chiefly

  for the sake of method; for the strength of Madame L'Espanaye would

  have been utterly unequal to the task of thrusting her daughter's

  corpse up the chimney as it was found; and the nature of the wounds

  upon her own person entirely preclude the idea of self-destruction.

  Murder, then, has been committed by some third party; and the voices

  of this third party were those heard in contention. Let me now advert

  - not to the whole testimony respecting these voices - but to what

  was _peculiar_ in that testimony. Did you observe any thing peculiar

  about it?"

  I remarked that, while all the witnesses agreed in supposing the

  gruff voice to be that of a Frenchman, there was much disagreement in

  regard to the shrill, or, as one individual termed it, the harsh

  voice.

  "That was the evidence itself," said Dupin, "but it was not the

  peculiarity of the evidence. You have observed nothing distinctive.

  Yet there _was_ something to be observed. The witnesses, as you

  remark, agreed about the gruff voice; they were here unanimous. But

  in regard to the shrill voice, the peculiarity is - not that they

  disagreed - but that, while an Italian, an Englishman, a Spaniard, a

  Hollander, and a Frenchman attempted to describe it, each one spoke

  of it as that _of a foreigner_. Each is sure that it was not the

  voice of one of his own countrymen. Each likens it - not to the voice

  of an individual of any nation with whose language he is conversant -

  but the converse. The Frenchman supposes it the voice of a Spaniard,

  and 'might have distinguished some words _had he been acquainted with

  the Spanish._' The Dutchman maintains it to have been that of a

  Frenchman; but we find it stated that '_not understanding French this

  witness was examined through an interpreter._' The Englishman thinks

  it the voice of a German, and '_does not understand German._' The

  Spaniard 'is sure' that it was that of an Englishman, but 'judges by

  the intonation' altogether, '_as he has no knowledge of the

  English._' The Italian believes it the voice of a Russian, but '_has

  never conversed with a native of Russia._' A second Frenchman

  differs, moreover, with the first, and is positive that the voice was

  that of an Italian; but, _not being cognizant of that tongue_, is,

  like the Spaniard, 'convinced by the intonation.' Now, how strangely

  unusual must that voice have really been, about which such testimony

  as this _could_ have been elicited! - in whose _tones_, even,

  denizens of the five great divisions of Europe could recognise

  nothing familiar! You will say that it might have been the voice of

  an Asiatic - of an African. Neither Asiatics nor Africans abound in

  Paris; but, without denying the inference, I will now merely call

  your attention to three points. The voice is termed by one witness

  'harsh rather than shrill.' It is represented by two others to have

  been 'quick and _unequal._' No words - no sounds resembling words -

  were by any witness mentioned as distinguishable.

  "I know not," continued Dupin, "what impression I may have made, so

  far, upon your own understanding; but I do not hesitate to say that

  legitimate deductions even from this portion of the testimony - the

  portion respecting the gruff and shrill voices - are in themselves

  sufficient to engender a suspicion which should give direction to all

  farther progress in the investigation of the mystery. I said

  'legitimate deductions;' but my meaning is not thus fully expressed.

  I designed to imply that the deductions are the _sole_ proper ones,

  and that the suspicion arises _inevitably_ from them as the single

  result. What the suspicion is, however, I will not say just yet. I

  merely wish you to bear in mind that, with myself, it was

  sufficiently forcible to give a definite form - a certain tendency -

  to my inquiries in the chamber.

  "Let us now transport ourselves, in fancy, to this chamber. What

  shall we first seek here? The means of egress employed by the

  murderers. It is not too much to say that neither of us believe in

  prµternatural events. Madame and Mademoiselle L'Espanaye were not

  destroyed by spirits. The doers of the deed wer
e material, and

  escaped materially. Then how? Fortunately, there is but one mode of

  reasoning upon the point, and that mode _must_ lead us to a definite

  decision. - Let us examine, each by each, the possible means of

  egress. It is clear that the assassins were in the room where

  Mademoiselle L'Espanaye was found, or at least in the room adjoining,

  when the party ascended the stairs. It is then only from these two

  apartments that we have to seek issues. The police have laid bare the

  floors, the ceilings, and the masonry of the walls, in every

  direction. No _secret_ issues could have escaped their vigilance.

  But, not trusting to _their_ eyes, I examined with my own. There

  were, then, no secret issues. Both doors leading from the rooms into

  the passage were securely locked, with the keys inside. Let us turn

  to the chimneys. These, although of ordinary width for some eight or

  ten feet above the hearths, will not admit, throughout their extent,

  the body of a large cat. The impossibility of egress, by means

  already stated, being thus absolute, we are reduced to the windows.

  Through those of the front room no one could have escaped without

  notice from the crowd in the street. The murderers _must_ have

  passed, then, through those of the back room. Now, brought to this

  conclusion in so unequivocal a manner as we are, it is not our part,

  as reasoners, to reject it on account of apparent impossibilities. It

  is only left for us to prove that these apparent 'impossibilities'

  are, in reality, not such.

  "There are two windows in the chamber. One of them is unobstructed by

  furniture, and is wholly visible. The lower portion of the other is

  hidden from view by the head of the unwieldy bedstead which is thrust

  close up against it. The former was found securely fastened from

  within. It resisted the utmost force of those who endeavored to raise

  it. A large gimlet-hole had been pierced in its frame to the left,

  and a very stout nail was found fitted therein, nearly to the head.

  Upon examining the other window, a similar nail was seen similarly