fitted in it; and a vigorous attempt to raise this sash, failed also.
The police were now entirely satisfied that egress had not been in
these directions. And, _therefore_, it was thought a matter of
supererogation to withdraw the nails and open the windows.
"My own examination was somewhat more particular, and was so for the
reason I have just given - because here it was, I knew, that all
apparent impossibilities _must_ be proved to be not such in reality.
"I proceeded to think thus - _α posteriori_. The murderers did escape
from one of these windows. This being so, they could not have
refastened the sashes from the inside, as they were found fastened; -
the consideration which put a stop, through its obviousness, to the
scrutiny of the police in this quarter. Yet the sashes _were_
fastened. They _must_, then, have the power of fastening themselves.
There was no escape from this conclusion. I stepped to the
unobstructed casement, withdrew the nail with some difficulty and
attempted to raise the sash. It resisted all my efforts, as I had
anticipated. A concealed spring must, I now know, exist; and this
corroboration of my idea convinced me that my premises at least, were
correct, however mysterious still appeared the circumstances
attending the nails. A careful search soon brought to light the
hidden spring. I pressed it, and, satisfied with the discovery,
forbore to upraise the sash.
"I now replaced the nail and regarded it attentively. A person
passing out through this window might have reclosed it, and the
spring would have caught - but the nail could not have been replaced.
The conclusion was plain, and again narrowed in the field of my
investigations. The assassins _must_ have escaped through the other
window. Supposing, then, the springs upon each sash to be the same,
as was probable, there _must_ be found a difference between the
nails, or at least between the modes of their fixture. Getting upon
the sacking of the bedstead, I looked over the head-board minutely at
the second casement. Passing my hand down behind the board, I readily
discovered and pressed the spring, which was, as I had supposed,
identical in character with its neighbor. I now looked at the nail.
It was as stout as the other, and apparently fitted in the same
manner - driven in nearly up to the head.
"You will say that I was puzzled; but, if you think so, you must have
misunderstood the nature of the inductions. To use a sporting phrase,
I had not been once 'at fault.' The scent had never for an instant
been lost. There was no flaw in any link of the chain. I had traced
the secret to its ultimate result, - and that result was _the nail._
It had, I say, in every respect, the appearance of its fellow in the
other window; but this fact was an absolute nullity (conclusive us it
might seem to be) when compared with the consideration that here, at
this point, terminated the clew. 'There _must_ be something wrong,' I
said, 'about the nail.' I touched it; and the head, with about a
quarter of an inch of the shank, came off in my fingers. The rest of
the shank was in the gimlet-hole where it had been broken off. The
fracture was an old one (for its edges were incrusted with rust), and
had apparently been accomplished by the blow of a hammer, which had
partially imbedded, in the top of the bottom sash, the head portion
of the nail. I now carefully replaced this head portion in the
indentation whence I had taken it, and the resemblance to a perfect
nail was complete - the fissure was invisible. Pressing the spring, I
gently raised the sash for a few inches; the head went up with it,
remaining firm in its bed. I closed the window, and the semblance of
the whole nail was again perfect.
"The riddle, so far, was now unriddled. The assassin had escaped
through the window which looked upon the bed. Dropping of its own
accord upon his exit (or perhaps purposely closed), it had become
fastened by the spring; and it was the retention of this spring which
had been mistaken by the police for that of the nail, - farther
inquiry being thus considered unnecessary.
"The next question is that of the mode of descent. Upon this point I
had been satisfied in my walk with you around the building. About
five feet and a half from the casement in question there runs a
lightning-rod. From this rod it would have been impossible for any
one to reach the window itself, to say nothing of entering it. I
observed, however, that the shutters of the fourth story were of the
peculiar kind called by Parisian carpenters _ferrades_ - a kind
rarely employed at the present day, but frequently seen upon very old
mansions at Lyons and Bourdeaux. They are in the form of an ordinary
door, (a single, not a folding door) except that the lower half is
latticed or worked in open trellis - thus affording an excellent hold
for the hands. In the present instance these shutters are fully three
feet and a half broad. When we saw them from the rear of the house,
they were both about half open - that is to say, they stood off at
right angles from the wall. It is probable that the police, as well
as myself, examined the back of the tenement; but, if so, in looking
at these _ferrades_ in the line of their breadth (as they must have
done), they did not perceive this great breadth itself, or, at all
events, failed to take it into due consideration. In fact, having
once satisfied themselves that no egress could have been made in this
quarter, they would naturally bestow here a very cursory examination.
It was clear to me, however, that the shutter belonging to the window
at the head of the bed, would, if swung fully back to the wall, reach
to within two feet of the lightning-rod. It was also evident that, by
exertion of a very unusual degree of activity and courage, an
entrance into the window, from the rod, might have been thus
effected. - By reaching to the distance of two feet and a half (we
now suppose the shutter open to its whole extent) a robber might have
taken a firm grasp upon the trellis-work. Letting go, then, his hold
upon the rod, placing his feet securely against the wall, and
springing boldly from it, he might have swung the shutter so as to
close it, and, if we imagine the window open at the time, might even
have swung himself into the room.
"I wish you to bear especially in mind that I have spoken of a _very_
unusual degree of activity as requisite to success in so hazardous
and so difficult a feat. It is my design to show you, first, that the
thing might possibly have been accomplished: - but, secondly and
_chiefly_, I wish to impress upon your understanding the _very
extraordinary_ - the almost prµternatural character of that agility
which could have accomplished it.
"You will say, no doubt, using the language of the law, that 'to make
out my case,' I should rather undervalue, than insist upon a full
estimation of the activity required in this matter. This may be the
practice in law, but it is not the usag
e of reason. My ultimate
object is only the truth. My immediate purpose is to lead you to
place in juxta-position, that _very unusual_ activity of which I have
just spoken with that _very peculiar_ shrill (or harsh) and _unequal_
voice, about whose nationality no two persons could be found to
agree, and in whose utterance no syllabification could be detected."
At these words a vague and half-formed conception of the meaning of
Dupin flitted over my mind. I seemed to be upon the verge of
comprehension without power to comprehend - men, at times, find
themselves upon the brink of remembrance without being able, in the
end, to remember. My friend went on with his discourse.
"You will see," he said, "that I have shifted the question from the
mode of egress to that of ingress. It was my design to convey the
idea that both were effected in the same manner, at the same point.
Let us now revert to the interior of the room. Let us survey the
appearances here. The drawers of the bureau, it is said, had been
rifled, although many articles of apparel still remained within them.
The conclusion here is absurd. It is a mere guess - a very silly one
- and no more. How are we to know that the articles found in the
drawers were not all these drawers had originally contained? Madame
L'Espanaye and her daughter lived an exceedingly retired life - saw
no company - seldom went out - had little use for numerous changes of
habiliment. Those found were at least of as good quality as any
likely to be possessed by these ladies. If a thief had taken any, why
did he not take the best - why did he not take all? In a word, why
did he abandon four thousand francs in gold to encumber himself with
a bundle of linen? The gold _was _abandoned. Nearly the whole sum
mentioned by Monsieur Mignaud, the banker, was discovered, in bags,
upon the floor. I wish you, therefore, to discard from your thoughts
the blundering idea of _motive_, engendered in the brains of the
police by that portion of the evidence which speaks of money
delivered at the door of the house. Coincidences ten times as
remarkable as this (the delivery of the money, and murder committed
within three days upon the party receiving it), happen to all of us
every hour of our lives, without attracting even momentary notice.
Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of
that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the
theory of probabilities - that theory to which the most glorious
objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of
illustration. In the present instance, had the gold been gone, the
fact of its delivery three days before would have formed something
more than a coincidence. It would have been corroborative of this
idea of motive. But, under the real circumstances of the case, if we
are to suppose gold the motive of this outrage, we must also imagine
the perpetrator so vacillating an idiot as to have abandoned his gold
and his motive together.
"Keeping now steadily in mind the points to which I have drawn your
attention - that peculiar voice, that unusual agility, and that
startling absence of motive in a murder so singularly atrocious as
this - let us glance at the butchery itself. Here is a woman
strangled to death by manual strength, and thrust up a chimney, head
downward. Ordinary assassins employ no such modes of murder as this.
Least of all, do they thus dispose of the murdered. In the manner of
thrusting the corpse up the chimney, you will admit that there was
something _excessively outrΘ_ - something altogether irreconcilable
with our common notions of human action, even when we suppose the
actors the most depraved of men. Think, too, how great must have been
that strength which could have thrust the body _up_ such an aperture
so forcibly that the united vigor of several persons was found barely
sufficient to drag it _down!_
"Turn, now, to other indications of the employment of a vigor most
marvellous. On the hearth were thick tresses - very thick tresses -
of grey human hair. These had been torn out by the roots. You are
aware of the great force necessary in tearing thus from the head even
twenty or thirty hairs together. You saw the locks in question as
well as myself. Their roots (a hideous sight!) were clotted with
fragments of the flesh of the scalp - sure token of the prodigious
power which had been exerted in uprooting perhaps half a million of
hairs at a time. The throat of the old lady was not merely cut, but
the head absolutely severed from the body: the instrument was a mere
razor. I wish you also to look at the _brutal_ ferocity of these
deeds. Of the bruises upon the body of Madame L'Espanaye I do not
speak. Monsieur Dumas, and his worthy coadjutor Monsieur Etienne,
have pronounced that they were inflicted by some obtuse instrument;
and so far these gentlemen are very correct. The obtuse instrument
was clearly the stone pavement in the yard, upon which the victim had
fallen from the window which looked in upon the bed. This idea,
however simple it may now seem, escaped the police for the same
reason that the breadth of the shutters escaped them - because, by
the affair of the nails, their perceptions had been hermetically
sealed against the possibility of the windows having ever been opened
at all.
"If now, in addition to all these things, you have properly reflected
upon the odd disorder of the chamber, we have gone so far as to
combine the ideas of an agility astounding, a strength superhuman, a
ferocity brutal, a butchery without motive, a _grotesquerie_ in
horror absolutely alien from humanity, and a voice foreign in tone to
the ears of men of many nations, and devoid of all distinct or
intelligible syllabification. What result, then, has ensued? What
impression have I made upon your fancy?"
I felt a creeping of the flesh as Dupin asked me the question. "A
madman," I said, "has done this deed - some raving maniac, escaped
from a neighboring _Maison de SantΘ._"
"In some respects," he replied, "your idea is not irrelevant. But the
voices of madmen, even in their wildest paroxysms, are never found to
tally with that peculiar voice heard upon the stairs. Madmen are of
some nation, and their language, however incoherent in its words, has
always the coherence of syllabification. Besides, the hair of a
madman is not such as I now hold in my hand. I disentangled this
little tuft from the rigidly clutched fingers of Madame L'Espanaye.
Tell me what you can make of it."
"Dupin!" I said, completely unnerved; "this hair is most unusual -
this is no _human_ hair."
"I have not asserted that it is," said he; "but, before we decide
this point, I wish you to glance at the little sketch I have here
traced upon this paper. It is a _fac-simile_ drawing of what has been
described in one portion of the testimony as 'dark bruises, and deep
indentations of finger nails,' upon the throat of Mademoiselle
L'Espanaye, and in anothe
r, (by Messrs. Dumas and Etienne,) as a
'series of livid spots, evidently the impression of fingers.'
"You will perceive," continued my friend, spreading out the paper
upon the table before us, "that this drawing gives the idea of a firm
and fixed hold. There is no _slipping_ apparent. Each finger has
retained - possibly until the death of the victim - the fearful grasp
by which it originally imbedded itself. Attempt, now, to place all
your fingers, at the same time, in the respective impressions as you
see them."
I made the attempt in vain.
"We are possibly not giving this matter a fair trial," he said. "The
paper is spread out upon a plane surface; but the human throat is
cylindrical. Here is a billet of wood, the circumference of which is
about that of the throat. Wrap the drawing around it, and try the
experiment again."
I did so; but the difficulty was even more obvious than before.
"This," I said, "is the mark of no human hand."
"Read now," replied Dupin, "this passage from Cuvier."
It was a minute anatomical and generally descriptive account of the
large fulvous Ourang-Outang of the East Indian Islands. The gigantic
stature, the prodigious strength and activity, the wild ferocity, and
the imitative propensities of these mammalia are sufficiently well
known to all. I understood the full horrors of the murder at once.
"The description of the digits," said I, as I made an end of reading,
"is in exact accordance with this drawing. I see that no animal but
an Ourang-Outang, of the species here mentioned, could have impressed
the indentations as you have traced them. This tuft of tawny hair,
too, is identical in character with that of the beast of Cuvier. But
I cannot possibly comprehend the particulars of this frightful
mystery. Besides, there were _two_ voices heard in contention, and
one of them was unquestionably the voice of a Frenchman."
"True; and you will remember an expression attributed almost
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 21