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

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  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