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

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  it were run together within. The upper part, where it bad been

  doubled and folded, was all _mildewed_ and rotten, and tore on being

  opened.' In respect to the grass having '.grown around and over some

  of them,' it is obvious that the fact could only have been

  ascertained from the words, and thus from the recollections, of two

  small boys; for these boys removed the articles and took them home

  before they had been seen by a third party. But grass will grow,

  especially in warm and damp weather, (such as was that of the period

  of the murder,) as much as two or three inches in a single day. A

  parasol lying upon a newly turfed ground, might, in a single week, be

  entirely concealed from sight by the upspringing grass. And touching

  that mildew upon which the editor of Le Soleil so pertinaciously

  insists, that he employs the word no less than three times in the

  brief paragraph just quoted, is be really unaware of the nature of

  this mildew? Is he to be told that it is one of the many classes of

  fungus, of which the most ordinary feature is its upspringing and

  decadence within twenty-four hours?

  "Thus we see, at a glance, that what has been most triumphantly

  adduced in support of the idea that the articles bad been 'for at

  least three or four weeks' in the thicket, is most absurdly null as

  regards any evidence of that fact. On the other hand, it is

  exceedingly difficult to believe that these articles could have

  remained in the thicket specified, for a longer period than a single

  week - for a longer period than from one Sunday to the next. Those

  who know any thing of the vicinity of Paris, know the extreme

  difficulty of finding seclusion unless at a great distance from its

  suburbs. Such a thing as an unexplored, or even an unfrequently

  visited recess, amid its woods or groves, is not for a moment to be

  imagined. Let any one who, being at heart a lover of nature, is yet

  chained by duty to the dust and heat of this great metropolis - let

  any such one attempt, even during the weekdays, to slake his thirst

  for solitude amid the scenes of natural loveliness which immediately

  surround us. At every second step, he will find the growing charm

  dispelled by the voice and personal intrusion of some ruffian or

  party of carousing blackguards. He will seek privacy amid the densest

  foliage, all in vain. Here are the very nooks where the unwashed most

  abound - here are the temples most desecrate. With sickness of the

  heart the wanderer will flee back to the polluted Paris as to a less

  odious because less incongruous sink of pollution. But if the

  vicinity of the city is so beset during the working days of the week,

  how much more so on the Sabbath! It is now especially that, released

  from the claims of labor, or deprived of the customary opportunities

  of crime, the town blackguard seeks the precincts of the town, not

  through love of the rural, which in his heart he despises, but by way

  of escape from the restraints and conventionalities of society. He

  desires less the fresh air and the green trees, than the utter

  license of the country. Here, at the road-side inn, or beneath the

  foliage of the woods, he indulges, unchecked by any eye except those

  of his boon companions, in all the mad excess of a counterfeit

  hilarity - the joint offspring of liberty and of rum. I say nothing

  more than what must be obvious to every dispassionate observer, when

  I repeat that the circumstance of the articles in question having

  remained undiscovered, for a longer period - than from one Sunday to

  another, in any thicket in the immediate neighborhood of Paris, is to

  be looked upon as little less than miraculous.

  "But there are not wanting other grounds for the suspicion that the

  articles were placed in the thicket with the view of diverting

  attention from the real scene of the outrage. And, first, let me

  direct your notice to the date of the discovery of the articles.

  Collate this with the date of the fifth extract made by myself from

  the newspapers. You will find that the discovery followed, almost

  immediately, the urgent communications sent to the evening paper.

  These communications, although various and apparently from various

  sources, tended all to the same point - viz., the directing of

  attention to a gang as the perpetrators of the outrage, and to the

  neighborhood of the BarriΦre du Roule as its scene. Now here, of

  course, the suspicion is not that, in consequence of these

  communications, or of the public attention by them directed, the

  articles were found by the boys; but the suspicion might and may well

  have been, that the articles were not before found by the boys, for

  the reason that the articles had not before been in the thicket;

  having been deposited there only at so late a period as at the date,

  or shortly prior to the date of the communications by the guilty

  authors of these communications themselves.

  "This thicket was a singular - an exceedingly singular one. It was

  unusually dense. Within its naturally walled enclosure were three

  extraordinary stones, forming a seat with a back and footstool. And

  this thicket, so full of a natural art, was in the immediate

  vicinity, within a few rods, of the dwelling of Madame Deluc, whose

  boys were in the habit of closely examining the shrubberies about

  them in search of the bark of the sassafras. Would it be a rash wager

  - a wager of one thousand to one -- that a day never passed over the

  heads of these boys without finding at least one of them ensconced in

  the umbrageous hall, and enthroned upon its natural throne? Those who

  would hesitate at such a wager, have either never been boys

  themselves, or have forgotten the boyish nature. I repeat -- it is

  exceedingly hard to comprehend how the articles could have remained

  in this thicket undiscovered, for a longer period than one or two

  days; and that thus there is good ground for suspicion, in spite of

  the dogmatic ignorance of Le Soleil, that they were, at a

  comparatively late date, deposited where found.

  "But there are still other and stronger reasons for believing them so

  deposited, than any which I have as yet urged. And, now, let me beg

  your notice to the highly artificial arrangement of the articles. On

  the upper stone lay a white petticoat; on the second a silk scarf;

  scattered around, were a parasol, gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief

  bearing the name, 'Marie RogΩt.' Here is just such an arrangement as

  would naturally be made by a not over-acute person wishing to dispose

  the articles naturally. But it is by no means a really natural

  arrangement. I should rather have looked to see the things all lying

  on the ground and trampled under foot. In the narrow limits of that

  bower, it would have been scarcely possible that the petticoat and

  scarf should have retained a position upon the stones, when subjected

  to the brushing to and fro of many struggling persons. 'There was

  evidence,' it is said, 'of a struggle; and the earth was trampled,

  the bushes were broken,' - but the petticoat and the scarf are foun
d

  deposited as if upon shelves. 'The pieces of the frock torn out by

  the bushes were about three inches wide and six inches long. One part

  was the hem of the frock and it had been mended. They looked like

  strips torn off.' Here, inadvertently, Le Soleil has employed an

  exceedingly suspicious phrase. The pieces, as described, do indeed

  'look like strips torn off;' but purposely and by hand. It is one of

  the rarest of accidents that a piece is 'torn off,' from any garment

  such as is now in question, by the agency of a thorn. From the very

  nature of such fabrics, a thorn or nail becoming entangled in them,

  tears them rectangularly - divides them into two longitudinal rents,

  at right angles with each other, and meeting at an apex where the

  thorn enters - but it is scarcely possible to conceive the piece

  'torn off.' I never so knew it, nor did you. To tear a piece off from

  such fabric, two distinct forces, in different directions, will be,

  in almost every case, required. If there be two edges to the fabric -

  if, for example, it be a pocket- handkerchief, and it is desired to

  tear from it a slip, then, and then only, will the one force serve

  the purpose. But in the present case the question is of a dress,

  presenting but one edge. To tear a piece from the interior, where no

  edge is presented, could only be effected by a miracle through the

  agency of thorns, and no one thorn could accomplish it. But, even

  where an edge is presented, two thorns will be necessary, operating,

  the one in two distinct directions, and the other in one. And this in

  the supposition that the edge is unhemmed. If hemmed, the matter is

  nearly out of the question. We thus see the numerous and great

  obstacles in the way of pieces being 'torn off' through the simple

  agency of 'thorns;' yet we are required to believe not only that one

  piece but that many have been so torn. 'And one part,' too, 'was the

  hem of the frock!' Another piece was 'part of the skirt, not the

  hem,' - that is to say, was torn completely out through the agency of

  thorns, from the uncaged interior of the dress! These, I say, are

  things which one may well be pardoned for disbelieving; yet, taken

  collectedly, they form, perhaps, less of reasonable ground for

  suspicion, than the one startling circumstance of the articles'

  having been left in this thicket at all, by any murderers who had

  enough precaution to think of removing the corpse. You will not have

  apprehended me rightly, however, if you suppose it my design to deny

  this thicket as the scene of the outrage. There might have been a

  wrong here, or, more possibly, an accident at Madame Deluc's. But, in

  fact, this is a point of minor importance. We are not engaged in an

  attempt to discover the scene, but to produce the perpetrators of the

  murder. What I have adduced, notwithstanding the minuteness with

  which I have adduced it, has been with the view, first, to show the

  folly of the positive and headlong assertions of Le Soleil, but

  secondly and chiefly, to bring you, by the most natural route, to a

  further contemplation of the doubt whether this assassination has, or

  has not been, the work of a gang.

  "We will resume this question by mere allusion to the revolting

  details of the surgeon examined at the inquest. It is only necessary

  to say that is published inferences, in regard to the number of

  ruffians, have been properly ridiculed as unjust and totally

  baseless, by all the reputable anatomists of Paris. Not that the

  matter might not have been as inferred, but that there was no ground

  for the inference: - was there not much for another?

  "Let us reflect now upon 'the traces of a struggle;' and let me ask

  what these traces have been supposed to demonstrate. A gang. But do

  they not rather demonstrate the absence of a gang? What struggle

  could have taken place - what struggle so violent and so enduring as

  to have left its 'traces' in all directions - between a weak and

  defenceless girl and the gang of ruffians imagined? The silent grasp

  of a few rough arms and all would have been over. The victim must

  have been absolutely passive at their will. You will here bear in

  mind that the arguments urged against the thicket as the scene, are

  applicable in chief part, only against it as the scene of an outrage

  committed by more than a single individual. If we imagine but one

  violator, we can conceive, and thus only conceive, the struggle of so

  violent and so obstinate a nature as to have left the 'traces'

  apparent.

  "And again. I have already mentioned the suspicion to be excited by

  the fact that the articles in question were suffered to remain at all

  in the thicket where discovered. It seems almost impossible that

  these evidences of guilt should have been accidentally left where

  found. There was sufficient presence of mind (it is supposed) to

  remove the corpse; and yet a more positive evidence than the corpse

  itself (whose features might have been quickly obliterated by decay,)

  is allowed to lie conspicuously in the scene of the outrage - I

  allude to the handkerchief with the name of the deceased. If this was

  accident, it was not the accident of a gang. We can imagine it only

  the accident of an individual. Let us see. An individual has

  committed the murder. He is alone with the ghost of the departed. He

  is appalled by what lies motionless before him. The fury of his

  passion is over, and there is abundant room in his heart for the

  natural awe of the deed. His is none of that confidence which the

  presence of numbers inevitably inspires. He is alone with the dead.

  He trembles and is bewildered. Yet there is a necessity for disposing

  of the corpse. He bears it to the river, but leaves behind him the

  other evidences of guilt; for it is difficult, if not impossible to

  carry all the burthen at once, and it will be easy to return for what

  is left. But in his toilsome journey to the water his fears redouble

  within him. The sounds of life encompass his path. A dozen times he

  hears or fancies the step of an observer. Even the very lights from

  the city bewilder him. Yet, in time and by long and frequent pauses

  of deep agony, he reaches the river's brink, and disposes of his

  ghastly charge - perhaps through the medium of a boat. But now what

  treasure does the world hold - what threat of vengeance could it hold

  out - which would have power to urge the return of that lonely

  murderer over that toilsome and perilous path, to the thicket and its

  blood chilling recollections? He returns not, let the consequences be

  what they may. He could not return if he would. His sole thought is

  immediate escape. He turns his back forever upon those dreadful

  shrubberies and flees as from the wrath to come.

  "But how with a gang? Their number would have inspired them with

  confidence; if, indeed confidence is ever wanting in the breast of

  the arrant blackguard; and of arrant blackguards alone are the

  supposed gangs ever constituted. Their number, I say, would have

  prevented the bewildering and unreasoning terror which I ha
ve

  imagined to paralyze the single man. Could we suppose an oversight in

  one, or two, or three, this oversight would have been remedied by a

  fourth. They would have left nothing behind them; for their number

  would have enabled them to carry all at once. There would have been

  no need of return.

  "Consider now the circumstance that in the outer garment of the

  corpse when found, 'a slip, about a foot wide had been torn upward

  from the bottom hem to the waist wound three times round the waist,

  and secured by a sort of hitch in the back.' This was done with the

  obvious design of affording a handle by which to carry the body. But

  would any number of men hare dreamed of resorting to such an

  expedient? To three or four, the limbs of the corpse would have

  afforded not only a sufficient, but the best possible hold. The

  device is that of a single individual; and this brings us to the fact

  that 'between the thicket and the river, the rails of the fences were

  found taken down, and the ground bore evident traces of some heavy

  burden having been dragged along it!' But would a number of men have

  put themselves to the superfluous trouble of taking down a fence, for

  the purpose of dragging through it a corpse which they might have

  lifted over any fence in an instant? Would a number of men have so

  dragged a corpse at all as to have left evident traces of the

  dragging?

  "And here we must refer to an observation of Le Commerciel; an

  observation upon which I have already, in some measure, commented. 'A

  piece,' says this journal, 'of one of the unfortunate girl's

  petticoats was torn out and tied under her chin, and around the back

  of her head, probably to prevent screams. This was done by fellows

  who had no pocket-handkerchiefs.'

  "I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never without a

  pocket-handkerchief. But it is not to this fact that I now especially

  advert. That it was not through want of a handkerchief for the

  purpose imagined by Le Commerciel, that this bandage was employed, is

  rendered apparent by the handkerchief left in the thicket; and that

  the object was not 'to prevent screams' appears, also, from the

  bandage having been employed in preference to what would so much