The Murders in the Rue Morgue

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid

himself among women, although puzzling questions, are not beyond

all conjecture.

—Sir Thomas Browne.

The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in

themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate

them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things,

that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately

possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man

exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as

call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that

moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from

even the most trivial occupations bringing his talent into play.

He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics;

exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which

appears to the ordinary apprehension præternatural. His results,

brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in

truth, the whole air of intuition.

The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by

mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it

which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde

operations, has been called, as if par excellence, analysis.

Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyse. A chess-player, for

example, does the one without effort at the other. It follows

that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is

greatly misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but

simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar narrative by observations

very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert

that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more

decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of

draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this

latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions,

with various and variable values, what is only complex is

mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The

attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for

an instant, an oversight is committed resulting in injury or

defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold but involute,

the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases

out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more

acute player who conquers. In draughts, on the contrary, where

the moves are unique and have but little variation, the

probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere

attention being left comparatively unemployed, what advantages

are obtained by either party are obtained by superior acumen.

To be less abstract, let us suppose a game of draughts where the

pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no

oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory

can be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some

recherché movement, the result of some strong exertion of the

intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws

himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself

therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole

methods (sometime indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may

seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.

Whist has long been noted for its influence upon what is termed

the calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect

have been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in

it, while eschewing chess as frivolous. Beyond doubt there is

nothing of a similar nature so greatly tasking the faculty of

analysis. The best chess-player in Christendom may be little

more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist

implies capacity for success in all those more important

undertakings where mind struggles with mind. When I say

proficiency, I mean that perfection in the game which includes a

comprehension of all the sources whence legitimate advantage

may be derived. These are not only manifold but multiform, and

lie frequently among recesses of thought altogether inaccessible

to the ordinary understanding. To observe attentively is to

remember distinctly; and, so far, the concentrative chess-player

will do very well at whist; while the rules of Hoyle (themselves

based upon the mere mechanism of the game) are sufficiently and

generally comprehensible. Thus to have a retentive memory, and to

proceed by “the book,” are points commonly regarded as the sum

total of good playing. But it is in matters beyond the limits of

mere rule that the skill of the analyst is evinced. He makes, in

silence, a host of observations and inferences. So, perhaps, do

his companions; and the difference in the extent of the

information obtained, lies not so much in the validity of the

inference as in the quality of the observation. The necessary

knowledge is that of what to observe. Our player confines

himself not at all; nor, because the game is the object, does he

reject deductions from things external to the game. He examines

the countenance of his partner, comparing it carefully with that

of each of his opponents. He considers the mode of assorting the

cards in each hand; often counting trump by trump, and honor by

honor, through the glances bestowed by their holders upon each.

He notes every variation of face as the play progresses,

gathering a fund of thought from the differences in the

expression of certainty, of surprise, of triumph, or of chagrin.

From the manner of gathering up a trick he judges whether the

person taking it can make another in the suit. He recognises what

is played through feint, by the manner with which it is thrown

upon the table. A casual or inadvertent word; the accidental

dropping or turning of a card, with the accompanying anxiety or

carelessness in regard to its concealment; the counting of the

tricks, with the order of their arrangement; embarrassment,

hesitation, eagerness or trepidation—all afford, to his

apparently intuitive perception, indications of the true state of

affairs. The first two or three rounds having been played, he is

in full possession of the contents of each hand, and

thenceforward puts down his cards with as absolute a precision of

purpose as if the rest of the party had turned outward the faces

of their own.

The analytical power should not be confounded with ample

ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the

ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis. The

constructive or combining power, by which ingenuity is usually

manifested, and to which the phrenologists (I believe

erroneously) have assigned a separate organ, supposing it a

primitive faculty, has been so frequently seen in those whose

intellect bordered otherwise upon idiocy, as to have attracted

general observation among writers on morals. Between ingenuity

and the analytic ability there exists a difference far greater,

indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but of a

character very strictly analogous. It will be found, in fact,

that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly

imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in

the light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.

Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of

18—, I there became acquainted with a Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin.

This young gentleman was of an excellent, indeed of an

illustrious family, but, by a variety of untoward events, had

been reduced to such poverty that the energy of his character

succumbed beneath it, and he ceased to bestir himself in the

world, or to care for the retrieval of his fortunes. By courtesy

of his creditors, there still remained in his possession a small

remnant of his patrimony; and, upon the income arising from this,

he managed, by means of a rigorous economy, to procure the

necessaries of life, without troubling himself about its

superfluities. Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries, and in

Paris these are easily obtained.

Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue

Montmartre, where the accident of our both being in search of the

same very rare and very remarkable volume, brought us into closer

communion. We saw each other again and again. I was deeply

interested in the little family history which he detailed to me

with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges whenever mere

self is his theme. I was astonished, too, at the vast extent of

his reading; and, above all, I felt my soul enkindled within me

by the wild fervor, and the vivid freshness of his imagination.

Seeking in Paris the objects I then sought, I felt that the

society of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price; and

this feeling I frankly confided to him. It was at length arranged

that we should live together during my stay in the city; and as

my worldly circumstances were somewhat less embarrassed than his

own, I was permitted to be at the expense of renting, and

furnishing in a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of

our common temper, a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long

deserted through superstitions into which we did not inquire, and

tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate portion of the

Faubourg St. Germain.

Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the

world, we should have been regarded as madmen—although, perhaps,

as madmen of a harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We

admitted no visitors. Indeed the locality of our retirement had

been carefully kept a secret from my own former associates; and

it had been many years since Dupin had ceased to know or be known

in Paris. We existed within ourselves alone.

It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call

it?) to be enamored of the night for her own sake; and into this

bizarrerie, as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving

myself up to his wild whims with a perfect abandon. The sable

divinity would not herself dwell with us always; but we could

counterfeit her presence. At the first dawn of the morning we

closed all the messy shutters of our old building; lighting a

couple of tapers which, strongly perfumed, threw out only the

ghastliest and feeblest of rays. By the aid of these we then

busied our souls in dreams—reading, writing, or conversing, until

warned by the clock of the advent of the true Darkness. Then we

sallied forth into the streets arm in arm, continuing the topics

of the day, or roaming far and wide until a late hour, seeking,

amid the wild lights and shadows of the populous city, that

infinity of mental excitement which quiet observation can afford.

At such times I could not help remarking and admiring (although

from his rich ideality I had been prepared to expect it) a

peculiar analytic ability in Dupin. He seemed, too, to take an

eager delight in its exercise—if not exactly in its display—and

did not hesitate to confess the pleasure thus derived. He boasted

to me, with a low chuckling laugh, that most men, in respect to

himself, wore windows in their bosoms, and was wont to follow up

such assertions by direct and very startling proofs of his

intimate knowledge of my own. His manner at these moments was

frigid and abstract; his eyes were vacant in expression; while

his voice, usually a rich tenor, rose into a treble which would

have sounded petulantly but for the deliberateness and entire

distinctness of the enunciation. Observing him in these moods, I

often dwelt meditatively upon the old philosophy of the Bi-Part

Soul, and amused myself with the fancy of a double Dupin—the

creative and the resolvent.

Let it not be supposed, from what I have just said, that I am

detailing any mystery, or penning any romance. What I have

described in the Frenchman, was merely the result of an excited,

or perhaps of a diseased intelligence. But of the character of

his remarks at the periods in question an example will best

convey the idea.

We were strolling one night down a long dirty street in the

vicinity of the Palais Royal. Being both, apparently, occupied

with thought, neither of us had spoken a syllable for fifteen

minutes at least. All at once Dupin broke forth with these words:

“He is a very little fellow, that’s true, and would do better for

the Théâtre des Variétés.”

“There can be no doubt of that,” I replied unwittingly, and not

at first observing (so much had I been absorbed in reflection)

the extraordinary manner in which the speaker had chimed in with

my meditations. In an instant afterward I recollected myself, and

my astonishment was profound.

“Dupin,” said I, gravely, “this is beyond my comprehension. I do

not hesitate to say that I am amazed, and can scarcely credit my

senses. How was it possible you should know I was thinking of

——?” Here I paused, to ascertain beyond a doubt whether he really

knew of whom I thought.

“—— of Chantilly,” said he, “why do you pause? You were remarking

to yourself that his diminutive figure unfitted him for tragedy.”

This was precisely what had formed the subject of my reflections.

Chantilly was a quondam cobbler of the Rue St. Denis, who,

becoming stage-mad, had attempted the rôle of Xerxes, in

Crébillon’s tragedy so called, and been notoriously Pasquinaded

for his pains.

“Tell me, for Heaven’s sake,” I exclaimed, “the method—if method

there is—by which you have been enabled to fathom my soul in this

matter.” In fact I was even more startled than I would have been

willing to express.

“It was the fruiterer,” replied my friend, “who brought you to

the conclusion that the mender of soles was not of sufficient

height for Xerxes et id genus omne.”

“The fruiterer!—you astonish me—I know no fruiterer whomsoever.”

“The man who ran up against you as we entered the street—it may

have been fifteen minutes ago.”

I now remembered that, in fact, a fruiterer, carrying upon his

head a large basket of apples, had nearly thrown me down, by

accident, as we passed from the Rue C—— into the thoroughfare

where we stood; but what this had to do with Chantilly I could

not possibly understand.

There was not a particle of charlatânerie about Dupin. “I will

explain,” he said, “and that you may comprehend all clearly, we

will first retrace the course of your meditations, from the

moment in which I spoke to you until that of the rencontre with

the fruiterer in question. The larger links of the chain run

thus—Chantilly, Orion, Dr. Nichols, Epicurus, Stereotomy, the

street stones, the fruiterer.”

There are few persons who have not, at some period of their

lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which

particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The

occupation is often full of interest; and he who attempts it for

the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable

distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal.

What, then, must have been my amazement when I heard the

Frenchman speak what he had just spoken, and when I could not

help acknowledging that he had spoken the truth. He continued:

“We had been talking of horses, if I remember aright, just before

leaving the Rue C——. This was the last subject we discussed. As

we crossed into this street, a fruiterer, with a large basket

upon his head, brushing quickly past us, thrust you upon a pile

of paving stones collected at a spot where the causeway is

undergoing repair. You stepped upon one of the loose fragments,

slipped, slightly strained your ankle, appeared vexed or sulky,

muttered a few words, turned to look at the pile, and then

proceeded in silence. I was not particularly attentive to what

you did; but observation has become with me, of late, a species

of necessity.

“You kept your eyes upon the ground—glancing, with a petulant

expression, at the holes and ruts in the pavement, (so that I saw

you were still thinking of the stones,) until we reached the

little alley called Lamartine, which has been paved, by way of

experiment, with the overlapping and riveted blocks. Here your

countenance brightened up, and, perceiving your lips move, I

could not doubt that you murmured the word ‘stereotomy,’ a term

very affectedly applied to this species of pavement. I knew that

you could not say to yourself ‘stereotomy’ without being brought

to think of atomies, and thus of the theories of Epicurus; and

since, when we discussed this subject not very long ago, I

mentioned to you how singularly, yet with how little notice, the

vague guesses of that noble Greek had met with confirmation in

the late nebular cosmogony, I felt that you could not avoid

casting your eyes upward to the great nebula in Orion, and I

certainly expected that you would do so. You did look up; and I

was now assured that I had correctly followed your steps. But in

that bitter tirade upon Chantilly, which appeared in

yesterday’s ‘Musée,’ the satirist, making some disgraceful

allusions to the cobbler’s change of name upon assuming the

buskin, quoted a Latin line about which we have often conversed.

I mean the line

Perdidit antiquum litera prima sonum.

“I had told you that this was in reference to Orion, formerly

written Urion; and, from certain pungencies connected with this

explanation, I was aware that you could not have forgotten it. It

was clear, therefore, that you would not fail to combine the two

ideas of Orion and Chantilly. That you did combine them I saw by

the character of the smile which passed over your lips. You

thought of the poor cobbler’s immolation. So far, you had been

stooping in your gait; but now I saw you draw yourself up to your

full height. I was then sure that you reflected upon the

diminutive figure of Chantilly. At this point I interrupted your

meditations to remark that as, in fact, he was a very little

fellow—that Chantilly—he would do better at the _Théâtre des

Variétés_.”

Not long after this, we were looking over an evening edition of

the “Gazette des Tribunaux,” when the following paragraphs

arrested our attention.

“Extraordinary Murders.—This morning, about three o’clock, the

inhabitants of the Quartier St. Roch were aroused from sleep by a

succession of terrific shrieks, issuing, apparently, from the

fourth story of a house in the Rue Morgue, known to be in the

sole occupancy of one Madame L’Espanaye, and her daughter,

Mademoiselle Camille L’Espanaye. After some delay, occasioned by

a fruitless attempt to procure admission in the usual manner, the

gateway was broken in with a crowbar, and eight or ten of the

neighbors entered accompanied by two gendarmes. By this time

the cries had ceased; but, as the party rushed up the first

flight of stairs, two or more rough voices in angry contention

were distinguished and seemed to proceed from the upper part of

the house. As the second landing was reached, these sounds, also,

had ceased and everything remained perfectly quiet. The party

spread themselves and hurried from room to room. Upon arriving at

a large back chamber in the fourth story, (the door of which,

being found locked, with the key inside, was forced open,) a

spectacle presented itself which struck every one present not

less with horror than with astonishment.

“The apartment was in the wildest disorder—the furniture broken

and thrown about in all directions. There was only one bedstead;

and from this the bed had been removed, and thrown into the

middle of the floor. On a chair lay a razor, besmeared with

blood. On the hearth were two or three long and thick tresses of

grey human hair, also dabbled in blood, and seeming to have been

pulled out by the roots. Upon the floor were found four

Napoleons, an ear-ring of topaz, three large silver spoons, three

smaller of métal d’Alger, and two bags, containing nearly four

thousand francs in gold. The drawers of a bureau, which stood

in one corner were open, and had been, apparently, rifled,

although many articles still remained in them. A small iron safe

was discovered under the bed (not under the bedstead). It was

open, with the key still in the door. It had no contents beyond a

few old letters, and other papers of little consequence.

“Of Madame L’Espanaye no traces were here seen; but an unusual

quantity of soot being observed in the fire-place, a search was

made in the chimney, and (horrible to relate!) the corpse of the

daughter, head downward, was dragged therefrom; it having been

thus forced up the narrow aperture for a considerable distance.

The body was quite warm. Upon examining it, many excoriations

were perceived, no doubt occasioned by the violence with which it

had been thrust up and disengaged. Upon the face were many severe

scratches, and, upon the throat, dark bruises, and deep

indentations of finger nails, as if the deceased had been

throttled to death.

“After a thorough investigation of every portion of the house,

without farther discovery, the party made its way into a small

paved yard in the rear of the building, where lay the corpse of

the old lady, with her throat so entirely cut that, upon an

attempt to raise her, the head fell off. The body, as well as the

head, was fearfully mutilated—the former so much so as scarcely

to retain any semblance of humanity.

“To this horrible mystery there is not as yet, we believe, the

slightest clew.”

The next day’s paper had these additional particulars.

“The Tragedy in the Rue Morgue.—Many individuals have been

examined in relation to this most extraordinary and frightful

affair” [The word ‘affaire’ has not yet, in France, that levity

of import which it conveys with us], “but nothing whatever has

transpired to throw light upon it. We give below all the material

testimony elicited.

“Pauline Dubourg, laundress, deposes that she has known both

the deceased for three years, having washed for them during that

period. The old lady and her daughter seemed on good terms—very

affectionate towards each other. They were excellent pay. Could

not speak in regard to their mode or means of living. Believed

that Madame L. told fortunes for a living. Was reputed to have

money put by. Never met any persons in the house when she called

for the clothes or took them home. Was sure that they had no

servant in employ. There appeared to be no furniture in any part

of the building except in the fourth story.

“Pierre Moreau, tobacconist, deposes that he has been in the

habit of selling small quantities of tobacco and snuff to Madame

L’Espanaye for nearly four years. Was born in the neighborhood,

and has always resided there. The deceased and her daughter had

occupied the house in which the corpses were found, for more than

six years. It was formerly occupied by a jeweller, who under-let

the upper rooms to various persons. The house was the property of

Madame L. She became dissatisfied with the abuse of the premises

by her tenant, and moved into them herself, refusing to let any

portion. The old lady was childish. Witness had seen the daughter

some five or six times during the six years. The two lived an

exceedingly retired life—were reputed to have money. Had heard it

said among the neighbors that Madame L. told fortunes—did not

believe it. Had never seen any person enter the door except the

old lady and her daughter, a porter once or twice, and a

physician some eight or ten times.

“Many other persons, neighbors, gave evidence to the same effect.

No one was spoken of as frequenting the house. It was not known

whether there were any living connexions of Madame L. and her

daughter. The shutters of the front windows were seldom opened.

Those in the rear were always closed, with the exception of the

large back room, fourth story. The house was a good house—not

very old.

“Isidore Musèt, gendarme, deposes that he was called to the

house about three o’clock in the morning, and found some twenty

or thirty persons at the gateway, endeavoring to gain admittance.

Forced it open, at length, with a bayonet—not with a crowbar. Had

but little difficulty in getting it open, on account of its being

a double or folding gate, and bolted neither at bottom not top.

The shrieks were continued until the gate was forced—and then

suddenly ceased. They seemed to be screams of some person (or

persons) in great agony—were loud and drawn out, not short and

quick. Witness led the way up stairs. Upon reaching the first

landing, heard two voices in loud and angry contention—the one a

gruff voice, the other much shriller—a very strange voice. Could

distinguish some words of the former, which was that of a

Frenchman. Was positive that it was not a woman’s voice. Could

distinguish the words ‘sacré’ and ‘diable.’ The shrill voice

was that of a foreigner. Could not be sure whether it was the

voice of a man or of a woman. Could not make out what was said,

but believed the language to be Spanish. The state of the room

and of the bodies was described by this witness as we described

them yesterday.

“Henri Duval, a neighbor, and by trade a silver-smith, deposes

that he was one of the party who first entered the house.

Corroborates the testimony of Musèt in general. As soon as they

forced an entrance, they reclosed the door, to keep out the

crowd, which collected very fast, notwithstanding the lateness of

the hour. The shrill voice, this witness thinks, was that of an

Italian. Was certain it was not French. Could not be sure that it

was a man’s voice. It might have been a woman’s. Was not

acquainted with the Italian language. Could not distinguish the

words, but was convinced by the intonation that the speaker was

an Italian. Knew Madame L. and her daughter. Had conversed with

both frequently. Was sure that the shrill voice was not that of

either of the deceased.

“——Odenheimer, restaurateur. This witness volunteered his

testimony. Not speaking French, was examined through an

interpreter. Is a native of Amsterdam. Was passing the house at

the time of the shrieks. They lasted for several minutes—probably

ten. They were long and loud—very awful and distressing. Was one

of those who entered the building. Corroborated the previous

evidence in every respect but one. Was sure that the shrill voice

was that of a man—of a Frenchman. Could not distinguish the words

uttered. They were loud and quick—unequal—spoken apparently in

fear as well as in anger. The voice was harsh—not so much shrill

as harsh. Could not call it a shrill voice. The gruff voice said

repeatedly ‘sacré,’ ‘diable,’ and once ‘mon Dieu.’

“Jules Mignaud, banker, of the firm of Mignaud et Fils, Rue

Deloraine. Is the elder Mignaud. Madame L’Espanaye had some

property. Had opened an account with his banking house in the

spring of the year—(eight years previously). Made frequent

deposits in small sums. Had checked for nothing until the third

day before her death, when she took out in person the sum of 4000

francs. This sum was paid in gold, and a clerk went home with the

money.

“Adolphe Le Bon, clerk to Mignaud et Fils, deposes that on the

day in question, about noon, he accompanied Madame L’Espanaye to

her residence with the 4000 francs, put up in two bags. Upon the

door being opened, Mademoiselle L. appeared and took from his

hands one of the bags, while the old lady relieved him of the

other. He then bowed and departed. Did not see any person in the

street at the time. It is a by-street—very lonely.

“William Bird, tailor deposes that he was one of the party who

entered the house. Is an Englishman. Has lived in Paris two

years. Was one of the first to ascend the stairs. Heard the

voices in contention. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman.

Could make out several words, but cannot now remember all. Heard

distinctly ‘sacré’ and ‘mon Dieu.’ There was a sound at the

moment as if of several persons struggling—a scraping and

scuffling sound. The shrill voice was very loud—louder than the

gruff one. Is sure that it was not the voice of an Englishman.

Appeared to be that of a German. Might have been a woman’s voice.

Does not understand German.

“Four of the above-named witnesses, being recalled, deposed that

the door of the chamber in which was found the body of

Mademoiselle L. was locked on the inside when the party reached

it. Every thing was perfectly silent—no groans or noises of any

kind. Upon forcing the door no person was seen. The windows, both

of the back and front room, were down and firmly fastened from

within. A door between the two rooms was closed, but not locked.

The door leading from the front room into the passage was locked,

with the key on the inside. A small room in the front of the

house, on the fourth story, at the head of the passage was open,

the door being ajar. This room was crowded with old beds, boxes,

and so forth. These were carefully removed and searched. There

was not an inch of any portion of the house which was not

carefully searched. Sweeps were sent up and down the chimneys.

The house was a four story one, with garrets (mansardes.) A

trap-door on the roof was nailed down very securely—did not

appear to have been opened for years. The time elapsing between

the hearing of the voices in contention and the breaking open of

the room door, was variously stated by the witnesses. Some made

it as short as three minutes—some as long as five. The door was

opened with difficulty.

“Alfonzo Garcio, undertaker, deposes that he resides in the Rue

Morgue. Is a native of Spain. Was one of the party who entered

the house. Did not proceed up stairs. Is nervous, and was

apprehensive of the consequences of agitation. Heard the voices

in contention. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Could not

distinguish what was said. The shrill voice was that of an

Englishman—is sure of this. Does not understand the English

language, but judges by the intonation.

“Alberto Montani, confectioner, deposes that he was among the

first to ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in question. The

gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Distinguished several words.

The speaker appeared to be expostulating. Could not make out the

words of the shrill voice. Spoke quick and unevenly. Thinks it

the voice of a Russian. Corroborates the general testimony. Is an

Italian. Never conversed with a native of Russia.

“Several witnesses, recalled, here testified that the chimneys of

all the rooms on the fourth story were too narrow to admit the

passage of a human being. By ‘sweeps’ were meant cylindrical

sweeping brushes, such as are employed by those who clean

chimneys. These brushes were passed up and down every flue in the

house. There is no back passage by which any one could have

descended while the party proceeded up stairs. The body of

Mademoiselle L’Espanaye was so firmly wedged in the chimney that

it could not be got down until four or five of the party united

their strength.

“Paul Dumas, physician, deposes that he was called to view the

bodies about day-break. They were both then lying on the sacking

of the bedstead in the chamber where Mademoiselle L. was found.

The corpse of the young lady was much bruised and excoriated. The

fact that it had been thrust up the chimney would sufficiently

account for these appearances. The throat was greatly chafed.

There were several deep scratches just below the chin, together

with a series of livid spots which were evidently the impression

of fingers. The face was fearfully discolored, and the eye-balls

protruded. The tongue had been partially bitten through. A large

bruise was discovered upon the pit of the stomach, produced,

apparently, by the pressure of a knee. In the opinion of M.

Dumas, Mademoiselle L’Espanaye had been throttled to death by

some person or persons unknown. The corpse of the mother was

horribly mutilated. All the bones of the right leg and arm were

more or less shattered. The left tibia much splintered, as 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 firmament 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 ménageais:—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 solution—I mean for the outré 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 præternatural events. Madame and Mademoiselle L’Espanaye were

not destroyed by spirits. The doers of the deed were 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 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—a 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 as 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 Bordeaux.

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 præternatural 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 usage of reason. My

ultimate object is only the truth. My immediate purpose is to

lead you to place in juxtaposition, 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—as 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

outré_—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 Santé.”

“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 another (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

unanimously, by the evidence, to this voice,—the expression,

‘mon Dieu!’ This, under the circumstances, has been justly

characterized by one of the witnesses (Montani, the

confectioner,) as an expression of remonstrance or expostulation.

Upon these two words, therefore, I have mainly built my hopes of

a full solution of the riddle. A Frenchman was cognizant of the

murder. It is possible—indeed it is far more than probable—that

he was innocent of all participation in the bloody transactions

which took place. The Ourang-Outang may have escaped from him. He

may have traced it to the chamber; but, under the agitating

circumstances which ensued, he could never have re-captured it.

It is still at large. I will not pursue these guesses—for I have

no right to call them more—since the shades of reflection upon

which they are based are scarcely of sufficient depth to be

appreciable by my own intellect, and since I could not pretend to

make them intelligible to the understanding of another. We will

call them guesses then, and speak of them as such. If the

Frenchman in question is indeed, as I suppose, innocent of this

atrocity, this advertisement which I left last night, upon our

return home, at the office of ‘Le Monde’ (a paper devoted to the

shipping interest, and much sought by sailors), will bring him to

our residence.”

He handed me a paper, and I read thus:

CAUGHT—_In the Bois de Boulogne, early in the morning of the

——inst.,_ (the morning of the murder), _a very large, tawny

Ourang-Outang of the Bornese species. The owner (who is

ascertained to be a sailor, belonging to a Maltese vessel) may

have the animal again, upon identifying it satisfactorily, and

paying a few charges arising from its capture and keeping. Call

at No. ——, Rue ——, Faubourg St. Germain—au troisième._

“How was it possible,” I asked, “that you should know the man to

be a sailor, and belonging to a Maltese vessel?”

“I do not know it,” said Dupin. “I am not sure of it. Here,

however, is a small piece of ribbon, which from its form, and

from its greasy appearance, has evidently been used in tying the

hair in one of those long queues of which sailors are so fond.

Moreover, this knot is one which few besides sailors can tie, and

is peculiar to the Maltese. I picked the ribbon up at the foot of

the lightning-rod. It could not have belonged to either of the

deceased. Now if, after all, I am wrong in my induction from this

ribbon, that the Frenchman was a sailor belonging to a Maltese

vessel, still I can have done no harm in saying what I did in the

advertisement. If I am in error, he will merely suppose that I

have been misled by some circumstance into which he will not take

the trouble to inquire. But if I am right, a great point is

gained. Cognizant although innocent of the murder, the Frenchman

will naturally hesitate about replying to the advertisement—about

demanding the Ourang-Outang. He will reason thus:—‘I am innocent;

I am poor; my Ourang-Outang is of great value—to one in my

circumstances a fortune of itself—why should I lose it through

idle apprehensions of danger? Here it is, within my grasp. It was

found in the Bois de Boulogne—at a vast distance from the scene

of that butchery. How can it ever be suspected that a brute beast

should have done the deed? The police are at fault—they have

failed to procure the slightest clew. Should they even trace the

animal, it would be impossible to prove me cognizant of the

murder, or to implicate me in guilt on account of that

cognizance. Above all, I am known. The advertiser designates me

as the possessor of the beast. I am not sure to what limit his

knowledge may extend. Should I avoid claiming a property of so

great value, which it is known that I possess, I will render the

animal at least, liable to suspicion. It is not my policy to

attract attention either to myself or to the beast. I will answer

the advertisement, get the Ourang-Outang, and keep it close until

this matter has blown over.’”

At this moment we heard a step upon the stairs.

“Be ready,” said Dupin, “with your pistols, but neither use them

nor show them until at a signal from myself.”

The front door of the house had been left open, and the visitor

had entered, without ringing, and advanced several steps upon the

staircase. Now, however, he seemed to hesitate. Presently we

heard him descending. Dupin was moving quickly to the door, when

we again heard him coming up. He did not turn back a second time,

but stepped up with decision, and rapped at the door of our

chamber.

“Come in,” said Dupin, in a cheerful and hearty tone.

A man entered. He was a sailor, evidently,—a tall, stout, and

muscular-looking person, with a certain dare-devil expression of

countenance, not altogether unprepossessing. His face, greatly

sunburnt, was more than half hidden by whisker and mustachio.

He had with him a huge oaken cudgel, but appeared to be otherwise

unarmed. He bowed awkwardly, and bade us “good evening,” in

French accents, which, although somewhat Neufchatelish, were

still sufficiently indicative of a Parisian origin.

“Sit down, my friend,” said Dupin. “I suppose you have called

about the Ourang-Outang. Upon my word, I almost envy you the

possession of him; a remarkably fine, and no doubt a very

valuable animal. How old do you suppose him to be?”

The sailor drew a long breath, with the air of a man relieved of

some intolerable burden, and then replied, in an assured tone:

“I have no way of telling—but he can’t be more than four or five

years old. Have you got him here?”

“Oh no, we had no conveniences for keeping him here. He is at a

livery stable in the Rue Dubourg, just by. You can get him in the

morning. Of course you are prepared to identify the property?”

“To be sure I am, sir.”

“I shall be sorry to part with him,” said Dupin.

“I don’t mean that you should be at all this trouble for nothing,

sir,” said the man. “Couldn’t expect it. Am very willing to pay a

reward for the finding of the animal—that is to say, any thing in

reason.”

“Well,” replied my friend, “that is all very fair, to be sure.

Let me think!—what should I have? Oh! I will tell you. My reward

shall be this. You shall give me all the information in your

power about these murders in the Rue Morgue.”

Dupin said the last words in a very low tone, and very quietly.

Just as quietly, too, he walked toward the door, locked it and

put the key in his pocket. He then drew a pistol from his bosom

and placed it, without the least flurry, upon the table.

The sailor’s face flushed up as if he were struggling with

suffocation. He started to his feet and grasped his cudgel, but

the next moment he fell back into his seat, trembling violently,

and with the countenance of death itself. He spoke not a word. I

pitied him from the bottom of my heart.

“My friend,” said Dupin, in a kind tone, “you are alarming

yourself unnecessarily—you are indeed. We mean you no harm

whatever. I pledge you the honor of a gentleman, and of a

Frenchman, that we intend you no injury. I perfectly well know

that you are innocent of the atrocities in the Rue Morgue. It

will not do, however, to deny that you are in some measure

implicated in them. From what I have already said, you must know

that I have had means of information about this matter—means of

which you could never have dreamed. Now the thing stands thus.

You have done nothing which you could have avoided—nothing,

certainly, which renders you culpable. You were not even guilty

of robbery, when you might have robbed with impunity. You have

nothing to conceal. You have no reason for concealment. On the

other hand, you are bound by every principle of honor to confess

all you know. An innocent man is now imprisoned, charged with

that crime of which you can point out the perpetrator.”

The sailor had recovered his presence of mind, in a great

measure, while Dupin uttered these words; but his original

boldness of bearing was all gone.

“So help me God!” said he, after a brief pause, “I will tell

you all I know about this affair;—but I do not expect you to

believe one half I say—I would be a fool indeed if I did. Still,

I am innocent, and I will make a clean breast if I die for it.”

What he stated was, in substance, this. He had lately made a

voyage to the Indian Archipelago. A party, of which he formed

one, landed at Borneo, and passed into the interior on an

excursion of pleasure. Himself and a companion had captured the

Ourang-Outang. This companion dying, the animal fell into his own

exclusive possession. After great trouble, occasioned by the

intractable ferocity of his captive during the home voyage, he at

length succeeded in lodging it safely at his own residence in

Paris, where, not to attract toward himself the unpleasant

curiosity of his neighbors, he kept it carefully secluded, until

such time as it should recover from a wound in the foot, received

from a splinter on board ship. His ultimate design was to sell

it.

Returning home from some sailors’ frolic the night, or rather in

the morning of the murder, he found the beast occupying his own

bed-room, into which it had broken from a closet adjoining, where

it had been, as was thought, securely confined. Razor in hand,

and fully lathered, it was sitting before a looking-glass,

attempting the operation of shaving, in which it had no doubt

previously watched its master through the key-hole of the closet.

Terrified at the sight of so dangerous a weapon in the possession

of an animal so ferocious, and so well able to use it, the man,

for some moments, was at a loss what to do. He had been

accustomed, however, to quiet the creature, even in its fiercest

moods, by the use of a whip, and to this he now resorted. Upon

sight of it, the Ourang-Outang sprang at once through the door of

the chamber, down the stairs, and thence, through a window,

unfortunately open, into the street.

The Frenchman followed in despair; the ape, razor still in hand,

occasionally stopping to look back and gesticulate at its

pursuer, until the latter had nearly come up with it. It then

again made off. In this manner the chase continued for a long

time. The streets were profoundly quiet, as it was nearly three

o’clock in the morning. In passing down an alley in the rear of

the Rue Morgue, the fugitive’s attention was arrested by a light

gleaming from the open window of Madame L’Espanaye’s chamber, in

the fourth story of her house. Rushing to the building, it

perceived the lightning rod, clambered up with inconceivable

agility, grasped the shutter, which was thrown fully back against

the wall, and, by its means, swung itself directly upon the

headboard of the bed. The whole feat did not occupy a minute. The

shutter was kicked open again by the Ourang-Outang as it entered

the room.

The sailor, in the meantime, was both rejoiced and perplexed. He

had strong hopes of now recapturing the brute, as it could

scarcely escape from the trap into which it had ventured, except

by the rod, where it might be intercepted as it came down. On the

other hand, there was much cause for anxiety as to what it might

do in the house. This latter reflection urged the man still to

follow the fugitive. A lightning rod is ascended without

difficulty, especially by a sailor; but, when he had arrived as

high as the window, which lay far to his left, his career was

stopped; the most that he could accomplish was to reach over so

as to obtain a glimpse of the interior of the room. At this

glimpse he nearly fell from his hold through excess of horror.

Now it was that those hideous shrieks arose upon the night, which

had startled from slumber the inmates of the Rue Morgue. Madame

L’Espanaye and her daughter, habited in their night clothes, had

apparently been occupied in arranging some papers in the iron

chest already mentioned, which had been wheeled into the middle

of the room. It was open, and its contents lay beside it on the

floor. The victims must have been sitting with their backs toward

the window; and, from the time elapsing between the ingress of

the beast and the screams, it seems probable that it was not

immediately perceived. The flapping-to of the shutter would

naturally have been attributed to the wind.

As the sailor looked in, the gigantic animal had seized Madame

L’Espanaye by the hair, (which was loose, as she had been combing

it,) and was flourishing the razor about her face, in imitation

of the motions of a barber. The daughter lay prostrate and

motionless; she had swooned. The screams and struggles of the old

lady (during which the hair was torn from her head) had the

effect of changing the probably pacific purposes of the

Ourang-Outang into those of wrath. With one determined sweep of

its muscular arm it nearly severed her head from her body. The

sight of blood inflamed its anger into phrenzy. Gnashing its

teeth, and flashing fire from its eyes, it flew upon the body of

the girl, and imbedded its fearful talons in her throat,

retaining its grasp until she expired. Its wandering and wild

glances fell at this moment upon the head of the bed, over which

the face of its master, rigid with horror, was just discernible.

The fury of the beast, who no doubt bore still in mind the

dreaded whip, was instantly converted into fear. Conscious of

having deserved punishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its

bloody deeds, and skipped about the chamber in an agony of

nervous agitation; throwing down and breaking the furniture as it

moved, and dragging the bed from the bedstead. In conclusion, it

seized first the corpse of the daughter, and thrust it up the

chimney, as it was found; then that of the old lady, which it

immediately hurled through the window headlong.

As the ape approached the casement with its mutilated burden, the

sailor shrank aghast to the rod, and, rather gliding than

clambering down it, hurried at once home—dreading the

consequences of the butchery, and gladly abandoning, in his

terror, all solicitude about the fate of the Ourang-Outang. The

words heard by the party upon the staircase were the Frenchman’s

exclamations of horror and affright, commingled with the fiendish

jabberings of the brute.

I have scarcely anything to add. The Ourang-Outang must have

escaped from the chamber, by the rod, just before the breaking of

the door. It must have closed the window as it passed through it.

It was subsequently caught by the owner himself, who obtained for

it a very large sum at the Jardin des Plantes. Le Don was

instantly released, upon our narration of the circumstances (with

some comments from Dupin) at the bureau of the Prefect of Police.

This functionary, however well disposed to my friend, could not

altogether conceal his chagrin at the turn which affairs had

taken, and was fain to indulge in a sarcasm or two, about the

propriety of every person minding his own business.

“Let him talk,” said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to

reply. “Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience, I am

satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle.

Nevertheless, that he failed in the solution of this mystery, is

by no means that matter for wonder which he supposes it; for, in

truth, our friend the Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be

profound. In his wisdom is no stamen. It is all head and no

body, like the pictures of the Goddess Laverna,—or, at best, all

head and shoulders, like a codfish. But he is a good creature

after all. I like him especially for one master stroke of cant,

by which he has attained his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the

way he has ‘_de nier ce qui est, et d’expliquer ce qui n’est

pas._’” (*)

(*) Rousseau—Nouvelle Heloïse.

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid

himself among women, although puzzling questions, are not beyond

all conjecture.

—Sir Thomas Browne.

The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in

themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate

them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things,

that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately

possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man

exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as

call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that

moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from

even the most trivial occupations bringing his talent into play.

He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics;

exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which

appears to the ordinary apprehension præternatural. His results,

brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in

truth, the whole air of intuition.

The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by

mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it

which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde

operations, has been called, as if par excellence, analysis.

Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyse. A chess-player, for

example, does the one without effort at the other. It follows

that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is

greatly misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but

simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar narrative by observations

very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert

that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more

decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of

draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this

latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions,

with various and variable values, what is only complex is

mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The

attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for

an instant, an oversight is committed resulting in injury or

defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold but involute,

the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases

out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more

acute player who conquers. In draughts, on the contrary, where

the moves are unique and have but little variation, the

probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere

attention being left comparatively unemployed, what advantages

are obtained by either party are obtained by superior acumen.

To be less abstract, let us suppose a game of draughts where the

pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no

oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory

can be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some

recherché movement, the result of some strong exertion of the

intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws

himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself

therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole

methods (sometime indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may

seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.

Whist has long been noted for its influence upon what is termed

the calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect

have been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in

it, while eschewing chess as frivolous. Beyond doubt there is

nothing of a similar nature so greatly tasking the faculty of

analysis. The best chess-player in Christendom may be little

more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist

implies capacity for success in all those more important

undertakings where mind struggles with mind. When I say

proficiency, I mean that perfection in the game which includes a

comprehension of all the sources whence legitimate advantage

may be derived. These are not only manifold but multiform, and

lie frequently among recesses of thought altogether inaccessible

to the ordinary understanding. To observe attentively is to

remember distinctly; and, so far, the concentrative chess-player

will do very well at whist; while the rules of Hoyle (themselves

based upon the mere mechanism of the game) are sufficiently and

generally comprehensible. Thus to have a retentive memory, and to

proceed by “the book,” are points commonly regarded as the sum

total of good playing. But it is in matters beyond the limits of

mere rule that the skill of the analyst is evinced. He makes, in

silence, a host of observations and inferences. So, perhaps, do

his companions; and the difference in the extent of the

information obtained, lies not so much in the validity of the

inference as in the quality of the observation. The necessary

knowledge is that of what to observe. Our player confines

himself not at all; nor, because the game is the object, does he

reject deductions from things external to the game. He examines

the countenance of his partner, comparing it carefully with that

of each of his opponents. He considers the mode of assorting the

cards in each hand; often counting trump by trump, and honor by

honor, through the glances bestowed by their holders upon each.

He notes every variation of face as the play progresses,

gathering a fund of thought from the differences in the

expression of certainty, of surprise, of triumph, or of chagrin.

From the manner of gathering up a trick he judges whether the

person taking it can make another in the suit. He recognises what

is played through feint, by the manner with which it is thrown

upon the table. A casual or inadvertent word; the accidental

dropping or turning of a card, with the accompanying anxiety or

carelessness in regard to its concealment; the counting of the

tricks, with the order of their arrangement; embarrassment,

hesitation, eagerness or trepidation—all afford, to his

apparently intuitive perception, indications of the true state of

affairs. The first two or three rounds having been played, he is

in full possession of the contents of each hand, and

thenceforward puts down his cards with as absolute a precision of

purpose as if the rest of the party had turned outward the faces

of their own.

The analytical power should not be confounded with ample

ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the

ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis. The

constructive or combining power, by which ingenuity is usually

manifested, and to which the phrenologists (I believe

erroneously) have assigned a separate organ, supposing it a

primitive faculty, has been so frequently seen in those whose

intellect bordered otherwise upon idiocy, as to have attracted

general observation among writers on morals. Between ingenuity

and the analytic ability there exists a difference far greater,

indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but of a

character very strictly analogous. It will be found, in fact,

that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly

imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in

the light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.

Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of

18—, I there became acquainted with a Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin.

This young gentleman was of an excellent, indeed of an

illustrious family, but, by a variety of untoward events, had

been reduced to such poverty that the energy of his character

succumbed beneath it, and he ceased to bestir himself in the

world, or to care for the retrieval of his fortunes. By courtesy

of his creditors, there still remained in his possession a small

remnant of his patrimony; and, upon the income arising from this,

he managed, by means of a rigorous economy, to procure the

necessaries of life, without troubling himself about its

superfluities. Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries, and in

Paris these are easily obtained.

Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue

Montmartre, where the accident of our both being in search of the

same very rare and very remarkable volume, brought us into closer

communion. We saw each other again and again. I was deeply

interested in the little family history which he detailed to me

with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges whenever mere

self is his theme. I was astonished, too, at the vast extent of

his reading; and, above all, I felt my soul enkindled within me

by the wild fervor, and the vivid freshness of his imagination.

Seeking in Paris the objects I then sought, I felt that the

society of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price; and

this feeling I frankly confided to him. It was at length arranged

that we should live together during my stay in the city; and as

my worldly circumstances were somewhat less embarrassed than his

own, I was permitted to be at the expense of renting, and

furnishing in a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of

our common temper, a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long

deserted through superstitions into which we did not inquire, and

tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate portion of the

Faubourg St. Germain.

Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the

world, we should have been regarded as madmen—although, perhaps,

as madmen of a harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We

admitted no visitors. Indeed the locality of our retirement had

been carefully kept a secret from my own former associates; and

it had been many years since Dupin had ceased to know or be known

in Paris. We existed within ourselves alone.

It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call

it?) to be enamored of the night for her own sake; and into this

bizarrerie, as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving

myself up to his wild whims with a perfect abandon. The sable

divinity would not herself dwell with us always; but we could

counterfeit her presence. At the first dawn of the morning we

closed all the messy shutters of our old building; lighting a

couple of tapers which, strongly perfumed, threw out only the

ghastliest and feeblest of rays. By the aid of these we then

busied our souls in dreams—reading, writing, or conversing, until

warned by the clock of the advent of the true Darkness. Then we

sallied forth into the streets arm in arm, continuing the topics

of the day, or roaming far and wide until a late hour, seeking,

amid the wild lights and shadows of the populous city, that

infinity of mental excitement which quiet observation can afford.

At such times I could not help remarking and admiring (although

from his rich ideality I had been prepared to expect it) a

peculiar analytic ability in Dupin. He seemed, too, to take an

eager delight in its exercise—if not exactly in its display—and

did not hesitate to confess the pleasure thus derived. He boasted

to me, with a low chuckling laugh, that most men, in respect to

himself, wore windows in their bosoms, and was wont to follow up

such assertions by direct and very startling proofs of his

intimate knowledge of my own. His manner at these moments was

frigid and abstract; his eyes were vacant in expression; while

his voice, usually a rich tenor, rose into a treble which would

have sounded petulantly but for the deliberateness and entire

distinctness of the enunciation. Observing him in these moods, I

often dwelt meditatively upon the old philosophy of the Bi-Part

Soul, and amused myself with the fancy of a double Dupin—the

creative and the resolvent.

Let it not be supposed, from what I have just said, that I am

detailing any mystery, or penning any romance. What I have

described in the Frenchman, was merely the result of an excited,

or perhaps of a diseased intelligence. But of the character of

his remarks at the periods in question an example will best

convey the idea.

We were strolling one night down a long dirty street in the

vicinity of the Palais Royal. Being both, apparently, occupied

with thought, neither of us had spoken a syllable for fifteen

minutes at least. All at once Dupin broke forth with these words:

“He is a very little fellow, that’s true, and would do better for

the Théâtre des Variétés.”

“There can be no doubt of that,” I replied unwittingly, and not

at first observing (so much had I been absorbed in reflection)

the extraordinary manner in which the speaker had chimed in with

my meditations. In an instant afterward I recollected myself, and

my astonishment was profound.

“Dupin,” said I, gravely, “this is beyond my comprehension. I do

not hesitate to say that I am amazed, and can scarcely credit my

senses. How was it possible you should know I was thinking of

——?” Here I paused, to ascertain beyond a doubt whether he really

knew of whom I thought.

“—— of Chantilly,” said he, “why do you pause? You were remarking

to yourself that his diminutive figure unfitted him for tragedy.”

This was precisely what had formed the subject of my reflections.

Chantilly was a quondam cobbler of the Rue St. Denis, who,

becoming stage-mad, had attempted the rôle of Xerxes, in

Crébillon’s tragedy so called, and been notoriously Pasquinaded

for his pains.

“Tell me, for Heaven’s sake,” I exclaimed, “the method—if method

there is—by which you have been enabled to fathom my soul in this

matter.” In fact I was even more startled than I would have been

willing to express.

“It was the fruiterer,” replied my friend, “who brought you to

the conclusion that the mender of soles was not of sufficient

height for Xerxes et id genus omne.”

“The fruiterer!—you astonish me—I know no fruiterer whomsoever.”

“The man who ran up against you as we entered the street—it may

have been fifteen minutes ago.”

I now remembered that, in fact, a fruiterer, carrying upon his

head a large basket of apples, had nearly thrown me down, by

accident, as we passed from the Rue C—— into the thoroughfare

where we stood; but what this had to do with Chantilly I could

not possibly understand.

There was not a particle of charlatânerie about Dupin. “I will

explain,” he said, “and that you may comprehend all clearly, we

will first retrace the course of your meditations, from the

moment in which I spoke to you until that of the rencontre with

the fruiterer in question. The larger links of the chain run

thus—Chantilly, Orion, Dr. Nichols, Epicurus, Stereotomy, the

street stones, the fruiterer.”

There are few persons who have not, at some period of their

lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which

particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The

occupation is often full of interest; and he who attempts it for

the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable

distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal.

What, then, must have been my amazement when I heard the

Frenchman speak what he had just spoken, and when I could not

help acknowledging that he had spoken the truth. He continued:

“We had been talking of horses, if I remember aright, just before

leaving the Rue C——. This was the last subject we discussed. As

we crossed into this street, a fruiterer, with a large basket

upon his head, brushing quickly past us, thrust you upon a pile

of paving stones collected at a spot where the causeway is

undergoing repair. You stepped upon one of the loose fragments,

slipped, slightly strained your ankle, appeared vexed or sulky,

muttered a few words, turned to look at the pile, and then

proceeded in silence. I was not particularly attentive to what

you did; but observation has become with me, of late, a species

of necessity.

“You kept your eyes upon the ground—glancing, with a petulant

expression, at the holes and ruts in the pavement, (so that I saw

you were still thinking of the stones,) until we reached the

little alley called Lamartine, which has been paved, by way of

experiment, with the overlapping and riveted blocks. Here your

countenance brightened up, and, perceiving your lips move, I

could not doubt that you murmured the word ‘stereotomy,’ a term

very affectedly applied to this species of pavement. I knew that

you could not say to yourself ‘stereotomy’ without being brought

to think of atomies, and thus of the theories of Epicurus; and

since, when we discussed this subject not very long ago, I

mentioned to you how singularly, yet with how little notice, the

vague guesses of that noble Greek had met with confirmation in

the late nebular cosmogony, I felt that you could not avoid

casting your eyes upward to the great nebula in Orion, and I

certainly expected that you would do so. You did look up; and I

was now assured that I had correctly followed your steps. But in

that bitter tirade upon Chantilly, which appeared in

yesterday’s ‘Musée,’ the satirist, making some disgraceful

allusions to the cobbler’s change of name upon assuming the

buskin, quoted a Latin line about which we have often conversed.

I mean the line

Perdidit antiquum litera prima sonum.

“I had told you that this was in reference to Orion, formerly

written Urion; and, from certain pungencies connected with this

explanation, I was aware that you could not have forgotten it. It

was clear, therefore, that you would not fail to combine the two

ideas of Orion and Chantilly. That you did combine them I saw by

the character of the smile which passed over your lips. You

thought of the poor cobbler’s immolation. So far, you had been

stooping in your gait; but now I saw you draw yourself up to your

full height. I was then sure that you reflected upon the

diminutive figure of Chantilly. At this point I interrupted your

meditations to remark that as, in fact, he was a very little

fellow—that Chantilly—he would do better at the _Théâtre des

Variétés_.”

Not long after this, we were looking over an evening edition of

the “Gazette des Tribunaux,” when the following paragraphs

arrested our attention.

“Extraordinary Murders.—This morning, about three o’clock, the

inhabitants of the Quartier St. Roch were aroused from sleep by a

succession of terrific shrieks, issuing, apparently, from the

fourth story of a house in the Rue Morgue, known to be in the

sole occupancy of one Madame L’Espanaye, and her daughter,

Mademoiselle Camille L’Espanaye. After some delay, occasioned by

a fruitless attempt to procure admission in the usual manner, the

gateway was broken in with a crowbar, and eight or ten of the

neighbors entered accompanied by two gendarmes. By this time

the cries had ceased; but, as the party rushed up the first

flight of stairs, two or more rough voices in angry contention

were distinguished and seemed to proceed from the upper part of

the house. As the second landing was reached, these sounds, also,

had ceased and everything remained perfectly quiet. The party

spread themselves and hurried from room to room. Upon arriving at

a large back chamber in the fourth story, (the door of which,

being found locked, with the key inside, was forced open,) a

spectacle presented itself which struck every one present not

less with horror than with astonishment.

“The apartment was in the wildest disorder—the furniture broken

and thrown about in all directions. There was only one bedstead;

and from this the bed had been removed, and thrown into the

middle of the floor. On a chair lay a razor, besmeared with

blood. On the hearth were two or three long and thick tresses of

grey human hair, also dabbled in blood, and seeming to have been

pulled out by the roots. Upon the floor were found four

Napoleons, an ear-ring of topaz, three large silver spoons, three

smaller of métal d’Alger, and two bags, containing nearly four

thousand francs in gold. The drawers of a bureau, which stood

in one corner were open, and had been, apparently, rifled,

although many articles still remained in them. A small iron safe

was discovered under the bed (not under the bedstead). It was

open, with the key still in the door. It had no contents beyond a

few old letters, and other papers of little consequence.

“Of Madame L’Espanaye no traces were here seen; but an unusual

quantity of soot being observed in the fire-place, a search was

made in the chimney, and (horrible to relate!) the corpse of the

daughter, head downward, was dragged therefrom; it having been

thus forced up the narrow aperture for a considerable distance.

The body was quite warm. Upon examining it, many excoriations

were perceived, no doubt occasioned by the violence with which it

had been thrust up and disengaged. Upon the face were many severe

scratches, and, upon the throat, dark bruises, and deep

indentations of finger nails, as if the deceased had been

throttled to death.

“After a thorough investigation of every portion of the house,

without farther discovery, the party made its way into a small

paved yard in the rear of the building, where lay the corpse of

the old lady, with her throat so entirely cut that, upon an

attempt to raise her, the head fell off. The body, as well as the

head, was fearfully mutilated—the former so much so as scarcely

to retain any semblance of humanity.

“To this horrible mystery there is not as yet, we believe, the

slightest clew.”

The next day’s paper had these additional particulars.

“The Tragedy in the Rue Morgue.—Many individuals have been

examined in relation to this most extraordinary and frightful

affair” [The word ‘affaire’ has not yet, in France, that levity

of import which it conveys with us], “but nothing whatever has

transpired to throw light upon it. We give below all the material

testimony elicited.

“Pauline Dubourg, laundress, deposes that she has known both

the deceased for three years, having washed for them during that

period. The old lady and her daughter seemed on good terms—very

affectionate towards each other. They were excellent pay. Could

not speak in regard to their mode or means of living. Believed

that Madame L. told fortunes for a living. Was reputed to have

money put by. Never met any persons in the house when she called

for the clothes or took them home. Was sure that they had no

servant in employ. There appeared to be no furniture in any part

of the building except in the fourth story.

“Pierre Moreau, tobacconist, deposes that he has been in the

habit of selling small quantities of tobacco and snuff to Madame

L’Espanaye for nearly four years. Was born in the neighborhood,

and has always resided there. The deceased and her daughter had

occupied the house in which the corpses were found, for more than

six years. It was formerly occupied by a jeweller, who under-let

the upper rooms to various persons. The house was the property of

Madame L. She became dissatisfied with the abuse of the premises

by her tenant, and moved into them herself, refusing to let any

portion. The old lady was childish. Witness had seen the daughter

some five or six times during the six years. The two lived an

exceedingly retired life—were reputed to have money. Had heard it

said among the neighbors that Madame L. told fortunes—did not

believe it. Had never seen any person enter the door except the

old lady and her daughter, a porter once or twice, and a

physician some eight or ten times.

“Many other persons, neighbors, gave evidence to the same effect.

No one was spoken of as frequenting the house. It was not known

whether there were any living connexions of Madame L. and her

daughter. The shutters of the front windows were seldom opened.

Those in the rear were always closed, with the exception of the

large back room, fourth story. The house was a good house—not

very old.

“Isidore Musèt, gendarme, deposes that he was called to the

house about three o’clock in the morning, and found some twenty

or thirty persons at the gateway, endeavoring to gain admittance.

Forced it open, at length, with a bayonet—not with a crowbar. Had

but little difficulty in getting it open, on account of its being

a double or folding gate, and bolted neither at bottom not top.

The shrieks were continued until the gate was forced—and then

suddenly ceased. They seemed to be screams of some person (or

persons) in great agony—were loud and drawn out, not short and

quick. Witness led the way up stairs. Upon reaching the first

landing, heard two voices in loud and angry contention—the one a

gruff voice, the other much shriller—a very strange voice. Could

distinguish some words of the former, which was that of a

Frenchman. Was positive that it was not a woman’s voice. Could

distinguish the words ‘sacré’ and ‘diable.’ The shrill voice

was that of a foreigner. Could not be sure whether it was the

voice of a man or of a woman. Could not make out what was said,

but believed the language to be Spanish. The state of the room

and of the bodies was described by this witness as we described

them yesterday.

“Henri Duval, a neighbor, and by trade a silver-smith, deposes

that he was one of the party who first entered the house.

Corroborates the testimony of Musèt in general. As soon as they

forced an entrance, they reclosed the door, to keep out the

crowd, which collected very fast, notwithstanding the lateness of

the hour. The shrill voice, this witness thinks, was that of an

Italian. Was certain it was not French. Could not be sure that it

was a man’s voice. It might have been a woman’s. Was not

acquainted with the Italian language. Could not distinguish the

words, but was convinced by the intonation that the speaker was

an Italian. Knew Madame L. and her daughter. Had conversed with

both frequently. Was sure that the shrill voice was not that of

either of the deceased.

“——Odenheimer, restaurateur. This witness volunteered his

testimony. Not speaking French, was examined through an

interpreter. Is a native of Amsterdam. Was passing the house at

the time of the shrieks. They lasted for several minutes—probably

ten. They were long and loud—very awful and distressing. Was one

of those who entered the building. Corroborated the previous

evidence in every respect but one. Was sure that the shrill voice

was that of a man—of a Frenchman. Could not distinguish the words

uttered. They were loud and quick—unequal—spoken apparently in

fear as well as in anger. The voice was harsh—not so much shrill

as harsh. Could not call it a shrill voice. The gruff voice said

repeatedly ‘sacré,’ ‘diable,’ and once ‘mon Dieu.’

“Jules Mignaud, banker, of the firm of Mignaud et Fils, Rue

Deloraine. Is the elder Mignaud. Madame L’Espanaye had some

property. Had opened an account with his banking house in the

spring of the year—(eight years previously). Made frequent

deposits in small sums. Had checked for nothing until the third

day before her death, when she took out in person the sum of 4000

francs. This sum was paid in gold, and a clerk went home with the

money.

“Adolphe Le Bon, clerk to Mignaud et Fils, deposes that on the

day in question, about noon, he accompanied Madame L’Espanaye to

her residence with the 4000 francs, put up in two bags. Upon the

door being opened, Mademoiselle L. appeared and took from his

hands one of the bags, while the old lady relieved him of the

other. He then bowed and departed. Did not see any person in the

street at the time. It is a by-street—very lonely.

“William Bird, tailor deposes that he was one of the party who

entered the house. Is an Englishman. Has lived in Paris two

years. Was one of the first to ascend the stairs. Heard the

voices in contention. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman.

Could make out several words, but cannot now remember all. Heard

distinctly ‘sacré’ and ‘mon Dieu.’ There was a sound at the

moment as if of several persons struggling—a scraping and

scuffling sound. The shrill voice was very loud—louder than the

gruff one. Is sure that it was not the voice of an Englishman.

Appeared to be that of a German. Might have been a woman’s voice.

Does not understand German.

“Four of the above-named witnesses, being recalled, deposed that

the door of the chamber in which was found the body of

Mademoiselle L. was locked on the inside when the party reached

it. Every thing was perfectly silent—no groans or noises of any

kind. Upon forcing the door no person was seen. The windows, both

of the back and front room, were down and firmly fastened from

within. A door between the two rooms was closed, but not locked.

The door leading from the front room into the passage was locked,

with the key on the inside. A small room in the front of the

house, on the fourth story, at the head of the passage was open,

the door being ajar. This room was crowded with old beds, boxes,

and so forth. These were carefully removed and searched. There

was not an inch of any portion of the house which was not

carefully searched. Sweeps were sent up and down the chimneys.

The house was a four story one, with garrets (mansardes.) A

trap-door on the roof was nailed down very securely—did not

appear to have been opened for years. The time elapsing between

the hearing of the voices in contention and the breaking open of

the room door, was variously stated by the witnesses. Some made

it as short as three minutes—some as long as five. The door was

opened with difficulty.

“Alfonzo Garcio, undertaker, deposes that he resides in the Rue

Morgue. Is a native of Spain. Was one of the party who entered

the house. Did not proceed up stairs. Is nervous, and was

apprehensive of the consequences of agitation. Heard the voices

in contention. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Could not

distinguish what was said. The shrill voice was that of an

Englishman—is sure of this. Does not understand the English

language, but judges by the intonation.

“Alberto Montani, confectioner, deposes that he was among the

first to ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in question. The

gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Distinguished several words.

The speaker appeared to be expostulating. Could not make out the

words of the shrill voice. Spoke quick and unevenly. Thinks it

the voice of a Russian. Corroborates the general testimony. Is an

Italian. Never conversed with a native of Russia.

“Several witnesses, recalled, here testified that the chimneys of

all the rooms on the fourth story were too narrow to admit the

passage of a human being. By ‘sweeps’ were meant cylindrical

sweeping brushes, such as are employed by those who clean

chimneys. These brushes were passed up and down every flue in the

house. There is no back passage by which any one could have

descended while the party proceeded up stairs. The body of

Mademoiselle L’Espanaye was so firmly wedged in the chimney that

it could not be got down until four or five of the party united

their strength.

“Paul Dumas, physician, deposes that he was called to view the

bodies about day-break. They were both then lying on the sacking

of the bedstead in the chamber where Mademoiselle L. was found.

The corpse of the young lady was much bruised and excoriated. The

fact that it had been thrust up the chimney would sufficiently

account for these appearances. The throat was greatly chafed.

There were several deep scratches just below the chin, together

with a series of livid spots which were evidently the impression

of fingers. The face was fearfully discolored, and the eye-balls

protruded. The tongue had been partially bitten through. A large

bruise was discovered upon the pit of the stomach, produced,

apparently, by the pressure of a knee. In the opinion of M.

Dumas, Mademoiselle L’Espanaye had been throttled to death by

some person or persons unknown. The corpse of the mother was

horribly mutilated. All the bones of the right leg and arm were

more or less shattered. The left tibia much splintered, as 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 firmament 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 ménageais:—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 solution—I mean for the outré 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 præternatural events. Madame and Mademoiselle L’Espanaye were

not destroyed by spirits. The doers of the deed were 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 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—a 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 as 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 Bordeaux.

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 præternatural 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 usage of reason. My

ultimate object is only the truth. My immediate purpose is to

lead you to place in juxtaposition, 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—as 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

outré_—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 Santé.”

“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 another (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

unanimously, by the evidence, to this voice,—the expression,

‘mon Dieu!’ This, under the circumstances, has been justly

characterized by one of the witnesses (Montani, the

confectioner,) as an expression of remonstrance or expostulation.

Upon these two words, therefore, I have mainly built my hopes of

a full solution of the riddle. A Frenchman was cognizant of the

murder. It is possible—indeed it is far more than probable—that

he was innocent of all participation in the bloody transactions

which took place. The Ourang-Outang may have escaped from him. He

may have traced it to the chamber; but, under the agitating

circumstances which ensued, he could never have re-captured it.

It is still at large. I will not pursue these guesses—for I have

no right to call them more—since the shades of reflection upon

which they are based are scarcely of sufficient depth to be

appreciable by my own intellect, and since I could not pretend to

make them intelligible to the understanding of another. We will

call them guesses then, and speak of them as such. If the

Frenchman in question is indeed, as I suppose, innocent of this

atrocity, this advertisement which I left last night, upon our

return home, at the office of ‘Le Monde’ (a paper devoted to the

shipping interest, and much sought by sailors), will bring him to

our residence.”

He handed me a paper, and I read thus:

CAUGHT—_In the Bois de Boulogne, early in the morning of the

——inst.,_ (the morning of the murder), _a very large, tawny

Ourang-Outang of the Bornese species. The owner (who is

ascertained to be a sailor, belonging to a Maltese vessel) may

have the animal again, upon identifying it satisfactorily, and

paying a few charges arising from its capture and keeping. Call

at No. ——, Rue ——, Faubourg St. Germain—au troisième._

“How was it possible,” I asked, “that you should know the man to

be a sailor, and belonging to a Maltese vessel?”

“I do not know it,” said Dupin. “I am not sure of it. Here,

however, is a small piece of ribbon, which from its form, and

from its greasy appearance, has evidently been used in tying the

hair in one of those long queues of which sailors are so fond.

Moreover, this knot is one which few besides sailors can tie, and

is peculiar to the Maltese. I picked the ribbon up at the foot of

the lightning-rod. It could not have belonged to either of the

deceased. Now if, after all, I am wrong in my induction from this

ribbon, that the Frenchman was a sailor belonging to a Maltese

vessel, still I can have done no harm in saying what I did in the

advertisement. If I am in error, he will merely suppose that I

have been misled by some circumstance into which he will not take

the trouble to inquire. But if I am right, a great point is

gained. Cognizant although innocent of the murder, the Frenchman

will naturally hesitate about replying to the advertisement—about

demanding the Ourang-Outang. He will reason thus:—‘I am innocent;

I am poor; my Ourang-Outang is of great value—to one in my

circumstances a fortune of itself—why should I lose it through

idle apprehensions of danger? Here it is, within my grasp. It was

found in the Bois de Boulogne—at a vast distance from the scene

of that butchery. How can it ever be suspected that a brute beast

should have done the deed? The police are at fault—they have

failed to procure the slightest clew. Should they even trace the

animal, it would be impossible to prove me cognizant of the

murder, or to implicate me in guilt on account of that

cognizance. Above all, I am known. The advertiser designates me

as the possessor of the beast. I am not sure to what limit his

knowledge may extend. Should I avoid claiming a property of so

great value, which it is known that I possess, I will render the

animal at least, liable to suspicion. It is not my policy to

attract attention either to myself or to the beast. I will answer

the advertisement, get the Ourang-Outang, and keep it close until

this matter has blown over.’”

At this moment we heard a step upon the stairs.

“Be ready,” said Dupin, “with your pistols, but neither use them

nor show them until at a signal from myself.”

The front door of the house had been left open, and the visitor

had entered, without ringing, and advanced several steps upon the

staircase. Now, however, he seemed to hesitate. Presently we

heard him descending. Dupin was moving quickly to the door, when

we again heard him coming up. He did not turn back a second time,

but stepped up with decision, and rapped at the door of our

chamber.

“Come in,” said Dupin, in a cheerful and hearty tone.

A man entered. He was a sailor, evidently,—a tall, stout, and

muscular-looking person, with a certain dare-devil expression of

countenance, not altogether unprepossessing. His face, greatly

sunburnt, was more than half hidden by whisker and mustachio.

He had with him a huge oaken cudgel, but appeared to be otherwise

unarmed. He bowed awkwardly, and bade us “good evening,” in

French accents, which, although somewhat Neufchatelish, were

still sufficiently indicative of a Parisian origin.

“Sit down, my friend,” said Dupin. “I suppose you have called

about the Ourang-Outang. Upon my word, I almost envy you the

possession of him; a remarkably fine, and no doubt a very

valuable animal. How old do you suppose him to be?”

The sailor drew a long breath, with the air of a man relieved of

some intolerable burden, and then replied, in an assured tone:

“I have no way of telling—but he can’t be more than four or five

years old. Have you got him here?”

“Oh no, we had no conveniences for keeping him here. He is at a

livery stable in the Rue Dubourg, just by. You can get him in the

morning. Of course you are prepared to identify the property?”

“To be sure I am, sir.”

“I shall be sorry to part with him,” said Dupin.

“I don’t mean that you should be at all this trouble for nothing,

sir,” said the man. “Couldn’t expect it. Am very willing to pay a

reward for the finding of the animal—that is to say, any thing in

reason.”

“Well,” replied my friend, “that is all very fair, to be sure.

Let me think!—what should I have? Oh! I will tell you. My reward

shall be this. You shall give me all the information in your

power about these murders in the Rue Morgue.”

Dupin said the last words in a very low tone, and very quietly.

Just as quietly, too, he walked toward the door, locked it and

put the key in his pocket. He then drew a pistol from his bosom

and placed it, without the least flurry, upon the table.

The sailor’s face flushed up as if he were struggling with

suffocation. He started to his feet and grasped his cudgel, but

the next moment he fell back into his seat, trembling violently,

and with the countenance of death itself. He spoke not a word. I

pitied him from the bottom of my heart.

“My friend,” said Dupin, in a kind tone, “you are alarming

yourself unnecessarily—you are indeed. We mean you no harm

whatever. I pledge you the honor of a gentleman, and of a

Frenchman, that we intend you no injury. I perfectly well know

that you are innocent of the atrocities in the Rue Morgue. It

will not do, however, to deny that you are in some measure

implicated in them. From what I have already said, you must know

that I have had means of information about this matter—means of

which you could never have dreamed. Now the thing stands thus.

You have done nothing which you could have avoided—nothing,

certainly, which renders you culpable. You were not even guilty

of robbery, when you might have robbed with impunity. You have

nothing to conceal. You have no reason for concealment. On the

other hand, you are bound by every principle of honor to confess

all you know. An innocent man is now imprisoned, charged with

that crime of which you can point out the perpetrator.”

The sailor had recovered his presence of mind, in a great

measure, while Dupin uttered these words; but his original

boldness of bearing was all gone.

“So help me God!” said he, after a brief pause, “I will tell

you all I know about this affair;—but I do not expect you to

believe one half I say—I would be a fool indeed if I did. Still,

I am innocent, and I will make a clean breast if I die for it.”

What he stated was, in substance, this. He had lately made a

voyage to the Indian Archipelago. A party, of which he formed

one, landed at Borneo, and passed into the interior on an

excursion of pleasure. Himself and a companion had captured the

Ourang-Outang. This companion dying, the animal fell into his own

exclusive possession. After great trouble, occasioned by the

intractable ferocity of his captive during the home voyage, he at

length succeeded in lodging it safely at his own residence in

Paris, where, not to attract toward himself the unpleasant

curiosity of his neighbors, he kept it carefully secluded, until

such time as it should recover from a wound in the foot, received

from a splinter on board ship. His ultimate design was to sell

it.

Returning home from some sailors’ frolic the night, or rather in

the morning of the murder, he found the beast occupying his own

bed-room, into which it had broken from a closet adjoining, where

it had been, as was thought, securely confined. Razor in hand,

and fully lathered, it was sitting before a looking-glass,

attempting the operation of shaving, in which it had no doubt

previously watched its master through the key-hole of the closet.

Terrified at the sight of so dangerous a weapon in the possession

of an animal so ferocious, and so well able to use it, the man,

for some moments, was at a loss what to do. He had been

accustomed, however, to quiet the creature, even in its fiercest

moods, by the use of a whip, and to this he now resorted. Upon

sight of it, the Ourang-Outang sprang at once through the door of

the chamber, down the stairs, and thence, through a window,

unfortunately open, into the street.

The Frenchman followed in despair; the ape, razor still in hand,

occasionally stopping to look back and gesticulate at its

pursuer, until the latter had nearly come up with it. It then

again made off. In this manner the chase continued for a long

time. The streets were profoundly quiet, as it was nearly three

o’clock in the morning. In passing down an alley in the rear of

the Rue Morgue, the fugitive’s attention was arrested by a light

gleaming from the open window of Madame L’Espanaye’s chamber, in

the fourth story of her house. Rushing to the building, it

perceived the lightning rod, clambered up with inconceivable

agility, grasped the shutter, which was thrown fully back against

the wall, and, by its means, swung itself directly upon the

headboard of the bed. The whole feat did not occupy a minute. The

shutter was kicked open again by the Ourang-Outang as it entered

the room.

The sailor, in the meantime, was both rejoiced and perplexed. He

had strong hopes of now recapturing the brute, as it could

scarcely escape from the trap into which it had ventured, except

by the rod, where it might be intercepted as it came down. On the

other hand, there was much cause for anxiety as to what it might

do in the house. This latter reflection urged the man still to

follow the fugitive. A lightning rod is ascended without

difficulty, especially by a sailor; but, when he had arrived as

high as the window, which lay far to his left, his career was

stopped; the most that he could accomplish was to reach over so

as to obtain a glimpse of the interior of the room. At this

glimpse he nearly fell from his hold through excess of horror.

Now it was that those hideous shrieks arose upon the night, which

had startled from slumber the inmates of the Rue Morgue. Madame

L’Espanaye and her daughter, habited in their night clothes, had

apparently been occupied in arranging some papers in the iron

chest already mentioned, which had been wheeled into the middle

of the room. It was open, and its contents lay beside it on the

floor. The victims must have been sitting with their backs toward

the window; and, from the time elapsing between the ingress of

the beast and the screams, it seems probable that it was not

immediately perceived. The flapping-to of the shutter would

naturally have been attributed to the wind.

As the sailor looked in, the gigantic animal had seized Madame

L’Espanaye by the hair, (which was loose, as she had been combing

it,) and was flourishing the razor about her face, in imitation

of the motions of a barber. The daughter lay prostrate and

motionless; she had swooned. The screams and struggles of the old

lady (during which the hair was torn from her head) had the

effect of changing the probably pacific purposes of the

Ourang-Outang into those of wrath. With one determined sweep of

its muscular arm it nearly severed her head from her body. The

sight of blood inflamed its anger into phrenzy. Gnashing its

teeth, and flashing fire from its eyes, it flew upon the body of

the girl, and imbedded its fearful talons in her throat,

retaining its grasp until she expired. Its wandering and wild

glances fell at this moment upon the head of the bed, over which

the face of its master, rigid with horror, was just discernible.

The fury of the beast, who no doubt bore still in mind the

dreaded whip, was instantly converted into fear. Conscious of

having deserved punishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its

bloody deeds, and skipped about the chamber in an agony of

nervous agitation; throwing down and breaking the furniture as it

moved, and dragging the bed from the bedstead. In conclusion, it

seized first the corpse of the daughter, and thrust it up the

chimney, as it was found; then that of the old lady, which it

immediately hurled through the window headlong.

As the ape approached the casement with its mutilated burden, the

sailor shrank aghast to the rod, and, rather gliding than

clambering down it, hurried at once home—dreading the

consequences of the butchery, and gladly abandoning, in his

terror, all solicitude about the fate of the Ourang-Outang. The

words heard by the party upon the staircase were the Frenchman’s

exclamations of horror and affright, commingled with the fiendish

jabberings of the brute.

I have scarcely anything to add. The Ourang-Outang must have

escaped from the chamber, by the rod, just before the breaking of

the door. It must have closed the window as it passed through it.

It was subsequently caught by the owner himself, who obtained for

it a very large sum at the Jardin des Plantes. Le Don was

instantly released, upon our narration of the circumstances (with

some comments from Dupin) at the bureau of the Prefect of Police.

This functionary, however well disposed to my friend, could not

altogether conceal his chagrin at the turn which affairs had

taken, and was fain to indulge in a sarcasm or two, about the

propriety of every person minding his own business.

“Let him talk,” said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to

reply. “Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience, I am

satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle.

Nevertheless, that he failed in the solution of this mystery, is

by no means that matter for wonder which he supposes it; for, in

truth, our friend the Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be

profound. In his wisdom is no stamen. It is all head and no

body, like the pictures of the Goddess Laverna,—or, at best, all

head and shoulders, like a codfish. But he is a good creature

after all. I like him especially for one master stroke of cant,

by which he has attained his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the

way he has ‘_de nier ce qui est, et d’expliquer ce qui n’est

pas._’” (*)

(*) Rousseau—Nouvelle Heloïse.