But they were young: their burning passions proved them so. Inflamed
to madness by the coquetry of the girl-widow, who neither granted
nor quite withheld her favors, the three rivals began to interchange
threatening glances. Still keeping hold of the fair prize, they
grappled fiercely at one another's throats. As they struggled to and
fro, the table was overturned, and the vase dashed into a thousand
fragments. The precious Water of Youth flowed in a bright stream
across the floor, moistening the wings of a butterfly, which, grown
old in the decline of summer, had alighted there to die. The insect
fluttered lightly through the chamber, and settled on the snowy head
of Doctor Heidegger.

"Come, come, gentlemen!--come, Madame Wycherley!" exclaimed the
doctor, "I really must protest against this riot."

They stood still and shivered; for it seemed as if gray Time were
calling them back from their sunny youth, far down into the chill and
darksome vale of years. They looked at old Doctor Heidegger, who sat
in his carved arm-chair, holding the rose of half a century which he
had rescued from among the fragments of the shattered vase. At the
motion of his hand the rioters resumed their seats, the more readily
because their violent exertions had wearied them, youthful though they
were.

"My poor Sylvia's rose!" ejaculated Doctor Heidegger, holding it in
the light of the sunset clouds; "it appears to be fading again."

And so it was. Even while the party were looking at it the flower
continued to shrivel up, till it became as dry and fragile as when the
doctor had first thrown it into the vase. He shook off the few drops
of moisture which clung to its petals.

"I love it as well thus as in its dewy freshness," observed he,
pressing the withered rose to his withered lips. While he spoke, the
butterfly fluttered down from the doctor's snowy head, and fell upon
the floor.

His guests shivered again. A strange dullness, whether of the body or
spirit they could not tell, was creeping gradually over them all. They
gazed at one another, and fancied that each fleeting moment snatched
away a charm, and left a deepening furrow where none had been before.
Was it an illusion? Had the changes of a lifetime been crowded into so
brief a space, and were they now four aged people, sitting with their
old friend, Doctor Heidegger?

"Are we grown old again so soon?" cried they, dolefully.

In truth, they had. The Water of Youth possessed merely a virtue
more transient than that of wine. The delirium which it created had
effervesced away. Yes, they were old again! With a shuddering impulse,
that showed her a woman still, the widow clasped her skinny hands over
her face, and wished that the coffin lid were over it, since it could
be no longer beautiful.

"Yes, friends, ye are old again," said Doctor Heidegger; "and lo! the
Water of Youth is all lavished on the ground. Well, I bemoan it not;
for if the fountain gushed at my doorstep, I would not stoop to bathe
my lips in it--no, though its delirium were for years instead of
moments. Such is the lesson ye have taught me!"

But the doctor's four friends had taught no such lesson to themselves.
They resolved forthwith to make a pilgrimage to Florida, and quaff at
morning, noon, and night from the Fountain of Youth.




THE PURLOINED LETTER[1]

[Footnote 1: The pattern in method for all detective stories.]

_Edgar Allan Poe_ (1809-1849)


At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18--, I
was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in
company with my friend, C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library,
or book-closet, _au troisiГЁme_, No. 33 Rue DunГґt, Faubourg St.
Germain. For one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence,
while each, to any casual observer, might have seemed intently and
exclusively occupied with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed
the atmosphere of the chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally
discussing certain topics which had formed matter for conversation
between us at an earlier period of the evening; I mean the affair of
the Rue Morgue, and the mystery attending the murder of Marie RogГЄt.
I looked upon it, therefore, as something of a coincidence, when
the door of our apartment was thrown open and admitted our old
acquaintance, Monsieur G----, the Prefect of the Parisian police.

We gave him a hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as much of the
entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, and we had not seen
him for several years. We had been sitting in the dark, and Dupin now
arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down again, without
doing so, upon G----'s saying that he had called to consult us, or
rather to ask the opinion of my friend, about some official business
which had occasioned a great deal of trouble.

"If it is any point requiring reflection," observed Dupin, as he
forebore to enkindle the wick, "we shall examine it to better purpose
in the dark."

"That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had the
fashion of calling everything "odd" that was beyond his comprehension,
and thus lived amid an absolute legion of "oddities."

"Very true," said Dupin, as he supplied his visitor with a pipe, and
rolled toward him a comfortable chair.

"And what is the difficulty now?" I asked. "Nothing more in the
assassination way, I hope?"

"Oh no, nothing of that nature. The fact is, the business is _very_
simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently
well ourselves; but then I thought Dupin would like to hear the
details of it, because it is so excessively _odd_."

"Simple and odd," said Dupin.

"Why, yes; and not exactly that, either. The fact is, we have all been
a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet baffles
us altogether."

"Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you at
fault," said my friend.

"What nonsense you _do_ talk!" replied the Prefect, laughing heartily.

"Perhaps the mystery is a little _too_ plain," said Dupin.

"Oh, good heavens! who ever heard of such an idea?"

"A little _too_ self-evident."

"Ha! ha! ha!--ha! ha! ha!--ho! ho! ho!" roared our visitor, profoundly
amused, "Oh, Dupin, you will be the death of me yet!"

"And what, after all, _is_ the matter on hand?" I asked.

"Why, I will tell you," replied the Prefect, as he gave a long,
steady, and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair. "I
will tell you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me caution you
that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, and that I
should most probably lose the position I now hold were it known that I
confided it to any one."

"Proceed," said I.

"Or not," said Dupin.

"Well, then; I have received personal information, from a very high
quarter, that a certain document of the last importance has been
purloined from the royal apartments. The individual who purloined it
is known; this beyond a doubt; he was seen to take it. It is known,
also, that it still remains in his possession."

"How is this known?" asked Dupin.

"It is clearly inferred," replied the Prefect, "from the nature of the
document, and from the non-appearance of certain results which would
at once arise from its passing _out_ of the robber's possession--that
is to say, from his employing it as he must design in the end to
employ it."

"Be a little more explicit," I said.

"Well, I may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its holder
a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is immensely
valuable." The Prefect was fond of the cant of diplomacy.

"Still I do not quite understand," said Dupin.

"No? Well, the disclosure of the document to a third person, who shall
be nameless, would bring in question the honor of a personage of the
most exalted station, and this fact gives the holder of the document
an ascendancy over the illustrious personage whose honor and peace are
so jeopardized."

"But this ascendancy," I interposed, "would depend upon the robber's
knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber. Who would dare--"

"The thief," said G----, "is the Minister D----, who dares all things,
those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. The method of the
theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document in question--a
letter, to be frank--had been received by the personage robbed while
alone in the royal _boudoir_. During its perusal she was suddenly
interrupted by the entrance of the other exalted personage from whom
especially it was her wish to conceal it. After a hurried and vain
endeavor to thrust it in a drawer, she was forced to place it, open as
it was, upon a table. The address, however, was uppermost, and, the
contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped notice. At this juncture
enters the Minister D----. His lynx eye immediately perceives the
paper, recognizes the handwriting of the address, observes the
confusion of the personage addressed, and fathoms her secret. After
some business transactions, hurried through in his ordinary manner, he
produces a letter somewhat similar to the one in question, opens it,
pretends to read it, and then places it in close juxtaposition to the
other. Again he converses, for some fifteen minutes, upon the public
affairs. At length, in taking leave, he takes also from the table
the letter to which he had no claim. Its rightful owner saw, but of
course, dared not call attention to the act, in the presence of the
third personage who stood at her elbow. The Minister decamped, leaving
his own letter--one of no importance--upon the table."

"Here, then," said Dupin to me, "you have precisely what you demand to
make the ascendancy complete--the robber's knowledge of the loser's
knowledge of the robber."

"Yes," replied the Prefect, "and the power thus attained has, for some
months past, been wielded, for political purposes, to a very dangerous
extent. The personage robbed is more thoroughly convinced, every day,
of the necessity of reclaiming her letter. But this, of course, cannot
be done openly. In fine, driven to despair, she has committed the
matter to me."

"Than whom," said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind of smoke, "no more
sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired, or even imagined."

"You flatter me," replied the Prefect; "but it is possible that some
such opinion may have been entertained."

"It is clear," said I, "as you observe, that the letter is still in
the possession of the Minister; since it is this possession, and
not any employment of the letter, which bestows the power. With the
employment the power departs."

"True," said G----; "and upon this conviction I proceeded. My first
care was to make thorough search of the Minister's hotel; and here
my chief embarrassment lay in the necessity of searching without his
knowledge. Beyond all things, I have been warned of the danger which
would result from giving him reason to suspect our design."

"But," said I, "you are quite _au fait_ in these investigations. The
Parisian police have done this thing often before."

"Oh yes, and for this reason I did not despair. The habits of the
Minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently absent from
home all night. His servants are by no means numerous. They sleep at
a distance from their master's apartment, and, being chiefly
Neapolitans, are readily made drunk. I have keys, as you know, with
which I can open any chamber or cabinet in Paris. For three months a
night has not passed during the greater part of which I have not
been engaged, personally, in ransacking the D---- Hotel. My honor is
interested, and, to mention a great secret, the reward is enormous. So
I did not abandon the search until I had become fully satisfied that
the thief is a more astute man than myself. I fancy that I have
investigated every nook and corner of the premises in which it is
possible that the paper can be concealed."

"But is it not possible," I suggested, "that although the letter may
be in the possession of the Minister, as it unquestionably is, he may
have concealed it elsewhere than upon his own premises?"

"This is barely possible," said Dupin. "The present peculiar condition
of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues in which D----
is known to be involved, would render the instant availability of the
document--its susceptibility of being produced at a moment's notice--a
point of nearly equal importance with its possession."

"Its susceptibility of being produced?" said I.

"That is to say, of being _destroyed_," said Dupin.

"True," I observed; "the paper is clearly, then, upon the premises. As
for its being upon the person of the Minister, we may consider that as
out of the question."

"Entirely," said the Prefect. "He has been twice waylaid, as if by
footpads, and his person rigidly searched under my own inspection."

"You might have spared yourself this trouble," said Dupin. "D----, I
presume, is not altogether a fool; and, if not, must have anticipated
these waylayings, as a matter of course."

"Not _altogether_ a fool," said G----; "but, then, he is a poet, which
I take to be only one remove from a fool."

"True," said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from his
meerschaum, "although I have been guilty of certain doggrel myself."

"Suppose you detail," said I, "the particulars of your search."

"Why, the fact is, we took our time, and we searched _everywhere_. I
have had long experience in these affairs. I took the entire building,
room by room, devoting the nights of a whole week to each. We
examined, first, the furniture of each apartment. We opened every
possible drawer; and I presume you know that, to a properly trained
police-agent, such a thing as a '_secret_' drawer is impossible. Any
man is a dolt who permits a 'secret' drawer to escape him in a search
of this kind. The thing is so plain. There is a certain amount of
bulk--of space--to be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we have
accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not escape us. After
the cabinets we took the chairs. The cushions we probed with the fine
long needles you have seen me employ. From the tables we removed the
tops."

"Why so?"

"Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged piece of
furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal an article;
then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity,
and the top replaced. The bottoms and tops of bedposts are employed in
the same way."

"But could not the cavity be detected by sounding?" I asked.

"By no means, if, when the article is deposited, a sufficient wadding
of cotton be placed around it. Besides, in our case, we were obliged
to proceed without noise."

"But you could not have removed--you could not have taken to pieces
_all_ articles of furniture in which it would have been possible to
make a deposit in the manner you mention. A letter may be compressed
into a thin spiral roll, not differing much in shape or bulk from a
large knitting-needle, and in this form it might be inserted into
the rung of a chair, for example. You did not take to pieces all the
chairs?"

"Certainly not; but we did better--we examined the rungs of every
chair in the hotel, and, indeed, the jointings of every description of
furniture, by the aid of a most powerful microscope. Had there been
any traces of recent disturbance we should not have failed to detect
it instantly. A single grain of gimlet-dust, for example, would have
been as obvious as an apple. Any disorder in the gluing--any unusual
gaping in the joints--would have sufficed to insure detection."

"I presume you looked to the mirrors, between the boards and the
plates, and you probed the beds and the bedclothes, as well as the
curtains and carpets."

"That, of course; and when we had absolutely completed every particle
of the furniture in this way, then we examined the house itself. We
divided its entire surface into compartments, which we numbered, so
that none might be missed; then we scrutinized each individual square
inch throughout the premises, including the two houses immediately
adjoining, with the microscope, as before."

"The two houses adjoining!" I exclaimed. "You must have had a great
deal of trouble."

"We had; but the reward offered is prodigious."

"You include the _grounds_ about the houses?"

"All the grounds are paved with brick. They gave us comparatively
little trouble. We examined the moss between the bricks, and found it
undisturbed."

"You looked among D----'s papers, of course, and into the books of the
library?"

"Certainly; we opened every package and parcel; we not only opened
every book, but we turned over every leaf in each volume, not
contenting ourselves with a mere shake, according to the fashion of
some of our police officers. We also measured the thickness of every
book-_cover_, with the most accurate admeasurement, and applied to
each the most jealous scrutiny of the microscope. Had any of the
bindings been recently meddled with, it would have been utterly
impossible that the fact should have escaped observation. Some five or
six volumes, just from the hands of the binder, we carefully probed,
longitudinally, with the needles."

"You explored the floors beneath the carpets?"

"Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined the boards with
the microscope."

"And the paper on the walls?"

"Yes."

"You looked into the cellars?"

"We did."

"Then," I said, "you have been making a miscalculation, and the letter
is _not_ upon the premises, as you suppose."

"I fear you are right there," said the Prefect. "And now, Dupin, what
would you advise me to do?"

"To make a thorough research of the premises."

"That is absolutely needless," replied G----. "I am not more sure that
I breathe than I am that the letter is not at the hotel."

"I have no better advice to give you," said Dupin. "You have, of
course, an accurate description of the letter?"

"Oh yes!" And here the Prefect, producing a memorandum book, proceeded
to read aloud a minute account of the internal, and especially of the
external, appearance of the missing document. Soon after finishing
the perusal of this description, he took his departure, more entirely
depressed in spirits than I had ever known the good gentleman before.

In about a month afterward he paid us another visit, and found us
occupied very nearly as before. He took a pipe and a chair, and
entered into some ordinary conversation. At length I said:

"Well, but, G----, what of the purloined letter? I presume you have at
last made up your mind that there is no such thing as overreaching the
Minister?"

"Confound him, say I--yes; I made the re-examination, however, as
Dupin suggested--but it was all labor lost, as I knew it would be."

"How much was the reward offered, did you say?" asked Dupin.

"Why, a very great deal--a _very_ liberal reward--I don't like to say
how much, precisely; but one thing I _will_ say, that I wouldn't mind
giving my individual check for fifty thousand francs to any one who
could obtain me that letter. The fact is, it is becoming of more and
more importance every day; and the reward has been lately doubled. If
it were trebled, however, I could do no more than I have done."

"Why, yes," said Dupin, drawling, between the whiffs of his
meerschaum, "I really--think, G----, you have not exerted yourself--to
the utmost in this matter. You might--do a little more, I think; eh?"

"How?--in what way?"

"Why"--puff, puff--"you might"--puff, puff--"employ counsel in the
matter, eh"--puff, puff, puff. "Do you remember the story they tell of
Abernethy?"

"No; hang Abernethy!"

"To be sure! Hang him and welcome. But, once upon a time, a certain
miser conceived the design of spunging upon this Abernethy for
a medical opinion. Getting up, for this purpose, an ordinary
conversation in a private company, he insinuated his case to the
physician as that of an imaginary individual."

"'We will suppose,' said the miser, 'that his symptoms are such and
such; now, doctor, what would _you_ have directed him to take?'

"'Take!' said Abernethy. 'Why, take _advice_, to be sure.'"

"But," said the Prefect, a little discomposed, "_I_ am _perfectly_
willing to take advice, and to pay for it. I would _really_ give fifty
thousand francs to any one who would aid me in the matter."

"In that case," replied Dupin, opening a drawer, and producing a
check-book, "you may as well fill me up a check for the amount
mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter."

I was astounded. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunder-stricken.
For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking
incredulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed
starting from their sockets; then apparently recovering himself in
some measure, he seized a pen, and after several pauses and vacant
stares, finally filled up and signed a check for fifty thousand
francs, and handed it across the table to Dupin. The latter examined
it carefully and deposited it in his pocket-book; then, unlocking an
_escritoire_, took thence a letter and gave it to the Prefect. This
functionary grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with
a trembling hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and
then, scrambling and struggling to the door, rushed at length
unceremoniously from the room and from the house, without having
uttered a syllable since Dupin had requested him to fill up the check.

When he had gone, my friend entered into some explanation.

"The Parisian police," he said, "are exceedingly able in their way.
They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thoroughly versed in the
knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to demand. Thus, when G----
detailed to us his mode of searching the premises at the Hotel
D----, I felt entire confidence in his having made a satisfactory
investigation--so far as his labors extended."

"So far as his labors extended?" said I.

"Yes," said Dupin. "The measures adopted were not only the best of
their kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. Had the letter
been deposited within the range of their search, these fellows would,
beyond a question, have found it."

I merely laughed--but he seemed quite serious in all that he said.

"The measures, then," he continued, "were good in their kind, and well
executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the case and
to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources are, with the
Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he forcibly adapts his
designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too shallow for
the matter in hand, and many a school-boy is a better reasoner than
he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in
the game of 'even and odd' attracted universal admiration. This game
is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a
number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is
even or odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one; if wrong, he
loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the school.
Of course, he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere
observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For
example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his
closed hand, asks, 'Are they even or odd?' Our school-boy replies,
'Odd,' and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says
to himself: 'The simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his
amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd upon
the second; I will therefore guess odd'; he guesses odd, and wins.
Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, he would have reasoned
thus;

'This fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd, and, in
the second, he will propose to himself, upon the first impulse, a
simple variation from even to odd, as did the first simpleton;
but then a second thought will suggest that this is too simple a
variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even as before.
I will therefore guess even'; he guesses even, and wins. Now this mode
of reasoning in the school-boy, whom his fellows termed 'Lucky,' what,
in its last analysis, is it?"

"It is merely," I said, "an identification of the reasoner's intellect
with that of his opponent."

"It is," said Dupin; "and, upon inquiring of the boy by what means he
effected the _thorough_ identification in which his success consisted,
I received answer as follows: 'When I wish to find out how wise, or
how stupid, or how good, or how wicked, is any one, or what are his
thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as
accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his,
and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind
or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.' This
response of the school-boy lies at the bottom of all the spurious
profundity which has been attributed to Rochefoucault, to La Bougive,
to Machiavelli, and to Campanella."

"And the identification," I said, "of the reasoner's intellect with
that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright, upon the
accuracy with which the opponent's intellect is admeasured."

"For its practical value it depends upon this," replied Dupin; "and
the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by default of
this identification, and, secondly, by ill-admeasurement, or rather
through non-admeasurement, of the intellect with which they are
engaged. They consider only their _own_ ideas of ingenuity; and, in
searching for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which
_they_ would have hidden it. They are right in this much--that their
own ingenuity is a faithful representative of that of _the mass_; but
when the cunning of the individual felon is diverse in character from
their own, the felon foils them of course. This always happens when it
is above their own, and very usually when it is below. They have no
variation of principle in their investigations; at best, when urged by
some unusual emergency--by some extraordinary reward--they extend
or exaggerate their old modes of _practice_, without touching their
principles. What, for example, in this case of D----, has been done to
vary the principle of action? What is all this boring, and probing,
and sounding, and scrutinizing with the microscope, and dividing the
surface of the building into registered square inches--what is it all
but an exaggeration of the application of the one principle or set
of principles of search, which are based upon the one set of notions
retarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine
of his duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see he had taken it for
granted that _all_ men proceed to conceal a letter, not exactly in
a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg, but, at least, in _some_
out-of-the-way hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of thought
which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole bored in a
chair-leg? And do you not see, also, that such _recherchГ©_ nooks for
concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions, and would be
adopted only by ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of concealment,
a disposal of the article concealed--a disposal of it in this
_recherchГ©_ manner--is, in the very first instance, presumable and
presumed; and thus its discovery depends, not at all upon the acumen,
but altogether upon the mere care, patience, and determination of the
seekers; and where the case is of importance--or, when the reward is
of magnitude--the qualities in question have _never_ been known to
fail. You will now understand what I meant in suggesting that, had
the purloined letter been hidden anywhere within the limits of the
Prefect's examination--in other words, had the principle of
its concealment been comprehended within the principles of the
Prefect--its discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond
question. This functionary, however, has been thoroughly mystified;
and the remote source of his defeat lies in the supposition that the
Minister is a fool, because he has acquired renown as a poet. All
fools are poets; this the Prefect _feels_; and he is merely guilty
of a _non distributio medii_ in thence inferring that all poets are
fools. I mean to say, that if the Minister had been no more than a
mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no necessity of
giving me this check. I knew him, however, as both mathematician and
poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference
to the circumstances by which he was surrounded. I knew him as a
courtier, too, and as a bold _intriguant_. Such a man, I considered,
could not fail to be aware of the ordinary political modes of action.
He could not have failed to anticipate--and events have proved that he
did not fail to anticipate--the waylayings to which he was subjected.
He must have foreseen, I reflected, the secret investigations of his
premises. His frequent absences from home at night, which were hailed
by the Prefect as certain aids to his success, I regarded only as
_ruses_, to afford opportunity for thorough search to the police, and
thus the sooner to impress them with the conviction to which G----, in
fact, did finally arrive--the conviction that the letter was not upon
the premises. I felt, also, that the whole train of thought, which
I was at some pains in detailing to you just now, concerning the
invariable principle of political action in searches for articles
concealed--I felt that this whole train of thought would necessarily
pass through the mind of the Minister. It would imperatively lead him
to despise all the ordinary _nooks_ of concealment. _He_ could not, I
reflected, be so weak as not to see that the most intricate and remote
recess of his hotel would be as open as his commonest closets to the
eyes, to the probes, to the gimlets, and to the microscopes of the
Prefect. I saw, in fine, that he would be driven, as a matter of
course, to _simplicity_, if not deliberately induced to it as a matter
of choice. You will remember, perhaps, how desperately the Prefect
laughed when I suggested, upon our first interview, that it was just
possible this mystery troubled him so much on account of its being so
_very_ self-evident."

"Yes," said I, "I remember his merriment well. I really thought he
would have fallen into convulsions."

"The material world," continued Dupin, "abounds with very strict
analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been
given to the rhetorical dogma that metaphor, or simile, may be made
to strengthen an argument as well as to embellish a description. The
principle of the _vis inertiae_, for example, seems to be identical in
physics and metaphysics. It is not more true, in the former, that a
large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller
one, and that its subsequent _momentum_ is commensurate with this
difficulty, than it is, in the latter, that intellects of the vaster
capacity, while more forcible, more constant, and more eventful in
their movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less readily
moved, and more embarrassed, and full of hesitation in the first few
steps of their progress. Again: have you ever noticed which of
the street signs, over the shop doors, are the most attractive of
attention?"

"I have never given the matter a thought," I said.

"There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, "which is played upon a map.
One party playing requires another to find a given word--the name of
town, river, state, or empire--any word, in short, upon the motley and
perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game generally seeks
to embarrass his opponents by giving them the most minutely lettered
names; but the adept selects such words as stretch, in large
characters, from one end of the chart to the other. These, like
the over-largely lettered signs and placards of the street, escape
observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here
the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral
inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed
those considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably
self-evident. But this is a point, it appears, somewhat above or
beneath the understanding of the Prefect. He never once thought it
probable, or possible, that the Minister had deposited the letter
immediately beneath the nose of the whole world, by way of best
preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it.

"But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and discriminating
ingenuity of D----; upon the fact that the document must always have
been _at hand_, if he intended to use it to good purpose; and upon the
decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect, that it was not hidden
within the limits of that dignitary's ordinary search, the more
satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter, the Minister
had resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not
attempting to conceal it.

"Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of green
spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by accident, at the
Ministerial hotel. I found D---- at home, yawning, lounging, and
dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in the last extremity of
_ennui_. He is, perhaps, the most really energetic human being now
alive--but that is only when nobody sees him.

"To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and lamented the
necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which I cautiously and
thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment, while seemingly intent only
upon the conversation of my host.

"I paid especial attention to a large writing-table near which he sat,
and upon which lay confusedly some miscellaneous letters and other
papers, with one or two musical instruments and a few books. Here,
however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw nothing to
excite particular suspicion.

"At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a
trumpery filigree card-rack of pasteboard that hung dangling by a
dirty blue ribbon from a little brass knob just beneath the middle of
the mantelpiece. In this rack, which had three or four compartments,
were five or six soiled cards and a solitary letter. This last was
much soiled and crumpled. It was torn nearly in two, across the
middle--as if a design, in the first instance, to tear it entirely up
as worthless had been altered or stayed in the second. It had a large
black seal, bearing the D---- cipher _very_ conspicuously, and was
addressed, in a diminutive female hand, to D----, the Minister,
himself. It was thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed,
contemptuously, into one of the uppermost divisions of the rack.

"No sooner had I glanced at this letter than I concluded it to be
that of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all appearance,
radically different from the one of which the Prefect had read us so
minute a description. Here the seal was large and black, with the
D---- cipher; there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the
S---- family. Here the address, to the Minister, was diminutive and
feminine; there the superscription, to a certain royal personage,
was markedly bold and decided; the size alone formed a point of
correspondence. But, then, the _radicalness_ of these differences,
which was excessive; the dirt; the soiled and torn condition of the
paper, so inconsistent with the _true_ methodical habits of D----, and
so consistent of a design to delude the beholder into an idea of
the worthlessness of the document--these things, together with the
hyperobtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of every
visitor, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to
which I had previously arrived--these things, I say, were strongly
corroborative of suspicion in one who came with the intention to
suspect.

"I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I maintained a
most animated discussion with the Minister upon a topic which I knew
well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention
riveted upon the letter. In this examination I committed to memory its
external appearance and arrangement in the rack, and also fell, at
length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I
might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper,
I observed them to be more _chafed_ than seemed necessary. They
presented the _broken_ appearance which is manifested when a stiff
paper, having been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded
in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which formed the
original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me that
the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed and
re-sealed. I bade the Minister good-morning, and took my departure at
once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the table.

"The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed, quite
eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus engaged,
however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately
beneath the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of
fearful screams and the shoutings of a terrified mob. D---- rushed to
a casement, threw it open, and looked out. In the mean time I stepped
to the card-rack, took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced
it by a _facsimile_ (so far as regards externals), which I had
carefully prepared at my lodgings--imitating the D---- cipher, very
readily, by means of a seal formed of bread.

"The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the frantic
behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd of
women and children. It proved, however, to have been without ball, and
the fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When
he had gone, D---- came from the window, whither I had followed him
immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon afterward I bade
him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay."

"But what purpose had you," I asked, "in replacing the letter by a
_facsimile_? Would it not have been better, at the first visit, to
have seized it openly and departed?"

"D----," replied Dupin, "is a desperate man and a man of nerve. His
hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests. Had
I made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never have left the
Ministerial presence alive. The good people of Paris might have heard
of me no more. But I had an object apart from these considerations.
You know my political prepossessions. In this matter I act as a
partisan of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the Minister has
had her in his power. She has now him in hers--since, being unaware
that the letter is not in his possession, he will proceed with his
exactions as if it was. Thus will he inevitably commit himself, at
once, to his political destruction. His downfall, too, will not be
more precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to talk about the
_facilis descensus Averni_; but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani
said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to come down. In
the present instance I have no sympathy--at least no pity--for him
who descends. He is that _monstrum horrendum_, an unprincipled man of
genius. I confess, however, that I should like very well to know the
precise character of his thoughts, when, being defied by her whom the
Prefect terms 'a certain personage,' he is reduced to opening the
letter I left for him in the card-rack."

"How? Did you put anything particular in it?"

"Why--it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior
blank--that would have been insulting. D----, at Vienna once, did me
an evil turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I should
remember. So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity in regard to the
identity of the person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not
to give him a clew. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just
copied into the middle of the blank sheet the words:

  "'----
  ... Un dessein si funeste,
  S'il n'est digne d'AtrГ©e, este digne de Thyeste.'

They are to be found in CrГ©billon's _AtrГ©e_."




RAB AND HIS FRIENDS

_Dr. John Brown_ (1810-1882)


Four-and-thirty years ago, Bob Ainslie and I were coming up Infirmary
Street from the High School, our heads together, and our arms
intertwisted as only lovers and boys know how or why.

When we got to the top of the street and turned north we espied a
crowd at the Tron Church. "A dog-fight!" shouted Bob, and was off; and
so was I, both of us all but praying that it might not be over before
we got up! And is not this boy-nature, and human nature, too? And
don't we all wish a house on fire not to be out before we see it? Dogs
like fighting; old Isaac says they "delight" in it, and for the best
of all reasons; and boys are not cruel because they like to see
the fight. They see three of the great cardinal virtues of dog or
man--courage, endurance, and skill--in intense action. This is very
different from a love of making dogs fight, and aggravating and making
gain by their pluck. A boy--be he ever so fond himself of fighting, if
he be a good boy, hates and despises all this, but he would have run
off with Bob and me fast enough; it is a natural, and a not wicked,
interest that all boys and men have in witnessing intense energy in
action.

Does any curious and finely ignorant woman wish to know how Bob's eye
at a glance announced a dog-fight to his brain? He did not--he could
not--see the dogs fighting; it was a flash of an inference, a rapid
induction. The crowd round a couple of dogs fighting is a crowd
masculine mainly, with an occasional active, compassionate woman
fluttering wildly round the outside and using her tongue and her hands
freely upon the men, as so many "brutes"; it is a crowd annular,
compact, and mobile; a crowd centripetal, having its eyes and its
heads all bent downward and inward to one common focus.

Well, Bob and I are up, and find it is not over; a small thoroughbred,
white bull-terrier is busy throttling a large shepherd's dog,
unaccustomed to war but not to be trifled with. They are hard at
it; the scientific little fellow doing his work in great style, his
pastoral enemy fighting wildly, but with the sharpest of teeth and a
great courage. Science and breeding, however, soon had their own; the
Game Chicken, as the premature Bob called him, working his way up,
took his final grip of poor Yarrow's throat--and he lay gasping and
done for. His master, a brown, handsome, big, young shepherd from
Tweedsmuir, would have liked to have knocked down any man, would
"drink up Esil, or eat a crocodile," for that part, if he had a
chance; it was no use kicking the little dog; that would only make him
hold the closer. Many were the means shouted out in mouthfuls of the
best possible ways of ending it. "Water!" but there was none near, and
many cried for it who might have got it from the well at Blackfriar's
Wynd. "Bite the tail!" and a large, vague, benevolent, middle-aged
man, more desirous than wise, with some struggle got the bushy end of
Yarrow's tail into his ample mouth and bit it with all his might. This
was more than enough for the much-enduring, much-perspiring shepherd,
who, with a gleam of joy over his broad visage, delivered a terrific
facer upon our large, vague, benevolent, middle-aged friend, who went
down like a shot.

Still the Chicken holds; death not far off. "Snuff! a pinch of snuff!"
observed a calm, highly dressed young buck with an eye-glass in his
eye. "Snuff, indeed!" growled the angry crowd, affronted and glaring.
"Snuff! a pinch of snuff!" again observes the buck, but with more
urgency; whereon were produced several open boxes, and from a mull
which may have been at Culloden he took a pinch, knelt down, and
presented it to the nose of the Chicken, The laws of physiology and of
snuff take their course; the Chicken sneezes, and Yarrow is free!

The young pastoral giant stalks off with Yarrow in his
arms--comforting him.

But the bull-terrier's blood is up, and his soul unsatisfied; he grips
the first dog he meets, and, discovering she is not a dog, in Homeric
phrase, he makes a brief sort of _amende_ and is off. The boys, with
Bob and me at their head, are after him: down Niddry Street he goes,
bent on mischief; up the Cowgate like an arrow--Bob and I, and our
small men; panting behind.

There, under the single arch of the South Bridge, is a huge mastiff,
sauntering down the middle of the causeway, as if with his hands in
his pockets; he is old, brindled, as big as a little Highland bull,
and has the Shakespearean dewlaps shaking as he goes.

The Chicken makes straight at him, and fastens on his throat. To our
astonishment, the great creature does nothing but stand still, hold
himself up, and roar--yes, roar, a long, serious, remonstrative roar.
How is this? Bob and I are up to them. _He is muzzled_! The bailies
had proclaimed a general muzzling, and his master, studying strength
and economy mainly, had encompassed his huge jaws in a home-made
apparatus constructed out of the leather of some ancient _breechin_.
His mouth was open as far as it could; his lips curled up in rage--a
sort of terrible grin; his teeth gleaming, ready, from out the
darkness; the strap across his mouth tense as a bowstring; his whole
frame stiff with indignation and surprise; his roar asking us all
round, "Did you ever see the like of this?" He looked a statue of
anger and astonishment done in Aberdeen granite.

We soon had a crowd; the Chicken held on. "A knife!" cried Bob; and a
cobbler gave him his knife; you know the kind of knife, worn obliquely
to a point and always keen. I put its edge to the tense leather; it
ran before it; and then!--one sudden jerk of that enormous head, a
sort of dirty mist about his mouth, no noise, and the bright and
fierce little fellow is dropped, limp and dead. A solemn pause; this
was more than any of us had bargained for. I turned the little fellow
over, and saw he was quite dead: the mastiff had taken him by the
small of the back like a rat and broken it.

He looked down at his victim appeased, ashamed, and amazed; sniffed
him all over, stared at him, and, taking a sudden thought, turned
round and trotted off. Bob took the dead dog up, and said, "John,
we'll bury him after tea." "Yes," said I, and was off after the
mastiff. He made up the Cowgate at a rapid swing; he had forgotten
some engagement. He turned up the Candlemaker Row, and stopped at the
Harrow Inn.

There was a carrier's cart ready to start, and a keen, thin,
impatient, black-a-vised little man, his hand at his gray horse's
head, looking about angrily for something. "Rab, ye thief!" said he,
aiming a kick at my great friend, who drew cringing up, and, avoiding
the heavy shoe with more agility than dignity and watching his
master's eye? slunk dismayed under the cart--his ears down, and as
much as he had of tail down, too.

What a man this must be--thought I--to whom my tremendous hero turns
tail! The carrier saw the muzzle hanging, cut and useless, from
his neck, and I eagerly told him the story, which Bob and I always
thought, and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter alone
were worthy to rehearse. The severe little man was mitigated, and
condescended to say, "Rab, ma man--puir Rabbie," whereupon the stump
of a tail rose up, the ears were cocked, the eyes filled and were
comforted; the two friends were reconciled. "Hupp!" and a stroke of
the whip were given to Jess, and off went the three.

Bob and I buried the Game Chicken that night (we had not much of a
tea) in the back-green of his house, in Melville Street, No. 17, with
considerable gravity and silence; and being at the time in the Iliad,
and, like all boys, Trojans, we of course called him Hector.

Six years have passed--a long time for a boy and a dog; Bob Ainslie
is off to the wars; I am a medical student, and clerk at Minto House
Hospital.

Rab I saw almost every week, on the Wednesday, and we had much
pleasant intimacy. I found the way to his heart by frequent scratching
of his huge head and an occasional bone. When I did not notice him he
would plant himself straight before me and stand wagging that bud of
a tail, and looking up, with his head a little to the one side. His
master I occasionally saw; he used to call me "Maister John," but was
laconic as any Spartan.

One fine October afternoon I was leaving the hospital, when I saw the
large gate open, and in walked Rab, with that great and easy saunter
of his. He looked as if taking possession of the place, like the Duke
of Wellington entering a subdued city, satiated with victory and
peace. After him came Jess, now white from age, with her cart; and
in it a woman carefully wrapped up--the carrier leading the horse
anxiously and looking back. When he saw me, James (for his name was
James Noble) made a curt and grotesque "boo," and said, "Maister John,
this is the mistress; she's got a trouble in her breest--some kind o'
an income, we're thinkin'."

By this time I saw the woman's face; she was sitting on a sack filled
with straw, with her husband's plaid round her, and his big-coat, with
its large, white metal buttons, over her feet.

I never saw a more unforgettable face--pale, serious, _lonely_,
delicate, sweet, without being at all what we call fine. She looked
sixty, and had on a mutch, white as snow, with its black ribbon; her
silvery, smooth hair setting off her dark-gray eyes--eyes such as one
sees only twice or thrice in a lifetime, full of suffering, full also
of the overcoming of it; her eyebrows black and delicate, and her
mouth firm, patient, and contented, which few mouths ever are.

As I have said, I never saw a more beautiful countenance, or one more
subdued to settled quiet. "Ailie," said James, "this is Maister John,
the young doctor; Rab's friend, ye ken. We often speak aboot you,
doctor." She smiled and made a movement, but said nothing, and
prepared to come down, putting her plaid aside and rising. Had
Solomon, in all his glory, been handing down the Queen of Sheba at his
palace gate, he could not have done it more daintily, more tenderly,
more like a gentleman than James, the Howland carrier, when he
lifted down Ailie, his wife. The contrast of his small, swarthy,
weather-beaten, keen, worldly face to hers--pale, subdued, and
beautiful--was something wonderful. Rab looked on concerned and
puzzled, but ready for anything that might turn up, were it to
strangle the nurse, the porter, or even me. Ailie and he seemed great
friends.