The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe (novels in english txt) 📖

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 firmanent 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 ménagais_: - 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