"If it is any point requiring reflection," observed Dupin, refraining from giving fire to the wick, "we will look better in the dark.
"That's another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had a habit of calling "odd" everything that was beyond his comprehension, and lived, therefore, amid an absolute legion of "oddities."
"Very true," said Dupin, his visitor with a pipe, and rolled towards him a comfortable chair. - And what is the difficulty now? I asked, "I hope not another murder.
- Oh, no, nothing like that!. The issue is very simple indeed, and I have no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently well ourselves, but then I thought Dupinwould like to know the details of it, because it is so excessively odd.
-Simple and unique, "said Dupin. 
"Well, yes, and not just one but both things at once. It happens that we have been puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet baffles us altogether. "Perhaps it is the simplicity that puts you at fault," said my friend.
- What nonsense you! "Replied the Prefect, laughing heartily.
"Perhaps the mystery is a little too simple," said Dupin. - Oh, good heavens ...! Who ever heard such an idea?
"A little too obvious.
- Ja, ja, ja! ... Ha, ha, ha! ... Ho, ho, ho! "Roared our visitor, profoundly divertido-Oh, Dupin, you will make me burst out laughing!.
- And what, finally, the matter at issue? I asked.
"I'll tell you," replied the Prefect, he gave a long, steady and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair "I will tell in few words, but before we start, let me caution that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy , and probably lose my job if it were known that I confided it to anyone. -continue-I.
-Or not, "said Dupin.
"Okay, I received a personal report of a high character, that a document of great importance has been purloined from the royal apartments. The individual who purloined it is known, on this point there is the slightest doubt;Lesson three person, it is impossible to name, will question the honor of a personage of 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 "would depend upon the thief know that person knows. Who dares ...?
"The thief said ***- G *** D is the minister who dares all things, those unbecoming as well as men. The method of 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 interrur again, for fifteen minutes, upon public affairs. Finally, rising to leave, take the card table that does not belong. Its rightful owner saw, but as we understand, no one dares to call attention to the act in the presence of the third personage who stood at his side. The minister decamped, leaving his letter, which was not of importance, on the table.
"Here, then," said Dupin, "what you demand to make the ascendancy of the thief was complete, the thief knows that it is known the owner of the paper.
"Yes," replied the Prefect, and thus gained power in recent months has been employed for political purposes, to a very dangerous extent. The personage robbed is increasingly convinced of the nNo thorough search of the residence of the minister, and my main obstacle was the necessity of searching without his knowledge. Also, I have been warned of the danger that would result from giving him reason to suspect our design.
"But," I said, you are quite au fait in these investigations. The Parisian police have done this thing often before.
"I think, and for that reason I do not despair. The habits of the minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently absent from home all night. His servants are not numerous. They sleep at a distance from the rooms of his master, and, being chiefly Neapolitans, are readily made drunk. I have keys, as you know, with which I can open thatand those intrigues in which it is known that D *** is involved, would render the instant availability of the document, the possibility of being produced at a given moment, a point of nearly equal importance with its possession.
- The chance of being produced? "I said.
"I mean, if destroyed," said Dupin.
"Certainly," I said, the role must be clearly at hand. I guess we can rule out the hypothesis that the minister takes over.
"Entirely," said the Prefect has twice been assaulted by criminals, and himself rigorously searched under my own inspection.
"You might have spared yourself this trouble," said Dupin, "D ***, I presume, is not crazy at all, and if not, must have anticipated andA secret drawer is impossible. Anyone in search of this kind allows you to escape a secret drawer, is a fool. The thing is so simple. There is a certain amount of capacity, space, that count in a cabinet. In this case, accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not escape. 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?
"Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged piece of furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal an object, then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity, and theto return to place. The ends of the pillars of the beds are used for the same purpose.
- But could not the cavity be detected by sounding? I asked.
"Not if, when the object is placed is placed around enough cotton. Furthermore, in our case, we were obliged to proceed without noise.
"But you could not have removed, can not be taken to pieces all articles of furniture on which it was possible to make a deposit in the manner you mention. A letter can be compressed into a thin spiral roll, not differing much in shape or volume to a knitting needle, and thus can be inserted into the rung of a chair, for example,example. You did not break all the chairs, is not it?
"Certainly not, but we did better, we examined the rungs of every chair in the house, and indeed, all the binding sites of all kinds of furniture, with the help of a powerful microscope. Had there been any traces of recent disturbance, we would not have failed to detect it instantly. A single grain of sawdust produced by a drill in the wood, have been as obvious as an apple. Any alteration 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 sheets, and probed the beds and clothes of the beds and curtains andexamine carefully, scanning the covers.
- You explored the floors beneath the carpets?
"No doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined under a microscope the edges.
- And the wallpaper?
"Yes."
- You looked into the cellars? Yes
"Then I said you have done a miscalculation, and the letter is not upon the premises, as you suppose.
"I fear you are right," said the Prefect. And now, Dupin, what would you advise me to do?
-Make a new review of the minister's house.
"That is absolutely unnecessary," said G ***-;'m as sure as I breathe, that the letter is not in the house.
"I have no better advice qthat his symptoms are such and such, now a doctor, what would you advise?
- What would you advise? Abernethy said, "psh! I see a doctor.
"But," said the Prefect, bemused, "I am willing to take advice, and pay. I would really give fifty thousand francs to anyone who would help me in this matter.
"In that case," replied Dupin, opening a drawer and pulling out a checkbook, "you may as well write me a check for the amount mentioned. When you have signed, will deliver the letter.
I was stunned. The prefect seemed as if struck by lightning. For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth and eyes that seemed to saltin his hand a number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is even or odd. If asked guess, win a, otherwise it loses. 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 calculation of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and raising a fist, and asks, 'are they even or odd? Our schoolboy replies, 'odd' and loses, but wins the second time, he then says to himself, 'the simpleton had them even the first time, and his amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd in the second, therefore bet odd; 'he guesses odd, and wins. Now, with a bobo a greater degree than the first, would have reasoned thus: 'This fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd, and the second will occur in the first impulse, a simple variation from even to odd, as did My other opponent, but then a second thought will suggest that this is too simple a variation, and finally decide upon putting it even as before. Therefore guess even; 'guesses even, and wins. However, this mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed 'lucky, what is in the final analysis?
"It's simply," I said identification of the reasoner's intellect with that of his opponent.
"That," said Dupin, "and after asking the child how he effected the thorough identifications men to conceal a letter, if not exactly in a gimlet hole in the leg of a chair, they do, at least in some hidden hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of thought which a man's idea to hide in a hole in the leg of a chair? What you also do not see such places for concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions, and are adopted only by ordinary intellects; Because in all cases of concealment can be assumed that in principle has been made in these coordinates, and its discovery depends, not so much insight, but the mere care, patience and determination of the seekers, and when the case is important, or what means the same thingin the policial eyes, when the reward is of magnitude, the qualities in question never fails. You will now understand what I meant, suggesting that if the purloined letter been hidden anywhere within the confines of consideration of the prefect, or in other words, if the principle of its concealment been comprehended within the principles of prefect, its discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond question. This official, however, has been completely deceived, and the source of his failure lies in the assumption that the Minister is a fool because he has acquired fame. All fools are poets, this is what creates the prefect, and is merely guilty of a non distributio medii in inferringwith outcasts, "replied Dupin, quoting Chamfort," that toute idée publique, toute convention reçu, est une sottise, car elle a au plus grand convenue name. The mathematicians, I grant, have done their best to promulgate the popular error to which you allude, and that is no less an error for its promulgation as truth. With an art worthy a better cause, for example, have introduced the term 'analysis' into application to algebra. The French are guilty of this particular deception, but if a term is of some importance, if words derive any value from applicability, 'analysis' conveys 'algebra', more or less, as in Latin ambitus implies 'ambition', religio 'religion', homines honesty, "a group of men honore. "
"I'm afraid you have a quarrel," I said to one of the algebraists of Paris, but continue.
"I dispute the validity, and therefore the value of that reason which is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly logical. Dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathematical study. Mathematics is the science of form and quantity, mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity. The big mistake is to assume that even the truths of what is called pure algebra are abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious that I am confounded at the universality with which it was received. Mathematical axioms are not axioms of general validity.laq, and having made him understand what you mean, get to run as soon as possible, because, no doubt, will try to beat him up.
"I mean -" continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at his last remark, that if the Minister had been nothing more than a mathematician, the Prefect would have needed to give me this check. I know him, however, as a mathematician and poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference to the circumstances of which he was surrounded. I knew him as a courtier, as a bold and intriguing. A man, I must know the ordinary methods of police action. There could be no longer provide, and events have proved that it did, the recordswhich it was submitted. Should have foreseen the secret investigations of his home. His frequent absences night, which were hailed by the Prefect as certain aids to his success, I regarded only as ruses, to afford the police the opportunity to make a complete record, and send them as soon as possible to the conviction of the G *** finally arrived, that the letter was not at home. I also understood that the entire set of ideas that have some pains in detailing to you now, concerning the invariable principle of policial action in searches for hidden objects would necessarily pass through the mind of the minister. That would lead, in a way inevitable, to despise all regular caches. He could not, I reflected, be so simplehas been given some color of truth to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor or simile, may be used to give more strength to a thought or embellish a description. The principle of vis inertiæ, for example, seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. Is no more true in the first, that a large body is put in motion a little more difficulty, and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with this difficulty, than it is in the second, that intellects of the vaster capacity, while more powerful, consistent and productive in their movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less readily moved, and more embarrassed and full of hesitation in the early stages of their progress. Another thing: have you ever noticed what the sample of outletsas the most attractive of attention?
-thought never occurred to me I said.
"There's a guessing game," he replied that is played with a map. One player asks another to find a given word, the name of a city, river, state or empire, a word, in short, upon the motley and perplexed surface of a map. A novice in the game generally seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them the names written with smaller letters, but the adept selects such words as stretch, in large characters, from one extreme to another map. These, like the signs and placards in the streets largely lettered, escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious, and here the physicalthe apartment, while seemingly intent only upon the conversation with my host.
"I paid special attention to a large writing-table near which he sat ***, and upon which lay confusedly some miscellaneous letters and other papers, one or two musical instruments and some books. It, however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw nothing to excite suspicion.
"Finally, my eyes, the circuit of the room, fell on a miserable filigree card-board, hanging by a dirty blue ribbon, a brass knob, positioned just above the mantelpiece. In this rack, which had three or four compartments, were five or six business cards andand red, with the ducal arms of the family S ***. Here the direction of the Minister, diminutive and feminine, in the superscription of the envelope, addressed to a certain royal personage, was markedly bold and decided, the size alone formed a point of similarity. But the radical nature of these differences, which was excessive, stains, soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with the true methodical habits of D ***, and so suggestive of an idea of the worthlessness of the document to a indiscreet; these things, along with the visible situation in which he was, in view of all visitors, and so coincides with the conclusions I had previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, who had gone with the intentionNo suspect.
"It took me my visit as much 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 poured my attention really on the letter. In this examination, I committed to memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack, and finally, made a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I noticed that more chafed than seemed necessary. Had a broken appearance which results when a stiff paper, having been once folded and pressed, is refolded in a reversed direction, with the same folds that had formed the original Doblez. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me that the letter had been turned, like a glove, inside out, a new direction and a new label had been added. Say good morning to the minister, and went at once, leaving on the table a gold snuff.
"The next morning I called for the snuff box, eagerly, the conversation resumed the previous day. While thus engaged, a loud bang like a pistol, was heard immediately beneath the windows of the building, and was followed by a series of fearful screams, and cries of a terrified mob. D *** is rushed to a window, opened it and looked out. As I stepped to the card, I took the letter, metin my pocket, and replaced by a facsimile (so far as external) that had carefully prepared at home, imitating the D ***, 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 gun. He had fired it among a crowd of women and children. It proved, however, that the gun was unloaded, and was allowed to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When he had gone, D *** it from the window, whither I had followed him immediately upon securing the object. Soon afterwards I bade him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man whom I had paid to produce the tumult.
"But whatpurpose were you, "I asked to replace the letter by a facsimile? Would not it have been better, at the first visit, seized it openly, and departed?
-D *** "replied Dupin," is a brave and courageous man. His hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests. Had I made the wild attempt you suggest, would never live out there and the good people of Paris might have heard more than me. You know my political views. But I had an object apart from these considerations. In this matter, I act as a partisan of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the Minister has had in his possession. She is that which is now in his possession: as D *** do not know that the card is not already in
