The Murders in the Rue Morgue | Page 4

There was not a particle of charlâtanerie 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 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, be 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