The Murders in the Rue Morgue | Page 9

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