Mystery literature , also known as detective fiction and crime novels, is a specific type of thriller. Mystery stories begin with a crime as the central conflict and present clues and suspects throughout the story to allow for a final resolution through logical deduction. Most mysteries include a professional or amateur detective who guides the reader through the solution of the crime. In some cases, readers are presented with enough evidence to correctly solve the mystery themselves.
In others, they must follow along with the characters until the final revelation at the end of the story. Since its development in the 19th century, the basic formula of mystery has changed relatively little, although it has taken on many forms. In the first decades of the 20th century, crime fiction became the norm, while Cold War-era writers turned them into politically motivated spy and mystery stories.
A police novel or detective story is an extensive narrative prose that tells a story in which the plot includes a criminal enigma crime, murder, or other , a police or investigative action carried out by the protagonist s , and the discovery of a perpetrator or the resolution of the mystery, usually with suspense and surprise for the reader.
The police story is purely urban and was born at the same time as the security forces in European and North American cities at the beginning of the 19th century. Edgar Allan Poe is considered the father of the detective story, which began in with his story The Murders in the Rue Morgue. To Poe we owe the first literary detective, Auguste Dupin, who served as an inspiration to the celebrated Sherlock Holmes. The success was overwhelming from the beginning and his stories sold like hot cakes.
There are fears that are in us and accompany us in the darkness. We are in bed and they are waiting for us impatiently behind the door. These fears, inspired by childhood trauma or by specific stories, end up getting deeper. They are the shadow in the distance with which the writer has to play to make psychological horror an art.
These kinds of fears are formed in our minds, attend to our subjective world and move away from the most graphic horror. Since it is not presented by monsters, witches, vampires, zombies, haunted houses and industrial quantities of blood. It is usually considered that the pioneering author of this modality was the great American storyteller Edgar Allan Poe , who through stories such as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Man of the Crowd or The Imp of the Perverse, among others, found a new way to make the traditional Gothic novel obsolete.
We all know how to recognize a good thriller story: it is the one that keeps us on edge, that pushes us to keep turning the pages until we find out if this terrible thing that seems to be about to happen is finally happening.
Suspense -or thriller- is not so much a genre as an emotion, and it is not defined by its topics, which can range from police intrigue to family drama, but by the way it is told; it is a how and not a what. For the suspense to exist, the participation of the public is necessary, who must be involved with the events.
The author has to suggest clues about the possible outcome of the conflict, so that the viewer or reader can infer or assume what is about to happen. Finally, the resolution of the knot must be carried out logically and according to the credibility of the genre. The technique of literary thriller , similar in many aspects to cinematographic thriller, is based on transmitting to the reader a sensation of imminence, a growing restlessness that is achieved with an efficient plot, an adequate rhythm and a meticulous construction of scenes.
I will not pursue these guesses—for I have no right to call them more—since the shades of reflection upon which they are based are scarcely of sufficent depth to be appreciable by my own intellect, and since I could not pretend to make them intelligible to the understanding of another. We will call them guesses then, and speak of them as such.
If the Frenchman in question is indeed, as I suppose, innocent of this atrocity, this advertisement, which I left last right, upon our return home, at the office of Le Monde a paper devoted to the shipping interest, and much sought for by sailors , will bring him to our residence.
Call at No. Here, however, is a small piece of ribbon, which, from its form, and from its greasy appearance, had been used in tying the hair in one of those long queues of which sailors are so fond. Moreover, this knot is one which few besides sailors can tie, and is peculiar to the Maltese. I picked the ribbon up at the foot of the lightning-rod. It could not have belonged to either of the deceased. Now if, after all, I am wrong in my induction from this ribbon, that the Frenchman was a sailor belonging to a Maltese vessel, still I can have done no harm in saying what I did in the advertisement.
If I am in error, he will merely suppose that I have been misled by some cir- cumstance into which he will not take the trouble to inquire. But if I am right, a great point is gained. Cognizant although innocent of the murder, the Frenchman will naturally hesitate about replying to the advertisement—about demanding the orangutan. Here it is, within my grasp. It was found in the Bois de Boulogne—at a vast distance from the scene of that butchery.
How can it ever be suspected that a brute beast should have done the deed? Above all, I am known. I am not sure to what limit his knowledge may extend.
Should I avoid claiming a property of so great a value, which it is known that I possess, I will render the animal at least, liable to suspicion. It is not my policy to attract attention either to myself or to the beast.
I will answer the advertisement, get the orangutan, and keep it close until this matter has blown over. Now, however, he seemed to hesi- tate. Presently we heard him descending. Dupin was moving quickly to the door when we again heard him coming up. He did not turn back a second time, but stepped up with decision and rapped at the door of our chamber. A man entered. He was a sailor, evidently—a tall, stout, and muscular-looking man, with a certain daredevil expres- sion, not altogether unprepossessing.
His face, greatly sun- burnt, was more than half hidden by a world of whisker and mustachio. He had with him a huge oaken cudgel, but appeared to be otherwise unarmed. Upon my word, I almost envy you the possession of him; a remarkably fine, and no doubt a very valuable animal. How old do you suppose him to be? Have you got him here?
You can get him in the morning. Of course you are prepared to iden- tify the property? Am very willing to pay a reward for the finding of the animal—that is to say, anything in reason. Let me think! I will tell you. My reward shall be this. You shall give me all the information in your power about these murders in the Rue Morgue.
Just as quietly, too, he walked towards the door, locked it, and put the key in his pocket. He then drew a pistol from his bosom and placed it, without the least flurry, upon the table.
He started to his feet and grasped his cudgel; but the next moment he fell back into his seat, trembling convul- sively, and with the face of death itself. He spoke not a single word. I pitied him from the bottom of my heart. We mean you no harm whatever. I pledge you the honor of a gentleman, and of a Frenchman, that we intend you no injury.
I perfectly well know that you are innocent of the atrocities in the Rue Morgue. It will not do, however, to deny that you are in some measure implicated in them. From what I have already said, you must know that I have had means of information about this matter—means of which you could never have dreamed. Now the thing stands thus. You have done nothing which you could have avoided—nothing, certainly, which renders you culpable.
You were not even guilty of robbery, when you might have robbed with impunity. You have nothing to conceal. You have no reason for concealment. On the other hand, you are bound by every principle of honor to confess all that you know. Still, I am innocent, and I will make a clean breast if I die for it. He had lately made a voyage to the Indian Archipelago. A party, of which he formed one, landed at Borneo, and passed into the inte- rior on an excursion of pleasure.
Himself and a companion had captured the orangutan. After great trouble, occasioned by the intractable ferocity of his captive during the home voyage, he at length succeeded in lodging it safely at his own residence in Paris, where, not to attract toward himself the unpleasant curiosity of his neighbors, he kept it carefully secluded, until such time as it should recover from a wound in the foot, received from a splinter on board ship.
His ultimate design was to sell it. Razor in hand, and fully lathered, it was sitting before a looking-glass, attempting the operation of shaving, in which it had no doubt previously watched his master through the keyhole of the closet. Terrified at the sight of so danger- ous a weapon in the possession of an animal so ferocious, and so well able to use it, the man, for some moments, was at a loss what to do.
He had been accustomed, however, to quiet the creature, even in its fiercest moods, by the use of a whip, and to this he now resorted. Upon sight of it, the orangutan sprang at once through the door of the chamber, down the stairs and thence, through a window, unfortunately open, into the street.
It then again made off. In this manner the chase continued for a long time. Rushing to the building, it perceived the lightning-rod, clambered up with inconceivable agility, grasped the shutter, which was thrown fully back against the wall, and, by its means, swung itself directly upon the headboard of the bed.
He had strong hopes of now recapturing the brute, as it could scarcely escape from the trap into which it had ventured, except by the rod, where it might be intercepted as it came down. On the other hand, there was much cause for anxiety as to what it might do in the house.
At this glimpse he nearly fell from his hold through excess of horror. Now it was that those hideous shrieks arose upon the night, which had startled from slumber the inmates of the Rue Morgue. It was open, and its contents lay beside it on the floor. With one determined sweep of its muscular arm it nearly severed her head from her body.
Its wandering and wild glances fell at this moment upon the head of the bed, over which the face of its master, rigid with horror, were just discernible.
Conscious of having deserved punishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its bloody deeds, and skipped about the chamber in an agony of nervous agitation; throwing down and breaking the furniture as it moved, and dragging the bed from the bedstead. As the ape approached the casement with its mutilated burden, the sailor shrank aghast to the rod, and, rather glid- ing than clambering down it, hurried at once home—dread- ing the consequences of the butchery, and gladly abandoning, in his terror, all solicitude about the fate of the orangutan.
I have scarcely anything to add. It must have closed the window as it passed through it. It was subsequently caught by the owner himself, who obtained for it a very large sum at the Jardin des Plantes. Le Bon was instantly released, upon our narration of the cir- cumstances.
I am satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle. Nevertheless, that he failed in the solution of this mystery, is by no means that matter for wonder which he supposes it; for, in truth, our friend the Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be profound. In his wisdom is no stamen. But he is a good creature after all. I like him especially for one master stroke of cant, by which he has attained his reputation for ingenuity which he possesses.
Selten fallen sie zusammen, Men- schen und Zufalle modificiren gewohnlich die idealische Begebenheit, so dass sie unvollkommen erscheint, und ihre Folgen gleichfalls unvollkommen sind. So bei der Reforma- tion; statt des Protestantismus kam das Lutherthum hervor. People and circumstances generally modify the ideal train of events, so that it seems imperfect, and its consequences are equally imperfect.
Auguste Dupin, it did not occur to me that I should ever resume the subject. I might have adduced other examples, but I should have proven no more. Late events, however, in their surprising development, have startled me into some fur- ther details which will carry with them the air of extorted con- fession. Prone, at all times, to abstraction, I readily fell in with his humor; and, continuing to occupy our chambers in the Faubourg Saint Germain, we gave the Future to the winds, and slumbered tranquilly in the Present, weaving the dull world around us into dreams.
But these dreams were not altogether uninterrupted. It may readily be supposed that the part played by my friend, in the drama at the Rue Morgue, had not failed of its impression upon the fancies of the Parisian police. With its emissaries, the name of Dupin had grown into a household word. His frankness would have led him to disabuse every inquirer of such prejudice; but his indo- lent humor forbade all farther agitation of a topic whose inter- est to himself had long ceased.
It thus happened that he found himself the cynosure of the policial eyes; and the cases were not few in which attempt was made to engage his services at the Prefecture. Affairs went on thus until the latter had attained her twenty-second year, when her great beauty attracted the notice of a perfumer, who occupied one of the shops in the basement of the Palais Royal, and whose cus- tom lay chiefly among the desperate adventurers infesting that neighborhood.
She had been in his employ about a year, when her admirers were thrown into confusion by her sudden disappearance from the shop. All inquiry, except that of a private character, was of course immediately hished.
Monsieur Le Blanc professed total ignorance, as before. Marie, with Madame, replied to all questions, that the last week had been spent at the house of a relation in the country. It was about five months after this return home, that her friends were alarmed by her sudden disappearance for the second time. I can call to mind no similar occurence producing so general and so intense an effect.
For several weeks, in the discussing of this one absorbing theme, even the momentous political topics of the day were forgotten. Upon the first discovery of the corpse, it was not supposed that the murderer would be able to elude, for more than a very brief period, the inquisition which was immediately set on foot.
It was not until the expiration of a week that it was deemed necessary to offer a reward; and even then this reward was limited to a thousand francs. In the meantime the investi- gation proceeded with vigor, if not always with judgment, and numerous individuals were examined to no purpose; while, owing to the continual absence of all clue to the mystery, the popular excitement became greatly increased. No one doubted now that the mystery of this murder would be immediately brought to light.
But although, in one or two instances, arrests were made which promised elucida- tion, yet nothing was elicited which could implicate the par- ties suspected; and they were discharged forthwith. He called upon us early in the afternoon of the thirteenth of July, 18—, and remained with us until late in the night.
He had been piqued by the failure of all his endeavors to ferret out the assassins. His reputation—so he said with a peculiarly Parisian air—was at stake.
Even his honor was concerned. He concluded a somewhat droll speech with a compliment upon which he was pleased to term the tact of Dupin, and made him a direct, and certainly a liberal proposition, the precise nature of which I do not feel myself at liberty to disclose, but which has no bearing upon the proper subject of my narrative. He discoursed much, and beyond doubt, learnedly; while I hazarded an occa- sional suggestion as the night wore drowsily away; Dupin, sitting steadily in his accustomed armchair, was the embodi- ment of respectful attention.
He wore spectacles during the whole interview; and an occasional glance beneath their green glasses, sufficed to convince me that he slept not the less soundly, because silently, throughout the seven or eight leaden-footed hours which immediately preceded the depar- ture of the Prefect. In the morning, I procured, at the Prefecture, a full report of all the evidence elicited, and, at the various newspaper offices, a copy of every paper in which from first to last, had been published any decisive information in regard to this sad affair.
In going out, she gave notice to a Monsieur Jacques St. Eustache was the ac- cepted suitor of Marie, and lodged, as well as took his meals, at the pension. He was to have gone for his betrothed at dusk, and to have escorted her home.
It was not, however, until the fourth day from the period of her disappearance that anything satisfactory was ascertained respecting her. His friend recognized it more promptly. No foam was seen, as in the case of the merely drowned. About the throat were bruises and impressions of fingers. On the left wrist were two circular excoriations, apparently the effect of ropes, or of a rope in more than one volution.
A part of the right wrist, also, was much chafed, as well as the back throughout its extent, but more especially at the shoulder-blades. A piece of lace was found tied so tightly around the neck as to be hidden from sight; it was com- pletely buried in the flesh, and was fastened by a knot which lay just under the left ear. She had been subjected, it said, to brutal violence.
In the outer garment, a slip, about a foot wide, had been torn upward from the bottom hem to the waist, but not torn off. It was wound three times around the waist, and secured by a sort of hitch in the back. It was found around her neck, fitting loosely, and secured with a hard knot.
Over this muslin slip and the slip of lace, the strings of a bonnet were attached, the bonnet being appended. Meantime, the excitement increased hourly. Several individu- als were arrested and discharged. Eustache fell especially under suspicion; and he failed, at first, to give an intelligible ac- count of his whereabouts during the Sunday on which Marie left home.
Subsequently, however, he submitted to Monsieur G. As time passed and no discovery ensued, a thousand contradictory rumors were circulated, and journalists busied themselves in suggestions.
It will be proper that I submit to the reader some passages which embody the suggestion alluded to. From that hour, nobody is proved to have seen her. But it is folly to suppose that the murder, if murder was committed on her body, could have been consum- mated soon enough to have enabled her murderers to throw the body into the river before midnight.
All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into the water immediately after death by vio- lence, require from six to ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to the top of the water. Now, we ask, what was there in this case to cause a departure from the ordi- nary course of nature?
If the body had been kept in its mangled state on shore until Tuesday night, some trace would be found on shore of the murderers. It is a doubtful point, also, whether the body would be so soon afloat, even were it thrown in after having been dead two days.
And, furthermore, it is exceedingly improbable that any villains who had committed such a mur- der as is here supposed, would have thrown the body in without weight to sink it, when such a precaution could have so easily been taken. I continue the translation: What, then, are the facts on which M. He ripped up the gown sleeve, and says he found marks which satisfied him of the identity. He rubbed the arm and found hair upon it—something as indefinite, we think, as can readily be imagined—as little conclusive as finding an arm in the sleeve.
Nobody went over. Beauvais came into his chamber and told him of it. For an item of news like this, it strikes us it was very coolly received. In this way the journal endeavored to create the impres- sion of an apathy on the part of the relatives of Marie, incon- sistent with the supposition that these relatives believed the corpse to be hers. Its insinuations amount to this: that Marie, with the connivance of her friends, had absented herself from the city for reasons involving a charge against her chastity; and that these friends, upon the discovery of a corpse in the Seine somewhat resembling that of the girl, had availed them- selves of the opportunity to impress the public with the belief of her death.
It was dis- tinctly proved that no apathy, such as was imagined, existed; that the old lady was exceedingly feeble, and so agitated as to be unable to attend to any duty; that St.
Eustache, so far from receiving the news coolly, was distracted with grief, and bore himself so frantically, that M. Beauvais prevailed upon a friend and relative to take charge of him, and prevent his attending the examination at the disinterment. In a subsequent number of the paper, an attempt was made to throw suspicion upon Beauvais himself. We are told that, on one occasion, while a Madame B. Beauvais, who was going out, told her that a gendarme was expected there, and that she, Madame B.
In the present posture of affairs, M. Beauvais appears to have the whole matter locked up in his head. A single step cannot be taken without M. Beauvais; for, go which way you will, you run against him. For some reason, he determined that nobody shall have anything to do with the proceedings but himself, and he has elbowed the male relatives out of the way, according to their representations, in a very singular manner.
He seems to have been very much averse to permitting the relatives to see the body. Le Commerciel, however, a print of extensive influence, was ear- nest in combating this popular idea. It is im- possible that a person so well-known to thousands as this young woman was, should have passed three blocks without someone having seen her; and anyone who saw her would have remem- bered it, for she interested all who knew her.
Her gown was torn, bound round her, and tied; and by that the body was carried as a bundle. On the upper stone lay a white petticoat; on the second a silk scarf.
Between the thicket and the river, the fences were found taken down, and the ground bore evidence of some heavy burden having been dragged along it.
One part was the hem of the frock, and it had been mended; the other piece was part of the skirt, not the hem. Consequent upon this discovery, new evidence appeared. It is the usual Sunday resort of blackguards from the city, who cross the river in boats. On their departure, they took the road to some thick woods in the vicinity. A scarf was particu- larly noticed.
Soon after the departure of the couple, a gang of miscreants made their appearance, behaved boisterously, ate and drank without making payment, followed in the route of the young man and girl, returned to the inn about dusk, and recrossed the river as if in great haste.
It was soon after dark upon this same evening, that Madame Deluc, as well as her eldest son, heard the screams of a female in the vicinity of the inn. Madame D. He, Valence, knew Marie, and could not be mistaken in her identity. It appears that, immediately after the discovery of the clothes as above described, the lifeless, or nearly lifeless, body of St. His breath gave evidence of the poison.
He died without speaking. Upon his person was found a letter, briefly stating his love for Marie, with his design of self-destruction. You will observe that, for this reason, the mystery has been considered easy, when, for this reason, it should have been considered difficult, of solution.
But the ease with which these variable fancies were entertained, and the very plausibility which each assumed, should have been understood as indicative rather of the difficulties than of the facilities which must attend elucidation. Here, too, we are freed, at the com- mencement, from an supposition of self-murder. We both know this gentleman well. It will not do to trust him too far. In ratiocination, not less than in literature, it is the epigram which is the most immediately and the most universally appreciated.
In both, it is of the lowest order of merit. Let us examine the heads of the argument; endeavoring to avoid the incoherence with which it is originally set forth. In the rash pursuit of this object, he rushes into mere assumption at the outset. Why is it folly to suppose that the murder was committed at any given period of the day?
It was the design of the jour- nalist to say that, at whatever period of the day or night of Sunday this murder was committed, it was improbable that the assassins would have ventured to bear the corpse to the river before midnight.
And herein lies, really, the assump- tion of which I complain. It is assumed that the murder was committed at such a position, and under such circumstances, that the bearing it to the river became necessary. You will understand that I suggest nothing here as probable, or as coincident with my own opinion.
My design, so far, has no reference to the facts of the case. Now the human body, in general, is neither much lighter nor much heavier than the water of the Seine; that is to say, the specific gravity of the human body, in its natural condition, is about equal to the bulk of fresh water which it displaces. But, leaving this tide out of question, it may be said that very few human bodies will sink at all, even in fresh water, of their own accord. It is evident, however, that the gravities of the body, and of the bulk of water displaced, are very nicely balanced, and that a trifle will cause either to preponderate.
An arm, for instance, uplifted from the water, and thus deprived of its support, is an additional weight sufficient to immerse the whole head, while the accidental aid of the smallest piece of timber will enable us to elevate the head so as to look about, Now, in the struggles of one unused to swimming, the arms are invariably thrown upwards, while an attempt is made to keep the head in its usual perpendicular position.
Much is also received into the stomach, and the whole body becomes heavier by the difference between the weight of the air originally distending these cavities, and that of the fluid which now fills them. Such individuals float even after drowning. When this disten- sion has so far progressed that the bulk of the corpse is mate- rially increased without a corresponding increase of mass or weight, its specific gravity becomes less than that of the water displaced, and it forthwith makes its appearance at the sur- face.
But decomposition is modified by innumerable circum- stances—is hastened or retarded by innumerable agencies; for example, by the heat or cold of the season, by the mineral impregnation or purity of the water, by its depth or shallow- ness, by its currency or stagnation, by the temperament of the body, by its infection or freedom from disease before death.
Under certain conditions this result would be brought about within an hour; under others, it might not take place at all. But, apart from decomposition, there may be, and very usually is, a generation of gas within the stomach, from the acetous fermentation of vegetable matter or within other cavities from other causes sufficient to induce a dis- tension which will bring the body to the surface.
Both science and experience show that the period of their ris- ing is, and necessarily must be, indeterminate. I have shown how it is that the body of a drowning man becomes specifically heavier than its bulk of water, and that he would not sink at all, except for the struggles by which he elevates his arms above the surface, and his gasps for breath while beneath the surface—gasps which supply by water the place of the original air in the lungs.
If drowned, being a woman, she might never have sunk, or, hav- ing sunk, might have re-appeared in twenty-four hours or less. But no one supposes her to have been drowned; and, dying before being thrown into the river, she might have been found floating at any period afterward whatever. He means to antici- pate what he imagines would be an objection to his theory— viz.
He supposes that, had this been the case, it might have appeared at the surface on the Wednesday, and thinks that only under such circumstances it could so have appeared. You cannot be made to see how the mere duration of the corpse on the shore could oper- ate to multiply traces of the assassins. Nor can I. He wishes to prove that Marie is not assassinated—not that the corpse was not. Yet his observation proves only the latter point. Here is a corpse without weight attached.
Murderers, casting it in, would not have failed to attach a weight. Beauvais, not being an idiot, could never have urged, in identification of the corpse, simply hair upon its arm. No arm is without hair. He must have spoken of some peculiarity in this hair. It must have been a peculiarity of color, of quantity, of length, or of situation. Her garter is no proof whatever—nor is her shoe—for shoes and garters are sold in packages. One thing upon which M. Beauvais strongly insists is, that the clasp on the garter found had been set back to take it in.
Had M. Beauvais, in his search for the body of Marie, discovered a corpse corresponding in general size and appearance to the missing girl, he would have been warranted without reference to the question of habiliment at all in forming an opinion that his search had been successful. If, in addition to the point of general size and contour, he had found upon the arm a peculiar hairy appearance which he had observed upon the living Marie, his opinion might have been justly strengthened; and the increase of positiveness might well have been in the ratio of the peculiarity, or unusualness, of the hairy mark.
If, the feet of Marie being small, those of the corpse were also small, the increase of probability that the body was that of Marie would not be an increase in a ratio merely arithmetical, but in one highly geometrical, or accu- mulative. What, of itself, would be no evidence of identity, becomes through its corroborative position, proof most sure. Let us now discover, upon the deceased, garters such as the living used, and it is almost folly to proceed. But these garters are found to be tightened, by the setting back of a clasp, in just such a manner as her own had been tightened by Marie, shortly previous to her leaving home.
It is now madness or hypocrisy to doubt. What is made to adjust itself, must of necessity require foreign adjustment but rarely. It must have been by an accident, in its strictest sense, that these garters of Marie needed the tightening described. But it is not that the corpse was found to have the garters of the missing girl, or found to have her shoes, or her bonnet, or the flowers of her bonnet, or her feet, or a peculiar mark upon the arm, or her general size and appearance—it is that the corpse had each, and all collectively.
He has thought it sagacious to echo the small talk of the lawyers, who, for the most part, con- tent themselves with echoing the rectangular precepts of the courts.
I would here observe that very much of what is rejected as evidence by a court, is the best of evidence to the intellect. For the court, guiding itself by the general principles of evi- dence—the recognized and booked principles—is averse from swerving at particular instances. You have already fathomed the true character of this good gentleman. He is a busybody, with much of romance and little of wit. Anyone so constituted will readily so conduct himself, upon occasion of real excitement, as to render himself liable to suspicion on the part of the over-acute, or the ill-disposed.
Nothing is more vague than impressions of individual identity. Each person recognizes his neighbor, yet there are few instances in which anyone is prepared to give a reason for his recognition. He is aware that he seldom passes so far as a dozen blocks from his own bureau, without being recognized and accosted. And, knowing the extent of his personal acquaintance with others, and of others with him, he compares his notoriety with that of the perfum- ery-girl, finds no great difference between them, and reaches at once the conclusion that she, in her walks, would be equally liable to recognition with himself in his.
He passes to and fro, at regular intervals, within a confined periphery, abounding in individuals who are led to observation of his person through interest in the kindred nature of his occupation with their own. But the walks of Marie may, in general, be supposed discursive. In this particu- lar instance, it will be understood as most probable, that she proceeded upon a route of more than average diversity from her accustomed ones.
In this case, granting the personal acquaintances to be equal, the chances would be also equal that an equal number of per- sonal rencontres would be made. For my own part, I should hold it not only as possible, but as very far more than probable, that Marie might have proceeded, at any given period, by any one of the many routes between her own residence and that of her aunt, without meeting a single individual whom she knew or by whom she was known. In viewing this question in its full and proper light, we must hold steadily in mind the great disproportion between the personal acquaintances of even the most noted individual in Paris, and the entire population of Paris itself.
No observing person can have failed to notice the peculiarly deserted air of the town, from about eight until ten on the morning of every Sabbath. Between ten and eleven the streets are thronged, but not at so early a period as that designated.
You must have had occasion to observe how absolutely indispensable, of late years, to the thorough blackguard, has become the pocket handkerchief. He has merely repeated the individual items of the already published opinion; collecting them, with a laudable industry, from this paper and from that. You cannot fail to have remarked the extreme laxity of the examination of the corpse. To be sure, the question of identity was readily determined, or should have been; but there were other points to be ascertained.
Had the body been in any respect despoiled? If so, had she any when found? We must endeavor to satisfy our- selves by personal inquiry. Eustache must be re-examined. I have no suspicion of this person; but let us proceed methodically. Affidavits of this character are readily made matter of mystification. Should there be nothing wrong here, however, we will dismiss St. Eustache from our investigations. His sui- cide, however corroborative of suspicion, were there found to be deceit in the affidavits, is, without such deceit, in no respect an unaccountable circumstance, or one which need cause us to deflect from the line of ordinary analysis.
Not the least usual error in investigations such as this, is the limiting of inquiry to the immediate, with total disregard of the collateral or circumstantial events. It is the malpractice of the courts to confine evidence and discus- sion to the bounds of apparent relevancy. It is through the spirit of this principle, if not pre- cisely through its letter, that modern science has resolved to calculate upon the unforeseen.
But perhaps you do not compre- hend me. It is no longer philosophical to base upon what has been a vision of what is to be. Accident is admitted as a portion of the sub- structure. We make chance a matter of absolute calculation. We subject the unlooked for and unimagined to the mathematical formulae of the schools.
While you ascertain the validity of the affidavits, I will examine the newspapers more generally than you have as yet done. At the end of a week, however, she re-appeared at her customary comptoir, as well as ever, with the exception of a slight paleness not altogether usual. It was given out by Mon- sieur Le Blanc and her mother, that she had merely been on a visit to some friend in the country; and the affair was speedily hished up.
We presume that the present absence is a freak of the same nature, and that, at the expiration of a week, or per- haps of a month, we shall have her among us again. A quarrel, it is supposed, providentially led to her return home. We have the name of the Lothario in ques- tion, who is at present stationed in Paris, but for obvious reasons forbear to make it public.
A gentleman with his wife and daughter, engaged, about dusk, the services of six young men, who were idly rowing a boat to and fro near the banks of the Seine, to convey him across the river.
Upon reaching the oppo- site shore the three passengers stepped out, and had proceeded so far as to be beyond the view of the boat, when the daughter discovered that she had left in it her parasol. Our own opin- ion is decidedly in favor of this supposition. We shall endeavor to make room for some of these arguments hereafter. Sails were lying in the bottom of the boat. Upon reading these various extracts, they not only seemed to me irrelevant, but I could perceive no mode in which any one of them could be brought to bear upon the matter in hand.
I waited for some explanation from Dupin. I have copied them chiefly to show you the extreme remissness of the police, who, as far as I can understand from the Prefect, have not troubled themselves, in any respect, with an examination of the naval officer alluded to. Of these, arguably none are as chilling asThe Dupin Mysteries. Dupin was the original great literary detective, with these three mysteries spawning countless fictional tributes in detective stories ever since.
Author : Edgar Allan Poe Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo ISBN: Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : Get Book Book Description A beautiful gift edition of three macabre mysteries featuring the first and greatest of detectives, Auguste Dupin An apartment on the rue Morgue turned into a charnel house; the corpse of a shopgirl dragged from the Seine; a high-stakes game of political blackmail - three mysteries that have enthralled the whole of Paris, and baffled the city's police.
The brilliant Chevalier Auguste Dupin investigates - can he find the solution where so many others before him have failed? These three stories from the pen of Edgar Allan Poe are some of the most influential ever written, widely praised and credited with inventing the detective genre.
Sie ist die erste von drei Kurzgeschichten, die sich um den deduktiv analysierenden Krimihelden C. Auguste Dupin drehen. Sie ist eine von Poes drei Detektivgeschichten um C. Could his nemesis have returned to settle an old score? But when Miss Loddiges is kidnapped, he and his friend C. Auguste Dupin must unravel a mystery involving old enemies, lost soulmates, ornithomancy, and the legendary jewel of Peru.
Chee ist nicht der einzige, der sich auf die Suche nach ihr macht — aber der einzige mit guten Absichten. Auguste Dupin, the truth about how I had finally been murdered, and by whom. Edgar Allan Poe has come to Paris to help his friend C. Auguste Dupin hunt down the criminal who brought the Dupin family to ruin during the French Revolution, but the prefect of police engages the sleuthing duo to recover a letter stolen from an infamous Parisian society hostess.
Is the thief one of the French literary greats who attend her salons? Or might it be Dupin's own enemy, who is scheming to become Emperor of France? Poe discovers he has enemies of his own in Paris — and that few who dare to venture into the Empire of the Dead ever return from the darkness
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