It was in Paris that I met August Dupin.
He was an unusually
interesting young man with a busy,
forceful mind. This mind could, it
seemed, look right through a man's
body into his deepest soul.
One hot summer morning we
read in the newspapers about a
terrible killing. The dead persons
were an old woman and her unmarried daughter, who lived alone on
the fourth floor of an old house on
the street called the Rue Morgue.
Someone had taken the
daughter's neck in his
powerful fingers and
pressed with fearful strength until her life was gone. Her mother's
body was found outside, behind the house, with the head nearly cut
off. The knife with which she was killed was found, however, in the
room, on the floor.
Several neighbors ran to the house when they heard the women's
cries of fear. As they ran up to the fourth floor they heard two other
voices. But when they reached the room and broke down the door
they found no living person in the room. Like the door, the two windows were firmly closed, locked on the inside. There was no other
way that the killer could have got in or out of the room.
The Paris police did not know where to begin to look for the
answer. I told Dupin that it seemed to me that it was not possible to
learn the answer to the mystery of these killings. No, no, said Dupin.
"No; I think you are wrong. A mystery it is, yes. But there must
be an answer. We must not judge what is possible just by what we have
read in the newspapers. The Paris police work hard and often get good
results; but there is no real method in what they do. When something
more than simple hard work is needed, when a little real method is
needed, the police fail. Sometimes they stand too near the problem.
Often, if a person looks at something very closely he can see a few
things more clearly, but the shape of the whole thing escapes him.
"There must be an answer! There must! Let us go to the house
and see what we can see. I know the head of the police, and he will
allow us to do so. And this will be interesting and give us some pleasure."
I thought it strange that Dupin should believe we would get pleasure out of this. But I said nothing.
It was late in the afternoon when we reached the house on the
Rue Morgue. It was easily found for there were still many persons — in
fact, a crowd, standing there looking at it. Before going in we walked
all around it, and Dupin carefully looked at the neighboring houses as
well as this one. I could not understand the reason for such great care.
We came again to the front of the house and went in. We went
up the stairs into the room where the daughter's body had been
found. Both bodies were there. The police had left the room as they
had found it. I saw nothing beyond what the newspaper had told us.
Dupin looked with great care at everything, at the bodies, the walls,
the fireplace, the windows. Then we went home.
Dupin said nothing. I could see the cold look in his eyes which
told me that his mind was working, working busily, quickly. I asked no
questions.
Dupin said nothing until the next morning, when he came into
my room and asked me suddenly if I had not noticed something especially strange about what we saw at the house on the Rue Morgue. I replied: "Nothing more than we both read in the newspaper."
"Tell me, my friend. How shall we explain the horrible force, the
unusual strength used in these murders? And whose were the voices
that were heard? No one was found except the dead women; yet there
was no way for anyone to escape. And the wild condition of the room;
the body which was found head down above the fireplace; the terrible
broken appearance of the body of the old lady, with its head cut off;
these are all so far from what might be expected that the police are
standing still; they don't know where to begin.
"These things are unusual, indeed; but they are not deep
mysteries. We should not ask, 'What has happened?' but 'What has
happened that has never happened before?' In fact, the very things
that the police think cannot possibly be explained are the things
which will lead me to the answer. Indeed, I believe they have already
led me to the answer."
I was so surprised I could not say a word. Dupin looked quickly
at the door. "I am now waiting for a person who will know something
about these murders, these wild killings. I do not think he did them
himself. But I think he will know the killer. I hope I am right about
this. If I am, then I expect to find the whole answer, today. I expect
the man here — in this room — at any moment. It is true that he may
not come; but he probably will."
"But who is this person? How did you find him?"
"I'll tell you. While we wait for this man we do not know — for I
have never met him — while we wait, I will tell you how my thoughts
went." Dupin began to talk. But it did not seem that he was trying to
explain to me what he had thought. It seemed that he was talking to
himself. He looked not at me, but at the wall.
"It has been fully proved that the voices heard by the neighbors
were not the voices of the women who were killed. Someone else
was in the room. It is therefore certain that the old woman did not
first kill her daughter and then kill herself. She would not have been
strong enough to put her daughter's body where it was found; and the
manner of the old lady's death shows that she could not have caused
it herself. A person can kill himself with a knife, yes. But he surely
cannot cut his own head almost off, then drop the knife on the floor
and jump out the window. It was murder, then, done by some third
person — or persons. And the voices heard were the voices of these persons. Let us now think carefully about the things people said about
those voices. Did you notice anything especially strange in what was
told about them?"
"Well, yes. Everybody agreed that the low voice was the voice of
a Frenchman; but they could not agree about the high voice."
"Ah! That was what they said, yes; but that was not what was
so strange about what they said. You say you have noticed nothing
that makes their stories very different from what might have been
expected. Yet there was something. All these persons, as you say,
agreed about the low voice; but not about the high hard voice. The
strange thing here is that when an Italian, an Englishman, a Spaniard,
and a Frenchman tried to tell what the voice was like, each one said
it sounded like the voice of a foreigner. How strangely unusual that
voice really must have been! Here are four men from four big countries, and not one of them could understand what the voice said; each
one gave it a different name.
"Now, I know that there are other countries in the world. You will
say that perhaps it was the voice of someone from one of those other
lands — Russia, perhaps. But remember, not one of these people heard
anything that sounded like a separate word."
Here Dupin turned and looked into my eyes.
"This is what we have learned from the newspaper. I don't know
what I have led you to think. But I believe that in this much of the
story there are enough facts to lead us in the one and only direction
to the right answer. What this answer is, I will not say…not yet. But I
want you to keep in mind that this much was enough to tell me what
I must look for when we were in that house on the Rue Morgue. And I found it!"