THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET.(*1)
A SEQUEL TO “THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE.”
Es giebt eine Reihe idealischer Begebenheiten, die der Wirklichkeit parallel lauft. Selten fallen sie zusammen. Menschen und zufalle modifieiren gewohulich die idealische Begebenheit, so dass sie unvollkommen erscheint, und ihre Folgen gleichfalls unvollkommen sind. So bei der Reformation; statt des Protestantismus kam das Lutherthum hervor.
There are ideal series of events which run parallel with the real ones. They rarely coincide. Men and circumstances generally modify the ideal train of events, so that it seems imperfect, and its consequences are equally imperfect. Thus with the Reformation; instead of Protestantism came Lutheranism.
--Novalis. (*2) Moral Ansichten.
THERE are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have notoccasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling half-credence inthe supernatural, by coincidences of so seemingly marvellous a characterthat, as mere coincidences, the intellect has been unable to receivethem. Such sentiments--for the half-credences of which I speak havenever the full force of thought--such sentiments are seldom thoroughlystifled unless by reference to the doctrine of chance, or, as it istechnically termed, the Calculus of Probabilities. Now this Calculus is,in its essence, purely mathematical; and thus we have the anomaly of themost rigidly exact in science applied to the shadow and spirituality ofthe most intangible in speculation.
The extraordinary details which I am now called upon to make public,will be found to form, as regards sequence of time, the primary branchof a series of scarcely intelligible coincidences, whose secondary orconcluding branch will be recognized by all readers in the late murderof Mary Cecila Rogers, at New York.
When, in an article entitled “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” Iendeavored, about a year ago, to depict some very remarkable featuresin the mental character of my friend, the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin,it did not occur to me that I should ever resume the subject. Thisdepicting of character constituted my design; and this design wasthoroughly fulfilled in the wild train of circumstances brought toinstance Dupin’s idiosyncrasy. I might have adduced other examples, butI should have proven no more. Late events, however, in their surprisingdevelopment, have startled me into some farther details, which willcarry with them the air of extorted confession. Hearing what I havelately heard, it would be indeed strange should I remain silent inregard to what I both heard and saw so long ago.
Upon the winding up of the tragedy involved in the deaths of MadameL’Espanaye and her daughter, the Chevalier dismissed the affair at oncefrom his attention, and relapsed into his old habits of moody reverie.Prone, at all times, to abstraction, I readily fell in with his humor;and, continuing to occupy our chambers in the Faubourg Saint Germain, wegave 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 besupposed that the part played by my friend, in the drama at the RueMorgue, had not failed of its impression upon the fancies of theParisian police. With its emissaries, the name of Dupin had grown into ahousehold word. The simple character of those inductions by which hehad disentangled the mystery never having been explained even to thePrefect, or to any other individual than myself, of course it is notsurprising that the affair was regarded as little less than miraculous,or that the Chevalier’s analytical abilities acquired for him thecredit of intuition. His frankness would have led him to disabuse everyinquirer of such prejudice; but his indolent humor forbade all fartheragitation of a topic whose interest to himself had long ceased. It thushappened that he found himself the cynosure of the political eyes; andthe cases were not few in which attempt was made to engage his servicesat the Prefecture. One of the most remarkable instances was that of themurder of a young girl named Marie Rogêt.
This event occurred about two years after the atrocity in the RueMorgue. Marie, whose Christian and family name will at once arrestattention from their resemblance to those of the unfortunate“cigargirl,” was the only daughter of the widow Estelle Rogêt. Thefather had died during the child’s infancy, and from the period of hisdeath, until within eighteen months before the assassination which formsthe subject of our narrative, the mother and daughter had dwelt togetherin the Rue Pavée Saint Andrée; (*3) Madame there keeping a pension,assisted by Marie. Affairs went on thus until the latter had attainedher twenty-second year, when her great beauty attracted the notice of aperfumer, who occupied one of the shops in the basement of the PalaisRoyal, and whose custom lay chiefly among the desperate adventurersinfesting that neighborhood. Monsieur Le Blanc (*4) was not unaware ofthe advantages to be derived from the attendance of the fair Marie inhis perfumery; and his liberal proposals were accepted eagerly by thegirl, although with somewhat more of hesitation by Madame.
The anticipations of the shopkeeper were realized, and his rooms soonbecame notorious through the charms of the sprightly grisette. She hadbeen in his employ about a year, when her admirers were thrown infoconfusion by her sudden disappearance from the shop. Monsieur Le Blancwas unable to account for her absence, and Madame Rogêt was distractedwith anxiety and terror. The public papers immediately took upthe theme, and the police were upon the point of making seriousinvestigations, when, one fine morning, after the lapse of a week,Marie, in good health, but with a somewhat saddened air, made herre-appearance at her usual counter in the perfumery. All inquiry, exceptthat of a private character, was of course immediately hushed. MonsieurLe Blanc professed total ignorance, as before. Marie, with Madame,replied to all questions, that the last week had been spent at thehouse of a relation in the country. Thus the affair died away, and wasgenerally forgotten; for the girl, ostensibly to relieve herself fromthe impertinence of curiosity, soon bade a final adieu to the perfumer,and sought the shelter of her mother’s residence in the Rue Pavée SaintAndrée.
It was about five months after this return home, that her friends werealarmed by her sudden disappearance for the second time. Three dayselapsed, and nothing was heard of her. On the fourth her corpse wasfound floating in the Seine, * near the shore which is opposite theQuartier of the Rue Saint Andree, and at a point not very far distantfrom the secluded neighborhood of the Barrière du Roule. (*6)
The atrocity of this murder, (for it was at once evident that murder hadbeen committed,) the youth and beauty of the victim, and, above all, herprevious notoriety, conspired to produce intense excitement in the mindsof the sensitive Parisians. I can call to mind no similar occurrenceproducing so general and so intense an effect. For several weeks, inthe discussion of this one absorbing theme, even the momentous politicaltopics of the day were forgotten. The Prefect made unusual exertions;and the powers of the whole Parisian police were, of course, tasked tothe utmost extent.
Upon the first discovery of the corpse, it was not supposed that themurderer would be able to elude, for more than a very brief period,the inquisition which was immediately set on foot. It was not until theexpiration of a week that it was deemed necessary to offer a reward; andeven then this reward was limited to a thousand francs. In the mean timethe investigation proceeded with vigor, if not always with judgment, andnumerous individuals were examined to no purpose; while, owing to thecontinual absence of all clue to the mystery, the popular excitementgreatly increased. At the end of the tenth day it was thought advisableto double the sum originally proposed; and, at length, the second weekhaving elapsed without leading to any discoveries, and the prejudicewhich always exists in Paris against the Police having given vent toitself in several serious émeutes, the Prefect took it upon himselfto offer the sum of twenty thousand francs “for the conviction of theassassin,” or, if more than one should prove to have been implicated,“for the conviction of any one of the assassins.” In the proclamationsetting forth this reward, a full pardon was promised to any accomplicewho should come forward in evidence against his fellow; and to the wholewas appended, wherever it appeared, the private placard of a committeeof citizens, offering ten thousand francs, in addition to the amountproposed by the Prefecture. The entire reward thus stood at no less thanthirty thousand francs, which will be regarded as an extraordinarysum when we consider the humble condition of the girl, and the greatfrequency, in large cities, of such atrocities as the one described.
No one doubted now that the mystery of this murder would be immediatelybrought to light. But although, in one or two instances, arrests weremade which promised elucidation, yet nothing was elicited which couldimplicate the parties suspected; and they were discharged forthwith.Strange as it may appear, the third week from the discovery of the bodyhad passed, and passed without any light being thrown upon the subject,before even a rumor of the events which had so agitated the publicmind, reached the ears of Dupin and myself. Engaged in researches whichabsorbed our whole attention, it had been nearly a month since either ofus had gone abroad, or received a visiter, or more than glanced atthe leading political articles in one of the daily papers. The firstintelligence of the murder was brought us by G ----, in person. Hecalled 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 bythe failure of all his endeavors to ferret out the assassins. Hisreputation--so he said with a peculiarly Parisian air--was at stake.Even his honor was concerned. The eyes of the public were upon him; andthere was really no sacrifice which he would not be willing to make forthe development of the mystery. He concluded a somewhat droll speechwith a compliment upon what he was pleased to term the tact of Dupin,and made him a direct, and certainly a liberal proposition, the precisenature of which I do not feel myself at liberty to disclose, but whichhas no bearing upon the proper subject of my narrative.
The compliment my friend rebutted as best he could, but the propositionhe accepted at once, although its advantages were altogetherprovisional. This point being settled, the Prefect broke forth atonce into explanations of his own views, interspersing them withlong comments upon the evidence; of which latter we were not yet inpossession. He discoursed much, and beyond doubt, learnedly; whileI hazarded an occasional suggestion as the night wore drowsily away.Dupin, sitting steadily in his accustomed arm-chair, was the embodimentof respectful attention. He wore spectacles, during the whole interview;and an occasional signal glance beneath their green glasses, sufficedto convince me that he slept not the less soundly, because silently,throughout the seven or eight leaden-footed hours which immediatelypreceded the departure of the Prefect.
In the morning, I procured, at the Prefecture, a full report of allthe evidence elicited, and, at the various newspaper offices, a copyof every paper in which, from first to last, had been published anydecisive information in regard to this sad affair. Freed from all thatwas positively disproved, this mass of information stood thus:
Marie Rogêt left the residence of her mother, in the Rue PavéeSt. Andrée, about nine o’clock in the morning of Sunday June thetwenty-second, 18--. In going out, she gave notice to a Monsieur JacquesSt. Eustache, (*7) and to him only, of her intent intention to spend theday with an aunt who resided in the Rue des Drômes. The Rue des Drômesis a short and narrow but populous thoroughfare, not far from the banksof the river, and at a distance of some two miles, in the most directcourse possible, from the pension of Madame Rogêt. St. Eustache was theaccepted suitor of Marie, and lodged, as well as took his meals, atthe pension. He was to have gone for his betrothed at dusk, and tohave escorted her home. In the afternoon, however, it came on to rainheavily; and, supposing that she would remain all night at her aunt’s,(as she had done under similar circumstances before,) he did not thinkit necessary to keep his promise. As night drew on, Madame Rogêt (whowas an infirm old lady, seventy years of age,) was heard to expressa fear “that she should never see Marie again;” but this observationattracted little attention at the time.
On Monday, it was ascertained that the girl had not been to the Rue desDrômes; and when the day elapsed without tidings of her, a tardy searchwas instituted at several points in the city, and its environs. It wasnot, however until the fourth day from the period of disappearance thatany thing satisfactory was ascertained respecting her. On this day,(Wednesday, the twenty-fifth of June,) a Monsieur Beauvais, (*8) who,with a friend, had been making inquiries for Marie near the Barrièredu Roule, on the shore of the Seine which is opposite the Rue Pavée St.Andrée, was informed that a corpse had just been towed ashore by somefishermen, who had found it floating in the river. Upon seeing thebody, Beauvais, after some hesitation, identified it as that of theperfumery-girl. His friend recognized it more promptly.
The face was suffused with dark blood, some of which issued from themouth. No foam was seen, as in the case of the merely drowned. There wasno discoloration in the cellular tissue. About the throat were bruisesand impressions of fingers. The arms were bent over on the chest andwere rigid. The right hand was clenched; the left partially open. Onthe left wrist were two circular excoriations, apparently the effectof ropes, or of a rope in more than one volution. A part of the rightwrist, also, was much chafed, as well as the back throughout its extent,but more especially at the shoulder-blades. In bringing the body tothe shore the fishermen had attached to it a rope; but none of theexcoriations had been effected by this. The flesh of the neck was muchswollen. There were no cuts apparent, or bruises which appeared theeffect of blows. A piece of lace was found tied so tightly around theneck as to be hidden from sight; it was completely buried in the flesh,and was fasted by a knot which lay just under the left ear. This alonewould have sufficed to produce death. The medical testimony spokeconfidently of the virtuous character of the deceased. She had beensubjected, it said, to brutal violence. The corpse was in such conditionwhen found, that there could have been no difficulty in its recognitionby friends.
The dress was much torn and otherwise disordered. In the outer garment,a slip, about a foot wide, had been torn upward from the bottom hem tothe waist, but not torn off. It was wound three times around the waist,and secured by a sort of hitch in the back. The dress immediatelybeneath the frock was of fine muslin; and from this a slip eighteeninches wide had been torn entirely out--torn very evenly and with greatcare. It was found around her neck, fitting loosely, and secured with ahard knot. Over this muslin slip and the slip of lace, the strings of abonnet were attached; the bonnet being appended. The knot by which thestrings of the bonnet were fastened, was not a lady’s, but a slip orsailor’s knot.
After the recognition of the corpse, it was not, as usual, taken to theMorgue, (this formality being superfluous,) but hastily interred not farfrom the spot at which it was brought ashore. Through the exertions ofBeauvais, the matter was industriously hushed up, as far as possible;and several days had elapsed before any public emotion resulted. Aweekly paper, (*9) however, at length took up the theme; the corpse wasdisinterred, and a re-examination instituted; but nothing was elicitedbeyond what has been already noted. The clothes, however, werenow submitted to the mother and friends of the deceased, and fullyidentified as those worn by the girl upon leaving home.
Meantime, the excitement increased hourly. Several individuals werearrested and discharged. St. Eustache fell especially under suspicion;and he failed, at first, to give an intelligible account of hiswhereabouts during the Sunday on which Marie left home. Subsequently,however, he submitted to Monsieur G----, affidavits, accountingsatisfactorily for every hour of the day in question. As time passed andno discovery ensued, a thousand contradictory rumors were circulated,and journalists busied themselves in suggestions. Among these, the onewhich attracted the most notice, was the idea that Marie Rogêt stilllived--that the corpse found in the Seine was that of some otherunfortunate. It will be proper that I submit to the reader some passageswhich embody the suggestion alluded to. These passages are literaltranslations from L’Etoile, (*10) a paper conducted, in general, withmuch ability.
“Mademoiselle Rogêt left her mother’s house on Sunday morning, June thetwenty-second, 18--, with the ostensible purpose of going to see heraunt, or some other connexion, in the Rue des Drômes. From that hour,nobody is proved to have seen her. There is no trace or tidings of herat all.... There has no person, whatever, come forward, so far, whosaw her at all, on that day, after she left her mother’s door.... Now,though we have no evidence that Marie Rogêt was in the land of theliving after nine o’clock on Sunday, June the twenty-second, we haveproof that, up to that hour, she was alive. On Wednesday noon, attwelve, a female body was discovered afloat on the shore of the Barrièrede Roule. This was, even if we presume that Marie Rogêt was thrown intothe river within three hours after she left her mother’s house, onlythree days from the time she left her home--three days to an hour. Butit is folly to suppose that the murder, if murder was committed onher body, could have been consummated soon enough to have enabled hermurderers to throw the body into the river before midnight. Those whoare guilty of such horrid crimes, choose darkness rather the light....Thus we see that if the body found in the river was that of Marie Rogêt,it could only have been in the water two and a half days, or three atthe outside. All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodiesthrown into the water immediately after death by violence, require fromsix to ten days for decomposition to take place to bring them to the topof the water. Even where a cannon is fired over a corpse, and it risesbefore at least five or six days’ immersion, it sinks again, if letalone. Now, we ask, what was there in this cave to cause a departurefrom the ordinary course of nature?... If the body had been kept in itsmangled state on shore until Tuesday night, some trace would be found onshore of the murderers. It is a doubtful point, also, whether the bodywould be so soon afloat, even were it thrown in after having beendead two days. And, furthermore, it is exceedingly improbable that anyvillains who had committed such a murder as is here supposed, wouldhave thrown the body in without weight to sink it, when such a precautioncould have so easily been taken.”
The editor here proceeds to argue that the body must have been in thewater “not three days merely, but, at least, five times three days,” because it was so far decomposed that Beauvais had great difficultyin recognizing it. This latter point, however, was fully disproved. Icontinue the translation:
“What, then, are the facts on which M. Beauvais says that he has nodoubt the body was that of Marie Rogêt? He ripped up the gown sleeve,and says he found marks which satisfied him of the identity. The publicgenerally supposed those marks to have consisted of some descriptionof scars. He rubbed the arm and found hair upon it--something asindefinite, we think, as can readily be imagined--as little conclusiveas finding an arm in the sleeve. M. Beauvais did not return that night,but sent word to Madame Rogêt, at seven o’clock, on Wednesday evening,that an investigation was still in progress respecting her daughter. Ifwe allow that Madame Rogêt, from her age and grief, could not go over,(which is allowing a great deal,) there certainly must have been someone who would have thought it worth while to go over and attend theinvestigation, if they thought the body was that of Marie. Nobody wentover. There was nothing said or heard about the matter in the Rue PavéeSt. Andrée, that reached even the occupants of the same building. M. St.Eustache, the lover and intended husband of Marie, who boarded in hermother’s house, deposes that he did not hear of the discovery of thebody of his intended until the next morning, when M. Beauvais cameinto his chamber and told him of it. For an item of news like this, itstrikes us it was very coolly received.”
In this way the journal endeavored to create the impression of an apathyon the part of the relatives of Marie, inconsistent with the suppositionthat these relatives believed the corpse to be hers. Its insinuationsamount to this:--that Marie, with the connivance of her friends, hadabsented herself from the city for reasons involving a charge againsther chastity; and that these friends, upon the discovery of a corpse inthe Seine, somewhat resembling that of the girl, had availed themselvesof the opportunity to impress the public with the belief of herdeath. But L’Etoile was again over-hasty. It was distinctly provedthat no apathy, such as was imagined, existed; that the old lady wasexceedingly feeble, and so agitated as to be unable to attend to anyduty, that St. Eustache, so far from receiving the news coolly, wasdistracted with grief, and bore himself so frantically, that M. Beauvaisprevailed upon a friend and relative to take charge of him, and preventhis attending the examination at the disinterment. Moreover, althoughit was stated by L’Etoile, that the corpse was re-interred at the publicexpense--that an advantageous offer of private sculpture was absolutelydeclined by the family--and that no member of the family attended theceremonial:--although, I say, all this was asserted by L’Etoile infurtherance of the impression it designed to convey--yet all thiswas satisfactorily disproved. In a subsequent number of the paper, anattempt was made to throw suspicion upon Beauvais himself. The editorsays:
“Now, then, a change comes over the matter. We are told that on oneoccasion, while a Madame B---- was at Madame Rogêt’s house, M. Beauvais,who was going out, told her that a gendarme was expected there, and she,Madame B., must not say anything to the gendarme until he returned,but let the matter be for him.... In the present posture of affairs,M. Beauvais appears to have the whole matter locked up in his head. Asingle step cannot be taken without M. Beauvais; for, go which way youwill, you run against him.... For some reason, he determined that nobodyshall have any thing to do with the proceedings but himself, and hehas elbowed the male relatives out of the way, according to theirrepresentations, in a very singular manner. He seems to have been verymuch averse to permitting the relatives to see the body.”
By the following fact, some color was given to the suspicion thus thrownupon Beauvais. A visiter at his office, a few days prior to the girl’sdisappearance, and during the absence of its occupant, had observed arose in the key-hole of the door, and the name “Marie” inscribed upon aslate which hung near at hand.
The general impression, so far as we were enabled to glean it from thenewspapers, seemed to be, that Marie had been the victim of a gangof desperadoes--that by these she had been borne across the river,maltreated and murdered. Le Commerciel, (*11) however, a print ofextensive influence, was earnest in combating this popular idea. I quotea passage or two from its columns:
“We are persuaded that pursuit has hitherto been on a false scent, sofar as it has been directed to the Barrière du Roule. It is impossiblethat a person so well known to thousands as this young woman was, shouldhave passed three blocks without some one having seen her; and any onewho saw her would have remembered it, for she interested all who knewher. It was when the streets were full of people, when she went out....It is impossible that she could have gone to the Barrière du Roule, orto the Rue des Drômes, without being recognized by a dozen persons; yetno one has come forward who saw her outside of her mother’s door, andthere is no evidence, except the testimony concerning her expressedintentions, that she did go out at all. Her gown was torn, bound roundher, and tied; and by that the body was carried as a bundle. If themurder had been committed at the Barrière du Roule, there would havebeen no necessity for any such arrangement. The fact that the body wasfound floating near the Barrière, is no proof as to where it was throwninto the water..... A piece of one of the unfortunate girl’s petticoats,two feet long and one foot wide, was torn out and tied under her chinaround the back of her head, probably to prevent screams. This was doneby fellows who had no pocket-handkerchief.”
A day or two before the Prefect called upon us, however, some importantinformation reached the police, which seemed to overthrow, at least,the chief portion of Le Commerciel’s argument. Two small boys, sons of aMadame Deluc, while roaming among the woods near the Barrière du Roule,chanced to penetrate a close thicket, within which were three or fourlarge stones, forming a kind of seat, with a back and footstool. Onthe upper stone lay a white petticoat; on the second a silk scarf. Aparasol, gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief were also here found. Thehandkerchief bore the name “Marie Rogêt.” Fragments of dress werediscovered on the brambles around. The earth was trampled, the busheswere broken, and there was every evidence of a struggle. Between thethicket and the river, the fences were found taken down, and the groundbore evidence of some heavy burthen having been dragged along it.
A weekly paper, Le Soleil,(*12) had the following comments upon thisdiscovery--comments which merely echoed the sentiment of the wholeParisian press:
“The things had all evidently been there at least three or four weeks;they were all mildewed down hard with the action of the rain and stucktogether from mildew. The grass had grown around and over some of them.The silk on the parasol was strong, but the threads of it were runtogether within. The upper part, where it had been doubled and folded,was all mildewed and rotten, and tore on its being opened..... Thepieces of her frock torn out by the bushes were about three inches wideand six inches long. One part was the hem of the frock, and it had beenmended; the other piece was part of the skirt, not the hem. They lookedlike strips torn off, and were on the thorn bush, about a foot fromthe ground..... There can be no doubt, therefore, that the spot of thisappalling outrage has been discovered.”
Consequent upon this discovery, new evidence appeared. Madame Deluctestified that she keeps a roadside inn not far from the bank of theriver, opposite the Barrière du Roule. The neighborhood issecluded--particularly so. It is the usual Sunday resort of blackguardsfrom the city, who cross the river in boats. About three o’clock, in theafternoon of the Sunday in question, a young girl arrived at the inn,accompanied by a young man of dark complexion. The two remained here forsome time. On their departure, they took the road to some thick woods inthe vicinity. Madame Deluc’s attention was called to the dress worn bythe girl, on account of its resemblance to one worn by a deceasedrelative. A scarf was particularly noticed. Soon after the departure ofthe couple, a gang of miscreants made their appearance, behavedboisterously, ate and drank without making payment, followed in theroute of the young man and girl, returned to the inn about dusk, andre-crossed the river as if in great haste.
It was soon after dark, upon this same evening, that Madame Deluc, aswell as her eldest son, heard the screams of a female in the vicinityof the inn. The screams were violent but brief. Madame D. recognized notonly the scarf which was found in the thicket, but the dress which wasdiscovered upon the corpse. An omnibus driver, Valence, (*13) now alsotestified that he saw Marie Rogêt cross a ferry on the Seine, on theSunday in question, in company with a young man of dark complexion.He, Valence, knew Marie, and could not be mistaken in her identity. Thearticles found in the thicket were fully identified by the relatives ofMarie.
The items of evidence and information thus collected by myself, fromthe newspapers, at the suggestion of Dupin, embraced only one morepoint--but this was a point of seemingly vast consequence. It appearsthat, immediately after the discovery of the clothes as above described,the lifeless, or nearly lifeless body of St. Eustache, Marie’sbetrothed, was found in the vicinity of what all now supposed the sceneof the outrage. A phial labelled “laudanum,” and emptied, was found nearhim. 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.
“I need scarcely tell you,” said Dupin, as he finished the perusal ofmy notes, “that this is a far more intricate case than that of theRue Morgue; from which it differs in one important respect. This isan ordinary, although an atrocious instance of crime. There is nothingpeculiarly outré about it. You will observe that, for this reason, themystery has been considered easy, when, for this reason, it should havebeen considered difficult, of solution. Thus; at first, it was thoughtunnecessary to offer a reward. The myrmidons of G---- were able at onceto comprehend how and why such an atrocity might have been committed.They could picture to their imaginations a mode--many modes--and amotive--many motives; and because it was not impossible that either ofthese numerous modes and motives could have been the actual one, theyhave taken it for granted that one of them must. But the case with whichthese variable fancies were entertained, and the very plausibility whicheach assumed, should have been understood as indicative rather of thedifficulties than of the facilities which must attend elucidation. Ihave before observed that it is by prominences above the plane of theordinary, that reason feels her way, if at all, in her search for thetrue, and that the proper question in cases such as this, is not somuch ‘what has occurred?’ as ‘what has occurred that has never occurredbefore?’ In the investigations at the house of Madame L’Espanaye,(*14) the agents of G---- were discouraged and confounded by thatvery unusualness which, to a properly regulated intellect, would haveafforded the surest omen of success; while this same intellect mighthave been plunged in despair at the ordinary character of all that metthe eye in the case of the perfumery-girl, and yet told of nothing buteasy triumph to the functionaries of the Prefecture.
“In the case of Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter there was, evenat the beginning of our investigation, no doubt that murder had beencommitted. The idea of suicide was excluded at once. Here, too, we arefreed, at the commencement, from all supposition of self-murder. Thebody found at the Barrière du Roule, was found under such circumstancesas to leave us no room for embarrassment upon this important point. Butit has been suggested that the corpse discovered, is not that of theMarie Rogêt for the conviction of whose assassin, or assassins, thereward is offered, and respecting whom, solely, our agreement has beenarranged with the Prefect. We both know this gentleman well. It will notdo to trust him too far. If, dating our inquiries from the body found,and thence tracing a murderer, we yet discover this body to be that ofsome other individual than Marie; or, if starting from the living Marie,we find her, yet find her unassassinated--in either case we lose ourlabor; since it is Monsieur G---- with whom we have to deal. For ourown purpose, therefore, if not for the purpose of justice, it isindispensable that our first step should be the determination of theidentity of the corpse with the Marie Rogêt who is missing.
“With the public the arguments of L’Etoile have had weight; and that thejournal itself is convinced of their importance would appear fromthe manner in which it commences one of its essays upon thesubject--‘Several of the morning papers of the day,’ it says, ‘speak ofthe _conclusive_ article in Monday’s Etoile.’ To me, this articleappears conclusive of little beyond the zeal of its inditer. We shouldbear in mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers ratherto create a sensation--to make a point--than to further the cause oftruth. The latter end is only pursued when it seems coincident with theformer. The print which merely falls in with ordinary opinion (howeverwell founded this opinion may be) earns for itself no credit with themob. The mass of the people regard as profound only him who suggests_pungent contradictions_ of the general idea. In ratiocination, not lessthan in literature, it is the epigram which is the most immediately andthe most universally appreciated. In both, it is of the lowest order ofmerit.
“What I mean to say is, that it is the mingled epigram and melodrameof the idea, that Marie Rogêt still lives, rather than any trueplausibility in this idea, which have suggested it to L’Etoile, andsecured it a favorable reception with the public. Let us examine theheads of this journal’s argument; endeavoring to avoid the incoherencewith which it is originally set forth.
“The first aim of the writer is to show, from the brevity of theinterval between Marie’s disappearance and the finding of the floatingcorpse, that this corpse cannot be that of Marie. The reduction of thisinterval to its smallest possible dimension, becomes thus, at once, anobject with the reasoner. In the rash pursuit of this object, he rushesinto mere assumption at the outset. ‘It is folly to suppose,’ he says,‘that the murder, if murder was committed on her body, could have beenconsummated soon enough to have enabled her murderers to throw the bodyinto the river before midnight.’ We demand at once, and very naturally,why? Why is it folly to suppose that the murder was committed _withinfive minutes_ after the girl’s quitting her mother’s house? Why is itfolly to suppose that the murder was committed at any given periodof the day? There have been assassinations at all hours. But, had themurder taken place at any moment between nine o’clock in the morning ofSunday, and a quarter before midnight, there would still have beentime enough ‘to throw the body into the river before midnight.’ Thisassumption, then, amounts precisely to this--that the murder was notcommitted on Sunday at all--and, if we allow L’Etoile to assume this,we may permit it any liberties whatever. The paragraph beginning ‘It isfolly to suppose that the murder, etc.,’ however it appears as printedin L’Etoile, may be imagined to have existed actually thus in the brainof its inditer--‘It is folly to suppose that the murder, if murder wascommitted on the body, could have been committed soon enough to haveenabled her murderers to throw the body into the river before midnight;it is folly, we say, to suppose all this, and to suppose at the sametime, (as we are resolved to suppose,) that the body was not thrownin until after midnight’--a sentence sufficiently inconsequential initself, but not so utterly preposterous as the one printed.
“Were it my purpose,” continued Dupin, “merely to _make out a case_against this passage of L’Etoile’s argument, I might safely leave itwhere it is. It is not, however, with L’Etoile that we have to do, butwith the truth. The sentence in question has but one meaning, as itstands; and this meaning I have fairly stated: but it is materialthat we go behind the mere words, for an idea which these words haveobviously intended, and failed to convey. It was the design of thejournalist to say that, at whatever period of the day or night of Sundaythis murder was committed, it was improbable that the assassins wouldhave ventured to bear the corpse to the river before midnight. Andherein lies, really, the assumption of which I complain. It is assumedthat the murder was committed at such a position, and under suchcircumstances, that the bearing it to the river became necessary. Now,the assassination might have taken place upon the river’s brink, or onthe river itself; and, thus, the throwing the corpse in the water mighthave been resorted to, at any period of the day or night, as the mostobvious and most immediate mode of disposal. You will understand that Isuggest nothing here as probable, or as cöincident with my own opinion.My design, so far, has no reference to the facts of the case. I wishmerely to caution you against the whole tone of L’Etoile’s suggestion,by calling your attention to its ex parte character at the outset.
“Having prescribed thus a limit to suit its own preconceived notions;having assumed that, if this were the body of Marie, it could have beenin the water but a very brief time; the journal goes on to say:
‘All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into thewater immediately after death by violence, require from six to ten daysfor sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to the topof the water. Even when a cannon is fired over a corpse, and it risesbefore at least five or six days’ immersion, it sinks again if letalone.’
“These assertions have been tacitly received by every paper in Paris,with the exception of Le Moniteur. (*15) This latter print endeavorsto combat that portion of the paragraph which has reference to ‘drownedbodies’ only, by citing some five or six instances in which the bodiesof individuals known to be drowned were found floating after the lapseof less time than is insisted upon by L’Etoile. But there is somethingexcessively unphilosophical in the attempt on the part of Le Moniteur,to rebut the general assertion of L’Etoile, by a citation of particularinstances militating against that assertion. Had it been possible toadduce fifty instead of five examples of bodies found floating at theend of two or three days, these fifty examples could still have beenproperly regarded only as exceptions to L’Etoile’s rule, until such timeas the rule itself should be confuted. Admitting the rule, (and thisLe Moniteur does not deny, insisting merely upon its exceptions,) theargument of L’Etoile is suffered to remain in full force; for thisargument does not pretend to involve more than a question of theprobability of the body having risen to the surface in less than threedays; and this probability will be in favor of L’Etoile’s position untilthe instances so childishly adduced shall be sufficient in number toestablish an antagonistical rule.
“You will see at once that all argument upon this head should be urged,if at all, against the rule itself; and for this end we must examine therationale of the rule. Now the human body, in general, is neither muchlighter nor much heavier than the water of the Seine; that is to say,the specific gravity of the human body, in its natural condition, isabout equal to the bulk of fresh water which it displaces. The bodiesof fat and fleshy persons, with small bones, and of women generally,are lighter than those of the lean and large-boned, and of men; and thespecific gravity of the water of a river is somewhat influenced by thepresence of the tide from sea. But, leaving this tide out of question,it may be said that very few human bodies will sink at all, even infresh water, of their own accord. Almost any one, falling into a river,will be enabled to float, if he suffer the specific gravity of the waterfairly to be adduced in comparison with his own--that is to say, ifhe suffer his whole person to be immersed, with as little exception aspossible. The proper position for one who cannot swim, is the uprightposition of the walker on land, with the head thrown fully back, andimmersed; the mouth and nostrils alone remaining above the surface.Thus circumstanced, we shall find that we float without difficulty andwithout exertion. It is evident, however, that the gravities of thebody, and of the bulk of water displaced, are very nicely balanced, andthat a trifle will cause either to preponderate. An arm, for instance,uplifted from the water, and thus deprived of its support, is anadditional weight sufficient to immerse the whole head, while theaccidental aid of the smallest piece of timber will enable us to elevatethe head so as to look about. Now, in the struggles of one unused toswimming, the arms are invariably thrown upwards, while an attempt ismade to keep the head in its usual perpendicular position. The resultis the immersion of the mouth and nostrils, and the inception, duringefforts to breathe while beneath the surface, of water into the lungs.Much is also received into the stomach, and the whole body becomesheavier by the difference between the weight of the air originallydistending these cavities, and that of the fluid which now fills them.This difference is sufficient to cause the body to sink, as a generalrule; but is insufficient in the cases of individuals with small bonesand an abnormal quantity of flaccid or fatty matter. Such individualsfloat even after drowning.
“The corpse, being supposed at the bottom of the river, will thereremain until, by some means, its specific gravity again becomes lessthan that of the bulk of water which it displaces. This effectis brought about by decomposition, or otherwise. The result ofdecomposition is the generation of gas, distending the cellular tissuesand all the cavities, and giving the puffed appearance which is sohorrible. When this distension has so far progressed that the bulk ofthe corpse is materially increased without a corresponding increase ofmass or weight, its specific gravity becomes less than that of the waterdisplaced, and it forthwith makes its appearance at the surface. Butdecomposition is modified by innumerable circumstances--is hastened orretarded by innumerable agencies; for example, by the heat or cold ofthe season, by the mineral impregnation or purity of the water, by itsdepth or shallowness, by its currency or stagnation, by the temperamentof the body, by its infection or freedom from disease before death.Thus it is evident that we can assign no period, with any thing likeaccuracy, at which the corpse shall rise through decomposition. Undercertain conditions this result would be brought about within an hour;under others, it might not take place at all. There are chemicalinfusions by which the animal frame can be preserved forever fromcorruption; the Bi-chloride of Mercury is one. But, apart fromdecomposition, there may be, and very usually is, a generation of gaswithin the stomach, from the acetous fermentation of vegetable matter(or within other cavities from other causes) sufficient to induce adistension which will bring the body to the surface. The effect producedby the firing of a cannon is that of simple vibration. This may eitherloosen the corpse from the soft mud or ooze in which it is imbedded,thus permitting it to rise when other agencies have already preparedit for so doing; or it may overcome the tenacity of some putrescentportions of the cellular tissue; allowing the cavities to distend underthe influence of the gas.
“Having thus before us the whole philosophy of this subject, we caneasily test by it the assertions of L’Etoile. ‘All experience shows,’says this paper, ‘that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into the waterimmediately after death by violence, require from six to ten days forsufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to the top of thewater. Even when a cannon is fired over a corpse, and it rises before atleast five or six days’ immersion, it sinks again if let alone.’
“The whole of this paragraph must now appear a tissue of inconsequenceand incoherence. All experience does not show that ‘drowned bodies’require from six to ten days for sufficient decomposition to take placeto bring them to the surface. Both science and experience show that theperiod of their rising is, and necessarily must be, indeterminate. If,moreover, a body has risen to the surface through firing of cannon,it will not ‘sink again if let alone,’ until decomposition has so farprogressed as to permit the escape of the generated gas. But I wish tocall your attention to the distinction which is made between ‘drownedbodies,’ and ‘bodies thrown into the water immediately after death byviolence.’ Although the writer admits the distinction, he yet includesthem all in the same category. I have shown how it is that the body ofa drowning man becomes specifically heavier than its bulk of water,and that he would not sink at all, except for the struggles by whichhe elevates his arms above the surface, and his gasps for breath whilebeneath the surface--gasps which supply by water the place of theoriginal air in the lungs. But these struggles and these gasps wouldnot occur in the body ‘thrown into the water immediately after death byviolence.’ Thus, in the latter instance, the body, as a general rule,would not sink at all--a fact of which L’Etoile is evidently ignorant.When decomposition had proceeded to a very great extent--when the fleshhad in a great measure left the bones--then, indeed, but not till then,should we lose sight of the corpse.
“And now what are we to make of the argument, that the body found couldnot be that of Marie Rogêt, because, three days only having elapsed,this body was found floating? If drowned, being a woman, she might neverhave sunk; or having sunk, might have reappeared in twenty-four hours,or less. But no one supposes her to have been drowned; and, dying beforebeing thrown into the river, she might have been found floating at anyperiod afterwards whatever.
“‘But,’ says L’Etoile, ‘if the body had been kept in its mangled stateon shore until Tuesday night, some trace would be found on shore of themurderers.’ Here it is at first difficult to perceive the intentionof the reasoner. He means to anticipate what he imagines would be anobjection to his theory--viz: that the body was kept on shore two days,suffering rapid decomposition--more rapid than if immersed in water. Hesupposes that, had this been the case, it might have appeared at thesurface on the Wednesday, and thinks that only under such circumstancesit could so have appeared. He is accordingly in haste to show that itwas not kept on shore; for, if so, ‘some trace would be found on shoreof the murderers.’ I presume you smile at the sequitur. You cannotbe made to see how the mere duration of the corpse on the shore couldoperate to multiply traces of the assassins. Nor can I.
“‘And furthermore it is exceedingly improbable,’ continues our journal,‘that any villains who had committed such a murder as is here supposed,would have thrown the body in without weight to sink it, when sucha precaution could have so easily been taken.’ Observe, here, thelaughable confusion of thought! No one--not even L’Etoile--disputesthe murder committed _on the body found_. The marks of violence are tooobvious. It is our reasoner’s object merely to show that this body isnot Marie’s. He wishes to prove that Marie is not assassinated--not thatthe 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. Therefore it was not thrown inby murderers. This is all which is proved, if any thing is. The questionof identity is not even approached, and L’Etoile has been at great painsmerely to gainsay now what it has admitted only a moment before. ‘Weare perfectly convinced,’ it says, ‘that the body found was that of amurdered female.’
“Nor is this the sole instance, even in this division of his subject,where our reasoner unwittingly reasons against himself. His evidentobject, I have already said, is to reduce, as much as possible, theinterval between Marie’s disappearance and the finding of the corpse.Yet we find him urging the point that no person saw the girl from themoment of her leaving her mother’s house. ‘We have no evidence,’ hesays, ‘that Marie Rogêt was in the land of the living after nine o’clockon Sunday, June the twenty-second.’ As his argument is obviously an exparte one, he should, at least, have left this matter out of sight; forhad any one been known to see Marie, say on Monday, or on Tuesday,the interval in question would have been much reduced, and, by his ownratiocination, the probability much diminished of the corpse being thatof the grisette. It is, nevertheless, amusing to observe that L’Etoileinsists upon its point in the full belief of its furthering its generalargument.
“Reperuse now that portion of this argument which has reference to theidentification of the corpse by Beauvais. In regard to the hair upon thearm, L’Etoile has been obviously disingenuous. M. Beauvais, not being anidiot, could never have urged, in identification of the corpse, simplyhair upon its arm. No arm is without hair. The generality of theexpression of L’Etoile is a mere perversion of the witness’ phraseology.He must have spoken of some peculiarity in this hair. It must have beena peculiarity of color, of quantity, of length, or of situation.
“‘Her foot,’ says the journal, ‘was small--so are thousands of feet. Hergarter is no proof whatever--nor is her shoe--for shoes and garters aresold in packages. The same may be said of the flowers in her hat. Onething upon which M. Beauvais strongly insists is, that the clasp on thegarter found, had been set back to take it in. This amounts to nothing;for most women find it proper to take a pair of garters home and fitthem to the size of the limbs they are to encircle, rather than to trythem in the store where they purchase.’ Here it is difficult to supposethe reasoner in earnest. Had M. Beauvais, in his search for the body ofMarie, discovered a corpse corresponding in general size and appearanceto the missing girl, he would have been warranted (without reference tothe question of habiliment at all) in forming an opinion that his searchhad been successful. If, in addition to the point of general size andcontour, he had found upon the arm a peculiar hairy appearance which hehad observed upon the living Marie, his opinion might have been justlystrengthened; and the increase of positiveness might well have been inthe ratio of the peculiarity, or unusualness, of the hairy mark. If,the feet of Marie being small, those of the corpse were also small, theincrease of probability that the body was that of Marie would not be anincrease in a ratio merely arithmetical, but in one highly geometrical,or accumulative. Add to all this shoes such as she had been known towear upon the day of her disappearance, and, although these shoes may be‘sold in packages,’ you so far augment the probability as to verge uponthe certain. What, of itself, would be no evidence of identity, becomesthrough its corroborative position, proof most sure. Give us, then,flowers in the hat corresponding to those worn by the missing girl, andwe seek for nothing farther. If only one flower, we seek for nothingfarther--what then if two or three, or more? Each successive oneis multiple evidence--proof not _added_ to proof, but multiplied byhundreds or thousands. Let us now discover, upon the deceased, garterssuch as the living used, and it is almost folly to proceed. But thesegarters 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, shortlyprevious to her leaving home. It is now madness or hypocrisy to doubt.What L’Etoile says in respect to this abbreviation of the garter’s beingan usual occurrence, shows nothing beyond its own pertinacity in error.The elastic nature of the clasp-garter is self-demonstration of theunusualness of the abbreviation. What is made to adjust itself, must ofnecessity require foreign adjustment but rarely. It must have been by anaccident, in its strictest sense, that these garters of Marie neededthe tightening described. They alone would have amply established heridentity. But it is not that the corpse was found to have the gartersof the missing girl, or found to have her shoes, or her bonnet, or theflowers 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_. Could it be proved that the editor of L’Etoile_really_ entertained a doubt, under the circumstances, there would beno need, in his case, of a commission de lunatico inquirendo. He hasthought it sagacious to echo the small talk of the lawyers, who, for themost part, content themselves with echoing the rectangular precepts ofthe courts. I would here observe that very much of what is rejected asevidence by a court, is the best of evidence to the intellect. Forthe court, guiding itself by the general principles of evidence--therecognized and _booked_ principles--is averse from swerving atparticular instances. And this steadfast adherence to principle, withrigorous disregard of the conflicting exception, is a sure mode ofattaining the maximum of attainable truth, in any long sequence of time.The practice, in mass, is therefore philosophical; but it is not theless certain that it engenders vast individual error. (*16)
“In respect to the insinuations levelled at Beauvais, you will bewilling to dismiss them in a breath. You have already fathomed thetrue character of this good gentleman. He is a busy-body, with muchof romance and little of wit. Any one so constituted will readily soconduct himself, upon occasion of real excitement, as to render himselfliable to suspicion on the part of the over acute, or the ill-disposed.M. Beauvais (as it appears from your notes) had some personal interviewswith the editor of L’Etoile, and offended him by venturing an opinionthat the corpse, notwithstanding the theory of the editor, was, in soberfact, that of Marie. ‘He persists,’ says the paper, ‘in asserting thecorpse to be that of Marie, but cannot give a circumstance, in additionto those which we have commented upon, to make others believe.’ Now,without re-adverting to the fact that stronger evidence ‘to make othersbelieve,’ could never have been adduced, it may be remarked that a manmay very well be understood to believe, in a case of this kind, withoutthe ability to advance a single reason for the belief of a second party.Nothing is more vague than impressions of individual identity. Each manrecognizes his neighbor, yet there are few instances in which any oneis prepared to give a reason for his recognition. The editor of L’Etoilehad no right to be offended at M. Beauvais’ unreasoning belief.
“The suspicious circumstances which invest him, will be found to tallymuch better with my hypothesis of romantic busy-bodyism, than withthe reasoner’s suggestion of guilt. Once adopting the more charitableinterpretation, we shall find no difficulty in comprehending the rosein the key-hole; the ‘Marie’ upon the slate; the ‘elbowing the malerelatives out of the way;’ the ‘aversion to permitting them to seethe body;’ the caution given to Madame B----, that she must hold noconversation with the gendarme until his return (Beauvais’); and,lastly, his apparent determination ‘that nobody should have anything todo with the proceedings except himself.’ It seems to me unquestionablethat Beauvais was a suitor of Marie’s; that she coquetted with him; andthat he was ambitious of being thought to enjoy her fullest intimacyand confidence. I shall say nothing more upon this point; and, as theevidence fully rebuts the assertion of L’Etoile, touching the matterof apathy on the part of the mother and other relatives--an apathyinconsistent with the supposition of their believing the corpse to bethat of the perfumery-girl--we shall now proceed as if the question ofidentity were settled to our perfect satisfaction.”
“And what,” I here demanded, “do you think of the opinions of LeCommerciel?”
“That, in spirit, they are far more worthy of attention than any whichhave been promulgated upon the subject. The deductions from the premisesare philosophical and acute; but the premises, in two instances, atleast, are founded in imperfect observation. Le Commerciel wishes tointimate that Marie was seized by some gang of low ruffians not far fromher mother’s door. ‘It is impossible,’ it urges, ‘that a person so wellknown to thousands as this young woman was, should have passed threeblocks without some one having seen her.’ This is the idea of a man longresident in Paris--a public man--and one whose walks to and fro in thecity, have been mostly limited to the vicinity of the public offices.He is aware that he seldom passes so far as a dozen blocks from his ownbureau, without being recognized and accosted. And, knowing the extentof his personal acquaintance with others, and of others with him, hecompares his notoriety with that of the perfumery-girl, finds no greatdifference between them, and reaches at once the conclusion that she, inher walks, would be equally liable to recognition with himself inhis. This could only be the case were her walks of the same unvarying,methodical character, and within the same species of limited regionas are his own. He passes to and fro, at regular intervals, within aconfined periphery, abounding in individuals who are led to observationof his person through interest in the kindred nature of his occupationwith their own. But the walks of Marie may, in general, be supposeddiscursive. In this particular instance, it will be understood as mostprobable, that she proceeded upon a route of more than average diversityfrom her accustomed ones. The parallel which we imagine to have existedin the mind of Le Commerciel would only be sustained in the event of thetwo individuals’ traversing the whole city. In this case, granting thepersonal acquaintances to be equal, the chances would be also equal thatan equal number of personal rencounters would be made. For my ownpart, I should hold it not only as possible, but as very far more thanprobable, that Marie might have proceeded, at any given period, by anyone 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 wasknown. In viewing this question in its full and proper light, we musthold steadily in mind the great disproportion between the personalacquaintances of even the most noted individual in Paris, and the entirepopulation of Paris itself.
“But whatever force there may still appear to be in the suggestion of LeCommerciel, will be much diminished when we take into consideration thehour at which the girl went abroad. ‘It was when the streets were fullof people,’ says Le Commerciel, ‘that she went out.’ But not so. It wasat nine o’clock in the morning. Now at nine o’clock of every morning inthe week, _with the exception of Sunday_, the streets of the city are,it is true, thronged with people. At nine on Sunday, the populace arechiefly within doors _preparing for church_. No observing person canhave failed to notice the peculiarly deserted air of the town, fromabout eight until ten on the morning of every Sabbath. Between ten andeleven the streets are thronged, but not at so early a period as thatdesignated.
“There is another point at which there seems a deficiency of observationon the part of Le Commerciel. ‘A piece,’ it says, ‘of one of theunfortunate girl’s petticoats, two feet long, and one foot wide, wastorn out and tied under her chin, and around the back of her head,probably to prevent screams. This was done, by fellows who had nopocket-handkerchiefs.’ Whether this idea is, or is not well founded,we will endeavor to see hereafter; but by ‘fellows who have nopocket-handkerchiefs’ the editor intends the lowest class of ruffians.These, however, are the very description of people who will always befound to have handkerchiefs even when destitute of shirts. You must havehad occasion to observe how absolutely indispensable, of late years, tothe thorough blackguard, has become the pocket-handkerchief.”
“And what are we to think,” I asked, “of the article in Le Soleil?”
“That it is a vast pity its inditer was not born a parrot--in whichcase he would have been the most illustrious parrot of his race. He hasmerely repeated the individual items of the already published opinion;collecting them, with a laudable industry, from this paper and fromthat. ‘The things had all evidently been there,’ he says, ‘at least,three or four weeks, and there can be _no doubt_ that the spot of thisappalling outrage has been discovered.’ The facts here re-stated byLe Soleil, are very far indeed from removing my own doubts upon thissubject, and we will examine them more particularly hereafter inconnexion with another division of the theme.
“At present we must occupy ourselves with other investigations. Youcannot fail to have remarked the extreme laxity of the examination ofthe corpse. To be sure, the question of identity was readily determined,or should have been; but there were other points to be ascertained. Hadthe body been in any respect despoiled? Had the deceased any articlesof jewelry about her person upon leaving home? if so, had she any whenfound? These are important questions utterly untouched by the evidence;and there are others of equal moment, which have met with no attention.We must endeavor to satisfy ourselves by personal inquiry. The case ofSt. Eustache must be re-examined. I have no suspicion of this person;but let us proceed methodically. We will ascertain beyond a doubt thevalidity of the affidavits in regard to his whereabouts on the Sunday.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 suicide, however corroborative ofsuspicion, were there found to be deceit in the affidavits, is, withoutsuch deceit, in no respect an unaccountable circumstance, or one whichneed cause us to deflect from the line of ordinary analysis.
“In that which I now propose, we will discard the interior points ofthis tragedy, and concentrate our attention upon its outskirts. Not theleast usual error, in investigations such as this, is the limiting ofinquiry to the immediate, with total disregard of the collateral orcircumstantial events. It is the mal-practice of the courts to confineevidence and discussion to the bounds of apparent relevancy. Yetexperience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that avast, perhaps the larger portion of truth, arises from the seeminglyirrelevant. It is through the spirit of this principle, if not preciselythrough its letter, that modern science has resolved to calculate uponthe unforeseen. But perhaps you do not comprehend me. The history ofhuman knowledge has so uninterruptedly shown that to collateral, orincidental, or accidental events we are indebted for the most numerousand most valuable discoveries, that it has at length become necessary,in any prospective view of improvement, to make not only large, but thelargest allowances for inventions that shall arise by chance, and quiteout of the range of ordinary expectation. It is no longer philosophicalto base, upon what has been, a vision of what is to be. Accident isadmitted as a portion of the substructure. We make chance a matter ofabsolute calculation. We subject the unlooked for and unimagined, to themathematical _formulae_ of the schools.
“I repeat that it is no more than fact, that the larger portion of alltruth has sprung from the collateral; and it is but in accordance withthe spirit of the principle involved in this fact, that I would divertinquiry, in the present case, from the trodden and hitherto unfruitfulground of the event itself, to the contemporary circumstances whichsurround it. While you ascertain the validity of the affidavits, I willexamine the newspapers more generally than you have as yet done. So far,we have only reconnoitred the field of investigation; but it will bestrange indeed if a comprehensive survey, such as I propose, of thepublic prints, will not afford us some minute points which shallestablish a direction for inquiry.”
In pursuance of Dupin’s suggestion, I made scrupulous examination ofthe affair of the affidavits. The result was a firm conviction of theirvalidity, and of the consequent innocence of St. Eustache. In the meantime my friend occupied himself, with what seemed to me a minutenessaltogether objectless, in a scrutiny of the various newspaper files. Atthe end of a week he placed before me the following extracts:
“About three years and a half ago, a disturbance very similar to thepresent, was caused by the disappearance of this same Marie Rogêt, fromthe parfumerie of Monsieur Le Blanc, in the Palais Royal. At the end ofa week, however, she re-appeared at her customary comptoir, as well asever, with the exception of a slight paleness not altogether usual. Itwas given out by Monsieur Le Blanc and her mother, that she had merelybeen on a visit to some friend in the country; and the affair wasspeedily hushed up. We presume that the present absence is a freak ofthe same nature, and that, at the expiration of a week, or perhaps ofa month, we shall have her among us again.”--Evening Paper--Monday June23. (*17)
“An evening journal of yesterday, refers to a former mysteriousdisappearance of Mademoiselle Rogêt. It is well known that, during theweek of her absence from Le Blanc’s parfumerie, she was in the companyof a young naval officer, much noted for his debaucheries. A quarrel, itis supposed, providentially led to her return home. We have the name ofthe Lothario in question, who is, at present, stationed in Paris, but,for obvious reasons, forbear to make it public.”--Le Mercurie--TuesdayMorning, June 24. (*18)
“An outrage of the most atrocious character was perpetrated near thiscity the day before yesterday. A gentleman, with his wife and daughter,engaged, about dusk, the services of six young men, who were idly rowinga boat to and fro near the banks of the Seine, to convey him across theriver. Upon reaching the opposite shore, the three passengers steppedout, 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. Shereturned for it, was seized by the gang, carried out into the stream,gagged, brutally treated, and finally taken to the shore at a pointnot far from that at which she had originally entered the boat with herparents. The villains have escaped for the time, but the police are upontheir trail, and some of them will soon be taken.”--Morning Paper--June25. (*19)
“We have received one or two communications, the object of which is tofasten the crime of the late atrocity upon Mennais; (*20) but as thisgentleman has been fully exonerated by a loyal inquiry, and as thearguments of our several correspondents appear to be more zealous thanprofound, we do not think it advisable to make them public.”--MorningPaper--June 28. (*21)
“We have received several forcibly written communications, apparentlyfrom various sources, and which go far to render it a matter ofcertainty that the unfortunate Marie Rogêt has become a victim of one ofthe numerous bands of blackguards which infest the vicinity of the cityupon Sunday. Our own opinion is decidedly in favor of thissupposition. We shall endeavor to make room for some of these argumentshereafter.”--Evening Paper--Tuesday, June 31. (*22)
“On Monday, one of the bargemen connected with the revenue service, sawa empty boat floating down the Seine. Sails were lying in the bottom ofthe boat. The bargeman towed it under the barge office. The next morningit was taken from thence, without the knowledge of any of the officers.The rudder is now at the barge office.”--Le Diligence--Thursday, June26.
Upon reading these various extracts, they not only seemed to meirrelevant, but I could perceive no mode in which any one of themcould be brought to bear upon the matter in hand. I waited for someexplanation from Dupin.
“It is not my present design,” he said, “to dwell upon the first andsecond of those extracts. I have copied them chiefly to show you theextreme remissness of the police, who, as far as I can understand fromthe Prefect, have not troubled themselves, in any respect, with anexamination of the naval officer alluded to. Yet it is mere folly to saythat between the first and second disappearance of Marie, there isno _supposable_ connection. Let us admit the first elopement to haveresulted in a quarrel between the lovers, and the return home of thebetrayed. We are now prepared to view a second elopement (if we knowthat an elopement has again taken place) as indicating a renewal of thebetrayer’s advances, rather than as the result of new proposals by asecond individual--we are prepared to regard it as a ‘making up’ of theold amour, rather than as the commencement of a new one. The chances areten to one, that he who had once eloped with Marie, would again proposean elopement, rather than that she to whom proposals of elopement hadbeen made by one individual, should have them made to her by another.And here let me call your attention to the fact, that the time elapsingbetween the first ascertained, and the second supposed elopement, isa few months more than the general period of the cruises of ourmen-of-war. Had the lover been interrupted in his first villany by thenecessity of departure to sea, and had he seized the first moment of hisreturn to renew the base designs not yet altogether accomplished--ornot yet altogether accomplished by _him?_ Of all these things we knownothing.
“You will say, however, that, in the second instance, there was noelopement as imagined. Certainly not--but are we prepared to say thatthere was not the frustrated design? Beyond St. Eustache, and perhapsBeauvais, we find no recognized, no open, no honorable suitors of Marie.Of none other is there any thing said. Who, then, is the secret lover,of whom the relatives (at least most of them) know nothing, but whomMarie meets upon the morning of Sunday, and who is so deeply in herconfidence, that she hesitates not to remain with him until the shadesof the evening descend, amid the solitary groves of the Barrière duRoule? Who is that secret lover, I ask, of whom, at least, most of therelatives know nothing? And what means the singular prophecy of MadameRogêt on the morning of Marie’s departure?--‘I fear that I shall neversee Marie again.’
“But if we cannot imagine Madame Rogêt privy to the design of elopement,may we not at least suppose this design entertained by the girl? Uponquitting home, she gave it to be understood that she was about to visither aunt in the Rue des Drômes and St. Eustache was requested to callfor her at dark. Now, at first glance, this fact strongly militatesagainst my suggestion;--but let us reflect. That she did meet somecompanion, and proceed with him across the river, reaching the Barrièredu Roule at so late an hour as three o’clock in the afternoon, isknown. But in consenting so to accompany this individual, (_for whateverpurpose--to her mother known or unknown,_) she must have thought of herexpressed intention when leaving home, and of the surprise and suspicionaroused in the bosom of her affianced suitor, St. Eustache, when,calling for her, at the hour appointed, in the Rue des Drômes, he shouldfind that she had not been there, and when, moreover, upon returning tothe pension with this alarming intelligence, he should become aware ofher continued absence from home. She must have thought of these things,I say. She must have foreseen the chagrin of St. Eustache, the suspicionof all. She could not have thought of returning to brave this suspicion;but the suspicion becomes a point of trivial importance to her, if wesuppose her not intending to return.
“We may imagine her thinking thus--‘I am to meet a certain person forthe purpose of elopement, or for certain other purposes known only tomyself. It is necessary that there be no chance of interruption--theremust be sufficient time given us to elude pursuit--I will give it to beunderstood that I shall visit and spend the day with my aunt at the Ruedes Drômes--I well tell St. Eustache not to call for me until dark--inthis way, my absence from home for the longest possible period, withoutcausing suspicion or anxiety, will be accounted for, and I shall gainmore time than in any other manner. If I bid St. Eustache call for meat dark, he will be sure not to call before; but, if I wholly neglectto bid him call, my time for escape will be diminished, since it willbe expected that I return the earlier, and my absence will the soonerexcite anxiety. Now, if it were my design to return at all--if I had incontemplation merely a stroll with the individual in question--it wouldnot be my policy to bid St. Eustache call; for, calling, he will be sureto ascertain that I have played him false--a fact of which I might keephim for ever in ignorance, by leaving home without notifying him of myintention, by returning before dark, and by then stating that I had beento visit my aunt in the Rue des Drômes. But, as it is my design neverto return--or not for some weeks--or not until certain concealments areeffected--the gaining of time is the only point about which I need givemyself any concern.’
“You have observed, in your notes, that the most general opinion inrelation to this sad affair is, and was from the first, that the girlhad been the victim of a gang of blackguards. Now, the popular opinion,under certain conditions, is not to be disregarded. When arising ofitself--when manifesting itself in a strictly spontaneous manner--weshould look upon it as analogous with that _intuition_ which is theidiosyncrasy of the individual man of genius. In ninety-nine cases fromthe hundred I would abide by its decision. But it is important that wefind no palpable traces of _suggestion_. The opinion must be rigorously_the public’s own_; and the distinction is often exceedingly difficultto perceive and to maintain. In the present instance, it appears to methat this ‘public opinion’ in respect to a gang, has been superinducedby the collateral event which is detailed in the third of my extracts.All Paris is excited by the discovered corpse of Marie, a girl young,beautiful and notorious. This corpse is found, bearing marks ofviolence, and floating in the river. But it is now made known that, atthe very period, or about the very period, in which it is supposed thatthe girl was assassinated, an outrage similar in nature to that enduredby the deceased, although less in extent, was perpetuated, by a gangof young ruffians, upon the person of a second young female. Is itwonderful that the one known atrocity should influence the popularjudgment in regard to the other unknown? This judgment awaiteddirection, and the known outrage seemed so opportunely to afford it!Marie, too, was found in the river; and upon this very river was thisknown outrage committed. The connexion of the two events had about it somuch of the palpable, that the true wonder would have been a failureof the populace to appreciate and to seize it. But, in fact, the oneatrocity, known to be so committed, is, if any thing, evidence that theother, committed at a time nearly coincident, was not so committed.It would have been a miracle indeed, if, while a gang of ruffians wereperpetrating, at a given locality, a most unheard-of wrong, there shouldhave been another similar gang, in a similar locality, in the samecity, under the same circumstances, with the same means and appliances,engaged in a wrong of precisely the same aspect, at precisely thesame period of time! Yet in what, if not in this marvellous train ofcoincidence, does the accidentally suggested opinion of the populacecall upon us to believe?
“Before proceeding farther, let us consider the supposed scene of theassassination, in the thicket at the Barrière du Roule. This thicket,although dense, was in the close vicinity of a public road. Withinwere three or four large stones, forming a kind of seat with a back andfootstool. On the upper stone was discovered a white petticoat; on thesecond, a silk scarf. A parasol, gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief,were also here found. The handkerchief bore the name, ‘Marie Rogêt.’Fragments of dress were seen on the branches around. The earth wastrampled, the bushes were broken, and there was every evidence of aviolent struggle.
“Notwithstanding the acclamation with which the discovery of thisthicket was received by the press, and the unanimity with which itwas supposed to indicate the precise scene of the outrage, it must beadmitted that there was some very good reason for doubt. That it was thescene, I may or I may not believe--but there was excellent reason fordoubt. Had the true scene been, as Le Commerciel suggested, in theneighborhood of the Rue Pavée St. Andrée, the perpetrators of thecrime, supposing them still resident in Paris, would naturally have beenstricken with terror at the public attention thus acutely directed intothe proper channel; and, in certain classes of minds, there would havearisen, at once, a sense of the necessity of some exertion to redivertthis attention. And thus, the thicket of the Barrière du Roule havingbeen already suspected, the idea of placing the articles where they werefound, might have been naturally entertained. There is no real evidence,although Le Soleil so supposes, that the articles discovered hadbeen more than a very few days in the thicket; while there is muchcircumstantial proof that they could not have remained there, withoutattracting attention, during the twenty days elapsing between the fatalSunday and the afternoon upon which they were found by the boys. ‘Theywere all _mildewed_ down hard,’ says Le Soleil, adopting the opinions ofits predecessors, ‘with the action of the rain, and stuck together from_mildew_. The grass had grown around and over some of them. The silk ofthe parasol was strong, but the threads of it were run together within.The upper part, where it had been doubled and folded, was all _mildewed_and rotten, and tore on being opened.’ In respect to the grass having‘grown around and over some of them,’ it is obvious that the factcould only have been ascertained from the words, and thus from therecollections, of two small boys; for these boys removed the articlesand took them home before they had been seen by a third party. But grasswill grow, especially in warm and damp weather, (such as was that of theperiod of the murder,) as much as two or three inches in a single day.A parasol lying upon a newly turfed ground, might, in a single week,be entirely concealed from sight by the upspringing grass. And touchingthat mildew upon which the editor of Le Soleil so pertinaciouslyinsists, that he employs the word no less than three times in thebrief paragraph just quoted, is he really unaware of the nature of thismildew? Is he to be told that it is one of the many classes of fungus,of which the most ordinary feature is its upspringing and decadencewithin twenty-four hours?
“Thus we see, at a glance, that what has been most triumphantly adducedin support of the idea that the articles had been ‘for at least threeor four weeks’ in the thicket, is most absurdly null as regards anyevidence of that fact. On the other hand, it is exceedingly difficultto believe that these articles could have remained in the thicketspecified, for a longer period than a single week--for a longer periodthan from one Sunday to the next. Those who know any thing of thevicinity of Paris, know the extreme difficulty of finding seclusionunless at a great distance from its suburbs. Such a thing as anunexplored, or even an unfrequently visited recess, amid its woods orgroves, is not for a moment to be imagined. Let any one who, being atheart a lover of nature, is yet chained by duty to the dust and heatof this great metropolis--let any such one attempt, even during theweekdays, to slake his thirst for solitude amid the scenes of naturalloveliness which immediately surround us. At every second step, he willfind the growing charm dispelled by the voice and personal intrusionof some ruffian or party of carousing blackguards. He will seek privacyamid the densest foliage, all in vain. Here are the very nooks where theunwashed most abound--here are the temples most desecrate. With sicknessof the heart the wanderer will flee back to the polluted Paris as toa less odious because less incongruous sink of pollution. But if thevicinity of the city is so beset during the working days of the week,how much more so on the Sabbath! It is now especially that, releasedfrom the claims of labor, or deprived of the customary opportunities ofcrime, the town blackguard seeks the precincts of the town, not throughlove of the rural, which in his heart he despises, but by way of escapefrom the restraints and conventionalities of society. He desiresless the fresh air and the green trees, than the utter license of thecountry. Here, at the road-side inn, or beneath the foliage of thewoods, he indulges, unchecked by any eye except those of his booncompanions, in all the mad excess of a counterfeit hilarity--the jointoffspring of liberty and of rum. I say nothing more than what mustbe obvious to every dispassionate observer, when I repeat that thecircumstance of the articles in question having remained undiscovered,for a longer period--than from one Sunday to another, in any thicket inthe immediate neighborhood of Paris, is to be looked upon as little lessthan miraculous.
“But there are not wanting other grounds for the suspicion that thearticles were placed in the thicket with the view of diverting attentionfrom the real scene of the outrage. And, first, let me direct yournotice to the date of the discovery of the articles. Collate this withthe date of the fifth extract made by myself from the newspapers. Youwill find that the discovery followed, almost immediately, the urgentcommunications sent to the evening paper. These communications, althoughvarious and apparently from various sources, tended all to the samepoint--viz., the directing of attention to a gang as the perpetratorsof the outrage, and to the neighborhood of the Barrière du Roule as itsscene. Now here, of course, the suspicion is not that, in consequence ofthese communications, or of the public attention by them directed, thearticles were found by the boys; but the suspicion might and may wellhave been, that the articles were not before found by the boys, for thereason that the articles had not before been in the thicket; havingbeen deposited there only at so late a period as at the date, or shortlyprior to the date of the communications by the guilty authors of thesecommunications themselves.
“This thicket was a singular--an exceedingly singular one. It wasunusually dense. Within its naturally walled enclosure were threeextraordinary stones, forming a seat with a back and footstool. And thisthicket, so full of a natural art, was in the immediate vicinity, withina few rods, of the dwelling of Madame Deluc, whose boys were in thehabit of closely examining the shrubberies about them in search ofthe bark of the sassafras. Would it be a rash wager--a wager of onethousand to one--that a day never passed over the heads of these boyswithout finding at least one of them ensconced in the umbrageous hall,and enthroned upon its natural throne? Those who would hesitate at sucha wager, have either never been boys themselves, or have forgotten theboyish nature. I repeat--it is exceedingly hard to comprehend how thearticles could have remained in this thicket undiscovered, for a longerperiod than one or two days; and that thus there is good ground forsuspicion, in spite of the dogmatic ignorance of Le Soleil, that theywere, at a comparatively late date, deposited where found.
“But there are still other and stronger reasons for believing them sodeposited, than any which I have as yet urged. And, now, let me begyour notice to the highly artificial arrangement of the articles. On theupper stone lay a white petticoat; on the second a silk scarf; scatteredaround, were a parasol, gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief bearing thename, ‘Marie Rogêt.’ Here is just such an arrangement as would naturallybe made by a not over-acute person wishing to dispose the articlesnaturally. But it is by no means a really natural arrangement. Ishould rather have looked to see the things all lying on the ground andtrampled under foot. In the narrow limits of that bower, it would havebeen scarcely possible that the petticoat and scarf should have retaineda position upon the stones, when subjected to the brushing to and froof many struggling persons. ‘There was evidence,’ it is said, ‘of astruggle; and the earth was trampled, the bushes were broken,’--but thepetticoat and the scarf are found deposited as if upon shelves. ‘Thepieces of the frock torn out by the bushes were about three inches wideand six inches long. One part was the hem of the frock and it had beenmended. They looked like strips torn off.’ Here, inadvertently, LeSoleil has employed an exceedingly suspicious phrase. The pieces, asdescribed, do indeed ‘look like strips torn off;’ but purposely and byhand. It is one of the rarest of accidents that a piece is ‘torn off,’from any garment such as is now in question, by the agency of a thorn.From the very nature of such fabrics, a thorn or nail becoming entangledin them, tears them rectangularly--divides them into two longitudinalrents, at right angles with each other, and meeting at an apex where thethorn enters--but it is scarcely possible to conceive the piece ‘tornoff.’ I never so knew it, nor did you. To tear a piece off from suchfabric, two distinct forces, in different directions, will be, in almostevery case, required. If there be two edges to the fabric--if, forexample, it be a pocket-handkerchief, and it is desired to tear from ita slip, then, and then only, will the one force serve the purpose. Butin the present case the question is of a dress, presenting but one edge.To tear a piece from the interior, where no edge is presented, couldonly be effected by a miracle through the agency of thorns, and no onethorn could accomplish it. But, even where an edge is presented, twothorns will be necessary, operating, the one in two distinct directions,and the other in one. And this in the supposition that the edge isunhemmed. If hemmed, the matter is nearly out of the question. We thussee the numerous and great obstacles in the way of pieces being ‘tornoff’ through the simple agency of ‘thorns;’ yet we are required tobelieve not only that one piece but that many have been so torn. ‘Andone part,’ too, ‘was the hem of the frock!’ Another piece was ‘partof the skirt, not the hem,’--that is to say, was torn completely outthrough the agency of thorns, from the uncaged interior of thedress! These, I say, are things which one may well be pardoned fordisbelieving; yet, taken collectedly, they form, perhaps, less ofreasonable ground for suspicion, than the one startling circumstance ofthe articles’ having been left in this thicket at all, by any murdererswho had enough precaution to think of removing the corpse. You will nothave apprehended me rightly, however, if you suppose it my design todeny this thicket as the scene of the outrage. There might have been awrong here, or, more possibly, an accident at Madame Deluc’s. But, infact, this is a point of minor importance. We are not engaged in anattempt to discover the scene, but to produce the perpetrators of themurder. What I have adduced, notwithstanding the minuteness with which Ihave adduced it, has been with the view, first, to show the folly of thepositive and headlong assertions of Le Soleil, but secondly and chiefly,to bring you, by the most natural route, to a further contemplation ofthe doubt whether this assassination has, or has not been, the work of agang.
“We will resume this question by mere allusion to the revolting detailsof the surgeon examined at the inquest. It is only necessary to say thathis published inferences, in regard to the number of ruffians, have beenproperly ridiculed as unjust and totally baseless, by all the reputableanatomists of Paris. Not that the matter might not have been asinferred, but that there was no ground for the inference:--was there notmuch for another?
“Let us reflect now upon ‘the traces of a struggle;’ and let me ask whatthese traces have been supposed to demonstrate. A gang. But do they notrather demonstrate the absence of a gang? What struggle could have takenplace--what struggle so violent and so enduring as to have left its‘traces’ in all directions--between a weak and defenceless girl and thegang of ruffians imagined? The silent grasp of a few rough arms and allwould have been over. The victim must have been absolutely passive attheir will. You will here bear in mind that the arguments urged againstthe thicket as the scene, are applicable in chief part, only against itas the scene of an outrage committed by more than a single individual.If we imagine but one violator, we can conceive, and thus only conceive,the struggle of so violent and so obstinate a nature as to have left the‘traces’ apparent.
“And again. I have already mentioned the suspicion to be excited by thefact that the articles in question were suffered to remain at all inthe thicket where discovered. It seems almost impossible that theseevidences of guilt should have been accidentally left where found. Therewas sufficient presence of mind (it is supposed) to remove the corpse;and yet a more positive evidence than the corpse itself (whose featuresmight have been quickly obliterated by decay,) is allowed to lieconspicuously in the scene of the outrage--I allude to the handkerchiefwith the name of the deceased. If this was accident, it was notthe accident of a gang. We can imagine it only the accident of anindividual. Let us see. An individual has committed the murder. Heis alone with the ghost of the departed. He is appalled by what liesmotionless before him. The fury of his passion is over, and there isabundant room in his heart for the natural awe of the deed. His is noneof that confidence which the presence of numbers inevitably inspires.He is alone with the dead. He trembles and is bewildered. Yet there isa necessity for disposing of the corpse. He bears it to the river, butleaves behind him the other evidences of guilt; for it is difficult, ifnot impossible to carry all the burthen at once, and it will be easy toreturn for what is left. But in his toilsome journey to the water hisfears redouble within him. The sounds of life encompass his path. Adozen times he hears or fancies the step of an observer. Even the verylights from the city bewilder him. Yet, in time and by long and frequentpauses of deep agony, he reaches the river’s brink, and disposes ofhis ghastly charge--perhaps through the medium of a boat. But now whattreasure does the world hold--what threat of vengeance could it holdout--which would have power to urge the return of that lonely murdererover that toilsome and perilous path, to the thicket and its bloodchilling recollections? He returns not, let the consequences be whatthey may. He could not return if he would. His sole thought is immediateescape. He turns his back forever upon those dreadful shrubberies andflees as from the wrath to come.
“But how with a gang? Their number would have inspired them withconfidence; if, indeed confidence is ever wanting in the breast of thearrant blackguard; and of arrant blackguards alone are the supposedgangs ever constituted. Their number, I say, would have prevented thebewildering and unreasoning terror which I have imagined to paralyze thesingle man. Could we suppose an oversight in one, or two, or three, thisoversight would have been remedied by a fourth. They would have leftnothing behind them; for their number would have enabled them to carryall at once. There would have been no need of return.
“Consider now the circumstance that in the outer garment of the corpsewhen found, ‘a slip, about a foot wide had been torn upward from thebottom hem to the waist wound three times round the waist, and securedby a sort of hitch in the back.’ This was done with the obvious designof affording a handle by which to carry the body. But would any numberof men have dreamed of resorting to such an expedient? To three or four,the limbs of the corpse would have afforded not only a sufficient, butthe best possible hold. The device is that of a single individual; andthis brings us to the fact that ‘between the thicket and the river, therails of the fences were found taken down, and the ground bore evidenttraces of some heavy burden having been dragged along it!’ But would anumber of men have put themselves to the superfluous trouble of takingdown a fence, for the purpose of dragging through it a corpse which theymight have lifted over any fence in an instant? Would a number of menhave so dragged a corpse at all as to have left evident traces of thedragging?
“And here we must refer to an observation of Le Commerciel; anobservation upon which I have already, in some measure, commented. ‘Apiece,’ says this journal, ‘of one of the unfortunate girl’s petticoatswas torn out and tied under her chin, and around the back of herhead, probably to prevent screams. This was done by fellows who had nopocket-handkerchiefs.’
“I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never without apocket-handkerchief. But it is not to this fact that I now especiallyadvert. That it was not through want of a handkerchief for the purposeimagined by Le Commerciel, that this bandage was employed, is renderedapparent by the handkerchief left in the thicket; and that the objectwas not ‘to prevent screams’ appears, also, from the bandage having beenemployed in preference to what would so much better have answeredthe purpose. But the language of the evidence speaks of the strip inquestion as ‘found around the neck, fitting loosely, and secured witha hard knot.’ These words are sufficiently vague, but differ materiallyfrom those of Le Commerciel. The slip was eighteen inches wide, andtherefore, although of muslin, would form a strong band when folded orrumpled longitudinally. And thus rumpled it was discovered. My inferenceis this. The solitary murderer, having borne the corpse, for somedistance, (whether from the thicket or elsewhere) by means of thebandage hitched around its middle, found the weight, in this modeof procedure, too much for his strength. He resolved to drag theburthen--the evidence goes to show that it was dragged. With this objectin view, it became necessary to attach something like a rope to one ofthe extremities. It could be best attached about the neck, where thehead would prevent its slipping off. And, now, the murderer bethoughthim, unquestionably, of the bandage about the loins. He would have usedthis, but for its volution about the corpse, the hitch which embarrassedit, and the reflection that it had not been ‘torn off’ from the garment.It was easier to tear a new slip from the petticoat. He tore it, madeit fast about the neck, and so dragged his victim to the brink of theriver. That this ‘bandage,’ only attainable with trouble and delay, andbut imperfectly answering its purpose--that this bandage was employedat all, demonstrates that the necessity for its employment sprang fromcircumstances arising at a period when the handkerchief was no longerattainable--that is to say, arising, as we have imagined, after quittingthe thicket, (if the thicket it was), and on the road between thethicket and the river.
“But the evidence, you will say, of Madame Deluc, (!) points especiallyto the presence of a gang, in the vicinity of the thicket, at or aboutthe epoch of the murder. This I grant. I doubt if there were not a dozengangs, such as described by Madame Deluc, in and about the vicinity ofthe Barrière du Roule at or about the period of this tragedy. But thegang which has drawn upon itself the pointed animadversion, although thesomewhat tardy and very suspicious evidence of Madame Deluc, is theonly gang which is represented by that honest and scrupulous old ladyas having eaten her cakes and swallowed her brandy, without puttingthemselves to the trouble of making her payment. Et hinc illæ iræ?
“But what is the precise evidence of Madame Deluc? ‘A gang of miscreantsmade their appearance, behaved boisterously, ate and drank withoutmaking payment, followed in the route of the young man and girl,returned to the inn about dusk, and recrossed the river as if in greathaste.’
“Now this ‘great haste’ very possibly seemed greater haste in the eyesof Madame Deluc, since she dwelt lingeringly and lamentingly upon herviolated cakes and ale--cakes and ale for which she might still haveentertained a faint hope of compensation. Why, otherwise, since it wasabout dusk, should she make a point of the haste? It is no cause forwonder, surely, that even a gang of blackguards should make haste toget home, when a wide river is to be crossed in small boats, when stormimpends, and when night approaches.
“I say approaches; for the night had not yet arrived. It was only aboutdusk that the indecent haste of these ‘miscreants’ offended the sobereyes of Madame Deluc. But we are told that it was upon this very eveningthat Madame Deluc, as well as her eldest son, ‘heard the screams of afemale in the vicinity of the inn.’ And in what words does Madame Delucdesignate the period of the evening at which these screams were heard?‘It was soon after dark,’ she says. But ‘soon after dark,’ is, at least,dark; and ‘about dusk’ is as certainly daylight. Thus it is abundantlyclear that the gang quitted the Barrière du Roule prior to the screamsoverheard (?) by Madame Deluc. And although, in all the many reports ofthe evidence, the relative expressions in question are distinctly andinvariably employed just as I have employed them in this conversationwith yourself, no notice whatever of the gross discrepancy has, as yet,been taken by any of the public journals, or by any of the Myrmidons ofpolice.
“I shall add but one to the arguments against a gang; but this one has,to my own understanding at least, a weight altogether irresistible.Under the circumstances of large reward offered, and full pardon toany King’s evidence, it is not to be imagined, for a moment, that somemember of a gang of low ruffians, or of any body of men, would not longago have betrayed his accomplices. Each one of a gang so placed, is notso much greedy of reward, or anxious for escape, as fearful of betrayal.He betrays eagerly and early that he may not himself be betrayed. Thatthe secret has not been divulged, is the very best of proof that it is,in fact, a secret. The horrors of this dark deed are known only to one,or two, living human beings, and to God.
“Let us sum up now the meagre yet certain fruits of our long analysis.We have attained the idea either of a fatal accident under the roof ofMadame Deluc, or of a murder perpetrated, in the thicket at the Barrièredu Roule, by a lover, or at least by an intimate and secret associate ofthe deceased. This associate is of swarthy complexion. This complexion,the ‘hitch’ in the bandage, and the ‘sailor’s knot,’ with which thebonnet-ribbon is tied, point to a seaman. His companionship with thedeceased, a gay, but not an abject young girl, designates him asabove the grade of the common sailor. Here the well written and urgentcommunications to the journals are much in the way of corroboration. Thecircumstance of the first elopement, as mentioned by Le Mercurie, tendsto blend the idea of this seaman with that of the ‘naval officer’ who isfirst known to have led the unfortunate into crime.
“And here, most fitly, comes the consideration of the continuedabsence of him of the dark complexion. Let me pause to observe that thecomplexion of this man is dark and swarthy; it was no common swarthinesswhich constituted the sole point of remembrance, both as regards Valenceand Madame Deluc. But why is this man absent? Was he murdered by thegang? If so, why are there only traces of the assassinated girl? Thescene of the two outrages will naturally be supposed identical. Andwhere is his corpse? The assassins would most probably have disposedof both in the same way. But it may be said that this man lives, and isdeterred from making himself known, through dread of being charged withthe murder. This consideration might be supposed to operate upon himnow--at this late period--since it has been given in evidence that hewas seen with Marie--but it would have had no force at the period of thedeed. The first impulse of an innocent man would have been to announcethe outrage, and to aid in identifying the ruffians. This policy wouldhave suggested. He had been seen with the girl. He had crossed the riverwith her in an open ferry-boat. The denouncing of the assassins wouldhave appeared, even to an idiot, the surest and sole means of relievinghimself from suspicion. We cannot suppose him, on the night of the fatalSunday, both innocent himself and incognizant of an outrage committed.Yet only under such circumstances is it possible to imagine that hewould have failed, if alive, in the denouncement of the assassins.
“And what means are ours, of attaining the truth? We shall find thesemeans multiplying and gathering distinctness as we proceed. Let us siftto the bottom this affair of the first elopement. Let us know thefull history of ‘the officer,’ with his present circumstances, andhis whereabouts at the precise period of the murder. Let us carefullycompare with each other the various communications sent to the eveningpaper, in which the object was to inculpate a gang. This done, let uscompare these communications, both as regards style and MS., withthose sent to the morning paper, at a previous period, and insisting sovehemently upon the guilt of Mennais. And, all this done, let us againcompare these various communications with the known MSS. of the officer.Let us endeavor to ascertain, by repeated questionings of Madame Delucand her boys, as well as of the omnibus driver, Valence, something moreof the personal appearance and bearing of the ‘man of dark complexion.’Queries, skilfully directed, will not fail to elicit, from some ofthese parties, information on this particular point (or uponothers)--information which the parties themselves may not even be awareof possessing. And let us now trace the boat picked up by the bargemanon the morning of Monday the twenty-third of June, and which wasremoved from the barge-office, without the cognizance of the officerin attendance, and without the rudder, at some period prior to thediscovery of the corpse. With a proper caution and perseverance we shallinfallibly trace this boat; for not only can the bargeman who pickedit up identify it, but the rudder is at hand. The rudder of a sail-boatwould not have been abandoned, without inquiry, by one altogether atease in heart. And here let me pause to insinuate a question. There wasno advertisement of the picking up of this boat. It was silentlytaken to the barge-office, and as silently removed. But its owner oremployer--how happened he, at so early a period as Tuesday morning, tobe informed, without the agency of advertisement, of the locality ofthe boat taken up on Monday, unless we imagine some connexion with thenavy--some personal permanent connexion leading to cognizance of itsminute in interests--its petty local news?
“In speaking of the lonely assassin dragging his burden to the shore,I have already suggested the probability of his availing himself of aboat. Now we are to understand that Marie Rogêt was precipitated from aboat. This would naturally have been the case. The corpse could not havebeen trusted to the shallow waters of the shore. The peculiar marks onthe back and shoulders of the victim tell of the bottom ribs of a boat.That the body was found without weight is also corroborative of theidea. If thrown from the shore a weight would have been attached. We canonly account for its absence by supposing the murderer to have neglectedthe precaution of supplying himself with it before pushing off. In theact of consigning the corpse to the water, he would unquestionably havenoticed his oversight; but then no remedy would have been at hand.Any risk would have been preferred to a return to that accursed shore.Having rid himself of his ghastly charge, the murderer would havehastened to the city. There, at some obscure wharf, he would have leapedon land. But the boat--would he have secured it? He would have beenin too great haste for such things as securing a boat. Moreover, infastening it to the wharf, he would have felt as if securing evidenceagainst himself. His natural thought would have been to cast from him,as far as possible, all that had held connection with his crime. Hewould not only have fled from the wharf, but he would not have permittedthe boat to remain. Assuredly he would have cast it adrift. Let uspursue our fancies.--In the morning, the wretch is stricken withunutterable horror at finding that the boat has been picked up anddetained at a locality which he is in the daily habit of frequenting--at a locality, perhaps, which his duty compels him to frequent. Thenext night, without daring to ask for the rudder, he removes it. Nowwhere is that rudderless boat? Let it be one of our first purposesto discover. With the first glimpse we obtain of it, the dawn of oursuccess shall begin. This boat shall guide us, with a rapidity whichwill surprise even ourselves, to him who employed it in the midnight ofthe fatal Sabbath. Corroboration will rise upon corroboration, and themurderer will be traced.”
[For reasons which we shall not specify, but which to many readers willappear obvious, we have taken the liberty of here omitting, from theMSS. placed in our hands, such portion as details the following up ofthe apparently slight clew obtained by Dupin. We feel it advisable onlyto state, in brief, that the result desired was brought to pass; andthat the Prefect fulfilled punctually, although with reluctance, theterms of his compact with the Chevalier. Mr. Poe’s article concludeswith the following words.--Eds. (*23)]
It will be understood that I speak of coincidences and no more. WhatI have said above upon this topic must suffice. In my own heart theredwells no faith in præter-nature. That Nature and its God are two, noman who thinks, will deny. That the latter, creating the former, can, atwill, control or modify it, is also unquestionable. I say “at will;” forthe question is of will, and not, as the insanity of logic has assumed,of power. It is not that the Deity cannot modify his laws, but that weinsult him in imagining a possible necessity for modification. In theirorigin these laws were fashioned to embrace all contingencies whichcould lie in the Future. With God all is Now.
I repeat, then, that I speak of these things only as of coincidences.And farther: in what I relate it will be seen that between the fate ofthe unhappy Mary Cecilia Rogers, so far as that fate is known, and thefate of one Marie Rogêt up to a certain epoch in her history, there hasexisted a parallel in the contemplation of whose wonderful exactitudethe reason becomes embarrassed. I say all this will be seen. But let itnot for a moment be supposed that, in proceeding with the sad narrativeof Marie from the epoch just mentioned, and in tracing to its dénouementthe mystery which enshrouded her, it is my covert design to hint at anextension of the parallel, or even to suggest that the measures adoptedin Paris for the discovery of the assassin of a grisette, or measuresfounded in any similar ratiocination, would produce any similar result.
For, in respect to the latter branch of the supposition, it should beconsidered that the most trifling variation in the facts of thetwo cases might give rise to the most important miscalculations,by diverting thoroughly the two courses of events; very much as,in arithmetic, an error which, in its own individuality, may beinappreciable, produces, at length, by dint of multiplication at allpoints of the process, a result enormously at variance with truth. And,in regard to the former branch, we must not fail to hold in view thatthe very Calculus of Probabilities to which I have referred, forbids allidea of the extension of the parallel:--forbids it with a positivenessstrong and decided just in proportion as this parallel has already beenlong-drawn and exact. This is one of those anomalous propositions which,seemingly appealing to thought altogether apart from the mathematical,is yet one which only the mathematician can fully entertain. Nothing,for example, is more difficult than to convince the merely generalreader that the fact of sixes having been thrown twice in succession bya player at dice, is sufficient cause for betting the largest odds thatsixes will not be thrown in the third attempt. A suggestion to thiseffect is usually rejected by the intellect at once. It does notappear that the two throws which have been completed, and which lie nowabsolutely in the Past, can have influence upon the throw which existsonly in the Future. The chance for throwing sixes seems to be preciselyas it was at any ordinary time--that is to say, subject only to theinfluence of the various other throws which may be made by the dice. Andthis is a reflection which appears so exceedingly obvious that attemptsto controvert it are received more frequently with a derisive smilethan with anything like respectful attention. The error here involved--agross error redolent of mischief--I cannot pretend to expose within thelimits assigned me at present; and with the philosophical it needsno exposure. It may be sufficient here to say that it forms one of aninfinite series of mistakes which arise in the path of Reason throughher propensity for seeking truth in detail.
Footnotes--Marie Rogêt
(*1) Upon the original publication of “Marie Roget,” the foot-notes nowappended were considered unnecessary; but the lapse of several yearssince the tragedy upon which the tale is based, renders it expedientto give them, and also to say a few words in explanation of the generaldesign. A young girl, Mary Cecilia Rogers, was murdered in thevicinity of New York; and, although her death occasioned an intense andlong-enduring excitement, the mystery attending it had remainedunsolved at the period when the present paper was written and published(November, 1842). Herein, under pretence of relating the fate ofa Parisian grisette, the author has followed in minute detail, theessential, while merely paralleling the inessential facts of the realmurder of Mary Rogers. Thus all argument founded upon the fiction isapplicable to the truth: and the investigation of the truth was theobject. The “Mystery of Marie Roget” was composed at a distance from thescene of the atrocity, and with no other means of investigation than thenewspapers afforded. Thus much escaped the writer of which he could haveavailed himself had he been upon the spot, and visited the localities.It may not be improper to record, nevertheless, that the confessions oftwo persons, (one of them the Madame Deluc of the narrative) made, atdifferent periods, long subsequent to the publication, confirmed, infull, not only the general conclusion, but absolutely all the chiefhypothetical details by which that conclusion was attained.
(*2) The nom de plume of Von Hardenburg.
(*3) Nassau Street.
(*4) Anderson.
(*5) The Hudson.
(*6) Weehawken.
(*7) Payne.
(*8) Crommelin.
(*9) The New York “Mercury.”
(*10) The New York “Brother Jonathan,” edited by H. Hastings Weld, Esq.
(*11) New York “Journal of Commerce.”
(*12) Philadelphia “Saturday Evening Post,” edited by C. I. Peterson,Esq.
(*13) Adam
(*14) See “Murders in the Rue Morgue.”
(*15) The New York “Commercial Advertiser,” edited by Col. Stone.
(*16) “A theory based on the qualities of an object, will prevent itsbeing unfolded according to its objects; and he who arranges topics inreference to their causes, will cease to value them according to theirresults. Thus the jurisprudence of every nation will show that, when lawbecomes a science and a system, it ceases to be justice. The errorsinto which a blind devotion to principles of classification has led thecommon law, will be seen by observing how often the legislature hasbeen obliged to come forward to restore the equity its scheme hadlost.”--Landor.
(*17) New York “Express”
(*18) New York “Herald.”
(*19) New York “Courier and Inquirer.”
(*20) Mennais was one of the parties originally suspected and arrested,but discharged through total lack of evidence.
(*21) New York “Courier and Inquirer.”
(*22) New York “Evening Post.”
(*23) Of the Magazine in which the article was originally published.