The Stolen Letter

by Edgar Allan Poe

We were in Paris, just after dark one windy evening in the autumn of 18-- and I was smoking a pipe with my friend, Dupin, in his room on the 4th floor. We had not spoken for about an hour and seemed to pay attention only to the smoke filling the air. However, I was considering some things we had discussed earlier that evening: the case of the Rue Morgue and the mystery of the murder of Marie Rogêt. Suddenly, the apartment door opened and our old acquaintance, Monsieur G, the head of the Paris police force, came in.

We welcomed him as he was not a bad man, if not very clever, and we had not seen him for several years. We had been sitting in the dark, and Dupin stood up to light a lamp but sat down again without doing so, as soon as G said that he had come to ask for my friend’s advice about a case which was causing him a lot of trouble.

"If it’s anything we need to think deeply about," said Dupin, "it’ll be easier in the dark."

"That’s another of your odd ideas," said G, who had a habit of calling anything he didn’t understand "odd" and therefore lived surrounded by "oddities."

"Very true," said Dupin, as he gave his visitor a pipe and pushed a comfortable chair in his direction.

"And what’s the problem now?" I asked. "Not more murders, I hope?"

"No! Nothing like that! The fact is that the situation is really very simple and I’m certain we can manage it ourselves; but I thought Dupin would like to hear the details, because it’s so very odd."

"Simple and odd," said Dupin.

"The fact is that we’re all puzzled because the case is very simple, but we can’t solve it," replied G.

"Perhaps that’s because it’s so very simple," said my friend.

"Nonsense!" replied the police chief, laughing loudly.

"Perhaps the mystery is a little too clear," said Dupin.

"And what’s this case about?" I asked.

"Well, I can explain it easily," replied the Chief and sat down in his chair. "But, before I begin, let me say that this is a very sensitive case and that I’ll probably lose my job if anyone hears that I’ve discussed it outside the police department."

"Go on," I said.

"Or don’t," said Dupin.

"Well, then. I‘ve been told by a very important person that a document has been stolen from the royal apartments. We know the person who did it. He was seen taking it. We also know that he still has it."

"How do you know?" asked Dupin.

"Because of what’s written in the document,” replied the Police Chief, “and because certain events have not happened that certainly would happen if he used it.”

"Be a little more explicit," I said.

"If a third person – I cannot tell you who – ever saw the document, a very important person’s reputation would be questioned and this fact gives the thief power over the victim."

"But this power," I said, "means the victim knows the thief. Who would dare?"

"The thief," said G, "is Minister D, who is completely ruthless. This document – a letter actually – was received by the victim while she was alone in the palace. While she was reading it, Minister D arrived. She thought about hiding it but there was no time. As only the address was showing, she left it where it was.

“Minister D noticed how anxious the victim was, recognised the handwriting on the envelope, guessed what was inside and arranged to steal it. He took out a letter of his own that looked like the first, distracted everyone by talking about ordinary business, then took the victim’s letter off the table when he left fifteen minutes later, leaving his own in its place. She could not complain because she was worried that he would reveal what was written in her letter.”

"So," said Dupin to me, "he has precisely what he needed to get the power he wanted. The thief knows that the victim understands he took it."

"Yes," replied the Police Chief, "and he’s often used the political power that he’s got from it over the last few months. Every day the victim becomes more convinced that she must get the letter back at all costs. But, of course, she can’t do it openly. Because she’s desperate, she’s asked me to solve the difficulty."

“She couldn’t have chosen a better policeman,” said Dupin.

"You’re right," answered the Chief, “even if I say so myself.”

"It’s clear," I said, "that the Minister still has the letter. And it’s this – not using it – which gives him power. As soon as he uses it, his power is gone."

"True," said G. "My first task was to search the Minister's house carefully but without him knowing it. I realised the danger if he knew what we were doing."

"But," I said, "you are certainly well trained in this. The Paris police have done this many, many times before."

"Oh yes; and that is why I didn’t lose hope. Besides, we had some advantages. He is often away from home all night. He doesn’t have many servants. They sleep a long way from their master's room and are careless. I have keys, as you know, with which I can open any room in Paris. For three months, I have spent most nights personally searching D’s home. It is a question of honour to me and there will be an enormous reward, if I succeed. So I did not stop searching until I was completely convinced that the thief is a cleverer man than I am. I believe I have seen every part of those rooms where the letter could be hidden."

"But isn’t it possible," I suggested, "that although the Minister still has the letter, he may have hidden it somewhere else?"

"It’s a possibility," said Dupin. "But the schemes he’s involved in mean that he may need to show the letter immediately."

"Needs to show it?" I said.

"He must be able to show it very quickly and so it can’t be hidden far away," said Dupin.

"The paper must, then, be in the hotel. But, just as clearly, he isn’t carrying it himself.”

"Exactly," said the Chief. "He’s been attacked twice and searched carefully in front of me.”

Dupin said, "Minister D is not a complete idiot. He knew he’d be searched."

"Not an idiot," said G "but he's a poet, which I think is just the same as an idiot."

"True," said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful moment, "although I’ve written some poetry myself."

"Suppose you tell us," I said, "the details of your search."

"Why the fact is, we took our time and we searched everywhere. I have a lot of experience in these cases. I examined the entire building, room by room, spending a whole week in each one.”

"But could you not find a hollow chair leg just by hitting the furniture?" I asked.

"Not for sure, because when something is hidden in it, if enough cloth is put around it, it sounds like it’s whole."

"But you couldn’t have taken apart every piece of furniture in which D could have hidden the document. You didn’t take all of the chairs apart, did you?"

"Certainly not; we did better – we examined every chair in the house using a very powerful microscope. If there had been any recent changes we would have found them."

"Did you look behind mirrors and paintings and try the beds, as well as the curtains and carpets?"

"Of course, and when we’d searched every piece of the furniture, we examined the house itself.

We divided it into parts, which we numbered, so that we would not miss any; and then we examined them with the microscope again."

"You have made a real effort."

"We did; but the reward offered is enormous!"

"Did you remember the gardens around the house too?"

"All the gardens are made of brick. They gave us no trouble. We examined the dirt between the bricks and found it untouched."

"You looked among D's papers, of course, and through the books on his shelves?"

"Certainly. We opened every parcel. We not only opened every book, but we turned every page in each book. We also examined each one under the microscope.”

"And the floors beneath the carpets?"

"Absolutely."

"You checked the cellars?"

"We did."

"Then," I said, "you’ve made a mistake and the letter is not in the house, as you suppose."

"I’m afraid you’re right," said the Chief. "And now, Dupin, what would you advise me to do?"

"To search the house one more time."

"That is unnecessary," replied G. "I’m certain the letter is not in his home."

"That’s all I can tell you," said Dupin. "Do you have an accurate description of the letter?"

"Oh yes!"

The Chief then took out a notebook and read aloud a description of how the letter looked on the inside and on the outside. Not long afterwards, he left. He was more depressed than I’d ever seen him before.

About a month later he visited us again and found us doing the same as during his last visit. He took a pipe and a chair and started a conversation. After a while I said, "Well, G, what about the stolen letter?"

"Yes; I searched the house again, as Dupin suggested – it was all wasted effort."

"How much was the reward, did you say?" asked Dupin.

"Why, a very large reward. I don't want to say how much precisely, but I will say one thing: I wouldn't mind writing a cheque for fifty thousand francs to anyone who could get me that letter. The fact is, it’s becoming more and more important every day and the reward has been doubled recently."

"Why," said Dupin, "I really think you haven’t given this case enough thought. You might do more, I think, eh?"

"How? In what way?'

"You might ask professional advice.”

"But," said the Chief, a little uncomfortably, "I’m happy to pay for advice. I really would give fifty thousand francs to anyone who would help me."

"In that case," replied Dupin, "you may as well write me a cheque for that amount. When you’ve signed it, I will hand you the letter."

I was astonished. The Chief too. For a few minutes he sat speechless and motionless, looking at my friend with open mouth and eyes. Then, he took a pen and, after several pauses, finally wrote and signed a cheque for fifty thousand francs and handed it to Dupin. The man examined it carefully and put it in his wallet; then, unlocking a desk, took a letter out and gave it to the Chief. G took it, opened it, glanced at it, laughed with happiness and then rushed out of the room and away from the house without speaking a single word.

When he had gone, my friend explained.

"The Paris police," he said, "are quite capable. They are determined, cunning and know their duty. So, when G told us everything he had done to search D’s home, I knew he’d done everything he could.

"He not only used all of the best techniques but also carried them out perfectly. If the letter had been hidden where they searched, they’d have found it."

I only laughed, but he seemed quite serious about all he said.

"The steps he took were correct and well-organised; the problem was that they were useless. The Chief has one way of seeing the world and one way of handling his cases."

"The problem," I said, "is the difference between the Chief’s intelligence and the thief’s."

"Precisely," replied Dupin, "and the Chief and his men fail so often because they don’t expect an intelligent thief. They consider only their own ideas of intelligence. In searching for anything, they only look at places where they would have hidden it. When the cunning of the individual is different from their own, the criminal gets away. This always happens when he is more intelligent than them and often when he is less.

“They never change the way they behave. At best, when pushed by an unusual emergency – or by some extraordinary reward – they exaggerate their old techniques without changing the basic style. What, for example, is all this examining with the microscope – except pushing search techniques to an extreme? Aren’t they based on the Chief’s routine for searching which he has learnt over a long career?

“And isn’t it obvious that any ordinary person might think of hiding something in an unusual place like a hole in the leg of a chair? If something has been hidden that way, then it does not matter how intelligent the searchers are, only how patient and careful.

“This police officer, however, is completely confused because of his belief that the Minister is an idiot, perhaps because he is a poet. But a man like him, I believed, must be aware of ordinary police tactics. He must also have expected the secret searches of his house. The fact that he was often away from home at night, which the Chief believed guaranteed his own success, I saw only as a trick to allow the police to search carefully and so make them think that the letter was not in that house. I felt, also, that the Minister would carefully consider how the police would search. In the end, he would reject all the ordinary hiding places. The Minister would see that any clever hiding spots would be as open as his kitchen cupboards to the Chief’s eyes and microscopes.

Do you remember how much the Chief laughed when I suggested during our first chat that it was possible that the mystery of the letter was giving him so much trouble because it was so very obvious?"

"Yes," I said, "I remember his laughter well."

"Now consider the situation", replied Dupin. "The Minister is highly intelligent. The Chief is very motivated to use all of his best tactics. The Minister must keep the letter nearby but he knows that the Chief will find even the cleverest hiding place and so he gives the Chief all the time he needs. The Minister hides the letter in plain sight and the Chief searches everywhere else without success and decides that it is not there.

“Full of these ideas, I bought myself a pair of glasses with green lenses and one fine morning, visited the Minister at home. I found him there doing nothing at all – as usual – pretending to be bored. He is, perhaps, the most energetic man in the city, but that is only when nobody sees him.

“I complained of my weak eyes and about needing the glasses, so that I could carefully look over the whole apartment. Because my eyes were hidden, I seemed to concentrate only on what he was saying.

“I paid special attention to a large table near him. There were different letters and other papers and a few books on it. However, after a long and very careful search, I saw nothing very interesting.

“After a while, I noticed a letter, which was dirty. It was torn nearly in two, across the middle – as if someone had started to tear it up as worthless, but then decided not to. It had a large initial D, and it was addressed, in female handwriting, to the Minister himself. It was put carelessly on the desk.

“On this letter, the address to the Minister was written in small letters; on the other, addressed to a member of the royal family, the writing was very big. The only thing that really matched was its size.

“But then it occurred to me that the differences between them were too exaggerated. The dirty and torn paper did not match D’s neat, methodical habits and that it was a trick to make people think that the document was worthless. These things, together with the fact that the letter was there for every visitor to see, convinced me that it was what I had come for.

“I stayed as long as possible and talked with the Minister on a subject that I knew excited him. The whole time, however, I kept my attention on the letter. I memorised its appearance and where it lay on the desk. I then said good-bye to the Minister and left at once, leaving a silver pen on the table.

“The next morning I stopped by again to get the pen back and we started the same conversation again. As we spoke, however, a loud noise like a pistol shot came from under the windows of his house and was followed by screams and the shouting of a crowd. D hurried to a window, threw it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped over to the desk, took the letter, put it in my pocket, and put a copy which I had carefully prepared at my home in its place – quite easily copying the D.

“The noise in the street was caused by the crazed behaviour of a man with a gun. He had fired it in a crowd of women and children, but nobody was hurt and he ran away. When he had gone, D turned from the window as soon as I had taken the letter. Not long afterwards I said good-bye again. The man in the street was, of course, someone I had paid to make a noise.

"But what good did it do you," I asked, "to replace the letter with a copy? Wouldn’t it have been better just to take the letter and leave during your first visit?"

"D," replied Dupin, "is a dangerous man. He also has servants in his home. If I had made the wild attempt that you suggest, I might never have left there alive. But I had a separate goal. For eighteen months the Minister has had the lady in his power. She now has him in hers – since he does not know that he no longer has the letter – and he will therefore continue with his demands. In the end, he cannot avoid his own political downfall which will be as fast as it is embarrassing.

“In this situation, I have no sympathy for the man. He is a monster; a genius without a conscience. I would enjoy knowing his thoughts when his victim refuses him and he is forced to open the letter which I left on the desk."