"I fear you are right there," said the prefect. "And now, Dupin, what should you advise me to do?"

"To make a thorough re-search of the premises."

"That is absolutely needless," was the reply. "I am not more sure that I breathe than I am that the letter 5 is not at the hotel."

"I have no better advice to give you," said Dupin. "You have, of course, an accurate description of the letter?"

"Oh, yes!" And here the prefect, producing a memorandum book, proceeded to read aloud a minute account 10 of the missing document. Soon afterwards he took his departure, more entirely depressed in spirits than I had ever known the gentleman before.

THE PURLOINED LETTER-II

About a month later the prefect paid us another visit and found us occupied very nearly as before. He took a 15 chair and entered into some ordinary conversation. At length I said, "Well, what of the purloined letter?"

"I made the reëxamination," said the prefect, “as Dupin suggested, but it was all labor lost, as I knew it would be."

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

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Why, a very great deal - a very liberal reward - I don't like to say how much, precisely; but one thing I will say, that I would n't mind giving my individual 25

check for fifty thousand francs to any one who could obtain me that letter."

"In that case," replied Dupin, opening a drawer, and producing a check book, "you may as well fill me up a 5 check for the amount mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter."

I was astounded. The prefect appeared absolutely thunderstricken. For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking incredulously at my friend 10 with open mouth, and eyes that seemed starting from their sockets; then, apparently recovering himself in some measure, he seized a pen and after several pauses and vacant stares finally filled up and signed a check for fifty thousand francs and handed it across the table to Dupin. 15 The latter examined it carefully and deposited it in his pocketbook, then, unlocking a desk, took thence a letter and gave it to the prefect. This functionary grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with a trembling hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and then, scrambling 20 and struggling to the door, rushed at length unceremoni

ously from the room and from the house, without having uttered a syllable since Dupin had requested him to fill up the check.

When he had gone my friend entered into some expla25 nations.

"The Parisian police," he said, " are exceedingly able in their way. They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and

thoroughly versed in the knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to demand. Had the letter been deposited within the range of their search, these fellows would, beyond question, have found it."

I merely laughed, but he seemed quite serious in all 5 that he said.

"The measures, then," he continued, "were good of their kind, and well executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the case and to the man. Do you not see that the prefect has taken it for granted that all 10 men proceed to conceal a letter-not exactly in a gimlet hole bored in a chair leg, but at least in some out-of-theway hole or corner? And do you not see also that such a method of concealment is adapted only for ordinary occasions and would be adopted only by ordinary intel- 15 lects? You will now understand what I meant in suggesting that had the purloined letter been hidden anywhere within the limits of the prefect's examination, its discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond question.

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"I mean to say, continued Dupin, "that I knew the 20 minister, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference to the circumstances by which he was surrounded. Such a man, I considered, could not fail to be. aware of the ordinary policial modes of action. He could not have failed to anticipate and events have proved 25 that he did not fail to anticipate the waylayings to which he was subjected. He must have foreseen the

secret investigations of his premises. His frequent absences from home at night, which were hailed by the prefect as certain aids to his success, I regarded only as ruses, to afford opportunity for thorough search to 5 the police, and thus the sooner to impress them with the conviction that the letter was not upon the premises. He could not, I reflected, be so weak as not to see that the most intricate and remote recess of his hotel would be as open as his commonest closets to the eyes, to the probes, 10 to the gimlets, and to the microscopes of the prefect. I saw, in fine, that he would be driven, as a matter of course, to simplicity, if not deliberately induced to it as a matter of choice. You will remember, perhaps, how desperately the prefect laughed when I suggested, upon our first in15 terview, that it was just possible this mystery troubled him so much on account of its being so very self-evident." "Yes," said I, "I remember his merriment well."

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"There is a game of puzzles," Dupin resumed, “which is played upon a map. One party playing requires another 20 to find a given word, the name of town, river, state, or empire, any word, in short, upon the motley and perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game generally seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them the most minutely lettered names, but the adept selects such 25 words as stretch, in large characters, from one end of the chart to the other. These, like the overlargely lettered signs and placards of the street, escape observation by

dint of being excessively obvious. But this is a point, it appears, somewhat above or beneath the understanding of the prefect. He never once thought it probable, or possible, that the minister had deposited the letter immediately beneath the nose of the whole world by way of best 5 preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it. "But the more I reflected upon the ingenuity of D upon the fact that the document must always have been. at hand if he intended to use it to good purpose, and upon the decisive evidence, obtained by the prefect, that 10 it was not hidden within the limits of that dignitary's ordinary search, the more satisfied I became that to conceal this letter, the minister had resorted to the expedient of not attempting to conceal it at all.

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"Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of 15 green spectacles and called one fine morning, quite by accident, at the ministerial hotel. I found D- at home, yawning, lounging, and dawdling, as usual. He is perhaps the most really energetic human being now alive; but that is only when nobody sees him.

"To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and lamented the necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which I cautiously and thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment, while seemingly intent only upon the conversation of my host.

"I paid especial attention to a large writing table near which he sat, and upon which lay confusedly some letters

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