How long is the purloined letter

The address was written in small letters in blue ink. I memorized every detail of the letter while I talked to D'Arcy. Then when he was not looking, I dropped one of my gloves on the floor under my chair. While we were talking, we heard people shouting in the street. D'Arcy went to the window and looked out. Quickly, I stepped to the shelf and put the letter in my pocket. Then I replaced it with a letter that looked exactly like it, which I had taken with me.

I had made it the night before. He was not hurt. And soon the crowd of people went away. When it was over, D'Arcy came away from the window. I said good-bye and left. I had paid him to create the incident. Dupin stopped talking to light his pipe. I did not understand. Why not just take it and leave? If I had taken the letter, I might never have left his apartment alive. The storyteller was Shep O'Neal. The producer was Lawan Davis. This lesson plan, based on the CALLA Approach, teaches the learning strategies 'focus' and 'predict' to help students understand the story.

Now it's your turn. Do you like to read detective stories? Who is the best detective story writer in your language? Write to us in the comments section. Newest Newest Oldest See comments 5 This forum has been closed. Load more comments. Search Search. Audio menu. Learning English Broadcast.

Previous Next. American Stories. January 08, Embed share The code has been copied to your clipboard. The URL has been copied to your clipboard.

No media source currently available. Direct link p 9. See comments Print. Direct link kbps MP3 64 kbps MP3. It is widely regarded as one of the first detective stories ever, at least 50 years before Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes series. The story takes place in in Paris, France. Auguste Dupin , a detective who has just solved the Murders in the Rue Morgue. The Chief Inspector tells Dupin that the case that he requires help on is very simple but perplexing, and also extremely delicate, so they must keep it a secret.

Months prior to the events of the story, the Queen of France had recieved a letter that she did not want her husband, the King of France , to know about. However, the Chancellor of France - recognizing the handwriting and seal on the letter - had noticed her suspicious behavior, and cleverly stole the letter while the King was distracted. The Queen ensured her trust in the Chief Inspector and the Paris Police to find the letter before its contents are revealed, but every time they searched his home, they could not find the letter.

After the Chief Inspector finishes his story, Dupin suspects that the Chancellor is blackmailing the Queen to keep quiet for his personal and political gains.

The Chief Inspector then gives Dupin a blueprint map of the Chancellor's home, with marks to indicate where they had searched. Dupin wants to know more about their searches conducted at the Chancellor's house. The Chief Inspector tells him about their thorough searches, but finding nothing in the process.

When Dupin's butler Claude suggests that he carry the letter with him, the Chief Inspector dismisses this as his men - disguised as thieves - have searched him thoroughly with no such luck. Had there been any traces of recent disturbance we should not have failed to detect it instantly. A single grain of gimlet-dust, for example, would have been as obvious as an apple.

Any disorder in the glueing --any unusual gaping in the joints --would have sufficed to insure detection. We divided its entire surface into compartments, which we numbered, so that none might be missed; then we scrutinized each individual square inch throughout the premises, including the two houses immediately adjoining, with the microscope, as before.

They gave us comparatively little trouble. We examined the moss between the bricks, and found it undisturbed. We also measured the thickness of every book-cover, with the most accurate admeasurement, and applied to each the most jealous scrutiny of the microscope.

Had any of the bindings been recently meddled with, it would have been utterly impossible that the fact should have escaped observation.

Some five or six volumes, just from the hands of the binder, we carefully probed, longitudinally, with the needles. We removed every carpet, and examined the boards with the microscope. Soon after finishing the perusal of this description, he took his departure, more entirely depressed in spirits than I had ever known the good gentleman before.

In about a month afterwards he paid us another visit, and found us occupied very nearly as before. He took a pipe and a chair and entered into some ordinary conversation. At length I said,-- "Well, but G--, what of the purloined letter? I presume you have at last made up your mind that there is no such thing as overreaching the Minister?

The fact is, it is becoming of more and more importance every day; and the reward has been lately doubled. If it were trebled, however, I could do no more than I have done. You might --do a little more, I think, eh? Do you remember the story they tell of Abernethy? But, once upon a time, a certain rich miser conceived the design of spunging upon this Abernethy for a medical opinion. Getting up, for this purpose, an ordinary conversation in a private company, he insinuated his case to the physician, as that of an imaginary individual.

I would really give fifty thousand francs to any one who would aid me in the matter. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunderstricken. For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, less, looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed starting from their sockets; then, apparently 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.

The latter examined it carefully and deposited it in his pocket-book; then, unlocking an escritoire, 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 and struggling to the door, rushed at length unceremoniously 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 explanations. They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thoroughly versed in the knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to demand.

Thus, when G-- detailed to us his mode of searching the premises at the Hotel D--, I felt entire confidence in his having made a satisfactory investigation --so far as his labors extended. Had the letter been deposited within the range of their search, these fellows would, beyond a question, have found it.

A certain set of highly ingenious resources are, with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he forcibly adapts his designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too shallow, for the matter in hand; and many a schoolboy is a better reasoner than he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the game of 'even and odd' attracted universal admiration.

This game is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is even or odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents.

For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand, asks, 'are they even or odd? Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, he would have reasoned thus: 'This fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd, and, in the second, he will propose to himself upon the first impulse, a simple variation from even to odd, as did the first simpleton; but then a second thought will suggest that this is too simple a variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even as before.

I will therefore guess even' guesses even, and wins. Now this mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed "lucky," --what, in its last analysis, is it? They consider only their own ideas of ingenuity; and, in searching for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which they would have hidden it. They are right in this much --that their own ingenuity is a faithful representative of that of the mass; but when the cunning of the individual felon is diverse in character from their own, the felon foils them, of course.

This always happens when it is above their own, and very usually when it is below. They have no variation of principle in their investigations; at best, when urged by some unusual emergency --by some extraordinary reward --they extend or exaggerate their old modes of practice, without touching their principles.

What, for example, in this case of D--, has been done to vary the principle of action? What is all this boring, and probing, and sounding, and scrutinizing with the microscope, and dividing the surface of the building into registered square inches --what is it all but an exaggeration of the application of the one principle or set of principles of search, which are based upon the one set of notions regarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine of his duty, has been accustomed?

Do you not see he has taken it for granted that all men proceed to conceal a letter, --not exactly in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg --but, at least, in some hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of thought which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg? And do you not see also, that such recherches nooks for concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions, and would be adopted only by ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of concealment, a disposal of the article concealed --a disposal of it in this recherche manner, --is, in the very first instance, presumable and presumed; and thus its discovery depends, not at all upon the acumen, but altogether upon the mere care, patience, and determination of the seekers; and where the case is of importance --or, what amounts to the same thing in the policial eyes, when the reward is of magnitude, --the qualities in question have never been known to fall.

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 --in other words, had the principle of its concealment been comprehended within the principles of the Prefect --its discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond question. This functionary, however, has been thoroughly mystified; and the remote source of his defeat lies in the supposition that the Minister is a fool, because he has acquired renown as a poet.

All fools are poets; this the Prefect feels; and he is merely guilty of a non distributio medii in thence inferring that all poets are fools. The Minister I believe has written learnedly on the Differential Calculus. He is a mathematician, and no poet. As poet and mathematician, he would reason well; as mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of the Prefect.

You do not mean to set at naught the well-digested idea of centuries. The mathematical reason has long been regarded as the reason par excellence. With an art worthy a better cause, for example, they have insinuated the term 'analysis' into application to algebra.

The French are the originators of this particular deception; but if a term is of any importance --if words derive any value from applicability --then 'analysis' conveys 'algebra' about as much as, in Latin, 'ambitus' implies 'ambition,' 'religio' religion or 'homines honesti,' a set of honorable men.

I dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathematical study. The mathematics are the science of form and quantity; mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity.

The great error lies in supposing that even the truths of what is called pure algebra, are abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious that I am confounded at the universality with which it has been received. Mathematical axioms are not axioms of general truth.