'The Murders in the Rue Morgue,' by Edgar Allen Poe, Part Four

01The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe Part 4 Murder had come to the old house on the street called Rue Morgue.

02Murder had come and gone and left behind the bodies of an old woman and her daughter.

03It was a perplexing crime scene.

04The damage to the daughter's body suggested a killer of superhuman strength.

05The knife that had killed the old woman, almost separating head from body, was in the room.

06But the old woman's body was outside, behind the house.

07The door and windows to the house, all firmly closed, locked on the inside.

08Voices had been heard.

09One voice was speaking in French.

10The other voice had not spoken even one word that anyone could understand.

11And yet, there was no one in the room when police arrived moments after the attack.

12My friend Dupin was now explaining to me what he had learned when we visited the scene of the crime.

13I knew that what seemed impossible must be proved possible.

14The killer, and I believe there was just one, escaped through one of these windows.

15After the murderer had left, he could have closed the window from the outside, but he could not have fastened the nail.

16Yet anyone could see the nails which held the windows tightly closed.

17This was the fact that stopped the police.

18How could the murderer put the nail back in its place?

19That's the problem, Dupin.

20Perhaps, perhaps if you pulled out the nail?

21Yes, that is just what I thought.

22Two things seemed clear.

23First, there had to be something wrong with the idea that the nails were holding the windows closed.

24Second, if it was not the nails which were holding the windows closed, then something else was holding them closed.

25Something hard to see.

26Something hidden.

27So, I checked the first window again.

28I removed the nail.

29Then I again tried to raise the window.

30It was still firmly closed.

31There had to be a hidden lock, I thought, inside the window.

32I searched the window frame.

33Indeed, I found a button which, when I pressed it, opened an inner lock.

34I raised the window with ease.

35Now I knew that the killer could close the window from outside and the window would lock itself.

36But there was still the nail.

37So, I returned the nail, pressed the button, and again tried to raise the window.

38The nail held the window closed.

39Then, the window could not have been the means of escape.

40That window, no.

41The killer did not escape through it.

42But I went again to the other window.

43The nail there looked the same as the one I had just seen.

44I moved the bed so that I could look closely.

45Yes, there was a button here, too.

46I was so sure I was right that without touching the nail, I pressed the button and tried to raise the window.

47And guess what happened?

48I knew the answer, but I let Dupin have the satisfaction of reporting.

49The window went up, he told me.

50As the window went up, it carried with it the top part of the nail, the head.

51When I closed the window, the head of the nail was again in its place.

52It looked just as it had looked before.

53The nail was broken, but looked whole.

54And what is impossible is proved otherwise.

55So the murderer went out that window.

56Did he arrive in the room by that path as well?

57Dupin answered, although it seemed he was speaking more to himself than to me.

58It was a hot summer night.

59Would the victim have opened the window to get some fresh night air?

60Most likely.

61So the killer found it open and entered, I said.

62Dupin nodded.

63And as he came in, the window locked when it closed.

64The lock held the window closed, not the nail, as it appeared to investigators.

65Again, that which seemed impossible was actually possible.

66Dupin's eyes were shining with the satisfaction discovery brings.

67He was analyzing evidence, and his unusual reasoning ability had found a great purpose.

68I suddenly understood.

69This is why going to the house on the Rue Morgue seemed pleasing to Dupin.

70The use of his sharp mental abilities made him happy.

71And I had more work to provide that great brain.

72Dupin, the windows are on the fourth floor, far above the ground.

73Even an open window.

74Dupin shook his head up and down slowly.

75Yes, yes.

76That is an interesting question.

77How did the murderer go from the window down to the ground and vice versa?

78But I had looked around carefully outside, you recall.

79And I knew a way.

80And the answer to this question told me still more about the identity of the killer.

81Do you remember, friend, the lightning rod attached to the house?

82Yes, yes.

83Yes, yes.

84A metal pole, and quite narrow.

85It protects the building from lightning strikes.

86But it is so tall and thin.

87True.

88It would take great strength and agility to get up the pole.

89Some kinds of animals might climb it easily, yes?

90But surely not every man could.

91In fact, maybe very few men.

92Those of very special strength and special training.

93This helped create a better picture of the murderer.

94But still not sharp enough to recognize.

95I still had the question, who?

96We know the killer climbed the pole, entered the room through the window, murdered and destroyed all order in the room.

97He managed to push one body up the chimney.

98He threw the other, almost headless, out the window.

99Then he left the way he came.

100We can answer the how of the crime.

101But who?

102Such unspeakable viciousness.

103What human could do this to another?

104Dupin continued, trance-like again, seeming to speak to himself as much as to me.

105Perhaps we can come closer to answering the question of who by exploring the question of why.

106But Dupin?

107The police said the motive must have been robbery.

108But, my friend, what was taken?

109The police said they could not answer the question.

110They said they did not know what the women had.

111Maybe clothes and jewelry, the investigators proposed.

112But neighbors described the women as nearly hermits, rarely if ever leaving the house.

113Of what use would fine clothes and costly jewelry be to them?

114Dupin's eyes were glistening, his brows pointing sharply down, as he circled me, thinking aloud.

115But what is more telling than what the killer might have taken is what he left behind, conveniently in bags in the center of the room.

116Of course.

117The money.

118You are right, Dupin.

119It makes no sense.

120All the money delivered from the bank to the old woman?

121Right there on the floor?

122Why would the attacker have passed on the riches?

123A thief certainly would not.

124So, I want you to forget the investigators claim that the killer acted out of a desire for money.

125They thought this only because they knew the money had arrived just three days before the killings.

126But that was just chance.

127If gold was the reason for the murders, the killer must have been quite a fool to forget and leave it there.

128No, I think that there was no reason for these killings except, perhaps, fear.

129The wild nature of the attack leads me to a motive of fear.

130Hmm.

131An interesting theory, Dupin.

132Fear can bring out the crazed beast in a person.

133In any living thing.

134Now let us look at the murders themselves.

135A girl is killed by powerful hands around her neck.

136Then the body is placed in the opening over the fireplace.

137Head down.

138Unusual.

139Even by the standards of the most terrible criminals.

140Think also of the great strength needed to put the body where it was found.

141It took several men to pull it out.

142Also, the hair pulled from the head of the old woman.

143You saw it on the floor yourself.

144And you saw the blood and skin still attached.

145It takes great force to pull out even twenty or thirty hairs at a time.

146But this was hair and scalp.

147And there was no reason to almost take off the woman's head just to kill her.

148It is extremely odd, I agree.

149Especially since there is no evidence that the killer knew the victims.

150No one could hate a stranger enough to carry out such torture.

151Dupin's eyes narrowed.

152Exactly.

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