The Purloined Letter

The Purloined Letter Summary | Detailed Summary

The story begins at night in the office of C. Auguste Dupin. An unnamed, first person narrator and Dupin are sitting in Dupin's back library smoking pipes and saying nothing. Prefect G- of the Parisian police interrupts to consult with Dupin and the narrator.

The Prefect partially describes a problem that is confusing him by saying that it is both simple and difficult. Dupin responds that it may be so simple that it is difficult. The Prefect is nearly bowled over with laughter at the idea that something could be so plain that it is too difficult to figure out.

After recovering, the Prefect explains that a document was stolen from someone in the royal apartments and it is being used as blackmail. The person who purloined (which means "to steal") the document is known because the person whom it was stolen from saw the thief take it. The Prefect also knows that the document is still in the thief's possession.

Dupin does not understand the Prefect's vague statements. The Prefect says that the document would give a certain person power over a very lofty person and could put the honor of the document's owner in question. After Dupin presses him further, the Prefect comes mostly clean and explains that Minister D- is the man who stole the document.

The Prefect then goes on to say that a woman's letter was stolen. While reading her letter, she was interrupted by another person who entered the royal bedroom. She desperately wanted to hide the letter from the new arrival, but she was unsuccessful.

At that point, Minister D- showed up to discuss some things with the second person and when Minister D- saw the address on the letter and saw the concern on the face of the owner, he rightly guessed the contents. Therefore, he resolved to steal it.

The Minister took out a letter very similar to the first letter and pretended to read it. As he finished, he set his letter down next to her letter. When he got up to leave, he took the woman's letter instead of his own and walked out the door. Since then, the Minister has held this woman in his clutches. Therefore, she asked the Prefect to retrieve her letter.

The Prefect performed a thorough, very secret search of the Minister's lodgings. Fortunately, the Prefect is very good at searching for hidden things and his methods can find just about anything. The Prefect searched the Minister's rooms with a microscope that could show any holes drilled in furniture where the letter could be safely rolled up and tucked away. In addition, he used needles to probe the cushions of furniture. The entire hotel, the grounds around the hotel, and the buildings on both sides of the hotel were thoroughly searched down to the minutest detail. The Prefect even had some of his men act as though they were thieves so that they could rifle through the Minister's pockets.

The Prefect knows that the letter has to be near the Minister, as the Minister needs to be able to produce the letter quickly and easily. Thus, either he must be carrying the letter or it must be in his home. The Minister is clearly not carrying it, leaving only one option.

After three months, the Prefect has not come up with so much as a hint of the letter and he is forced to abandon his search. Dupin asks the Prefect for a description of the letter, which he provides. After this, the Prefect leaves.

About one month later, the Prefect returns to visit Dupin and the narrator, when the narrator asks him about the purloined letter. The Prefect has made no headway in the case. The reward for it has increased, but to no avail. The Prefect cannot search any harder than he already has.

The Prefect says he would pay fifty thousand francs (his share in the reward) to find the letter. Dupin asks him to write a check to him for that amount, whereupon he will hand the Prefect the letter. The Prefect, stunned, complies. Dupin examines the check, then hands the Prefect the stolen letter. The Prefect walks out, speechless and stunned.

Dupin then explains how he found and retrieved the letter. First, he discounts the methods of the Parisian police. He says that they are good for most criminals, as they will find objects that were hidden in small holes and hidden compartments, but they will not work for exceptionally cunning people or idiots.

Dupin says that the police assume everyone will act in the way that they would act, were they to hide something. However, people who are either more or less intelligent than the police will act in ways that the police do not expect. Instead of changing they way they think, the police merely apply the same techniques in every situation. The simple answer eluded them because they did not expect the simple answer.

Dupin goes on to say the Minister is not only a poet, but also a mathematician. The combination of these things is very powerful, as it allows the Minister to apply two different thinking methods to any problem. Mathematicians are too simple, Dupin explains, because they cannot get away from the mathematical logic they are trained to use. Furthermore, Dupin says that mathematics is a close approximation of reality, not the absolute truth mathematicians believe it to be.

The Prefect's problem, according to Dupin, is that he fails to grasp the fact that an intelligent man can anticipate the searching methods of the police and then act in a way that will confound their efforts. Dupin compares it to a game where people pick names on a map and try to guess each other's choices. The novice tries to pick the names of rivers and towns that are written very small. The expert, however, will pick a name that stretches across the entire map because it is so large that people do not notice it.

With this in mind, Dupin paid the Minister a visit at his hotel. He wore a pair of green-tinted glasses as he visited D- with the explanation that he had weak eyes. While he chatted up the Minister, his hidden eyes scanned the room. Eventually, he saw a letter that was the same size as the stolen letter, but was cleverly altered. Dupin realized this was the stolen letter. He departed, but left behind a gold snuffbox.

The next day, Dupin came for his snuffbox. He carried with him a duplicate of the Minister's letter. As they were talking, a man Dupin had hired fired off a musket in the street. As the Minister rushed to the window to see what was going on, Dupin switched the two letters. Dupin left once the Minister was satisfied no one was hurt by the shot.

However, Dupin was not satisfied merely leaving a blank letter behind. He feels that he needed to give the Minister a clue as to who stole the letter back. He wrote the following in the letter:

--Un dessein si funeste,

S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, est digne Theyeste.