“And what, after all, is the matter on hand?” I asked. “Ha! ha! ha! - ha! ha! ha! - ho! ho! ho!” roared out our visiter, profoundly amused, “oh, Dupin, you will be the death of me yet!” “Oh, good heavens! who ever heard of such an idea?” “Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain,” said Dupin. “What nonsense you do talk!” replied the Prefect, laughing heartily. “Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you at fault,” said my friend. The fact is, we have all been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet baffles us altogether.” The fact is, the business is very simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently well ourselves but then I thought Dupin would like to hear the details of it, because it is so excessively odd.” “Nothing more in the assassination way, I hope?” “And what is the difficulty now?” I asked. “Very true,” said Dupin, as he supplied his visiter with a pipe, and rolled towards him a very comfortable chair. “That is another of your odd notions,” said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling every thing “odd” that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of “oddities.” “If it is any point requiring reflection,” observed Dupin, as he forebore to enkindle the wick, “we shall examine it to better purpose in the dark.” We had been sitting in the dark, and Dupin now arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down again, without doing so, upon G.’s saying that he had called to consult us, or rather to ask the opinion of my friend, about some official business which had occasioned a great deal of trouble. We gave him a hearty welcome for there was nearly half as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, and we had not seen him for several years. I looked upon it, therefore, as something of a coincidence, when the door of our apartment was thrown open and admitted our old acquaintance, Monsieur G-, the Prefect of the Parisian police. For myself, however, I was mentally discussing certain topics which had formed matter for conversation between us at an earlier period of the evening I mean the affair of the Rue Morgue, and the mystery attending the murder of Marie Roget. For one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence while each, to any casual observer, might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of the chamber. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library, or book-closet, au troisiême, No. At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18-, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in company with my friend C.
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