Chapter 5 stolen letter
A wise man is most afraid of being too clever.
In Paris in the autumn of 18××, after nightfall, the cold wind blows, I am intoxicated with double enjoyment: meditating with a meerschaum pipe, sitting with my friend C. Auguste Dupont in his St. In the small library (or small study) in the back room on the third floor of No. 33, Duinuo Road, German suburb.We have maintained a deep silence for at least an hour.Casual onlookers might think that we were both absorbed in gazing at the curling smoke rings that were blown into the air of the cabin without distraction, but in fact I was reminiscing in my mind about the conversation I had with him at dusk: the tragedy of Morgloo and the events surrounding Mary The mysteries of Roger's murder.Therefore, when we opened the door of the apartment and invited in our old acquaintance, the Director-General of the Paris Police Department, I regarded it as a visit only by chance.
We gave a hearty welcome, for the man was half scornful and half lovable, and we hadn't seen each other for several years.We were sitting in the dark, Dupont got up and wanted to light a lamp, but when Ge said he was consulting a case that had given the police a lot of trouble, that is to say, he was seeking advice from my friend, he stopped lighting the lamp and sat down again.
"If it's a matter of thinking," Dupont said, without lighting the wick, "it's better to think in the dark."
"This is another weird idea of yours," said the director.He has a habit of always calling things he doesn't understand "weird", so he always lives among countless absolute "weirds".
"Exactly." Dupont handed the guest a pipe, and turned a comfortable chair in front of him.
"Come on, what's the problem?" I asked. "It won't be another homicide, I suppose?"
"Oh, no, there's no case of that nature. It's actually a very simple case. I have no doubt that the three of us can solve it satisfactorily, but I think Dupont would like to hear the details of the case, because it's so odd."
"I'm afraid it's both simple and surprising," said Dupont.
"Well, yes, but not quite. The fact is that we're all confused, and the case is simple as it sounds, but we can't do anything about it."
"Maybe it's because the case is too simple that you lost the smell of your prey." My friend said.
"What are you talking about!" Director Ge laughed.
"The mystery probably lies in being too simple," Dupont said.
"Oh my God! Who ever heard such an idea!"
"It's an obvious case."
"Ha! Ha! Ha!—Ha! Ha! Ha!—Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed the guest, amused with great joy, "Oh, Dupont, you'd kill me laughing!"
"What kind of case are you on?" I asked.
"Okay, I'll tell you," Director Ge puffed out a long puff of smoke steadily, leaned back on the chair, and replied in a deep voice, "I can introduce you clearly in a few words. But, I have to first Let me tell you, this case requires absolute secrecy. If someone knows that I have disclosed it to others, I will probably not be able to sit stably in this chair now."
"Let's talk." I said.
"Otherwise don't tell," said Dupont.
"Well, I have been told privately by an official of the highest rank that an extremely important document has been lost - stolen from the royal boudoir. It is certainly known who the thief was, for he was the one who saw him It was taken away. Also, he knows that the document is still in his hands."
"How can you say you know?" Dupin asked.
"By clear reasoning," replied the Superintendent, "by reasoning from the nature of the document, and from its absence of consequences. If the document had been circulated from the thief, there would have been immediate consequences. That is, the The final use must have his intentions."
"Please be more clear," I said.
"Well, I will boldly reveal to you to this extent: this document allows the holder to obtain unlimited power within a certain range." The director likes to use diplomatic rhetoric.
"I still don't know," Dupont said.
"Not clear? Well, if the document had been seen by a third person (whose name I will not name), it would have called into question the innocence of some high-ranking person. This fact makes the person in possession of the document A threat to her, to her honor and her peace."
"The advantage is," I interrupted, "that the thief knows that the thief knows it. But who has the guts to—"
"The thief," Director Ge said, "is Minister De. That person dares to do anything, and he dares to do things that don't lose his identity, and he dares to do things that lose his identity. The way of stealing is very bold, and his cleverness is also very strong." Not inferior. The document—a letter, frankly—was received by the stolen person alone in the royal chambers. She was reading it when another person of high standing burst in, and she particularly wished Keep it a secret from that person. She hurriedly stuffed the letter into the drawer, but it was too late, so she just let it open on the table like that. Fortunately, the address was on it, blocking the content and not attracting the other party's attention. But at this moment At a critical moment, Minister De came in again. His lynx-like eyes immediately recognized the handwriting on the address, and saw the recipient's panic and attempt to conceal, so he talked about business in a hurry as usual, and took out a letter that was somewhat similar to the letter. A similar letter, opened it, pretended to read it, then put his own letter next to it, spent about fifteen more minutes discussing business, and finally, leaving the letter he had no right to take The left letter was taken away. The legal owner of the letter watched him take it away, but did not dare to remind him because a third party was standing beside him. The minister slipped away, leaving his insignificant letter behind on the table."
"Then," said Dupont to me, "at this point, what you mean to constitute an advantage is in his hands. The thief knows that the stolen knows who stole it."
"That's right," replied the Superintendent, "and he has used the power he has acquired in this way to a politically dangerous degree. Every day the burglar feels more and more that the letter must be retrieved, but, of course You can't ask for it publicly. In a word, she has nowhere to go, so she handed over the task to me."
"I suppose so," said Dupont, wrapped in genuine cigarette smoke, "except you couldn't find a shrewder caseman than you can even imagine, I suppose."
"Thank you," Director Ge said, "It is possible for someone to have such an idea."
"It is very clear," I said, "as you said, the letter is still in the hands of the Minister, because his advantage is not in any form of use, but in his hands. The letter will lose its power once it is used."
"That's right," Director Ge said, "that's what I did. The first thing I did was to search the minister's mansion thoroughly. The main difficulty in handling this case was not letting him know. I got the He has been warned, and most importantly, that if his suspicions are aroused, certain dangers may arise."
"But," I said, "you are very good at this sort of search. The Paris police used to do it."
"Ah, that's right. That's why I'm not disappointed. Besides, the minister's habits have also given us great convenience. He often doesn't return at night, and he doesn't have many attendants. The attendants sleep in the Far from where the master lives, mainly Neapolitans, who are prone to getting drunk. I have the key, you know, to the rooms and chambers of all Paris. For three months, I spent most of the night searching that place myself. The minister's mansion was not spared even a single night - this matter is at stake with my honor. I will also reveal to you a big secret: the reward is also huge. Therefore, until I have to admit that the thief is smarter than me Will give up the search. I feel I've searched every nook and cranny of the mansion where there might be hidden papers."
"But is it possible," I suggested, "that the minister, though in possession of the letter (that is certain), hid it away from his own palace?"
"It is almost impossible," said Dupont, "that the special circumstances of court business, and especially the intrigue in which we know the Minister, would require the production of that document whenever necessary— That is, the momentary production of a document has almost as much emotional impact as possession of it."
"The emotional impact of producing the document?" I asked.
"He was referring to the effect that destroying the document would have," DuPont said.
"Yes," I said, "then the document must be in the mansion. As for the minister's carrying it with him, we don't think it needs to be considered."
"There is no need to think about it at all," said the director. "We robbed him twice by pretending to be scissors. I personally supervised and searched him carefully."
"You don't need to pay for it," said Dupont. "I don't think De is a fool at all. If he is a fool, he must think that cutting the diameter is a matter of course."
"Not exactly a fool," Director Ge said, "but he's a poet, and I think a poet is one step away from being a fool."
"That's right." Dupont took a deep breath on his meerschaum pipe and said after pondering for a long time, "I lost my mind and was thinking of a doggerel."
"Could you go into detail," I said, "the details of your search."
"Okay. In fact we took it easy and searched everything. I'm quite experienced in this sort of thing. I searched the whole house, room by room, from room to room. I searched each room for a week. the furniture of each room, and open every possible drawer. I suppose you know that there is no 'secret' drawer in the presence of properly trained police. Who would let such a 'secret' drawer leak during such a search? He must be a fool. It's too obvious. Every secret room has a certain size and space, so you have to find out. And we have precise regulations, and things that are one-fiftieth the size of a wire can escape. But our eyes. After the chamber of secrets we inspected the chairs, and we put the same long, thin needle you saw me using into each of the cushions. We also removed the table tops."
"why?"
"Sometimes people who hide things will take apart the table top or furniture with a similar structure, hollow out the legs of the table, stuff things in, and then close the table top. There are also people who use the top and bottom of the bedpost like this."
"But, won't you hear it when you tap on the empty space?" I asked.
"If you put enough cotton around it after putting things in, you won't be able to hear it. Moreover, in our situation, we are not allowed to make noise while working."
"But you can't take apart all the furniture that might hide things in the way you describe? Letters are paper rolls that can be rolled up in a spiral shape and size like a thick knitting needle, and can be inserted, such as , in the rungs of the chairs, you didn't take all the chairs apart, did you?"
"Certainly not. But we did a better job—we used a very high-power magnifying glass to examine every chair in the house, every form of joint, and we could immediately find any trace of a new change. Hand A chip of sawdust that falls from a drill can clearly look like an apple. The slightest abnormality in the glue, or an unusual gap in the tenon, is enough to cause concern."
"I reckon you've checked the curtains, the carpet, the mirror, the sandwich, the bed and the mattress."
"Of course. After we had gone through every single piece of furniture, we inspected the house. We numbered its entire surface in sections, so as not to miss anything. Then, as before, we inspected the whole mansion with a magnifying glass." Every square inch of that includes two adjacent buildings."
"Two adjacent buildings!" I exclaimed. "That's a lot of work."
"It took a lot of effort, but the rewards are also very impressive."
"Have you checked the grounds around the house too?"
"All the grounds are bricked, which gave us relatively little trouble. We checked the moss between the brick joints and found no signs of turning over."
"Of course you have checked all the documents of Minister De and the books in the library."
"Certainly, we opened all the folders and files, and not only checked every book, but we were not satisfied with just shaking each book (as many police officers usually do), but turned page by page. On. We also measure the thickness of each book cover with the most minute precision, and examine it with the most sensitive magnifying glass. The new traces of changes in the binding are completely invisible to our eyes. Five or six books have just arrived from the binder. We have carefully probed the books vertically with fine needles."
"Has the floor under the carpet been checked?"
"Without question, we removed every single rug and inspected the planks with a magnifying glass."
"Have you checked the paper on the wall?"
"Checked."
"The cellar was also checked?"
"Checked."
"Then," said I, "you have committed an error of judgment. The letter was not at the palace as you had reckoned."
"I'm afraid you're right," said the Superintendent. "Now, DuPont, give me some advice. What should I do?"
"Take another thorough inspection of the mansion."
"Absolutely not," Director Ge replied, "I'm more sure than I'm breathing, the letter isn't in the house."
"Then I have no better idea for you," said Dupont. "You certainly have an accurate description of the letter?"
"Ah, of course!" At this point the superintendent took out a memorandum, and began to talk about the characteristics of the lost letter-in content, especially in appearance.When he had finished speaking he walked away, more depressed than I had ever seen that kind gentleman.
About a month later, he came to see us again.When he came we were both in pretty much the same condition as last time.He took a pipe and sat down to exchange pleasantries.Finally, I said:
"Well, Director Ge, what happened to the stolen letter? I guess you finally decided that no one can beat that minister."
"Damn it, I say, it is. But I've checked again, as Dupont suggested, and it's still in vain—I figured it out." "You said, what was your pay?" asked Dupont. "The sum was very large and generous. I won't say the exact number, but I would like to point out that if anyone can find that letter for me, I can personally sign a check for fifty thousand francs. More than a day, and the pay was doubled recently. But even tripled, I can't beat the effort I've put in.”
"Ah, yes," said Dupont drawn out, puffing on his meerschaum pipe, "I do think you haven't done your best in this matter. You can do more. , I think, don't you?"
"How? What else can I do?"
"Why--poof, poof--you can--poof, poof--get other people's opinions on this subject, can't you? You remember the story they told about Abenetti?"
"Don't remember, send Abendi to the gallows!"
"Okay, let him go to the gallows, welcome. But once upon a time there was a rich miser who wanted to wring a cure out of Abenedi's sideways, and he thought of a way. A private conversation began during which he described his illness to the physician as that of a man he had invented.
"'If we suppose,' said the miser, 'that he is in such a condition, what medicine will you prescribe for him, doctor?'
"'Get some advice, sure,' said Abenedi."
"However," the director became a little irritable, "I am completely willing to listen to opinions, and I am willing to pay for them. If anyone can help me in this matter, I would really like to give him fifty thousand francs."
"Then," said Dupont, opening a drawer and taking out a cheque-book, "you can write me the amount you say. You sign it, and I'll give you the letter."
I was dumbfounded.The director definitely looked like he had been struck by lightning, he was motionless and unable to speak for several minutes.He opened his mouth wide and looked at my friend in disbelief, his eyeballs seemed to pop out of their sockets.After a little calm, he picked up the pen, hesitated a few times, and looked around blankly for a few times, and then filled out fifty thousand francs on the check, signed it, and handed it to Dupont across the table.Du Pont took the check and read it carefully, put it in his wallet, opened a pencil case, took out a letter from it, and handed it to the director.With a face full of sorrow and joy, the official opened the letter with trembling hands, glanced at it briefly, then ran and staggered to the door, and ran out of the room and out of the building in spite of all etiquette.He hadn't said a word since DuPont asked him to fill out the check.
After he was gone my friend started to explain.
"In their own way," he said, "the Paris police are very capable. They have tenacity, brains, cunning, and a perfect knowledge of what seems to be the main requirement of their duties. In this way, after Director Ge told us In detailing the manner in which they searched the Chancellor's house, I have no doubt that his investigation was satisfactory - wherever it went."
"Where is the time?" I said.
"Yes," said Dupont, "not only was the method used the best of its kind, but it was executed with absolute perfection. If it was within the scope of their search, these fellows would undoubtedly have found it."
I just laughed, but he seemed to be very serious about what he said.
"You see, his methods," he went on, "are the best of their kind, and they are used well. Their fault is that they use the wrong cases and objects. For the Superintendent of Police, there are some very high-tech sets. The means are nothing but the bed of Proclustus. He forces his plans into it, and so perpetually errs, taking his case too deep or too shallow. There are schoolboys who are better than him. They are more capable of thinking. I know a primary school student who has attracted wide attention by playing guessing odd or even. The game is very simple and is played with glass balls. One person grabs a few glass balls in his hand and asks the other to guess whether it is odd or even. Double. A correct guess wins a ball, a wrong guess loses a ball. The boy I'm talking about won all the glass balls in the school. He has some guesses, of course, but it's just to observe the opponent and estimate whether he is smart or not. That's all. For example, the opponent is a big idiot, and he stretched out his hand holding the ball and asked him: 'Odd or even?' Our elementary school student lost when he answered 'Odd', and he won the next time, because he thought: ' The fool took the double for the first time, and his cunning was only enough for him to take the single next time, so I guessed the single.'—He guessed the single and won. Now change to a higher one than the last time The elementary school student thought: "This guy found that I guessed the single last time, and next time he will follow the first impulse to make a simple change, from double to single, just like the first fool. But he Thinking about it again, I felt that the change was too simple, and in the end he had to make doubles like last time. So I guessed doubles.' He guessed doubles and won again. The partners said that the elementary school student's guessing method was 'by luck', But what exactly is he relying on?"
"It's just," I said, "that the reasoner puts intelligence on an equal footing with the opponent."
"Well," said Dupont, "I asked the schoolboy how he could identify himself with his opponent and win. The answer I got was: 'When I want to know how smart, how stupid, how good, How bad, or want to know what he's thinking, just make your face look exactly like his, and wait for that emotion or thought to appear in your heart and mind, as if matching or adapting to that look .’ The pupil’s answer is actually the background of all the seemingly advanced theories of Rochefoucauld, Labougieff, Machiavelli and Campanella.”
"If I have not misunderstood you," I said, "if the reasoner is to think the same way as his opponent, he must have an accurate estimate of the opponent's state of mind."
"In a real sense," Dupont replied, "that's what they rely on. The reason why the director and his subordinates often fail is firstly because their ideas are not equal to those of their opponents, and secondly because they do not match the opponent's intelligence. Wrong estimate, not even estimate. They only think about their own idea of smartness. When they look for something to hide, they only think about: How would they hide it if they were themselves? They only think about it when they represent what everyone thinks It can be correct. However, when the intelligence of individual criminals is fundamentally different from theirs, it is natural for them to be frustrated. When the intelligence of criminals exceeds them, they are always frustrated; when the intelligence of criminals is not as good as them, They, too, are often thwarted. The principles of their investigations are never the same. When stimulated by rare surprises—including extraordinary rewards—they at most expand or exaggerate the practice. The principles never change. Take the case of the Minister of Germany as an example, have they taken any measures to change the principle of action? Drilling, probing, knocking, magnifying glass observation, dividing the building floor into square inches for separate registration and inspection, nothing more Is the application of a search principle (or set) and what else? And it's based on a certain set of human concepts. That's the only thing the Inspector General of Police has been used to doing routinely for years. You see No? He took it for granted that whoever hid letters would use that method—not necessarily drilling holes in the legs of chairs, but at least stuffing them into some hidden hole or nook, and the train of thought that followed It's like drilling a hole in the leg of a chair. And, do you see? The accepted corners of such hidden things are found only in mediocre cases and used by mediocre people, because in all hidden cases, for In dealing with hidden things, the first consideration (and practical consideration) is to deal with them according to well-known methods. Therefore, to find hidden things does not require talent at all, but only care, patience and determination. For serious cases — or because of the high pay, the police seem to be important — the quality of the police has never disappointed. You can now see what I mean by a question: If the stolen letters are Hidden anywhere within the Inspector-General's search area—in other words, if the Inspector-General's principles included the principle of concealing the letter—there would be no problem finding the letter. The officer, however, was completely bewildered. The reason for his failure was that the minister was supposed to be a fool because he had the nickname of a poet. The director felt that all fools are poets, and he just abused the law of excluded middle and came to the conclusion that all poets are fools. .”
"But is this man really the poet?" I asked. "I know two brothers, both famous in literature. I believe the minister is a mathematician who has written a good differential treatise, but not a poet."
"You're wrong. I know him well. He's both. He's a poet and a mathematician. He's good at reasoning. If he's just a mathematician, he can't reason at all. Then he's at the mercy of the director. .”
"Your idea," I said, "surprises me. The voices of the world will be against you. You don't intend to completely ignore what has been well-tested for centuries, do you? Mathematical reasoning has long been viewed as It is the best reasoning."
"'There is a saying,'" Dupont replied, quoting Camfer, "that 'every public opinion and every accepted tradition is an absurdity because it is accepted by the majority, which is Undoubtedly.' I assure you that mathematicians have done their best to spread the kind of mass error you speak of, and it is equally wrong to take such a thing as truth. The science used in his career was applied to 'algebra', and he named it 'analysis'. The French are the originators of this peculiar lie. But if the naming matters, if the meaning of the words should be reflected in the use Then, "analysis" originally expressed the meaning of algebra (algebra) in Latin, just as "ambitus" expressed "ambition", "religio" expressed "religion", and "homines honesti" expressed "honesty". crowd' the same."
"You will soon," I said, "argue with some algebraists in Paris. But go on."
"I doubt the validity of the reasoning and consequent values developed from abstract logic, and especially of reasoning derived from the study of mathematics. Mathematics is the science of figures and numbers; mathematical thinking is nothing but logic for observing figures and numbers. To conceive of so-called purely algebraic truths as all-inclusive or universal truths is in itself gravely erroneous. It is astonishing to me to see the widespread acceptance of such erroneous errors. Mathematical axioms do not imply universal truths. In relation (In relation to figures and numbers) Real things are often terribly wrong on other issues, such as morality. In moral research, it is often a mistake to think that the sum of the parts is equal to the whole. This axiom is in It is also untenable in chemistry. Using this axiom to study motivation will also fail, because the sum of two motivations with certain values is not necessarily equal to the sum of their respective components. There are countless other mathematical truths that can only be in the range of relations However, due to habit, mathematicians start from their limited truth and insist that it is the truth that is universally applicable-in fact, people all over the world imagine that. Bryant in In his powerful "Mythology", he analyzed a source of similar errors. He said: "Although no one believes in the fables of the pagans, we always forget our identities. From the fables of the pagans, believed to be the reality of present-day existence.' And the pagan mathematicians also believed in the 'pagan fables', and deduced from them, that it was not due to poor memory but unexplained confusion of the mind. In short , I have never met a mathematician whose roots were like theirs who could be trusted, nor who did not secretly regard it as his belief that x2+px is absolutely and unconditionally equal to q. You An experiment, if you will: go tell a mathematician that you believe that x2 + px sometimes does not exactly equal q. You have to run away as soon as you get him to hear you, because he will try to beat you Meal."
His last sentence made me laugh out loud. "I would like to say," continued Dupont, "that if the minister was only a mathematician, there would be no need for the superintendent to sign this check for me. However, I know that the minister is a mathematician as well as a poet, so I aim at His train of thought and circumstances dictated my measures. I knew him as a court minister, and I knew him as a daring conspirator. I considered it impossible for such a man not to think of what the police would normally use. It is impossible not to estimate that he will be stopped and robbed by someone—it turns out that he did guess right. I think he must have foreseen the search of his mansion. He often stays out all night, and the director thinks it is It made him successful, but I think it was the minister's trick. He was giving the police a chance to conduct a thorough search, so as to give Director Ge the impression that the letter was not in his mansion. In fact, he finally caused that Impression. I also feel that the minister must know the whole idea of police operations for searches (that rigid principle which I have just elaborated for you with great pains), which must compel him to eschew the usual concealment Corners. I don't think he's so commonplace as to see that the most intricate and remote corners of his mansion are as public as the most commonplace places under the eyes, probes, drills, magnifying glass of the Superintendent of Police. .In short, I saw that he was helpless and had to find an easy way. Perhaps you will recall that in my first conversation with the Superintendent I suggested that it was the secret that was so obvious that it made him turn his head. The director laughed so helplessly."
"Remember," I said, "I remember his laugh very well. I was really afraid he was going to laugh convulsively."
"There are many things in the physical world," continued Dupont, "that resemble the immaterial world so much that they give the dogma of rhetoric a tinge of truth, and the metaphor or simile which strengthens the argument and brightens the description. For example, the principle of inertia seems to be similar in physics as it is in metaphysics. In the physical world, larger objects are harder to push than smaller objects, and the resulting impulse is proportional to the difficulty of pushing. In the immaterial world In the same way, a strong intellect is stronger, more stable, and more active in motion than a lesser intellect, and the first steps are likewise more strenuous, more difficult, and full of contradictions. Again, do you notice, The signboards in street shops, which attract the most attention are the big ones or the small ones?"
"I haven't thought about that," I said.
"There is a game of the mind," he went on, "that is played on a map. The person asking the question asks the other to find a prescribed word—the name of a town, river, country, or kingdom, at any rate on a map." A wide variety of complex and varied fonts. Novice players usually look for the smallest characters to embarrass their opponents, but experts choose, for example, large characters that span the entire image. These characters are as Signboards or banners with too large fonts on the street are overlooked because they are too obvious. Here, the material oversize is just similar to the moral indifference. Therefore, the intellect easily let go of Mount Taixian Dew, something too obvious. But it seems that this truth seems to have surpassed or not reached the level of understanding of the police chief. It never occurred to him that it was 80% possible, or even slightly possible, for the minister to put the letter in the All under the noses of others, while subtly preventing them from seeing.
"I considered the audacity, adventure, and insight of the Minister of State; that he must keep the document in his hand at all times if he intended to use it to his advantage; The letter was not hidden within his usual range of searches. The more I thought about it, the more I was content with the idea that in order to hide the letter the minister had resorted to a cunning and ingenious device: No intention of hiding.
"Full with such thoughts, I prepared myself a pair of green spectacles, and by chance, one fine morning, broke into the Minister's palace to call on him. I found him at home, yawning as usual. Killing the time, pretending to be bored as hell. He might be the most energetic man alive right now—but that's only when no one's looking.
"In order to show sympathy with him, I complained that my eyesight was failing and I had to wear glasses. Under the cover of glasses, I pretended to be wholeheartedly chatting with the owner, but I checked the room meticulously and comprehensively.
"I paid special attention to the large writing desk (he sat next to it). It was littered with letters and the like, a musical instrument or two, and a few books. I searched the desk for a long time, but found nothing. Spot anything that raises suspicion.
"I glanced around the room, and finally my eyes fell upon a tacky cardboard card holder coiled with gold wire. It hung by a dirty blue ribbon from a small brass handle in the center of the mantelpiece. The card holder was divided into three or Four layers, containing several business cards and a lone letter. The letter was so dirty and wrinkled that it was almost torn in half--as if at first it was considered worthless, and it was about to be torn off, and then changed its mind or It seems to have been blocked. There is a huge black wax seal on the letter, with the obvious word "Germany", and it is written in the small handwriting of a woman to the Minister of Germany. tucked into a compartment on the upper shelf.
"As soon as I saw the letter I came to the conclusion that it was what I was looking for, though it had a very different appearance from what the Superintendent of Police had read us in detail. The seal of the letter was large and black, with ' De', and the seal of the letter is small and red, with the duke's coat of arms of the S family. This letter is addressed to the minister, and the handwriting on the envelope is beautiful and small, while the letter is addressed to a certain The bold and unrestrained font of a royal family is eye-catching, and the only similarity between the two is the size. But this dust, this stark difference, the dirty and tattered letter paper, are too inconsistent with the Minister of State's orderly habits , it is too easy to think that it is deliberately used to deceive people and make others think it is worthless. All this, coupled with the fact that the document is placed in an overly eye-catching place that can fall into the eyes of every guest, is my previous The conclusion fits perfectly. All this, I say, strongly confirms the judgment of a skeptic.
"I put off my visit as long as I could, insisting on having a lively discussion with the minister on a subject--a subject which I knew could never fail to interest and excite him. While talking, my real attention was on the letter. 。我审视着它，记住了它的外形和在卡片架上的放法，最后还发现了一个问题，这发现消除了我心里可能出现的一切细微的怀疑。我在审视那信的边缘时注意到：它似乎经过不必要的折叠，带有破损，就像一张折叠后进过文件夹、却又给翻了过来、按原来的折痕重新叠过的硬纸。这个发现已经够了。我清楚地看出，那信曾被自内向外像手套一样翻转过来，重新写了地址，盖了封印。我跟大臣道了别，立即走掉，在桌上留下了一个金质鼻烟盒。
“第二天早上我去取鼻烟盒，又跟大臣热烈地继续前一天的谈话，我们正谈着，窗户正下方却传来砰的一声巨响，仿佛是步枪声，随后便是一连串可怕的尖叫声，外面人声喧哗。德大臣急忙冲到窗前，推开窗户往外看，我便趁此时刻跨到卡片架旁，取出那信，放进口袋，迅速用一个外表相同的复制品取代了它——复制品是我在自己住处精心准备的，模仿了德大臣的笔迹，用干面包刻了封印盖上。
“大街上的喧哗是有个人的疯狂行为造成的，他在街上的妇女儿童中开了一枪，不过枪里没有子弹，那人被看作疯子或酒鬼放掉了。那人一走，德大臣就离开窗户走了回来。我取到了眼前的东西也跟着去了窗前。随后我就和他告别。那假装的疯子是我雇的。”
“可你干吗要用复制品代替那信呢？”我问，“如果在第一次见面时你就公然取了那信走掉，岂不更好？”
“德大臣可是个敢于铤而走险的人，他胆大包天，”杜邦回答，“他的府第又不是没有忠实于他的利益的保卫人员。我如果按照你的想法冒昧胡来，就可能无法活着离开大臣的家了，而巴黎城的善良人就再也听不到我的消息了。但是，除了这想法，我还有别的意图。我的政治倾向你是知道的，在这个问题上我是那位女士的同党。那大臣要挟她已经有十八个月，现在她却控制了他，因为他还跟从前一样在讹诈着她，并没有意识到那信已不在自己手里。这样，他将无可避免地把自己推向政治毁灭。他倒台时所遭遇的将是突然多于难堪。所谓'轻松地坠入鸟飞不过的大海'，谈何容易，事实正与卡塔南尼对歌唱的说法一样：下降比上升困难多了。就目前这例子而言，我对那陡然下降的人并不同情，至少没有怜悯。他是一个恐怖的恶魔，没有原则的天才。不过，在他遭到警察总监所说的'某个人物'（那位她）的挑战，只好打开我在卡片架上留给他的信时的想法是什么，我倒是特别想知道的，我承认。”
“怎么回事？你在信封里还装了什么特别的东西吗？”
“嗨——什么都不装似乎不妥，那岂不是太不客气了吗！有一次在维也纳，德大臣曾经对不起我，我当时就心平气和地告诉过他：我会记住的。因此我知道他会为一个问题感到好奇：是谁在智力比赛里打败了他。我觉得不给他点线索总归是遗憾的事。他是很熟悉我的笔迹的，我只在那张白纸正中抄下了一句话：
——这样残忍的设计，若不宜于阿特柔斯，也宜于堤厄斯忒斯。
此诗见于克雷比永的《阿特鲁》。
Notes: 和《奥德赛》。曾任《纽约晚邮报》编辑近五十年。
Notes: 和《奥德赛》。曾任《纽约晚邮报》编辑近五十年。