The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1893-02-25

"I TOOK T
But is it not possible" " | suggested,
''that although the letter may be in his
possession, as it unquestionably is, he
may have concealed it elsewhere than
lpon his own premises ?''
"This is barely possible" " said Dupin.
"The present peculiar condition of
affairs at court, and especially of those
intrigues in which D. is known to be
involved, would render the instant
availability of the document-its sus-
ceptibility of being produced at a mo-
ments notice-a point of nearly equal
Importance with its possession"
" Its susceptibility of being pro-
duced ?" said |.
THAT is to say, of being destroyed" "
said Dupin,
TRUE" l observed; "the paper is
clearly then upon the premises As for
its being upon the person Of the minis
ter, we may consider that as out of the
question.
" Entirely" said the prefect che
has been twice waylGid, as if by foot
pads, and his person vigorously searched
under my own inspection"
"You might have spared yourself this
trouble" said Dupin. "D-I presume,
is not altogethera fool, and, if not must
have anticipated these waylayings, as a
matter of course"
Not altogether fool" said c.. 'but
then he's poet, which l take to be only
one remove from a fool"
True, said Dupin, after a long and
thoughtful Whit from his Ineerschaum,
although I have been guilty of certain
dOggeral myself"
suppose you detail" said l, ''the
particulars of your search"
"Why, the fact is, we took our time,
and we searched everywhere. I have
had long experience in these affairs. /
took the entire building, room by room;
devoting the nights of q whole week to
each. We examined, first, the furniture
of each apartment. We opened every
drawer; and presume you know that,
to a properly trained police agent, such
a thing as secret drawer is impossible
Amy man is a dolt who permits a
secret drawer to escape him in a search
OF this kind. The thing is so plain.
There is a certain amount of bulk-of
space-to be accounted for in every cab
met. Then we have accurate rules.
The fftieth part Of a line could not es-
cape us. After the cabinets we took the
chairs. The cushions we probed with
the fine long needles you have seen me
employ, From the tables we removed
the tops"
'Why SOP"
Sometimes the top of a table, or
other similarly arranged piece Of furni-
ture, is removed by the person wishing
to conceal an article; then the leg is ex-
cavated, the article deposited within the
cavity, and the top replaced. The bot
toms and tops of bed-posts are employed
in the same way"
But could not the cavity be detected
by sounding?" I asked.
"By no means, if, when the article is
deposited, sufficient wadding of cotton
be placed around it. Besides, in our
case, we were obliged to proceed with
out noise"
But you could not have removed
you could not have taken to pieces all
articles of furniture in which it would
have been possible to make a deposit in
the manner you mention. A letter may
be compressed into a thin spiral roll, not
differing much in shape or bulk from a
large lnittiug-needle, and in this form
it might be inserted into the rung of a
chair, for example. You did not take
to pieces all the chairs?n
"Certainly not; but we did better
we examined the rungs of every chair
in the hotel, and, indeed the Iointings
of every description of furniture, by the
MD of a most powerful microscope. Had
there been any traces OF recent disturb
ance we should not have failed to detect
it instantly. A single grain of gimlet-
dust, for example, would have been OBJ
yious as am apple Amy disorder in the
unusual gaping in the
joints-would have sufiiced to insure de-
lection"
81 presume you looked to the mirrors,
between the boards and the plates, and
you prObeJ the bedsund the bad-cIothes,
as well as the curtains and carpets
"lhut of course; and when we had
absolutely completed every particle of
the furniture iu this way. then we eN-
nmined the house itself Wediyided It's
entire surface into commandments. which
we numbered, so that none might bo
missed; then we scrutinized each indi-
vidual square inch throughout the
premises, including the two houses i'm
mediatelv adjoining. with the micro.