iT Was in Paris in The summer of 1840 that I met August Dupin. He was an unusually interesting young man with a busy, forceful mind. This mind could, it seemed, look right through a man’s body into his soul, and uncover his deepest thoughts. Sometimes he seemed to be not one, but two people — one who coldly put things together, and another who just as coldly took them apart.

One morning, in the heat of the summer, Dupin showed me once again his special reasoning power. We read in the newspaper about a terrible killing. An old woman and her daughter, living alone in an old house in the Rue Morgue, had been killed in the middle of the night: 

Paris, July 7, 1840. In the early morning today the people in the western part of the city were awakened from their sleep by cries of terror, which came, it seemed, from a house in the street called the Rue Morgue. The only persons living in the house were an old woman, Mrs. L’Espanaye, and her daughter. Several neighbors and a police- man ran toward the house, but by the time they reached it the cries had stopped. When no one answered their calls, they forced the door.

As they rushed in they heard voices, two voices; they seemed to come from above. The group hurried from room to room, but they found nothing until they reached the fourth floor. There they found a door that was firmly closed, locked, with the key inside. Quickly they forced the door open, and they saw spread before them a bloody sickening scene — a scene of horror!

The room was in the wildest possible order — broken chairs and tables were lying all around the room. There was only one bed, and from it everything had been taken and thrown into the middle of the floor. There was blood everywhere, on the floor, on the bed, on the walls. A sharp knife covered with blood was lying on the floor. In front of the fireplace there was some long gray hair, also bloody; it seemed to have been pulled from a human head. On the floor were four pieces of gold, an earring, several objects made of silver, and two bags containing a large amount of money in gold. Clothes had been thrown around the room. A box was found under the bed covers. It was open, and held only a few old letters and papers.