personage robbed while
alone in the royal boudoir. During its perusal she was suddenly
interrupted by the entrance of the other exalted personage from whom
especially it was her wish to conceal it. After a hurried and vain
endeavour to thrust it in a drawer, she was forced to place it, open as
it was, upon a table. The address, however, was uppermost, and, the
contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped notice. At this juncture
enters the Minister D----. His lynx eye immediately perceives the paper,
recognizes the handwriting of the address, observes the confusion of the
personage addressed, and fathoms her secret. After some business
transactions, hurried through in his ordinary manner, he produces a
letter somewhat similar to the one in question, opens it, pretends to
read it, and then places it in close juxtaposition to the other. Again
he converses for some fifteen minutes upon the public affairs. At length,
in taking leave, he takes also from the table the letter to which he had
no claim. Its rightful owner saw, but, of course, dared not call
attention to the act, in the presence of the third personage, who stood
at her elbow. The Minister decamped, leaving his own letter, one of no
importance, upon the table."

"Here, then," said Dupin to me, "you have precisely what you demand to
make the ascendency complete, the robber's knowledge of the loser's
knowledge of the robber."

"Yes," replied the Prefect; "and the power thus attained has, for some
months past, been wielded, for political purposes, to a very dangerous
extent. The personage robbed is more thoroughly convinced every day of
the necessity of reclaiming her letter. But this, of course, cannot be
done openly. In fine, driven to despair, she has committed the matter to
me."

"Than whom," said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind of smoke, "no more
sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired or even imagined."

"You flatter me," replied the Prefect; "but it is possible that some
such opinion may have been entertained."

"It is clear," said I, "as you observe, that the letter is still in the
possession of the Minister; since it is this possession, and not any
employment of the letter, which bestows the power. With the employment
the power departs."

"True," said G----; "and upon this conviction I proceeded. My first care
was to make thorough search of the Minister's hotel; and here my chief
embarrassment lay in the necessity of searching without his knowledg