e.
Beyond all things, I have been warned of the danger which would result
from giving him reason to suspect our design."

"But," said I, "you are quite _au fait_ in these investigations. The
Parisian police have done this thing often before."

"Oh, yes; and for this reason I did not despair. The habits of the
Minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently absent from
home all night. His servants are by no means numerous. They sleep at a
distance from their master's apartment, and, being chiefly Neapolitans,
are readily made drunk. I have keys, as you know, with which I can open
any chamber or cabinet in Paris. For three months a night has not
passed, during the greater part of which I have not been engaged,
personally, in ransacking the D---- Hotel. My honour is interested, and,
to mention a great secret, the reward is enormous. So I did not abandon
the search until I had become fully satisfied that the thief is a more
astute man than myself. I fancy that I have investigated every nook and
corner of the premises in which it is possible that the paper can be
concealed."

"But is it not possible," I suggested, "that although the letter may be
in possession of the Minister, as it unquestionably is, he may have
concealed it elsewhere than upon 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 susceptibility of being produced at a moment's notice, a
point of nearly equal importance with its possession."

"Its susceptibility of being produced?" said I.

"That is to say, of being destroyed," said Dupin.

"True," I observed; "the paper is clearly, then, upon the premises. As
for its being upon the person of the minister, we may consider that as
out of the question."

"Entirely," said the Prefect. "He has been twice waylaid, as if by
footpads, and his person rigidly searched under my own inspection."

"You might have spared yourself this trouble," said Dupin. "D----, I
presume, is not altogether a fool, and, if not, must have anticipated
these waylayings, as a matter of course."

"Not altogether a fool," said G----, "but then he is a poet, which I take
to be only one remove from a fool."

"True," said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from his
meerschaum, "although I have been guilty of certain doggerel my