莫尔格街凶杀案

THE MURDERS THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE There are many famous detectives in the worl of books—Philip Marlowe in los Angeles,Vic Warshawski in Chicango, Inspecto Morse in Oxford,and of course, the great Sherlock Holmes in London.But before andy of these,there was Monsieur Auguste Dupin in Parsis. He was not a policeman, and not really a detective either.He was a quiet young man, who loved books and reading. But he was clever, and he could understand many things that other people did not. He took a close interest in the horrible murders in the Rue Morgue,because there were no answers to the mystery.Who murdered the old lady and her daughter?Why were the murders so brutal” How did the Murderer get out of the house? So Many questions—and no anwers. ‘The secret,’said Auguste Dupin, ‘is to ask the right questions.Then you will find the answers…’ 1 My fried Auguste Dupin I met Monsieur Auguste Dupin while I was living in Paris during the spring and summer of 1839.This young Frenchman was from an old and famous family, but the family was now very poor and Dupin only had a little money to live on.He ate and drank very little, bought no clothes,and lived ver quietly.Books wer the love of his life,and in Paris it is easy to get books. Our first meeting was in a small bookshop in the Rue Montmartre.We were looking for the same old book,and that is how our conversation began. We met again and again, and were soon very friendly. He knew much more about books than I did.Conversation with a man like him was very helpful for my studies, and after a time we agreed to find a house and live there together for the time of my stay in Paris. We found a house in a quiet street in the Faubourg ST. Germain.It was a very old house,and was neither beautiful nor comfortalbe. But it was right for us,and our strange way of life. We saw no visitors,had no friends,and lived only ofr the night.When morning came,we closed all the shutters on our windows,and in this half-light we spent the day reading,writing,or talking,until the true darkness came. Then we went out into the streets,and walked for hours among the wild lights and shadows of the crowded city. During these night walks I learnt how clever my fried was.He could think so clearly and understood so much!He could read other people’s thoughts as easily as writing on a wall.He often said,with a laugh,that people had windows in their faces and that he could see through them.Sometimes he read my thoughts in ways that surprised me very much. One night we were walking down a long street near the Jardin du Luxembourg.We were both thinking,and for fifteen minutes we did not say a word.Then,suddenly,Dupin said: ‘He cannot write tragedy,that’s true.He’s much better at writing his funny pieces for the newspaper.’ ‘Oh yes,I agree with that.He-’Then I stopped,astonished. ‘Dupin,’I said, ‘I do not understand.How could you possibly know that I was thinking about-?’Again,I stooped.Did Dupin really know who I was thinking about? ‘About Chantilly,’Dupin said. ‘You were saying to yourself that he was a good writer,but he cannot write tragedy.’ ‘Yes,that’s true,’I said. ‘I was thinking that.But tell me,please!How did you know?’ This Chantilly wrot for one of the Paris newspapers.He wrote about Paris and Parisians in a way that was both clever and very funny.But then he wrote a book,a long story about the ancient Greeks,and Phaedra,the wife of King Theseus.It was ,everybody in Paris agreed,a very bad book. ‘It was the apple-seller,’replied my friend. ‘The apple-seller began the thoughts that took youi to Chantilly and his book.’ ‘The apple-seller!’I said,astonished. ‘But I don’t know any apple-sellers.’ My fried was happy to explain. ‘Some minutes ago we passed an apple-seller,who was carrying a big box of apples on his head,taking them to the fruit market.He didn’t see you,and you had to jump out of his way.There wer holes in the street,and you turned your foot in one of these holes and nearly fell.’ I remembered this now,but how did the apple-seller take us to Chantilly? ‘You looked around,’my friend went on, ‘and saw all the other holes and broken stones in the street,and then you looked up, a little angrily,to see the name of the street.You were thinking, I am sure,that it was a dangerous street to walk down in the dark,when you could not easily see the holes. ‘Then we turned a corner into the Rue Racine.Here,the stones were new and unbroken,and you looked up,pleased,to find the name of this street.This name began a new thought.You smiled a little and shook your head.The famous Racine,who wrote a play about Phaedra in 1677,was a better writer than Chantilly wil ever be. And you remembered that when Chantilly’s book first came out, the bookshops called Chantilly “The new Racine”.Everybody in that you were thinking of that when you smiled.And when you shook your head,I knew you were thinking of poor Chantilly’s book.’ 2 The murders Not long after that night,we were looking through the Gazette,an evening newspaper,when we saw this: TERRIBLE MURDERS At about three o’clock this mornig people living in the St.Roch Qurter were woken from sleep by a number of terrible screams.The screams came from the fourth floor of a house in the Rue Morgue,which belongs to a Madame L’Espanaye, and her daughter,Mademoiselle Camille L’Espanaye. Eight or ten of the neighbours,and two policemen,ran to the house.There was no answer to their knocking,so they broke down the door.When they got into the house,the screams stopped,but while they were running up the stairs,they could hear two angry voices at the top of the house.When they arrived at the second floor,the voices stopped and everything was silent.The neighbours hurried from room to room but found nothing until they came to a large room at the back of the house on the fourth floor.This room was locked,with the key on the inside.They broke the door open and saw in the room something which was both horrible and astonishing. Chairs and tables were broken and lay in pieces everywhere.There was one bed,and the mattress from it was now on the floor in the middle of the room.In front of the Fireplace on the floor was a razor,with blood on it ,and some long grey hair,with blood on the end.Also on the floor were three large silver spoons,and two bags,which contained nearly four thousand francs in gold.A small strong-box was found under the mattress.It was open,with the key in the lock,and contained only a few old letters. At first they thought there was nobody in the room,but when they looked up the chimney,they found (horrible to describe!’The dead body of the daughter,head downwards.It was difficult to pull the body out because the chimney was so narrow.The body was still warm.There wer deep cuts on the face,and around the neck there were dark bruises and the marks of fingers. The neighbours looked in all the other rooms,then went down into the small yard at the back of the house.There they found the dead body of Madame L’Espanaye.Her neck was very deeply cut,and when they tried to lift her,the head fell off.There were terrible bruises all over the body. At the moment,the police say,there are no answers to this horrible mystery. 3 What the witnesses said Dupin said nothing about these horrible murders that evening,but I knew he was interested,because the next day he opened the morning newspaper at once. There was a lot more about the mystery. THE TRAGEDY IN THE RUE MORGUE The police have talked to many people about this terrible tragedy.This is what witnesses have said,but nothing so far can explain the mystery in any way. Pauline Dubourg,washerwoman ‘I’ve known Madame and her daughter for three years.I do their washing for them and they pay very well.People say that the old lady was rich,but I don’t know about that.i never saw anybody in the house when I went to get the washing or to take it back.I think they lived only on the fourth floor of the house.’ Pierre moreau,shopkeeper ‘I have lived all my life in this quarter. The house in the Rue Morgue belongs to Madame L’Espnaye,and she and her daughter have lived there for six years.Madame sometimes came into my shop,but I didn’t see the daughter very often.The two of them lived very quietly.In six years I never saw anybody go into their house except the postman and the doctor.’ Many other neighbours said the same thing.There were no visitors to the house,either friends or family.The shutters of the windows,front and back,were nearly always closed,except for the large back room on the fourth floor. Isodore Muset, policeman ‘ I was called to the house in the Rue Morgue at about three o’xlock in the morning,and found twenty or thirty people at the front door.The screams from a person or people inside the house were very loud,but they stopped suddenly when we broke the front door down.I was the first up the stairs and when I reached the first floor,I could hear two angry voices,arguing loudly.One was a deep voice,the other high and shrill—a very strange voice.The deep voice was that of a Frenchman.I’m sure it wasn’t a woman’s voice. I could hear the words “diable”and “Mon Dieu”.The shril voice was a foreigner,perhaps a man or perhaps a woman.I couldn’t hear any words,but the language was Spanish,I think.’ Henri Duval,a neighbour ‘I agree with what Isodore Muset has said,except about the voices.The shril voice was speaking in Italian—I’m sure it wasn’t French.No,I don’t know Italian myself,but I’m sure it sounded like Italian words.I knew Madame L.and her daughter,and it certainly wasn’t either of their voices.’ Jan Odenheimer,kitchen worker ‘I was walking past the house when I heard those long,terrible screams,and I was one of the people who went into the building and heard the voices on the stairs. I am from Holland and don’t speak French,but I’m sure the shrill voice was a man’s voice—a Frenchman.I couldn’t hear the words but the voice sounded angry and afraid.The deep voice said the word “diable”many times.’ Jules Mignaud,banker,Mignaud Son ‘Madame L’Espanaye opened an account at my bank eight years ago.She did not often take money out of her account,but three days before her death she took out four thousand francs.This money was paid in gold,and a clerk took it to her house in the rue Morgue.’ Adolphe Le Bon, bank clerk at Mignaud Son ‘On Monday,at about 12 o’clock,I went with Madame L’Espanaye to her home.carrying the four thousand francs in two bags.When Mademoiselle L’Espanaye opened the front door,she took one of the bags,and the Madame took the other bag.I said goodbye and left.There was nobody in the street at that time.’ William Bird,musician ‘I’m an Englishman and I’ve lived in Paris for two years.I went into the house with the others and heard the voices on the stairs.The deepvoice was that of a Frenchman—I remember bearing the words”Mon Dieu”.I also heard a sound like people fighting.The shrill voice was very loud—louder than the deep one.It wasn’t an Englishman’s voice.I think it was a German,possibly a woman.No,I don’t understand German.’ Several witnesses said that the door of the room on the fourth floor was locked,with the key on the inside.Everything was silent when they got up there,and when they broke the door open,they saw nobody in the room.The two windows were closed and fastened on the inside.The police have looked through the house very carefully—every room,every chimney,every corner—but they have found nothing.The witnessen do not agree about the time between hearing the voices and breaking open the door—some say it was three minutes,others say five minutes. Alfonzo Garcia,cook ‘I live in the Rue Morgue,but I come from Spain.i was too afraid to go upstairs,but I heard the voices arguing.the deep voice spoke in French,and the shrill voice was that of an Englishman.Yes, I’m sure.No, I can’t speak English,but I know what it sounds like.’ Alberto Montani,Fruit-seller ‘I was one of the first up the stairs,and heard the voices—a Frenchman with a deep voice ,saying something angry,and a shrill voice, which spoke quickly and unclearly.i think it was the voice of a Russian.Yes,I’m Italian.I’ve never spoken to a Rusian person.’ Paul Dumas,doctor ‘I was called to see the bodies at daybreak.Both of them were then lying in the room on the fourth floor.The young lady’s body was bruised and cut all over when it was pushed up the chimney.The face was blue-black,the eyes were half out,and the neck was badly bruised,with deep red marks made by very strong fingers.These marks show how she died.The mother’s body was also horribly bruised,and all the bones of the right leg and arm were broken.How was this done?I don’t know—perhaps by a heavy piece of wood like a table leg.A razor was used to cut the neck,and the head was no longer joined to the body.All this was done by a very strong person—a man, and a very strong one.’ There has never been a crime in Paris as mysterious as this one.How did murderer or murderers excape from the house?The door to the room was locked,the windows were fastened.All the chimneys in the house are too narrow for a person to get through,there are no back stairs,and the door to the roof is very old and impossible to open.Whose voices did the witnesses hear?Why was the money left in the room? The police have no answers to these questions. 4 Auguste Dupin visits the Rue Morgue Dupin read all this with great interest,and was the first to open the evening newspaper when it arrived. He read silently,and then said, ‘There is nothing new about the murders,but the police have arrested Adolphe LeBon.Why,I don’t know.’He looked at me. ‘Well,my fried,what do you think about these murders?’ ‘It’s a great mystery,’I said. ‘It will be impossible,surely,ever to find this murderer.’ ‘We must not say “impossible”just because the police have done nothing,’said Dupin. ‘The parisian police do find the answers sometimes,but that is usually because of hard work,not because the are clever.Very often,you see,they don’t think clearly.They look very hard at one or two things,but they don’t see everthing.You remember the saying, “The can’t see the wood for the trees”?Well,sometimes it’s important to stand back and look at the whole wood,and forget about the trees.Now,why don’t we do a little detective work ourselves,and go round to the Rue Morgue? Adolphe Le Bon was once very helpful to me,and I would like to help him if I can. I know the police inspector,and I’m sure he will say that we can look round the house.So,shall we go?’ We went that same afternoon.We found the house easily because there were still people in the street looking up at the closed shutters.It was the usual kind of Parisian house,with nothing surprising about it.Before we went in,we walked up the street,turned down a narrow side street,and turned again to walk past the back of the building.Dupin looked at everyting—the ground,the walls,the windows,the shutters—but I did not know what he was looking for. Then we went inside,and a policeman took us up to the fourth floor.The two dead bodies still lay there,with the broken chairs and tables all around them.Again,Dupin looked at everything—the room and the bodies—very carefully.Then we went down into the yard at the backIt was dark when we left the rue Morgue,and on our way home Dupin went in for a moment to the office of one of the daily newspapers. That evening my friend would not answer any of my questions.But the next day he suddenly asked me, ‘Did you see anything peculiar in that house in the Rue Morgue?’ I don’t know why,but his question made me afraid. ‘No,nothing peculiar,’I said. ‘Well,nothing more peculiar than what we both knew from the Gazete,’ ‘Neither the Gazette nor the police,’said Dupin, ‘understand much about these murders.The police are puzzled by all the questions which they cannot answer.What was the motive for the murders?Why were the murders so brutal?Whose were the voices?How culd these people get out of the house when the neighbours were runing up the stairs?Why was everyting broken in the room?Why was the girl’s body up the chimney? Why did the old lady have so many broken bones? ‘I’m afraid the police are making the mistake that many people make.they think that because the crime is so unusual,they can never explain it.But they are wrong.It is more hepful to have an unusual crime,because that will make us think harder,and ask the right questions,and in the end find the answer.We must not ask the question,”What has happened?”;we must ask,”What has happened that has never happened before?”The answer to this mystery is not really difficult at all—I think I know it already.’ I looked at him,astonished,and could not say a word. ‘I am now waiting,’he went on, ‘for a person who is probably not the murderer himself,but who certainly knows something about the murders.He will arrive here—in this room—at any moment.I hop,and think,he will and if he does come,it will be necessary to stop him leaving.Here are four guns,two for you and two for me.We both know how to use them if we have to.’ 5 The Mysteries of the voice and the window I took the guns,but I didn’t really understand why,or who we were waiting for.So I was pleased when Dupin began to explain his thoughts to me. ‘Now,let’s think,’he said, ‘about those angry voices heard by the neighbours running up the stairs.Think about the newspaper reports of what the witnesses said.Do you remember anything peculiar in what they said?’ ‘Well,’I replied, ‘all the witnesses agreed that the deep voice was that of a Frenchman.But none of them agreed about the other voice,the shrill one –they all thought something different.’ ‘Yes,that was what they said,but you haven’t understood what’s peculiar about it,’said Dupin. ‘The peculiar thing is –not that they disagreed—but that they all thought it was the voice of a foreigner.Each witness thought the voice spoke a language that they didn’t know.Look at this list.’He showed me a piece of paper.  One Frenchman thought the voice spoke in Italian,Because of the sound of the words,but he didn’t know. Italian himself.  A Dutchman thought the voice spoke in French,but he himself didn’t speak French.  An Englishman thought the voice spoke in German,but he didn’t understand German.  A Spaniard thought the voice spoke in English—he couldn’t speak English but he knew what it sounded like.  And last,an Italian tought the voice spoke in Russian,vut this man has never spoken to a Russian person. ‘So! What a strangely unusual voice this was!’said Dupin. ‘Speakers of five European languages did not hear one word—not one word –that they knew.It was also a strangely shrill voice,and was it a man’s voice or a woman’s?No one could tell.’ ‘But perhaps the voice was speaking an African language,’I said. ‘Or an Asian one.’ ‘That is always possible,’Dupin agreed, ‘but do you egin to see what question we must ask next?’ Puzzled,I shook my head. ‘Well,we will com back to the voice later.’said Dupin. ‘But for me,my thoughts about the voice already told me what to ask next.So,let us close our eyes and remember that room on the fourth floor of the house in the Rue Morgue.What do we want to find out first? The way the murderer got out of the room.Let’s think about all the Possible ways.First,the door to the passage was locked,with the key on the inside.We cannot argue with a key in a locked door.There were no secret doors—the police have looked at every centimetre of the floor,the ceiling,and the walls.And I also looked very carefully.So,no secret doors.What about the chimney?It is wide enough for a body for three metrs,but higher up it is much marrower.Not even a cat could climb through it to the top.So what is left?’ ‘The two windows,’I said. ‘But they were fastened on the inside,weren’t they?’ ‘Yes,and no,’said Dupin. ‘Let me explain.We can see all of the window on the left,you remember,but only the top half of the window on the right,because the bead of the bed is pushed up next to the window.The police tried to open the window on th