Beyond Rue Morgue Anthology: Further Tales of Edgar Allan Poe's 1st Detective

THE VANISHING ASSASSIN By JONATHAN MABERRY

It should, I suppose, be entirely appropriate that I sat with my friend C. Auguste Dupin in the gloomy autumn shadows inside the cavernous and — some would insist haunted—walls of the decrepit mansion we shared at No. 33 Rue Dunot, Faubourg St. Germain. We had been to see a rather melancholy play about phantoms and murder and it had brought us into a discussion of many things gruesome and bloody. Over excellent wine and a tray of small cakes, we whiled away the hours speculating on the nature of the supernatural. I have a tendency toward belief in it, or at least in some parts of it; however, Dupin will have none of it.

“Specters are the product of a lack of information,” he said as he lit his pipe, “as well as a failure of perception.”

“How so?” I asked, intrigued.

He took several long puffs of the strong Belgian tobacco he had been favoring lately, blowing ghostly clouds of smoke into the air between our chairs. Small vagaries of wind made the smoke dance and twitch before whipping the hazy tendrils from sight.

“There is an example,” he said. “Had you, a credulous man, peered in through a frosted window and beheld the dancing smoke that has so recently departed us, and had you not perceived the meerschaum in my hand, might you not have thought that inside this house, haunted as it is, at least in reputation, you beheld a specter? And, had you been even more credulous — as say our charwoman has demonstrated herself to be on so many occasions — wondered if the two gaunt men who sat with heads bowed together were not, in fact, sorcerers who conjured the dead from the dust of this place?”

“Perhaps,” I said cautiously, for I know that to agree or disagree too quickly with Dupin is the surest way to put a foot into a bear trap of logic.

“Then consider the nature of a ghostly sighting,” he continued, warming to his thesis. “Most of them occur at night, and of those many in remote places, darkened houses, dimly lit country lanes, and church yards — places where proper lighting is seldom provided. Such places lend themselves to morbid thoughts, do they not? Now additionally consider the nature of the sighting itself. So often there is a sense of unnerving coldness, a perception that something unseen is moving so close that its frigid reach brushes against the perceptions of the witness. Add to this the fact that most specters are only seen as partially materialized figures or amorphous blobs of light and shadow. Reflect further on the time of day, and let us remember that at night we are often sleepy and closer to a dreaming state than we are at the height of noon.” He sat back and puffed out a blue stream. “The evidence we collect are elements of circumstance and a predisposition of mind that not only lacks clarity and is likely fatigued, but which is also shaped into a vessel of belief because of the macabre atmosphere.”

“So it is your opinion that all ghosts are merely the creations of overly credulous minds who witness — what? Mist or fog or smoke on a darkened night? How then do you explain the movement of these specters? How do you dismiss the moans they make?”

“I do not dismiss any sounds or movement,” said Dupin, “but I challenge the authenticity of the eyewitness account. Let me hear an account of a ghost who appears on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées at two o’clock on a May afternoon, and present me with at least three unbiased witnesses who have had no time to confabulate, and then perhaps you will ignite a flicker of credulity even in a stoic such as me.”

Outside, the wind blew against the house and found some crack in the slate tiles on the roof so that its passage was an eloquent wail, like a despairing spirit.

Dupin nodded as if pleased with the confirmation of his argument.

We sat there, smoking our pipes and listened to the sounds of the old house, some caused by the relentless wind, others by the settling of its ancient bones into the cold earth. Despite the cogency of his argument, we both huddled deeper into our coats and cast curious looks into the shadows that seemed to draw closer and closer to us.

Then there was a sharp rap-tap-tap that was so unexpected and so jarring that we both jumped a foot in the air and cried out like children.

However, when the door opened, in came Monsieur G—, the Prefect of the Parisian police, and his presence broke the spell. Dupin and I glanced at each other, aware that we had both been as surely spooked as if we had seen a specter in truth. We burst out laughing.

“Well, well,” said G., looking rather startled and confounded by our sharp cries and ensuing gales of laughter, “now behold another mystery. Have I come in upon some great jest or have you two fine gentlemen taken sure and final leave of your faculties?”

“A bit of both, I dare say,” said I, and that sent Dupin into another fit of laughter.

G. smiled thinly, but it was clear that he was forcing a cordial face. Dupin saw this, of course, and quickly sobered. He waved G. to a chair.

“Let me pour you some of this excellent wine,” I suggested. “It is a Prunier Cognac, 1835. Quite scandalous for a blustery autumn night in a drafty pile such as this, but appropriate for whiling the hours away with dark tales of shades and hobgoblins.”

However, G. remained standing, hat in hands, nervous fingers fidgeting with the brim.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “I wish I could join you, but I am afraid that those things of which you jest are perhaps out in truth on this wretched night.”

Dupin lifted one eyebrow. “Do you say so? And what spectral vapors could possibly conspire to draw the Prefect himself away from a quiet evening at the Jockey Club de Paris?”

“It is a matter of…” began G., but his voice trailed away and stopped. “Wait, how could you possibly know I was at that club this evening?”

Dupin waved the stem of his meerschaum as if dismissing the matter as being of no importance. “A blind man could see it.”

“Then I am blind,” said I. “Please light a candle to this darkness.”

The briefest ghost of a smile flickered across Dupin’s mouth and I knew from long experience that although my friend can appear both cold and inhuman at times, particularly in his pursuit of the pure logic of observation and analysis, he has a splinter of perversity that enjoys both the confounding of whatever audience is at hand, and the later satisfaction of their curiosity.

Affecting a face of boredom, Dupin said, “The scandalous matter of race fixing which was resolved so satisfactorily last month was entirely the doing of our good Prefect of the Parisian police. One of the more notable applications by modern law enforcement of the value of evidence collection and the science of observing details to discern their nature rather than forcing assumptions upon them.”

G. colored slightly. “I make no pretence to brilliance,” he murmured. “And I openly admit to having applied methods I have observed in recent cases with which you were involved.”

“Just so,” said Dupin without false modesty.

“But how does that place Monsieur G. at the club this evening?” I demanded.

“It is customary of such clubs to grant special memberships to distinguished gentlemen who have been of service to their organization. It would be entirely out of character for the Jockey Club de Paris to have eschewed that policy after G. saved them from scandal and ruin.”

“Agreed,” I said slowly, taking the point.

“It is also in keeping with the policies of such clubs to hold a gathering to celebrate the induction of a new member. In virtually any other circumstance such a dinner would be held on a Saturday, with much fanfare and mention in the press.”

“But there was no mention,” I said, having read every paper from front to back.

“Of course not,” said Dupin. “Scandal cannot be advertised. No, such a gathering would be on a night when the club would be the least well-visited, and that is a Thursday night because of the big races in England on Friday. Many of the members would be crossing the channel. That would leave only the most senior members and the governors of the board in Paris, and it would be they who would want to offer their private thanks. They lavished food and drink upon you, my dear G., and before you ask how I know, I suggest you look to your cuffs, coat sleeve and waistcoat for evidence. Crème sauce, sherry, aspic and… if I am not mistaken… pâte à choux.”

G. looked down at his garments and began brushing at the crumbs and stains.

“A gentleman who has had time to go home and brush up would never have ventured out in such a condition. No, you came from that robust dinner to the scene of some crime.”

“But it could have been any club that serves a fine dinner,” said I.

“True, true,” admitted Dupin, “however, I believe I can put a nail in the coffin with the unsmoked cigar I perceive standing at attention in your breast pocket. It is wrapped by a colorful paper band, which is the invention of Cuban cigar makers Ramon and Antonio Allones, and although other cigar makers have begun to similarly band their cigars, the Allones brothers were the first and theirs is quite easy to identify. These excellent cigars are not yet being exported to Europe, but they are often given as gifts by American horse racing moguls to colleagues in Great Britain and France. It is unlikely anyone but a senior official of the Jockey Club would have such a fine cigar; however, it is very likely that such a prize would be presented to the man who solved the French horse racing incident.”

“By God, Dupin,” said G. in a fierce whisper. “Your mind is more machine than flesh and blood.”

“Ah,” said Dupin, “how I wish that were so. Machines do not fatigue. They are pure in function.” He sighed. “There are other bits of evidence as well, both hard clues and inspirations for informed speculation, but I have no desire to show off.”

I kept my face entirely composed.

“Nor do I wish to waste any more of our dear friend’s time. Tell me, G., what has brought you away from food and festivities and compelled you even further to visit us?”

“Murder,” said G. “Murder most foul and violent.”

“Ah,” said Dupin, his mouth curling with clear appetite.

“But come now,” I said, “you earlier spoke of something unnatural.”

G.’s eyes darkened. “I did, and indeed there is nothing at all natural about this case. A man was killed without weapons by a killer who seems to have vanished into thin air.”

Dupin’s eyes burned like coals through a blue haze of pipe smoke.

“We shall come at once,” he said.

And so we did.

We piled into the cab G. had left waiting, and soon we were clattering along the cobblestoned streets of Paris. And within a quarter hour we found ourselves standing outside a building which was divided into offices for various businesses engaged in international trade.

Gendarmes filled the street, keeping back a growing knot of onlookers and preventing anyone but official persons from going into the building. As I alighted I spied an ancient-looking woman swathed in a great muffler of green and purple leaning heavily on a walking stick. She raised a folded fan to signal our cabbie. I paused to help her inside. In a thickly accented voice she asked the driver to take her to the train station.

Dupin, who waited for me while I assisted the lady, glanced at his watch. “She’ll have a long, cold wait. The next train isn’t for three quarters of an hour.”

“Poor thing,” I said. “She was as thin as a rail and already shivering with the cold.”

But our concern for the old lady was swept away by the Prefect, who loudly cleared his throat.

“Gentlemen,” he said with some urgency, “if you please.”

Dupin gave a philosophical shrug and we turned to address the building and the knot of police who stood in a tight cordon around the place. They gave G. a crisp salute and stood aside to let him pass. However, they eyed us with some curiosity. The Prefect did not pause to introduce us, as was well within his right.

We climbed three flights of stairs to a suite of offices that occupied half of the top floor. There was a cluster of official-looking persons on hand, including several gendarmes in uniform, two detectives from the Prefect’s office, a lugubrious medical examiner waiting his turn, and an ancient cleaning woman who sat shivering with fear on a bench, her face still blanched white from what she had witnessed.

“It was she who alerted the police?” asked Dupin.

“Yes,” agreed G. “She heard bloodcurdling screams of fear and agony coming from this floor and, knowing that M. Thibodaux was the sole occupant working this late, she hurried to see if he had done himself an injury. However, she found his door locked. But here is the cause of her greatest consternation— she saw a line of bloody footprints leading away from M. Thibodaux’s office, but they vanished mid-stride and were not seen again. The thought that a phantom had come to do cruel harm to M. Thibodaux sent her screaming into the street as if the hounds of hell were on her heels. There she sits now, shaken and frightened half to death. Do you want to interview her?”

Dupin stood for a moment in front of the woman. His dark eyes took in her posture, her mean clothing, the nervous knot of her fingers in her lap, and the florid and puffy countenance of her face.

“No,” said Dupin, “she knows nothing.”

The Prefect opened his mouth to demand how my friend could be so certain, but then thought better of it and shut his jaws. We both know that Dupin would rather say nothing at all than make a declaration which could in any way be impeached. He had observed this woman and summed up everything there was to know about her — at least from the point of calculating observation — and had reached a conclusion that he could defend.

He turned away from her and glanced down the hall to where the office of M. Thibodaux awaited us.

“The door was locked, you say?” he mused.

The Prefect nodded. “The superintendent had gone home for the evening, which necessitated that the guards break the door down.”

“Interesting,” said Dupin. He walked over to where the medical examiner sat. “Have you inspected the body?”

“I have,” said the doctor, who was as old as Methuselah and as thin as a stick. “He is the victim of—”

But Dupin raised a finger to stop the flow of words. “Thank you, doctor, but I prefer to make my own assessments. I was merely inquiring as to whether it is safe for us to examine the victim.”

The doctor looked both skeptical and annoyed. “Yes, there is nothing more of official merit to be learned.”

Dupin smiled thinly. “Please remain on the premises, doctor. I may have a question or two for you after I have examined the scene.”

“Very well,” said the doctor in as cold a tone of voice as I am ever likely to hear.

Dupin moved down the hallway to where a beefy gendarme stood guard before glass-fronted double-doors. When the officer stepped aside I could read the name of the firm written in gold script.

However, we all stopped ten paces from the door and cast our eyes upon the floor. As Mrs. Dubois had sworn, there was indeed a line of bloody footprints that trailed from the doors of the murder room and along the runner carpet. Twelve steps in all, the intensity of blood diminishing with each successive footfall.

“A child!” I cried, pointing to the diminutive size of the prints.

Dupin did not immediately comment.

“Surely,” I said, “the blood merely wore off by this point and that is why there are no further marks.”

Dupin got down on his hands and knees and peered at the last stains. “No,” he said. “The blood on these prints was fading, surely, but there was more than enough to leave a trace for several more paces. No, consider this print.” He gestured to the last one. “It is somewhat denser in color than the one before it, with an emphasis on the ball of the foot. Then there is an overlay of the edge of the foot as if it was lifted slightly and placed down again with most of the weight on the blade.”

He stood up, shaking his head.

“My dear Prefect, may all ghosts be laid as easily as this one and the world will be free of spirits forever more.”

“I don’t follow,” said G.

“The person who left that room stopped here to remove the bloody shoes. When first bending to remove the left shoe, the killer placed weight on the ball of the right foot. The overlay of the edge was likely an attempt to catch their balance while untying the laces. Once the left was off, a bare or stockinged foot was placed here — see the slight indentation in the nap of the carpet? Standing on that foot, the killer removed the other shoe.”

G. grunted, seeing it now.

“Come look at the scene of the crime,” he suggested, “and perhaps you can dispel the rest of the mystery as easily as this.”

Dupin did not answer. Instead he shoved his hands into his pockets as he followed G. inside. I too followed, but stopped nearly at once.

“Good God!” I cried.

“Indeed,” drawled Dupin.

The room was a charnel house.

Unless a person is a professional soldier, a slaughterhouse jack, or a member of the police department, it is unlikely that he will chance to encounter a scene of such carnage. I admit that I froze, unable to set foot into that place of slaughter. My heart instantly began to hammer inside my chest and I felt as though my whole body was bathed in frigid dew. I put a hand to my mouth, as much to stay my rising bile as to staunch a flow of unguarded curses.

Even Dupin, with all of his practiced detachment from ordinary emotions, seemed to hesitate before crossing the threshold. Only the Prefect, jaded and hardened by so many years and so many crime scenes, seemed predominantly unmoved. However, his wooden features might well be a tactic to keep his more human emotions to himself.

Despite my misgivings, I shifted around so that I could look over Dupin’s shoulder into the room. Except for a solitary figure, the room was entirely unoccupied and thoroughly cluttered. Paintings crowded the walls and filled every inch of space so that not even a sliver of the wallpaper was visible; and each of these works were in a distinctive Asian style. I am no Orientalist, but I could pick out the differences between Chinese and Japanese artwork, and both were represented here, with — perhaps — a bias toward the Japanese. Grim-faced Samurai, demure courtesans, absurd fish, and fierce demons looked down from the walls and regarded the scene with serene dispassion. The furniture was of the kind called “japanned,” in which the body of each piece is lacquered in a glossy black, then either over-painted or inlaid with designs of unsurpassed intricacy. There were racks of scrolls, urns filled with hand-painted fans, chests made of polished teak from which spilled tendrils of the rarest silk. Every table, every cabinet, every shelf and surface was crammed with carved combs, silk kimonos with elaborate patterns, knives and swords, ink boxes, trinkets, statues, and many other items whose nature or category was beyond my knowledge.

And all of it was splattered with blood.

Streaks and dots of it were splashed upon the walls, scattered across the tops of tables, and ran in lines down the sides of desks.

And there, slumped in a posture that contained no trace of vitality, was a corpse.

“Dear God,” I gasped.

It was the body of a man, but that was all I could tell for sure about him. I turned away, ostensibly to study the walls, but everywhere I looked I saw evidence of the carnage that had been wrought upon this unfortunate individual.

Without turning away from the corpse, Dupin asked, “What has been touched?”

G. cleared his throat. “The gendarmes who responded to the alert broke into this room. They hurried to the man you perceive there in the chair and felt for heartbeat and listened for breath and found neither.”

“I daresay,” murmured Dupin.

“The officers then made a cursory search of the room, touching as little as possible, but enough to determine that the windows were closed and locked.”

Dupin turned to him. “And—? I believe you are omitting some facts, my friend. Out with it. In the absence of information I can be of no value at all.”

“It’s a queer thing,” admitted G. “When the officers entered the building, they held the door for a person who was leaving.”

“God in heaven,” I cried. “Are you saying that they held the door so the murderer could exit? Did they tip their hats as well and wish our killer their best wishes? Really, G., this is outrageous.”

But the Prefect was shaking his head. “No, it was not like that at all. Though in the absence of all other leads I…”

His voice trailed off and he looked uneasy and uncertain.

Dupin said, “Come on, dear friend, out with it. If the bird has flown, then at least tell me your officers had the good sense to record a basic physical description.”

G. snapped his fingers to summon a pair of gendarmes. One was as green a recruit as ever I have seen wear the uniform of a Paris police officer. The other, however, was well known to both Dupin and myself. It was none other than Jacques Legrand, a hulking brute of a sergeant whose physique was at odds with the shrewd intelligence sparkling in his blue eyes. On more than one occasion Dupin remarked that Legrand had a real chance in his profession and we should not be surprised if one day this monster of a man wore the Prefect’s badge.

The sight of Legrand looking so embarrassed and wretched caused Dupin to throw up his hands and click his tongue in the most disapproving manner.

“Come now, Legrand,” said my friend, “surely you will not break my heart by confessing that you let a red-handed criminal walk past you while you held the door.”

Legrand drew in a big breath that made his muscular shoulders rise half a foot into the gloom, then exhaled a sigh that would have deflated an observation balloon.

“I fear I have done exactly that,” he confessed, “and I’m more the fool for even now being unaware of how my actions might have played out in a different manner.”

“Tell me everything,” declared Dupin. “Unburden your soul with every fact you can recall and we shall see how low you have sunk.”

Legrand drew in another breath and then took the plunge. “It was like this, gentlemen,” he said to us, “my partner, Roux, and I were on foot patrol and on such a foggy, cold night many a mugger and footpad is abroad, content that the dense fog and their own mufflers will conceal their identities. Roux and I had made two circuits of this district and we were considering stopping at a café to take our evening break.”

“What time was this?” interrupted Dupin.

“A quarter to eight,” said Legrand, who checked his notebook, then his watch. “Forty-one minutes ago.”

“Forty-two,” corrected Dupin absently. “Your watch is off by nearly thirty seconds.”

Legrand colored, but he cleared his throat and plowed ahead. “We were within half a block of the café when we heard a bloodcurdling scream. Naturally we came running and intercepted the charwoman, Mrs. Dubois, who was screaming as if she was being chased by half the devils in hell.”

“What did she say?”

“It took quite a bit to get her to make sense, but her story was a simple one. She had finished the top floor and was bringing her mops and buckets down to this floor, the third, when she heard a cry of pain coming from the office of Monsieur Thibodaux. She dropped her mops and came hustling down the stairs, only to find the door locked and a trail of bloody footprints. She tried to open the door, but it was solidly locked and it is a stout door, as you’ve no doubt observed. However, Mrs. Dubois heard Monsieur Thibodaux continue to moan and cry out in great agony. Then… she heard him die, you might say.”

“Heard?” I asked.

“Monsieur Thibodaux called out a name, then she heard a solid thump. She pressed her ear to the crack and swears that she heard his last breath and death rattle. It was this grisly sound that broke her and she ran screaming into the streets.”

Dupin’s eyes glittered. “Monsieur Thibodaux called out a name, eh?”

“Yes, sir. Anna Gata. Or something very like it. A woman’s name, I believe, though it is not a name I have ever heard before, and it is not included on the register of occupants of this building, nor in the ledger of visitors.”

“You checked?” asked Dupin.

“I did, sir. All occupants’ names are engraved on a plaque in the foyer along with accompanying office numbers and floors. The visitors’ ledger is on the desk downstairs. I checked it very carefully while waiting for reinforcements to arrive.”

“That, at least, was good police work.” Dupin pursed his lips. “Gata is an unusual surname. If it is a real name, then we should have little trouble locating the possessor of it, for it cannot be common even in Paris. If it is a nickname, then we have some leads. It is the Catalan word for ‘cat’ and Fijian name for ‘snake’. Perhaps there are clues there, for each is suggestive. However, such speculations are far in advance of the information we yet need to collect.” He shook his head to clear his thoughts of such distractions.

“Wait,” I said, “we seem to have skipped over a vital clue. The person who exited the building.”

“Not skipped over,” said Dupin, “but left it to its place of importance.” To Legrand he said, “Now tell me of the person who exited the building as you entered, and explain why you thought it was beyond sense or prudence to detain this individual. Every detail now, spare nothing.”

“There is little to spare,” said Legrand. “As Roux and I approached the building we saw the door open and a lady stepped out.”

“A lady,” I said. “Anna Gata, perhaps?”

Dupin ignored me.

“I do not think so,” replied Legrand. “This was no sweetheart for a man the age of poor Monsieur Thibodaux, for this was a crone, a withered old woman, and a foreigner to boot.”

“Was she wearing a gray cloth coat with a green and purple muffler?” asked Dupin.

“Why… yes!” gasped Legrand. “However did you guess that?”

“It’s not a guess,” said Dupin. He cut a withering look at me. “My companion here helped her into a cab.”

Legrand did not look at me.

“You said she was a foreigner,” said Dupin. “From where?”

“Well, she was all bundled up, as you apparently saw, but I spotted her eyes. I reckon that she was a Chinese or somesuch. Small, slender, and so wrinkled that I believe she must have been a hundred years old. Frail, she was, and she needed to lean heavily on a carved walking stick.”

Dupin stood considering this for many long and silent seconds. He cut a look at me. “You were closer to her than I. Did you see her eyes and can you confirm that she was Chinese?”

“I did see her eyes, though briefly,” I admitted, “but I cannot tell from those if she was Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or any of countless Orientals. They are all of a piece to me.”

Irritation flickered across Dupin’s face. “That may be a dead end in terms of apprehending the killer, but surely, Legrand, you had to make some connection between an Oriental woman and the nature of Monsieur Thibodaux’s business.”

Legrand swallowed. “To tell the honest truth, sir, I thought she was another charwoman. She was dressed in rags except for that scarf, and walked hunched over. In any other circumstance I would have offered her my arm and escorted her to a public house or fetched her a cab.”

“Too late for that now.” Dupin looked even more disgusted. “Let us leave that for the moment. Is there anything more you can tell me?”

The big sergeant shook his head, and Dupin dismissed him with bad grace. When he was gone, Dupin snarled, “Had that been an old man leaving the building, even a dotard or a cripple, I have no doubt Legrand would have detained him without thought. But he, being a big and powerful man, can barely imagine anyone but a similarly large person committing an act of such shocking violence. It is a blind spot that may hurt his career and may have prevented us from easily solving this case. Bah! It is my curse that I am so often disappointed by believing in the potential of a person only to find them as flawed and shallow as the rest of the herd.”

“Surely not,” I began, working up some heat in protest to my friend’s words, but he dismissed me with an irritable wave of his hand. I bit down on the rest of my words and they left a bitter taste on my tongue.

Dupin stalked back toward the murder room, leaving G. and I to exchange helpless looks. With raised eyebrows, we followed. Dupin walked past the elderly doctor without comment. He once more examined the bloody footprints and then, nodding to himself, entered the room. He was careful not to step on any of the spilled blood, but that care limited him, for the blood was everywhere. He moved slowly through the chamber, speaking in a low murmur as he assessed each item therein and offered commentary to construct a scenario.

“That Monsieur Thibodaux was an Orientalist is evident,” said he. “Except for ordinary items of daily convenience— pens, ink bottles and suchlike — there is nothing here of local or common manufacture. It is likewise evident that Monsieur Thibodaux was an antiquarian of some note. These premises are not inexpensive, and his stationery and calling cards are of the very best quality. Likewise his clothes, what we can see of them. He was a man of expensive tastes and deep pockets.” He did a complete circuit of the room, peering up and down, sometimes bending quite low to examine one of the countless artifacts on display. “It appears that the late Monsieur Thibodaux was more than a mere Orientalist, but rather a specialist within that field, for virtually everything here, with the exception of a few paintings, is of Japanese origin. This statue of sacred cranes is well known and is surely the work of H—, a noted sculptor from the city of Osaka. There are a number of Tansu chests of great value. And see these Satsuma vases, Ko Imari and Kutani covered bowls, Oribe tea bowls, Usuki stone Buddhas, as well as stone mirrors, jade combs, and many swords.”

“But what of it?” demanded G. “Please, my friend, I did not bring you here to inventory the possessions of a murdered man, but to offer advice in the discovery of a murderer.”

“The fact that some of these items are even here is surely at the heart of this gruesome matter,” said Dupin. “See here, this tea-leaf jar with a design of wisteria? This is a treasure from the seventeenth century and it belongs in a museum. I would venture the same holds true of this fine Akikusamon bottle. This is authentic Heian Period, later twelfth century. I know for a fact that this is considered a national treasure of Japan. How then is it in the collection of a Parisian dealer of antiquities? The fact that the man who came to be in possession of these items could not under any circumstances legally own them is undoubtedly tied to the cause of his death.”

“Then Thibodaux was naught but a common thief?” exclaimed G.

“Oh, I daresay he was much more than a common thief. More likely a trafficker in stolen items. A most elite fence, for these items are unparalleled in quality, and more to the point, they are treasures of historical and cultural significance. Wars have been waged over the possession of items such as these. Even now Japan is slowly being torn apart by cultural changes, with one faction wanting to move toward a more modern culture— with fractured and fuming Europe as its model; while the other desperately tries to hold onto the ancient values of the Samurai traditions. Look at these items, gentlemen, and you will see their delicacy and exotic beauty, but to the Japanese on both sides of the cultural rift these are emblematic of the spirit of the people.”

“How came they here?” asked the Prefect.

Dupin picked up an ornate knife and studied the fine weaving of black silk thread around its handle. “Certainly it is not the traditional faction who would let such items leave Japan. No, gentlemen, this is part of an insidious plan by the modernists, the groups who want to see the old remnants of the Tokugawa Shogunate torn down and replaced by a more corporate and capitalist structure. To that end they have engaged many of the world’s greatest thieves, as well as traitors from within the oldest families. Bribery and promises of power are the grease that allows the machinery of theft and exportation to work.”

“But why? Bowls and urns and hair combs? Why steal trinkets and baubles?” I asked. “What possible political value could they possess?”

Dupin cocked an eyebrow. “Imagine, if you can, that a similar schism were taking place in, say, Great Britain. What if dissidents were spiriting away the Crown Jewels? And, closer to home, imagine that thieves were walking off with the splendors of Versailles, and doing so in a deliberate attempt to inflict a wound upon the heart of all that we hold dear as Frenchmen. That is the scope of this. That is what is at stake for the Japanese. The treasures of that nation are being looted and men like our dearly departed Monsieur Thibodaux are the parasites and Shylocks who both assist in these crimes and profit handsomely from them.”

We looked around the room, seeing it afresh. I could very well now understand the vehemence of the attack. The degree of harm, and the apparently protracted length of the assault, spoke to a passion fed by love of country and horror at the rape of an ancient culture. I found now that I could look upon the corpse with less revulsion and more with a particular repugnance — and a total lack of sympathy.

“We are still no closer to solving the mystery of who committed this murder,” said G. “I cannot ignore it because I may sympathize with the murderer’s cause. That is for courts, domestic and likely foreign, to decide. And furthermore I am still at a loss for how the murder was committed. I daresay the killer took his weapon with him, but I cannot deduce what that weapon may have been.”

“Weapons,” corrected Dupin, making the word clearly plural, “for I perceive that a great many of them were used in the work that was done here.”

“But which ones? I see swords aplenty, and even spears, but these are not the cuts and slashes of those weapons.”

“No.” Dupin’s tight mouth wore a strange half-smile. “There is a certain poetry to this carnage.”

“In God’s name, how?” I demanded.

“Gentlemen,” he said, holding wide his arms, “we are surrounded by the murder weapons. Can you not see them? They have been left behind for us to find — for anyone who had the eyes to see.”

G. and I looked around, and though we saw blood glisten and drip from virtually every object and surface, there did not appear to be any particular weapon on display except those fashioned for that purpose, but they had inexplicably been eschewed by the killer.

“I cannot see it,” confessed the Prefect. “I am all at sea.”

“Then let logic bring you safely to shore,” said Dupin. He pointed to a particularly deep gouge on Monsieur Thibodaux’s scalp. “To identify an object used in a murder as creative as this we need to broaden our minds from thoughts of those things created to be weapons to those which were not, but can nevertheless be used to accomplish harm.” He turned and picked up a fragile vase with one hand and then the painted wooden stand with the other. For all of the delicacy of the vase, the stand was a sturdy piece of work. Dupin held it up for our inspection and with our wondering and horrified eyes we could see a smear of blood in which floated a few fine hairs that were a match to the deceased’s, and the corner of one leg was an equally perfect match to an indented scalp wound.

“He used a… vase stand?” gasped the Prefect.

“Oh yes. A vase stand is but a piece of wood after all, and wooden weapons have such a rich history, wouldn’t you say?” While we continued to gape, Dupin pointed out several other objects, matching each to a specific wound or series of wounds. Decorative chopsticks made from bone had been used to create dreadful rough punctures, the steel ribs of a lady’s court fan had been used to create dozens of shallow slashes, an ink-block had clearly been the cause of a broken nose and crushed brow. On and on it went, until Dupin had proved that we, indeed, stood within an arsenal of deadly weapons, though each appeared to be utterly fragile and lovely.

“If we suspected that the murderer was one of the modernist Japanese, then I would have expected to find bullet wounds or the marks of military knives. But no, the fact that commonplace objects — or rather those things never intended for such grim purposes — had been used, reinforces my supposition that the murderer is indeed devoted to the ancient Samurai houses of Japan. But not, I am certain, a Samurai himself.”

“Please explain,” said G., “so that I may begin composing a rough description for my men.”

“The Samurai and their retainers are highly skilled in many fighting arts, not least the sword. But some of these sciences are more obscure, their nature and use coveted by the great families. One such art is called hadaka-korosu, and it translates roughly to ‘the art of the naked kill.’ The name refers not to a person being unclothed in combat, but a fighting art used when the Samurai has no sword. The Japanese, particularly the Samurai, are less mystical than the Chinese in that they endeavor to see things plainly for what they are. And so to them a piece of wood is a potential weapon, whether it has been fashioned into a club or made to support a delicate vase.”

“Astounding,” said I.

“Subtle,” said he. “Look around and you can see how many of these things are surrogates for blades, for truncheons, for garroting wires, for weapons of combat, or — as clearly in this case — for weapons of torture, punishment, and execution.” He looked down in disdain at the body. “Think about the care, the patience, and the risks taken by the killer, gentlemen. Even a retainer of a Samurai family would be skilled with every kind of knife. He could have made this quick and silent. Instead, he chose to use the stolen artifacts as the weapons of this man’s destruction. This was a performance of murder, a symphony of slaughter, make no mistake. And… think of how poetic that is.”

“Poetic?” I asked, aghast.

“Oh yes,” said Dupin, “and in its poetry the killer is revealed. Remember the words the dying man cried aloud.”

“You mean the name,” said the Prefect, “Anna Gata.”

“No, my dear friend, I do not, for I would doubt that Monsieur Thibodaux ever knew the name of the assassin sent to kill him. My guess is that he arranged a late meeting with what he thought would be a client, someone bringing a new and illegal piece to him that he could never receive during regular hours. The caller was almost certainly a woman.”

G. snapped his fingers. “The old Oriental woman Legrand encountered. Surely it can’t be she? These wounds are the work of a powerful hand.”

Dupin nodded. “And yet Thibodeaux would never feel quite safe meeting a Japanese man after hours, not with the likelihood of a Samurai spy hunting for a broker such as he. No, Thibodeaux expected to meet with a woman, but her name was never ‘Anna Gata.’”

“Then what?” I demanded.

“Thibodaux did not, with his last breath, name the killer, but cried out in surprise as he discovered the killer’s secret. In the extremis of the situation, Thibodaux realized that it was, after all his precautions, a man who assailed him… but a man dressed as a woman. And therein is the answer to his outcry. Not ‘Anna Gata,’ gentlemen, but onnagata. A Japanese word from the world of Kabuki theater — which we have all seen upon the stage even here in Paris. Like Shakespeare of old, Kabuki does not allow women to perform, and instead young men are chosen to play the female roles, and the word for such a role is onnagata. Our killer revealed that he was a man, and quite a lethal one, during the act of murder, but by then Thibodaux was doomed.”

The Prefect gaped at Dupin for a long moment, but he did not dare question my friend’s veracity or try to poke holes in the chain of his logic. Dupin seldom speaks unless he is sure, even when other men witness the same evidence and are far less certain.

Then G. bellowed for Legrand and his other gendarmes and bade them hurry to the train station to arrest anyone they met there. An old woman, an old man, or even someone dressed like a Buddhist monk, for a Kabuki actor could adopt any of a thousand roles and play them with surpassing conviction.

Dupin hooked his arm in mine and we went down the stairs and out into the cold, foggy night.

“Your knowledge is in itself remarkable,” I told him, “but it is in the way that you allow disparate facts from such vastly different closets of your mind to find their way together that continues to astound me.”

“It is the result of a practice of logical thought,” he said. “It is not a comfortable discipline, for it is very demanding and it can sour one to many aspects of ordinary social behavior. But… but… it has its advantages.”

I removed my pocket watch and looked at the time. “Oh dear,” I cried, “I doubt that the gendarmes will have time to intercept our suspect before she — or, I should say, he—boards the continental express.”

Dupin merely shrugged.

I shot him a look. “Surely this distresses you? A criminal— one who you alone have found out — is likely to slip away.”

He turned and looked at me with eyes that were as deep as wells and equally dark. “Are you, my friend, so inflexible in your views of justice that you view this man, this deadly actor, as nothing but a common criminal, one to be hunted, tried, jailed, and hanged?”

Before I could answer, he added, “Certainly the actor is an assassin, and surely he is operating on French soil without permission and in ways that contravene so many laws… but tell me and speak true from your heart — if you were he, would you consider yourself a criminal or an agent of justice? Has not the true criminal of this drama already been found, tried, and executed?”

I formed a dozen arguments against so radical a notion, but before I could barrage Dupin with any of them, he turned and began walking along the avenue. Within seconds the darkness and the fog had turned him into a specter and then he was gone entirely. I, on my part, was left standing there with his words ringing in my ears and no clear opinion painted on the walls of my heart.