D-- rushed to
a casement, threw it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I
stepped to the card-rack, took the letter, put it in my pocket, and
replaced it by a fac-simile, (so far as regards externals,) which I
had carefully prepared at my lodgings; imitating the D-- cipher, very
readily, by means of a seal formed of bread.
"The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the
frantic behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd
of women and children. It proved, however, to have been without
ball, and the fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a
drunkard. When he had gone, D-came from the window, whither I had
followed him immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon
afterwards I bade him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in
my own pay.
"But what purpose had you," I asked, in replacing the letter by
a fac-simile? Would it not have been better, at the first visit, to
have seized it openly, and departed?"
"D--," replied Dupin, "is a desperate man, and a man of nerve. His
hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests. Had
I made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never have left the
Ministerial presence alive. The good people of Paris might have
heard of me no more.
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