Edgar Allan Poe's
|
, Howard Haycraft writes,
"This longest of Poe's three major excursions into detective literature is,
unhappily, the least deserving of detailed attention. It might be better called
an essay than a story. As an essay, it is an able if tedious exercise in
reasoning. As a story, it scarcely exists. It has no life-blood. The characters
neither move nor speak. They are present only through second-hand newspaper
accounts.... Only a professional student of analytics or an inveterate devotee
of criminology can read it with any degree of unfeigned interest."| "All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into the water immediately after death by violence, require from six to ten days for decomposition to take place to bring them to the top of the water. Even where a cannon is fired over a corpse, and it rises before at least five or six days' immersion, it sinks again, if let alone. Now, we ask, what was there in this cave to cause a departure from the ordinary course of nature?" . . . |
Dupin's analysis is much more scientific. He tells his narrator:
| "...we can easily test by it the assertions of
L'Etoile. 'All experience shows,'
says this paper, 'that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into the
water immediately after death by violence, require from six to ten
days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to the
top of the water. Even when a cannon is fired over a corpse, and it
rises before at least five or six days' immersion, it sinks again if
let alone.'
"The whole of this paragraph must now appear a tissue of inconsequence and incoherence. All experience does not show that 'drowned bodies' require from six to ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to the surface. Both science and experience show that the period of their rising is, and necessarily must be, indeterminate. If, moreover, a body has risen to the surface through firing of cannon, it will not 'sink again if let alone,' until decomposition has so far progressed as to permit the escape of the generated gas. But I wish to call your attention to the distinction which is made between 'drowned bodies,' and 'bodies thrown into the water immediately after death by violence.' Although the writer admits the distinction, he yet includes them all in the same category. I have shown how it is that the body of a drowning man becomes specifically heavier than its bulk of water, and that he would not sink at all, except for the struggles by which he elevates his arms above the surface, and his gasps for breath while beneath the surface - gasps which supply by water the place of the original air in the lungs. But these struggles and these gasps would not occur in the body 'thrown into the water immediately after death by violence.' Thus, in the latter instance, the body, as a general rule, would not sink at all - a fact of which L'Etoile is evidently ignorant. When decomposition had proceeded to a very great extent - when the flesh had in a great measure left the bones - then, indeed, but not till then, should we lose sight of the corpse. "And now what are we to make of the argument, that the body found could not be that of Marie Rogêt, because, three days only having elapsed, this body was found floating? If drowned, being a woman, she might never have sunk; or having sunk, might have reappeared in twenty-four hours, or less. But no one supposes her to have been drowned; and, dying before being thrown into the river, she might have been found floating at any period afterwards whatever. " 'But,' says L'Etoile, 'if the body had been kept in its mangled state on shore until Tuesday night, some trace would be found on shore of the murderers.' Here it is at first difficult to perceive the intention of the reasoner. He means to anticipate what he imagines would be an objection to his theory - viz: that the body was kept on shore two days, suffering rapid decomposition - more rapid than if immersed in water. He supposes that, had this been the case, it might have appeared at the surface on the Wednesday, and thinks that only under such circumstances it could so have appeared. He is accordingly in haste to show that it was not kept on shore; for, if so, 'some trace would be found on shore of the murderers.' I presume you smile at the sequitur. You cannot be made to see how the mere duration of the corpse on the shore could operate to multiply traces of the assassins. Nor can I. " 'And furthermore it is exceedingly improbable,' continues our journal, 'that any villains who had committed such a murder as is here supposed, would have thrown the body in without weight to sink it, when such a precaution could have so easily been taken.' Observe, here, the laughable confusion of thought! No one - not even L'Etoile - disputes the murder committed on the body found. The marks of violence are too obvious. It is our reasoner's object merely to show that this body is not Marie's. He wishes to prove that Marie is not assassinated - not that the corpse was not. Yet his observation proves only the latter point. Here is a corpse without weight attached. Murderers, casting it in, would not have failed to attach a weight. Therefore it was not thrown in by murderers. This is all which is proved, if any thing is. The question of identity is not even approached, and L'Etoile has been at great pains merely to gainsay now what it has admitted only a moment before. 'We are perfectly convinced,' it says, 'that the body found was that of a murdered female.' " |
Mr. Walsh reveals that Poe's "The Mystery of Marie Roget" was to be published in three installments. The first two installments were published, but then the police announced that they solved the case. It appears that Poe was on to something but that his conclusion was at variance with the solution the police arrived at.
Walsh tells us that Poe suppressed the final installment, which delayed its appearing in print for another month. But it was already set in type, and Poe evidently made a few minor changes to align his solution with that announced by the police. (Mr. Walsh includes Poe's entire story with notes and annotations indicating precisely where the textual changes were made.)
After Poe died (in 1845), the story was collected along with others and published in Tales of Edgar Allan Poe. A concluding footnote made the followng claim:
| Upon the original publication of "Marie Roget," the foot-notes now appended were considered unnecessary; but the lapse of several years since the tragedy upon which the tale is based, renders it expedient to give them, and also to say a few words in explanation of the general design. A young girl, Mary Cecilia Rogers, was murdered in the vicinity of New York; and, although her death occasioned an intense and long-enduring excitement, the mystery attending it had remained unsolved at the period when the present paper was written and published (November, 1842). Herein, under pretence of relating the fate of a Parisian grisette, the author has followed in minute detail, the essential, while merely paralleling the inessential facts of the real murder of Mary Rogers. Thus all argument founded upon the fiction is applicable to the truth: and the investigation of the truth was the object. The "Mystery of Marie Roget" was composed at a distance from the scene of the atrocity, and with no other means of investigation than the newspapers afforded. Thus much escaped the writer of which he could have availed himself had he been upon the spot, and visited the localities. It may not be improper to record, nevertheless, that the confessions of two persons, (one of them the Madame Deluc of the narrative) made, at different periods, long subsequent to the publication, confirmed, in full, not only the general conclusion, but absolutely all the chief hypothetical details by which that conclusion was attained. |
Haycraft says the murder was never solved, contrary to popular misconception. But Walsh disputes this.
Haycraft categorizes "The Mystery of Marie Roget" as a "mental" detective story because there is no story per se, no development of plot, and no action. It is all pure analysis of the newspaper accounts.
It is, however, a steppingstone to the next stage in the development of the detective, crime, and murder mystery genre.
In itself, in spite of its lack of luster and tediousness it is, somewhat oxymoronically, brilliant. It has influenced writers from Arthur Conan Doyle right up to television programs of today (such as Law and Order, which often relies on actual crimes in the news for various plots!). (Sherlock Holmes's brother Mycroft, who appeared in "The Greek Interpreter," and "The Bruce-Partington Plans," was an armchair detective who seldom left his chair in the Diogenes Club. When Mycroft did so, it was solely upon occasions of momentous import. Baroness Orczy, creator of "The Scarlet Pimpernel," also created her armchair detective, known as "The Old Man in the Corner" -- you can read one of these ("The Millionaire in the Dock") for free in the Reading Room.
Where would we be today without Poe's contribution? Yes, I know that some of you are likely to say that sooner or later someone would do it. This is undoubtedly so; but it is, after all, Edgar Allan Poe who did explore this new direction. Not content to simply repeat his past success, he pushed forward into new territory. That he conceived this idea, in the first place, and that he didn't stop there but continued even further to create the perfectly balanced story (with "The Purloined Letter") is remarkable indeed.
