Editing The Purloined Letter (section)

==Plot summary==
The unnamed narrator is with the famous Parisian amateur detective [[C. Auguste Dupin]] when they are joined by G—, prefect of the Paris police. G— brings to Dupin's attention the theft from the queen's royal boudoir of a letter addressed to her. The thief is the unscrupulous Minister D—, who switched the letter for one of no importance during a visit with the queen and who has since been using its contents to [[blackmail]] her. Dupin agrees with two conclusions formed by G—: that the letter has not yet been made public, since doing so would lead to certain circumstances that have not yet occurred; and that D— must have it close at hand, ready to disclose at a moment's notice.

The police have thoroughly searched D—'s home (referred to as a "hotel" in keeping with Parisian word usage of the era) and person for the letter, including an exhaustive examination of the furniture, walls, and carpeting for any concealed hiding places, but have found nothing. Dupin suggests that G— and his men repeat their search and requests a description of the letter, which G— provides. A month later, the police still have nothing to show for their efforts and a frustrated G— declares that he would pay 50,000 francs to anyone who can help find the letter. Dupin tells G— to write him a check for that amount; once he has done so, Dupin produces the letter from a writing-desk and an overjoyed G— races away to return it to the queen.

[[File:The Purloined Letter.jpg|thumb|left|"The letter stolen again" illustration by Frédéric-Théodore Lix, c. 1864]]
Dupin then explains to the narrator that the police did not take into account the psychology of their adversary in executing their search, drawing a parallel with a schoolboy he once knew who exploited his classmates' methods of thinking in order to win all their marbles at the game of [[odds and evens (hand game)|odds and evens]]. The police had assumed that since the letter was so politically sensitive, D— would take great pains to conceal it; however, Dupin conjectured that it would instead be hidden in plain sight. He contrived to visit D— at his home, disguising his eyes behind green spectacles in order to covertly survey the rooms. Hanging near the mantelpiece was a cheap card-rack with a dirty, half-torn letter in one of its slots. Dupin determined that this was the missing letter, which D— had folded inside-out, re-addressed and sealed, and damaged in order to hide its nature. He left his snuffbox behind upon departing, as an excuse to return the next day. Shortly after this second arrival, a disturbance occurred in the street outside, arranged in advance with a paid confederate. While D— was distracted, Dupin took the letter and replaced it with a duplicate he had prepared.

Dupin chose not to attempt to seize the letter openly for fear that D— would have had him killed. As he both supports the queen politically and bears an old grudge against D—, he hopes that D— will try to use the duplicate in his blackmail scheme and thus bring about his own downfall. Instead of insulting D— by leaving it blank, Dupin had written a quotation from [[Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon]]'s play ''Atrée et Thyeste'' that implies he took the original: ''Un dessein si funeste, / S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, est digne de Thyeste'' ("If such a sinister design is not worthy of [[Atreus]], it is worthy of [[Thyestes]]").