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

  Print edition ISBN: 9781781161753

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781781161760

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: July 2013

  INTRODUCTION: THE FIRST DETECTIVE

  copyright © Paul Kane & Charles Prepolec 2013.

  THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE

  by Edgar Allan Poe 1841—Originally published in Graham’s Magazine, 1841.

  THE SONS OF TAMMANY copyright © Mike Carey 2013.

  THE UNFATHOMED DARKNESS copyright © Simon Clark 2013.

  THE WEIGHT OF A DEAD MAN copyright © Weston Ochse & Yvonne Navarro 2013.

  THE VANISHING ASSASSIN copyright © Jonathan Maberry Productions LLC 2013.

  THE GRUESOME AFFAIR OF THE ELECTRIC BLUE LIGHTNING

  copyright © Joe R. Lansdale 2013.

  FROM DARKNESS, EMERGED, RETURNED copyright © Elizabeth Massie 2013.

  AFTER THE END copyright © Lisa Tuttle 2013.

  THE PURLOINED FACE copyright © Stephen Volk 2013.

  NEW MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE copyright © Clive Barker 1984—

  Originally published in Clive Barker’s Books of Blood Volume Two.

  Reprinted with permission of the author.

  The Editors © Paul Kane & Charles Prepolec 2013.

  Acknowledgements

  Special thanks to Cath Trechman, Jo Boylett, and all the team at Titan—and, of course, all the contributors. But especially to Mr. Poe, our inspiration.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION: THE FIRST DETECTIVE

  by PAUL KANE & CHARLES PREPOLEC

  THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE

  by EDGAR ALLAN POE

  THE SONS OF TAMMANY

  by MIKE CAREY

  THE UNFATHOMED DARKNESS

  by SIMON CLARK

  THE WEIGHT OF A DEAD MAN

  by WESTON OCHSE & YVONNE NAVARRO

  THE VANISHING ASSASSIN

  by JONATHAN MABERRY

  THE GRUESOME AFFAIR OF THE ELECTRIC BLUE LIGHTNING

  by JOE R. LANSDALE

  FROM DARKNESS, EMERGED, RETURNED

  by ELIZABETH MASSIE

  AFTER THE END

  Aby LISA TUTTLE

  THE PURLOINED FACE

  BY STEPHEN VOLK

  NEW MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE

  BY CLIVE BARKER

  INTRODUCTION

  THE FIRST DETECTIVE

  Given the popularity and fame of Sherlock Holmes, many might be forgiven for thinking that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s sleuth was the first fictional detective to make his mark. However, long before Holmes and Watson were tackling Moriarty or chasing a spectral hound across Dartmoor, Edgar Allan Poe’s creation C. Auguste Dupin was solving cases on the gritty streets of his native Paris. In fact, Poe wrote his stories before the word “detective” was even coined, laying the foundations for the mystery stories that followed, and single-handedly defining the dominant tropes of the detective genre that are still very much in evidence today.

  Poe cleverly established the concept of the eccentric genius who relies on deductive reasoning, the sidekick/narrator who serves as the reader’s proxy, and shifted focus from the puzzle to how it is unraveled. Indeed, the impact of Poe’s Dupin cannot be underestimated and the influence is readily apparent in almost every amateur sleuth from the Golden Age of Christie (Hercule Poirot), Allingham (Albert Campion), and Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey), right through to the latest slew of television detectives on shows such as Castle and The Mentalist, as well as the reinvented Sherlock Holmes in both the BBC’s Sherlock and CBS’s Elementary.

  Dupin, and his nameless narrator, first appeared in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841)—published in Graham’s Magazine and reprinted in this anthology—and then featured in two more stories: “The Mystery of Marie Roget” (first published in Snowden’s Ladies’ Companion in three installments between November 1842 and February 1843) and “The Purloined Letter” (which was originally included in the literary annual The Gift for 1845 in 1844). Sadly, in spite of the impact Dupin would have on the world of the fictional crime-buster, between then and now he has become somewhat overlooked by the general readership.

  A series of seven new short stories featuring Dupin were written by Michael Harrison for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in the 1960s and collected as The Exploits of the Chevalier Dupin (1968), with a further five stories added to the later UK edition. These capture the methodology of Dupin, but lack many of Poe’s more outré elements; Poe having been known for his horror and fantasy tales, as well. Dupin also cropped up in publications such as The Murder of Edgar Allan Poe (1997), with author George Egon Hatvary calling on him as a narrator, Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999), and bizarrely, Edgar Allan Poe on Mars (2007) by Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier.

  His cinematic existence, compared with that of Holmes, also falls a little short. He featured in movies such as Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) and The Mystery of Marie Roget (1942)— both Universal productions, starring Leon Ames then Patric Knowles as Dupin (Dr. Paul Dupin in the latter, a character who would again turn up as a professor in 1954’s Phantom of the Rue Morgue, played by Steve Forrest). And though “...Rue Morgue” itself was adapted quite a number of times, the results often bore little resemblance to the original story: Gordon Hessler’s 1971 film, for example, starring Herbert Lom. Either that, or it distorted the character of Dupin so completely as to be nearly unrecognizable. Closest to the mark might be George C. Scott’s portrayal of the detective, alongside Rebecca De Mornay and Ian McShane, in the 1986 TV version.

  In putting together an anthology celebrating Dupin we wanted to redress the balance a bit: simultaneously paying homage to Poe’s creation and adding to the canon in a way we hope the author might have been proud of. We’ve gathered together a talented and diverse group of writers for this project, all giving Dupin their personal and unique interpretation. Some have set their tales around the same time as his previous stories, while others have explored later incarnations and descendants. Some are straight crime, while others blend mystery with horror or fantasy. All are fascinating and thoroughly entertaining, we can assure you.

  So, without further ado, we encourage you to rekindle your love for Dupin, and are delighted to introduce him to others who may not know him so well. You’re in for a treat, either way.

  Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the grand original, the master of ratiocination, the first detective: the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin!

 
Paul Kane & Charles Prepolec

  January 2013

  THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE

  By

  EDGAR ALLAN POE

  What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling questions are not beyond all conjecture.

  SIR THOMAS BROWNE, URN-BURIAL

  The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his talents into play. He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the ordinary apprehension preternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air of intuition. The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde operations, has been called, as if par excellence, analysis. Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyze. A chess-player, for example, does the one without effort at the other. It follows that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is greatly misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar narrative by observations very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for an instant, an oversight is committed, resulting in injury or defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold but involute, the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers. In draughts, on the contrary, where the moves are unique and have but little variation, the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention being left comparatively unemployed, what advantages are obtained by either party are obtained by superior acumen. To be less abstract—Let us suppose a game of draughts where the pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory can be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some recherché movement, the result of some strong exertion of the intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometimes indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.

  Whist has long been noted for its influence upon what is termed the calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect have been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in it, while eschewing chess as frivolous. Beyond doubt there is nothing of a similar nature so greatly tasking the faculty of analysis. The best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all these more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind. When I say proficiency, I mean that perfection in the game which includes a comprehension of all the sources whence legitimate advantage may be derived. These are not only manifold, but multiform, and lie frequently among recesses of thought altogether inaccessible to the ordinary understanding. To observe attentively is to remember distinctly; and, so far, the concentrative chess-player will do very well at whist; while the rules of Hoyle (themselves based upon the mere mechanism of the game) are sufficiently and generally comprehensible. Thus to have a retentive memory, and to proceed by “the book,” are points commonly regarded as the sum total of good playing. But it is in matters beyond the limits of mere rule that the skill of the analyst is evinced. He makes, in silence, a host of observations and inferences. So, perhaps, do his companions; and the difference in the extent of the information obtained, lies not so much in the validity of the inference as in the quality of the observation. The necessary knowledge is that of what to observe. Our player confines himself not at all; nor, because the game is the object, does he reject deductions from things external to the game. He examines the countenance of his partner, comparing it carefully with that of each of his opponents. He considers the mode of assorting the cards in each hand; often counting trump by trump, and honor by honor, through the glances bestowed by their holders upon each. He notes every variation of face as the play progresses, gathering a fund of thought from the differences in the expression of certainty, of surprise, of triumph, or chagrin. From the manner of gathering up a trick he judges whether the person taking it can make another in the suit. He recognizes what is played through feint, by the air with which it is thrown upon the table. A casual or inadvertent word; the accidental dropping or turning of a card, with the accompanying anxiety or carelessness in regard to its concealment; the counting of the tricks, with the order of their arrangement; embarrassment, hesitation, eagerness or trepidation—all afford, to his apparently intuitive perception, indications of the true state of affairs. The first two or three rounds having been played, he is in full possession of the contents of each hand, and thenceforward puts down his cards with as absolute a precision of purpose as if the rest of the party had turned outward the faces of their own.

  The analytical power should not be confounded with simple ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis. The constructive or combining power, by which ingenuity is usually manifested, and which the phrenologists (I believe erroneously) have assigned a separate organ, supposing it a primitive faculty, has been so frequently seen in those whose intellect bordered otherwise upon idiocy, as to have attracted general observation among writers on morals. Between ingenuity and the analytic ability there exists a difference far greater, indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but of a character very strictly analogous. It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

  The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in the light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.

  Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of 18—, I there became acquainted with a Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin. This young gentleman was of an excellent—indeed of an illustrious family, but, by a variety of untoward events, had been reduced to such poverty that the energy of his character succumbed beneath it, and he ceased to bestir himself in the world, or to care for the retrieval of his fortunes. By courtesy of his creditors, there still remained in his possession a small remnant of his patrimony; and, upon the income arising from this, he managed, by means of a rigorous economy, to procure the necessaries of life, without troubling himself about its superfluities. Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries, and in Paris these are easily obtained.

  Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue Montmartre, where the accident of our both being in search of the same very rare and very remarkable volume, brought us into closer communion. We saw each other again and again. I was deeply interested in the little family history which he detailed to me with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges whenever mere self is the theme. I was astonished, too, at the vast extent of his reading; and, above all, I felt my soul enkindled within me by the wild fervor, and the vivid freshness of his imagination. Seeking in Paris the objects I then sought, I felt that the society of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price; and th
is feeling I frankly confided to him. It was at length arranged that we should live together during my stay in the city; and as my worldly circumstances were somewhat less embarrassed than his own, I was permitted to be at the expense of renting, and furnishing in a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of our common temper, a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long deserted through superstitions into which we did not inquire, and tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate portion of the Faubourg St. Germain.

  Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the world, we should have been regarded as madmen—although, perhaps, as madmen of a harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no visitors. Indeed the locality of our retirement had been carefully kept a secret from my own former associates; and it had been many years since Dupin had ceased to know or be known in Paris. We existed within ourselves alone.

  It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call it?) to be enamored of the night for her own sake; and into this bizarrerie, as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving myself up to his wild whims with a perfect abandon. The sable divinity would not herself dwell with us always; but we could counterfeit her presence. At the first dawn of the morning we closed all the massy shutters of our old building; lighted a couple of tapers which, strongly perfumed, threw out only the ghastliest and feeblest of rays. By the aid of these we then busied our souls in dreams—reading, writing, or conversing, until warned by the clock of the advent of the true Darkness. Then we sallied forth into the streets, arm and arm, continuing the topics of the day, or roaming far and wide until a late hour, seeking, amid the wild lights and shadows of the populous city, that infinity of mental excitement which quiet observation can afford.

  At such times I could not help remarking and admiring (although from his rich ideality I had been prepared to expect it) a peculiar analytic ability in Dupin. He seemed, too, to take an eager delight in its exercise—if not exactly in its display—and did not hesitate to confess the pleasure thus derived. He boasted to me, with a low chuckling laugh, that most men, in respect to himself, wore windows in their bosoms, and was wont to follow up such assertions by direct and very startling proofs of his intimate knowledge of my own. His manner at these moments was frigid and abstract; his eyes were vacant in expression; while his voice, usually a rich tenor, rose into a treble which would have sounded petulantly but for the deliberateness and entire distinctness of the enunciation. Observing him in these moods, I often dwelt meditatively upon the old philosophy of the Bi-Part Soul, and amused myself with the fancy of a double Dupin—the creative and the resolvent.