Poe's Stories: The Murders in the Rue-Morgue Summary & Analysis

The story begins with a long description of the “analytical mind”. First, the narrator of "Rue-Morgue" describes how the analytical mind delights in untangling a problem as the athlete enjoys physical exertion. The way he uncovers the truth is so perfectly methodical that it often seems like a natural instinct. He goes on to explain that though mathematics is similar to the art of analysis, it is not pure calculation that he’s talking about.

Take chess and draughts. The chess player’s skill lies in the attention he gives the board, and because the movements of the pieces and the possible layout of the game are so numerous and changing, it is often the player that concentrates best that is victorious. Draughts on the other hand is won by the more inventive move, all pieces being equal and the possible moves not evident before the player. He wins by identifying himself with the opposite player and often can tell what moves are about to be made.

This is similar to whist. Whist is known for being a superior game for an analytical brain. Even the best chess player in the land may find that his talents at chess are only helpful when playing chess, but a good whist player will find that the skills that allow him to succeed at whist, allow him to solve many of life’s problems. The superior whist player, the analyst, is able to not only retain information and play by the book but infer hundreds of things from other places, the opponent himself, the exterior conditions, anything. It is this ability to observe beyond the game and be creative that defines the perfect player. He has an intuition for all the physical and emotional changes of the opposite player and therefore is able to tell what is a trick and what is genuine.

Being ingenious is not the same as being an analyst. An analyst can always be ingenious but an ingenue will sometimes not have the faculty for analysis. The two share a similar character, but creativity shows itself differently in each, as mere fancy or true imagination.

The narrator of "Rue-Morgue" tells us that this discussion will be relevant to the story to follow and now introduces us to Auguste Dupin, his friend, with whom he is spending time in Paris, a man of high class and family but who has lost a lot of his fortune in a series of events. Books are now his highest luxury. This is a love he shares with the narrator and their first meeting was at a library where they bonded over a special volume. The narrator is surprised at how well read Dupin is, and judges that his company during his stay in Paris will be very valuable. So the pair live together, and the romantic but “grotesque” house that they can afford with their combined fortunes seems to suit their mood.

The narrator of "Rue-Morgue" tells us that if you could observe their daily routines, you’d think the pair suffered from madness. They kept completely to themselves. Dupin especially was obsessed with night time, and soon, the narrator feels the same way, and even in the day, they recreate the darkness and atmosphere of the Parisien night, keeping their shutters closed. In this false night, they write and read, and then when real night came, they jaunt around town.

The narrator of "Rue-Morgue" comments that Dupin has a particular analytic ability and enjoys using it while they are out, observing the human specimens around them. He believes he can see right into a man’s soul. The narrator doesn’t want to be misunderstood, this isn’t a mystery story about Dupin’s character, he is just using it an example from their recent strolling to illustrate Dupin’s astuteness.

Both parties are deep in thought, when suddenly Dupin interrupts with a comment strangely matching the narrator’s, about a “little fellow”, who would do well in a sort of freak show. The narrator of "Rue-Morgue" tests him, and Dupin guesses absolutely correctly that the narrator was thinking about the figure of Chantilly. Dupin then explains how he did it. He says first that it was the fruit-seller they ran into earlier in the street that brought him to the name. The narrator doesn’t believe it, though he starts to remember the fruit-seller, who had nearly knocked him down behind a basket of apples.

Next, Dupin explains the series of events that lead him to think of Chantilly. The narrator of "Rue-Morgue" says of this trick that it is just as if he himself has retraced his steps and his thoughts. After the fruit-seller, the narrator had tripped on a flagstone and looked down. Dupin knew he was thinking about the stones, and then they reached a newly paved street and the narrator had said to himself “stereonomy” to describe the pattern. Dupin knew then, that the word stereonomy would connote the idea of atomies and theories of Epicurus, and the next logical step would be to think of the most recent space theorist, Dr. Nichol, and look up towards the constellation Orion.

Now for the final flourish, Dupin knows that the actor Chantilly recently got a review, in which the reviewer discusses his change of name from shoemaker to actor along with a Latin phrase that means “He has ruined the sound with the first letter”. Dupin knows that this refers to the change of Urion to Orion, and also knows that if the narrator of "Rue-Morgue" was to think about Orion, which he did by looking up to it, his mind would have taken him this route, to Chantilly’s stature.

Remember all this was just an example of Dupin’s skill. Now we skip to the evening in question, when they are absorbed by a report in the paper of two “extraordinary” murders of a mother and daughter at a house on the Rue Morgue. After some awful shrieking heard in the property, police and neighbors broke in and as they ascended the stairs to the fourth floor, heard some roughly spoken phrases and found complete disorder in the apartment, lengths of human hair lying bloody on the floor, two bags of money and some jewels on the floor. The mother was nowhere to be seen and the daughter was found lodged in the chimney by extreme force. A little later, the old woman’s body was found outside, with her throat cut so violently that her head was detached.

In the next day’s paper, the testimonies of various witnesses are described: some agree, such as that the old woman sometimes gave fortunes for a living, and that the pair had quite a bit of money saved, and that they kept very much to themselves and were hardly seen out. But most of the witnesses say slightly different things about the voices that were heard as they were approaching the scene. A policeman describes the shrieks as coming probably from two people, one rough, one much more shrill, and thought the former could have been French. Others believe they hear an Italian voice, others assume a foreign tongue, are unable to translate.

The testimonies paint a picture of the house as being very difficult to get access to. The young woman’s chamber was locked from the inside, and the windows locked too. Everybody is confused, including the police. There does not seem to be a single piece of evidence of the murderer. The follow-up article reports another search, but no further evidence found, and one man called Le Bon arrested but without much reason. Dupin seems very interested in the process of the investigation and asks the narrator for his thoughts, but the narrator can add nothing.

Dupin says that the crime cannot be judged on the inept way that the investigation has been carried out by the police. He says that the police operate with diligence and thoroughness, but when these qualities don’t suit the situation, then the police miss the point entirely. He compares it with Vidocq, a detective who often looked at things too closely and missed the bigger picture. Dupin says that by viewing a star in one’s peripheral vision, thereby letting its radiance affect you, a far truer picture of the star is gained.

Dupin suggests they enter into an investigation of their own, for amusement if nothing else, but also because Dupin knows the suspect Le Bon and owes him a favor. He gets permission from the Prefect of the police and they go directly to the Rue Morgue. Dupin pays careful attention to the environs of the house. They enter and go up to the chamber. Everything original to the crime scene is still in place. Dupin looks over everything, including the gruesome bodies. They examine the scene until nighttime, and then Dupin visited a newspaper headquarters. Afterwards, Dupin is silent until the next afternoon.

Dupin then asks the narrator of "Rue-Morgue" whether he noticed anything peculiar in the newspaper report. He emphasizes the word ‘peculiar’ in a way that somehow spooks the narrator. Dupin goes on to say that the paper has not presented the extremity, the unusualness of the murders. He believes that the murders seem impossible to solve to the police, because of the lack of motive and their extreme brutality. But these very factors could be used to the advantage of a detective – it is where the situation deviates from the ordinary, that gives reason a way to solve it, he claims. He advises looking at the unique aspects of the crime, rather than what appears before them.

Dupin tells the narrator of "Rue-Morgue" that he expects to be met by someone who is in part responsible for the crime. He says the man is probably largely innocent but he hopes the man will prove to be the key to the riddle. He gives the narrator a pistol to use should the meeting demand it. Next Dupin goes ahead and explains his reasoning.

First, the question of the voices heard. Dupin says that the voices couldn’t have been the women and the murders could not have been self-suicide because the old woman would never be strong enough to jam her daughter’s body up the chimney. Also, the voices heard were foreign, but none of the witnesses could confirm the origin of the shrill voice – only one thing is common in all the testimonies, that the voice was foreign to their own language. Having conveniently gathered statements from diverse nationalities, it seems that this voice must be quite exotic indeed, if it seems foreign to everyone. Dupin admits that an Asian or African accent has not been disproved but that adding up all the comments of the testimonies leads him to believe that the language of the “shrill” suspect is something beyond even the far reaches of the world in terms of its foreignness.

Dupin says that this discovery about the voices leads singularly to the suspicion he is now entertaining, but he won’t let on what that suspicion is just yet. He goes on to analyze the exits of the apartment. He knows that neither of them believe in the supernatural, so the material boundaries of the room must have been crossed in a material way. He goes through each means of entry and escape. First, both doors into the apartments were locked, and the chimneys are too narrow for something larger than a cat to pass through, so the only available option left are the windows.

Dupin says that they must not be deterred by how impossible this option looks. Each of the possible windows is locked and stopped with a nail. It seemed impossible to open them. Seeing these details, the police had abandoned the windows, but Dupin knows that one of them must open, and endeavors to find out some auto-locking device of the windows, since the criminal could not have fastened them from the inside, having escaped. He searches, and finds a spring mechanism that explains everything. The nail in the first window is intact and could not be replaced from the outside, so he knows the criminal must have escaped through the other window, where he indeed finds has a broken spring.

The next question is how the suspect got down from the window. He sees that there is a way that one could escape onto a lightning rod near the house, if the shutters were open, by climbing out onto the lattice structure – one could also enter this way. But Dupin is eager point out the extreme difficulty of this move. Not only has the suspect got an unintelligible language but also an astonishing physical ability. The narrator feels like he almost understands what Dupin is getting at, but the moment passes.

Dupin is now concerned with the interior of the apartment. Obviously, the women’s belongings are strewn and drawers looked to have been emptied of certain things, but Dupin is not so sure. We know that the women were reclusive and wouldn’t have need for expensive or many clothes. Also, money that the banker said the old woman had recently withdrawn has been left in the room. The police have looked to this withdrawal because it occurred so close to the time of the murders but it is a complete red herring. There is no motive in this case.

Now with all this is mind, Dupin draws the attention of the narrator of "Rue-Morgue" to the method of the crime, the extreme force of both the murders. He asks him to imagine the strength of one who can push a body into a chimney. And also, the human hair that was found at the scene, were found with clumps of blood and flesh that also imply that they were taken up with extreme force. He goes on to explain that what had looked on the body of the old woman like an injury from some kind of weapon was in fact sustained from her fall.

Dupin sums all these details up for the narrator of "Rue-Morgue" and asks him what he thinks now. The narrator can only imagine that the deed was committed by some kind of escaped madman. Dupin admits that his suggestion is not hugely off track, but even madmen have recognizable tones and phrases in their language. To top it off Dupin reveals a tuft of hair found in Madame Esplanaye’s clutches and the narrator can tell that it is not human hair. Dupin then shows the narrator a sketch of the hand mark around the old woman’s neck and the narrator knows that it is the print of no human-sized hand.

Dupin shows the narrator of "Rue-Morgue" an excerpt from a Cuvier text about the Ourang-Outang, whose described anatomy and strength match the crime perfectly. He goes on to the question of the voices. The Ourang-Outang certainly fits the description of the shrill, unintelligible voice, but there is one other, thought to have uttered gruff French phrases at the time of the neighbors' intrusion. Dupin decides that there must be a Frenchman involved, who perhaps tried to follow the ape but escaped when he saw the horror. So far, these things seem like profound, educated guesses, but if Dupin is correct, then the Frenchman will be looking for his missing creature. Dupin has put an ad in the paper, saying that the ape will be returned (to the Maltese sailor it belongs to) upon identification.

The narrator of "Rue-Morgue" wonders how Dupin knows already that the sailor is from a Maltese vessel. Again, Dupin has made a series of educated guesses, having found a ribbon on the lightning rod outside that he recognizes as being used by Maltese sailors and knotted in a Maltese fashion. He thinks that no harm can come of placing the ad – either the sailor will assume that the writer has made an error about the Maltese vessel or he will see himself described perfectly. And he will be sure to answer the ad, in order to protect his innocence.

They hear someone enter, and they ready the pistols. They hear the sailor come hesitantly up the stairs and knock on the door of the chamber. The man has a sailor’s appearance, muscular and hardy, and greets them in a French accent. Dupin pleasantly invites him in and compliments him on the species that has brought him here.

The sailor seems worried when Dupin asks how old the animal is. He says he can’t be sure. Dupin pretends to have stored the animal nearby and to be sorry to say goodbye to it, but the sailor, eager to get the animal back, says he is prepared to offer a handsome reward. Dupin chooses for his reward to know everything possible about the murders. He has begun pleasantly, but these words come as a threat, and he produces his pistol. The sailor is suitably terrified but Dupin calmly assures him that he trusts he is almost entirely innocent of the murders, but that he surely knows a great deal more than the police and it is his responsibility to tell all he knows – there is more sense in honesty than concealment.

The sailor tells his story, how he voyaged to Borneo, and with a shipmate, captured an Ourang-Outang, but the shipmate died and left him alone with the ape. With much care, he lodged it with him in Paris, but one night, after the sailor had been out drinking, he returned home to find the beast out of its cage and imitating his shaving routine. He tries to whip the Ourang-Outang, but this only frightens the animal and it escapes. A chase ensues for hours, until, very late, the sailor comes to the Madames’ apartment and sees just what Dupin foretold – the ape entered the room using the lightning rod. The sailor followed but got stuck on the rod and could only peer into the room at the catastrophe inside. He witnessed the whole event, each scream of the mother and daughter frightening and enraging the animal more, until it spotted its master and guiltily concealed the bodies, one in the fireplace and one out of the window.

The narrator of "Rue-Morgue" adds a few closing remarks. The sailor later recaptures the Ourang-Outang and sells it for a good price, and Le Bon is released from prison. The Prefect of the police knows he’s been beaten, but he’s obviously quite annoyed at Dupin’s skill. Dupin knows that the Prefect’s wisdom is shallow but that he is a “good creature”, and ends with a condescending quote about the Prefect’s main skill, “to deny what is, and to explain what is not.”