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The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe: Full Plot Summary | Short Story
The Purloined Letter
ABOUT THE STORY
The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe
This detective story "The Purloined Letter" was written by Edgar Allan Poe. It was written in 1844 and published in the literary annual "The Gift for 1845".
The story is mainly about the necessity of finding an important stolen letter and hand over to its rightful owner before it is too late. The investigator C. Auguste Dupin finds the letter using his proper intellect.
The main theme of the story is the concept of deception vs truth.
FULL PLOT SUMMARY
The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe
When the story starts, we find an unnamed narrator sitting quietly along with his friend C. Auguste Dupin in a small library room in Paris. The narrator is the person who also narrates the story of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." The narrator is pondering the murders at the Rue Mortuary, which Dupin solved in that story. A bit later, Monsieur G—— arrives there. He is the prefect of the Paris police. He decides to consult about a case with Dupin again. The prefect talks about a case that seems too easy: someone has taken a letter from the royal apartments. The police know very well who has taken it: Minister D——, a very important government person.
The prefect states that a young lady had that particular letter. He also informs him that the letter has secrets that could harm even a powerful person. When the woman started reading that important letter, the man entered the royal apartments. The letter was concerned with that man. The woman acted quite carefully so that the man didn't suspect anything. She left the letter quite cleverly on a nearby table. Next, the evil Minister D—— came in. He noted what was written on the letter. He quickly got the idea of the seriousness of the letter. He quickly produced a fake letter of his own that looked similar to the original letter. He placed his letter next to hers. Later, he started talking about things happening in Paris. While he was leaving the place, he purposely swapped her letter with his own. Now, the prefect says that Minister D—— has power over the lady. He has her letter.
Dupin asks the prefect if the police checked the minister’s residence or not. He adds that the letter should be there because it's important to have it nearby in his apartment. The prefect informs Dupin that they searched a lot there but didn't find the letter. He also explains how they did their task of searching. According to him, they inspected the minister's place very carefully. They even checked the body of the minister, but they were unable to find the letter. The prefect mentions that he really wants to keep looking for the letter because there's a big reward for finding the important letter. After hearing from him, Dupin asks for a description of the letter. He suggests to the police that they should continue their search again.
A month later, the prefect visits Dupin again. At this time, Dupin and the narrator are sitting together. The prefect admits that though the reward has been increased, he still can't find the letter. He also tells Dupin that he can offer 50,000 francs to anyone who can get the letter for him. Dupin asks the prefect to write a check for that amount right away. As Dupin gets the check from him, he hands him the letter. The prefect hurries off to give it back to its owner, and Dupin explains how he got the letter.
Dupin says the police are really good at investigating things according to their own principles. He explains this by talking about a young boy playing a game called "even and odd." In the game, players have to guess if the number of things held by another player is even or odd. If the player guesses correctly, he will get one of the toys. If he guesses wrong, he has to lose one of his own toys. Dupin says that there's a boy who's good at this game. His guesses are based on the knowledge of his opponent.
When the boy is in difficulty or unsure, he imitates the face of the other player. He tries to know what he is thinking and feeling. This knowledge helps him most of the time. His guesses make him correct a lot. Dupin argues that the Paris police don't use this strategy, so they couldn't find the letter. They only search for the letter in places where they would hide it themselves.
According to Dupin, Minister D—— is smart and wouldn't hide the letter in the nooks and crannies of his residence, where the police first investigate. He tells the narrator about a puzzle game where one player finds a name on a map and asks the other player to find it too. Dupin says amateurs pick names with small letters. But the trickiest picks are the big ones that stretch broadly across the map because they're too obvious.
Keeping this game plan in mind, Dupin recounts his visit to the minister’s residence. He surveys the minister’s residence. There, he notices some visiting cards hanging from the mantelpiece. There's also a letter among them. It looks different from what the prefect described earlier. But Dupin notices a fold on it. He quickly gets the idea that the letter is the same one that has been stolen. To have an excuse to return to the apartments, he intentionally leaves his snuffbox there. When he returns to get his snuffbox the next morning, he also arranges for some commotion outside the window while he's inside the apartment.
When the Minister hears the noise out the window, he rushes to the window to investigate. Dupin quickly replaces the stolen letter with a fake one. He explains the reason why he left another letter there. He guesses that the minister will make a mistake by using the fake letter, which he still thinks is real. Dupin recalls how the minister once wronged him in Vienna. He vows not to forget it. In the fake letter, Dupin writes a French poem that means, "So baneful a scheme, if not worthy of Atreus, is worthy of Thyestes.”
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