“Most crimes can be explained, he told me. A man becomes a killer in a fit of passion — he goes for his knife in a jealous rage, or beats or strangles a woman who repulsed his amorous attentions, or when driven past endurance by a nagging wife. Other killers are more calculating; they kill for revenge, or to remove an obstacle in their path. What reason could there be for a rational man to deliberately choose to murder strangers almost at random?
“I replied that some killers were insane, and it was fruitless to attempt to apply reason to the actions of a madman.
“Dupin replied that it made no sense to describe this killer as mad. The man was both clever and rational. He knew that what he did was wrong, but he killed for a purpose, although he understood that his purpose would be considered repulsive by most civilized beings, and if he was caught, he would pay for his crimes with his life. He was quite sane. He made a decision. He had no wish to die, but his desire to kill was so powerful, the reward so great, that he judged the risk of being caught was worth it.
“I stared at the great detective in astonishment, thinking he was joking, but he looked utterly serious. ‘Reward?’ I repeated. ‘Explain to me, sir, what possible reward could there be in killing a stranger?’
“Dupin gave me a cold, distant look as he replied: ‘Pleasure.’
“‘You expect me to believe Reclus killed purely for the pleasure — the, I should say, imaginary pleasure of it — and yet you say he was not mad?’ I said.
“‘He was not mad,’ argued Dupin. ‘He was a man of superior intellect, and quite peculiarly refined sensibilities, able to feel sensations that would be lost on most. He told me that the pleasure of taking a life was the greatest pleasure he had ever known — it was particularly keen when the victim was a young and beautiful woman, but any death was to be savored.’”
A faint sigh — a melancholy, expiring sigh — issued from the lips of the fair young medium and she wavered a little in her seat.
“I think it is time, we must not overtax her system,” said Mr. W—, moving toward his daughter and raising his arms as if anxious to perform the passes that would bring her out of her mesmerized state, but I blocked him.
“Not yet,” I said urgently. “Please — just give me a little longer!”
I looked around the stuffy room, hoping one of the other guests would support me, and realized that there would be no help forthcoming from them. The audience had grown bored with our incomprehensible conversation.
“Just a few more questions,” I said quickly. “Then I will translate — you see, he is about to reveal the identity of the French were-wolf!”
This caused a satisfactory stir of interest, so I put the question to Dr. De La Roche at once: “But what about the more recent murders? Did you ask Dupin to identify the killer?”
“Of course. He advised patience — all in good time, I think he said — and asked how I could be so certain the killer was a man and not an animal. Was it not true that, as he had read, each of the women’s throats revealed the unmistakable tooth-marks?”
“Indeed they did, and I may have chuckled a little as I explained that my closer examination, under a microscope, had convinced me that although the marks had been made by animal teeth, the wounds were not bites. There is a distinction, you see. After examining the pattern of the marks, I felt certain that the wounds had been inflicted by some implement, either artificially made, or the jawbone of some large, carnivorous animal, a wolf or a tiger, wielded by a human hand in such a way as to mimic the bite of an animal as it cut the throat.
“‘Yet it was not very well done if you were able to recognize its artificiality,’ said Monsieur Dupin, frowning.
“I assured him that it had fooled the police and would pass muster with most people, even other doctors, but that I had a great deal of experience with animal bites. Monsieur Dupin looked oddly reassured as he nodded his head. ‘You are particularly observant, and very thorough in your examinations,’ he said. ‘A paragon among men of medicine!’
“As I was modestly denying this, Monsieur Dupin reached inside his coat to reveal what he had hidden there. It was something like the curved blade of a sickle, but lined with rows of sharp teeth, some of them natural animal teeth, others manufactured from glass and steel. At first, I felt only wonder at the sight of it, for I had not yet comprehended why Monsieur Dupin had come to visit me at home, so early in the morning, and I did not realize that the emotion I should have felt was fear, until I saw my own blood spurting out over the white table cloth, and knew it was far too late.
“I tried to ask him why, but could barely manage to gurgle as the life seeped out of my body. Yet he understood me well enough, smiling that distant, cold, inhuman smile of his as he replied, ‘You may call it madness, but I do not. It is the greatest pleasure.’”
If it is true that the mesmerized can channel the voices of the dead, and if I truly spoke to the spirit of a murdered man, still I must ask: can the dead lie? Is his story true, or could it be some nightmare experienced by the soul in Limbo, no more to be believed than the mad visions that fill my own head every night?
There is no doubt in my mind that De La Roche met Dupin, for when I heard the altered voice of the medium describe his “distant, cold, inhuman smile,” I could see it myself, with my inward eye, recalling how Dupin, in the grip of his analytical passion, would become frigid and abstract, his expression vacantly staring, his voice rising to a higher tone as if (I sometimes fancied) he was possessed of a bi-part soul, his body inhabited in turn by one of two distinctly different personalities. But never did I for a moment imagine that one of those two selves might be evil incarnate; I always knew Dupin for a prodigy and a wonder, not a monster.
I broke my promise to the rest of the audience and did not satisfy their curiosity by translating the conversation I’d had with the dead French doctor. Instead, I pleaded an attack of the megrims, and staggered out of the house just as soon as young Miss W— was restored to her natural self. The fortunate girl retained no recollection whatsoever of anything that had transpired during her trance, and no one else could enlighten her on the subject of what the Frenchman had said.
I do not want to believe that my old friend has become a killer. But I sense no trickery, and can think of no reason why someone should wish to fool me, or to blacken the name of C. Auguste Dupin.
Perhaps the most terrible thing is that although I do not want to believe it, neither can I wholly disbelieve. Knowing him as I did, I can imagine how his own curiosity and reliance on rationality could have been his undoing. The lack of any reason for the series of murders in his last case always preyed upon his mind. However repugnant and absurd, the explanation given by Reclus for his own actions could not be dismissed. The idea of murder as a pleasure might have become a maggot in Dupin’s brain, eating away at him until he was finally driven to test the matter for himself.
Once having killed… But here my chain of reasoning breaks down, for I cannot believe that the man I knew, even at his most coldly analytical, could perform such a ghastly experiment. Surely he would not murder a helpless, harmless young woman simply to test a theory?
Even if he killed in self-defense, or to save someone else, killing someone who deserved to die… if, in so doing, he had tasted something of the intoxicating pleasure Reclus had promised, might he not have become addicted, driven to kill again?