It proved, however, to have been without ball, and
the fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When
he had gone, D---- came from the window, whither I had followed him
immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon afterwards I bade
him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay."
"But what purpose had you," I asked, "in replacing the letter by a
facsimile? Would it not have been better, at the first visit, to have
seized it openly, and departed?"
"D----," replied Dupin, "is a desperate man, and a man of nerve. His
Hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests. Had I
made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never have left the
Ministerial presence alive. The good 30 people of Paris might have
heard of me no more. But I had an object apart from these
considerations. You know my political prepossessions. In this matter,
I act as a partisan of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the
Minister has had her in his power. She has now him in hers--since,
being unaware that the letter is not in his possession, he will
proceed with his exactions as if it was. Thus will he inevitably
commit himself, at once, to his political destruction. His downfall,
too, will not be more precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to
talk about the _facilis descensus Averni_; but in all kinds of
climbing, as Catalani said of singing, it is far more easy to get up
than to come down.
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