"That is to say, of being _destroyed_," said Dupin.

"True," I observed; "the paper is clearly, then, upon the premises. As
for its being upon the person of the Minister, we may consider that as
out of the question."

"Entirely," said the Prefect. "He has been twice waylaid, as if by
footpads, and his person rigidly searched under my own inspection."

"You might have spared yourself this trouble," said Dupin. "D----, I
presume, is not altogether a fool; and, if not, must have anticipated
these waylayings, as a matter of course."

"Not _altogether_ a fool," said G----; "but, then, he is a poet, which
I take to be only one remove from a fool."

"True," said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from his
meerschaum, "although I have been guilty of certain doggrel myself."

"Suppose you detail," said I, "the particulars of your search."

"Why, the fact is, we took our time, and we searched _everywhere_. I
have had long experience in these affairs. I took the entire building,
room by room, devoting the nights of a whole week to each. We
examined, first, the furniture of each apartment. We opened every
possible drawer; and I presume you know that, to a properly trained
police-agent, such a thing as a '_secret_' drawer is impossible. Any
man is a dolt who permits a 'secret' drawer to escape him in a search
of this kind. The thing is so plain. There is a certain amount of
bulk--of space--to be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we have
accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not escape us. After
the cabinets we took the chairs. The cushions we probed with the fine
long needles you have seen me employ. From the tables we removed the
tops."

"Why so?"

"Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged piece of
furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal an article;
then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity,
and the top replaced. The bottoms and tops of bedposts are employed in
the same way."

"But could not the cavity be detected by sounding?" I asked.

"By no means, if, when the article is deposited, a sufficient wadding
of cotton be placed around it. Besides, in our case, we were obliged
to proceed without noise."

"But you could not have removed--you could not have taken to pieces
_all_ articles of furniture in which it would have been possible to
make a deposit in the manner you mention. A letter may be compressed
into a thin spiral roll, not differin