The Stolen Letter (Summary)
The Stolen Letter is known as “The Purloined Letter”, is the third story in which detective C. Auguste Dupin stars, his character has already been introduced, and Edgar Allan Poe leaps right into the action. C. Auguste Dupin is discussing his closed cases with the narrator when they are interrupted by the arrival of the Paris Prefect of the Police, G. Unsurprisingly, the Prefect has a case for Dupin.
As the title of the story suggests, a letter has been stolen. The letter belongs to an unnamed female. The letter's contents are being used by Minister D to blackmail the woman.
The Prefect tells Dupin that he believes that the letter's contents are still a secret because it is being used to exploit the woman and not destroy the woman's reputation. He also believes that Minister D has the letter on his person because it is the only way to protect the letter and utilize it as blackmail.
Unfortunately, a thorough search of Minister D's hotel has turned up nothing. Prefect describes the letter, and Dupin commits both the letter's description and all the other pertinent information to memory.
The story skips ahead a month. The Prefect is still searching for the letter. He offers Dupin 50,000 francs (part of the reward money for the letter's return) if he can assist him. Dupin accepts the award money, then produces the letter, which he has already found.
Dupin explains to the narrator how he tracked down the letter. He says that the police underestimated Minister D because he writes poetry. Dupin visited Minister D in his hotel room. Instead of having hid the letter, Minister D left it out in the open. He did take some pains to disguise it, though. He wrote a different address on the opposite side of the letter. Dupin stole the letter, after swapping it out with a fake one.