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regard to what I both heard and saw so long ago.
Upon the winding up of the tragedy involved in the deaths of Madame
L'Espanaye and her daughter, the Chevalier dismissed the affair at once
from his attention, and relapsed into his old habits of moody reverie.
Prone, at all times, to abstraction, I readily fell in with his humor;
and, continuing to occupy our chambers in the Faubourg Saint Germain, we
gave the Future to the winds, and slumbered tranquilly in the Present,
weaving the dull world around us into dreams.
But these dreams were not altogether uninterrupted. It may readily be
supposed that the part played by my friend, in the drama at the Rue
Morgue, had not failed of its impression upon the fancies of the
Parisian police. With its emissaries, the name of Dupin had grown into a
household word. The simple character of those inductions by which he
had disentangled the mystery never having been explained even to the
Prefect, or to any other individual than myself, of course it is not
surprising that the affair was regarded as little less than miraculous,
or that the Chevalier's analytical abilities acquired for him the
credit of intuition. His frankness would have led him to disabuse every
inquirer of such prejudice; but his indolent humor forbade all farther
agitation of a topic whose interest to himself had long ceased. It thus
happened that he found himself the cynosure of the political eyes; and
the cases were not few in which attempt was made to engage his services
at the Prefecture. One of the most remarkable instances was that of the
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