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on the morning of Monday the twenty-third of June, and which was
removed from the barge-office, without the cognizance of the officer
in attendance, and without the rudder, at some period prior to the
discovery of the corpse. With a proper caution and perseverance we shall
infallibly trace this boat; for not only can the bargeman who picked
it up identify it, but the rudder is at hand. The rudder of a sail-boat
would not have been abandoned, without inquiry, by one altogether at
ease in heart. And here let me pause to insinuate a question. There was
no advertisement of the picking up of this boat. It was silently
taken to the barge-office, and as silently removed. But its owner or
employer--how happened he, at so early a period as Tuesday morning, to
be informed, without the agency of advertisement, of the locality of
the boat taken up on Monday, unless we imagine some connexion with the
navy--some personal permanent connexion leading to cognizance of its
minute in interests--its petty local news?
"
In speaking of the lonely assassin dragging his burden to the shore,
I have already suggested the probability of his availing himself of a
boat. Now we are to understand that Marie Rogêt was precipitated from a
boat. This would naturally have been the case. The corpse could not have
been trusted to the shallow waters of the shore. The peculiar marks on
the back and shoulders of the victim tell of the bottom ribs of a boat.
That the body was found without weight is also corroborative of the
idea. If thrown from the shore a weight would have been attached. We can
only account for its absence by supposing the murderer to have neglected
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