The Murders in the Rue Morgue: Level C

📘 The Murders in the Rue Morgue is Poe's first detective story, introducing the master detective M. Dupin, who represents Poe's idea of the ideal mind, combining the rational and the intuitive, logic and imagination. As most of Poe's famous characters he lives withdrawn from life, in draped rooms lit by candles, cut apart from the real world in order to sharpen his senses and develop an almost mystical perception. The story is set in Paris where two isolated women have been brutally murdered. The crime seems insoluble to the Parisian police, but this locked-room mystery, the first of its kind in literature - is brilliantly solved by M. Dupin. Poe's stay at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island - where he had enlisted as a soldier - provides the setting of The Gold Bug. M. William Legrand, whose mental abilities are not unlike those of Dupin, discovers an old piece of parchment with a secret message which may enable him to trace the buried treasure of Captain Kidd.