Publisher's Synopsis
Poe's detective character C. Auguste Dupin and his assistant, the unnamed narrator, undertake the unsolved murder of Marie Rogêt in Paris. The body of Rogêt, a perfume shop employee, is found in the Seine, and the press takes a keen interest in the mystery. Dupin remarks that the newspapers "create a sensation ... [rather] than to further the cause of truth". Even so, he uses the newspaper reports to get into the mind of the murderer.Dupin rejects the popular theory blaming the murder on a gang of ruffians seen in the area around the time of Roget's disappearance. One of such a group, he reasons, would have certainly confessed to the crime due to fear of betrayal rather than a bothered conscience.Using the known facts in the case, Dupin further determines that a single murderer was involved. This person was probably a sailor, and dragged the victim by the cloth belt around her waist at first, then switched to a cloth around her neck, before dumping the body off a boat into the river. Finding the boat, Dupin suggests, will lead the police to the murderer.
