The compliment my friend rebutted as best he could, but the proposition he accepted at once, although its advantages were altogether provisional.  This point being settled, the Prefect broke forth at once into explanations of his own views, interspersing them with long comments upon the evidence; of which latter we were not yet in possession.  He discoursed much, and beyond doubt, learnedly; while I hazarded an occasional suggestion as the night wore drowsily away.  Dupin, sitting steadily in his accustomed arm-chair, was the embodiment of respectful attention.  He wore spectacles, during the whole interview; and an occasional signal glance beneath their green glasses, sufficed to convince me that he slept not the less soundly, because silently, throughout the seven or eight leaden-footed hours which immediately preceded the departure of the Prefect.

In the morning, I procured, at the Prefecture, a full report of all the evidence elicited, and, at the various newspaper offices, a copy of every paper in which, from first to last, had been published any decisive information in regard to this sad affair.  Freed from all that was positively disproved, this mass of information stood thus: 

Marie Rogêt left the residence of her mother, in the Rue Pavée St. Andrée, about nine o’clock in the morning of Sunday June the twenty-second, 18—.  In going out, she gave notice to a Monsieur Jacques St. Eustache, {*7} and to him only, of her intent intention to spend the day with an aunt who resided in the Rue des Drômes.  The Rue des Drômes is a short and narrow but populous thoroughfare, not far from the banks of the river, and at a distance of some two miles, in the most direct course possible, from the pension of Madame Rogêt.  St. Eustache was the accepted suitor of Marie, and lodged, as well as took his meals, at the pension.  He was to have gone for his betrothed at dusk, and to have escorted her home.  In the afternoon, however, it came on to rain heavily; and, supposing that she would remain all night at her aunt’s, (as she had done under similar circumstances before,) he did not think it necessary to keep his promise.  As night drew on, Madame Rogêt (who was an infirm old lady, seventy years of age,) was heard to express a fear “that she should never see Marie again;” but this observation attracted little attention at the time.

On Monday, it was ascertained that the girl had not been to the Rue des Drômes; and when the day elapsed without tidings of her, a tardy search was instituted at several points in the city, and its environs.  It was not, however until the fourth day from the period of disappearance that any thing satisfactory was ascertained respecting her.  On this day, (Wednesday, the twenty-fifth of June,) a Monsieur Beauvais, {*8} who, with a friend, had been making inquiries for Marie near the Barrière du Roule, on the shore of the Seine which is opposite the Rue Pavée St. Andrée, was informed that a corpse had just been towed ashore by some fishermen, who had found it floating in the river.  Upon seeing the body, Beauvais, after some hesitation, identified it as that of the perfumery-girl.  His friend recognized it more promptly.