Sheba Blake

The Mystery of Marie Roget Sheba Blake

The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, often subtitled A Sequel to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe written in 1842. This is the first murder mystery based on the details of a real crime. It first appeared in Snowden's Ladies' Companion in three installments, November and December 1842 and February 1843. Poe's detective character C. Auguste Dupin and his sidekick 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 River 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 uses his skills of ratiocination to determine that a single murderer was involved who dragged her by the cloth belt around her waist at first, then switching to a cloth around her neck, before dumping her body off a boat into the river. Finding the boat, Dupin suggests, will lead the police to the murderer.