Poe's Stories brief biography of edgar allan poe

They light a candle but when the Prefect announces that he comes on official business and needs help with a case, Dupin extinguishes the light. It’s another of his fancies that good thinking is better done in the dark. The Prefect explains that,
while the case he comes to them about is very simple, it is also very odd, which is why it might interest Dupin.
Dupin’s analytical intelligence, as indicated when he turns off the
light, is associated with darkness. He is not someone who follows
straight, simple reason. He is a poet and a mathematician. His
reason is one of indirection, of thinking through sensibility and
intuition, of darkness.
In fact the case is so simple that its resistance to solution has the police very confused. Dupin suggests that its very simplicity might be what’s causing their trouble. The Prefect finds this idea hilarious. When he stops laughing he agrees to tell them the situation, if they swear secrecy. He goes onto explain that an important document has been purloined from the royal apartments.
Dupin is obviously operating on a much higher intellectual
wavelength than the policeman, and using the Prefect’s ignorance
about the criminal mind to make fun of him. It looks like Dupin has
already figured out where the Prefect is going wrong in this case.
The Prefect then cryptically suggests that he knows that the person that stole the letter still has it, because of a certain lack of fallout that would definitely occur had the letter passed out of the robber’s hands. The letter, he says, has the power to bring scandal to a certain person of high honor and give the person with the letter great power. The Prefect reveals that the thief is a Minister, who snuck into the royal bedroom and accosted the royal lady and seeing the contents of the letter,
blackmailed her. He then stole the letter, in her full view, and replaced it with his own replica document. Dupin notes that because the royal lady is aware of the theft it gives the thief power over her. The Prefect confirms that the thief has been using this power. Helpless, the lady has come to the Prefect desperate for help.
Poe paints a world of corrupt royal hierarchies and abuses of power.
The Prefect, who is considered thorough but simple and uncreative,
is in charge of the safety of the most high profile figures in the
country. The Minister, who should be protecting the royal family, is
seeking to use them for his own ends. And the man who can solve
the case is Dupin, an eccentric poet.
The Prefect explains what has been done so far in the investigation, and Dupin comments on the police’s habitual thorough investigations. The prefect says it was necessary to search the Minister’s apartment, and this could be quite conveniently done because of the Minister’s frequent absence at night, and because the prefect is in possession of a master set of keys for the city’s properties. He has therefore been engaged in this search for three months, refusing to quit – a handsome reward awaits the finder of the letter.

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