Without Lifting A Finger

"That," I said, "is why this mystery is the most surprising I know. Edgar Allan Poe, in 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue,' invented nothing like it. The place of that crime was sufficiently closed to prevent the escape of a man; but there was that window through which the monkey, the perpetrator of the murder, could slip away!" * You writers forget that what the senses furnish is not proof. If I am taking cognisance of what is offered me by my senses I do so but to bring the results within the circle of my reason. That circle may be the most circumscribed, but if it is, it has this advantage—it holds nothing but the truth! Yes, I swear that I have never used the evidence of the senses but as servants to my reason. I have never permitted them to become my master. They have not made of me that monstrous thing,—worse than a blind man,—a man who sees falsely. And that is why I can triumph over your error and your merely animal intelligence, Frederic Larsan.

I'll fault Benjamin for getting me sidetracked on The Mystery of the Yellow Room . He mentioned Gaston Leroux (had never heard of him before now, though perhaps I should have from his Phantom fame). Mystery is not usually one of my genres, though I'm admitting I dip into it occasionally.:) I suppose what also caught my attention, after running down Leroux, was the subgenre of Locked-room Mysteries. Will I ever return to "The Murders of the Rue Morgue" or read for the first time Carr's "The Hollow Man"? Only time will tell. * Wikipedia Link