If the Glove fits..

It was three o’clock in the afternoon when detective A and I finished examining the crime scene. Tired from looking within every crevice of the jeweler’s store for the missing weapon, my side kick looked to me and said,

“It seems to me that lying husband has outsmarted us. Mr. Oscar James Simpson has managed to hide the weapon so well, that we will have no other choice but to release him from police custody.”

“But- how can we release him, my dear A, when we know that he was indeed the one that killed his wife? I believe that you may not have given our murderer a fair chance. You see, just the other month while I was working with my ex-partner, I was asked to find a purloined letter for the Queen. The police assumed the letter to be hidden throughout the apartment, never once thinking that the letter may indeed be within plain sight. And sure enough, I once again was right. So tell me, what do we know about the crime?”

“Witnesses saw a man enter the store at noon while the wife was working on the sales floor and stab her with the butter knife multiple times. By 12:10 Ms. Simpson was dead in the arms of her husband, O.J., who claimed to have entered from the back door when he heard about his wife’s murder. Had the killer left from the back door, he would have run into the frantic Mr. Simpson. And it was only a matter of minutes before the police were on the scene, as the precinct was down the block from the front entrance. Had the killer left from the front door, he would have been seen by the witnesses and the police as he exited the building. Therefore, the killer must have been someone within the room, and we must find some other evidence that we can trace back to him.”

“Exactly.” And sure enough, as the words were being spoken from my tongue, I saw in the corner of my a glistening specimen, unlike the rest of the diamonds in the store. This one seemed to lack the fragmentation of light that occurred with other diamonds. Glistening in the main display case of the store, was a white sequined glove, with a trace of what appeared to be blood.

“The criminal seemed to know that there would be a quick response to the murder of Ms. Simpson and attempted to hide the evidence of the murder in plain sight,” I explained to detective A. “Thus, when we would arrive on scene, we would think nothing of the jewelry case, as nothing was missing from the case. One would expect to see glistening items within the case, and the untrained eyes of the police force assumed everything to look normal. However, had the officers examined the cases, they would have noticed that the criminal also failed to close the case fully“.

“But how do we prove that the glove belongs to Mr. Simpson?” asked detective A, as he examined the outside of the glove.
“Easy. Can you look on the inside of the glove and tell me who designed the glove, A?”
“Oh most certainly. It seems to have been made by a man name Michael Jackson.”

Detective A and I went and visited Mr. Jackson in hopes of verifying that the glove did in deed belong to Mr. Simpson. According to Mr. Jackson, each glove was an original, made specifically to fit the mold of the individual customer’s hand, guaranteeing a perfect fit. However, the white sequined glove had been made popular that year when it was worn by the man starring in the Jekyl and Hyde play, so Mr. Jackson could not verify that the glove belonged to Mr. Simpson, but only stated that Mr. Simpson did indeed own a pair.

When we returned to the jewelry store, Mr. Simpson was waiting for us with two police escorts. I took the white sequined glove out of my pocket, and told detective A to put it on Mr. Simpson. And just like Mr. Jackson predicted, the glove was a perfect fit. As the police escorted Mr. Simpson back to the station, detective A and I took our reward and bought ourselves some custom made gloves.

Part II. The Explanation
When writing, I tried to focus on the elements of detective ficton, as the main character (who this time happens to be the narrator as well), is set in the middle of crime scene, has he searches for the evidence to link the murderer to the crime. Because we are not given any other details about the murderer himself, there is a clear distinction between good and evil. Thus, when Dupin solves the crime he triumphs over evil fulfilling the three elements of detective fiction .


In my detective story, I attempted to continue the Dupin series that Poe had already established, by formatting my story to match elements found within the Purloined Letter. In the first two cases, Dupin does not receive a reward for solving the crime, but the series progresses towards Dupin doing so. Thus, I assumed that had Poe written another story with Dupin, it would be likely that Dupin would receive another reward for his help. Like the Purloined Letter, Dupin and the police already know who has committed the crime, however, the evidence that connects Mr. Simpson to the crime cannot be found. What I tried to focus on was, Dupin’s ability to find the evidence that the police failed to take notice of. This was crucial in the finding of the purloined letter, as Dupin finds the letter hidden in plain sight. The police are never able to find the weapon itself, but Dupin finds another piece of evidence, which has been hidden in plain sight, in the jewelry case. From there, Dupin is able to trace the sequined glove back to Mr. Simpson, which fits perfectly on the murderer’s hand and is Mr. Simpson is carried to the police station