"What's going on, Robin?" Beast Boy asked.
"Something very serious," Robin answered grimly.
"I know that already!" the green-furred Titan said. "But should we really be sticking our heads into this? The Justice League is the best around, and someone's taken them out. You don't just go into that half-cocked, dude."
"I'm not going in half-cocked." Robin turned to look at his friends. "Look, this is a detective story in the making. That means we have to look for clues. We already got a few. That quote? It's the last lines of 'The Purloined Letter.'"
"You said that," Cyborg said. "So what?"
"Think about it," Robin said. "It might be his M.O. In the story, the detective, who knew the location of the purloined letter, made a copy of the letter. He wrote that quote in that letter. Then he went to the mantelpiece—where the letter was hidden—and swapped it with the fake latter."
Raven nodded in understanding, having read the story. "The purloined letter was 'hidden' from everyone's eyes because it was in plain sight," she said. "No one bothered to check what was right in front of them."
Robin nodded. "That was the climax—and the whole point—of the story. But Gordon did find the note. It was given to him.It can't be that easy."
"So what other leads do you have?" Starfire asked.
"Only that I know French," the young detective replied. "'Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atree, est digne de Thyeste' means 'So baleful a scheme, if not worthy of Atreus, is worthy of Thyestes.' This was the detective's last words to the thief who purloined the letter. It was something of a teaser, a way to poke at the thief's pride."
Beast Boy scratched his head. "I don't get it."
Robin elucidated. "The quote is drawn from Crebillon's poem, Atree et Thyeste—the Atreus and Thyestes. The poem told the Greek myth of Atreus, a king, whose wife had been seduced by his bother, Thyestes. In retribution, Atreus killed Thyestes' sons, cooked them, and served them to his brother, who consumed them. It's a classic revenge story, where a crime can be forgiven if it pays for another crime. The detective in 'The Purloined Letter' wanted to imply that his theft of the letter was a matter of revenge, and thus, not as punishable as the real thief's crime of taking the letter in the first place."
Beast Boy looked flabbergasted. Robin sighed and explained in easier terms, "Basically, the detective in the story wanted to send a clever message to the thief: I can steal from you because I'm doing it out of justice. You stole out of selfishness, so you must be punished."
"In other words," Starfire said, "there was a double meaning in it."
"Precisely."
Raven said, "Which means that whoever attacked Batman and the Justice League has two motives for doing so."
Robin nodded. "So we have to figure out what those are. Come on. We're heading to Gotham."
The flight to Gotham was a relatively long one: two hours. Long enough for Beast Boy to get bored and long enough for Cyborg to get annoyed at Beast Boy. It was long enough for Robin to start organizing his thoughts…and the clues.
"The Purloined Letter"—it was a story he hadn't read it years, but he recalled it so vividly. In the story, the Prefect of Paris had searched high and low for the letter, but couldn't find it in any nick or cranny. But an outsider, a detective, found it almost instantly, just because he looked in the most obvious spot: the mantelpiece, where the letter was disguised as a common note.
His musings allowed him to shut out all the commotion on the flight, to such a degree that when Raven touched his arm, he jumped up in surprise.
"It's not very often that anyone can sneak up on you," Raven noted wryly. She sat down next to him. "Lost in thought?"
Robin smiled crookedly, sheepishly. "Sorry. I was distracted. I was just trying to tease out more from the note Gordon found, but I'm not coming up with anything that we haven't talked about already."
"Perhaps you should tell me what you're thinking," the magus offered. "I'm no detective, but at the very least, I can be a soundboard. You'd hear yourself and maybe you'd see a new angle you hadn't thought about before. And it never hurts to have another person's perspective."
"You're right."
"I'm all ears, Robin."
Robin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I already figured out that Gordon is supposed to be the clueless Prefect of Paris and that the note he found in his office was supposed to be a taunt, just like in the story. But the difference is that the taunt was directed at the thief; now it's clearly being used as a lure. I'm thinking the culprit wants us to walk into a trap.
"The fact that the culprit is using only part of the story to dictate his actions speaks volumes about his thinking. It means he doesn't strictly abide by Poe's story-line, which in turn means that we can't rely on the story to predict his next move. But perhaps we'll find some answers in Gotham. If Batman and the Justice League have been defeated, there had to be some physical evidence—you don't just take out a whole platoon of superheroes and not leave some collateral damage, after all."
Raven nodded, understanding his line of thinking. "So you're going to try and dig up more clues at the battlefield of their defeat," she reasoned.
"That's the intent," confirmed Robin. "But first I'd like to pick up some gear at the Batcave. My investigative equipment isn't as up to speed as Batman's."
A beeping tone announced that the Titans had arrived at their destination. Sure enough, the sprawling buildings and clawing skyscrapers of Gotham City stretched out before them. Robin sighed. It would have been good to come home…if circumstances hadn't been so grim.