Intellectual elitism

There seemed to be an ongoing discussion of wealth and money in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" that I am trying to understand. The first detail we learn about Dupin is that he was born into a wealthy family but somehow lost most of his money and doesn't care about earning any of it back. The next mention of wealth refers to the house they live in which the narrator describes as repulsive. According to a footnote in my edition of the book the house is in an area that was previously affluent. Throughout the rest of the story, Dupin talks about the money at the crime scene that the murderer did not take. The shared disinterest in wealth for the two main characters and the lack of motive for theft may contribute to the idea of intellectual elitism. These men nearly worship their intelligence and the narrator admits that analytical thinkers take unreasonable satisfaction in solving puzzles. Poe might be suggesting that regular people that aren't exceptionally smart care about money because they aren't capable of appreciating that which is only available to perceptive people like Dupin. However, the orangutan also doesn't care about stealing the money and is notably less intelligent than a typical human (fascinated with the razor and trying to shave) so it's possible that disregard for wealth is not exclusive to the intellectually elite.

Now that we're talking about the animal, what was the purpose of making the murder/murderer so improbable? Was it to show how good of a problem solver Dupin is? There could be more importance to this orangutan because it is surprisingly human. Even though each of the witnesses accounts of the noises within the room of the crime report a different language for the "shrill voice", they all still believe that it is a person's voice. The orangutan also expresses some form of guilt after killing the two women when trying to cover up his actions. Does this merely provide a reason for the previously unexplained elements of the crime scene or am I missing something?


Side note, I think Poe is especially bad at Chess.