Often the passers-by mistake these
eccentric monologuists for lunatics. Sometimes the curious follow them,
and amuse themselves by receiving these strange confidences. It was
an indiscretion of this kind which told the ruin of Riscara the rich
banker. Lambreth, the assassin of the Rue de Venise, betrayed himself in
a similar manner.
"What luck!" exclaimed old Tabaret. "What an incredible piece of good
fortune! Gevrol may dispute it if he likes, but after all, chance is the
cleverest agent of the police. Who would have imagined such a history? I
was not, however, very far from the reality. I guessed there was a
child in the case. But who would have dreamed of a substitution?--an old
sensational effect, that playwrights no longer dare make use of. This
is a striking example of the danger of following preconceived ideas in
police investigation. We are affrighted at unlikelihood; and, as in this
case, the greatest unlikelihood often proves to be the truth. We
retire before the absurd, and it is the absurd that we should examine.
Everything is possible. I would not take a thousand crowns for what
I have learnt this evening. I shall kill two birds with one stone.
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