Are they fools, or are they mighty sly? That's what
I ask myself. The tricks played with the bed and clock had, I
supposed, given me the measure and extent of their intelligence
and invention. Making deductions from the known to the unknown,
I arrived, by a series of very simple consequences, at the point
of foreseeing all that they could have imagined, to throw us off
the scent. My point of departure admitted, I had only, in order
to reach the truth, to take the contrary of that which appearances
indicated. I said to myself:
"A hatchet has been found in the second story; therefore the
assassins carried it there, and designedly forgot it.
"They left five glasses on the dining-room table; therefore they
were more or less than five, but they were not five.
"There were the remains of a supper on the table; therefore they
neither drank nor ate.
"The countess's body was on the river-bank; therefore it was placed
there deliberately. A piece of cloth was found in the victim's hand;
therefore it was put there by the murderers themselves.
"Madame de Tremorel's body is disfigured by many dagger-strokes, and
horribly mutilated; therefore she was killed by a single blow--"
"Bravo, yes, bravo," cried M.
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