I pretended to be a Paris reporter. That is how, last night, after
an uneventful period of more than a week, I had the pleasure of
making the acquaintance of my Rouen colleague; and, this morning,
when he heard of the Ambrumesy murder, he very kindly suggested that
I should come with him and that we should share the cost of a fly."

Isidore Beautrelet said all this with a frank and artless simplicity
of which it was impossible not to feel the charm. M. Filleul
himself, though maintaining a distrustful reserve, took a certain
pleasure in listening to him. He asked him, in a less peevish tone:

"And are you satisfied with your expedition?"

"Delighted! All the more as I had never been present at a case of
the sort and I find that this one is not lacking in interest."

"Nor in that mysterious intricacy which you prize so highly--"

"And which is so stimulating, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction! I know
nothing more exciting than to see all the facts coming up out of the
shadow, clustering together, so to speak, and gradually forming the
probable truth."

"The probable truth! You go pretty fast, young man! Do you suggest
that you have your little solution of the riddle ready?"

"Oh, no!" replied Beautrelet, with a laugh.

"Only--it seems to me that there are certain points on which it is
not impossible to form an opinion; and others, even, are so precise