a crime seems to go beyond the ordinary
scope of things, when it seems unusual and stupid, then there are
many chances that its explanation is to be found in superordinary,
supernatural, superhuman motives.

"I say that there are many chances, for we must always allow for
the part played by absurdity in the most logical and commonplace
events. But, of course, it is impossible to see things as they are
and not to take account of the absurd and the disproportionate.

"I was struck from the very beginning by that very evident
character of unusualness. We have, first of all, the awkward,
zigzag course of the motor-car, which would give one the impression
that the car was driven by a novice. People have spoken of a
drunkard or a madman, a justifiable supposition in itself. But
neither madness nor drunkenness would account for the incredible
strength required to transport, especially in so short a space of
time, the stone with which the unfortunate woman's head was
crushed. That proceeding called for a muscular power so great that
I do not hesitate to look upon it as a second sign of the
unusualness that marks the whole tragedy. And why move that
enormous stone, to finish off the victim, when a mere pebble would
have done the work? Why again was the murderer not killed, or at
least reduced to a temporary state of helplessness, in the terrible
somersault turned by the car? How did he disappear? And why, having
disappeared, did he return to the scene of the accident? Why did he
throw his fur coat there; then, on another day, his cap; then, on
another day, his goggles?

"Unusual, useless, stupid acts.

"Why, besides, convey that wounded, dying woman on the driver's
seat of the car, where everybody could see her? Why do that,
instead of putting her inside, or flinging her into some corner,
dead, just as the man was flung under the brambles in the ditch?

"Unusualness, stupidity.

"Everything in the whole story is absurd. Everything points to
hesitation, incoherency, awkwardness, the silliness of a child or
rather of a mad, blundering savage, of a brute.

"Look at the bottle of brandy. There was a corkscrew: it was found
in the pocket of the great coat. Did the murderer use it? Yes, the
marks of the corkscrew can be seen on the seal. But the operation
was too complicated fo