n private property. I can't release
him without a compensation of some kind."

"I await your pleasure."

"Well, we will resume our interrupted conversation and you shall tell
me how far you have advanced with your investigations. In two days of
liberty, you must have carried them pretty far?" And, as Ganimard was
preparing to go, with an affectation of contempt for that sort of
practice, the magistrate cried, "Not at all, M. Inspector, your place
is here--I assure you that M. Isidore Beautrelet is worth listening to.
M. Isidore Beautrelet, according to my information, has made a great
reputation at the Lycee Janson-de-Sailly as an observer whom nothing
escapes; and his schoolfellows, I hear, look upon him as your
competitor and a rival of Holmlock Shears!"

"Indeed!" said Ganimard, ironically.

"Just so. One of them wrote to me, 'If Beautrelet declares that he
knows, you must believe him; and, whatever he says, you may be sure
that it is the exact expression of the truth.' M. Isidore Beautrelet,
now or never is the time to vindicate the confidence of your friends. I
beseech you, give us the exact expression of the truth."

Isidore listened with a smile and replied:

"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, you are very cruel. You make fun of
poor schoolboys who amuse themselves as best they can. You are quite
right, however, and I will give you no further reason to laugh at me."

"The fact is that you know nothing, M. Isidore Beautrelet."

"Yes, I confess in all humility that I know nothing. For I do not call
it 'knowing anything' that I happen to have hit upon two or three more
precise points which, I am sure, cannot have escaped you."

"For instance?"

"For instance, the object of the theft."

"Ah, of course, you know the object of the theft?"

"As you do, I have no doubt. In fact, it was the first thing I studied,
because the task struck me as easier."

"Easier, really?"

"Why, of course. At the most, it's a question of reasoning."

"Nothing more than that?"

"Nothing more."

"And what is your reasoning?"

"It is just this, stripped of all extraneous comment: on the one hand,
THERE HAS BEEN A THEFT, because the two young ladies are agreed and
because they really saw two men running away and carrying things with
them."

"There has been a theft."

"On the other hand, NOTHING HAS DISAPPEARED, because M. de Gesvres says
so and he is in a better position than anybody to know."

"Nothing has disappeared