but which would
never under any circumstances be fitting in me.

"Well then! Rene Cardillac is found in the morning stabbed to the heart
with a dagger. The only persons with him are his journeyman Olivier
Brusson and his own daughter. In Olivier's room, amongst other things,
is found a dagger covered with blood, still fresh, which dagger fits
exactly into the wound. Olivier says, 'Cardillac was cut down at night
before my eyes.' 'Somebody attempted to rob him?' 'I don't know.' 'You
say you went with him, how then were you not able to keep off the
murderer, or hold him fast, or cry out for help?' 'My master walked
fifteen, nay, fully twenty paces in front of me, and I followed him.'
'But why, in the name of wonder, at such a distance?' 'My master would
have it so.' 'But tell us then what Master Cardillac was doing out in
the streets at so late an hour?' 'That I cannot say.' 'But you have
never before known him to leave the house after nine o'clock in the
evening, have you?' Here Olivier falters; he is confused; he sighs; he
bursts into tears; he protests by all that is holy that Cardillac
really went out on the night in question, and then met with his death.
But now your particular attention, please, Mademoiselle. It has been
proved to absolute certainty that Cardillac never left the house that
night, and so, of course, Olivier's assertion that he went out with him
is an impudent lie. The house door is provided with a ponderous lock,
which on locking and unlocking makes a loud grating echoing noise;
moreover, the wings of the door squeak and creak horribly on their
hinges, so that, as we have proved by repeated experiments, the noise
is heard all the way up to the garrets. Now in the bottom story, and so
of course close to the street door, lives old Master Claude Patru and
his housekeeper, a person of nearly eighty years of age, but still
lively and nimble. Now these two people heard Cardillac come downstairs
punctually at nine o'clock that evening, according to his usual
practice, and lock and bolt the door with considerable noise, and then
go up again, where they further heard him read the evening prayers
aloud, and then, to judge by the banging of doors, go to his own
sleeping-chamber. Master Claude, like many old people, suffers from
sleeplessness; and that night too he could not close an eye. And so,
somewhere about half-past nine it seems, his old housekeeper went into
the kitchen (to get into which she had to cros