In such cases he reckoned on the unforeseen. In such cases,
when he could not follow the train of the reasonable, he coldly
and carefully followed the train of the unreasonable. Instead of
going to the right places--banks, police stations, rendezvous--
he systematically went to the wrong places; knocked at every empty
house, turned down every cul de sac, went up every lane blocked
with rubbish, went round every crescent that led him uselessly out
of the way. He defended this crazy course quite logically. He
said that if one had a clue this was the worst way; but if one had
no clue at all it was the best, because there was just the chance
that any oddity that caught the eye of the pursuer might be the
same that had caught the eye of the pursued. Somewhere a man must
begin, and it had better be just where another man might stop.
Something about that flight of steps up to the shop, something
about the quietude and quaintness of the restaurant, roused all
the detective's rare romantic fancy and made him resolve to strike
at random. He went up the steps, and sitting down at a table by
the window, asked for a cup of black coffee.

It was half-way through the morning, and he had not
breakfasted; the slight litter of other breakfasts stood about on
the table to remind him of his hunger; and adding a poached egg to
his order, he proceeded musingly to shake some white sugar into
his coffee, thinking all the time about Flambeau. He remembered
how Flambeau had escaped, once by a pair of nail scissors, and
once by a house on fire; once by having to pay for an unstamped
letter, and once by getting people to look through a telescope at
a comet that might destroy the world. He thought his detective
brain as good as the criminal's, which was true. But he fully