the fictitious strength of fever, and to his intellect the unhealthy
acuteness which is so often the result of intense mental effort.

He no longer had to occupy himself with imaginary deductions, as in
former times when in the employ of his patron, the astronomer. Once
again did the fact prove stranger than fiction. Here was reality--a
terrible reality personified by the corpses of three victims lying on
the marble slabs at the Morgue. Still, if the catastrophe itself was a
patent fact, its motive, its surroundings, could only be conjectured.
Who could tell what circumstances had preceded and paved the way for
this tragical denouement?

It is true that all doubt might be dispelled by one discovery--the
identity of the murderer. Who was he? Who was right, Gevrol or Lecoq?
The former's views were shared by the officials at the prison;
the latter stood alone. Again, the former's opinion was based upon
formidable proof, the evidence of sight; while Lecoq's hypothesis rested
only on a series of subtle observations and deductions, starting from a
single sentence that had fallen from the prisoner's lips.

And yet Lecoq resolutely persisted in his theory, guided by the
following reasons. He learnt from M. d'Escorval's clerk that when the
magistrate had examined the prisoner, the latter not only refused to
confess, but answered all the questions put to him in the most evasive
fashion. In several instances, moreover, he had not replied at all. If
the magistrate had not insisted, it was because this first examination
was a mere formality, solely intended to justify the somewhat premature
delivery of the order to imprison the accused.

Now, under these circumstances, how was one to explain the prisoner's