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Book, page 281 / 282 The sick man closed the book, and with assumed modesty, he asked: "Ah, well! What do you think of my little method of induction?" But Lecoq was too much engrossed with his own thoughts to reply to this question. "I think," he remarked, "that if the Duc de Sairmeuse had disappeared for two months--the period of May's imprisonment, all Paris would have known of it--and so--" "You are dreaming," interrupted Tabaret. "Why with his wife and his valet de chambre for accomplices, the duke could absent himself for a year if he liked, and yet all his servants would believe him to be in the house." "I admit that," said Lecoq, at last; "but unfortunately, there is one circumstance which completely upsets the theory we have built up so laboriously." "And what is that if you please?" "If the man who took part in the broil at the Poivriere had been the Duc de Sairmeuse, he would have disclosed his name--he would have declared that, having been attacked, he had only defended himself--and his name alone would have opened the prison doors. Instead of that, what did the prisoner do? He attempted to kill himself. Would a grand seigneur, like the Duc de Sairmeuse, to whom life must be a perpetual enchantment, have thought of committing suicide?" A mocking whistle from the old Tabaret interrupted the speaker. "You seem to have forgotten the last sentence in his biography: 'M. Sairmeuse leaves behind him ill-will and hatred.' Do you know the price he might have been compelled to pay for his liberty! No--no more do I. To explain his presence at the Poivriere, and the presence of a woman, who was perhaps his wife, who knows what disgraceful secrets he would have been obliged to reveal? Between shame and suicide, he chose suicide. He wished to save his name and honor intact." Old Tirauclair spoke with such vehemence that even Father Absinthe was deeply impressed, although, to tell the truth, he had understood but little of the conversation.
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