ls. In the few cases that get into the newspapers, are
there not instances of slain bodies found, and no murderers ever
discovered? Multiply the cases that are reported by the cases that are
NOT reported, and the bodies that are found by the bodies that are NOT
found, and what conclusion do you come to? This. That there are
foolish criminals who are discovered, and wise criminals who escape.
The hiding of a crime, or the detection of a crime, what is it? A trial
of skill between the police on one side, and the individual on the
other. When the criminal is a brutal, ignorant fool, the police in nine
cases out of ten win. When the criminal is a resolute, educated,
highly-intelligent man, the police in nine cases out of ten lose. If
the police win, you generally hear all about it. If the police lose,
you generally hear nothing. And on this tottering foundation you build
up your comfortable moral maxim that Crime causes its own detection!
Yes--all the crime you know of. And what of the rest?"

"Devilish true, and very well put," cried a voice at the entrance of
the boat-house. Sir Percival had recovered his equanimity, and had
come back while we were listening to the Count.

"Some of it may be true," I said, "and all of it may be very well put.
But I don't see why Count Fosco should celebrate the victory of the
criminal over Society with so much exultation, or why you, Sir
Percival, should applaud him so loudly for doing it."

"Do you hear that, Fosco?" asked Sir Percival. "Take my advice, and
make your peace with your audience. Tell them virtue's a fine
thing--they like that, I can promise you."

The Count laughed inwardly and silently, and two of the white mice in
his waistcoat, alarmed by the internal convulsion going on beneath
them, darted out in a violent hurry, and scrambled into their cage
again.

"The ladies, my good Percival, shall tell me about virtue," he said.
"They are better authorities than I am, for they know what virtue is,
and I don't."

"You hear him?" said Sir Percival. "Isn't it awful?"

"It is true," said the Count quietly. "I am a citizen of the world,
and I have met, in my time, with so many different sorts of virtue,
that I am puzzled, in my old age, to say which is the right sort and
which is the wrong. Here, in England, there is one virtue. And there,
in China, there is another virtue. And John Englishman says my virtue
is the genuine virtue. And John Chinaman says my virtu