like an
angel!"

"Don't you mean to say like a fool?" asked the discouraged detective.

"No, my friend, certainly not. You have rejoiced my old heart. I can
die; I shall have a successor. Ah! that Gevrol who betrayed you--for
he did betray you, there's no doubt about it--that obtuse, obstinate
'General' is not worthy to blacken your shoes!"

"You overpower me, Monsieur Tabaret!" interrupted Lecoq, as yet
uncertain whether his host was poking fun at him or not. "But it is none
the less true that May has disappeared, and I have lost my reputation
before I had begun to make it."

"Don't be in such a hurry to reject my compliments," replied old
Tabaret, with a horrible grimace. "I say that you have conducted this
investigation very well; but it could have been done much better, very
much better. You have a talent for your work, that's evident; but
you lack experience; you become elated by a trifling advantage, or
discouraged by a mere nothing; you fail, and yet persist in holding fast
to a fixed idea, as a moth flutters about a candle. Then, you are young.
But never mind that, it's a fault you will outgrow only too soon. And
now, to speak frankly, I must tell you that you have made a great many
blunders."

Lecoq hung his head like a schoolboy receiving a reprimand from his
teacher. After all was he not a scholar, and was not this old man his
master?

"I will now enumerate your mistakes," continued old Tabaret, "and I will
show you how, on at least three occasions, you allowed an opportunity
for solving this mystery to escape you."

"But--"

"Pooh! pooh! my boy, let me talk a little while now. What axiom did you
start with? You said: 'Always distrust appearances; believe precisely
the contrary of what appears true, or even probable.'"

"Yes, that is exactly what I said to myself."

"And it was a very wise conclusion. With that idea in your lantern to
light your path, you ought to have gone straight to the truth. But you
are young, as I said before; and the very first circumstance you find
that seems at all probable you quite forget the rule which, as you
yourself admit, should have governed your conduct. As soon as you meet a
fact that seems even more than probable, you swallow it as eagerly as a
gudgeon swallows an angler's bait."

This comparison could but pique the young detective. "I don't think I've
been so simple as that," protested he.

"Bah! What did you think, then, when you heard that M. d'Escorval