“But the evidence, you will say, of Madame Deluc, (!) points especially to the presence of a gang, in the vicinity of the thicket, at or about the epoch of the murder.  This I grant.  I doubt if there were not a dozen gangs, such as described by Madame Deluc, in and about the vicinity of the Barrière du Roule at or about the period of this tragedy.  But the gang which has drawn upon itself the pointed animadversion, although the somewhat tardy and very suspicious evidence of Madame Deluc, is the only gang which is represented by that honest and scrupulous old lady as having eaten her cakes and swallowed her brandy, without putting themselves to the trouble of making her payment.  Et hinc illæ iræ?

“But what is the precise evidence of Madame Deluc?  ’A gang of miscreants made their appearance, behaved boisterously, ate and drank without making payment, followed in the route of the young man and girl, returned to the inn about dusk, and recrossed the river as if in great haste.’

“Now this ‘great haste’ very possibly seemed greater haste in the eyes of Madame Deluc, since she dwelt lingeringly and lamentingly upon her violated cakes and ale — cakes and ale for which she might still have entertained a faint hope of compensation.  Why, otherwise, since it was about dusk, should she make a point of the haste?  It is no cause for wonder, surely, that even a gang of blackguards should make haste to get home, when a wide river is to be crossed in small boats, when storm impends, and when night approaches.

“I say approaches; for the night had not yet arrived.  It was only about dusk that the indecent haste of these ‘miscreants’ offended the sober eyes of Madame Deluc.  But we are told that it was upon this very evening that Madame Deluc, as well as her eldest son, ’heard the screams of a female in the vicinity of the inn.’  And in what words does Madame Deluc designate the period of the evening at which these screams were heard?  ‘It was soon after dark,’ she says.  But ’soon after dark,’ is, at least, dark; and ‘about dusk’ is as certainly daylight.  Thus it is abundantly clear that the gang quitted the Barrière du Roule prior to the screams overheard (?) by Madame Deluc.  And although, in all the many reports of the evidence, the relative expressions in question are distinctly and invariably employed just as I have employed them in this conversation with yourself, no notice whatever of the gross discrepancy has, as yet, been taken by any of the public journals, or by any of the Myrmidons of police.

“I shall add but one to the arguments against a gang; but this one has, to my own understanding at least, a weight altogether irresistible.  Under the circumstances of large reward offered, and full pardon to any King’s evidence, it is not to be imagined, for a moment, that some member of a gang of low ruffians, or of any body of men, would not long ago have betrayed his accomplices.  Each one of a gang so placed, is not so much greedy of reward, or anxious for escape, as fearful of betrayal.  He betrays eagerly and early that he may not himself be betrayed.  That the secret has not been divulged, is the very best of proof that it is, in fact, a secret.  The horrors of this dark deed are known only to one, or two, living human beings, and to God.