“The description of the digits,” said I, as I made an end of reading,
“is in exact accordance with this drawing. I see that no animal but
an Ourang-Outang of the species here mentioned could have impressed
the indentations as you have traced them. This tuft of tawny hair,
too, is identical in character with that of the beast of Cuvier. But I
cannot possibly comprehend the particulars of this frightful mystery.
Besides, there were _two_ voices heard in contention, and one of them was
unquestionably the voice of a Frenchman.”
“True; and you will remember an expression attributed almost unanimously,
by the evidence, to this voice,—the expression _mon Dieu_! This,
under the circumstances, has been justly characterized by one of the
witnesses (Montani, the confectioner) as an expression of remonstrance
or expostulation. Upon these two words, therefore, I have mainly built
my hopes of a full solution of the riddle. A Frenchman was cognizant of
the murder. It is possible, indeed it is far more than probable, that he
was innocent of all participation in the bloody transactions which took
place. The Ourang-Outang may have escaped from him. He may have traced it
to the chamber; but, under the agitating circumstances which ensued, he
could never have recaptured it. It is still at large. I will not pursue
these guesses,—for I have no right to call them more,—since the shades
of reflection upon which they are based are scarcely of sufficient depth
to be appreciable by my own intellect, and since I could not pretend to
make them intelligible to the understanding of another. We will call them
guesses, then, and speak of them as such. If the Frenchman in question
is indeed, as I suppose, innocent of this atrocity, this advertisement,
which I left last night, upon our return home, at the office of _Le
Monde_ (a paper devoted to the shipping interest, and much sought by
sailors), will bring him to our residence.”
He handed me a paper, and I read thus:—
CAUGHT.—_In the Bois de Boulogne, early in the morning of
the —— inst._ (the morning of the murder), _a very large,
tawny Ourang-Outang of the Bornese species. The owner (who is
ascertained to be a sailor belonging to a Maltese vessel) may
have the animal again, upon identifying it satisfactorily, and
paying a few charges arising from its capture and keeping. Call
at No. ——, Rue ——, Faubourg St. Germain,—au troisième._
“How was it possible,” I asked, “that you should know the man to be a
sailor, and belonging to a Maltese vessel?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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