MOUZON. I'm certain of it. BUNERAT. Why? MOUZON. Because I'm certain the murderer wasn't a gipsy. VAGRET. But explain-- MOUZON. It's of no use, my dear friend. I know my duty to my colleague Delorme too well to insist. I've said too much already. VAGRET. Not at all. BUNERAT. By no means. MOUZON. It was with the greatest delicacy that I warned our colleague Delorme--he was good enough to consult me and show me day by day the information which he had elicited--I warned him that he was on a false scent. He would listen to nothing; he persisted in searching for his tramp. Well, let him search! There are fifty thousand tramps in France. After all, I am probably wrong. Yet I should be surprised, for in the big towns in which I have served as magistrate, and in which I found myself confronted, not merely now and again, but every day, so to speak, with difficulties of this sort, I was able to acquire a certain practice in criminal cases and a certain degree of perspicacity. VAGRET. Obviously. As for Delorme, it is the first time he has had to deal with such a big crime. MOUZON. In the case of that pretty woman from Toulouse, at Bordeaux, a case which made a good deal of stir at the time, it was I who forced the accused to make the confession that led her to the guillotine. BUNERAT [_admiringly_] Was it really? VAGRET. My dear friend, I ask you most seriously--and if I am insistent, it is because I have reasons for being so--between ourselves, I beg you to tell us on what you base your opinion. MOUZON. Well, I don't want to hide my light under a bushel--I'll tell you. BUNERAT. We are listening.