"It is just this, stripped of all extraneous comment: on the one hand, there has been a theft, because the two young ladies are agreed and because they really saw two men running away and carrying things with them."
"There has been a theft."
"On the other hand, nothing has disappeared, because M. de Gesvres says so and he is in a better position than anybody to know."
"Nothing has disappeared."
"From those two premises I arrive at this inevitable result: granted that there has been a theft and that nothing has disappeared, it is because the object carried off has been replaced by an exactly similar object. Let me hasten to add that possibly my argument may not be confirmed by the facts. But I maintain that it is the first argument that ought to occur to us and that we are not entitled
