"As you do, I have no doubt. In fact, it was the first thing I studied, because the task struck me as easier."
"Easier, really?"
"Why, of course. At the most, it's a question of reasoning."
"Nothing more than that?"
"Nothing more."
"And what is your reasoning?"
"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,
