"This morning, when we arrived. While you were titivating yourself at the hotel at Carhaix, I was running round to see what information I could pick up. As you may imagine, everybody in the district knows the d'Imbleval-Vaurois story. I was at once directed to the former midwife, Mlle. Boussignol. With Mlle. Boussignol it did not take long. Three minutes to settle a new version of what had happened and ten thousand francs to induce her to repeat that ... more or less credible ... version to the people at the manor-house."
"A quite incredible version!"
"Not so bad as all that, my child, seeing that you believed it ... and the others too. And that was the essential thing. What I had to do was to demolish at one blow a truth which had been twenty-seven years in existence and which was all the more firmly established because it was founded on actual facts. That was why I went for it with all my might and attacked it by sheer force of eloquence. Impossible to identify the children? I deny it. Inevitable confusion? It's not true. 'You're all three,' I say, 'the victims of something which I don't know but which it is your duty to clear up!' 'That's easily done,' says Jean Louis, whose conviction is at once shaken. 'Let's send for Mlle. Boussignol.' 'Right! Let's send for her.' Whereupon Mlle. Boussignol arrives and mumbles out the little speech which I have taught her. Sensation! General stupefaction ... of which I take advantage to carry off our young man!"
Hortense shook her head:
"But they'll get over it, all three of them, on thinking!"
"Never! Never! They will have their doubts, perhaps. But they will never consent to feel certain! They will never agree to think! Use your imagination! Here are three people whom I have rescued from the hell in which they have been floundering for a quarter of a century. Do you think they're going back to it? Here are three people who, from weakness or a false sense of duty, had not the courage to escape. Do you think that they won't cling like grim death to the liberty which I'm giving them? Nonsense! Why, they would have swallowed a hoax twice as difficult to digest as that which Mlle. Boussignol dished up for them! After all, my version was no more absurd than the truth. On the contrary. And they swallowed it whole! Look at this: before we left, I heard Madame d'Imbleval and Madame Vaurois speak of an immediate removal. They were already becoming quite affectionate at the thought of seeing the last of each other."
"But what about Jean Louis?"
"Jean Louis? Why, he was fed up with his two mothers! By Jingo, one can't do with two mothers in a life-time! What a situation! And when one has the luck to be able to choose between having two mothers or none at all, why, bless me, one doesn't hesitate! And, besides, Jean Louis is in love with Geneviève." He laughed. "And he loves her well enough, I hope and trust, not to inflict two mothers-in-law upon her! Come, you may be easy in your mind. Your friend's happiness is assured; and that is all you asked for. All that matters is the object which we achieve and not the more or less peculiar nature of the methods which we employ. And, if some adventures are wound up and some mysteries elucidated by looking for and finding cigarette-ends, or incendiary water-bottles and blazing hat-boxes as on our last expedition, others call for psychology and for purely psychological solutions. I have spoken. And I charge you to be silent."
"Silent?"
"Yes, there's a man and woman sitting behind us who seem to be saying something uncommonly interesting."