“You can see for yourself I am a painter and paper-hanger, I came to put up papers.”
“Put up papers! on a Sunday?”
“Yes, Monsieur le Commissaire.”
“On a Sunday!—that won’t wash! And besides, you strike me as a mighty hard-headed chap. This crime is out of all ordinary—you show no surprise. This discovery is appalling—you never turn a hair! My lad, you make out too well ...”
“Must a man be an imbecile because he’s a working man?”
The Commissaire checked himself, vexed at his own want of tact: “I don’t mean to say that, but still I find you a puzzle. You make your appearance here a short hour ago, you knock in a nail, the wall bleeds, you knock away the plaster covering the masonry and the corpse comes to light! You wait for the police to come to explain the crime. What have you to say for yourself?”
“Nothing!” the workman shook his head.
The Commissary was getting more and more annoyed: “I really do not know,” he blustered, “what stops me from arresting you.”
At this, the workman, suddenly assuming a sly look, looked his companion up and down:
“What stops you from arresting me? why, nothing! But what will stop your doing it, I’m going to tell you ...”