After the repast, coffee was served by the ladies, who gave the
gentlemen permission to smoke their cigarettes, provided they would
not desert the salon. The conversation was general, and finally
one of the guests chanced to speak of celebrated crimes. And that
gave the Marquis de Rouzieres, who delighted to tease the count, an
opportunity to mention the affair of the Queen's Necklace, a
subject that the count detested.
Each one expressed his own opinion of the affair; and, of course,
their various theories were not only contradictory but impossible.
"And you, monsieur," said the countess to the chevalier Floriani,
"what is your opinion?"
"Oh! I--I have no opinion, madame."
All the guests protested; for the chevalier had just related in an
entertaining manner various adventures in which he had participated
with his father, a magistrate at Palermo, and which established his
judgment and taste in such manners.
"I confess," said he, "I have sometimes succeeded in unraveling
mysteries that the cleverest detectives have renounced; yet I do
not claim to be Sherlock Holmes. Moreover, I know very little
about the affair of the Queen's Necklace.
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