Read "Monsieur Lecoq, Volume I" by Emile Gaboriau online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
How this idea had entered old Tabaret's head, Lecoq could not understand. A vague suspicion had, it is true, flitted through his own mind; but it was in a moment of despair when he was distracted at having lost May, and when certain of Couturier's remarks furnished the excuse for any ridiculous supposition. And yet now Father Tirauclair calmly proclaimed this suspicion -- which Lecoq had not dared seriously to entertain, even for an instant -- to be an undoubted fact.
"You look as if you had suddenly fallen from the clouds," exclaimed the oracle, noticing his visitor's amazement. "Do you suppose that I spoke at random like a parrot?"