Free The Man Who Sees Ghosts by Friedrich von Schiller Page A

accomplice—in short, that both of them are not working hand in glove with each other?”
    “That might be difficult to prove,” I exclaimed, not a little taken aback.
    “Not as difficult, my dear Count, as you may think. Why, was it by chance that both these men met in such an unusual, such a complicated attack on the same person at the same time and in the same place—by chance that there was such a striking harmony in their respective operations, such a studied understanding that the one seemed almost to play into the hands of the other? Suppose he had employed this cruder jugglery to act as a foil for the more polished one. Suppose he had sent the other one on ahead in order to discover the level of credulity he would have to reckon with in my case, to spy out ways of winning my trust. By this experiment—which could go wrong without prejudicing the rest of his plan—he would get to know his subject and, in short, would thus begin to play his instrument. Suppose he did this because, by deliberately focusing my attention on one thing and keeping it there wide awake, he would make it drowsy as regards another that was more important to him. Suppose he had some information to gather, and the cost for this he wished to put on the conjuror’s bill, so as to put anyone becoming suspicious off the true scent.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Let us assume that he bribed one of my servants so as to obtain through him certain secret information—even documents perhaps—which might serve his purpose. My huntsman is missing. What is there to stop me from believing that the Armenian is involved in the disappearance of this man? But chance may have it that I catch him out: a letter can be intercepted, a servant can talk. He is completely discredited if I discover the source of his omniscience. And so he introduces this conjurer, who must have something or other against me. He does not omit to drop a timely hint as regards the nature and intentions of this man. So whatever I might discover, my suspicion would fall on no-one else but the conjurer; and to all the inquiries that would be to the benefit of the Armenian, the Sicilian would give his own name. This was the doll with which he let me play, while he himself, unobserved and unsuspected, was entwining me in invisible cords.”
    “Very good! But how does the fact that he himself helped to expose the trickery accord with these intentions—that he revealed the secrets of his art to profane eyes? Would that not make him fear that, once the baselessness of the deception was discovered—a deception practised with such a high degree of realism, as the Sicilian’s in fact certainly was—that this would not actually weaken your credulity and make it more difficult for him in his plans for a greater deception?”
    “What are these secrets that he has revealed? None for sure of the sort that he wishes to practise on me. So he has lost nothing through their profanation. But how much on the contrary has he gained, if this supposed triumphover deception and sleight of hand has emboldened me and if, as a result of this, he succeeds in making me turn my attention in an opposite direction, in making me focus my suspicions, which are still vague and wide-ranging, on objects which are furthest removed from the actual place of attack? —He would expect me sooner or later either to grow so suspicious or be so prompted by some hint or remark that I would look to sleight of hand as an explanation of his miracles.—What better could he do than to set sleight of hand alongside miracles, and let me take the measure of the two, as it were, and, by imposing artificial limits on the first deception, elevate or confuse all the more my notions concerning the other. How many suspicions will he have swiftly nipped in the bud by means of this device! How many kinds of explanation pre-empted, to which I may have subsequently resorted!”
    “He has at least acted very much against his own interests