title: The Blackout (Rue Morgue Vintage Mysteries)
author: Constance Little
description: The Little sisters wrote 21 comic mysteries between 1938 and 1953.
zlib_text: ![](images/00001.jpg)
  
  
  ##### www.blackmask.com
  
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  # Table Of Contents
  
  
  >
  
  
  [Emile Zola](Captain%20Burle_split_002.html#filepos1307)  
  [CHAPTER I. THE SWINDLE](Captain%20Burle_split_002.html#filepos1342)  
  [CHAPTER II. THE CAFE](Captain%20Burle_split_002.html#filepos17540)  
  [CHAPTER III. AGAIN?](Captain%20Burle_split_002.html#filepos33158)  
  [CHAPTER IV. INSPECTION](Captain%20Burle_split_002.html#filepos51511)  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Captain Burle
  
  
  ### Emile Zola
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER I. THE SWINDLE
  
  
  
  
  
  It was nine o'clock. The little town of Vauchamp, dark and silent, had just
  retired to bed amid a chilly November rain. In the Rue des Recollets, one of
  the narrowest and most deserted streets of the district of Saint-Jean, a
  single window was still alight on the third floor of an old house, from whose
  damaged gutters torrents of water were falling into the street. Mme Burle was
  sitting up before a meager fire of vine stocks, while her little grandson
  Charles pored over his lessons by the p