Someone’s home has been broken into and trashed. None of the neighbors actually saw the burglar but they all agree that he was speaking a foreign language. What no two people can agree on is which language (Russian, German, Spanish, etc.). It turns out that the burglar was really a bear and that the neighbors’ “factual accounts” of what happened had been influenced by their personal opinions and prejudices.
I don’t know if this is from a short story, novel, or what, but I’d love to know the title or author. TIA!
Sounds like “Murder in the Rue Morgue” by Poe, where they find out that
it was an Orang-Utan that murdered two people and trashed the house.