V
It was some distance from the Poivriere to the Rue de Chevaleret, evenby way of the plain, and fully four hours had been occupied by Lecoq andhis colleague in collecting their elements of information.
All this while, the Widow Chupin's abode had remained open, accessibleto any chance visitor. Still, when, on his return, the young policeagent remembered this neglect of elementary precautions, he did not feelalarmed. Considering all the circumstances, it was very difficultto believe that any serious harm could have resulted from thiscarelessness.
For who would have been likely to visit this drinking-den aftermidnight? Its bad name served the purpose of a bulwark. The most daringvagrants did not drink there without some disquietude, fearing that ifthe liquor caused them to lose consciousness, they might be robbed orperhaps even murdered. Hence, if any one had been attracted to thisnotoriously dangerous drinking-shop by the light that streamed throughthe open door, it could only have been some very reckless personreturning late at night from the ball at the Rainbow, with a few sousleft in his pocket. But, even then, a single glance inside would havesufficed to put the bravest to flight.
In less than a second the young police agent had weighed all thesepossibilities, concerning which he did not breathe a word to FatherAbsinthe. When, little by little, the excitement caused by hissuccessive hopes and disappointments, and by the accomplishment of theexperiment with the footprints had died away, and he had regained hisusual calm of mind, he made a careful inspection of the abode, and wasby no means satisfied with himself. He had experimented upon FatherAbsinthe with his new system of investigation, just as an aspiringorator tries his powers before his least gifted friends, not beforethe cleverest. He had certainly overwhelmed the old veteran by hissuperiority; he had literally crushed him. But what great merit, whatwonderful victory was this? Why should he boast of having outwittedFather Absinthe, one of the least sagacious men in the service?
If he could only have given some startling proofs of his energy orof his penetration! But, after all, what had he accomplished? Was themystery solved? Was his success more than problematical? When one threadis drawn out, the skein is not untangled. This night would undoubtedlydecide his future as a detective, so he swore that if he could notconquer his vanity, he would, at least, compel himself to conceal it.Hence, it was in a very modest tone that he said to his companion: "Wehave done all that we can do outside, now, would it not be wise to busyourselves with the inside of the house?"
Everything looked exactly in the same state as when the two men left theroom. A candle, with a charred smoking wick, cast its flickering lightupon the same scene of disorder, revealing to view the rigid features ofthe three victims. Without losing a moment, Lecoq began to pick up andstudy the various objects scattered over the floor. Some of these stillremained intact. The Widow Chupin had recoiled from the expense of atiled floor, judging the bare ground upon which the cabin was builtquite good enough for the feet of her customers. This ground, which mustoriginally have been well beaten down, had, by constant use and damp,become well-nigh as muddy as the soil outside.
The first fruits of Lecoq's search were a large salad-bowl and a bigiron spoon, the latter so twisted and bent that it had evidently beenused as a weapon during the conflict. On inspecting the bowl, it becameevident that when the quarrel began the victims were regaling themselveswith the familiar mixture of water, wine, and sugar, known round aboutthe barrieres as vin a la Frangaise. After the salad-bowl, the two menpicked up five of the weighty glasses ordinarily used in wine-shops, andwhich, while looking as though they would contain half a bottle, arein point of fact so thick at the bottom that they hold next to nothing.Three of these glasses were broken, two were whole. All of them hadcontained wine--the same vin a la Frangaise. This was plain, but forgreater surety, Lecoq applied his tongue to the bluish mixtureremaining in the bottom of each glass. "The deuce!" he muttered, with anastonished air.
Then he examined successively the surfaces of the three overturnedtables. Upon one of these, the one nearest the fireplace and the window,the still wet marks of the five glasses, of the salad-bowl, and evenof the spoons could be distinguished. Lecoq very properly regardedthis circumstance as a matter of the greatest importance, for it provedclearly enough that five persons had emptied the salad-bowl in company.Who were these five persons?
"Oh! oh!" suddenly exclaimed Lecoq in two entirely different tones."Then the two women could not have been with the murderer!"
A very simple mode of discovery had presented itself to his mind. Itwas to ascertain if there were any other glasses, and what they hadcontained. After a fresh search on the floor, a sixth glass was found,similar in form to the others, but much smaller. Its smell showed thatit had contained brandy. Then these two women had not been with themurderer, and therefore he could not have fought because the othermen had insulted them. This discovery proved the inaccuracy of Lecoq'soriginal suppositions. It was an unexpected check, and he was mourningover it in silence, when Father Absinthe, who had not ceased ferretingabout, uttered a cry of surprise.
The young man turned; he saw that his companion had become very pale."What is it?" he asked.
"Some one has been here in our absence."
"Impossible!"
It was not impossible--it was true. When Gevrol had torn the apronoff Widow Chupin's head he had thrown it upon the steps of the stairs;neither of the police agents had since touched it. And yet the pocketsof this apron were now turned inside out; this was a proof, this wasevidence. At this discovery Lecoq was overcome with consternation, andthe contraction of his features revealed the struggle going on inhis mind. "Who could have been here?" he murmured. "Robbers? That isimprobable."
Then, after a long silence which his companion took good care not tointerrupt, he added: "The person who came here, who dared to penetrateinto this abode and face the corpses of these murdered men--this personcould have been none other than the accomplice. But it is not enough tosuspect this, it is necessary to know it. I must--I will know it!"
They searched for a long time, and it was not until after an hour ofearnest work that, in front of the door forced open by the police, theydiscovered in the mud, just inside the marks made by Gevrol's tread, afootprint that bore a close resemblance to those left by the man whohad entered the garden. They compared the impressions and recognized thesame designs formed by the nails upon the sole of the boot.
"It must have been the accomplice!" exclaimed Lecoq. "He watched us,he saw us go away, and then he entered. But why? What pressing,irresistible necessity made him decide to brave such imminent danger?"He seized his companion's hand, nearly crushing it in his excitement:"Ah! I know why!" continued he, violently. "I understand only too well.Some article that would have served to throw light on this horribleaffair had been left or forgotten, or lost here, and to obtain it, tofind it, he decided to run this terrible risk. And to think that it wasmy fault, my fault alone, that this convincing proof escaped us! AndI thought myself so shrewd! What a lesson! The door should have beenlocked; any fool would have thought of it--" Here he checked himself,and remained with open mouth and distended eyes, pointing with hisfinger to one of the corners of the room.
"What is the matter?" asked his frightened companion.
Lecoq made no reply, but slowly, and with the stiff movements of asomnambulist, he approached the spot to which he had pointed, stooped,picked up something, and said: "My folly is not deserving of such luck."
The object he had found was an earring composed of a single largediamond. The setting was of marvelous workmanship. "This diamond,"declared Lecoq, after a moment's examination, "must be worth at leastfive or six thousand francs."
"Are you in earnest?"
"I think I could swear to it."
He would not have troubled about such a preamble as "I think" a fewhours before, but the blunder he had made was a lesson that would not beforgotten so long as he lived.
"Perhaps it was that same diamond earring that the accomplice came to
seek," ventured Father Absinthe.
"The supposition is scarcely admissible. In that case, he would not havesought for it in Mother Chupin's apron. No, he must have been seekingfor something else--a letter, for example."
The older man was not listening; he had taken the earring, and wasexamining it in his turn. "And to think," he murmured, astonished bythe brilliancy of the stone, "to think that a woman who had ten thousandfrancs' worth of jewels in her ears would have come to the Poivriere.Who would have believed it?"
Lecoq shook his head thoughtfully. "Yes, it is very strange, veryimprobable, very absurd. And yet we shall see many things quite asstrange if we ever arrive--which I very much doubt--at a solution ofthis mysterious affair."
Day was breaking, cold, cheerless, and gloomy, when Lecoq and hiscolleague concluded their investigation. There was not an inch of spacethat had not been explored, carefully examined and studied, one mightalmost say, with a magnifying glass. There now only remained to draw upthe report.
The younger man seated himself at the table, and, with the view ofmaking his recital as intelligible as possible, he began by sketching aplan of the scene of the murder.
[[Graphic Omitted]]
It will be seen that in the memoranda appended to this explanatorydiagram, Lecoq had not once written his own name. In noting the thingsthat he had imagined or discovered, he referred to himself simply as oneof the police. This was not so much modesty as calculation. By hidingone's self on well-chosen occasions, one gains greater notoriety whenone emerges from the shade. It was also through cunning that he gaveGevrol such a prominent position. These tactics, rather subtle, perhaps,but after all perfectly fair, could not fail to call attention to theman who had shown himself so efficient when the efforts of his chief hadbeen merely confined to breaking open the door.
The document Lecoq drew up was not a _proces-verbal_, a formal actreserved for the officers of judiciary police; it was a simple report,that would be admitted under the title of an inquiry, and yet the youngdetective composed it with quite as much care as a general would havedisplayed in drawing up the bulletin of his first victory.
While Lecoq was drawing and writing, Father Absinthe leaned over hisshoulder to watch him. The plan amazed that worthy man. He had seen agreat deal; but he had always supposed that it was necessary to be anengineer, an architect, or, at least, a carpenter, to execute such work.Not at all. With a tape-line with which to take some measurements, anda bit of board in place of a rule, his inexperienced colleague hadsoon accomplished the miracle. Father Absinthe's respect for Lecoq wasthereby greatly augmented. It is true that the worthy veteran had notnoticed the explosion of the young police agent's vanity, nor his returnto his former modest demeanor. He had not observed his alarm, nor hisperplexity, nor his lack of penetration.
After a few moments, Father Absinthe ceased watching his companion. Hefelt weary after the labors of the night, his head was burning, andhe shivered and his knees trembled. Perhaps, though he was by no meanssensitive, he felt the influence of the horrors that surrounded him, andwhich seemed more sinister than ever in the bleak light of morning.He began to ferret in the cupboards, and at last succeeded indiscovering--oh, marvelous fortune!--a bottle of brandy, three partsfull. He hesitated for an instant, then he poured out a glass, anddrained it at a single draft.
"Will you have some?" he inquired of his companion. "It is not a veryfamous brand, to be sure; but it is just as good, it makes one's bloodcirculate and enlivens one."
Lecoq refused; he did not need to be enlivened. All his faculties werehard at work. He intended that, after a single perusal of his report,the investigating magistrate should say: "Let the officer who drew upthis document be sent for." It must be remembered that Lecoq's futuredepended upon such an order. Accordingly, he took particular care to bebrief, clear, and concise, to plainly indicate how his suspicions on thesubject of the murder had been aroused, how they had increased, and howthey had been confirmed. He explained by what series of deductions hehad succeeded in establishing a theory which, if it was not thetruth, was at least plausible enough to serve as the basis for furtherinvestigation.
Then he enumerated the articles of conviction ranged on the table beforehim. There were the flakes of brown wool collected upon the plank, thevaluable earring, the models of the different footprints in the garden,and the Widow Chupin's apron with its pockets turned inside out. Therewas also the murderer's revolver, with two barrels discharged and threestill loaded. This weapon, although not of an ornamental character, wasstill a specimen of highly finished workmanship. It bore the name of oneStephens, 14 Skinner Street, a well-known London gunsmith.
Lecoq felt convinced that by examining the bodies of the victims hewould obtain other and perhaps very valuable information; but he did notdare venture upon such a course. Besides his own inexperience in such amatter, there was Gevrol to be thought of, and the inspector, furiousat his own mistake, would not fail to declare that, by changing theattitude of the bodies, Lecoq had rendered a satisfactory examination bythe physicians impossible.
The young detective accordingly tried to console himself for his forcedinaction in this respect, and he was rereading his report, modifyinga few expressions, when Father Absinthe, who was standing upon thethreshold of the outer door, called to him.
"Is there anything new?" asked Lecoq.
"Yes," was the reply. "Here come Gevrol and two of our comrades with thecommissary of police and two other gentlemen."
It was, indeed, the commissary who was approaching, interested butnot disturbed by this triple murder which was sure to make hisarrondissement the subject of Parisian conversation during the next fewdays. Why, indeed, should he be troubled about it? For Gevrol, whoseopinion in such matters might be regarded as an authority, had takencare to reassure him when he went to arouse him from his slumbers.
"It was only a fight between some old offenders; former jail birds,habitues of the Poivriere," he had said, adding sententiously: "If allthese ruffians would kill one another, we might have some little peace."
He added that as the murderer had been arrested and placed inconfinement, there was nothing urgent about the case. Accordingly, thecommissary thought there was no harm in taking another nap and waitinguntil morning before beginning the inquiry. He had seen the murderer,reported the case to the prefecture, and now he was coming--leisurelyenough--accompanied by two physicians, appointed by the authoritiesto draw up a _medico-legal_ report in all such cases. The party alsocomprised a sergeant-major of the 53d regiment of infantry of the line,who had been summoned by the commissary to identify, if possible, themurdered man who wore a uniform, for if one might believe the numberengraved upon the buttons of his overcoat, he belonged to the 53dregiment, now stationed at the neighboring fort.
As the party approached it was evident that Inspector Gevrol was evenless disturbed than the commissary. He whistled as he walked along,flourishing his cane, which never left his hand, and already laughingin his sleeve over the discomfiture of the presumptuous fool who haddesired to remain to glean, where he, the experienced and skilfulofficer, had perceived nothing. As soon as he was within speakingdistance, the inspector called to Father Absinthe, who, after warningLecoq, remained on the threshold, leaning against the door-post, puffinghis pipe, as immovable as a sphinx.
"Ah, well, old man!" cried Gevrol, "have you any great melodrama, verydark and very mysterious, to relate to us?"
"I have nothing to relate myself," replied the old detective, withouteven drawing his pipe from his lips, "I am too stupid, that is perfectlyunderstood. But Monsieur Lecoq will tell you something that willastonish you."
The prefix, "monsieur," which the old police agent used in speakingof his colleague, displeased Gevrol so much that he pretended not tounderstand. "Who are you speaking of?" he asked abruptly.
"Of my colleague, of course, who is now busy finishing his report--ofMonsieur Lecoq." Quite unintentionally, the worthy fellow had certainlybecome the young police agent's godfather. From
that day forward,for his enemies as well as for his friends, he was and he remained"Monsieur" Lecoq.
"Ah! ah!" said the inspector, whose hearing was evidently impaired. "Ah,he has discovered--"
"The pot of roses which others did not scent, General." By this remark,Father Absinthe made an enemy of his superior officer. But he caredlittle for that: Lecoq had become his deity, and no matter what thefuture might reserve, the old veteran had resolved to follow his youngcolleague's fortunes.
"We'll see about that," murmured the inspector, mentally resolving tohave an eye on this youth whom success might transform into a rival. Hesaid no more, for the little party which he preceded had now overtakenhim, and he stood aside to make way for the commissary of police.
This commissary was far from being a novice. He had served for manyyears, and yet he could not repress a gesture of horror as he enteredthe Poivriere. The sergeant-major of the 53d, who followed him, an oldsoldier, decorated and medaled--who had smelt powder many scores oftimes--was still more overcome. He grew as pale as the corpses lying onthe ground, and was obliged to lean against the wall for support. Thetwo physicians alone retained their stoical indifference.
Lecoq had risen, his report in his hand; he bowed, and assuming arespectful attitude, was waiting to be questioned.
"You must have passed a frightful night," said the commissary, kindly;"and quite unnecessarily, since any investigation was superfluous."
"I think, however," replied the young police agent, having recourseto all his diplomacy, "that my time has not been entirely lost. I haveacted according to the instructions of my superior officer; I havesearched the premises thoroughly, and I have ascertained many things.I have, for example, acquired the certainty that the murderer hada friend, possibly an accomplice, of whom I can give quite a closedescription. He must have been of middle age, and wore, if I am notmistaken, a soft cap and a brown woolen overcoat: as for his boots--"
"Zounds!" exclaimed Gevrol, "and I--" He stopped short, like a man whoseimpulse had exceeded his discretion, and who would have gladly recalledhis words.
"And you?" inquired the commissary, "pray, what do you mean?"
The inspector had gone too far to draw back, and, unwittingly, was nowobliged to act as his own executioner. "I was about to mention," hesaid, "that this morning, an hour or so ago, while I was waiting foryou, sir, before the station-house, at the Barriere d'Italie, where themurderer is confined, I noticed close by an individual whose appearancewas not unlike that of the man described by Lecoq. This man seemed tobe very intoxicated, for he reeled and staggered against the walls. Hetried to cross the street, but fell down in the middle of it, in such aposition that he would inevitably have been crushed by the first passingvehicle."
Lecoq turned away his head; he did not wish them to read in his eyes howperfectly he understood the whole game.
"Seeing this," pursued Gevrol, "I called two men and asked them toaid me in raising the poor devil. We went up to him; he had apparentlyfallen asleep: we shook him--we made him sit up; we told him that hecould not remain there, but he immediately flew into a furious rage. Heswore at us, threatened us, and began fighting us. And, on my word, wehad to take him to the station-house, and leave him there to recoverfrom the effects of his drunken debauch."
"Did you shut him up in the same cell with the murderer?" inquiredLecoq.
"Naturally. You know very well that there are only two cages in thestation-house at the barriere--one for men and the other for women;consequently--"
The commissary seemed thoughtful. "Ah! that's very unfortunate," hestammered; "and there is no remedy."
"Excuse me, there is one," observed Gevrol, "I can send one of my men tothe station-house with an order to detain the drunken man--"
Lecoq interposed with a gesture: "Trouble lost," he said coldly. "Ifthis individual is an accomplice, he has got sober by now--rest assuredof that, and is already far away."
"Then what is to be done?" asked the inspector, with an ironical air."May one be permitted to ask the advice of Monsieur Lecoq."
"I think chance offered us a splendid opportunity, and we did not knowhow to seize it; and that the best thing we can do now is to give overmourning, and prepare to profit by the next opportunity that presentsitself."
Gevrol was, however, determined to send one of his men to thestation-house; and it was not until the messenger had started that Lecoqcommenced the reading of his report. He read it rapidly, refrainingas much as possible from placing the decisive proofs in strong relief,reserving these for his own benefit; but so strong was the logic of hisdeductions that he was frequently interrupted by approving remarks fromthe commissary and the two physicians.
Gevrol, who alone represented the opposition, shrugged his shoulderstill they were well-nigh dislocated, and grew literally green withjealousy.
"I think that you alone, young man, have judged correctly in thisaffair," said the commissary when Lecoq had finished reading. "I may bemistaken; but your explanations have made me alter my opinion concerningthe murderer's attitude while I was questioning him (which was only fora moment). He refused, obstinately refused, to answer my questions, andwouldn't even give me his name."
The commissary was silent for a moment, reviewing the past circumstancesin his mind, and it was in a serious tone that he eventually added: "Weare, I feel convinced, in presence of one of those mysterious crimes thecauses of which are beyond the reach of human sagacity--this strikes meas being one of those enigmatical cases which human justice never canreach." Lecoq made no audible rejoinder; but he smiled to himself andthought: "We will see about that."