style="font-size:15px;"> “Look here now, you—”
“Ta, ta, ta,” interrupted M. Lecoq. “Let me alone, and know who is talking to you. I am Monsieur Lecoq.”
The effect of the famous detective’s name on his antagonist was magical. He naturally laid down his arms and surrendered, straightway becoming respectful and obsequious. It almost flattered him to be roughly handled by such a celebrity. He muttered, in an abashed and admiring tone:
“What, is it possible? You, Monsieur Lecoq!”
“Yes, it is I, young man; but console yourself; I bear no grudge against you. You don’t know your trade, but you have done me a service and you have brought us a convincing proof of Guespin’s innocence.”
M. Domini looked on at this scene with secret chagrin. His recruit went over to the enemy, yielding without a struggle to a confessed superiority. M. Lecoq’s presumption, in speaking of a prisoner’s innocence whose guilt seemed to the judge indisputable, exasperated him.
“And what is this tremendous proof, if you please?” asked he.
“It is simple and striking,” answered M. Lecoq, putting on his most frivolous air as his conclusions narrowed the field of probabilities.
“You doubtless recollect that when we were at Valfeuillu we found the hands of the clock in the bedroom stopped at twenty minutes past three. Distrusting foul play, I put the striking apparatus in motion—do you recall it? What happened? The clock struck eleven. That convinced us that the crime was committed before that hour. But don’t you see that if Guespin was at the Vulcan’s Forges at ten he could not have got back to Valfeuillu before midnight? Therefore it was not—he who did the deed.”
The detective, as he came to this conclusion, pulled out the inevitable box and helped himself to a lozenge, at the same time bestowing upon the judge a smile which said:
“Get out of that, if you can.”
The judge’s whole theory tumbled to pieces if M. Lecoq’s deductions were right; but he could not admit that he had been so much deceived; he could not renounce an opinion formed by deliberate reflection.
“I don’t pretend that Guespin is the only criminal,” said he. “He could only have been an accomplice; and that he was.”
“An accomplice? No, Judge, he was a victim. Ah, Tremorel is a great rascal! Don’t you see now why he put forward the hands? At first I didn’t perceive the object of advancing the time five hours; now it is clear. In order to implicate Guespin the crime must appear to have been committed after midnight, and—”
He suddenly checked himself and stopped with open mouth and fixed eyes as a new idea crossed his mind. The judge, who was bending over his papers trying to find something to sustain his position, did not perceive this.
“But then,” said the latter, “how do you explain Guespin’s refusal to speak and to give an account of where he spent the night?”
M. Lecoq had now recovered from his emotion, and Dr. Gendron and M. Plantat, who were watching him with the deepest attention, saw a triumphant light in his eyes. Doubtless he had just found a solution of the problem which had been put to him.
“I understand,” replied he, “and can explain Guespin’s obstinate silence. I should be perfectly amazed if he decided to speak just now.”
M. Domini misconstrued the meaning of this; he thought he saw in it a covert intention to banter him.
“He has had a night to reflect upon it,” he answered. “Is not twelve hours enough to mature a system of defence?”
The detective shook his head doubtfully.
“It is certain that he does not need it,” said he. “Our prisoner doesn’t trouble himself about a system of defence, that I’ll swear to.”
“He keeps quiet, because he hasn’t been able to get up a plausible story.”
“No, no; believe me, he isn’t trying to get up one. In my opinion, Guespin is a victim; that is, I suspect Tremorel of having set an infamous trap for him, into which he has fallen, and in which he sees himself so completely caught that he thinks it useless to struggle. The poor wretch is convinced that the more he resists the more surely he will tighten the web that is woven around him.”
“I think so, too,” said M. Plantat.
“The true criminal, Count Hector,” resumed the detective, “lost his presence of mind at the last moment, and thus lost all the advantages which his previous caution had gained. Don’t let us forget that he is an able man, perfidious enough to mature the most infamous stratagems, and unscrupulous enough to execute them. He knows that justice must have its victims, one for every crime; he does not forget that the police, as long as it has not the criminal, is always on the search with eye and ear open; and he has thrown us Guespin as a huntsman, closely pressed, throws his glove to the bear that is close upon him. Perhaps he thought that the innocent man would not be in danger of his life; at all events he hoped to gain time by this ruse; while the bear is smelling and turning over the glove, the huntsman gains ground, escapes and reaches his place of refuge; that was what Tremorel proposed to do.”
The Corbeil policeman was now undoubtedly Lecoq’s most enthusiastic listener. Goulard literally drank in his chief’s words. He had never heard any of his colleagues express themselves with such fervor and authority; he had had no idea of such eloquence, and he stood erect, as if some of the admiration which he saw in all the faces were reflected back on him. He grew in his own esteem as he thought that he was a soldier in an army commanded by such generals. He had no longer any opinion excepting that of his superior. It was not so easy to persuade, subjugate, and convince the judge.
“But,” objected the latter, “you saw Guespin’s countenance?”
“Ah, what matters the countenance—what does that prove? Don’t we know if you and I were arrested to-morrow on a terrible charge, what our bearing would be?”
M. Domini gave a significant start; this hypothesis scarcely pleased him.
“And yet you and I are familiar with the machinery of justice. When I arrested Lanscot, the poor servant in the Rue Marignan, his first words were: ‘Come on, my account is good.’ The morning that Papa Tabaret and I took the Viscount de Commarin as he was getting out of bed, on the accusation of having murdered the widow Lerouge, he cried: ‘I am lost.’ Yet neither of them were guilty; but both of them, the viscount and the valet, equal before the terror of a possible mistake of justice, and running over in their thoughts the charges which would be brought against them, had a moment of overwhelming discouragement.”
“But such discouragement does not last two days,” said M. Domini.
M. Lecoq did not answer this; he went on, growing more animated as he proceeded.
“You and I have seen enough prisoners to know how deceitful appearances are, and how little they are to be trusted. It would be foolish to base a theory upon a prisoner’s bearing. He who talked about ‘the cry of innocence’ was an idiot, just as the man was who prated about the ‘pale stupor’ of guilt. Neither crime nor virtue have, unhappily, any especial countenance. The Simon girl, who was accused of having killed her father, absolutely refused to answer any questions for twenty-two days; on the twenty-third, the murderer was caught. As to the Sylvain
