you villain!”
And recoiling a few feet, he put himself on the defensive.
But the precaution was useless.
Seeing his blow miss, the assassin did not return to the attack, but made rapidly off.
“That was certainly Lagors,” said the clown, “and Clameran must be somewhere near. While I walked around one side of the church, they must have gone the other and lain in wait for me.”
His wound began to pain him; he stood under a gas-lamp to examine it.
It did not appear to be dangerous, but the arm was cut through to the bone.
He tore his handkerchief into four bands, and tied his arm up with the dexterity of a surgeon.
“I must be on the track of some great crime, since these fellows are resolved upon murder. When such cunning rogues are only in danger of the police court, they do not gratuitously risk the chance of being tried for murder.”
He thought by enduring a great deal of pain he might still use his arm; so he started in pursuit of his enemy, taking care to keep in the middle of the road, and avoid all dark corners.
Although he saw no one, he was convinced that he was being pursued.
He was not mistaken. When he reached the Boulevard Montmartre, he crossed the street, and, as he did so, distinguished two shadows which he recognized. They crossed the same street a little higher up.
“I have to deal with desperate men,” he muttered. “They do not even take pains to conceal their pursuit of me. They seem to be accustomed to this kind of adventure, and the carriage trick which fooled Fanferlot would never succeed with them. Besides, my light hat is a perfect beacon to lead them on in the night.” He continued his way up the boulevard, and, without turning his head, was sure that his enemies were thirty feet behind him.
“I must get rid of them somehow,” he said to himself. “I can neither return home nor to the Archangel with these devils at my heels. They are following me to find out where I live, and who I am. If they discover that the clown is M. Verduret, and that M. Verduret is M. Lecoq, my plans will be ruined. They will escape abroad with the money, and I shall be left to console myself with a wounded arm. A pleasant ending to all my exertions!”
The idea of Raoul and Clameran escaping him so exasperated him that for an instant he thought of having them arrested at once.
This was easy; for he had only to rush upon them, scream for help, and they would all three be arrested, carried to the watch-house, and consigned to the commissary of police.
The police often resort to this ingenious and simple means of arresting a malefactor for whom they are on the lookout, and whom they cannot seize without a warrant.
The next day there is a general explanation, and the parties, if innocent, are dismissed.
The clown had sufficient proof to sustain him in the arrest of Lagors. He could show the letter and the mutilated prayer-book, he could reveal the existence of the pawnbroker’s tickets in the house at Vesinet, he could display his wounded arm. He could force Raoul to confess how and why he had assumed the name of Lagors, and what his motive was in passing himself off for a relative of M. Fauvel.
On the other hand, in acting thus hastily, he was insuring the safety of the principal plotter, De Clameran. What proofs had he against him? Not one. He had strong suspicions, but no well-grounded charge to produce against him.
On reflection the clown decided that he would act alone, as he had thus far done, and that alone and unaided he would discover the truth of all his suspicions.
Having reached this decision, the first step to be taken was to put his followers on the wrong scent.
He walked rapidly up the Rue Sebastopol, and, reaching the square of the Arts et Metiers, he abruptly stopped, and asked some insignificant questions of two constables who were standing talking together.
The manoeuvre had the result he expected; Raoul and Clameran stood perfectly still about twenty steps off, not daring to advance.
Twenty steps! That was as much start as the clown wanted. While talking with the constables, he had pulled the bell of the door before which they were standing, and its hollow sound apprised him that the door was open. He bowed, and entered the house.
A minute later the constables had passed on, and Lagors and Clameran in their turn rang the bell. When the concierge appeared, they asked who it was that had just gone in disguised as a clown.
They were told that no such person had entered, and that none of the lodgers had gone out disguised that night. “However,” added the concierge, “I am not very sure, for this house has a back door which opens on the Rue St. Denis.”
“We are tricked,” interrupted Lagors, “and will never know who the clown is.”
“Unless we learn it too soon for our own good,” said Clameran musingly.
While Lagors and Clameran were anxiously trying to devise some means of discovering the clown’s identity, Verduret hurried up the back street, and reached the Archangel as the clock struck three.
Prosper, who was watching from his window, saw him in the distance, and ran down to open the door for him.
“What have you learned?” he said; “what did you find out? Did you see Madeleine? Were Raoul and Clameran at the ball?”
But M. Verduret was not in the habit of discussing private affairs where he might be overheard.
“First of all, let us go into your room, and get some water to wash this cut, which burns like fire.”
“Heavens! Are you wounded?”
“Yes, it is a little souvenir of your friend Raoul. Ah, I will soon teach him the danger of chopping up a man’s arm!”
Prosper was surprised at the look of merciless rage on his friend’s face, as he calmly washed and dressed his arm.
“Now, Prosper, we will talk as much as you please. Our enemies are on the alert, and we must crush them instantly, or not at all. I have made a mistake. I have been on the wrong track; it is an accident liable to happen to any man, no matter how intelligent he may be. I took the effect for the cause. The day I was convinced that culpable relations existed between Raoul and Mme. Fauvel, I thought I held the end of the thread that must lead us to the truth. I should have been more mistrustful; this solution was too simple, too natural.”
“Do you suppose Mme. Fauvel to be innocent?”
“Certainly not. But her guilt is not such as I first supposed. I imagined that, infatuated with a seductive young adventurer, Mme. Fauvel had first bestowed upon him the name of one of her relatives, and then introduced him as her nephew. This was an adroit stratagem to gain him admission to her husband’s house.
“She began by giving him all the money she could could dispose of; later she let him take her jewels to the pawnbrokers; when she had nothing more to give, she allowed him to steal the money from her husband’s safe. That is what I first thought.”
“And in this way everything was explained?”
“No,
