said M. Lecoq. “And your cutlass?”
While this conversation was going on, M. Plantat reflected.
“Perhaps,” he murmured, “I’ve spoken too soon.”
“Why so?” asked M. Lecoq. “I wanted a palpable proof for Monsieur Domini; we’ll give him this rascal, and if he isn’t satisfied, he’s difficult to please.”
“But what shall we do with him?”
“Shut him up somewhere in the house; if necessary, I’ll tie him up.”
“Here’s a dark closet.”
“Is it secure?”
“There are thick walls on three sides of it, and the fourth is closed with a double door; no openings, no windows, nothing.”
“Just the place.”
M. Plantat opened the closet, a black-looking hole, damp, narrow, and full of old books and papers.
“There,” said M. Lecoq to his prisoner, “in here you’ll be like a little king,” and he pushed him into the closet. Robelot did not resist, but he asked for some water and a light. They gave him a bottle of water and a glass.
“As for a light,” said M. Lecoq, “you may dispense with it. You’ll be playing us some dirty trick.”
M. Plantat, having shut the closet-door, took the detective’s hand.
“Monsieur,” said he, earnestly, “you have probably just saved my life at the peril of your own; I will not thank you. The day will come, I trust, when I may—”
The detective interrupted him with a gesture.
“You know how I constantly expose myself,” said he, “once more or less does not matter much. Besides, it does not always serve a man to save his life.” He was pensive a moment, then added: “You will thank me after awhile, when I have gained other titles to your gratitude.”
M. Gendron also cordially shook the detective’s hand, saying:
“Permit me to express my admiration of you. I had no idea what the resources of such a man as you were. You got here this morning without information, without details, and by the mere scrutiny of the scene of the crime, by the sole force of reasoning, have found the criminal: more, you have proved to us that the criminal could be no other than he whom you have named.”
M. Lecoq bowed modestly. These praises evidently pleased him greatly.
“Still,” he answered, “I am not yet quite satisfied. The guilt of the Count de Tremorel is of course abundantly clear to me. But what motives urged him? How was he led to this terrible impulse to kill his wife, and make it appear that he, too, had been murdered?”
“Might we not conclude,” remarked the doctor, “that, disgusted with Madame de Tremorel, he has got rid of her to rejoin another woman, adored by him to madness?”
M. Lecoq shook his head.
“People don’t kill their wives for the sole reason that they are tired of them and love others. They quit their wives, live with the new loves—that’s all. That happens every day, and neither the law nor public opinion condemns such people with great severity.”
“But it was the wife who had the fortune.”
“That wasn’t the case here. I have been posting myself up. M. de Tremorel had a hundred thousand crowns, the remains of a colossal fortune saved by his friend Sauvresy; and his wife by the marriage contract made over a half million to him. A man can live in ease anywhere on eight hundred thousand francs. Besides, the count was master of all the funds of the estate. He could sell, buy, realize, borrow, deposit, and draw funds at will.”
The doctor had nothing to reply. M. Lecoq went on, speaking with a certain hesitation, while his eyes interrogated M. Plantat.
“We must find the reasons of this murder, and the motives of the assassin’s terrible resolution—in the past. Some crime so indissolubly linked the count and countess, that only the death of one of them could free the other. I suspected this crime the first thing this morning, and have seen it all the way through; and the man that we have just shut up in there—Robelot—who wanted to murder Monsieur Plantat, was either the agent or the accomplice of this crime.”
The doctor had not been present at the various episodes which, during the day at Valfeuillu and in the evening at the mayor’s, had established a tacit understanding between Plantat and Lecoq. He needed all the shrewdness he possessed to fill up the gaps and understand the hidden meanings of the conversation to which he had been listening for two hours. M. Lecoq’s last words shed a ray of light upon it all, and the doctor cried, “Sauvresy!”
“Yes—Sauvresy,” answered M. Lecoq. “And the paper which the murderer hunted for so eagerly, for which he neglected his safety and risked his life, must contain the certain proof of the crime.”
M. Plantat, despite the most significant looks and the direct provocation to make an explanation, was silent. He seemed a hundred leagues off in his thoughts, and his eyes, wandering in space, seemed to follow forgotten episodes in the mists of the past. M. Lecoq, after a brief pause, decided to strike a bold blow.
“What a past that must have been,” exclaimed he, “which could drive a young, rich, happy man like Hector de Tremorel to plan in cool blood such a crime, to resign himself to disappear after it, to cease to exist, as it were to lose all at once his personality, his position, his honor and his name! What a past must be that which drives a young girl of twenty to suicide!”
M. Plantat started up, pale, more moved than he had yet appeared.
“Ah,” cried he, in an altered voice, “you don’t believe what you say! Laurence never knew about it, never!”
The doctor, who was narrowly watching the detective, thought he saw a faint smile light up his mobile features. The old justice of the peace went on, now calmly and with dignity, in a somewhat haughty tone:
“You didn’t need tricks or subterfuge, Monsieur Lecoq, to induce me to tell what I know. I have evinced enough esteem and confidence in you to deprive you of the right to arm yourself against me with the sad secret which you have surprised.”
M. Lecoq, despite his cool-headedness, was disconcerted.
“Yes,” pursued M. Plantat, “your astonishing genius for penetrating dramas like this has led you to the truth. But you do not know all, and even now I would hold my tongue, had not the reasons which compelled me to be silent ceased to exist.”
He opened a secret drawer in an old oaken desk near the fireplace and took out a large paper package, which he laid on the table.
“For four years,” he resumed, “I have followed, day by day—I might say, hour by hour—the various phases of the dreadful drama which ended in blood last night at Valfeuillu. At first, the curiosity of an old retired attorney prompted me. Later, I hoped to save the life and honor of one very dear to me. Why did I say nothing of my discoveries? That, my friends, is the secret of my conscience—it does not reproach me. Besides, I shut my eyes to the evidence even up to yesterday; I needed the brutal testimony of this deed!”
Day
