The Mystery of Orcival by Emile Gaboriau (page 3)

zeal was inspired; he found himself before a great crime – one of those crimes which triple the sale of the Gazette of the Courts. Doubtless many of its details escaped him: he was ignorant of the starting-point; but he saw the way clearing before him. He had surprised Plantat’s theory, and had followed the train of his thought step by step; thus he discovered the complications of the crime which seemed so simple to M. Domini. His subtle mind had connected together all the circumstances which had been disclosed to him during the day, and now he sincerely admired the old justice of the peace. As he gazed at his beloved portrait, he thought, “Between the two of us – this old fox and I – we will unravel the whole web.” He would not, however, show himself to be inferior to his companion.

“Monsieur,” said he, “while you were questioning this rogue, who will be very useful to us, I did not lose any time. I’ve been looking about, under the furniture and so on, and have found this slip of paper.”

Let’s see.”

“It is the envelope of the young lady’s letter. Do you know where her aunt, whom she was visiting, lives?”

“At Fontainebleau, I believe.”
“Ah; well, this envelope is stamped ‘Paris,’ Saint-Lazare branch post-office. I know this stamp proves nothing – “

“It is, of course, an indication.”

“That is not all; I have read the letter itself – it was here on the table.”

M. Plantat frowned involuntarily.

“It was, perhaps, a liberty,” resumed M. Lecoq, “but the end justifies the means. Well, you have read this letter; but have you studied it, examined the hand-writing, weighed the words, remarked the context of the sentences?”

“Ah,” cried Plantat, “I was not mistaken then – you had the same idea strike you that occurred to me!”

And, in the energy of his excitement he seized the detective’s hands and pressed them as if he were an old friend. They were about to resume talking when a step was heard on the staircase; and presently Dr. Gendron appeared.

Courtois is better,” said he, “he is in a doze, and will recover.”

“We have nothing more, then, to keep us here,” returned M. Plantat. “Let’s be off. Monsieur Lecoq must be half dead with hunger.”

As they went away, M. Lecoq slipped Laurence’s letter, with the envelope, into his pocket.

X

M. Plantat’s house was small and narrow; a philosopher’s house. Three large rooms on the ground-floor, four chambers in the first story, an attic under the roof for the servants, composed all its apartments. Everywhere the carelessness of a man who has withdrawn from the world into himself, for years, ceasing to have the least interest in the objects which surround him, was apparent. The furniture was shabby, though it had been elegant; the mouldings had come off, the clocks had ceased to keep time, the chairs showed the stuffing of their cushions, the curtains, in places, were faded by the sun. The library alone betrayed a daily care and attention.

Long rows of books in calf and gilt were ranged on the carved oaken shelves, a movable table near the fireplace contained M. Plantat’s favorite books, the discreet friends of his solitude. A spacious conservatory, fitted with every accessory and convenience, was his only luxury. In it flourished one hundred and thirty-seven varieties of briars.

Two servants, the widow Petit, cook and house-keeper, and Louis, gardener, inhabited the house. If they did not make it a noisy one, it was because Plantat, who talked little, detested also to hear others talk. Silence was there a despotic law. It was very hard for Mme. Petit, especially at first. She was very talkative, so talkative that when she found no one to chat with, she went to confession; to confess was to chat. She came near leaving the place twenty times; but the thought of an assured pension restrained her. Gradually she became accustomed to govern her tongue, and to this cloistral silence. But she revenged herself outside for the privations of the household, and regained among the neighbors the time lost at home.

She was very much wrought up on the day of the murder. At eleven o’clock, after going out for news, she had prepared monsieur’s dinner; but he did not appear. She waited one, two hours, five hours, keeping her water boiling for the eggs; no monsieur. She wanted to send Louis to look for him, but Louis being a poor talker and not curious, asked her to go herself. The house was besieged by the female neighbors, who, thinking that Mme. Petit ought to be well posted, came for news; no news to give.

Toward five o’clock, giving up all thought of breakfast, she began to prepare for dinner. But when the village bell struck eight o’clock, monsieur had not made his appearance. At nine, the good woman was beside herself, and began to scold Louis, who had just come in from watering the garden, and, seated at the kitchen table, was soberly eating a plate of soup.

The bell rung.

“Ah, there’s monsieur, at last.”

No, it was not monsieur, but a little boy, whom M. Plantat had sent from Valfeuillu to apprise Mme. Petit that he would soon return, bringing with him two guests who would dine and sleep at the house. The worthy woman nearly fainted. It was the first time that M. Plantat had invited anyone to dinner for five years. There was some mystery at the bottom of it – so thought Mme. Petit, and her anger doubled with her curiosity.

“To order a dinner at this hour,” she grumbled. “Has he got common-sense, then?” But reflecting that time pressed, she continued:

“Go along, Louis; this is not the moment for two feet to stay in one shoe. Hurry up, and wring three chickens’ heads; see if there ain’t some ripe grapes in the conservatory; bring on some preserves; fetch some wine from the cellar!” The dinner was well advanced when the bell rung again. This time Baptiste appeared, in exceeding bad humor, bearing M. Lecoq’s night-gown.

“See here,” said he to the cook, “what the person, who is with your master, gave me to bring here.”

“What person?”

“How do I know? He’s a spy sent down from Paris about this Valfeuillu affair; not much good, probably – ill-bred-a brute – and a wretch.”

“But he’s not alone with monsieur?”

“No; Doctor Gendron is with them.”

Mme. Petit burned to get some news out of Baptiste; but Baptiste also burned to get back and know what was taking place at his master’s – so off he went, without having left any news behind.

An hour or more passed, and Mme. Petit had just angrily declared to Louis that she was going to throw the dinner out the window, when her master at last appeared, followed by his guests. They had not exchanged a word after they left the mayor’s. Aside from the fatigues of the evening, they wished to reflect, and to resume their self-command. Mme. Petit found it useless to question their faces – they told her nothing. But she did not agree with Baptiste about M. Lecoq: she thought him good-humored, and rather silly. Though the party was less silent at the dinner-table, all avoided, as if by tacit consent, any allusion to the events of the day. No one would ever have thought that they had just been witnesses of, almost actors in, the Valfeuillu drama, they were so calm, and talked so glibly of indifferent things. From time to time, indeed, a question remained unanswered, or a reply came tardily; but nothing of the sensations and thoughts, which were concealed beneath the uttered commonplaces, appeared on the surface.

Louis passed to and fro behind the diners, his white cloth on his arm, carving and passing the wine. Mme. Petit brought in the dishes, and came in thrice as often as was necessary, her ears wide open, leaving the door ajar as often as she dared. Poor woman! she had prepared an excellent dinner, and nobody paid any attention to it.

M. Lecoq was fond of tit-bits; yet, when Louis placed on the table a dish of superb grapes – quite out of season – his mouth did not so much as expand into a smile. Dr. Gendron would have been puzzled to say what he had eaten. The dinner was nearly over, when M. Plantat began to be annoyed by the constraint which the presence of the servants put upon the party. He called to the cook:

“You will give us our coffee in the library, and may then retire, as well as Louis.”

“But these gentlemen do not know their rooms,” insisted Mme. Petit, whose eavesdropping projects were checked by this order. “They will, perhaps, need something.”

“I will show them their rooms,” said M. Plantat, dryly. “And if they need anything, I shall be here.”

They went into the library. M. Plantat brought out a box of cigars and passed them round:

“It will be healthful to smoke a little before retiring.”

M. Lecoq lit an aromatic weed, and remarked:

“You two may go to bed if you like; I am condemned, I see, to a sleepless night. But before I go to writing, I wish to ask you a few things, Monsieur Plantat.”

M. Plantat bowed in token of assent.

“We must resume our conversation,” continued the detective, “and compare our inferences. All our lights are not too much to throw a little daylight upon this affair, which is one of the darkest I have ever met with. The situation is dangerous, and time presses. On our acuteness depends the fate of several innocent persons, upon whom rest very serious charges. We have a theory: but Monsieur Domini also has one, and his, let us confess, is based upon material facts, while ours rests upon very disputable sensations and logic.”

“We have more than sensations,” responded M. Plantat.

“I agree with you,” said the doctor, “but we must prove it.”

“And I will prove it, parbleu,” cried M. Lecoq, eagerly. “The affair is complicated and difficult – so much the better. Eh! If it were simple, I would go back to Paris instanter, and to-morrow I would send you one of my men. I leave easy riddles to infants. What I want is the inexplicable enigmas, so as to unravel it; a struggle, to show my strength; obstacles, to conquer them.”

M. Plantat and the doctor looked steadily at the speaker. He was as if transfigured. It was the same yellow-haired and whiskered man, in a long overcoat: yet the voice, the physiognomy, the very features, had changed. His eyes shone with the fire of his enthusiasm, his voice was metallic and vibrating, his imperious gesture affirmed the audacity and energy of his resolution.

“If you think, my friends,” pursued he, “that they don’t manufacture detectives like me at so much a year, you are right. When I was twenty years old, I took service with an astronomer, as his calculator, after a long course of study. He gave me my breakfasts and seventy francs a month; by means of which I dressed well, and covered I know not how many square feet with figures daily.”

M. Lecoq puffed vigorously at his cigar a moment, casting a curious glance at M. Plantat. Then he resumed:

“Well, you may imagine that I wasn’t the happiest of men. I forgot to mention that I had two little vices: I loved the women, and I loved play. All are not perfect. My salary seemed too small, and while I added up my columns of figures, I was looking about for a way to make a rapid fortune. There is, indeed, but one means; to appropriate somebody else’s money, shrewdly enough not to be found out. I thought about it day and night. My mind was fertile in expedients, and I formed a hundred projects, each more practicable than the others. I should frighten you if I were to tell you half of what I imagined in those days. If many thieves of my calibre existed, you’d have to blot the word ‘property’ out of the dictionary. Precautions, as well as safes, would be useless. Happily for men of property, criminals are idiots.”

“What is he coming to?” thought the doctor.

“One day, I became afraid of my own thoughts. I had just been inventing a little arrangement by which a man could rob any banker whatever of 200,000 francs without any more danger or difficulty than I raise this cup. So I said to myself, ‘Well, my boy, if this goes on a little longer, a moment will come when, from the idea, you will naturally proceed to the practice.’ Having, however, been born an honest lad – a mere chance – and being determined to use the talents which nature had given me, eight days afterward I bid my astronomer good-morning, and went to the prefecture. My fear of being a burglar drove me into the police.”

“And you .are satisfied with the exchange?” asked Dr. Gendron.

“I’ faith, Doctor, my first regret is yet to come. I am happy, because I am free to exercise my peculiar faculties with usefulness to my race. Existence has an enormous attraction for me, because I have still a passion which overrides all others – curiosity.”

The detective smiled, and continued:

“There are people who have a mania for the theatre. It is like my own mania. Only, I can’t understand how people can take pleasure in the wretched display of fictions, which are to real life what a tallow dip is to the sun. It seems to me monstrous that people can be interested in sentiments which, though well represented, are fictitious. What! can you laugh at the witticisms of a comedian, whom you know to be the struggling father of a family? Can you pity the sad fate of the poor actress who poisons herself, when you know that on going out you will meet her on the boulevards? It’s pitiable!”

“Let’s shut up the theatres,” suggested Dr. Gendron.

“I am more difficult to please than the public,” returned M. Lecoq. “I must have veritable comedies, or real dramas. My theatre is – society. My actors laugh honestly, or weep with genuine tears. A crime is committed – that is the prologue; I reach the scene, the first act begins. I seize at a glance the minutest shades of the scenery. Then I try to penetrate the motives, I group the characters, I link the episodes to the central fact, I bind in a bundle all the circumstances. The action soon reaches the crisis, the thread of my inductions conducts me to the guilty person; I divine him, arrest him, deliver him up. Then comes the great scene; the accused struggles, tries tricks, splits straws; but the judge, armed with the arms I have forged for him, overwhelms the wretch; he does not confess, but he is confounded. And how many secondary personages, accomplices, friends, enemies, witnesses are grouped about the principal criminal! Some are terrible, frightful, gloomy – others grotesque. And you know not what the ludicrous in the horrible is. My last scene is the court of assize. The prosecutor speaks, but it is I who furnished his ideas; his phrases are embroideries set around the canvas of my report. The president submits his questions to the jury; what emotion! The fate of my drama is being decided. The jury, perhaps, answers, ‘Not guilty;’ very well, my piece was bad, I am hissed. If ‘Guilty,’ on the contrary, the piece was good, I am applauded, and victorious. The next day I can go and see my hero, and slapping him on the shoulder, say to him, ‘You have lost, old fellow, I am too much for you!'”

Was M. Lecoq in earnest now, or was he playing a part? What was the object of this autobiography? Without appearing to notice the surprise of his companions, he lit a fresh cigar; then, whether designedly or not, instead of replacing the lamp with which he lit it on the table, he put it on one corner of the mantel. Thus M. Plantat’s face was in full view, while that of M. Lecoq remained in shadow.

“I ought to confess,” he continued, “without false modesty, that I have rarely been hissed. Like every man I have my Achilles heel. I have conquered the demon of play, but I have not triumphed over my passion for woman.”

He sighed heavily, with the resigned gesture of a man who has chosen his path. “It’s this way. There is a woman, before whom I am but an idiot. Yes, I the detective, the terror of thieves and murderers, who have divulged the combinations of all the sharpers of all the nations, who for ten years have swum amid vice and crime; who wash the dirty linen of all the corruptions, who have measured the depths of human infamy; I who know all, who have seen and heard all; I, Lecoq, am before her, more simple and credulous than an infant. She deceives me – I see it – and she proves that I have seen wrongly. She lies – I know it, I prove it to her – and I believe her. It is because this is one of those passions,” he. added, in a low, mournful tone, “that age, far from extinguishing, only fans, and to which the consciousness of shame and powerlessness adds fire. One loves, and the certainty that he cannot be loved in return is one of those griefs which you must have felt to know its depth. In a moment of reason, one sees and judges himself; he says, no, it’s impossible, she is almost a child, I almost an old man. He says this – but always, in the heart, more potent than reason, than will, than experience, a ray of hope remains, and he says to himself, ‘who knows – perhaps!’ He awaits, what-a miracle? There are none, nowadays. No matter, he hopes on.”

M. Lecoq stopped, as if his emotion prevented his going on. M. Plantat had continued to smoke mechanically, puffing the smoke out at regular intervals; but his face seemed troubled, his glance was unsteady, his hands trembled. He got up, took the lamp from the mantel and replaced it on the table, and sat down again. The significance of this scene at last struck Dr. Gendron.

In short, M. Lecoq, without departing widely from the truth, had just attempted one of the most daring experiments of his repertoire, and he judged it useless to go further. He knew now what he wished to know. After a moment’s silence, he shuddered as though awaking from a dream, and pulling out his watch, said:

“Par le Dieu! How I chat on, while time flies!”

“And Guespin is in prison,” remarked the doctor.

“We will have him out,” answered the detective, “if, indeed, he is innocent; for this time I have mastered the mystery, my romance, if you wish, and without any gap. There is, however, one fact of the utmost importance, that I by myself cannot explain.”

“What?” asked M. Plantat.

“Is it possible that Monsieur de Tremorel had a very great interest in finding something – a deed, a letter, a paper of some sort – something of a small size, secreted in his own house?”

“Yes – that is possible,” returned the justice of the peace.

“But I must know for certain.”

M. Plantat reflected a moment.

“Well then,” he went on, “I am sure, perfectly sure, that if Madame de Tremorel had died suddenly, the count would have ransacked the house to find a certain paper, which he knew to be in his wife’s possession, and which I myself have had in my hands.”

“Then,” said M. Lecoq, “there’s the drama complete. On reaching Valfeuillu, I, like you, was struck with the frightful disorder of the rooms. Like you, I thought at first that this disorder was the result of design. I was wrong; a more careful scrutiny has convinced me of it. The assassin, it is true, threw everything into disorder, broke the furniture, hacked the chairs in order to make us think that some furious villains had been there. But amid these acts of premeditated violence I have followed up the involuntary traces of an exact, minute, and I may say patient search. Everything seemed turned topsy-turvy by chance; articles were broken open with the hatchet, which might have been opened with the hands; drawers had been forced which were not shut, and the keys of which were in the locks. Was this folly? No. For really no corner or crevice where a letter might be hid has been neglected. The table and bureau-drawers had been thrown here and there, but the narrow spaces between the drawers had been examined – I saw proofs of it, for I found the imprints of fingers on the dust which lay in these spaces. The books had been thrown pell-mell upon the floor, but every one of them had been handled, and some of them with such violence that the bindings were torn off. We found the mantel-shelves in their places, but every one had been lifted up. The chairs were not hacked with a sword, for the mere purpose of ripping the cloth – the seats were thus examined. My conviction of the certainty that there had been a most desperate search, at first roused my suspicions. I said to myself, ‘The villains have been looking for the money which was concealed; therefore they did not belong to the household.'”

“But,” observed the doctor, “they might belong to the house, and yet not know the money was hidden; for Guespin – “

“Permit me,” interrupted M. Lecoq, ” I will explain myself. On the other hand, I found indications that the assassin must have been closely connected with Madame de Tremorel – her lover, or her husband. These were the ideas that then struck me.”

“And now?”

“Now,” responded the detective, ” with the certainty that something besides booty might have been the object of the search, I am not far from thinking that the guilty man is he whose body is being searched for – the Count Hector de Tremorel.”

M. Plantat and Dr. Gendron had divined the name; but neither had as yet dared to utter his suspicions. They awaited this name of Tremorel; and yet, pronounced as it was in the middle of the night, in this great sombre room, by this at least strange personage, it made them shudder with an indescribable fright.

“Observe,” resumed M. Lecoq, “what I say; I believe it to be so. In my eyes, the count’s guilt is only as yet extremely probable. Let us see if we three can reach the certainty of it. You see, gentlemen, the inquest of a crime is nothing more nor less than the solution of a problem. Given the crime, proved, patent, you commence by seeking out all the circumstances, whether serious or superficial; the details and the particulars. When these have been carefully gathered, you classify them, and put them in their order and date. You thus know the victim, the crime, and the circumstances; it remains to find the third term of the problem, that is, x, the unknown quantity – the guilty party. The task is a difficult one, but not so difficult as is imagined. The object is to find a man whose guilt explains all the circumstances, all the details found – all, understand me. Find such a man, and it is probable – and in nine cases out of ten,, the probability becomes a reality – that you hold the perpetrator of the crime.”

So clear had been M. Lecoq’s exposition, so logical his argument, that his hearers could not repress an admiring exclamation:

“Very good! Very good!”

“Let us then examine together if the assumed guilt of the Count de Tremorel explains all the circumstances of the crime at Valfeuillu.”

He was about to continue when Dr. Gendron, who sat near the window, rose abruptly.

“There is someone in the garden,” said he.

All approached the window. The weather was glorious, the night very clear, and a large open space lay before the library window; they looked out, but saw no one.

“You are mistaken, Doctor,” said Plantat, resuming his arm-chair.

M. Lecoq continued:

“Now let us suppose that, under the influence of certain events that we will examine presently, Monsieur de Tremorel had made up his mind to get rid of his wife. The crime once resolved upon, it was clear that the count must have reflected, and sought out the means of committing it with impunity; he must have weighed the circumstances, and estimated the perils of his act. Let us admit, also, that the events which led him to this extremity were such that he feared to be disturbed, and that he also feared that a search would be made for certain things, even should his wife die a natural death.”

“That is true,” said M. Plantat, nodding his head.

“Monsieur de Tremorel, then, determined to kill his wife, brutally, with a knife, with the idea of so arranging everything, as to make it believed that he too had been assassinated; and he also decided to endeavor to thrust suspicion on an innocent person, or at least, an accomplice infinitely less guilty than he.

“He made up his mind in advance, in adopting this course, to disappear, fly, conceal himself, change his personality; to suppress, in short, Count Hector de Tremorel, and make for himself, under another name, a new position and identity. These hypotheses, easily admitted, suffice to explain the whole series of otherwise inconsistent circumstances. They explain to us in the first place, how it was that on the very night of the murder, there was a large fortune in ready money at Valfeuillu; and this seems to me decisive. Why, when a man receives sums like this, which he proposes to keep by him, he conceals the fact as carefully as possible. Monsieur de Tremorel had not this common prudence. He shows his bundles of bank-notes freely, handles them, parades them; the servants see them, almost touch them. He wants everybody to know and repeat that there is a large sum in the house, easy to take, carry off, and conceal. And what time of all times, does he choose for this display? Exactly the moment when he knows, and everyone in the neighborhood knows, that he is going to pass the night at the chateau, alone with Madame de Tremorel.

“For he is aware that all his servants are invited, on the evening of July 8th to the wedding of the former cook. So well aware of it is he, that he defrays the wedding expenses, and himself names the day. You will perhaps say that it was by chance that this money was sent to Valfeuilfu on the very night of the crime. At the worst that might be admitted. But believe me, there was no chance about it, and I will prove it. We will go to-morrow to the count’s banker, and will inquire whether the count did not ask him, by letter or verbally, to send him these funds precisely on July 8th. Well, if he says yes, if he shows us such a letter, or if he declares that the money was called for in person, you will confess, no doubt, that I have more than a probability in favor of my theory.”

Both his hearers bowed in token of assent.

“So far, then, there is no objection.”

“Not the least,” said M. Plantat.

“My conjectures have also the advantage of shedding light on Guespin’s position. Honestly, his appearance is against him, and justifies his arrest. Was he an accomplice or entirely innocent? We certainly cannot yet decide. But it is a fact that he has fallen into an admirably well-laid trap. The count, in selecting him for his victim, took all care that every doubt possible should weigh upon him. I would wager that Monsieur de Tremorel, who knew this fellow’s history, thought that his antecedents would add probability to the suspicions against him, and would weigh with a terrible weight in the scales of justice. Perhaps, too, he said to himself that Guespin would be sure to prove his innocence in the end, and he only wished to gain time to elude the first search. It is impossible that we can be deceived. We know that the countess died of the first blow, as if thunderstruck. She did not struggle; therefore she could not have torn a piece of cloth off the assassin’s vest. If you admit Guespin’s guilt, you admit that he was idiot enough to put a piece of his vest in his victim’s hand; you admit that he was such a fool as to go and throw this torn and bloody vest into the Seine, from a bridge, in a place where he might know search would be made – and all this, without taking the common precaution of attaching it to a stone to carry it to the bottom. That would be absurd.

“To me, then, this piece of cloth, this smeared vest, indicate at once Guespin’s innocence and the count’s guilt.”

“But,” objected Dr. Gendron, “if Guespin is innocent, why don’t he talk? Why don’t he prove an alibi? How was it he had his purse full of money?”

“Observe,” resumed the detective, “that I don’t say he is innocent; we are still among the probabilities. Can’t you suppose that the count, perfidious enough to set a trap for his servant, was shrewd enough to deprive him of every means of proving an alibi?”

“But you yourself deny the count’s shrewdness.”

“I beg your pardon; please hear me. The count’s plan was excellent, and shows a superior kind of perversity; the execution alone was defective. This is because the plan was conceived and perfected in safety, while when the crime had been committed, the murderer, distressed, frightened at his danger, lost his coolness and only half executed his project. But there are other suppositions. It might be asked whether, while Madame de Tremorel was being murdered, Guespin might not have been committing some other crime elsewhere.

This conjecture seemed so improbable to the doctor that he could not avoid objecting to it. “Oh!” muttered he.

“Don’t forget,” replied Lecoq, “that the field of conjectures has no bounds. Imagine whatever complication of events you may, I am ready to maintain that such a complication has occurred or will present itself. Lieuben, a German lunatic, bet that he would succeed in turning up a pack of cards in the order stated in the written agreement. He turned and turned ten hours per day for twenty years. He had repeated the operation 4,246,028 times, when he succeeded.”

M. Lecoq was about to proceed with another illustration, when M. Plantat interrupted him by a gesture.

“I admit your hypotheses; I think they are more than probable – they are true.”

M. Lecoq, as he spoke, paced up and down between the window and the book-shelves, stopping at emphatic words, like a general who dictates to his aids the plan of the morrow’s battle. To his auditors, he seemed a new man, with serious features, an eye bright with intelligence, his sentences clear and concise – the Lecoq, in short, which the magistrates who have employed his talents, would recognize.

“Now,” he resumed, “hear me. It is ten o’clock at night. No noise without, the road deserted, the village lights extinguished, the chateau servants away at Paris. The count and countess are alone at Valfeuillu.

“They have gone to their bedroom.

“The countess has seated herself at the table where tea has been served. The count, as he talks with her, paces up and down the chamber.

“Madame de Tremorel has no ill presentiment; her husband, the past few days, has been more amiable, more attentive than ever. She mistrusts nothing, and so the count can approach her from behind, without her thinking of turning her head.

“When she hears him coming up softly, she imagines that he is going to surprise her with a kiss. He, meanwhile, armed with a long dagger, stands beside his wife. He knows where to strike that the wound may be mortal. He chooses the place at a glance; takes aim; strikes a terrible blow – so terrible that the handle of the dagger imprints itself on both sides of the wound. The countess falls without a sound, bruising her forehead on the edge of the table, which is overturned. Is not the position of the terrible wound below the left shoulder thus explained – a wound almost vertical, its direction being from right to left?”

The doctor made a motion of assent.

“And who, besides a woman’s lover or her husband is admitted to her chamber, or can approach her when she is seated without her turning round?”

“That’s clear,” muttered M. Plantat.

“The countess is now dead,” pursued M. Lecoq. “The assassin’s first emotion is one of triumph. He is at last rid of her who was his wife, whom he hated enough to murder her, and to change his happy, splendid, envied existence for a frightful life, henceforth without country, friend, or refuge, proscribed by all nations, tracked by all the police, punishable by the laws of all the world! His second thought is of this letter or paper, this object of small size which he knows to be in his wife’s keeping, which he has demanded a hundred times, which she would not give up to him, and which he must have.”

“Add,” interrupted M. Plantat, “that this paper was one of the motives of the crime.

The count thinks he knows where it is. He imagines that he can put his hand on it at once. He is mistaken. He looks into all the drawers and bureaus used by his wife – and finds nothing. He searches every corner, he lifts up the shelves, overturns everything in the chamber – nothing. An idea strikes him. Is this letter under the mantel – shelf? By a turn of the arm he lifts it – down the clock tumbles and stops. It is not yet half-past ten.”

“Yes,” murmured the doctor, “the clock betrays that.”

“The count finds nothing under the mantel-shelf except the dust, which has retained traces of his fingers. Then he begins to be anxious. Where can this paper be, for which he has risked his life? He grows angry. How search the locked drawers? The keys are on the carpet – I found them among the debris of the tea service – but he does not see them. He must have some implement with which to break open everything. He goes downstairs for a hatchet. The drunkenness of blood and vengeance is dissipated on the staircase; his terrors begin. All the dark corners are peopled, now, with those spectres which form the cortege of assassins; he is frightened, and hurries on. He soon goes up again, armed with a large hatchet – that found on the second story – and makes the pieces of wood fly about him. He goes about like a maniac, rips up the furniture at hazard; but he pursues a desperate search, the traces of which I have followed, among the debris. Nothing, always nothing! Everything in the room is topsy-turvy; he goes into his cabinet and continues the destruction; the hatchet rises and falls without rest. He breaks his own bureau, since he may find something concealed there of which he is ignorant. This bureau belonged to the first husband – to Sauvresy. He takes out all the books in the library, one by one, shakes them furiously, and throws them about the floor. The infernal paper is undiscoverable. His distress is now too great for him to pursue the search with the least method. His wandering reason no longer guides him. He staggers, without calculation, from one thing to another, fumbling a dozen times in the same drawer, while he completely forgets others just by him. Then he thinks that this paper may have been hid in the stuffing of a chair. He seizes a sword, and to be certain, he slashes up the drawing-room chairs and sofas and those in the other rooms.

M. Lecoq’s voice, accent, gestures, gave a vivid character to his recital. The hearer might imagine that he saw the crime committed, and was present at the terrible scenes which he described. His companions held their breath, unwilling by a movement to distract his attention.

“At this moment,” pursued he, “the count’s rage and terror were at their height. He had said to himself, when he planned the murder, that he would kill his wife, get possession of the letter, execute his plan quickly, and fly. And now all his projects were baffled! How much time was being lost, when each minute diminished the chances of escape! Then the probability of a thousand dangers which had not occurred to him, entered his mind. What if some friend should suddenly arrive, expecting his hospitality, as had occurred twenty times? What if a passer-by on the road should notice a light flying from room to room? Might not one of the servants return? When he is in the drawing-room, he thinks he hears someone ring at the gate; such is his terror, that he lets his candle fall – for I have found the marks of it on the carpet. He hears strange noises, such as never before assailed his ears; he thinks he hears walking in the next room; the floor creaks. Is his wife really dead; will she not suddenly rise up, run to the window, and scream for help? Beset by these terrors, he returns to the bedroom, seizes his dagger, and again strikes the poor countess. But his hand is so unsteady that the wounds are light. You have observed, doctor, that all these wounds take the same direction. They form right angles with the body, proving that the victim was lying down when they were inflicted. Then, in the excess of his frenzy, he strikes the body with his feet, and his heels form the contusions discovered by the autopsy.”

M. Lecoq paused to take breath. He not only narrated the drama, he acted it, adding gesture to word; and each of his phrases made a scene, explained a fact, and dissipated a doubt. Like all true artists who wrap themselves up in the character they represent, the detective really felt something of the sensations which he interpreted, and his expressive face was terrible in its contortions.

“That,” he resumed, “is the first act of the drama. An irresistible prostration succeeds the count’s furious passion. The various circumstances which I am describing to you are to be noticed in nearly all great crimes. The assassin is always seized, after the murder, with a horrible and singular hatred against his victim, and he often mutilates the body. Then comes the period of a prostration so great, of torpor so irresistible, that murderers have been known literally to go to sleep in the blood, that they have been surprised sleeping, and that it was with great difficulty that they were awakened. The count, when he has frightfully disfigured the poor lady, falls into an arm-chair; indeed, the cloth of one of the chairs has retained some wrinkles, which shows that someone had sat in it. What are then the count’s thoughts? He reflects on the long hours which have elapsed, upon the few hours which remain to him. He reflects that he has found nothing; that he will hardly have time, before day, to execute his plans for turning suspicion from him, and assure his safety, by creating an impression that he, too, has been murdered. And he must fly at once – fly, without that accursed paper. He summons up his energies, rises, and do you know what he does? He seizes a pair of scissors and cuts off his long, carefully cultivated beard.”

“Ah!” interrupted M. Plantat, “that’s why you examined the portrait so closely.”

M. Lecoq was too intent on following the thread of his deductions to note the interruption.

“This is one of those vulgar details,” pursued he, “whose very insignificance makes them terrible, when they are attended by certain circumstances. Now imagine the Count de Tremorel, pale, covered with his wife’s blood, shaving himself before his glass; rubbing the soap over his face, in that room all topsy-turvy, while three steps off lies the still warm and palpitating body! It was an act of terrible courage, believe me, to look at himself in the glass after a murder – one of which few criminals are capable. The count’s hands, however, trembled so violently that he could scarcely hold his razor, and his face must have been cut several times.”

“What!” said ‘Dr. Gendron, “do you imagine that the count spared the time to shave?”

“I am positively sure of it, pos-i-tive-ly. A towel on which I have found one of those marks which a razor leaves when it is wiped – and one only – has put me on the track of this fact. I looked about, and found a box of razors, one of which had recently been used, for it was still moist; and I have carefully preserved both the towel and the box. And if these proofs are not enough, I will send to Paris for two of my men, who will find, somewhere in the house or the garden, both the count’s beard and the cloth with which he wiped his razor. As to the fact which surprises you, Doctor, it seems to me very natural; more, it is the necessary result of the plan headopted. Monsieur de Tremorel has always worn his full beard: he cuts it off, and his appearance is so entirely altered, that if he met anyone in his flight, he would not be recognized.”

The doctor was apparently convinced, for he cried:

“It’s clear – it’s evident,”

“Once thus disguised, the count hastens to carry out the rest of his plan, to arrange everything to throw the law off the scent, and to make it appear that he, as well as his wife, has been murdered. He hunts up Guespin’s vest, tears it out at the pocket, and puts a piece of it in the countess’s hand. Then taking the body in his arms, crosswise, he goes downstairs. The wounds bleed frightfully – hence the numerous stains discovered all along his path. Reaching the foot of the staircase he is obliged to put the countess down, in order to open the garden-door. This explains the large stain in the vestibule. The count, having opened the door, returns for the body and carries it in his arms as far as the edge of the lawn; there he stops carrying it, and drags it by the shoulders, walking backward, trying thus to create the impression that his own body has been dragged across there and thrown into the Seine. But the wretch forgot two things which betray him to us. He did not reflect that the countess’s skirts, in being dragged along the grass, pressing it down and breaking it for a considerable space, spoiled his trick. Nor did he think that her elegant and well-curved feet, encased in small high-heeled boots, would mould themselves in the damp earth of the lawn, and thus leave against him a proof clearer than the day.”

M. Plantat rose abruptly.

“Ah,” said he, “you said nothing of this before.”

“Nor of several other things, either. But I was before ignorant of some facts which I now know; and as I had reason to suppose that you were better informed than I, I was not sorry to avenge myself for a caution which seemed to me mysterious.

“Well, you are avenged,” remarked the doctor, smiling.

“On the other side of the lawn,” continued M. Lecoq, “the count again took up the countess’s body. But forgetting the effect of water when it spirts, or – who knows? – disliking to soil himself, instead of throwing her violently in the river, he put her down softly, with great precaution. That’s not all. He wished it to appear that there had been a terrible struggle. What does he do? Stirs up the sand with the end of his foot. And he thinks that will deceive the police!”

“Yes, yes,” muttered Plantat, “exactly so – I saw it.”

“Having got rid of the body, the count returns to the house. Time presses, but he is still anxious to find the paper. He hastens to take the last measures to assure his safety. He smears his slippers and handkerchief with blood. He throws his handkerchief and one of his slippers on the sward, and the other slipper into the river. His haste explains the incomplete execution of his manoeuvres. He hurries – and commits blunder after blunder. He does not reflect that his valet will explain about the empty bottles which he puts on the table. He thinks he is turning wine into the five glasses – it is vinegar, which will prove that no one has drunk out of them. He ascends, puts forward the hands of the clock, but forgets to put the hands and the striking bell in harmony. He rumples up the bed, but he does it awkwardly – and it is impossible to reconcile these three facts, the bed crumpled, the clock showing twenty minutes past three, and the countess dressed as if it were mid-day. He adds as much as he can to the disorder of the room. He smears a sheet with blood; also the bed-curtains and furniture. Then he marks the door with the imprint of a bloody hand, too distinct and precise not to be done designedly. Is there so far a circumstance or detail of the crime, which does not explain the count’s guilt?”

“There’s the hatchet,” answered M. Plantat, “found on the second story, the position of which seemed so strange to you.”

“I am coming to that. There is one point in this mysterious affair, which, thanks to you, is now clear. We know that Madame de Tremorel, known to her husband, possessed and concealed a paper or a letter, which he wanted, and which she obstinately refused to give up in spite of all his entreaties. You have told us that the anxiety – perhaps the necessity – to have this paper, was a powerful motive of the crime. We will not be rash then in supposing that the importance of this paper was immense – entirely beyond an ordinary affair. It must have been, somehow, very damaging to one or the other. To whom? To both, or only the count? Here I am reduced to conjectures. It is certain that it was a menace – capable of being executed at any moment – suspended over the head of him or them concerned by it. Madame de Tremorel surely regarded this paper either as a security, or as a terrible arm which put her husband at her mercy. It was surely to deliver himself from this perpetual menace that the count killed his wife.”

The logic was so clear, the last words brought the evidence out so lucidly and forcibly, that his hearers were struck with admiration. They both cried:

“Very good!”

“Now,” resumed M. Lecoq, “from the various elements which have served to form our conviction, we must conclude that the contents of this letter, if it can be found, will clear away our last doubts, will explain the crime, and will render the assassin’s precautions wholly useless. The count, therefore, must do everything in the world, must attempt the impossible, not to leave this danger behind him. His preparations for flight ended, Hector, in spite of his deadly peril, of the speeding time, of the coming day, instead of flying recommences with more desperation than ever his useless search. Again he goes through all the furniture, the books, the papers – in vain. Then he determines to search the second story, and armed with his hatchet, goes up to it. He has already attacked a bureau, when he hears a cry in the garden. He runs to the window – what does he see? Philippe and old Bertaud are standing on the river-bank under the willows, near the corpse. Can you imagine his immense terror? Now, there’s not a second to lose-he has already delayed too long. The danger is near, terrible. Daylight has come, the crime is discovered, they are coming, he sees himself lost beyond hope. He must fly, fly at once, at the peril of being seen, met, arrested. He throws the hatchet down violently – it cuts the floor. He rushes down, slips the bank-notes in his pocket, seizes Guespin’s torn and smeared vest, which he will throw into the river from the bridge, and saves himself by the garden. Forgetting all caution, confused, beside himself, covered with blood, he runs, clears the ditch, and it is he whom old Bertaud sees making for the forest of Mauprevior, where he intends to arrange the disorder of his clothes. For the moment he is safe. But he leaves behind him this letter, which is, believe me, a formidable witness, which will enlighten justice and will betray his guilt and the perfidy of his projects. For he has not found it, but we will find it; it is necessary for us to have it to defeat Monsieur Domini, and to change our doubts into certainty.”

XI

A long silence followed the detective’s discourse. Perhaps his hearers were casting about for objections. At last Dr. Gendron spoke:

“I don’t see Guespin’s part in all this.”

“Nor I, very clearly,” answered M. Legoq. “And here I ought to confess to you not only the strength, but the weakness also, of the theory I have adopted. By this method, which consists of reconstructing the crime before discovering the criminal, I can be neither right nor wrong by halves. Either all my inferences are correct, or not one of them is. It’s all, or nothing. If I am right, Guespin has not been mixed up with this crime, at least directly; for there isn’t a single circumstance which suggests outside aid. If, on the other hand, I am wrong – “

M. Lecoq paused. He seemed to have heard some unexpected noise in the garden.

“But I am not wrong. I have still another charge against the count, of which I haven’t spoken, but which seems to be conclusive.”

“Oh,” cried the doctor, “what now?”

“Two certainties are better than one, and I always doubt. When I was left alone a moment with Francois, the valet, I asked him if he knew exactly the number of the count’s shoes; he said yes, and took me to a closet where the shoes are kept. A pair of boots, with green Russia leather tops, which Francois was sure the count had put on the previous morning, was missing. I looked for them carefully everywhere, but could not find them. Again, the blue cravat with white stripes which the count wore on the 8th, had also disappeared.”

“There,” cried M. Plantat, “that is indisputable proof that your supposition about the slippers and handkerchief was right.”

“I think that the facts are sufficiently established to enable us to go forward. Let’s now consider the events which must have decided – “

M. Lecoq again stopped, and seemed to be listening. All of a sudden, without a word he jumped on the window-sill and from thence into the garden, with the bound of a cat which pounces on a mouse. The noise of a fall, a stifled cry, an oath, were heard, and then a stamping as if a struggle were going on. The doctor and M. Plantat hastened to the window. Day was breaking, the trees shivered in the fresh wind of the early morning, – objects were vaguely visible without distinct forms across the white mist which hangs, on summer nights, over the valley of the Seine. In the middle of the lawn, at rapid intervals, they heard the blunt noise of a clinched fist striking a living body, and saw two men, or rather two phantoms, furiously swinging their arms. Presently the two shapes formed but one, then they separated, again to unite; one of the two fell, rose at once, and fell again.

“Don’t disturb yourselves,” cried M. Lecoq’s voice. “I’ve got the rogue.”

The shadow of the detective, which was upright, bent over, and the conflict was recommenced. The shadow stretched on the ground defended itself with the dangerous strength of despair; his body formed a large brown spot in the middle of the lawn, and his legs, kicking furiously, convulsively stretched and contracted. Then there was a moment when the lookers-on could not make out which was the detective. They rose again and struggled; suddenly a cry of pain escaped, with a ferocious oath.

“Ah, wretch!”

And almost immediately a loud shout rent the air, and the detective’s mocking tones were heard:

“There he is! I’ve persuaded him to pay his respects to us – light me up a little.”

The doctor and his host hastened to the lamp; their zeal caused a delay, and at the moment that the doctor raised the lamp, the door was rudely pushed open.

“I beg to present to you,” said M. Lecoq, “Master Robelot, bone-setter of Orcival, herborist by prudence, and poisoner by vocation.”

The stupefaction of the others was such that neither could speak.

It was really the bone-setter, working his jaws nervously. His adversary had thrown him down by the famous knee-stroke which is the last resort of the worst prowlers about the Parisian barriers. But it was not so much Robelot’s presence which surprised M. Plantat and his friend. Their stupor was caused by the detective’s appearance; who, with his wrist of steel – as rigid as handcuffs – held the doctor’s ex-assistant, and pushed him forward. The voice was certainly Lecoq ‘s; there was his costume, his big-knotted ravat, his yellow-haired watch-chain – still it was no longer Lecoq. He was blond, with highly cultivated whiskers, when he jumped out the window; he returned, brown, with a smooth face. The man who had jumped out was a middle-aged person, with an expressive face which was in turn idiotic and intelligent; the man who returned by the door was a fine young fellow of thirty-five, with a beaming eye and a sensitive lip; a splendid head of curly black hair, brought out vividly the pallor of his complexion, and the firm outline of his head and face. A wound appeared on his neck, just below the chin.

“Monsieur Lecoq!” cried M. Plantat, recovering his voice.

“Himself,” answered the detective, “and this time the true Lecoq.” Turning to Robelot, he slapped him on the shoulder and added:

“Go on, you.”

Robelot fell upon a sofa, but the detective continued to hold him fast.

“Yes,” he continued, “this rascal has robbed me of my blond locks. Thanks to him and in spite of myself, you see me as I am, with the head the Creator gave me, and which is really my own.” He gave a careless gesture, half angry, half good-humored. “I am the true Lecoq; and to tell the truth, only three persons besides yourselves really know him – two trust-ed friends, and one who is infinitely less so – she of whom I spoke a while ago.”

The eyes of the other two met as if to question each other, and M. Lecoq continued:

“What can a fellow do? All is not rose color in my trade. We run such dangers, in protecting society, as should entitle us to the esteem, if not the affection of our fellow-men: Why, I am condemned to death, at this moment, by seven of the most dangerous criminals in France. I have caught them, you see, and they have sworn – they are men of their word, too – that I should only die by their hands. Where are these wretches? Four at Cayenne, one at Brest; I’ve had news of them. But the other two? I’ve lost their track. Who knows whether one of them hasn’t followed me here, and whether to-morrow, at the turning of some obscure road, I shall not get six inches of cold steel in my stomach?”

He smiled sadly.

“And no reward,” pursued he, “for the perils which we brave. If I should fall to-morrow, they would take up my body, carry it to my house, and that would be the end.” The detective’s tone had become bitter, the irritation of his voice betrayed his rancor. “My precautions happily are taken. While I am performing my duties, I suspect everything, and when I am on my guard I fear no one. But there are days when one is tired of being on his guard, and would like to be able to turn a street corner without looking for a dagger. On such days I again become myself; I take off my false beard, throw down my mask, and my real self emerges from the hundred disguises which I assume in turn. I have been a detective fifteen years, and no one at the prefecture knows either my true face or the color of my hair.”

Master Robelot, ill at ease on his lounge, attempted to move.

“Ah, look out!” cried M. Lecoq, suddenly changing his tone. “Now get up here, and tell us what you were about in the garden?”

“But you are wounded!” exclaimed Plantat, observing stains of blood on M. Lecoq’s shirt.

“Oh, that’s nothing-only a scratch that this fellow gave me with a big cutlass he had.”

M. Plantat insisted on examining the wound, and was not satisfied until the doctor declared it to be a very slight one.

“Come, Master Robelot,” said the old man, “what were you doing here?”

The bone-setter did not reply.

“Take care,” insisted M. Plantat, “your silence will confirm us in the idea that you came with the worst designs.”

But it was in vain that M. Plantat wasted his persuasive eloquence. Robelot shut himself up in a ferocious and dogged silence. M. Gendron, hoping, not without reason, that he might have some influence over his former assistant, spoke:

“Answer us; what did you come for?”

Robelot made an effort; it was painful, with his broken jaw, to speak.

“I came to rob; I confess it.”

“To rob-what?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you didn’t scale a wall and risk the jail without a definite object?”

“Well, then, I wanted – “

He stopped.

“What? Go on.”

“To get some rare flowers in the conservatory.”

“With your cutlass, hey?” said M. Lecoq. Robelot gave him a terrible look; the detective continued:

“You needn’t look at me that way – you don’t scare me. And don’t talk like a fool, either. If you think we are duller than you, you are mistaken – I warn you of it.”

“I wanted the flower-pots,” stammered the man.

“Oh, come now,” cried M. Lecoq, shrugging his shoulders, “don’t repeat such nonsense. You, a man that buys large estates for cash, steal flower-pots! Tell that to somebody else. You’ve been turned over to-night, my boy, like an old glove. You’ve let out in spite of yourself a secret that tormented you furiously, and you came here to get it back again. You thought that perhaps Monsieur Plantat had not told it to anybody, and you wanted to prevent him from speaking again forever.”

Robelot made a sign of protesting.

“Shut up now,” 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 had come. The frightened blackbirds flew whistling by. The pavement resounded with the wooden shoes of the workmen going fieldward. No noise troubled the sad stillness of the library, unless it were the rustling of the leaves which M. Plantat was turning over, or now and then a groan from Robelot.

“Before commencing,” said the old man, “I ought to consider your weariness; we have been up twenty-four hours – “

But the others protested that they did not need repose. The fever of curiosity had chased away their exhaustion. They were at last to know the key of the mystery.

“Very well,” said their host, “listen to me.”

XII

The Count Hector de Tremorel, at twenty-six, was the model and ideal of the polished man of the world, proper to our age; a man useless alike to himself and to others, harmful even, seeming to have been placed on earth expressly to play at the expense of all. Young, noble, elegant, rich by millions, endowed with vigorous health, this last descendant of a great family squandered most foolishly and ignobly both his youth and his patrimony. He acquired by excesses of all kinds a wide and unenviable celebrity. People talked of his stables, his carriages, his servants, his furniture, his dogs, his favorite loves. His cast-off horses still took prizes, and a jade distinguished by his notice was eagerly sought by the young bloods of the town. Do not think, however, that he was naturally vicious; he had a warm heart, and even generous emotions at twenty. Six years of unhealthy pleasures had spoiled him to the marrow. Foolishly vain, he was ready to do anything to maintain his notoriety. He had the bold and determined egotism of one who has never had to think of anyone but himself, and has never suffered. Intoxicated by the flatteries of the so-called friends who drew his money from him, he admired himself, mistaking his brutal cynicism for wit, and his lofty disdain of all morality and his idiotic scepticism, for character. He was also feeble; he had caprices, but never a will; feeble as a child, a woman, a girl. His biography was to be found in the petty journals of the day, which retailed his sayings – or what he might have said; his least actions and gestures were reported.

One night when he was supping at the Cafe-de Paris, he threw all the plates out the window. It cost him twenty thousand francs. Bravo! One morning gossiping Paris learned with stupefaction that he had eloped to Italy with the wife of X-, the banker, a lady nineteen years married. He fought a duel, and killed his man. The week after, he was wounded in another. He was a hero! On one occasion he went to Baden, where he broke the bank. Another time, after playing sixty hours, he managed to lose one hundred and twenty thousand francs – won by a Russian prince.

He was one of those men whom success intoxicates, who long for applause, but who care not for what they are applauded. Count Hector was more than ravished by the noise he made in the world. It seemed to him the acme of honor and glory to have his name or initials constantly in the columns of the Parisian World. He did not betray this, however, but said, with charming modesty, after each new adventure:

“When will they stop talking about me?”

On great occasions, he borrowed from Louis XIV the epigram:

“After me the deluge.”

The deluge came in his lifetime.

One April morning, his valet, a villainous fellow, drilled and dressed up by the count – woke him at nine o’clock with this speech:

“Monsieur, a bailiff is downstairs in the ante-chamber, and has come to seize your furniture.”

Hector turned on his pillow, yawned, stretched, and replied:

“Well, tell him to begin operations with the stables and carriage-house; and then come up and dress me.”

He did not seem disturbed, and the servant retired amazed at his master’s coolness. The count had at least sense enough to know the state of his finances; and he had foreseen, nay, expected the bailiff’s visit. Three years before, when he had been laid up for six weeks in consequence of a fall from his horse, he had measured the depth of the gulf toward which he was hastening. Then, he might yet have saved himself. But he must have changed his whole course of life, reformed his household, learned that twenty-one franc pieces made a napoleon. Fie, never! After mature reflection he had said to himself that he would go on to the end. When the last hour came, he would fly to the other end of France, erase his name from his linen, and blow his brainsout in some forest.

This hour had now come.

By contracting debts, signing bills, renewing obligations, paying interests and compound interests, giving commissions by always borrowing, and never paying, Hector had consumed the princely heritage – nearly four millions in lands – which he had received at his father’s death. The winter just past had cost him fifty thousand crowns. He had tried eight days before to borrow a hundred thousand francs, and had failed. He had been refused, not because his property was not as much as he owed, but because it was known that property sold by a bankrupt does not bring its value.

Thus it was that when the valet came in and said, “The bailiff is here,” he seemed like a spectre commanding suicide.

Hector took the announcement coolly and said, as he got up:

“Well, here’s an end of it.”

He was very calm, though a little confused. A little confusion is excusable when a man passes from wealth to beggary. He thought he would make his last toilet with especial care. Parbleu! The French nobility goes into battle in court costume! He was ready in less than an hour. He put on his bejewelled watch-chain; then he put a pair of little pistols, of the finest quality, in his overcoat pocket; then he sent the valet away, and opening his desk, he counted up what funds he had left. Ten thousand and some hundreds of francs remained. He might with this sum take a journey, prolong his life two or three months; but he repelled with disdain the thought of a miserable subterfuge, of a reprieve in disguise. He imagined that with this money he might make a great show of generosity, which would be talked of in the world; it would be chivalrous to breakfast with his inamorata and make her a present of this money at dessert. During the meal he would be full of nervous gayety, of cynical humor, and then he would announce his intention to kill himself. The girl would not fail to narrate the scene everywhere; she would repeat his last conversation, his last will and gift; all the cafes would buzz with it at night; the papers would be full of it.

This idea strangely excited him, and comforted him at once. He was going out, when his eyes fell upon the mass of papers in his desk. Perhaps there was something there which might dim the positiveness of his resolution. He emptied all the drawers without looking or choosing, and put all the papers in the fire. He looked with pride upon this conflagration; there were bills, love letters, business letters, bonds, patents of nobility, deeds of property. Was it not his brilliant past which flickered and consumed in the fireplace?

The bailiff occurred to him, and he hastily descended. He was the most polite of bailiffs, a man of taste and wit, a friend of artists, himself a poet at times. He had already seized eight horses in the stables with all their harness and trappings, and five carriages with their equipage, in the carriage-house.

“I’m going on slowly, Count,” said he bowing. “Perhaps you wish to arrest the execution. The sum is large, to be sure, but a man in your position – “

“Believe that you are here because it suits me,” interrupted Hector, proudly, ” this house doesn’t suit me; I shall never enter it again. So, as you are master, go on.”

And wheeling round on his heel he went off.

The astonished bailiff proceeded with his work. He went from room to room, admiring and seizing. He seized cups gained at the races, collections of pipes and arms, and the library, containing many sporting-books, superbly bound.

Meanwhile the Count de Tremorel, who was resolved more than ever on suicide, ascending the boulevards came to his inamorata’s house, which was near the Madeleine. He had introduced her some six months before into the demi-monde as Jenny Fancy. Her real name was Pelagie Taponnet, and although the count did not know it, she was his valet’s sister. She was pretty and lively, with delicate hands and a tiny foot, superb chestnut hair, white teeth, and great impertinent black eyes, which were languishing, caressing, or provoking, at will. She had passed suddenly from the most abject poverty to a state of extravagant luxury. This brilliant change did not astonish her as much as you might think. Forty-eight hours after her removal to her new apartments, she had established order among the servants; she made them obey a glance or a gesture; and she made her dress-makers and milliners submit with good grace to her orders. Jenny soon began to languish, in her fine rooms, for new excitement; her gorgeous toilets no longer amused her. A woman’s happiness is not complete unless seasoned by the jealousy of rivals. Jenny’s rivals lived in the Faubourg du Temple, near the barrier; they could not envy her splendor, for they did not know her, and she was strictly forbidden to associate with and so dazzle them. As for Tremorel, Jenny submitted to him from necessity. He seemed to her the most tiresome of men. She thought his friends the dreariest of beings. Perhaps she perceived beneath their ironically polite manner, a contempt for her, and understood of how little consequence she was to these rich people, these high livers, gamblers, men of the world. Her pleasures comprised an evening with someone of her own class, card-playing, at which she won, and a midnight supper. The rest of the time she suffered ennui. She was wearied to death: A hundred times she was on the point of discarding Tremorel, abandoning all this luxury, money, servants, and resuming her old life. Many a time she packed up; her vanity always checked her at the last moment.

Hector de Tremorel rang at her door at eleven on the morning in question. She did not expect him so early. and she was evidently surprised when he told her he had come to breakfast, and asked her to hasten the cook, as he was in a great hurry.

She had never, she thought, seen him so amiable, so gay. All through breakfast he sparkled, as he promised himself he would, with spirit and fun. At last, while they were sipping their coffee, Hector spoke:

“All this, my dear, is only a preface, intended to prepare you for a piece of news which will surprise you. I am a ruined man.”

She looked at him with amazement, not seeming to comprehend him.

“I said – ruined,” said he, laughing bitterly, “as ruined as man can be.”

“Oh, you are making fun of me, joking – “

“I never spoke so seriously in my life. It seems strange to you, doesn’t it? Yet it’s sober truth.”

Jenny’s large eyes continued to interrogate him.

“Why,” he continued, with lofty carelessness, “life, you know, is like a bunch of grapes, which one either eats gradually, piece by piece, or squeezes into a glass to be tossed off at a gulp. I’ve chosen the latter way. My grape was four million francs; they are drunk up to the dregs. I don’t regret them, I’ve had a jolly life for my money. But now I can flatter myself that I am as much of a beggar as any beggar in France. Everything at my house is in the bailiff’s hands – I am without a domicile, without a penny.”

He spoke with increasing animation as the multitude of diverse thoughts passed each other tumultuously in his brain. And he was not playing a part. He was speaking in all good faith.

“But – then – ” stammered Jenny.

“What? Are you free? Just so-“

She hardly knew whether to rejoice or mourn.

“Yes,” he continued, “I give you back your liberty.”

Jenny made a gesture which Hector misunderstood.

“Oh! be quiet,” he added quickly, “I sha’n’t leave you thus; I would not desert you in a state of need. This furniture is yours, and I have provided for you besides. Here in my pocket are five hundred napoleons; it is my all; I have brought it to give to you.”

He passed the money over to her on a plate, laughingly, imitating the restaurant waiters. She pushed it back with a shudder.

“Oh, well,” said he, “that’s a good sign, my dear; very good, very good. I’ve always thought and said that you were a good girl – in fact, too good; you needed correcting.”

She did, indeed, have a good heart; for instead of taking Hector’s bank-notes and turning him out of doors, she tried to comfort and console him. Since he had confessed,to her that he was penniless, she ceased to hate him, and even commenced to love him. Hector, homeless, was no longer the dreaded man who paid to be master, the millionnaire who, by a caprice, had raised her from the gutter. He was no longer the execrated tyrant. Ruined, he descended from his pedestal, he became a man like others, to be preferred to others, as a handsome and gallant youth. Then Jenny mistook the last artifice of a discarded vanity for a generous impulse of the heart, and was deeply touched by this splendid last gift.

“You are not as poor as you say,” she said,” for you still have so large a sum.”

“But, dear child, I have several times given as much for diamonds which you envied.”

She reflected a moment, then as if an idea had struck her, exclaimed:

“That’s true enough; but I can spend, oh, a great deal less, and yet be just as happy. Once, before I knew you, when I was young (she was now nineteen), ten thousand francs seemed to me to be one of those fabulous sums which were talked about, but which few men ever saw in one pile, and fewer still held in their hands.”

She tried to slip the money into the count’s pocket; but he prevented it.

“Come, take it back, keep it – “

“What shall I do with it?”

“I don’t know, but wouldn’t this money bring in more? Couldn’t you speculate on the Bourse, bet at the races, play at Baden, or something? I’ve heard of people that are now rich as kings, who commenced with nothing, and hadn’t your talents either. Why don’t you do as they did?”

She spoke excitedly, as a woman does who is anxious to persuade. He looked at her, astonished to find her so sensitive, so disinterested.

“You will, won’t you?” she insisted, “now, won’t you?”

“You are a good girl,” said he, charmed with her, “but you must take this money. I give it to you, don’t be worried about anything.”

“But you – have you still any money? What have you?”

“I have yet-“

He stopped, searched his pockets, and counted the money in his purse.

“Faith, here’s three hundred and forty francs – more than I need. I must give some napoleons to your servants before I go.”

“And what for Heaven’s sake will become of you?”

He sat back in his chair, negligently stroked his handsome beard, and said:

“I am going to blow my brains out.”

“Oh!”

Hector thought that she doubted what he said. He took his pistols out of his pockets, showed them to her, and went on:

“You see these toys? Well, when I leave you, I shall go somewhere – no matter where – put the muzzle to my temple, thus, press the trigger – and all will be over!”

She gazed at him, her eyes dilated with terror, pale, breathing hard and fast. But at the same time, she admired him. She marvelled at so much courage, at this calm, this careless railing tone. What superb disdain of life! To exhaust his fortune and then kill himself, without a cry, a tear, or a regret, seemed to her an act of heroism unheard of, unexampled. It seemed to her that a new, unknown, beautiful, radiant man stood before her. She loved him as she had never loved before!

“No!” she cried, “no! It shall not be!”

And rising suddenly, she rushed to him and seized him by the arm.

“You will not kill yourself, will you? Promise me, swear it to me. It isn’t possible, you would not! I love you – I couldn’t bear you before. Oh, I did not know you, but now – come, we will be happy. You, who have lived with millions don’t know how much ten thousand francs are – but I know. We can live a long time on that, and very well, too. Then, if we are obliged to sell the useless things – the horses, carriages, my diamonds, my green cashmere, we can have three or four times that sum. Thirty thousand francs – it’s a fortune! Think how many happy days-“

The Count de Tremorel shook his head, smilingly. He was ravished; his vanity was flattered by the heat of the passion which beamed from the poor girl’s eyes. How he was beloved! How he would be regretted! What a hero the world was about to lose!

“For we will not stay here,” Jenny went on, “we will go and conceal ourselves far from Paris, in a little cottage. Why, on the other side of Belleville you can get a place surrounded by gardens for a thousand francs a year. How well off we should be there! You would never leave me, for I should be jealous – oh, so jealous! We wouldn’t have any servants, and you should see that I know how to keep house.”

Hector said nothing.

“While the money lasts,” continued Jenny, “we’ll laugh away the days. When it’s all gone, if you are still decided, you will kill yourself – that is, we will kill ourselves together. But not with a pistol – No! We’ll light a pan of charcoal, sleep in one another’s arms, and that will be the end. They say one doesn’t suffer that way at all.”

This idea drew Hector from his torpor, and awoke in him a recollection which ruffled all his vanity.

Three or four days before, he had read in a paper the account of the suicide of a cook, who, in a fit of love and despair, had bravely suffocated himself in his garret. Before dying he had written a most touching letter to his faithless love. The idea of killing himself like a cook made him shudder. He saw the possibility of the horrible comparison. How ridiculous! And the Count de Tremorel had a wholesome fear of ridicule. To suffocate himself, at Belleville, with a grisette, how dreadful! He almost rudely pushed Jenny’s arms away, and repulsed her.

“Enough of that sort of thing,” said he, in his careless tone. “What you say, child, is all very pretty, but utterly absurd. A man of my name dies, and doesn’t choke.” And taking the bank-notes from his pocket, where Jenny had slipped them, he threw them on the table.

“Now, good-by.”

He would have gone, but Jenny, red and with glistening eyes, barred the door with her body.

“You shall not go!” she cried, “I won’t have you; you are mine – for I love you; if you take one step, I will scream.”

The count shrugged his shoulders.

“But we must end all this!”

“You sha’n’t go!

“Well, then, I’ll blow my brains out here.” And taking out one of his pistols, he held it to his forehead, adding, “If you call out and don’t let me pass, I shall fire.” He meant the threat for earnest.

But Jenny did not call out; she could not; she uttered a deep groan and fainted.

“At last!” muttered Hector, replacing the pistol in his pocket.

He went out, not taking time to lift her from the floor where she had fallen, and shut the door. Then he called the servants into the vestibule, gave them ten napoleons to divide among them, and hastened away.

XIII

The Count de Tremorel, having reached the street, ascended the boulevard. All of a sudden he bethought him of his friends. The story of the execution must have already spread.

“No; not that way,” he muttered.

This was because, on the boulevard, he would certainly meet some of his very dear cronies, and he desired to escape their condolence and offers of service. He pictured to himself their sorry visages, concealing a hidden and delicious satisfaction. He had wounded so many vanities that he must look for terrible revenges. The friends of an insolently prosperous man are rejoiced in his downfall.

Hector crossed the street, went along the Rue Duphot, and reached the quays. Where was he going? He did not know, and did not even ask himself. He walked at random, enjoying the physical content which follows a good meal, happy to find himself still in the land of the living, in the soft April sunlight.

The weather was superb, and all Paris was out of doors. There was a holiday air about the town. The flower-women at the corners of the bridges had their baskets full of odorous violets. The count bought, a bouquet near the Pont Neuf and stuck it in his button-hole, and without waiting for his change, passed on. He reached the large square at the end of the Bourdon boulevard, which is always full of jugglers and curiosity shows; here the noise, the music, drew him from his torpor, and brought his thoughts back to his present situation.

“I must leave Paris,” thought he.

He crossed toward the Orleans station at a quicker pace. He entered the waiting-room, and asked what time the train left for Etampes. Why did he choose Etampes? A train had just gone, and there would not be another one for two hours. He was much annoyed at this, and as he could not wait there two hours, he wended his way, to kill time, toward the Jardin des Plantes. He had not been there for ten or twelve years – not since, when at school, his teachers had brought him there to look at the animals. Nothing had changed. There were the groves and parterres, the lawns and lanes, the beasts and birds, as before. The principal avenue was nearly deserted. He took a seat opposite the mineralogical museum. He reflected on his position. He glanced back through the departed years, and did not find one day among those many days which had left him one of those gracious memories which delight and console. Millions had slipped through his prodigal hands, and he could not recall a single useful expenditure, a really generous one, amounting to twenty francs. He, who had had so many friends, searched his memory in vain for the name of a single friend whom he regretted to part from. The past seemed to him like a faithful mirror; he was surprised, startled at the folly of the pleasures, the inane delights, which had been the end and aim of his existence. For what had he lived? For others.

“Ab, what a fool I was!” he muttered, “what a fool!”

After living for others, he was going to kill himself for others. His heart became softened. Who would think of him, eight days hence? Not one living being. Yes – Jenny, perhaps. Yet, no. She would be consoled with a new lover in less than a week.

The bell for closing the garden rang. Night had come, and a thick and damp mist had covered the city. The count, chilled to the bones, left his seat.

“To the station again,” muttered he.

It was a horrible idea to him now – this of shooting himself in the silence and obscurity of the forest. He pictured to himself his disfigured body, bleeding, lying on the edge of some ditch. Beggars or robbers would despoil him. And then? The police would come and take up this unknown body, and doubtless would carry it, to be identified, to the Morgue. “Never!” cried he, at this thought, “no, never!”

How die, then? He reflected, and it struck him that he would kill himself in some second-class hotel on the left bank of the Seine.

“Yes, that’s it,” said he to himself.

Leaving the garden with the last of the visitors, he wended his way toward the Latin Quarter. The carelessness which he had assumed in the morning gave way to a sad resignation. He was suffering; his head was heavy, and he was cold.

“If I shouldn’t die to-night,” he thought, “I shall have a terrible cold in the morning.”

This mental sally did not make him smile, but it gave him the consciousness of being firm and determined. He went into the Rue Dauphine and looked about for a hotel. Then it occurred to him that it was not yet seven o’clock, and it might arouse suspicions if he asked for a room at that early hour. He reflected that he still had over one hundred francs, and resolved to dine. It should be his last meal. He went into a restaurant and ordered it. But he in vain tried to throw off the anxious sadness which filled him. He drank, and consumed three bottles of wine without changing the current of his thoughts.

The waiters were surprised to see him scarcely touch the dishes set before him, and growing more gloomy after each potation. His dinner cost ninety francs; he threw his last hundred-franc note on the table, and went out. As it was not yet late, he went into another restaurant where some students were drinking, and sat down at a table in the farther corner of the room. He ordered coffee and rapidly drank three or four cups. He wished to excite himself, to screw up his courage to do what he had resolved upon; but he could not; the drink seemed only to make him more and more irresolute.

A waiter, seeing him alone at the table, offered him a newspaper. He took it mechanically, opened it, and read:

“Just as we are going to press, we learn that a well-known person has disappeared, after announcing his intention to commit suicide. The statements made to us are so strange, that we defer details till to-morrow, not having time to send for fuller information now.”

These lines startled Hector. They were his death sentence, not to be recalled, signed by the tyrant whose obsequious courtier he had always been – public opinion.

“They will never cease talking about me,” he muttered angrily. Then he added, firmly, “Come, I must make an end of this.”

He soon reached the H6tel Luxembourg. He rapped at the door, and was speedily conducted to the best room in the house. He ordered a fire to be lighted. He also asked for sugar and water, and writing materials. At this moment he was as firm as in the morning.

“I must not hesitate,” he muttered, ” nor recoil from my fate.”

He sat down at the table near the fireplace, and wrote in a firm hand a declaration which he destined for the police.

“No one must be accused of my death,” he commenced; and he went on by asking that the hotel-keeper should be indemnified.

The hour by the clock was five minutes before eleven; he placed his pistols on the mantel.

“I will shoot myself at midnight,” thought he. “I have yet an hour to live.”

The count threw himself in an arm-chair and buried his face in his hands. Why did he not kill himself at once? Why impose on himself this hour of waiting, of anguish and torture? He could not have told. He began again to think over the events of his life, reflecting on the headlong rapidity of the occurrences which had brought him to that wretched room. How time had passed! It seemed but yesterday that he first began to borrow. It does little good, however, to a man who has fallen to the bottom of the abyss, to know the causes why he fell.

The large hand of the clock had passed the half hour after eleven.

He thought of the newspaper item which he had just read. Who furnished the information? Doubtless it was Jenny. She had come to her senses, tearfully hastened after him. When she failed to find him on the boulevard, she had probably gone to his house, then to his club, then to some of his friends. So that to-night, at this very moment, the world was discussing him.

“Have you heard the news?”

“Ah, yes, poor Tremorel! What a romance! A good fellow, only – “

He thought he heard this “only” greeted with laughter and innuendoes. Time passed on. The ringing vibration of the clock was at hand; the hour had come.

The count got up, seized his pistols, and placed himself near the bed, so as not to fall on the floor.

The first stroke of twelve ; he did not fire.

Hector was a man of courage; his reputation for bravery was high. He had fought at least ten duels; and his cool bearing on the ground had always been admiringly remarked. One day he had killed a man, and that night he slept very soundly.

But he did not fire.

There are two kinds of courage. One, false courage, is that meant for the public eye, which needs the excitement of the struggle, the stimulus of rage, and the applause of lookers-on. The other, true courage, despises public opinion, obeys conscience, not passion; success does not sway it, it does its work noiselessly.

Two minutes after twelve – Hector still held the pistol against his forehead.

“Am I going to be afraid?” he asked himself.

He was afraid, but would not confess it to himself. He put his pistols back on the table and returned to his seat near the fire. All his limbs were trembling.

It’s nervousness,” he muttered. “It’ll pass off.”

He gave himself till one o’clock. He tried to convince himself of the necessity of committing suicide. If he did not, what would become of him? How would he live? Must he make up his mind to work? Besides, could he appear in the world, when all Paris knew of his intention? This thought goaded him to fury; he had a sudden courage, and grasped his pistols. But the sensation which the touch of the cold steel gave him, caused him to drop his arm and draw away shuddering.

“I cannot,” repeated he, in his anguish. “I cannot!”

The idea of the physical pain of shooting himself filled him with horror. Why had he not a gentler death? Poison, or perhaps charcoal – like the little cook? He did not fear the ludicrousness of this now; all that he feared was, that the courage to kill himself would fail him.

He went on extending his time of grace from half-hour to half-hour. It was a horrible night, full of the agony of the last night of the criminal condemned to the scaffold. He wept with grief and rage and wrung his hands and prayed. Toward daylight he fell exhausted into an uneasy slumber, in his arm-chair. He was awakened by three or four heavy raps on the door, which he hastily opened. It was the waiter, who had come to take his order for breakfast, and who started back with amazement on seeing Hector, so disordered was his clothing and so livid the pallor of his features.

“I want nothing,” said the count. “I’m going down.”

He had just enough money left to pay his bill, and six sous for the waiter. He quitted the hotel where he had suffered so much, without end or aim in view. He was more resolved than ever to die, only he yearned for several days of respite to nerve himself for the deed. But how could he live during these days? He had not so much as a centime left. An idea struck him – the pawnbrokers!

He knew that at the Monte-de-Piete* a certain amount would be advanced to him on his jewelry. But where find a branch office? He dared not ask, but hunted for one at hazard. He now held his head up, walked with a firmer step; he was seeking something, and had a purpose to accomplish. He at last saw the sign of the Monte-de-Piete on a house in the Rue Conde, and entered. The hall was small, damp, filthy, and full of people. But if the place was gloomy, the borrowers seemed to take their misfortunes good-humoredly. They were mostly students and women, talking gayly as they waited for their turns. The Count de Tremorel advanced with his watch, chain, and a brilliant diamond that he had taken from his finger. He was seized with the timidity of misery, and did not know how to open his business. A young woman pitied his embarrassment.

[* The public pawnbroker establishment of Paris, which has branch bureaus through the city.]

“See,” said she, “put your articles on this counter, before that window with green curtains.”

A moment after he heard a voice which seemed to proceed from the next room:

“Twelve hundred francs for the watch and ring.”

This large amount produced such a sensation as to arrest all the conversation. All eyes were turned toward the millionnaire who was going to pocket such a fortune. The millionnaire made no response.

The same woman who had spoken before nudged his arm.

“That’s for you,” said she. “Answer whether you will take it or not.”

I’ll take it,” cried Hector.