“You are an ass! Why, don’t you know that on the very day you were sent
for with the commissary to verify the robbery, you held--I do not say
certainly, but very probably held--in your great stupid hands the means
of knowing which key had been used when the money was stolen?”
“How! What!”
“You want to know, do you? I will tell you. Do you remember the scratch
you discovered on the safe-door? You were so struck by it, that you
exclaimed directly you saw it. You carefully examined it, and were
convinced that it was a fresh scratch, only a few hours old. You
thought, and rightly too, that this scratch was made at the time of the
theft. Now, with what was it made? Evidently with a key. That being
the case, you should have asked for the keys both of the banker and the
cashier. One of them would have had some particles of the hard green
paint sticking to it.”
Fanferlot listened with open mouth to this explanation. At the last
words, he violently slapped his forehead with his hand, and cried out:
“Imbecile! Imbecile!”
“You have rightly named yourself,” said M. Lecoq. “Imbecile! This proof
stares you right in the face, and you don’t see it! This scratch is the
sole and only clew to work the case upon, and you must go and lose the
traces of it. If I find the guilty party, it will be by means of this
scratch; and I am determined that I will find him.”
At a distance the Squirrel very bravely abused and defied M. Lecoq; but,
in his presence, he yielded to the influence which this extraordinary
man exercised upon all who approached him.
This exact information, these minute details of all his secret
movements, and even thoughts, so upset his mind that he could not think
where and how M. Lecoq had obtained them. Finally he said, humbly:
“You must have been looking up this case, patron?”
“Probably I have; but I am not infallible, and may have overlooked some
important evidence. Take a seat, and tell me all you know.”
M. Lecoq was not the man to be hoodwinked, so Fanferlot told the exact
truth, a rare thing for him to do. However as he reached the end of his
statement, a feeling of mortified vanity prevented his telling how he
had been fooled by Gypsy and the stout man.
Unfortunately for poor Fanferlot, M. Lecoq was always fully informed on
every subject in which he interested himself.
“It seems to me, Master Squirrel, that you have forgotten something. How
far did you follow the empty coach?”
Fanferlot blushed, and hung his head like a guilty school-boy.
“Oh, patron!” he cried, “and you know about that too! How could you
have----”
But a sudden idea flashed across his brain: he stopped short, bounded
off his chair, and cried:
“Oh! I know now: you were the large gentleman with red whiskers.”
His surprise gave so singular an expression to his face that M. Lecoq
could not restrain a smile.
“Then it was you,” continued the bewildered detective; “you were the
large gentleman at whom I stared, so as to impress his appearance upon
my mind, and I never recognized you! Patron, you would make a superb
actor, if you would go on the stage; but I was disguised, too--very well
disguised.”
“Very poorly disguised; it is only just to you that I should let you
know what a failure it was, Fanferlot. Do you think that a heavy beard
and a blouse are a sufficient transformation? The eye is the thing to be
changed--the eye! The art lies in being able to change the eye. That is
the secret.”
This theory of disguise explained why the lynx-eyed Lecoq never appeared
at the police-office without his gold spectacles.
“Then, patron,” said Fanferlot, clinging to his idea, “you have been
more successful than Mme. Alexandre; you have made the little girl
confess? You know why she leaves the Archangel, why she does not wait
for M. de Clameran, and why she bought calico dresses?”
“She is following my advice.”
“That being the case,” said the detective dejectedly, “there is nothing
left for me to do, but to acknowledge myself an ass.”
“No, Squirrel,” said M. Lecoq, kindly, “you are not an ass. You
merely did wrong in undertaking a task beyond your capacity. Have you
progressed one step since you started this affair? No. That shows that,
although you are incomparable as a lieutenant, you do not possess the
qualities of a general. I am going to present you with an aphorism;
remember it, and let it be your guide in the future: _A man can shine in
the second rank, who would be totally eclipsed in the first_.”
Never had Fanferlot seen his patron so talkative and good-natured.
Finding his deceit discovered, he had expected to be overwhelmed with
a storm of anger; whereas he had escaped with a little shower that had
cooled his brain. Lecoq’s anger disappeared like one of those heavy
clouds which threaten in the horizon for a moment, and then are suddenly
swept away by a gust of wind.
But this unexpected affability made Fanferlot feel uneasy. He was afraid
that something might be concealed beneath it.
“Do you know who the thief is, patron?”
“I know no more than you do, Fanferlot; and you seem to have made up
your mind, whereas I am still undecided. You declare the cashier to be
innocent, and the banker guilty. I don’t know whether you are right or
wrong. I started after you, and have only reached the preliminaries of
my search. I am certain of but one thing, and that is, that a scratch
was on the safe-door. That scratch is my starting-point.”
As he spoke, M. Lecoq took from his desk and unrolled an immense sheet
of drawing-paper.
On this paper was photographed the door of M. Fauvel’s safe. The
impression of every detail was perfect. There were the five movable
buttons with the engraved letters, and the narrow, projecting brass
lock: The scratch was indicated with great exactness.
“Now,” said M. Lecoq, “here is our scratch. It runs from top to bottom,
starting from the hole of the lock, diagonally, and, observe, from left
to right; that is to say, it terminates on the side next to the private
staircase leading to the banker’s apartments. Although very deep at the
key-hole, it ends off in a scarcely perceptible mark.”
“Yes, patron, I see all that.”
“Naturally you thought that this scratch was made by the person who took
the money. Let us see if you were right. I have here a little iron box,
painted with green varnish like M. Fauvel’s safe; here it is. Take a
key, and try to scratch it.”
“The deuce take it!” he said after several attempts, “this paint is
awfully hard to move!”
“Very hard, my friend, and yet that on the safe is still harder and
thicker. So you see the scratch you discovered could not have been made
by the trembling hand of a thief letting the key slip.”
“Sapristi!” exclaimed Fanferlot, stupefied: “I never should have thought
of that. It certainly required great force to make the deep scratch on
the safe.”
“Yes, but how was that force employed? I have been racking my brain
for three days, and only yesterday did I come to a conclusion. Let us
examine together, and see if our conjectures present enough chances of
probability to establish a starting-point.”
M. Lecoq abandoned the photograph, and, walking to the door
communicating with his bedroom, took the key from the lock, and, holding
it in his hand, said:
“Come here, Fanferlot, and stand by my side: there; very well. Now
suppose that I want to open this door, and you don’t want me to open
it; when you see me about to insert the key, what would be your first
impulse?”
“To put my hands on your arm, and draw it toward me so as to prevent
your introducing the key.”
“Precisely so. Now let us try it; go on.” Fanferlot obeyed; and the key
held by M. Lecoq, pulled aside from the lock, slipped along the door,
and traced upon it a diagonal scratch, from top to bottom, the exact
reproduction of the one in the photograph.
“Oh, oh, oh!” exclaimed Fanferlot in three different tones of
admiration, as he stood gazing in a revery at the door.
“Do you begin to understand now?” asked M. Lecoq.
“Understand, patron? Why, a child could understand it now. Ah, what a
man you are! I see the scene as if I had been present. Two persons were
present at the robbery; one wished to take the money, the other wished
to prevent its being taken. That is clear, that is certain.”
Accustomed to triumphs of this sort, M. Lecoq was much amused at
Fanferlot’s enthusiasm.
“There you go off, half-primed again,” he said, good-humoredly: “you
regard as sure proof a circumstance which may be accidental, and at the
most only probable.”
“No, patron, no! a man like you could not be mistaken: doubt no longer
exists.”
“That being the case, what deductions would you draw from our
discovery?”
“In the first place, it proves that I am correct in thinking the cashier
innocent.”
“How so?”
“Because, at perfect liberty to open the safe whenever he wished to
do so, it is not likely that he would have brought a witness when he
intended to commit the theft.”
“Well reasoned, Fanferlot. But on this supposition the banker would be
equally innocent: reflect a little.”
Fanferlot reflected, and all of his animation vanished.
“You are right,” he said in a despairing tone. “What can be done now?”
“Look for the third rogue, or rather the real rogue, the one who opened
the safe, and stole the notes, and who is still at large, while others
are suspected.”
“Impossible, patron--impossible! Don’t you know that M. Fauvel and his
cashier had keys, and they only? And they always kept these keys in
their pockets.”
“On the evening of the robbery the banker left his key in the
secretary.”
“Yes; but the key alone was not sufficient to open the safe; the word
also must be known.”