M. Lecoq was the first to reach the staircase, and the spots of blood at
once caught his eye.
"Oh," cried he, at each spot he saw, "oh, oh, the wretches!"
M. Courtois was much moved to find so much sensibility in a detective.
The latter, as he continued to ascend, went on:
"The wretches! They don't often leave traces like this everywhere--or at
least they wipe them out."
On gaining the first landing, and the door of the boudoir which led into
the chamber, he stopped, eagerly scanning, before he entered, the
position of the rooms.
Then he entered the boudoir, saying:
"Come; I don't see my way clear yet."
"But it seems to me," remarked the judge, "that we have already
important materials to aid your task. It is clear that Guespin, if he is
not an accomplice, at least knew something about the crime."
M. Lecoq had recourse to the portrait in the lozenge-box. It was more
than a glance, it was a confidence. He evidently said something to the
dear defunct, which he dared not say aloud.
"I see that Guespin is seriously compromised," resumed he. "Why didn't
he want to tell where he passed the night? But, then, public opinion is
against him, and I naturally distrust that."
The detective stood alone in the middle of the room, the rest, at his
request, remained at the threshold, and looking keenly about him,
searched for some explanation of the frightful disorder of the
apartment.
"Fools!" cried he, in an irritated tone, "double brutes! Because they
murder people so as to rob them, is no reason why they should break
everything in the house. Sharp folks don't smash up furniture; they
carry pretty picklocks, which work well and make no noise. Idiots! one
would say--"
He stopped with his mouth wide open.
"Eh! Not so bungling, after all, perhaps."
The witnesses of this scene remained motionless at the door, following,
with an interest mingled with surprise, the detective's movements.
Kneeling down, he passed his flat palm over the thick carpet, among the
broken porcelain.
"It's damp; very damp. The tea was not all drunk, it seems, when the
cups were broken."
"Some tea might have remained in the teapot," suggested Plantat.
"I know it," answered M. Lecoq, "just what I was going to say. So that
this dampness cannot tell us the exact moment when the crime was
committed."
"But the clock does, and very exactly," interrupted the mayor.
"The mayor," said M. Domini, "in his notes, well explains that the
movements of the clock stopped when it fell."
"But see here," said M. Plantat, "it was the odd hour marked by that
clock that struck me. The hands point to twenty minutes past three; yet
we know that the countess was fully dressed, when she was struck. Was
she up taking tea at three in the morning? It's hardly probable."
"I, too, was struck with that circumstance," returned M. Lecoq, "and
that's why I said, 'not so stupid!' Well, let's see."
He lifted the clock with great care, and replaced it on the mantel,
being cautious to set it exactly upright. The hands continued to point
to twenty minutes past three.
"Twenty past three!" muttered he, while slipping a little wedge under
the stand. "People don't take tea at that hour. Still less common is it
that people are murdered at daylight."
He opened the clock-case with some difficulty, and pushed the longer
hand to the figure of half-past three.
The clock struck eleven!
"Good," cried M. Lecoq, triumphantly. "That is the truth!" and drawing
the lozenge-box from his pocket, he excitedly crushed a lozenge between
his teeth.
The simplicity of this discovery surprised the spectators; the idea of
trying the clock in this way had occurred to no one. M. Courtois,
especially, was bewildered.
"There's a fellow," whispered he to the doctor, "who knows what he's
about."
"Ergo," resumed M. Lecoq (who knew Latin), "we have here, not brutes, as
I thought at first, but rascals who looked beyond the end of their
knife. They intended to put us off the scent, by deceiving us as to the
hour."
"I don't see their object very clearly," said M. Courtois, timidly.
"Yet it is easy to see it," answered M. Domini. "Was it not for their
interest to make it appear that the crime was committed after the last
train for Paris had left? Guespin, leaving his companions at the Lyons
station at nine, might have reached here at ten, murdered the count and
countess, seized the money which he knew to be in the count's
possession, and returned to Paris by the last train."
"These conjectures are very shrewd," interposed M. Plantat; "but how is
it that Guespin did not rejoin his comrades in the Batignolles? For in
that way, to a certain degree, he might have provided a kind of alibi."
Dr. Gendron had been sitting on the only unbroken chair in the chamber,
reflecting on Plantat's sudden embarrassment, when he had spoken of
Robelot the bone-setter. The remarks of the judge drew him from his
revery; he got up, and said:
"There is another point; putting forward the time was perhaps useful to
Guespin, but it would greatly damage Bertaud, his accomplice."
"But," answered M. Domini, "it might be that Bertaud was not consulted.
As to Guespin, he had no doubt good reasons for not returning to the
wedding. His restlessness, after such a deed, would possibly have
betrayed him."
M. Lecoq had not thought fit to speak as yet. Like a doctor at a sick
bedside, he wanted to be sure of his diagnosis. He had returned to the
mantel, and again pushed forward the hands of the clock. It sounded,
successively, half-past eleven, then twelve, then half-past twelve, then
one.
As he moved the hands, he kept muttering:
"Apprentices--chance brigands! You are malicious, parbleu, but you don't
think of everything. You give a push to the hands, but don't remember to
put the striking in harmony with them. Then comes along a detective, an
old rat who knows things, and the dodge is discovered."