"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."