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; Idivine 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 Ihave 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.
