Monsieur Lecoq, v. 1, Emile Gaboriau [books to get back into reading .txt] 📗
- Author: Emile Gaboriau
Book online «Monsieur Lecoq, v. 1, Emile Gaboriau [books to get back into reading .txt] 📗». Author Emile Gaboriau
“Don’t you mean to say like a fool?” asked the discouraged detective.
“No, my friend, certainly not. You have rejoiced my old heart. I can die; I shall have a successor. Ah! that Gevrol who betrayed you—for he did betray you, there’s no doubt about it—that obtuse, obstinate ‘General’ is not worthy to blacken your shoes!”
“You overpower me, Monsieur Tabaret!” interrupted Lecoq, as yet uncertain whether his host was poking fun at him or not. “But it is none the less true that May has disappeared, and I have lost my reputation before I had begun to make it.”
“Don’t be in such a hurry to reject my compliments,” replied old Tabaret, with a horrible grimace. “I say that you have conducted this investigation very well; but it could have been done much better, very much better. You have a talent for your work, that’s evident; but you lack experience; you become elated by a trifling advantage, or discouraged by a mere nothing; you fail, and yet persist in holding fast to a fixed idea, as a moth flutters about a candle. Then, you are young. But never mind that, it’s a fault you will outgrow only too soon. And now, to speak frankly, I must tell you that you have made a great many blunders.”
Lecoq hung his head like a schoolboy receiving a reprimand from his teacher. After all was he not a scholar, and was not this old man his master?
“I will now enumerate your mistakes,” continued old Tabaret, “and I will show you how, on at least three occasions, you allowed an opportunity for solving this mystery to escape you.”
“But—”
“Pooh! pooh! my boy, let me talk a little while now. What axiom did you start with? You said: ‘Always distrust appearances; believe precisely the contrary of what appears true, or even probable.’”
“Yes, that is exactly what I said to myself.”
“And it was a very wise conclusion. With that idea in your lantern to light your path, you ought to have gone straight to the truth. But you are young, as I said before; and the very first circumstance you find that seems at all probable you quite forget the rule which, as you yourself admit, should have governed your conduct. As soon as you meet a fact that seems even more than probable, you swallow it as eagerly as a gudgeon swallows an angler’s bait.”
This comparison could but pique the young detective. “I don’t think I’ve been so simple as that,” protested he.
“Bah! What did you think, then, when you heard that M. d’Escorval had broken his leg in getting out of his carriage?”
“Believe! I believed what they told me, because—” He paused, and Tirauclair burst into a hearty fit of laughter.
“You believed it,” he said, “because it was a very plausible story.”
“What would you have believed had you been in my place?”
“Exactly the opposite of what they told me. I might have been mistaken; but it would be the logical conclusion as my first course of reasoning.”
This conclusion was so bold that Lecoq was disconcerted. “What!” he exclaimed; “do you suppose that M. d’Escorval’s fall was only a fiction? that he didn’t break his leg?”
Old Tabaret’s face suddenly assumed a serious expression. “I don’t suppose it,” he replied; “I’m sure of it.”
XXIV
Lecoq’s confidence in the oracle he was consulting was very great; but even old Tirauclair might be mistaken, and what he had just said seemed such an enormity, so completely beyond the bounds of possibility, that the young man could not conceal a gesture of incredulous surprise.
“So, Monsieur Tabaret, you are ready to affirm that M. d’Escorval is in quite as good health as Father Absinthe or myself; and that he has confined himself to his room for a couple of months to give a semblance of truth to a falsehood?”
“I would be willing to swear it.”
“But what could possibly have been his object?”
Tabaret lifted his hands to heaven, as if imploring forgiveness for the young man’s stupidity. “And it was in you,” he exclaimed, “in you that I saw a successor, a disciple to whom I might transmit my method of induction; and now, you ask me such a question as that! Reflect a moment. Must I give you an example to assist you? Very well. Let it be so. Suppose yourself a magistrate. A crime is committed; you are charged with the duty of investigating it, and you visit the prisoner to question him. Very well. This prisoner has, hitherto, succeeded in concealing his identity—this was the case in the present instance, was it not? Very well. Now, what would you do if, at the very first glance, you recognized under the prisoner’s disguise your best friend, or your worst enemy? What would you do, I ask?”
“I should say to myself that a magistrate who is obliged to hesitate between his duty and his inclinations, is placed in a very trying position, and I should endeavor to avoid the responsibility.”
“I understand that; but would you reveal this prisoner’s identity—remember, he might be your friend or your enemy?”
The question was so delicate that Lecoq remained silent for a moment, reflecting before he replied.
The pause was interrupted by Father Absinthe. “I should reveal nothing whatever!” he exclaimed. “I should remain absolutely neutral. I should say to myself others are trying to discover this man’s identity. Let them do so if they can; but let my conscience be clear.”
This was the cry of honesty; not the counsel of a casuist.
“I also should be silent,” Lecoq at last replied; “and it seems to me that, in holding my tongue, I should not fail in my duty as a magistrate.”
On hearing these words, Tabaret rubbed his hands together, as he always did when he was about to present some overwhelming argument. “Such being the case,” said he, “do me the favor to tell me what pretext you would invent in order to withdraw from the case without exciting suspicion?”
“I don’t know; I can’t say now. But if I were placed in such a position I should find some excuse—invent something—”
“And if you could find nothing better,” interrupted Tabaret, “you would adopt M. d’Escorval’s expedient; you would pretend you had broken a limb. Only, as you are a clever fellow, you would sacrifice your arm; it would be less inconvenient than your leg; and you wouldn’t be condemned to seclusion for several months.”
Comments (0)