Monsieur Lecoq, v. 1, Emile Gaboriau [books to get back into reading .txt] 📗

any need of close attention. No one save the fugitives had crossed this lonely waste since the last fall of snow. A child could have followed the track, so clear and distinct it was. Four series of footprints, very unlike in character, formed the track; two of these had evidently been left by the women; the other two, one going and one returning, had been made by the man. On several occasions the latter had placed his foot exactly on the footprints left by the two women, half effacing them, thus dispelling all doubt as to the precise moment of his approach.

About a hundred yards from the Poivriere, Lecoq suddenly seized his colleague’s arm. “Halt!” he exclaimed, “we have reached a good place; I can see unmistakable proofs.”

The spot, all unenclosed as it was, was evidently utilized by some builder for the storage of various kinds of lumber. The ground was strewn with large blocks of granite, some chiseled, some in the rough, with numerous long planks and logs of wood in their midst. In front of one of these logs, the surface of which had been evidently wiped, all the various footprints came together, mingling confusedly.

“Here,” declared the young detective, “our fugitives met the man and took counsel with him. One of the women, the one with the little feet, sat down upon this log.”

“We ought to make quite sure of that,” said Father Absinthe, in an oracular tone.

But his companion cut short his desire for verification. “You, my old friend,” said he, “are going to do me the kindness to keep perfectly still: pass me the lantern and do not move.”

Lecoq’s modest tone had suddenly become so imperious that his colleague dared offer no resistance. Like a soldier at the command to halt, he remained erect, motionless, and mute, following his colleague’s movements with an inquisitive, wondering eye.

Quick in his motions, and understanding how to maneuvre the lantern in accordance with his wishes, the young police agent explored the surroundings in a very short space of time. A bloodhound in pursuit of his prey would have been less alert, less discerning, less agile. He came and went, now turning, now pausing, now retreating, now hurrying on again without any apparent reason; he scrutinized, he questioned every surrounding object: the ground, the logs of wood, the blocks of stone, in a word, nothing escaped his glance. For a moment he would remain standing, then fall upon his knees, and at times lie flat upon his stomach with his face so near the ground that his breath must have melted the snow. He had drawn a tape-line from his pocket, and using it with a carpenter’s dexterity, he measured, measured, and measured.

And all his movements were accompanied with the wild gestures of a madman, interspersed with oaths or short laughs, with exclamations of disappointment or delight. After a quarter of an hour of this strange exercise, he turned to Father Absinthe, placed the lantern on a stone, wiped his hands with his pocket-handkerchief, and said: “Now I know everything!”

“Well, that is saying a great deal!”

“When I say everything, I mean all that is connected with the episode of the drama which ended in that bloody bout in the hovel. This expanse of earth covered with snow is a white page upon which the people we are in search of have written, not only their movements, their goings, and comings, but also their secret thoughts, their alternate hopes and anxieties. What do these footprints say to you, Papa Absinthe? To me they are alive like the persons who made them; they breathe, speak, accuse!”

The old agent was saying to himself: “Certainly, this fellow is intelligent, undeniably shrewd; but he is very disagreeable.”

“These are the facts as I have read them,” pursued Lecoq. “When the murderer repaired to the Poivriere with the two women, his companion—I should say his accomplice—came here to wait. He was a tall man of middle age; he wore a soft hat and a shaggy brown overcoat; he was, moreover, probably married, or had been so, as he had a wedding-ring on the little finger of his right hand—”

His companion’s despairing gestures obliged the speaker to pause. This description of a person whose existence had but just now been demonstrated, these precise details given in a tone of absolute certainty, completely upset all Father Absinthe’s ideas, increasing his perplexity beyond all bounds.

“This is not right,” he growled, “this is not kind. You are poking fun at me. I take the thing seriously; I listen to you, I obey you in everything, and then you mock me in this way. We find a clue, and instead of following it up, you stop to relate all these absurd stories.”

“No,” replied his companion, “I am not jesting, and I have told you nothing of which I am not absolutely sure, nothing that is not strictly and indisputably true.”

“And you would have me believe—”

“Fear nothing, papa; I would not have you do violence to your convictions. When I have told you my reasons, and my means of information, you will laugh at the simplicity of the theory that seems so incomprehensible to you now.”

“Go on, then,” said the good man, in a tone of resignation.

“We had decided,” rejoined Lecoq, “that the accomplice mounted guard here. The time seemed long, and, growing impatient, he paced to and fro—the length of this log of wood—occasionally pausing to listen. Hearing nothing, he stamped his foot, doubtless exclaiming: ‘What the deuce has happened to him down there!’ He had made about thirty turns (I have counted them), when a sound broke the stillness—the two women were coming.”

On hearing Lecoq’s recital, all the conflicting sentiments that are awakened in a child’s mind by a fairy tale—doubt, faith, anxiety, and hope—filled Father Absinthe’s heart. What should he believe? what should he refuse to believe? He did not know. How was he to separate the true from the false among all these equally surprising assertions? On the other hand, the gravity of his companion, which certainly was not feigned, dismissed all idea of pleasantry.

Finally, curiosity began to torture him. “We had reached the point where the women made their appearance,” said he.

“Yes, indeed,” responded Lecoq, “but here all certainty ceases; no more proofs, only suppositions. Still, I have every reason to believe that our fugitives left the drinking den before the beginning of the fight, before the cries that attracted our attention. Who were they? I can only conjecture. I suspect, however, that they were not equals in rank. I am inclined to think that one was the mistress, the other her servant.”

“That is proved,” ventured the old man, “by the great difference in their feet and in their shoes.”

This shrewd observation elicited a smile from Lecoq. “That difference,” he replied, seriously, “is something, of course; but it was not that which decided me in my opinion. If greater or less perfection of the extremities regulated social distinctions, many mistresses would be servants. What struck me was this: when the two women rushed wildly from Mother Chupin’s house, the woman with the small feet sprang across the garden with one bound, she darted on some distance in advance of the other. The terror of