Monsieur Lecoq, Émile Gaboriau [best non fiction books to read .txt] 📗

to destroy himself. He had no faith in the generosity of his former enemy.

But when he found M. Segmuller occupying Maurice’s place the next morning, Martial believed that he was saved.

Then began that struggle between the judge and Lecoq on one side, and the accused on the other⁠—a struggle from which neither party came out conqueror.

Martial knew that Lecoq was the only person he had to fear, still he bore him no ill-will. Faithful to his nature, which compelled him to be just even to his enemies, he could not help admiring the astonishing penetration and perseverance of this young policeman who, undismayed by the obstacles and discouragements that surrounded him, struggled on, unassisted, to reach the truth.

But Lecoq was always outwitted by Otto, the mysterious accomplice, who seemed to know his every movement in advance.

At the morgue, at the Hotel de Mariembourg, with Toinon, the wife of Polyte Chupin, as well as with Polyte Chupin himself, Lecoq was just a little too late.

Lecoq detected the secret correspondence between the prisoner and his accomplice. He was even ingenious enough to discover the key to it, but this served no purpose. A man, who had seen a rival, or rather, a future master, in Lecoq had betrayed him.

If his efforts to arrive at the truth through the jeweller and the Marquis d’Arlange had failed, it was only because Mme. Blanche had not purchased the diamond earrings she wore at the Poivrière at any shop, but from one of her friends, the Baroness de Watchau.

And lastly, if no one at Paris had missed the Duc de Sairmeuse, it was because⁠—thanks to an understanding between the duchess, Otto, and Camille⁠—no other inmate of the Hotel de Sairmeuse suspected his absence. All the servants supposed their master confined to his room by illness. They prepared all sorts of gruels and broths for him, and his breakfast and dinner were taken to his apartments every day.

So the weeks went by, and Martial was expecting to be summoned before the Court of Assizes and condemned under the name of May, when he was afforded an opportunity to escape.

Too shrewd not to discern the trap that had been set for him, he endured some moments of horrible hesitation in the prison-van.

He decided to accept the risk, however, commending himself to his lucky star.

And he decided wisely, for that same night he leaped his own garden-wall, leaving, as a hostage, in the hands of Lecoq, an escaped convict, Joseph Conturier by name, whom he had picked up in a low drinking-saloon.

Warned by Mme. Milner, thanks to a blunder on the part of Lecoq, Otto was awaiting his master.

In the twinkling of an eye Martial’s beard fell under the razor; he plunged into the bath that was awaiting him, and his clothing was burned.

And it was he who, during the search a few minutes later, had the hardihood to call out:

“Otto, by all means allow these men to do their duty.”

But he did not breathe freely until the agents of police had departed.

“At last,” he exclaimed, “honor is saved! We have outwitted Lecoq!”

He had just left the bath, and enveloped himself in a robe de chambre, when Otto handed him a letter from the duchess.

He hastily broke the seal and read:

You are safe. You know all. I am dying. Farewell. I loved you.

With two bounds he reached his wife’s apartments. The door was locked; he burst it open. Too late!

Mme. Blanche was dead⁠—poisoned, like Marie-Anne; but she had procured a drug whose effect was instantaneous; and extended upon her couch, clad in her wonted apparel, her hands folded upon her breast, she seemed only asleep.

A tear glittered in Martial’s eye.

“Poor, unhappy woman!” he murmured; “may God forgive you as I forgive you⁠—you whose crime has been so frightfully expiated here below!”

Epilogue The First Success

Safe, in his own princely mansion, and surrounded by an army of retainers, the Duc de Sairmeuse triumphantly exclaimed:

“We have outwitted Lecoq.”

In this he was right.

But he thought himself forever beyond the reach of the wily, keen-witted detective; and in this he was wrong.

Lecoq was not the man to sit down with folded hands and brood over the humiliation of his defeat.

Before he went to Father Tabaret, he was beginning to recover from his stupor and despondency; and when he left that experienced detective’s presence, he had regained his courage, his command over his faculties, and sufficient energy to move the world, if necessary.

“Well, my good man,” he remarked to Father Absinthe, who was trotting along by his side, “you have heard what the great Monsieur Tabaret said, did you not? So you see I was right.”

But his companion evinced no enthusiasm.

“Yes, you were right,” he responded, in woebegone tones.

“Do you think we are ruined by two or three mistakes? Nonsense! I will soon turn our defeat of today into a glorious victory.”

“Ah! you might do so perhaps, if⁠—they do not dismiss us from the force.”

This doleful remark recalled Lecoq to a realizing sense of the present situation.

They had allowed a prisoner to slip through their fingers. That was vexatious, it is true; but they had captured one of the most notorious of criminals⁠—Joseph Conturier. Surely there was some comfort in that.

But while Lecoq could have borne dismissal, he could not endure the thought that he would not be allowed to follow up this affair of the Poivrière.

What would his superior officers say when he told them that May and the Duc de Sairmeuse were one and the same person?

They would, undoubtedly, shrug their shoulders and turn up their noses.

“Still, Monsieur Segmuller will believe me,” he thought. “But will he dare to take any action in the matter without incontrovertible evidence?”

This was very unlikely. Lecoq realized it all too well.

“Could we not make a descent upon the Hotel de Sairmeuse, and, on some pretext or other, compel the duke to show himself, and identify him as the prisoner May?”

He entertained this idea only for an instant, then abruptly dismissed it.

“A stupid expedient!” he exclaimed. “Are two