on the surface.
Louis passed to and fro behind the diners, his white cloth on his arm, carving and passing the wine. Mme. Petit brought in the dishes, and came in thrice as often as was necessary, her ears wide open, leaving the door ajar as often as she dared. Poor woman! she had prepared an excellent dinner, and nobody paid any attention to it.
M. Lecoq was fond of tit-bits; yet, when Louis placed on the table a dish of superb grapes—quite out of season—his mouth did not so much as expand into a smile. Dr. Gendron would have been puzzled to say what he had eaten. The dinner was nearly over, when M. Plantat began to be annoyed by the constraint which the presence of the servants put upon the party. He called to the cook:
“You will give us our coffee in the library, and may then retire, as well as Louis.”
“But these gentlemen do not know their rooms,” insisted Mme. Petit, whose eavesdropping projects were checked by this order. “They will, perhaps, need something.”
“I will show them their rooms,” said M. Plantat, dryly. “And if they need anything, I shall be here.”
They went into the library. M. Plantat brought out a box of cigars and passed them round:
“It will be healthful to smoke a little before retiring.”
M. Lecoq lit an aromatic weed, and remarked:
“You two may go to bed if you like; I am condemned, I see, to a sleepless night. But before I go to writing, I wish to ask you a few things, Monsieur Plantat.”
M. Plantat bowed in token of assent.
“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