They searched for a long time, and it was not until after an hour of earnest work that, in front of the door forced open by the police, they discovered in the mud, just inside the marks made by Gevrol’s tread, a footprint that bore a close resemblance to those left by the man who had entered the garden. They compared the impressions and recognized the same designs formed by the nails upon the sole of the boot.
“It must have been the accomplice!” exclaimed Lecoq. “He watched us, he saw us go away, and then he entered. But why? What pressing, irresistible necessity made him decide to brave such imminent danger?” He seized his companion’s hand, nearly crushing it in his excitement: “Ah! I know why!” continued he, violently. “I understand only too well. Some article that would have served to throw light on this horrible affair had been left or forgotten, or lost here, and to obtain it, to find it, he decided to run this terrible risk. And to think that it was my fault, my fault alone, that this convincing proof escaped us! And I thought myself so shrewd! What a lesson! The door should have been locked; any fool would have thought of it—” Here he checked himself, and remained with open mouth and distended eyes, pointing with his finger to one of the corners of the room.
“What is the matter?” asked his frightened companion.
Lecoq made no reply, but slowly, and with the stiff movements of a somnambulist, he approached the spot to which he had pointed, stooped, picked up something, and said: “My folly is not deserving of such luck.”
The object he had found was an earring composed of a single large diamond. The setting was of marvelous workmanship. “This diamond,” declared Lecoq, after a moment’s examination, “must be worth at least five or six thousand francs.”
“Are you in earnest?”
“I think I could swear to it.”
He would not have troubled about such a preamble as “I think” a few hours before, but the blunder he had made was a lesson that would not be forgotten so long as he lived.
“Perhaps it was that same diamond earring that the accomplice came to seek,” ventured Father Absinthe.
“The supposition is scarcely admissible. In that case, he would not have sought for it in Mother Chupin’s apron. No, he must have been seeking for something else—a letter, for example.”
The older man was not listening; he had taken the earring, and was examining it in his turn. “And to think,” he murmured, astonished by the brilliancy of the stone, “to think that a woman who had ten thousand francs’ worth of jewels in her ears would have come to the Poivrière. Who would have believed it?”
Lecoq shook his head thoughtfully. “Yes, it is very strange, very improbable, very absurd. And yet we shall see many things quite as strange if we ever arrive—which I very much doubt—at a solution of this mysterious affair.”
Day was breaking, cold, cheerless, and gloomy, when Lecoq and his colleague concluded their investigation. There was not an inch of space that had not been explored, carefully examined and studied, one might almost say, with a magnifying glass. There now only remained to draw up the report.
The younger man seated himself at the table, and, with the view of making his recital as intelligible as possible, he began by sketching a plan of the scene of the murder.
A—The point where the squad of police, under the command of Inspector Gevrol, heard the cries of the victims.
(The distance from this point to the wine-shop known as the Poivrière, is only one hundred and twenty-three yards; hence it may reasonably be supposed that these cries were the first that were uttered, and consequently the conflict had just commenced.)
B—The window closed with shutters, through the cracks of which one of the police agents was able to see the scene within.
C—The door forced open by Inspector Gevrol.
D—The staircase upon which the Widow Chupin was seated, crying.
(It was upon the third step of this staircase that the Widow Chupin’s apron was afterward found, the pockets turned inside out.
F—Fireplace.
HHH—Tables.
(The remnants of the salad-bowl and of the five glasses were found scattered on the floor between the points F and B.)
T—Door communicating with the back room of the hovel, before which the armed murderer was standing with the table H before him as a rampart.
K—Back door of the hut, opening into the garden, by which the agent of police, who thought of cutting off the murderer’s retreat, entered and secured him.
L—Gate of the garden, opening upon the unoccupied ground.
MM—Footprints on the snow, discovered by the police agent remaining at the Poivrière, after the departure of Inspector Gavrol.
It will be seen that in the memoranda appended to this explanatory diagram, Lecoq had not once written his own name. In noting the things that he had imagined or discovered, he referred to himself simply as one of the police. This was not so much modesty as calculation. By hiding one’s self on well-chosen occasions, one gains greater notoriety when one emerges from the shade. It was also through cunning that he gave Gevrol such a prominent position. These tactics, rather subtle, perhaps, but after all perfectly fair, could not fail to call attention to the man who had shown himself so efficient when the efforts of his chief had been merely confined to breaking open the door.
The document Lecoq drew up was not a procès-verbal, a formal act reserved for the officers of judiciary police; it was a simple report, that would be admitted under the title of an inquiry, and yet the young detective composed it with quite as much care as a general would have displayed in drawing up the bulletin of his first victory.
While
