LITMIR.BIZ

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Let’s see it.”

      They ascended to the room in question, and M. Lecoq, forgetting his part of a haberdasher, and regardless of his clothes, went down flat on his stomach, alternately scrutinizing the hatchet—which was a heavy, terrible weapon—and the slippery and well-waxed oaken floor.

      “I suppose,” observed M. Plantat, “that the assassins brought this hatchet up here and assailed this cupboard, for the sole purpose of putting us off our scent, and to complicate the mystery. This weapon, you see, was by no means necessary for breaking open the cupboard, which I could smash with my fist. They gave one blow —only one—and quietly put the hatchet down.”

      The detective got up and brushed himself.

      “I think you are mistaken,” said he. “This hatchet wasn’t put on the floor gently; it was thrown with a violence betraying either great terror or great anger. Look here; do you see these three marks, near each other, on the floor? When the assassin threw the hatchet, it first fell on the edge—hence this sharp cut; then it fell over on one side; and the flat, or hammer end left this mark here, under my finger. Therefore, it was thrown with such violence that it turned over itself and that its edge a second time cut in the floor, where you see it now.”

      “True,” answered M. Plantat. The detective’s conjectures doubtless refuted his own theory, for he added, with a perplexed air:

      “I don’t understand anything about it.”

      M. Lecoq went on:

      “Were the windows open this morning as they are now?”

      “Yes.”

      “Ah! The wretches heard some noise or other in the garden, and they went and looked out. What did they see? I can’t tell. But I do know that what they saw terrified them, that they threw down the hatchet furiously, and made off. Look at the position of these cuts—they are slanting of course—and you will see that the hatchet was thrown by a man who was standing, not by the cupboard, but close by the open window.”

      Plantat in his turn knelt down, and looked long and carefully. The detective was right. He got up confused, and after meditating a moment, said:

      “This perplexes me a little; however—”

      He stopped, motionless, in a revery, with one of his hands on his forehead.

      “All might yet be explained,” he muttered, mentally searching for a solution of the mystery, “and in that case the time indicated by the clock would be true.”

      M. Lecoq did not think of questioning his companion. He knew that he would not answer, for pride’s sake.

      “This matter of the hatchet puzzles me, too,” said he. “I thought that these assassins had worked leisurely; but that can’t be so. I see they were surprised and interrupted.”

      Plantat was all ears.

      “True,” pursued M. Lecoq, slowly, “we ought to divide these indications into two classes. There are the traces left on purpose to mislead us—the jumbled-up bed, for instance; then there are the real traces, undesigned, as are these hatchet cuts. But here I hesitate. Is the trace of the hatchet true or false, good or bad? I thought myself sure of the character of these assassins: but now—” He paused; the wrinkles on his face, the contraction of his mouth, betrayed his mental effort.

      “But now?” asked M. Plantat.

      M. Lecoq, at this question, seemed like a man just roused from sleep.

      “I beg your pardon,” said he. “I forgot myself. I’ve a bad habit of reflecting aloud. That’s why I almost always insist on working alone. My uncertainty, hesitation, the vacillation of my suspicions, lose me the credit of being an astute detective—of being an agent for whom there’s no such thing as a mystery.”

      Worthy M. Plantat gave the detective an indulgent smile.

      “I don’t usually open my mouth,” pursued M. Lecoq, “until my mind is satisfied; then I speak in a peremptory tone, and say—this is thus, or this is so. But to-day I am acting without too much restraint, in the company of a man who knows that a problem such as this seems to me to be, is not solved at the first attempt. So I permit my gropings to be seen without shame. You cannot always reach the truth at a bound, but by a series of diverse calculations, by deductions and inductions. Well, just now my logic is at fault.”

      “How so?”

      “Oh, it’s very simple. I thought I understood the rascals, and knew them by heart; and yet I have only recognized imaginary adversaries. Are they fools, or are they mighty sly? That’s what I ask myself. The tricks played with the bed and clock had, I supposed, given me the measure and extent of their intelligence and invention. Making deductions from the known to the unknown, I arrived, by a series of very simple consequences, at the point of foreseeing all that they could have imagined, to throw us off the scent. My point of departure admitted, I had only, in order to reach the truth, to take the contrary of that which appearances indicated. I said to myself:

      “A hatchet has been found in the second story; therefore the assassins carried it there, and designedly forgot it.

      “They left five glasses on the dining-room table; therefore they were more or less than five, but they were not five.

      “There were the remains of a supper on the table; therefore they neither drank nor ate.

      “The countess’s body was on the river-bank; therefore it was placed there deliberately. A piece of cloth was found in the victim’s hand; therefore it was put there by the murderers themselves.

      “Madame de Tremorel’s body is disfigured by many dagger-strokes, and horribly mutilated; therefore she was killed by a single blow—”

      “Bravo, yes, bravo,” cried M. Plantat, visibly charmed.

      “Eh! no, not bravo yet,” returned M. Lecoq. “For here my thread is broken; I have reached a gap. If my deductions were sound, this hatchet would have been very carefully placed on the floor.”

      “Once more, bravo,” added the other, “for this does not at all affect our general theory. It is clear, nay certain, that the assassins intended to act as you say. An unlooked-for event interrupted them.”

      “Perhaps; perhaps that’s true. But I see something else—”

      “What?”

      “Nothing—at least, for the moment. Before all, I must see the dining-room and the garden.”

      They descended at once, and Plantat pointed out the glasses and bottles, which he had put one side. The detective took the glasses, one after another, held them level with his eye, toward the light, and scrutinized the moist places left on them.

      “No one has drank from these glasses,” said he, firmly.

      “What, from neither one of them?”

      The detective fixed a penetrating look upon his companion, and in a measured tone, said:

      “From neither one.”

      M. Plantat only answered by a movement of the lips, as if to say, “You are going too far.”

      The other smiled, opened the door, and called:

      “Francois!”

      The valet hastened to obey the call. His face was suffused with tears; he actually bewailed the loss of his master.

      “Hear what I’ve got to say, my lad,” said M. Lecoq, with true detective-like familiarity. “And be sure and answer me exactly, frankly, and briefly.”

      “I will, sir.”

      “Was it customary here at the chateau, to bring up the wine before it was wanted?”

      “No, sir; before each meal, I myself went down to the cellar for it.”

      “Then no full bottles were ever kept in the dining-room?”

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