LITMIR.BIZ

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justice of the peace slowly ascended the narrow, ill-lighted staircase, which in its dark corners was almost dangerous. He was thinking of the strange step he was about to take. An idea had occurred to him, but he did not know whether it were practicable, and at all events he needed the aid and advice of the detective. He was forced to disclose his most secret thoughts, as it were, to confess himself; and his heart beat fast. The door opposite the staircase on the third story was not like other doors; it was of plain oak, thick, without mouldings, and fastened with iron bars. It would have looked like a prison door had not its sombreness been lightened by a heavily colored engraving of a cock crowing, with the legend “Always Vigilant.” Had the detective put his coat of arms up there? Was it not more likely that one of his men had done it? After examining the door more than a minute, and hesitating like a youth before his beloved’s gate, he rang the bell. A creaking of locks responded, and through the narrow bars of the peephole he saw the hairy face of an old crone.

      “What do you want?” said the woman, in a deep, bass voice.

      “Monsieur Lecoq.”

      “What do you want of him?”

      “He made an appointment with me for this morning.”

      “Your name and business?”

      “Monsieur Plantat, justice of the peace at Orcival.”

      “All right. Wait.”

      The peephole was closed and the old man waited.

      “Peste!” growled he. “Everybody can’t get in here, it seems.” Hardly had this reflection passed through his mind when the door opened with a noise as of chains and locks. He entered, and the old crone, after leading him through a dining-room whose sole furniture was a table and six chairs, introduced him to a large room, half toilet-room and half working-room, lighted by two windows looking on the court, and guarded by strong, close bars.

      “If you will take the trouble to sit,” said the servant, “Monsieur Lecoq will soon be here; he is giving orders to one of his men.”

      But M. Plantat did not take a seat; he preferred to examine the curious apartment in which he found himself. The whole of one side of the wall was taken up with a long rack, where hung the strangest and most incongruous suits of clothes. There were costumes belonging to all grades of society; and on some wooden pegs above, wigs of all colors were hanging; while boots and shoes of various styles were ranged on the floor. A toilet-table, covered with powders, essences, and paints, stood between the fireplace and the window. On the other side of the room was a bookcase full of scientific works, especially of physic and chemistry. The most singular piece of furniture in the apartment, however, was a large ball, shaped like a lozenge, in black velvet, suspended beside the looking-glass. A quantity of pins were stuck in this ball, so as to form the letters composing these two names: Hector-Jenny.

      These names glittering on the black background attracted the old man’s attention at once. This must have been M. Lecoq’s reminder. The ball was meant to recall to him perpetually the people of whom he was in pursuit. Many names, doubtless, had in turn glittered on that velvet, for it was much frayed and perforated. An unfinished letter lay open upon the bureau.

      M. Plantat leaned over to read it; but he took his trouble for nothing, for it was written in cipher.

      He had no sooner finished his inspection of the room than the noise of a door opening made him turn round. He saw before him a man of his own age, of respectable mien, and polite manners, a little bald, with gold spectacles and a light-colored flannel dressing-gown.

      M. Plantat bowed, saying:

      “I am waiting here for Monsieur Lecoq.”

      The man in gold spectacles burst out laughing, and clapped his hands with glee.

      “What, dear sir,” said he, “don’t you know me? Look at me well —it is I—Monsieur Lecoq!” And to convince him, he took off his spectacles. Those might, indeed, be Lecoq’s eyes, and that his voice; M. Plantat was confounded.

      “I never should have recognized you,” said he.

      “It’s true, I have changed a little—but what would you have? It’s my trade.”

      And pushing a chair toward his visitor, he pursued:

      “I have to beg a thousand pardons for the formalities you’ve had to endure to get in here; it’s a dire necessity, but one I can’t help. I have told you of the dangers to which I am exposed; they pursue me to my very door. Why, last week a railway porter brought a package here addressed to me. Janouille—that’s my old woman —suspected nothing, though she has a sharp nose, and told him to come in. He held out the package, I went up to take it, when pif! paf! off went two pistol-shots. The package was a revolver wrapped up in oilcloth, and the porter was a convict escaped from Cayenne, caught by me last year. Ah, I put him through for this though!”

      He told this adventure carelessly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

      “But let’s not starve ourselves to death,” he continued, ringing the bell. The old hag appeared, and he ordered her to bring on breakfast forthwith, and above all, some good wine.

      “You are observing my Janouille,” remarked he, seeing that M. Plantat looked curiously at the servant. “She’s a pearl, my dear friend, who watches over me as if I were her child, and would go through the fire for me. I had a good deal of trouble the other day to prevent her strangling the false railway porter. I picked her out of three or four thousand convicts. She had been convicted of infanticide and arson. I would bet a hundred to one that, during the three years that she has been in my service, she has not even thought of robbing me of so much as a centime.”

      But M. Plantat only listened to him with one ear; he was trying to find an excuse for cutting Janouille’s story short, and to lead the conversation to the events of the day before.

      “I have, perhaps, incommoded you a little this morning, Monsieur Lecoq?”

      “Me? then you did not see my motto—’always vigilant?’ Why, I’ve been out ten times this morning; besides marking out work for three of my men. Ah, we have little time to ourselves, I can tell you. I went to the Vulcan’s Forges to see what news I could get of that poor devil of a Guespin.”

      “And what did you hear?”

      “That I had guessed right. He changed a five-hundred-franc note there last Wednesday evening at a quarter before ten.”

      “That is to say, he is saved?”

      “Well, you may say so. He will be, as soon as we have found Miss Jenny.”

      The old justice of the peace could not avoid showing his uneasiness.

      “That will, perhaps, be long and difficult?”

      “Bast! Why so? She is on my black ball there—we shall have her, accidents excepted, before night.”

      “You really think so?”

      “I should say I was sure, to anybody but you. Reflect that this girl has been connected with the Count de Tremorel, a man of the world, a prince of the mode. When a girl falls to the gutter, after having, as they say, dazzled all Paris for six months with her luxury, she does not disappear entirely, like a stone in the mud. When she has lost all her friends there are still her creditors, who follow and watch her, awaiting the day when fortune will smile on her once more. She doesn’t trouble herself about them, she thinks they’ve forgotten her; a mistake! I know a milliner whose head is a perfect dictionary of the fashionable world; she has often done me a good turn. We will go and see her if you say so, after breakfast, and in two hours she will give us Jenny’s address. Ah, if I were only as sure of pinching Tremorel!”

      M. Plantat gave a sigh of relief. The conversation at last took the turn he wished.

      “You are thinking of him, then?” asked he.

      “Am I?” shouted M. Lecoq, who started from his seat at the question. “Now just look at my black

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