LITMIR.BIZ

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me decisive. Why, when a man receives sums like this, which he proposes to keep by him, he conceals the fact as carefully as possible. Monsieur de Tremorel had not this common prudence. He shows his bundles of bank-notes freely, handles them, parades them; the servants see them, almost touch them. He wants everybody to know and repeat that there is a large sum in the house, easy to take, carry off, and conceal. And what time of all times, does he choose for this display? Exactly the moment when he knows, and everyone in the neighborhood knows, that he is going to pass the night at the chateau, alone with Madame de Tremorel.

      “For he is aware that all his servants are invited, on the evening of July 8th to the wedding of the former cook. So well aware of it is he, that he defrays the wedding expenses, and himself names the day. You will perhaps say that it was by chance that this money was sent to Valfeuillu on the very night of the crime. At the worst that might be admitted. But believe me, there was no chance about it, and I will prove it. We will go to-morrow to the count’s banker, and will inquire whether the count did not ask him, by letter or verbally, to send him these funds precisely on July 8th. Well, if he says yes, if he shows us such a letter, or if he declares that the money was called for in person, you will confess, no doubt, that I have more than a probability in favor of my theory.”

      Both his hearers bowed in token of assent.

      “So far, then, there is no objection.”

      “Not the least,” said M. Plantat.

      “My conjectures have also the advantage of shedding light on Guespin’s position. Honestly, his appearance is against him, and justifies his arrest. Was he an accomplice or entirely innocent? We certainly cannot yet decide. But it is a fact that he has fallen into an admirably well-laid trap. The count, in selecting him for his victim, took all care that every doubt possible should weigh upon him. I would wager that Monsieur de Tremorel, who knew this fellow’s history, thought that his antecedents would add probability to the suspicions against him, and would weigh with a terrible weight in the scales of justice. Perhaps, too, he said to himself that Guespin would be sure to prove his innocence in the end, and he only wished to gain time to elude the first search. It is impossible that we can be deceived. We know that the countess died of the first blow, as if thunderstruck. She did not struggle; therefore she could not have torn a piece of cloth off the assassin’s vest. If you admit Guespin’s guilt, you admit that he was idiot enough to put a piece of his vest in his victim’s hand; you admit that he was such a fool as to go and throw this torn and bloody vest into the Seine, from a bridge, in a place where he might know search would be made—and all this, without taking the common precaution of attaching it to a stone to carry it to the bottom. That would be absurd.

      “To me, then, this piece of cloth, this smeared vest, indicate at once Guespin’s innocence and the count’s guilt.”

      “But,” objected Dr. Gendron, “if Guespin is innocent, why don’t he talk? Why don’t he prove an alibi? How was it he had his purse full of money?”

      “Observe,” resumed the detective, “that I don’t say he is innocent; we are still among the probabilities. Can’t you suppose that the count, perfidious enough to set a trap for his servant, was shrewd enough to deprive him of every means of proving an alibi?”

      “But you yourself deny the count’s shrewdness.”

      “I beg your pardon; please hear me. The count’s plan was excellent, and shows a superior kind of perversity; the execution alone was defective. This is because the plan was conceived and perfected in safety, while when the crime had been committed, the murderer, distressed, frightened at his danger, lost his coolness and only half executed his project. But there are other suppositions. It might be asked whether, while Madame de Tremorel was being murdered, Guespin might not have been committing some other crime elsewhere.”

      This conjecture seemed so improbable to the doctor that he could not avoid objecting to it. “Oh!” muttered he.

      “Don’t forget,” replied Lecoq, “that the field of conjectures has no bounds. Imagine whatever complication of events you may, I am ready to maintain that such a complication has occurred or will present itself. Lieuben, a German lunatic, bet that he would succeed in turning up a pack of cards in the order stated in the written agreement. He turned and turned ten hours per day for twenty years. He had repeated the operation 4,246,028 times, when he succeeded.”

      M. Lecoq was about to proceed with another illustration, when M. Plantat interrupted him by a gesture.

      “I admit your hypotheses; I think they are more than probable —they are true.”

      M. Lecoq, as he spoke, paced up and down between the window and the book-shelves, stopping at emphatic words, like a general who dictates to his aides the plan of the morrow’s battle. To his auditors, he seemed a new man, with serious features, an eye bright with intelligence, his sentences clear and concise—the Lecoq, in short, which the magistrates who have employed his talents, would recognize.

      “Now,” he resumed, “hear me. It is ten o’clock at night. No noise without, the road deserted, the village lights extinguished, the chateau servants away at Paris. The count and countess are alone at Valfeuillu.

      “They have gone to their bedroom.

      “The countess has seated herself at the table where tea has been served. The count, as he talks with her, paces up and down the chamber.

      “Madame de Tremorel has no ill presentiment; her husband, the past few days, has been more amiable, more attentive than ever. She mistrusts nothing, and so the count can approach her from behind, without her thinking of turning her head.

      “When she hears him coming up softly, she imagines that he is going to surprise her with a kiss. He, meanwhile, armed with a long dagger, stands beside his wife. He knows where to strike that the wound may be mortal. He chooses the place at a glance; takes aim; strikes a terrible blow—so terrible that the handle of the dagger imprints itself on both sides of the wound. The countess falls without a sound, bruising her forehead on the edge of the table, which is overturned. Is not the position of the terrible wound below the left shoulder thus explained—a wound almost vertical, its direction being from right to left?”

      The doctor made a motion of assent.

      “And who, besides a woman’s lover or her husband is admitted to her chamber, or can approach her when she is seated without her turning round?”

      “That’s clear,” muttered M. Plantat.

      “The countess is now dead,” pursued M. Lecoq. “The assassin’s first emotion is one of triumph. He is at last rid of her who was his wife, whom he hated enough to murder her, and to change his happy, splendid, envied existence for a frightful life, henceforth without country, friend, or refuge, proscribed by all nations, tracked by all the police, punishable by the laws of all the world! His second thought is of this letter or paper, this object of small size which he knows to be in his wife’s keeping, which he has demanded a hundred times, which she would not give up to him, and which he must have.”

      “Add,” interrupted M. Plantat, “that this paper was one of the motives of the crime.”

      “The count thinks he knows where it is. He imagines that he can put his hand on it at once. He is mistaken. He looks into all the drawers and bureaus used by his wife—and finds nothing. He searches every corner, he lifts up the shelves, overturns everything in the chamber—nothing. An idea strikes him. Is this letter under the mantel-shelf? By a turn of the arm he lifts it —down the clock tumbles and stops. It is not yet half-past ten.”

      “Yes,” murmured the doctor, “the clock betrays that.”

      “The count finds nothing under the mantel-shelf except the dust, which has retained traces of his fingers. Then he begins to be anxious. Where can this paper be, for which he has risked his life? He grows angry. How search the locked drawers? The keys are on the carpet—I found them among the debris of the tea service—but he does not see them. He must have some implement with which to break open everything. He goes downstairs for a hatchet. The drunkenness of blood and vengeance is dissipated on the staircase;

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