United States or Cocos Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It required considerable effort on my part to so restrain my feelings as not to appear especially interested in what I had learned. I think, however, I succeeded, as they freely answered my questions regarding Cazot and the daughter of whom he had spoken. They knew nothing further, they said, than what they had told me.
"'There's the article, he said, bringing his hand down emphatically upon it. 'The cuss was hard up. Luck had gone agin him and he had lost every cent he had. Jem Macey was a-dealin' and Cazot didn't seem to grasp that fact, but kept bettin' heavy. You see, young feller, ye ain't over likely to win at cards when yer playin' agin the dealer.
He gave him his note for it, and Dick carries it around with him, not because he thinks he'll ever get it, but he likes the writing. M. Henri Cazot! eh, Dick? and he burst into a coarse laugh. I turned to Dick for further information. He had already produced a much-crumpled paper and was smoothing it out upon the table.
That's the last I ever see of M. Henri Cazot, and he handed the paper to me. I glanced at the signature. It was the same hand that had written 'Weltz' and 'Rizzi' upon the library slips. There was that unmistakable z and the peculiar r which had just attracted my attention!
Cazot didn't know this and I wouldn't tell him, for he was rather fly with the cards himself when he wan't watched too close. Well, he struck me for a loan; said his little girl was hungry and he hadn't a cent to buy bread. Gad, but he looked wild though! I always thought he was more'n half loony. Well, as I had helped to fleece him I lent him a hundred and took this here note.
This was on Tuesday. On Friday he came to the house and informed us that he had met a man who had known a M. Henri Cazot, a Frenchman whose description seemed to tally perfectly with nearly all we knew of Mr. Darrow's murderer.
Pierre Cazot was an epileptic patient, and was said to have the power of prophecy. Being magnetised on the 22nd of April, he said that in nine weeks he should have a fit, in three weeks afterwards go mad, abuse his wife, murder some one, and finally recover in the month of August.
I then went up to the South End and on Decatur Street found a man who promptly responded to my inquiries: 'Gad! that's Henri Cazot fast enough, in all but the height and gait. Dick there, he'll tell you all about him. He owes him a little debt of honour of about a hundred plunks.
Word Of The Day