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Updated: June 28, 2025
Up and down in mad excitement leaped the red column with many little breaks and quiverings at the bottom of the beats and with tremendous up-shootings as if the frightened heart were trying to burst the tube with its spurting red jet. The doctor put his mouth close to Coquenil's ear and whispered: "It's the shock showing now, the shock that he held back after the body."
"Whatever your time is worth," he said in a rasping voice, "I will pay for it. Please look at this." Coquenil's curiosity was stirred. Here was no commonplace encounter, at least it was a departure from ordinary criminal methods. Who was this supercilious man? How dared he come on such an errand to him, Paul Coquenil? What desperate purpose lurked behind his self-confident mask?
He nodded. "Did you know him?" "Oh, yes, very well." Now it was Coquenil's turn to feel surprise, for he had asked the question almost aimlessly. "You knew Martinez very well?" he repeated, scarcely believing his ears. "I often saw him," she explained, "at the café where we went evenings." "Who were 'we'?" "Why, Papa Bonneton would take me, or my cousin, M. Groener, or M. Kittredge."
"Why, it's a fine sunset, man!" Tignol answered slowly, with objecting nod: "It's too red. And it's barred with purple!" "Like your nose. Ha, ha!" And Coquenil's face lighted gaily. "Forgive me, Papa Tignol." "Have your joke, if you will, but," he turned with sudden directness, "don't you remember when we had a blood-red sky like that? Ah, you don't laugh now!"
"I should say I did," grumbled the old man, "I've something to tell you." "Tell me later," cut in the detective. "We'll go there. We can have something to eat sent in and " he smiled indulgently at Tignol "and something to drink. Hey, cocher!" he called to a passing cab, and a moment later the three men were rolling away to the Latin Quarter, with Coquenil's leather bag on the front seat.
"Yes, here they are, nails and all," admitted Tignol admiringly. "I'm an old fool, but but " "Well?" "Tell me why Martinez did it." Coquenil's face darkened. "Ah, that's the question. We'll know that when we talk to the woman." The old man leaned forward eagerly: "Why do you think the woman helped him?"
It was not Papa Tignol, however, who was to furnish this information, but the discomfited Gibelin whose presence in the outer office was at this moment announced by the judge's clerk. "Ask him to come in," said Hauteville, and a moment later Coquenil's fat, red-haired rival entered with a smile that made his short mustache fairly bristle in triumph.
And it certainly was strange that this candle-selling girl with the dreams and the purplish eyes had appeared again as the suspected American's sweetheart! He had heard this from Papa Tignol, and how Alice had stood ready to brave everything for her lover when Gibelin marched him off to prison. Poor Gibelin! So Coquenil's thoughts ran along as he neared the Place de l'Etoile.
"Well answered!" approved the other; he was coming gradually under the spell of Coquenil's conviction. "And when when do you think this crime may be committed?" "Who can say? There must be great urgency to account for their insisting that I sail to-morrow. Ah, you didn't know that?
So thoroughly was the agitated lady under the spell of Coquenil's power that she now attached extraordinary importance to his slightest word or act. It seemed to her, as she pressed the bell, that she was precipitating some nameless catastrophe. "Is anyone waiting for this gentleman?" she asked, all in a tremble, when the servant appeared. "Yes, madam, two men are waiting," replied the valet.
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