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"To-morrow! to-morrow, at nine o'clock, in my office in the Palais de Justice." Lecoq wished to insist upon a hearing, but M. d'Escorval had entered, or rather thrown himself into, his carriage, and the coachman was already whipping up the horse. "And to think that he's an investigating magistrate," panted Lecoq, left spellbound on the quay. "Has he gone mad?"
If anything important should happen, send a note to your wife, and she will inform me. Go, and be prudent." The door closed on Fanferlot as M. Lecoq passed into his bedroom. In the twinkling of an eye he had divested himself of the appearance of a police officer. He took off his stiff cravat and gold spectacles, and removed the close wig from his thick black hair.
To send Father Absinthe where a shrewd and subtle agent was required was a mockery. Still Lecoq did not protest, for it was better to be badly served than to be betrayed; and he could at least trust Father Absinthe. "It doesn't much matter," continued Gevrol; "but you should have informed me of this last evening. However, when I reached the prefecture you had gone." "I had some work to do."
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.
M. Lecoq abandoned the photograph, and, walking to the door communicating with his bedroom, took the key from the lock, and, holding it in his hand, said: "Come here, Fanferlot, and stand by my side: there; very well. Now suppose that I want to open this door, and you don't want me to open it; when you see me about to insert the key, what would be your first impulse?"
"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.
"Ought I to have allowed him to escape me?" he inquired. "No; but if I had been by your side in the gallery of the Odeon, when you so clearly divined the prisoner's intentions, I should have said to you: 'This fellow, friend Lecoq, will hasten to Madame Milner's house to inform her of his escape. Let us run after him. I shouldn't have tried to prevent his seeing her, mind.
The Duke said, 'Ask every living soul in the world, if you can succeed in no other way'; this is all the instruction he has given me; and," added he, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, "I am almost of Perpignan's opinion, that the search will be a fruitless one." "Lecoq did not think so." "He only said that he believed he should succeed if he were to take it in hand."
I will only ask you to conduct me to the magistrate who issued it, and in five minutes all will be explained." "Do you think so?" asked Lecoq in a quiet tone of sarcasm. "You have not heard, I can see, of what took place yesterday. A laborer, in the course of his work, discovers the remains of a newly-born infant, wrapped in a silk handkerchief and a shawl.
Sous ton manteau, libre et content " Before he commenced the third line the slight sound caused by the fragment of bread as it fell upon the stone floor caused him to pause abruptly. Lecoq, at the opening in the ceiling above, was holding his breath and watching with both eyes. He did not miss one of the prisoner's movements not so much as the quiver of an eyelid.
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