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Updated: June 4, 2025
We have the deposition of the proprietor, who is well known to the police M. Hippolyte Ledantec; you shall be confronted with him." "Is he in custody?" asked Gascoigne, eagerly. "I tell you it is not your place to question." "He ought to be. It was he who committed the murder." "You know there was a murder, then? Curious. When the body was discovered by the porter there was no one present.
It was a Saturday evening in December, cold and foggy, and I think that all that combined is more than enough to explain why my friend Ledantec and I were most abominably drunk, though, to tell the truth, we did not feel any discomfort from it. On the contrary, we were floating in an atmosphere of perfect bliss.
"Let no one move," said the chief of the police, briefly. "What is the meaning of this? Who are you?" This was to Ledantec. "My name is Mr. Hobson, a British subject, and member of the press. I shall require you to explain this intrusion." "His real name is Ledantec!" cried Hyde, interposing. "Ex-gambler, and now spy in the pay of the Russians. This woman is his accomplice."
You see it, you can see it!" Ledantec said. "Let us be off." He tried to drag me out, and he was still drunk; I could see it by his feverish movements, his trembling hands and his nervous looks. Then he implored me and said: "I slept beside the old woman; but she is not old. Look at her; look at her; yes, she is old after all!"
You have either an excellent memory, or " and the stern magistrate smiled quite archly "or you are really telling me the truth." "The truth! I can swear to it." "What is more, your story is in the main corroborated. Shortly after your escape we laid hands on the very cabman who had helped Ledantec away.
Decidedly it was an attack of madness. Poor Ledantec! What could I do for him? I took his arm and tried to calm him, but he thought that I was going to try and make him go to bed with her again, and he pushed me away and exclaimed with tears in his voice: "If you do not believe me, look under the bed; the children are there; they are there, I tell you. Look here, just look here."
"But why spill blood?" he went on, musing aloud. "The guillotine will do your business in due course if I hand you over to the law. That will be best, safest; the most complete riddance, perhaps." There was a pause. "You see you are altogether in my power," said Ledantec, "either way. But I am not unreasonable.
Only, when she suddenly burst into violent sobs as she walked, Ledantec and I began to sob in unison. The cold and the fog had suddenly congested our brains again, and we had again lost all precise consciousness of our acts, of our thoughts and of our sensations.
"You are the real author of the crime in Tinplate Street." "M. Rupert Gascoigne is your informant, I presume," said Ledantec sneering; "it is easy to rebut a charge by throwing it on another. But you are too clever, M. le Juge, to be imposed upon." "You at least cannot hoodwink me. We have the fullest evidence, let me tell you, of the crime all the crimes laid to your charge.
"And who may you be?" said the police-officer, turning to Hyde. "I know this gentleman," put in the attaché whom Hyde had seen at the Embassy. "He is a British officer Mr. Hyde." "I know better!" cried Ledantec, with a scornful laugh. "I denounce him as Rupert Gascoigne, the perpetrator of the murder in Tinplate Street, fifteen years ago. The case cannot yet be forgotten at the Prefecture."
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