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He told one what he would not confess to the other; he wrote to Savoye-Rollin that he was in a hurry to return to Rouen, while by the same post he asked Réal to get him recalled to Paris during the next twenty-four hours. The "any one" mentioned here is Savoye-Rollin. What secret had Licquet discovered, that he did not dare to confide, except orally, and then only to the Imperial Chief of Police?
It had been tacitly decreed that the robbery at Quesnay should be judged by a special court at Rouen. Licquet became the organiser and stage-manager of the proceedings. At the end of 1807 he had under lock and key thirty-eight prisoners whom he questioned incessantly, and kept in a state of uncertainty as to whether he meant to confront them with each other. But he declared himself dissatisfied.
This time she emptied all the corners of her memory, returning to facts already revealed, adding details, telling of all d'Aché's comings and goings, his frequent journeys to England, and of the manner in which David l'Intrépide crossed the channel. Licquet tried more than all to awaken her memories of Le Chevalier's relations with Parisian society.
There was something unexplained, and Licquet was not satisfied. His tricks had brought no result. D'Aché was not found; Mme. Acquet had disappeared; her description had in vain been sent to all the brigades. Manginot, in despair of finding her, had renounced the search, and Savoye-Rollin himself was "determined to suspend all action." Such was the situation during the last days of September.
Unlikely as this seems, Licquet was inclined to believe it, so much was his own cunning disconcerted by the audacious cleverness of his rival. The letter in which he reports to Réal his investigation in the Eure, is stamped with deep discouragement; he did not conceal the fact that the pursuit of d'Aché was a task as deceptive as it was useless.
Licquet had created such an artificial atmosphere around her that she lived under the delusion that she was as important as before.
Licquet moved about with complete self-control, talking of the time when he had known the man who lay there, his face swollen but severe, his nose thin as an eagle's beak, his lips tightened. Suddenly the detective remembered a sign that he had formerly noted, and ordered the dead man's boots to be removed.
Licquet asked several questions; she did not reply until she had caused them to be repeated several times, under pretence that she did not understand them. She struggled desperately, arguing, quibbling, fighting foot by foot. If she admitted knowing d'Aché and having frequently offered him hospitality, she positively denied all knowledge of his actual residence.
Ten months after the robbery of Quesnay he was known to be in the department of the Eure; Licquet, who had just terminated his enquiry, posted to Louviers, d'Aché, he found, had been there three days previously. From where had he come? From Tournebut, where, in spite of the search made, he could have lived concealed for six months in some well-equipped hiding-place?
That very day the nail was taken out, but there still remained the bolts of the door and the bed-posts, to which, being of such low stature, she could hang herself; a woman from Bicêtre was therefore set to watch her. It would be impossible to follow Licquet through all the phases of the inquiry. This diabolical man seems to have possessed the gift of ubiquity.
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