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But there is a mortal feud between us, and for that very reason you haven't the right to prolong my tortures! It would be infamous cowardice if you did so. However, instead of M. d'Escorval, he sees M. Segmuller. Then what happens? He is surprised, and his eyes betray the astonishment he feels when he realizes the generosity of his enemy an enemy from whom he had expected no indulgence.
Obeying the magistrate's orders, Goguet, the smiling clerk, had just finished drawing up at least a dozen summonses, when Lecoq returned from the Prefecture. M. Segmuller at once asked him the result of his errand. "Ah, sir," replied the young detective, "I have a fresh proof of that mysterious accomplice's skill.
When thus assailed, both M. Segmuller and Lecoq could scarcely restrain those movements of angry impatience which come naturally to a person who feels certain he is in the right and yet can not prove it. "Ah, me!" sometimes exclaimed the magistrate, "why did D'Escorval break his leg?
Just after nine o'clock, Goguet, the smiling clerk, put in an appearance and speedily learned the kind of humor his master was in. "Ah, you've come at last," gruffly ejaculated M. Segmuller, momentarily oblivious of the fact that he himself scarcely ever arrived before ten, and that a quarter-past nine was certainly early for his clerk.
"I do blame them, however, and if I had one of them in a corner But, never mind, I shall get over it. If I know myself aright, I have no more spite in my composition than a chicken." "Your treatment depends on your own conduct," rejoined M. Segmuller, "If you will only remain calm, you shan't be put in a strait-waistcoat again.
"Let us proceed," he said to Polyte, who had not moved since his wife had been taken from the room, being to all appearances sublimely indifferent to everything passing around him. To the magistrate's proposal he carelessly nodded assent. "Was that your wife who came in just now?" asked M. Segmuller. "Yes." "She wished to embrace you, and you repulsed her." "I didn't repulse her."
For a moment or two old Tabaret reclined upon his pillows enjoying the sweets of admiration; then he continued: "Do you wish for further proofs, my boy? Recollect the perseverance M. d'Escorval displayed in sending to M. Segmuller for information. I admit that a man may have a passion for his profession; but not to such an extent as that. You believed that his leg was broken.
Both M. Segmuller and Lecoq were of opinion that the version of the crime which they were about to hear had been concocted at the station-house of the Place d'Italie while the murderer and the spurious drunkard were left together, and that it had been transmitted by the accomplice to the widow during the brief conversation they were allowed to have through the wicket of the latter's cell.
I agree with him in thinking that young detectives are often overzealous, and run after fantoms originated in their own brains." Lecoq, crimson with wrath, was about to make an angry response when M. Segmuller motioned to him to remain silent. Then with a smile on his face the magistrate replied to the governor.
Goguet's curiosity had indeed prompted him to hurry to the Palais; still, although well aware that he did not deserve a reprimand, he endeavored to mumble an excuse an excuse cut short by M. Segmuller in such unusually harsh tones that for once in a way Goguet's habitual smile faded from his face.
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