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Updated: June 13, 2025
A project of mad generosity occurred to the bewildered man. "If I save him," murmured he, "if for Claire's sake I leave him his honour and his life. But how can I save him? To do so I shall be obliged to suppress old Tabaret's discoveries, and make an accomplice of him by ensuring his silence. We shall have to follow a wrong track, join Gevrol in running after some imaginary murderer.
On his way to Tabaret's, Lecoq had busied himself in preparing his story; and it was in the clearest possible manner that he related all the particulars, from the moment when Gevrol opened the door of the Poivriere to the instant when May leaped over the garden wall in the rear of the Hotel de Sairmeuse. While the young detective was telling his story, old Tabaret seemed completely transformed.
Hence, the murderer arrested there, May, the pretended buffoon, is the Duc de Sairmeuse!" How this idea had entered old Tabaret's head, Lecoq could not understand. A vague suspicion had, it is true, flitted through his own mind; but it was in a moment of despair when he was distracted at having lost May, and when certain of Couturier's remarks furnished the excuse for any ridiculous supposition.
M. Tabaret's anger, albeit very real and justified, was so highly ludicrous, that M. Daburon had much difficulty to restrain his laughter, in spite of the real sadness of the recital. "At least," said he, "this fortune must have given you pleasure." "Not at all, sir, it came too late. Of what avail to have the bread when one has no longer the teeth? The marriageable age had passed.
He entered with an easy manner, like an advocate who was well acquainted with the Palais, and who knew its winding ways. He in no wise resembled, this morning, old Tabaret's friend; still less could he have been recognized as Madame Juliette's lover. He was entirely another being, or rather he had resumed his every-day bearing.
At the name of Gerdy, M. Tabaret's face assumed a most comical expression of uneasiness. "Confound it," cried he, "the very thing I most dreaded." "What?" asked M. Daburon. "The necessity for the examination of those letters. Noel will discover my interference. He will despise me: he will fly from me, when he knows that Tabaret and Tirauclair sleep in the same nightcap.
At the idea that a murderer might escape the penalty of his crime, and steal away from the assize court, old Tabaret's blood fairly boiled in his veins, as at the recollection of some deadly insult.
This conclusion was so bold that Lecoq was disconcerted. "What!" he exclaimed; "do you suppose that M. d'Escorval's fall was only a fiction? that he didn't break his leg?" Old Tabaret's face suddenly assumed a serious expression. "I don't suppose it," he replied; "I'm sure of it."
At thirty-five minutes past eight, you took the train at the St. Lazare station. At nine o'clock, you alighted at the station at Rueil." And, not disdaining to employ Tabaret's ideas, the investigating magistrate repeated nearly word for word the tirade improvised the night before by the amateur detective. He had every reason, while speaking, to admire the old fellow's penetration.
But she might have been herself deceived, might have been the dupe of some skillful trick. In that case old Tabaret's prediction was now realised. Tabaret had said: "Look out for an indisputable alibi." How could he show the falsity of this one, planned in advance, affirmed by Claire, who was herself deceived?
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