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But Lecoq was always outwitted by Otto, the mysterious accomplice, who seemed to know his every movement in advance. At the morgue, at the Hotel de Mariembourg, with Toinon, the wife of Polyte Chupin, as well as with Polyte Chupin himself, Lecoq was just a little too late. Lecoq detected the secret correspondence between the prisoner and his accomplice.
I had better do so now. Go and tell them to bring him to me. Lecoq left the order at the prison." In less than a quarter of an hour Polyte entered the room. From head to foot, from his lofty silk cap to his gaudy colored carpet slippers, he was indeed the original of the portrait upon which poor Toinon the Virtuous had lavished such loving glances. And yet the photograph was flattering.
He threatened her with death if she breathed a word about Lacheneur, and she is so terrified that there is no hope of making her speak." Lecoq's apprehension was based on fact, as M, Segmuller himself perceived the instant Toinon the Virtuous again set foot in his office.
Accordingly, springing toward Toinon and seizing her roughly by the arm, he ordered her to leave the room at once. But the poor creature was quite overcome, and trembled like a leaf. Her eyes were fixed upon her unworthy husband, and the happiness she felt at seeing him again shone plainly in her anxious gaze.
As soon as she perceived the two detectives coming up the stairs again, she hastened down to meet them. "In the name of heaven, what does this all mean?" she asked. "Whatever has happened?" But Lecoq was not the man to tell his business on a landing, with inquisitive ears all around him, and before he answered Toinon he made her go up into her own garret, and securely close the door.
The luckless Toinon hid her face in her hands, and sobbed in an almost unintelligible voice: "Ah, I did not wish my little one to be a thief." But what this poor creature did not tell was that the man who had led the child out into the streets, to teach him to steal, was his own father, and her husband the ruffian, Polyte Chupin.
Madame Joyselle, the flush dying from her fresh cheeks, bowed. "She is indeed. And now Théo, call Toinon we must go to the dining-room." Nobody else, even Brigit, who had never beheld that cheerless apartment, wished to leave the kitchen, but Madame Joyselle's will was in such matters law, and the little party was soon seated round the table upstairs. And the omelet was delicious.
In mentioning these facts to Lecoq, the commissary's secretary added that they had become widely known, and that the unfortunate creature's force of character had won for her general respect. Among those she frequented, moreover, she was known by the nickname of "Toinon the Virtuous" a rather vulgar but, at all events, sincere tribute to her worth.
"We started in pursuit of a man who is implicated in the murders at the Poivriere," he said; "one who came here hoping to find you alone, who was frightened at seeing us." "A murderer!" faltered Toinon, with clasped hands. "What could he want of me?" "Who knows? It is very probable that he is one of your husband's friends." "Oh! sir."
First, he was fortunate enough to find a wife like my mother, who is honesty itself so much so that she was called Toinon the Virtuous when she was young. She idolized him, and nearly killed herself by working to earn money for him. And yet he abused her so much, and made her weep so much, that she has become blind. But that's not all.
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