FILE NO. 113 (Unabridged). Emile Gaboriau
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Lecoq arose, and walked up and down the room: suddenly he confronted Fanferlot, and said, in a tone of scornful irony:
“What would you think, Master Squirrel, of a man who abuses the confidence of those who employ him, who reveals just enough to lead the prosecution on the wrong scent, who sacrifices to his own foolish vanity the cause of justice and the liberty of an unfortunate man?”
Fanferlot started back with a frightened look.
“I should say,” he stammered, “I should say—”
“You would say this man ought to be punished, and dismissed from his employment; and you are right. The less a profession is honored, the more honorable should those be who belong to it. And yet you have been false to yours. Ah! Master Fanferlot, we are ambitious, and we try to make the police force serve our own views! We let Justice stray her way, and we go ours. One must be a more cunning bloodhound than you are, my friend, to be able to hunt without a huntsman. You are too self-reliant by half.”
“But, patron, I swear—”
“Silence! Do you pretend to say that you did your duty, and told all to the judge of instruction? Whilst others were informing against the cashier, you undertook to inform against the banker. You watched his movements: you became intimate with his valet.”
Was M. Lecoq really angry, or pretending to be? Fanferlot, who knew him well, was puzzled to know whether all this indignation was real.
“If you were only skilful,” he continued, “but no: you wish to be master, and you are not fit to be a journeyman.”
“You are right, patron,” said Fanferlot, piteously, for he saw that it was useless for him to deny anything. “But how could I go about an affair like this, where there was not even a trace or sign to start from?”
M. Lecoq shrugged his shoulders.
“You are an ass! Why, don’t you know that on the very day you were sent for with the commissary to verify the robbery, you held—I do not say certainly, but very probably held—in your great stupid hands the means of knowing which key had been used when the money was stolen?”
“How! What!”
“You want to know, do you? I will tell you. Do you remember the scratch you discovered on the safe-door? You were so struck by it, that you exclaimed directly you saw it. You carefully examined it, and were convinced that it was a fresh scratch, only a few hours old. You thought, and rightly too, that this scratch was made at the time of the theft. Now, with what was it made? Evidently with a key. That being the case, you should have asked for the keys both of the banker and the cashier. One of them would have had some particles of the hard green paint sticking to it.”
Fanferlot listened with open mouth to this explanation. At the last words, he violently slapped his forehead with his hand, and cried out:
“Imbecile! Imbecile!”
“You have rightly named yourself,” said M. Lecoq. “Imbecile! This proof stares you right in the face, and you don’t see it! This scratch is the sole and only clew to work the case upon, and you must go and lose the traces of it. If I find the guilty party, it will be by means of this scratch; and I am determined that I will find him.”
At a distance the Squirrel very bravely abused and defied M. Lecoq; but, in his presence, he yielded to the influence which this extraordinary man exercised upon all who approached him.
This exact information, these minute details of all his secret movements, and even thoughts, so upset his mind that he could not think where and how M. Lecoq had obtained them. Finally he said, humbly:
“You must have been looking up this case, patron?”
“Probably I have; but I am not infallible, and may have overlooked some important evidence. Take a seat, and tell me all you know.”
M. Lecoq was not the man to be hoodwinked, so Fanferlot told the exact truth, a rare thing for him to do. However as he reached the end of his statement, a feeling of mortified vanity prevented his telling how he had been fooled by Gypsy and the stout man.
Unfortunately for poor Fanferlot, M. Lecoq was always fully informed on every subject in which he interested himself.
“It seems to me, Master Squirrel, that you have forgotten something. How far did you follow the empty coach?”
Fanferlot blushed, and hung his head like a guilty school-boy.
“Oh, patron!” he cried, “and you know about that too! How could you have——”
But a sudden idea flashed across his brain: he stopped short, bounded off his chair, and cried:
“Oh! I know now: you were the large gentleman with red whiskers.”
His surprise gave so singular an expression to his face that M. Lecoq could not restrain a smile.
“Then it was you,” continued the bewildered detective; “you were the large gentleman at whom I stared, so as to impress his appearance upon my mind, and I never recognized you! Patron, you would make a superb actor, if you would go on the stage; but I was disguised, too—very well disguised.”
“Very poorly disguised; it is only just to you that I should let you know what a failure it was, Fanferlot. Do you think that a heavy beard and a blouse are a sufficient transformation? The eye is the thing to be changed—the eye! The art lies in being able to change the eye. That is the secret.”
This theory of disguise explained why the lynx-eyed Lecoq never appeared at the police-office without his gold spectacles.
“Then, patron,” said Fanferlot, clinging to his idea, “you have been more successful than Mme. Alexandre; you have made the little girl confess? You know why she leaves the Archangel, why she does not wait for M. de Clameran, and why she bought calico dresses?”
“She is following my advice.”
“That being the case,” said the detective dejectedly, “there is nothing left for me to do, but to acknowledge myself an ass.”
“No, Squirrel,” said M. Lecoq, kindly, “you are not an ass. You merely did wrong in undertaking a task beyond your capacity. Have you progressed one step since you started this affair? No. That shows that, although you are incomparable as a lieutenant, you do not possess the qualities of a general. I am going to present you with an aphorism; remember it, and let it be your guide in the future: A man can shine in the second rank, who would be totally eclipsed in the first.”
Never had Fanferlot seen his patron so talkative and good-natured. Finding his deceit discovered, he had expected to be overwhelmed with a storm of anger; whereas he had escaped with a little shower that had cooled his brain. Lecoq’s anger disappeared like one of those heavy clouds which threaten in the horizon for a moment, and then are suddenly swept away by a gust of wind.
But this unexpected affability made Fanferlot feel uneasy. He was afraid that something might be concealed beneath it.
“Do you know who the thief is, patron?”
“I know no more than you do, Fanferlot; and you seem to have made up your mind, whereas I am still undecided. You declare the cashier to be innocent, and the banker guilty. I don’t know whether you are right or wrong. I started after you, and have only reached the preliminaries of my search. I am certain of but one thing, and that is, that a scratch was on the safe-door. That scratch is my starting-point.”
As he spoke, M. Lecoq took from his desk and unrolled an immense sheet of drawing-paper.
On this paper was photographed the door of M. Fauvel’s safe. The impression of every detail was perfect. There were the five movable buttons with the engraved letters, and the narrow, projecting brass lock: The scratch was indicated with great exactness.
“Now,” said M. Lecoq, “here is our scratch. It runs from top to bottom, starting from the hole of the lock, diagonally, and, observe, from left to right;