Monsieur Lecoq:
Emile Gaboriau's
Master Detective in
File No. 113
(Le Dossier 113)

He moistened one of the words pasted on the paper with his tongue, and, when it was sufficiently softened, he detached it with a pin. On the other side of this word was printed a Latin word, Deus.

"Ah, ha," he said with a little laugh of satisfaction. "I knew it. Father Taberet would be pleased to see this."

"But, monsieur, appearances----"

"It is precisely against appearances that we must be on our guard. Always distrust them. A suspicion, false or just, is always based on something."

"That anybody would be convinced of foul play. That is true; but chance is sometimes a wonderful accomplice in crime."

"More than ever; and a pious woman too, and a woman who has two prayer-books, since she could cut up one to write to you."

"Who is that gentleman?" he asked of the policeman.

"Is it possible that you don't know him?" replied the policeman with surprise. "Why, it is M. Lecoq, of the police service."

"You say his name is Lecoq?"

"You might as well say 'monsieur,'" said the offended policeman; "it would not burn your mouth. M. Lecoq is a man who knows everything that he wants to know, without its ever being told to him. If you had had him, instead of that smooth-tongued imbecile Fanferlot, your case would have been settled long ago. Nobody is allowed to waste time when he has command. But he seems to be a friend of yours."

"I never saw him until the first day I came here."

"You can't swear to that, because no one can boast of knowing the real face of M. Lecoq. It is one thing to-day, and another to-morrow; sometimes he is a dark man, sometimes a fair one, sometimes quite young, and then an octogenarian: why, not seldom he even deceives me. I begin to talk to a stranger, paf! the first thing I know, it is M. Lecoq! Anybody on the face of the earth might be he. If I were told that you were he, I should say, 'It is very likely.' Ah! he can convert himself into any shape and form he chooses. He is a wonderful man!"

The constable would have continued forever his praises of M. Lecoq, had not the sight of the judge's door put an end to them.

But he only remained himself for an instant. Seated before a dressing-table covered with more cosmetics, paints, perfumes, false hair, and other unmentionable shams, than are to be found on the toilet-tables of our modern belles, he began to undo the work of nature, and make himself a new face.

He worked slowly, handling his brushes with great care. But in an hour he had accomplished one of his daily masterpieces. When he had finished, he was no longer Lecoq: he was the large gentleman with red whiskers, whom Fanferlot had failed to recognize.

"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.

"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; that is to say, it terminates on the side next to the private staircase leading to the banker's apartments. Although very deep at the key-hole, it ends off in a scarcely perceptible mark."

"Yes, patron, I see all that."

"Naturally you thought that this scratch was made by the person who took the money. Let us see if you were right. I have here a little iron box, painted with green varnish like M. Fauvel's safe; here it is. Take a key, and try to scratch it."

"The deuce take it!" he said after several attempts, "this paint is awfully hard to move!"

"Very hard, my friend, and yet that on the safe is still harder and thicker. So you see the scratch you discovered could not have been made by the trembling hand of a thief letting the key slip."

"Sapristi!" exclaimed Fanferlot, stupefied: "I never should have thought of that. It certainly required great force to make the deep scratch on the safe."

"Yes, but how was that force employed? I have been racking my brain for three days, and only yesterday did I come to a conclusion. Let us examine together, and see if our conjectures present enough chances of probability to establish a starting-point."

M. Lecoq abandoned the photograph, and, walking to the door communicating with his bedroom, took the key from the lock, and, holding it in his hand, said:

"Come here, Fanferlot, and stand by my side: there; very well. Now suppose that I want to open this door, and you don't want me to open it; when you see me about to insert the key, what would be your first impulse?"

"To put my hands on your arm, and draw it toward me so as to prevent your introducing the key."

"Precisely so. Now let us try it; go on." Fanferlot obeyed; and the key held by M. Lecoq, pulled aside from the lock, slipped along the door, and traced upon it a diagonal scratch, from top to bottom, the exact reproduction of the one in the photograph.

"Oh, oh, oh!" exclaimed Fanferlot in three different tones of admiration, as he stood gazing in a reverie at the door.

"Do you begin to understand now?" asked M. Lecoq.

"Understand, patron? Why, a child could understand it now. Ah, what a man you are! I see the scene as if I had been present. Two persons were present at the robbery; one wished to take the money, the other wished to prevent its being taken. That is clear, that is certain."

Accustomed to triumphs of this sort, M. Lecoq was much amused at Fanferlot's enthusiasm.

"There you go off, half-primed again," he said, good-humoredly: "you regard as sure proof a circumstance which may be accidental, and at the most only probable."

"No, patron, no! a man like you could not be mistaken: doubt no longer exists."

"That being the case, what deductions would you draw from our discovery?"

"In the first place, it proves that I am correct in thinking the cashier innocent."

"How so?"

"Because, at perfect liberty to open the safe whenever he wished to do so, it is not likely that he would have brought a witness when he intended to commit the theft."

"Well reasoned, Fanferlot. But on this supposition the banker would be equally innocent: reflect a little."

Fanferlot reflected, and all of his animation vanished.

"You are right," he said in a despairing tone. "What can be done now?"

"Look for the third rogue, or rather the real rogue, the one who opened the safe, and stole the notes, and who is still at large, while others are suspected."

"We shall certainly succeed if you interest yourself in the case."

"Ah, that is the point!" said the fat man with a self-satisfied smile. "When I undertake a task, I devote my whole attention to it. Now, make a note of this: When a man of ordinary intelligence concentrates his thoughts and energies upon the attainment of an object, he is certain to obtain ultimate success. Besides that, I have my own method of working up a case."

"Still I don't see what grounds you had to go upon."

"To be sure, one needs some light to guide one in a dark affair like this. But the fire in Clameran's eye at the mention of Gaston's name ignited my lantern. From that moment I walked straight to the solution of the mystery, as I would walk to a beacon-light on a dark night."

Lying back in a corner of the carriage, with his feet upon the front seat, M. Verduret seemed to be enjoying a nap; yet he was never more wide awake.

He was in a perplexed state of mind. This expedition, which, he had been confident, would resolve all his doubts, had only added mystery to mystery. His chain of evidence, which he thought so strongly linked, was completely broken.

For him the facts remained the same, but circumstances had changed. He could not imagine what common motive, what moral or material complicity, what influences, could have existed to make the four actors in his drama, Mme. Fauvel, Madeleine, Raoul, and Clameran, seem to have the same object in view.

He was seeking in his fertile mind, that encyclopaedia of craft and subtlety, for some combination which would throw light on the problem before him.