Monsieur Lecoq - Émile Gaboriau (inspiring books for teens txt) 📗

His earlier efforts at investigation proved unsuccessful. At the first establishment he visited, the stable boys, who were not yet up, swore at him roundly. In the second, he found the grooms at work, but none of the drivers had as yet put in an appearance. Moreover, the owner refused to show him the books upon which are recorded⁠—or should be recorded⁠—each driver’s daily engagements. Lecoq was beginning to despair, when at about half-past seven o’clock he reached an establishment just beyond the fortifications belonging to a man named Trigault. Here he learned that on Sunday night, or rather, early on Monday morning, one of the drivers had been accosted on his way home by some persons who succeeded in persuading him to drive them back into Paris.

This driver, who was then in the courtyard harnessing his horse, proved to be a little old man, with a ruddy complexion, and a pair of small eyes full of cunning. Lecoq walked up to him at once.

“Was it you,” he asked, “who, on Sunday night or rather on Monday, between one and two in the morning, drove a couple of women from the Rue du Chevaleret into Paris?”

The driver looked up, and surveying Lecoq attentively, cautiously replied: “Perhaps.”

“It is a positive answer that I want.”

“Aha!” said the old man sneeringly, “you know two ladies who have lost something in a cab, and so⁠—”

The young detective trembled with satisfaction. This man was certainly the one he was looking for. “Have you heard anything about a crime that has been committed in the neighborhood?” he interrupted.

“Yes; a murder in a low wine-shop.”

“Well, then, I will tell you that these two women are mixed up in it; they fled when we entered the place. I am trying to find them. I am a detective; here is my card. Now, can you give me any information?”

The driver had grown very pale. “Ah! the wretches!” he exclaimed. “I am no longer surprised at the luck-money they gave me⁠—a louis and two five-franc pieces for the fare⁠—thirty francs in all. Cursed money! If I hadn’t spent it, I’d throw it away!”

“And where did you drive them?”

“To the Rue de Bourgogne. I have forgotten the number, but I should recognize the house.”

“Unfortunately, they would not have let you drive them to their own door.”

“Who knows? I saw them ring the bell, and I think they went in just as I drove away. Shall I take you there?”

Lecoq’s sole response was to spring on to the box, exclaiming: “Let us be off.”

It was not to be supposed that the women who had escaped from the Widow Chupin’s drinking-den at the moment of the murder were utterly devoid of intelligence. Nor was it at all likely that these two fugitives, conscious as they were of their perilous situation, had gone straight to their real home in a vehicle hired on the public highway. Hence, the driver’s hope of finding them in the Rue de Bourgogne was purely chimerical. Lecoq was fully aware of this, and yet he did not hesitate to jump on to the box and give the signal for starting. In so doing, he obeyed a maxim which he had framed in his early days of meditation⁠—a maxim intended to assure his after-fame, and which ran as follows: “Always suspect that which seems probable; and begin by believing what appears incredible.”

As soon as the vehicle was well under way, the young detective proceeded to ingratiate himself into the driver’s good graces, being anxious to obtain all the information that this worthy was able to impart.

In a tone that implied that all trifling would be useless the cabman cried: “Hey up, hey up, Cocotte!” and his mare pricked up her ears and quickened her pace, so that the Rue de Choisy was speedily reached. Then it was that Lecoq resumed his inquiries.

“Well, my good fellow,” he began, “you have told me the principal facts, now I should like the details. How did these two women attract your attention?”

“Oh, it was very simple. I had been having a most unfortunate day⁠—six hours on a stand on the Boulevards, with the rain pouring all the time. It was simply awful. At midnight I had not made more than a franc and a half for myself, but I was so wet and miserable and the horse seemed so done up that I decided to go home. I did grumble, I can tell you. Well, I had just passed the corner of the Rue Picard, in the Rue du Chevaleret, when I saw two women standing under a lamp, some little distance off. I did not pay any attention to them; for when a man is as old as I am, women⁠—”

“Go on!” said Lecoq, who could not restrain his impatience.

“I had already passed them, when they began to call after me. I pretended I did not hear them; but one of them ran after the cab, crying: ‘A louis! a louis for yourself!’ I hesitated for a moment, when the woman added: ‘And ten francs for the fare!’ I then drew up.”

Lecoq was boiling over with impatience; but he felt that the wisest course was not to interrupt the driver with questions, but to listen to all he had to say.

“As you may suppose,” continued the coachman, “I wasn’t inclined to trust two such suspicious characters, alone at that hour and in that part of the city. So, just as they were about to get into the cab, I called to them: ‘Wait a bit, my little friends, you have promised papa some sous; where are they?’ The one who had called after the cab at once handed me thirty francs, saying: ‘Above all, make haste!’ ”

“Your recital could not be more minute,” exclaimed Lecoq, approvingly. “Now, how about these two women?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what kind of women did they seem to be; what did you take them for?”

“Oh, for nothing very good!” replied the