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

and as bespattered with mud as a lost dog that has been wandering about in the rain and the mire for a week at the very least. His overcoat bore the traces of frequent contact with damp walls; his hat had lost its form entirely. His eyes wore an anxious look, and his mustache drooped despondently. He spoke, moreover, so strangely that one might have supposed his mouth was full of sand.

“Do you bring me bad news?” inquired Lecoq, after a short examination of his companion.

“Yes, bad.”

“The people you were following escaped you, then?”

The old man nodded his head affirmatively.

“It is unfortunate⁠—very unfortunate!” said Lecoq. “But it is useless to distress ourselves about it. Don’t be so cast down, Father Absinthe. Tomorrow, between us, we will repair the damage.”

This friendly encouragement only increased the old man’s evident embarrassment. He blushed, this veteran, as if he had been a schoolgirl, and raising his hands toward heaven, he exclaimed: “Ah, you wretch! didn’t I tell you so?”

“Why! what is the matter with you?” inquired Lecoq.

Father Absinthe made no reply. Approaching a looking-glass that hung against the wall, he surveyed himself reproachfully and began to heap cruel insults upon the reflection of his features.

“You old good-for-nothing!” he exclaimed. “You vile deserter! have you no shame left? You were entrusted with a mission, were you not? And how have you fulfilled it? You have got drunk, you old wretch, so drunk as to have lost your wits. Ah, you shan’t escape punishment this time, for even if M. Lecoq is indulgent, you shan’t taste another drop for a week. Yes, you old sot, you shall suffer for this escapade.”

“Come, come,” said Lecoq, “you can sermonize by and by. Now tell me your story.”

“Ah! I am not proud of it, believe me. However, never mind. No doubt you received the letter in which I told you I was going to follow the young men who seemed to recognize Gustave?”

“Yes, yes⁠—go on!”

“Well, as soon as they entered the café, into which I had followed them, they began drinking, probably to drive away their emotion. After that they apparently felt hungry. At all events they ordered breakfast. I followed their example. The meal, with coffee and beer afterward, took up no little time, and indeed a couple of hours had elapsed before they were ready to pay their bill and go. Good! I supposed they would now return home. Not at all. They walked down the Rue Dauphin; and I saw them enter another café. Five minutes later I glided in after them; and found them already engaged in a game of billiards.”

At this point Father Absinthe hesitated; it is no easy task to recount one’s blunders to the very person who has suffered by them.

“I seated myself at a little table,” he eventually resumed, “and asked for a newspaper. I was reading with one eye and watching with the other, when a respectable-looking man entered, and took a seat beside me. As soon as he had seated himself he asked me to let him have the paper when I had finished with it. I handed it to him, and then we began talking about the weather. At last he proposed a game of bezique. I declined, but we afterward compromised the matter by having a game of piquet. The young men, you understand, were still knocking the balls about. We began by playing for a glass of brandy each. I won. My adversary asked for his revenge, and we played two games more. I still kept on winning. He insisted upon another game, and again I won, and still I drank⁠—and drank again⁠—”

“Go on, go on.”

“Ah! here’s the rub. After that I remember nothing⁠—nothing either about the man I had been playing with or the young men. It seems to me, however, that I recollect falling asleep in the café, and that a long while afterward a waiter came and woke me and told me to go. Then I must have wandered about along the quays until I came to my senses, and decided to go to your lodgings and wait on the stairs until you returned.”

To Father Absinthe’s great surprise, Lecoq seemed rather thoughtful than angry. “What do you think about this chance acquaintance of yours, papa?” asked the young detective.

“I think he was following me while I was following the others, and that he entered the café with the view of making me drunk.”

“What was he like?”

“Oh, he was a tall, stoutish man, with a broad, red face, and a flat nose; and he was very unpretending and affable in manner.”

“It was he!” exclaimed Lecoq.

“He! Who?”

“Why, the accomplice⁠—the man whose footprints we discovered⁠—the pretended drunkard⁠—a devil incarnate, who will get the best of us yet, if we don’t keep our eyes open. Don’t you forget him, papa; and if you ever meet him again⁠—”

But Father Absinthe’s confession was not ended. Like most devotees, he had reserved the worst sin for the last.

“But that’s not all,” he resumed; “and as it’s best to make a clean breast of it, I will tell you that it seems to me this traitor talked about the affair at the Poivrière, and that I told him all we had discovered, and all we intended to do.”

Lecoq made such a threatening gesture that the old tippler drew back in consternation. “You wretched man!” exclaimed the young detective, “to betray our plans to the enemy!”

But his calmness soon returned. If at first sight the evil seemed to be beyond remedy, on further thought it had a good side after all. It sufficed to dispel all the doubts that had assailed Lecoq’s mind after his visit to the Hotel de Mariembourg.

“However,” quoth our hero, “this is not the time for deliberation. I am overcome with fatigue; take a mattress from the bed for yourself, my friend, and let us get a little sleep.”

Lecoq was a man of considerable forethought. Hence, before going to bed he took good care to wind up his