Monsieur Lecoq by Émile Gaboriau (romance novel chinese novels .txt) 📕

all during the day. Nor could anyone indicate, even vaguely, the abode of the Widow Chupin’s daughter-in-law.

On the other hand, however, Lecoq met a number of his colleagues, who laughed and jeered at him unmercifully. “Ah! you are a shrewd fellow!” they said, “it seems that you have just made a wonderful discovery, and it’s said you are going to be decorated with the Legion of Honor.”

Gevrol’s influence betrayed itself everywhere. The jealous inspector had taken pains to inform all his colleagues and subordinates that poor Lecoq, crazed by ambition, persisted in declaring that a low, vulgar murderer trying to escape justice was some great personage in disguise. However, the jeers and taunts of which Lecoq was the object had but little effect upon him, and he consoled himself with the reflection that, “He laughs best who laughs last.”

If he were restless and anxious as he walked along the Quai des Orfèvres, it was because he could not explain Father Absinthe’s prolonged absence, and because he feared that Gevrol, mad with jealousy, might attempt, in some underhand way, to frustrate his, Lecoq’s, efforts to arrive at a solution of the mystery.

At the Morgue the young detective met with no better success than at the Prefecture. After ringing three or four times, one of the keepers opened the door and informed him that the bodies had not been identified, and that the old police agent had not been seen since he went away early in the morning.

“This is a bad beginning,” thought Lecoq. “I will go and get some dinner⁠—that, perhaps, will change the luck; at all events, I have certainly earned the bottle of good wine to which I intend to treat myself.”

It was a happy thought. A hearty meal washed down with a couple of glasses of Bordeaux sent new courage and energy coursing through his veins. If he still felt a trifle weary, the sensation of fatigue was at all events greatly diminished when he left the restaurant with a cigar between his lips.

Just at that moment he longed for Father Papillon’s trap and sturdy steed. Fortunately, a cab was passing: he hired it, and as eight o’clock was striking, alighted at the corner of the square in front of the Northern Railway Station. After a brief glance round, he began his search for the hotel where the murderer pretended to have left a box of clothes.

It must be understood that he did not present himself in his official capacity. Hotel proprietors fight shy of detectives, and Lecoq was aware that if he proclaimed his calling he would probably learn nothing at all. By brushing back his hair and turning up his coat collar, he made, however, a very considerable alteration in his appearance; and it was with a marked English accent that he asked the landlords and servants of various hostelries surrounding the station for information concerning a “foreign workman named May.”

He conducted his search with considerable address, but everywhere he received the same reply.

“We don’t know such a person; we haven’t seen anyone answering the description you give of him.”

Any other answer would have astonished Lecoq, so strongly persuaded was he that the prisoner had only mentioned the circumstances of a trunk left at one of these hotels in order to give a semblance of truth to his narrative. Nevertheless he continued his investigation. If he noted down in his memorandum book the names of all the hotels which he visited, it was with a view of making sure of the prisoner’s discomfiture when he was conducted to the neighborhood and asked to prove the truth of his story.

Eventually, Lecoq reached the Hotel de Mariembourg, at the corner of the Rue St. Quentin. The house was of modest proportions; but seemed respectable and well kept. Lecoq pushed open the glass door leading into the vestibule, and entered the office⁠—a neat, brightly lighted room, where he found a woman standing upon a chair, her face on a level with a large bird cage, covered with a piece of black silk. She was repeating three or four German words with great earnestness to the inmate of the cage, and was so engrossed in this occupation that Lecoq had to make considerable noise before he could attract her attention.

At length she turned her head, and the young detective exclaimed: “Ah! good evening, madame; you are much interested, I see, in teaching your parrot to talk.”

“It isn’t a parrot,” replied the woman, who had not yet descended from her perch; “but a starling, and I am trying to teach it to say ‘Have you breakfasted?’ in German.”

“What! can starlings talk?”

“Yes, sir, as well as you or I,” rejoined the woman, jumping down from the chair.

Just then the bird, as if it had understood the question, cried very distinctly: “Camille! Where is Camille?”

But Lecoq was too preoccupied to pay any further attention to the incident. “Madame,” he began, “I wish to speak to the proprietor of this hotel.”

“I am the proprietor.”

“Oh! very well. I was expecting a mechanic⁠—from Leipzig⁠—to meet me here in Paris. To my great surprise, he has not made his appearance; and I came to inquire if he was stopping here. His name is May.”

“May!” repeated the hostess, thoughtfully. “May!”

“He ought to have arrived last Sunday evening.”

The woman’s face brightened. “Wait a moment,” said she. “Was this friend of yours a middle-aged man, of medium size, of very dark complexion⁠—wearing a full beard, and having very bright eyes?”

Lecoq could scarcely conceal his agitation. This was an exact description of the supposed murderer. “Yes,” he stammered, “that is a very good portrait of the man.”

“Ah, well! he came here on Shrove Sunday, in the afternoon. He asked for a cheap room, and I showed him one on the fifth floor. The office-boy was not here at the time, and he insisted upon taking his trunk upstairs himself. I offered him some refreshments; but he declined to take anything, saying that he was in a great hurry; and he went away