The Mystery of Orcival by Émile Gaboriau (fiction book recommendations .TXT) 📕

was a large ball, shaped like a lozenge, in black velvet, suspended beside the looking-glass. A quantity of pins were stuck in this ball, so as to form the letters composing these two names: Hector⁠—Jenny.

These names glittering on the black background attracted the old man’s attention at once. This must have been M. Lecoq’s reminder. The ball was meant to recall to him perpetually the people of whom he was in pursuit. Many names, doubtless, had in turn glittered on that velvet, for it was much frayed and perforated. An unfinished letter lay open upon the bureau.

M. Plantat leaned over to read it; but he took his trouble for nothing, for it was written in cipher.

He had no sooner finished his inspection of the room than the noise of a door opening made him turn round. He saw before him a man of his own age, of respectable mien, and polite manners, a little bald, with gold spectacles and a light-colored flannel dressing-gown.

M. Plantat bowed, saying:

“I am waiting here for Monsieur Lecoq.”

The man in gold spectacles burst out laughing, and clapped his hands with glee.

“What, dear sir,” said he, “don’t you know me? Look at me well⁠—it is I⁠—Monsieur Lecoq!” And to convince him, he took off his spectacles. Those might, indeed, be Lecoq’s eyes, and that his voice; M. Plantat was confounded.

“I never should have recognized you,” said he.

“It’s true, I have changed a little⁠—but what would you have? It’s my trade.”

And pushing a chair toward his visitor, he pursued:

“I have to beg a thousand pardons for the formalities you’ve had to endure to get in here; it’s a dire necessity, but one I can’t help. I have told you of the dangers to which I am exposed; they pursue me to my very door. Why, last week a railway porter brought a package here addressed to me. Janouille⁠—that’s my old woman⁠—suspected nothing, though she has a sharp nose, and told him to come in. He held out the package, I went up to take it, when pif! paf! off went two pistol-shots. The package was a revolver wrapped up in oilcloth, and the porter was a convict escaped from Cayenne, caught by me last year. Ah, I put him through for this though!”

He told this adventure carelessly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“But let’s not starve ourselves to death,” he continued, ringing the bell. The old hag appeared, and he ordered her to bring on breakfast forthwith, and above all, some good wine.

“You are observing my Janouille,” remarked he, seeing that M. Plantat looked curiously at the servant. “She’s a pearl, my dear friend, who watches over me as if I were her child, and would go through the fire for me. I had a good deal of trouble the other day to prevent her strangling the false railway porter. I picked her out of three or four thousand convicts. She had been convicted of infanticide and arson. I would bet a hundred to one that, during the three years that she has been in my service, she has not even thought of robbing me of so much as a centime.”

But M. Plantat only listened to him with one ear; he was trying to find an excuse for cutting Janouille’s story short, and to lead the conversation to the events of the day before.

“I have, perhaps, incommoded you a little this morning, Monsieur Lecoq?”

“Me? then you did not see my motto⁠—‘always vigilant?’ Why, I’ve been out ten times this morning; besides marking out work for three of my men. Ah, we have little time to ourselves, I can tell you. I went to the Vulcan’s Forges to see what news I could get of that poor devil of a Guespin.”

“And what did you hear?”

“That I had guessed right. He changed a five-hundred-franc note there last Wednesday evening at a quarter before ten.”

“That is to say, he is saved?”

“Well, you may say so. He will be, as soon as we have found Miss Jenny.”

The old justice of the peace could not avoid showing his uneasiness.

“That will, perhaps, be long and difficult?”

“Bast! Why so? She is on my black ball there⁠—we shall have her, accidents excepted, before night.”

“You really think so?”

“I should say I was sure, to anybody but you. Reflect that this girl has been connected with the Count de Trémorel, a man of the world, a prince of the mode. When a girl falls to the gutter, after having, as they say, dazzled all Paris for six months with her luxury, she does not disappear entirely, like a stone in the mud. When she has lost all her friends there are still her creditors, who follow and watch her, awaiting the day when fortune will smile on her once more. She doesn’t trouble herself about them, she thinks they’ve forgotten her; a mistake! I know a milliner whose head is a perfect dictionary of the fashionable world; she has often done me a good turn. We will go and see her if you say so, after breakfast, and in two hours she will give us Jenny’s address. Ah, if I were only as sure of pinching Trémorel!”

M. Plantat gave a sigh of relief. The conversation at last took the turn he wished.

“You are thinking of him, then?” asked he.

“Am I?” shouted M. Lecoq, who started from his seat at the question. “Now just look at my black ball there. I haven’t thought of anybody else, mark you, since yesterday; I haven’t had a wink of sleep all night for thinking of him. I must have him, and I will!”

“I don’t doubt it; but when?”

“Ah, there it is! Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in a month; it depends on the correctness of my calculations and the exactness of my plan.”

“What, is your plan made?”

“And decided on.”

M. Plantat became attention itself.

“I start from the principle that it is impossible for a man, accompanied by a woman, to hide from the police. In this case, the woman is young, pretty, and in a noticeable condition;