Mlle. Fouchette Part 26

"Now, Perriot, do you----"

"There he is, Monsieur le Commissaire," antic.i.p.ated the cabman. "I'd know him among a thousand."

"Ah! And there we are. I thought so!" said the police official. "Now, Monsieur Lerouge," facing the latter with a catlike eye, "where's the body?"

The young man looked puzzled, very naturally, while his companions were speechless with astonishment.

The veteran police officer took in every detail of this and mentally admitted that it was clever, deucedly clever, acting.

"I say, _where is the body_?" he repeated.

"And I say," retorted Lerouge, with a calmness of tone and steadiness of eye that almost staggered the old criminal catcher, "that I do not understand you, and am very patiently awaiting your explanation."

"Search the place!" curtly commanded the officer.

A clamorous protest arose from all three of the students. But the commissary of police waved them aside.

"It means that this man, Henri Lerouge, between six and seven o'clock this evening, carried a dead body from the Rue St. Honore----"

"Faubourg St. Honore, Monsieur le Commissaire," interrupted the cabman, feebly.

"----Faubourg St. Honore, crossed the Pont de Solferino, where he was seen by Agent Dubat, and was brought here in a voiture of place, No.

37,420, driven by Jacques Perriot. That, arriving in front of this building, the said Lerouge paid the cabman and dismissed----"

"Pardon, Monsieur le Commissaire," again put in the coachman,--who was evidently trying to do his duty under unfavorable circ.u.mstances,--"pardon, monsieur, but he told me to wait."

"Oh, he told you to wait, did he? And why didn't you say that at the Commissariat, you stupid brute?" The officer was furious. "But he paid you, then?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"He paid you five francs and expected you to wait!" sarcastically.

"Yes, monsieur."

"Why?"

"He said he might want me, monsieur."

"Might want you. And why didn't you wait, you old fool?"

"Here? In the Rue Antoine Dubois, after dark, monsieur? And for a--a--'stiff'? Not for a hundred francs!"

The students roared with laughter. As the agents had returned a report meanwhile to the effect that there were no signs of any "subject"

immediately in hand, the commissary was deeply chagrined.

"Now, gentlemen," he began, in a fatherly tone, "it is evident that a body has been taken from the street and brought here instead of being turned over to the police for the morgue and usual forms of identification. That body is possibly unimportant in itself, and would probably fall to your admirable inst.i.tution eventually. But the law prescribes the proper course in such cases. We have traced that body to this place and to one of your number. Far be it from me to find fault with the desire of young gentlemen seeking to perfect their knowledge of anatomy for the benefit of humanity; but we must know where that body went from here."

The last very emphatically, with a stern gaze at Henri Lerouge.

"And on our part," answered the latter, with ill-subdued pa.s.sion, "we say there is no body here, that none has been brought here to-night, that we have been together all day, and that we had but just arrived here before this unwarrantable intrusion; in short, that your pet.i.ts mouchards there have lied!"

It was impossible not to believe him. Yet the evidence of the cabman, corroborated circ.u.mstantially in part by Agent Dubat, seemed equally positive and irresistible.

The commissary was nonplussed for a minute. He looked sternly at Monsieur Perriot. The latter was nervously fumbling his glazed hat.

Somebody had lied. The commissary decided that it was the unlucky cabman.

"Monsieur Perriot?"

"Y-yes, Monsieur le Commissaire."

"Have you got a five-franc piece about you?"

"Y--n--no--er----"

"Let me see it."

Now, the poor cabman had lost no time fortifying himself with an absinthe or two upon leaving his fare in the terrible Rue Antoine Dubois. He had changed the piece given him by Jean Marot.

"I haven't got----"

"You said this man gave you a five-franc piece, didn't you? Now, did you, or did you not? Answer!"

"Yes, Monsieur le----"

"Where is it? You said you came straight to the Commissariat,--you haven't had time to get drunk. Show me the piece! Come!"

"I drove to--I----"

"Come! Out with it!"

"But, Monsieur le Commissaire----"

"You haven't got a five-franc piece. Come, now; say!"

"No, monsieur. I----"

"Lie No. 2."

"But, monsieur, I stopped at the wine-shop of----"

"Then you didn't drive straight to the Commissariat?"

"I went----"

"Did you, or did you not? Yes or no!"

"No, monsieur."

"So! Lie No. 3."