Cleveland Moffett

“ Kittredge thought a moment, and then said quietly: "The fact of the murder you have, of course; the evidence against me you seem to have, although it is false evidence; but——"
"How do you mean false evidence? Do you deny threatening Martinez with violence?"
"I threatened to punch his head; that is very different from killing him."
"And the pistol? And the footprints?"
"I don't know, I can't explain it, but—I know I am innocent. You say I had a motive for this crime. You're mistaken, I had no motive."
"Passion and jealousy have stood as motives for murder from the beginning of time." ”

“ Coquenil rose and walked back and forth across the study, hands deep in his pockets, head forward, eyes on the floor, back and forth several times without a word. Then he stopped before Alice, eying her intently as if making up his mind about something.
"I'm going to trust you, mademoiselle, with an important mission. You're only a girl, but—you've been thrown into this tragic affair, and—you'll be glad to help your lover, won't you?" ”

“ Half an hour later Coquenil reappeared almost his ordinary self, except that he wore neither mustache nor eyeglasses, and, instead of his usual neat dress he had put on the shabby black coat and the battered soft hat that he had worn in leaving the Hôtel des Étrangers.
"Ah, Cæsar! Old fellow!" he cried fondly as the dog rushed to meet him with barks of joy. "It's good to have a friend like that! Where is the man who cares so much? Or the woman either—except one?"
"There's one woman who seems to care a lot about this dog," remarked Tignol. "I mean the candle girl. ”

“ How had Martinez come upon it? Who was Martinez? A billiard player, a shallow fellow, vain of his conquests over silly women. The last man in Paris, one would say, to interfere with your high purposes or penetrate the barriers of wealth and power that surrounded you."
"You—you flatter me! What am I, pray, a marquis or a duke?" chaffed the other, but the trembling dial belied his gayety, and even from the side Coquenil could see that the man's face was as tense and pallid as the sheet before him. ”

“ Nothing escaped the hawklike eyes of Mother Bonneton, and now, with growing curiosity, she watched the scene between Coquenil and the candle seller. What interest could a great detective have in this girl, Alice, whom she and her husband had taken in as a half-charity boarder? Such airs as she gave herself! What was she saying now? Why should he look at her like that? The baggage!
"Holy saints, how she talks!" grumbled the sacristan's wife. "And see the eyes she makes! And how he listens! The man must be crazy to waste his time on her! ”

“ It was a long night at the Ansonia and a hard night for M. Gritz. France is a land of infinite red tape where even such simple things as getting born or getting married lead to endless formalities. Judge, then, of the complicated procedure involved in so serious a matter as getting murdered—especially in a fashionable restaurant! Long before the commissary had finished his report there arrived no less a person than M. Simon, the chief of police, round-faced and affable, a brisk, dapper man whose ready smile had led more than one trusting criminal into regretted confidences. ”

“ M. Lucien Pougeot was one of the eighty police commissaries who, each in his own quarter, oversee the moral washing of Paris's dirty linen. A commissary of police is first of all a magistrate, but, unless he is a fool, he soon becomes a profound student of human nature, for he sees all sides of life in the great gay capital, especially the darker sides. He knows the sins of his fellow men and women, their follies and hypocrisies, he receives incredible confessions, he is constantly summoned to the scenes of revolting crime. ”

“ He was dressed like a superior workingman, in a flannel shirt, a rough, blue suit, oil-stained and dust-sprinkled, and he wore thick-soled boots. His hands were strong and red and not too clean, with several broken nails and calloused places. In a word, he looked the wood carver, every inch of him, and the detective was forced to admit that, if this was a disguise, it was the most admirable one he had ever seen. If this beard and hair and mustache were false, then his own make-up, the best he had ever created, was a poor thing in comparison. ”

“ For all his brave apparel he was a small, mild-mannered person, with kindly brown eyes and a way of smiling sadly as if he had forgotten how to laugh.
"Ah, Bonneton, my friend!" said Coquenil, and then, with a quizzical glance: "My decorative friend!"
"Good evening, M. Paul," answered the other, while he patted the dog affectionately. "Shall I take Cæsar?"
"One moment; I have news for you." Then, while the other listened anxiously, he told of his brilliant appointment in Rio Janeiro and of his imminent departure. He was sailing for Brazil in three days. ”

“ Coquenil paid no heed to this, but answered quietly: "I mean that a great fight is ahead, and I shall be in it. Somebody is playing for enormous stakes, somebody who disposes of fortune and power and will stop at nothing, somebody who will certainly crush me unless I crush him. It will be a great case, Lucien, my greatest case, perhaps my last case." He stopped and looked intently at his mother's picture, while his lips moved inaudibly.
"Ugh!" exclaimed the commissary. "You've cast a spell over me. Come, come, Paul, it may be only a fancy!" ”

“ The detective leaned closer and said impressively: "If these things are true, it ought to be set forth in Kittredge's letters to you."
It was another chance shot, and Coquenil watched the effect anxiously.
"His letters to me!" she cried with a start of dismay, while M. Paul nodded complacently. "He never wrote me letters—that is, not many, and—whatever there were, I—I destroyed."
Coquenil eyed her keenly and shook his head. "A woman like you would never write to a man oftener than he wrote to her, and Kittredge had a thick bundle of your letters. ”

“ She worked as a seamstress all day in a hot, crowded atelier, and when she came home at night she loved to go out on her balcony, especially these fine summer evenings. She would stand there and brush her hair while she watched the sunset deepen and the swallows circle over the chimney tops. It was an excellent thing for a woman's hair to brush it a long time every night; she always brushed hers for half an hour—that was why it was so thick and glossy.
"But, my dear woman," smiled Coquenil, "what has that to do with me? I have very little hair and no time to brush it." ”

“ Look at the girl in this false picture which you had cunningly made in Brussels. Look at her! Who is she? There is the key to the mystery! There is the reason for your killing Martinez! He knew the truth about this girl."
Now the prisoner's pulse was running wild, faster and faster, but with no more violent spurtings and leapings; the red column throbbed swiftly and faintly at the bottom of the tube as if the heart were weakening.
"A hundred and sixty to the minute," whispered Duprat to the magistrate. "It is dangerous to go on."
Hauteville shrugged his shoulders. ”

“ M. Paul sank weakly into a chair and watched idly while the attendants led away the unresisting millionaire, watched keenly as the judge opened the baron's diary and began to read. He noted the magistrate's start of amazement, the eager turning of pages and the increasingly absorbed attention.
"Astounding! Incredible!" muttered the judge. "A great achievement! I congratulate you, M. Coquenil. It's the most brilliant coup I have ever known. It will stir Paris to the depths and make you a—a hero." ”

“ On one occasion he had met this cousin and had judged him a well-meaning but rather stupid fellow who need not be seriously considered in his efforts to win Alice.
"Do you mean that M. Groener does not approve of me?" pursued Kittredge.
"M. Groener knows nothing about you," answered Mother Bonneton, "except that you have been hanging around this foolish girl. But he understands his responsibility as the only relation she has in the world and he knows she will respect his wishes as the one who has paid her board, more or less, for five years." ”

“ We know the important things, too, all that concerns you, from your forced resignation two years ago down to your talk yesterday with the girl at Notre-Dame. So how can you fight us? How can you shadow people who shadow you? Who watch your actions from day to day, from hour to hour? Who know exactly the moment when you are weak and unprepared, as I know now that you are unarmed because you left that pistol with Papa Tignol. ”

“ Coquenil felt for cigarettes in his coat pocket and his hand touched the friendly barrel of a revolver. Then he glanced back and saw the big automobile, which had been waiting for hours, trailing discreetly behind with Tignol (no longer a priest) and two sturdy fellows, making four men with the chauffeur, all ready to rush up for attack or defense at the lift of his hand. There must be some miraculous interposition if this man beside him, this baby-faced wood carver, was to get away now as he did that night on the Champs Elysées. ”

“ Kittredge was in torture. Once his eyes turned to Mrs. Wilmott in a message of unspeakable bitterness. "You're a judge," he said in a strained, tense voice, "and I'm a prisoner; you have all the power and I have none, but there's something back of that, something we both have, I mean a common manhood, and you know, if you have any sense of honor, that no man has a right to ask another man that question."
"The point is well taken," approved Maître Pleindeaux.
"Two minutes!" said Hauteville coldly. Then he turned to Mrs. Wilmott. ”

“ Did you ever hear of such a case, doctor?"
"Never," answered Joubert.
"A man will shoot himself in the mouth, in the temple, in the heart, anywhere, but not in the eye. There would be an unconquerable shrinking from that. So I say it's murder."
The judge shook his head. "And the murderer?"
"Ah, that's another question. We must find the woman. And we must understand the rôle of this American."
"No woman ever fired that shot or planned this crime," declared the commissary, unconsciously echoing Coquenil's opinion. ”

“ Why did I think a commonplace pickpocket at the Bon Marché was a notorious criminal, wanted by two countries? Why did I think we should find the real clew to that Bordeaux counterfeiting gang in a Passy wine shop? Why did I think it necessary to-night to be on the cab this young American took and not behind it in another cab?" He shot a quick glance at Gibelin. "Because a good detective knows certain things before he can prove them and acts on his knowledge. That is what distinguishes him from an ordinary detective." ”

“ I'd rather cut my tongue out than let Gibelin know it. Careful, there," he said sharply, as their wheels swung dangerously near a stone shelter in the Place de la Concorde.
Both Pougeot and Tignol noted with surprise the half-resigned, half-discouraged tone of the famous detective.
"You don't mean that you think the American may be guilty?" questioned the commissary.
"Never in the world!" grumbled Tignol.
"I don't say he is guilty," answered M. Paul, "but I am not so sure he is innocent. And, if there is doubt about that, then there is doubt whether this case is really a great one. ”

“ Kittredge owed him his liberty and established innocence, Alice (we should say Mary) owed him her memory, her lover, and her fortune; for, as the sole surviving heir of her mother, the whole vast inheritance came to her. And, when a sweet young girl finds herself in such serious debt to a man and at the same time one of the richest heiresses in the world, she naturally wishes to give some substantial form to her gratitude, even to the extent of a few odd millions from her limitless store.
At any rate, Coquenil was henceforth far beyond any need of following his profession ”