Monsieur Lecoq, v. 1

“Thunder!” exclaimed Gevrol, striking his glass violently upon the counter. “Thunder! how that fellow provokes me! He does not know the A B C of his profession. When he can’t di...

Every now and then a policeman or an agent of the detective corps passed by on his way to the Prefecture, and the elderly gentleman or the “loafer” would at times run after thes...

The governor shook his head with a knowing air. “In that case,” said he, “my conjectures were correct. It seems to me evident that this man is a criminal of the worst descriptio...

The implement was useful in any case; as both men agreed when they returned to the garden and recommenced their investigations systematically. They advanced very slowly and with...

Inspired with equal ardor they began their walk. At the end of the path upon which they had entered they fancied they observed, as in some magic glass, the one the fruits, the o...

“Naturally, Father Tringlot carried me to his wife. She was a kind-hearted woman. She took me, examined me, fed me, and said: ‘He’s a strong, healthy child; and we’ll keep him s...

“It is unfortunate--very unfortunate!” said Lecoq. “But it is useless to distress ourselves about it. Don’t be so cast down, Father Absinthe. To-morrow, between us, we will repa...

“I am going to call all the employees of this prison together, and inform them that there is a traitor among them, and that I must know who he is, as I wish to make an example o...

“What good would it do? Hasn’t M. Segmuller examined and cross-examined her a dozen times without drawing anything from her! Ah! she’s a cunning one. She would declare that May...

The magistrate, however, was utterly discouraged. “We must abandon this attempt,” said he. “All the means of detection have been exhausted. I give it up. The prisoner will go to...

“Excuse me, but I know what I am saying. First, the door opening into the garden is closed; it is only open during grand receptions, not for our ordinary Monday drawing-rooms. S...

“Come! you do not think of what you are saying. It was not chance that brought these customers, in the middle of the night, to a wine-shop with a reputation like yours--an estab...

The examination of the other murdered man required different but even greater precautions than those adopted by the doctors in their inspection of the pseudo soldier. The positi...

Of course, Lecoq did not rejoice at M. d’Escorval’s accident; could he have prevented it, he would have gladly done so. Still, he could not help saying to himself that this stro...

“I should like to see any one prove that!” So saying, the prisoner smiled sneeringly, but at once changed countenance when the magistrate retorted in a tone of assurance: “I wil...

This seeming satisfaction greatly disappointed Lecoq, who had selected, as a test, one of those horribly thick, bluish, nauseous mixtures in vogue around the barrieres--hoping,...

“Oh! he is not at all like the other men who come to drink at my mother-in-law’s shop. I have only seen him once; but I remember him perfectly. It was on a Sunday. He was in a c...

The young police agent to whom Gevrol abandoned what he thought an unnecessary investigation was a debutant in his profession. His name was Lecoq. He was some twenty-five or twe...

At about eleven o’clock in the evening of the 20th of February, 186--, which chanced to be Shrove Sunday, a party of detectives left the police station near the old Barriere d’I...

It would be difficult to tell his exact status at the Prefecture. When a person is employed, salary or compensation of some kind is understood, but this strange man had never co...

Certainly this information would not seem to indicate that the auctioneer had been tampered with; and yet Lecoq was not satisfied. “It is very strange,” he thought, as he walked...

“Am I sure?” he exclaimed. “Then you can never have visited the secret cells. You have no idea, then, of their situation; you are unacquainted with the triple bolts that secure...

It will be seen that in the memoranda appended to this explanatory diagram, Lecoq had not once written his own name. In noting the things that he had imagined or discovered, he...

“No; but if I had been by your side in the gallery of the Odeon, when you so clearly divined the prisoner’s intentions, I should have said to you: ‘This fellow, friend Lecoq, wi...