Monsieur Lecoq Émile Gaboriau (popular books of all time .txt) 📖

Abbé Midon’s plan, which he explained to young d’Escorval, as the horses dashed along, was as simple as the situation was terrible.

“If, by confessing your own guilt, you could save your father, I should tell you to deliver yourself up, and to confess the whole truth. Such would be your duty. But this sacrifice would be not only useless, but dangerous. Your confession of guilt would only implicate your father still more. You would be arrested, but they would not release him, and you would both be tried and convicted. Let us, then, allow⁠—I will not say justice, for that would be blasphemy⁠—but these bloodthirsty men, who call themselves judges, to pursue their course, and attribute all that you have done to your father. When the trial comes, you will prove his innocence, and produce alibis so incontestable, that they will be forced to acquit him. And I understand the people of our country so well, that I am sure not one of them will reveal our stratagem.”

“And if we should not succeed,” asked Maurice, gloomily, “what could I do then?”

The question was so terrible that the priest dared not respond to it. He and Maurice were silent during the remainder of the drive.

They reached the city at last, and Maurice saw how wise the abbé had been in preventing him from assuming a disguise.

Armed with the most absolute power, the Duc de Sairmeuse and the Marquis de Courtornieu had closed all the gates of Montaignac save one.

Through this gate all who desired to leave or enter the city were obliged to pass, and two officers were stationed there to examine all comers and goers, to question them, and to take their name and residence.

At the name “d’Escorval,” the two officers evinced such surprise that Maurice noticed it at once.

“Ah! you know what has become of my father!” he exclaimed.

“The Baron d’Escorval is a prisoner, Monsieur,” replied one of the officers.

Although Maurice had expected this response, he turned pale.

“Is he wounded?” he asked, eagerly.

“He has not a scratch. But enter, sir, and pass on.”

From the anxious looks of these officers one might have supposed that they feared they should compromise themselves by conversing with the son of so great a criminal.

The carriage rolled beneath the gateway; but it had not traversed two hundred yards of the Grand Rue before the abbé and Maurice had remarked several posters and notices affixed to the walls.

“We must see what this is,” they said, in a breath.

They stopped near one of these notices, before which a reader had already stationed himself; they descended from the carriage, and read the following order:

“Article I⁠—The inmates of the house in which the elder Lacheneur shall be found will be handed over to a military commission for trial.

“Article II⁠—Whoever shall deliver the body of the elder Lacheneur, dead or alive, will receive a reward of twenty thousand francs.”

This was signed Duc de Sairmeuse.

“God be praised!” exclaimed Maurice, “Marie-Anne’s father has escaped! He had a good horse, and in two hours⁠—”

A glance and a nudge of the elbow from the abbé checked him.

The abbé drew his attention to the man standing near them. This man was none other than Chupin.

The old scoundrel had also recognized them, for he took off his hat to the curé, and with an expression of intense covetousness in his eyes, he said: “Twenty thousand francs! what a sum! A man could live comfortably all his life on the interest of it.”

The abbé and Maurice shuddered as they re-entered their carriage.

“Lacheneur is lost if this man discovers his retreat,” murmured the priest.

“Fortunately, he must have crossed the frontier before this,” replied Maurice. “A hundred to one he is beyond reach.”

“And if you should be mistaken. What, if wounded and faint from loss of blood, Lacheneur has had only strength to drag himself to the nearest house and ask the hospitality of its inmates?”

“Oh! even in that case he is safe; I know our peasants. There is not one who is capable of selling the life of a proscribed man.”

The noble enthusiasm of youth drew a sad smile from the priest.

“You forget the dangers to be incurred by those who shelter him. Many a man who would not soil his hands with the price of blood might deliver up a fugitive from fear.”

They were passing through the principal street, and they were struck with the mournful aspect of the place⁠—the little city which was ordinarily so bustling and gay⁠—fear and consternation evidently reigned there. The shops were closed; the shutters of the houses had not been opened. A lugubrious silence pervaded the town. One might have supposed that there was general mourning, and that each family had lost one of its members.

The manner of the few persons seen upon the thoroughfare was anxious and singular. They hurried on, casting suspicious glances on every side.

Two or three who were acquaintances of the Baron d’Escorval averted their heads, on seeing his carriage, to avoid the necessity of bowing.

The abbé and Maurice found an explanation of this evident terror on reaching the hotel to which they had ordered the coachman to take them.

They had designated the Hotel de France, where the baron always stopped when he visited Montaignac, and whose proprietor was none other than Laugeron, that friend of Lacheneur, who had been the first to warn him of the arrival of the Duc de Sairmeuse.

This worthy man, on hearing what guests had arrived, went to the courtyard to meet them, with his white cap in his hand.

On such a day politeness was heroism. Was he connected with the conspiracy? It has always been supposed so.

He invited Maurice and the abbé to take some refreshments in a way that made them understand he was anxious to speak with them, and he conducted them to a retired room where he knew they would be secure from observation.

Thanks to one of the Duc de Sairmeuse’s valets de chambre who frequented the house, the host