bowing till
his backbone was a perfect curve, M. Lecoq laid down his pen, and said,
looking sharply at him:

"Ah, here you are, young man. Well, it seems that you haven't made much
progress in the Bertomy case."

"Why," murmured Fanferlot, "you know--"

"I know that you have muddled everything until you can't see your way
out; so that you are ready to give up."

"But, M. Lecoq, it was not I----"

M. Lecoq arose, and walked up and down the room: suddenly he confronted
Fanferlot, and said, in a tone of scornful irony:

"What would you think, Master Squirrel, of a man who abuses the
confidence of those who employ him, who reveals just enough to lead the
prosecution on the wrong scent, who sacrifices to his own foolish vanity
the cause of justice and the liberty of an unfortunate man?"

Fanferlot started back with a frightened look.

"I should say," he stammered, "I should say--"

"You would say this man ought to be punished, and dismissed from his
employment; and you are right. The less a profession is honored, the
more honorable should those be who belong to it. And yet you have been
false to yours. Ah! Master Fanferlot, we are ambitious, and we try to
make the police force serve our own views! We let Justice stray her way,
and we go ours. One must be a more cunning bloodhound than you are, my
friend, to be able to hunt without a huntsman. You are too self-reliant
by half."

"But, patron, I swear--"

"Silence! Do you pretend to say that you did your duty, and told all
to the judge of instruction? Whilst others were informing against the
cashier, you undertook to inform against the banker. You watched his
movements: you became intimate with his valet."

Was M. Lecoq really angry, or pretending to be? Fanferlot, who knew him
well, was puzzled to know whether all this indignation was real.

"If you were only skilful," he continued, "but no: you wish to be
master, and you are not fit to be a journeyman."

"You are right, patron," said Fanferlot, piteously, for he saw that
it was useless for him to deny anything. "But how could I go about an
affair like this, where there was not even a trace or sign to start
from?"

M. Lecoq shrugged his shoulders.

"You are an ass! Why, don't you know that on the very day you were sent
for with the commissary to verify the robbery, you held--I do not say
certainly, but very probably held--in your great stupid hands the means
of knowing which key had been used when the mon