ries, and then misleads the magistrates with his
high-sounding phrases, in the hope of gaining promotion. I'll give him
advancement with a vengeance! I'll teach him to set himself above me!"

Lecoq had not been deceived. The evening before, he had visited the
station-house where the prisoner had first been confined, and had
compared the soil of the cell floor with the dust he had placed in
his pocket; and he carried away with him, as he believed, one of those
crushing proofs that often suffice to extort from the most obstinate
criminal a complete confession. If Lecoq was in haste to part company
with Gevrol, it was because he was anxious to pursue his investigations
still further, before appearing in M. d'Escorval's presence. He was
determined to find the cab-driver who had been stopped by the two women
in the Rue du Chevaleret; and with this object in view, he had obtained
at the prefecture the names and addresses of all the cab-owners hiring
between the road to Fontainebleau and the Seine.

His earlier efforts at investigation proved unsuccessful. At the first
establishment he visited, the stable boys, who were not yet up, swore at
him roundly. In the second, he found the grooms at work, but none of the
drivers had as yet put in an appearance. Moreover, the owner refused to
show him the books upon which are recorded--or should be recorded--each
driver's daily engagements. Lecoq was beginning to despair, when at
about half-past seven o'clock he reached an establishment just beyond
the fortifications belonging to a man named Trigault. Here he learned
that on Sunday night, or rather, early on Monday morning, one of the
drivers had been accosted on his way home by some persons who succeeded
in persuading him to drive them back into Paris.

This driver, who was then in the courtyard harnessing his horse, proved
to be a little old man, with a ruddy complexion, and a pair of small
eyes full of cunning. Lecoq walked up to him at once.

"Was it you," he asked, "who, on Sunday night or rather on Monday,
between one and two in the morning, drove a couple of women from the Rue
du Chevaleret into Paris?"

The driver looked up, and surveying Lecoq attentively, cautiously
replied: "Perhaps."

"It is a positive answer that I want."

"Aha!" said the old man sneeringly, "you know two ladies who have lost
something in a cab, and so--"

The young detective trembled with satisfaction. This man was certainly
the one he was looking