rsonage; so what need I say about my pretended accomplice?
According to your agents, he's at all events a most faithful friend.
Indeed, this wonderful being--invented by Monsieur" (with these words
the prisoner pointed to Lecoq)--"was seemingly not satisfied at having
once escaped the police, for, according to your account, he voluntarily
placed himself in their clutches a second time. You gentlemen pretend
that he conferred first of all with me, and next with the Widow Chupin.
How did that happen? Perhaps after removing him from my cell, some of
your agents obligingly shut him up with the old woman."

Goguet, the clerk, wrote all this down admiringly. "Here," thought he,
"is a man of brain, who understands his case. He won't need any lawyer's
eloquence to put his defense favorably before a jury."

"And after all," continued the prisoner, "what are the proofs against
me? The name of Lacheneur faltered by a dying man; a few footprints on
some melting snow; a sleepy cab-driver's declaration; and a vague doubt
about a drunkard's identity. If that is all you have against me, it
certainly doesn't amount to much--"

"Enough!" interrupted M. Segmuller. "Your assurance is perfect now;
though a moment ago your embarrassment was most remarkable. What was the
cause of it?"

"The cause!" indignantly exclaimed the prisoner, whom this query
had seemingly enraged; "the cause! Can't you see, sir, that you are
torturing me frightfully, pitilessly! I am an innocent man, and you are
trying to deprive me of my life. You have been turning me this way and
that way for so many hours that I begin to feel as if I were standing on
the guillotine. Each time I open my mouth to speak I ask myself, is it
this answer that will send me to the scaffold? My anxiety and dismay
surprise you, do they? Why, since this examination began, I've felt the
cold knife graze my neck at least twenty times. I wouldn't like my worst
enemy to be subjected to such torture as this."

The prisoner's description of his sufferings did not seem at all
exaggerated. His hair was saturated with perspiration, and big drops of
sweat rested on his pallid brow, or coursed down his cheeks on to his
beard.

"I am not your enemy," said the magistrate more gently. "A magistrate is
neither a prisoner's friend nor enemy, he is simply the friend of truth
and the executor of the law. I am not seeking either for an innocent man
or for a culprit; I merely wish to arrive at the truth. I