who comes to see me,
told me you were strangely puzzled about the prisoner's identity. So you
are charged with investigating the affair? So much the better. Tell me
all about it, and I will assist you as well as I can."

Suddenly checking himself, and lowering his voice, Tirauclair added:
"But first of all, just do me the favor to get up. Now, wait a moment,
and when I motion you, open that door there, on the left, very suddenly.
Mariette, my housekeeper, who is curiosity incarnate, is standing there
listening. I hear her hair rubbing against the lock. Now!"

The young detective immediately obeyed, and Mariette, caught in the act,
hastened away, pursued by her master's sarcasms. "You might have known
that you couldn't succeed at that!" he shouted after her.

Although Lecoq and Father Absinthe were much nearer the door than old
Tirauclair, neither of them had heard the slightest sound; and they
looked at each other in astonishment, wondering whether their host had
been playing a little farce for their benefit, or whether his sense of
hearing was really so acute as this incident would seem to indicate.

"Now," said Tabaret, settling himself more comfortably upon his
pillows--"now I will listen to you, my boy. Mariette will not come back
again."

On his way to Tabaret's, Lecoq had busied himself in preparing his
story; and it was in the clearest possible manner that he related all
the particulars, from the moment when Gevrol opened the door of the
Poivriere to the instant when May leaped over the garden wall in the
rear of the Hotel de Sairmeuse.

While the young detective was telling his story, old Tabaret seemed
completely transformed. His gout was entirely forgotten. According to
the different phases of the recital, he either turned and twisted on
his bed, uttering little cries of delight or disappointment, or else
lay motionless, plunged in the same kind of ecstatic reverie which
enthusiastic admirers of classical music yield themselves up to while
listening to one of the great Beethoven's divine sonatas.

"If I had been there! If only I had been there!" he murmured regretfully
every now and then through his set teeth, though when Lecoq's story was
finished, enthusiasm seemed decidedly to have gained the upper hand.
"It is beautiful! it is grand!" he exclaimed. "And with just that one
phrase: 'It is the Prussians who are coming,' for a starting point!
Lecoq, my boy, I must say that you have conducted this affair