All this Coquenil had done on a chance, without positive knowledge, save for the assurance of the black-whiskered valet that the baron wrote frequently in a diary which he kept locked in the safe. Whether this was true, and, if so, whether the baron had been mad enough to put down with his own hand a record of his own wickedness, were matters of pure conjecture. Coquenil was convinced that this journal would contain what he wanted; he did not believe that a man like De Heidelmann-Bruck would keep a diary simply to fill in with insipidities. If he kept it at all, it would be because it pleased him to analyze, fearlessly, his own extraordinary doings, good or bad. The very fact that the baron was different from ordinary men, a law unto himself, made it likely that he would disregard what ordinary men would call prudence in a matter like this; there is no such word as imprudence for one who is practically all-powerful, and, if it tickled the baron's fancy to keep a journal of crime, it was tolerably certain he would keep it.
The event proved that he did keep it. On one of the shelves of the safe, among valuable papers and securities, the detective found a thick book bound in black leather and fastened with heavy gold clasps. It was the diary.
With a thrill of triumph, Coquenil seized upon the volume, then, closing the safe carefully, without touching anything else, he returned to his room in the stable. His purpose was accomplished, and now he had only one thought—to leave the hôtel as quickly as possible; it would be a matter of a few moments to pack his modest belongings, then he could rouse the doorkeeper and be off with his bag and the precious record.
As he started to act on this decision, however, and steal softly down to the courtyard, the detective paused and looked at his watch. It was not yet three o'clock, and M. Paul, in the real burglar spirit, reflected that his departure with a bag, at this unseasonable hour, might arouse the doorkeeper's suspicion; whereas, if he waited until half past five, the gate would be open and he could go out unnoticed. So he decided to wait. After all, there was no danger, the baron was away from Paris, and no one would enter the library before seven or eight.
While he waited, Coquenil opened the diary and began to read. There were some four hundred neatly written pages, brief separate entries without dates, separate thoughts as it were, and, as he turned through them he found himself more and more absorbed until, presently, he forgot time, place, danger, everything; an hour passed, two hours, and still the detective read on while his candle guttered down to the stick and the brightening day filled his mean stable room; he was absolutely lost in a most extraordinary human document, in one of those terrible utterances, shameless and fearless, that are flung out, once in a century or so, from the hot somber depths of a man's being.
I
I have kept this diary because it amuses me, because I am not afraid, because my nature craves and demands some honest expression somewhere. If these pages were read I should be destroyed. I understand that, but I am in constant danger of being destroyed, anyway. I might be killed by an automobile accident. A small artery in my brain might snap. My heart might stop beating for various reasons. And it is no more likely that this diary will be found and read (with the precautions I have taken) than that one of these other things will happen. Besides, I have no fear, since I regard my own life and all other lives as of absolutely trifling importance.
II
I say here to myself what thousands of serious and successful men all over the world are saying to themselves, what the enormous majority of men must say to themselves, that is, that I am (and they are) constantly committing crimes and we are therefore criminals. Some of us kill, some steal, some seduce virgins, some take our friends' wives, but most of us, in one way or another, deliberately and repeatedly break the law, so we are criminals.
III