“Excuse me, you declared a minute ago that you did not see these women leave: that you were too busy to watch their movements.”
“Did I say that?”
“Word for word; the passage shall be shown you. Goguet, find it.”
The clerk at once read the passage referred to, whereupon the prisoner undertook to show that the remark had been misunderstood. He had not said—at least, he did not intend to say—that; they had quite misinterpreted his words. With such remarks did he try to palliate the effect of his apparent blunders.
In the mean while, Lecoq was jubilant. “Ah, my fine fellow,” thought he, “you are contradicting yourself—you are in deep water already—you are lost. There’s no hope for you.”
The prisoner’s situation was indeed not unlike that of a bather, who, unable to swim, imprudently advances into the sea until the water rises above his chin. He may for a while have preserved his equilibrium, despite the buffeting of the waves, but now he totters, loses his footing—another second, and he will sink!
“Enough—enough!” said the magistrate, cutting the prisoner’s embarrassed explanation short. “Now, if you started out merely with the intention of amusing yourself, how did it happen that you took your revolver with you?”
“I had it with me while I was traveling, and did not think of leaving it at the hotel any more than I thought of changing my clothes.”
“Where did you purchase it?”
“It was given me by M. Simpson as a souvenir.”