“The deuce!” murmured the sergeant; “there is every indication—But it is very singular.”
Invited to consider what he was going to say, the brave trooper evidently made an effort to collect his intellectual faculties. “I would stake my epaulets that this fellow never was a soldier,” he said at last. “He must have disguised himself to take part in the Shrove Sunday carnival.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Oh, I know it better than I can explain it. I know it by his hair, by his nails, by his whole appearance, by a certain je ne sais quoi; in short, I know it by everything and by nothing. Why look, the poor devil did not even know how to put on his shoes; he has laced his gaiters wrong side outwards.” Evidently further doubt was impossible after this evidence, which confirmed the truth of Lecoq’s first remark to Inspector Gevrol.
“Still, if this person was a civilian, how could he have procured this clothing?” insisted the commissary. “Could he have borrowed it from the men in your company?”
“Yes, that is possible; but it is difficult to believe.”
“Is there no way by which you could ascertain?”
“Oh! very easily. I have only to run over to the fort and order an inspection of clothing.”
“Do so,” approved the commissary; “it would be an excellent way of getting at the truth.”
But Lecoq had just thought of a method quite as convincing, and much more prompt. “One word, sergeant,” said he, “isn’t cast off military clothing sold by public auction?”