"Monsieur perhaps uses them?"
Plantat, unwilling to decline, appropriated a lozenge, and the detective's face became again serene. Public sympathy was necessary to him, as it is to all great comedians.
VI
M. Lecoq was the first to reach the staircase, and the spots of blood at once caught his eye.
"Oh," cried he, at each spot he saw, "oh, oh, the wretches!"
M. Courtois was much moved to find so much sensibility in a detective.
The latter, as he continued to ascend, went on:
"The wretches! They don't often leave traces like this everywhere—or at least they wipe them out."
On gaining the first landing, and the door of the boudoir which led into the chamber, he stopped, eagerly scanning, before he entered, the position of the rooms.
Then he entered the boudoir, saying:
"Come; I don't see my way clear yet."