‘If I tell you everything will you not arrest me?’ His fright was pitiable.
‘Certainly not. I don’t want to do you any harm. If you give me the information you go free with a hundred francs in your pocket. But if you try to deceive me, you can explain your position to-morrow to the examining magistrate.’
The bluff had its effect.
‘I’ll tell you, monsieur. I’ll tell you the whole truth.’
‘Good,’ said La Touche, ‘then we had better move to a more private place. We’ll go to my hotel, and you, Charcot’—he turned to the porter—‘get away back to the rue de Lyon and tell M. Mallet and your friend the man’s found. Here’s what I owe you and a trifle more.’
Charcot bowed and vanished, while La Touche and the carter, getting out into one of the larger streets, drove to the rue de la Fayette.
‘Now, Dubois,’ said the detective, when they were seated in his room.
‘I’m going to tell you the gospel truth, monsieur,’ began the carter, and from his earnest, anxious manner La Touche believed him. ‘And I’m not going to deny that I was in the wrong, even if I do get the sack over it. But I was fair tempted, and I thought it was an easy way to earn a bit of money without doing any one any harm. For that’s the fact, monsieur. What I did, did no harm to any one.
‘It was on Monday, monsieur, Monday the 29th March, that I was out at Charenton delivering goods for Messrs. Corot. I stopped at a café there for a glass of beer. While I was drinking it a man came up to me and asked was that my cart? I said I was in charge of it, but it belonged to Messrs. Corot. “I want a little job done with a cart,” he says, “and it’s not convenient for me to go into Paris to an agent’s, and if you would save me the trouble by doing it for me I’ll pay you well.” “I couldn’t do that, monsieur,” I says, “for if my employers got to know they’d give me the sack.” “But how would they know?” he asks, “I wouldn’t tell them, and I guess you wouldn’t either.” Well, monsieur, we talked on, and first I refused, but afterwards I agreed to do it. I admit I was using the cart like that, but he tempted me. He said it would only take about an hour, and he would give me ten francs. So I agreed.’
‘What was this man like?’