As she said these words she turned her beautiful piercing eyes to a dark corner of her cell. Licquet, following her gaze, saw a very prominent nail sticking in the wall at a height of about six feet. Without letting her see his anxiety, he tried to direct the prisoner's attention to other objects, and succeeded in working her up to a state of "wild gaiety."
That very day the nail was taken out, but there still remained the bolts of the door and the bed-posts, to which, being of such low stature, she could hang herself; a woman from Bicêtre was therefore set to watch her.
It would be impossible to follow Licquet through all the phases of the inquiry. This diabolical man seems to have possessed the gift of ubiquity. He was in the prison where he worked upon the prisoners; at the prefecture directing the examinations; at Caen, making inquiries under the very nose of Caffarelli, who believed that the affair had long since been buried; at Falaise, where he was collecting testimony; at Honfleur, at Pont-Audemer, at Paris. He drew up innumerable reports, and sent them to the prefect or to Réal, with whom he corresponded directly, and when he was asked what reward he was ambitious of obtaining for his devoted service to the State, he replied philosophically: "I do not work for my own glory, but only for that of the police generally, and of our dear Councillor, whom I love with all my heart. As for me, poor devil, I am destined to remain obscure, which, I must say, pleases me, since I recognise the inconvenience of having a reputation."
One of the most picturesque events of his enquiry was another journey taken towards the end of October by the false Captain Delaitre and his false nephew in search of Allain and Buquet, whom they had not found on the day mentioned at the inn at Cany. At Caen Delaitre saw again the lawyer Langelley, the Placènes and Monderard's daughter, and they entertained him. He gave them very good news of Mme. Acquet, who, he said, was comfortably settled at a place on the English coast; but although he had a very important letter for Allain, which Mme. de Combray wished him to take to England without delay, the wily Chouan did not show himself. His daughter, who had set up as a dressmaker at Caen and was in communication with Mme. Placène, undertook, however, to forward the letter to him. The Captain announced his intention of following the girl in the hope of discovering her father's retreat, but Langelley and the others assured him that it would be a waste of time. The young girl alone knew where the outlaw was hidden and "each time she went to take him news, she disguised herself, entered a house, disguised herself afresh before leaving, went into another house, changed her costume yet again, and so on. It was impossible to be sure when she came out of each house that it was the same person who had gone in, and to know in which her father was." Two days later the girl reappeared. She said that her father had gone to his own home near Cherbourg, where "he had property." He wanted to sell his furniture and lease his land before going to England. This was the other side of the terrible "General Antonio." He was a good father and a small landed proprietor. Delaitre realised that this was a defeat, and that Allain was not easily to be beguiled. He did not persist, but packed up his traps and returned to Rouen.
This check was all the more painful to Licquet, since he had hoped that by attracting Allain, d'Aché would also be ensnared. Without the latter, who was evidently the head of the conspiracy, only the inferiors could be arraigned, and the part of the principal criminal would have to be passed over in silence, in consequence of which the affair would sink to the proportions of common highway robbery. Stimulated by these motives, and still more so by his amour-propre, Licquet set out for Caen. His joy in action was so keen that it pervades all his reports. He describes himself as taking the coach with Delaitre, his nephew and "two or three active henchmen." He is so sure of success that he discounts it in advance: "I do not know," he writes to Réal, "whether I am flattering myself too much, but I am tempted to hope that the author will be called for at the end of the play."
It is to be regretted that we have no details of this expedition. In what costume did Licquet appear at Caen? What personality did he assume? How did he carry out his manœuvres between Mme. Acquet's friends, his confederate Delaitre and the Prefect Caffarelli, without arousing any one's suspicion or wounding their susceptibilities? It is impossible to disentangle this affair; he was an adept at troubling water that he might safely fish in it, and seemed jealous to such a degree of the means he employed, that he would not divulge the secret to any one. With an instinctive love of mystification, he kept up during his journey an official correspondence with his prefect and a private one with Réal. He told one what he would not confess to the other; he wrote to Savoye-Rollin that he was in a hurry to return to Rouen, while by the same post he asked Réal to get him recalled to Paris during the next twenty-four hours. "If you adopt this idea, Monsieur, you must be kind enough to select a pretext which will not wound or even scratch any one's amour-propre." The "any one" mentioned here is Savoye-Rollin. What secret had Licquet discovered, that he did not dare to confide, except orally, and then only to the Imperial Chief of Police? We believe that we are not wrong in premising that scarcely had he arrived at Caen when he laid hands on a witness so important, and at the same time so difficult to manipulate, that he was himself frightened at this unexpected coup de théâtre.
Whilst ferreting about in the prisons to which he had obtained access that he might talk to Lanoë and the Buquets, he met Acquet de Férolles, who had been forgotten there for three months. Whether Mme. de Placène was, as Vannier suspected, employed by the police and knew Licquet's real personality, or whether the latter found another intermediary, it is certain that he obtained Acquet de Férolles' confidence from the beginning, and that he got the credit of having him set at liberty. It was after this interview that Licquet asked Réal to recall him to Paris for twenty-four hours. His journey took place in the early days of November, and on the 12th, on an order from Réal Acquet was rearrested and taken in a post-chaise from Donnay to Paris, escorted by a sergeant of police. On the 16th he was entered in the Temple gaol-book, and Réal, who hastened to interrogate him, showed him great consideration, and promised that his detention should not be long. A note, which is still to be found among the papers connected with this affair, seems to indicate that this incarceration was not of a nature to cause great alarm to the Lord of Donnay: "M. Acquet has been taken to Paris that he may not interfere with the proceedings against his wife.... It is known that he is unacquainted with his wife's offence, but M. Réal believes it necessary to keep him at a distance." That was not the tone in which the police of that period usually spoke of their ordinary prisoners, and it seems advisable to call attention to the fact. Let us add that the royalists detained in the Temple were not taken in by it. M. de Revoire, an old habitué of the prison, who spent the whole of the Imperial period in captivity told the Combray family after the Restoration, that all the prisoners considered Acquet "as a spy, an informer, the whole time he was in the Temple." After a week's imprisonment and three weeks' surveillance in Paris, he was set at liberty and returned to Donnay.
From the comparison of these facts and dates, is one not led to infer that Licquet had persuaded Acquet without much difficulty we may be sure, to become his wife's accuser? But the desire not to compromise himself, and still more the dread of reprisals, shut the mouth of the unworthy husband at Caen, eager though he was to speak in Paris, provided that no one should suspect the part he was playing; hence this sham imprisonment in the Temple—evidently Licquet's idea—which gave him time to make revelations to Réal.
Whatever it may have been, this incident interrupted Licquet's journey to Caen. He continued it towards the middle of November, quitting Rouen on the 18th, still accompanied by Delaitre and others of his cleverest men. This time he represented himself as an inspector of taxes, which gave him the right of entering houses and visiting even the cellars. His aim was to unearth Allain, Buquet and especially d'Aché, but none of them appeared. We cannot deal with this third journey in detail, as Licquet has kept the threads of the play secret, but from half-confidences made to Réal, we may infer that he bought the concurrence of Langelley and Chauvel on formal promises of immunity from punishment; they consented to serve the detective and betray Allain, and they were on the point of delivering him up when "fear of the Gendarme Mallet caused everything to fail." Licquet fell back with his troop, taking with him Chauvel, Mallet and Langelley, who were soon to be followed by Lanoë, Vannier, Placène and all the Buquets, save Joseph, who had not been seen again. But before starting on his return journey to Rouen, Licquet wished to pay his respects to Count Caffarelli, the Prefect of Calvados, in whose territory he had just been hunting. The latter did not conceal his displeasure, and thought it strange that his own gendarmes should be ordered to proceed with criminal cases and to make arrests of which they neglected even to inform him. Licquet states that after "looking black at him, Caffarelli laughed till he cried" over the stories of the false Captain Delaitre and the false inspector of taxes. It is probable that the story was well told; but the Prefect of Calvados was none the less annoyed at the unceremonious procedure, as he testified a little later with some blustering. Licquet, moreover, was not deceived: on his return from Caen, he wrote: "Behold, I have quarrelled with the Prefect of Calvados."