Fisher, “and I am certain knows nothing of this person.”
By the expression of their intelligent countenances, Holmes and Lecoq show their concurrence in this opinion.
“Confront her with me!” I demand, folding my arms defiantly.
It has since struck me that this was a happy inspiration, and in the right dramatic key. Unfortunately, it requires an imaginative audience, and I had two Fishers and two bobbies.
Rapidly I had calculated what would happen. The fair and innocent maiden should be aroused from her virgin slumbers; with dishevelled locks, and in a long, loose, and becoming drapery of some soft color (light blue to harmonize with her flaxen hair, for instance), she should be led into this chamber of the inquisition; then my eye should moisten, my voice be as the lute of Apollo, and it would be a thousand francs to a dishonored check that I should melt her into some soft confession. Not that I should ask her to compromise her reputation to save me. Never, on my honor, would I permit that. Indeed, if my plight tempted her to invent a story she might repent of afterwards, I should disavow it with so sincere and honest an air that my captors would exclaim together, “We have misjudged him!”
No, I should merely persuade her to confess that a not ill-looking foreigner had pursued her with glances of chivalrous admiration for some days past, and that from his air of hopeless passion it was not surprising to find him to-night tapping upon her window-pane.
Alas, that so promising a scheme should fail through the incurable poverty of the Fisher spirit! My demand is simply ignored.
“What acquaintance have you with my daughter?” asks Mrs. Fisher, icily.
“You will respect my confidence?” I ask, earnestly.
“We shall use our discretion,” replies the virtuous lady.