A less imaginative man than Aristide would have immediately acquainted the police with his discovery. But Aristide had been insulted. A dull, mechanical bureaucrat who tried to discover crime with a tape-measure had dared to talk contemptuously of his intelligence! On his wooden head should be poured the vials of his contempt.
“Tron de l’air!” cried Aristide—a Provençal oath which he only used on sublime occasions—“It is I who will discover the thief and make the whole lot of you the laughing-stock of Perpignan.”
So did my versatile friend, joyously confident in his powers, start on his glorious career as a private detective.
“Madame Coquereau,” said he, that evening, while she was dealing a hand at piquet, “what would you say if I solved this mystery and brought the scoundrel to justice?”
“To say that you would have more sense than the police, would be a poor compliment,” said the old lady.
Stéphanie raised cloistral eyes from her embroidery frame. She sat in a distant corner of the formal room discreetly lit by a shaded lamp.
“You have a clue, Monsieur?” she asked with adorable timidity.
Aristide tapped his forehead with his forefinger. “All is there, Mademoiselle.”
They exchanged a glance—the first they had exchanged—while Madame Coquereau was frowning at her cards; and Aristide interpreted the glance as the promise of supreme reward for great deeds accomplished.
The mayor returned early from the café, a dejected man. The loss of his hundred and twenty pounds weighed heavily on his mind. He kissed his mother sorrowfully on the cheek, his niece on the brow, held out a drooping hand to Aristide, and, subsiding into a stiff imitation Louis XVI chair, rested his elbows on its unconsoling arms and hid his face in his hands.