The judge turned to Mrs. Wilmott: "Did you know that he had ceased to love you?"
Pussy Wilmott, with her fine eyes to the floor, answered almost in a whisper: "Yes, I knew it."
"Do you know what he means by saying that you would have spoiled his life and—and all that?"
"N-not exactly."
"You do know!" cried the American. "You know I had given you my life in sacred pledge, and you made a plaything of it. You told me you were unhappy, married to a man you loathed, a dull brute; but when I offered you freedom and my love, you drew back. When I begged you to leave him and become my wife, with the law's sanction, you said no, because I was poor and he was rich. You wanted a lover, but you wanted your luxury, too; and I saw that what I had thought the call of your soul was only the call of your body. Your beauty had blinded me, your eyes, your mouth, your voice, the smell of you, the taste of you, the devilish siren power of you, all these had blinded me. I saw that your talk about love was a lie. Love! What did you know about love? You wanted me, along with your ease and your pleasures, as a coarse creator of sensations, and you couldn't have me on those terms. In my madness I would have done anything for you, borne anything; I would have starved for you, toiled for you, yes, gladly; but you didn't want that kind of sacrifice. You couldn't see why I worried about money. There was plenty for us both where yours came from. God! Where yours came from! Why couldn't I leave well enough alone and enjoy an easy life in Paris, with a nicely furnished rez de chaussée off the Champs Elysées, where madam could drive up in her carriage after luncheon and break the Seventh Commandment comfortably three of four afternoons a week, and be home in time to dress for dinner! That was what you wanted," he paused and searched deep into her eyes as she cowered before him, "but that was what you couldn't have!"
"On the whole, I think he's guilty," concluded the judge an hour later, speaking to Coquenil, who had been looking over the secretary's record of the examination.
"Queer!" muttered the detective. "He says he had three pairs of boots."
"He talks too much," continued Hauteville; "his whole plea was ranting. It's a crime passionel, if ever there was one, and—I shall commit him for trial."
Coquenil was not listening; he had drawn two squares of shiny paper from his pocket, and was studying them with a magnifying glass. The judge looked at him in surprise.
"Do you hear what I say?" he repeated. "I shall commit him for trial."
M. Paul glanced up with an absent expression. "It's circumstantial evidence," was all he said, and he went back to his glass.
"Yes, but a strong chain of it."
"A strong chain," mused the other, then suddenly his face lighted and he sprang to his feet. "Great God of Heaven!" he cried in excitement, and hurrying to the window he stood there in the full light, his eye glued to the magnifying glass, his whole soul concentrated on those two pieces of paper, evidently photographs.
"What is it? What have you found?" asked the judge.
"I have found a weak link that breaks your whole chain," triumphed M. Paul. "The alleyway footprints are not identical with the soles of Kittredge's boots."
"But you said they were, the experts said they were."
"We were mistaken; they are almost identical, but not quite; in shape and size they are identical, in the number and placing of the nails in the heel they are identical, in the worn places they are identical, but when you compare them under the magnifying glass, this photograph of the footprints with this one of the boot soles, you see unmistakable differences in the scratches on separate nails in the heel, unmistakable differences."
Hauteville shrugged his shoulders. "That's cutting it pretty fine to compare microscopic scratches on the heads of small nails."
"Not at all. Don't we compare microscopic lines on criminals' thumbs? Besides, it's perfectly plain," insisted Coquenil, absorbed in his comparison. "I can count forty or fifty nail heads in the heel, and none of them correspond under the glass; those that should be alike are not alike. There are slight differences in size, in position, in wear; they are not the same set of nails; it's impossible. Look for yourself. Compare any two and you'll see that they were never in the same pair of boots!"
With an incredulous movement Hauteville took the glass, and in his turn studied the photographs. As he looked, his frown deepened.
"It seems true, it certainly seems true," he grumbled, "but—how do you account for it?"
Coquenil smiled in satisfied conviction. "Kittredge told you he had three pairs of boots; they were machine made and the same size; he says he kept them all going, so they were all worn approximately alike. We have the pair that he wore that night, and another pair found in his room, but the third pair is missing. It's the third pair of boots that made those alleyway footprints!"
"Then you think—" began the judge.
"I think we shall have found Martinez's murderer when we find the man who stole that third pair of boots."
"Stole them?"
Coquenil nodded.
"But that is all conjecture."
"It won't be conjecture to-morrow morning—it will be absolute proof, unless——"
"Unless what?"
"Unless Kittredge lied when he told that girl he had never suffered with gout or rheumatism."
Chapter XVII.
"From Higher Up"
A great detective must have infinite patience. That is, the quality next to imagination that will serve him best. Indeed, without patience, his imagination will serve him but indifferently. Take, for instance, so small a thing as the auger used at the Ansonia. Coquenil felt sure it had been bought for the occasion—billiard players do not have augers conveniently at hand. It was probably a new one, and somewhere in Paris there was a clerk who might remember selling it and might be able to say whether the purchaser was Martinez or some other man. M. Paul believed it was another man. His imagination told him that the person who committed this crime had suggested the manner of it, and overseen the details of it down to even the precise placing of the eye holes. It must be so or the plan would not have succeeded. The assassin, then, was a friend of Martinez—that is, the Spaniard had considered him a friend, and, as it was of the last importance that these holes through the wall be large enough and not too large, this friend might well have seen personally to the purchase of the auger, not leaving it to a rattle-brained billiard player who, doubtless, regarded the whole affair as a joke. It was not a joke!
So, as part of his day's work, M. Paul had taken steps for the finding of this smallish object dropped into the Seine by Pussy Wilmott, and, betimes on the morning after that lady's examination, a diver began work along the Concorde bridge under the guidance of a young detective named Bobet, selected for this duty by M. Paul himself. This was one thread to be followed, a thread that might lead poor Bobet through weary days and nights until, among all the hardware shops in Paris, he had found the particular one where that particular auger had been sold!
Another thread, meanwhile, was leading another trustworthy man in and out among friends of Martinez, whom he must study one by one until the false friend had been discovered. And another thread was hurrying still another man along the trail of the fascinating Anita, for Coquenil wanted to find out why she had changed her mind that night, and what she knew about the key to the alleyway door. Somebody gave that key to the assassin!
Besides all this, and more important, M. Paul had planned a piece of work for Papa Tignol when the old man reported for instructions this same