Since his unsuccessful attempt at
suicide, this prisoner has been in such a state of excitement that we
have been obliged to keep him in a strait-waistcoat. He did not close
his eyes all last night, and the guards who watched him expected every
moment that he would become delirious. However, he did not utter a word.
When food was offered him this morning, he resolutely rejected it, and
I should not be surprised if it were his intention to starve himself
to death. I have rarely seen a more determined criminal. I think him
capable of any desperate act."
"Ah!" exclaimed the clerk, whose smile had disappeared, "If I were
in your place, sir, I would only let him in here with an escort of
soldiers."
"What! you--Goguet, you, an old clerk--make such a proposition! Can it
be that you're frightened?"
"Frightened! No, certainly not; but--"
"Nonsense!" interrupted Lecoq, in a tone that betrayed superlative
confidence in his own muscles; "Am I not here?"
If M. Segmuller had seated himself at his desk, that article of
furniture would naturally have served as a rampart between the prisoner
and himself. For purposes of convenience he usually did place himself
behind it; but after Goguet's display of fear, he would have blushed
to have taken the slightest measure of self-protection. Accordingly,
he went and sat down by the fireplace--as he had done a few moments
previously while questioning the Widow Chupin--and then ordered his
door-keeper to admit the prisoner alone.
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