She was well preserved--that is to say, she was plump and healthy in
appearance; her glance was frank and unembarrassed; her voice was clear
and musical, and her manners were pleasing, and entirely free from
affectation.
"Ah!" she eventually exclaimed, "I have found those wretched keys at
last." So saying, she opened her desk, took out the register, laid it
on the table, and began turning over the leaves. At last she found the
desired page.
"Sunday, February 20th," said she. "Look, sir: here on the
seventh line--May--no Christian name--foreign artist--coming from
Leipsic--without papers."
While Lecoq was examining this record with a dazed air, the woman
exclaimed: "Ah! now I can explain how it happened that I forgot the
man's name and strange profession--'foreign artist.' I did not make the
entry myself."
"Who made it, then?"
"The man himself, while I was finding ten francs to give him as change
for the louis he handed me. You can see that the writing is not at all
like that of other entries."
Lecoq had already noted this circumstance, which seemed to furnish an
irrefutable argument in favor of the assertions made by the landlady
and the prisoner. "Are you sure," he asked, "that this is the man's
handwriting?"
In his anxiety he had forgotten his English accent. The woman noticed
this at once, for she drew back, and cast a suspicious glance at the
pretended foreigner. "I know what I am saying," she said, indignantly.
"And now this is enough, isn't it?"
Knowing that he had betrayed himself, and thoroughly ashamed of his lack
of coolness, Lecoq renounced his English accent altogether.
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