"How
unfortunate!" he murmured.
"Why?" asked the old lady. "Under these circumstances, the diamond will
probably remain in your hands, and I am rejoiced that it should be so.
It will be a fitting reward for your honesty."
Madame d'Arlange was naturally not aware that her remark implied the
most exquisite torture for Lecoq. Ah! if it should be as she said, if
he should never find the lady who had lost this costly jewel! Smarting
under the marchioness's unintended irony, he would have liked to
apostrophize her in angry terms; but it could not be, for it was
advisable if not absolutely necessary that he should conceal his true
identity. Accordingly, he contrived to smile, and even stammered an
acknowledgment of Madame d'Arlange's good wishes. Then, as if he had no
more to expect, he made her a low bow and withdrew.
This new misfortune well-nigh overwhelmed him. One by one all the
threads upon which he had relied to guide him out of this intricate
labyrinth were breaking in his hands. In the present instance he
could scarcely be the dupe of some fresh comedy, for if the murderer's
accomplice had taken Doisty, the jeweler, into his confidence he would
have instructed him to say that the earring had never come from his
establishment, and that he could not consequently tell whom it had been
sold to. On the contrary, however, Doisty and his wife had readily given
Madame d'Arlange's name, and all the circumstances pointed in favor of
their sincerity.
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