I give it up. The prisoner will go to the Assizes, to be acquitted or
condemned under the name of May. I will trouble myself no more about the
matter."
He said this, but the anxiety and disappointment caused by defeat,
sneering criticism, and perplexity, as to the best course to be pursued,
so affected his health that he became really ill--so ill that he had to
take to his bed.
He had been confined to his room for a week or so, when one morning
Lecoq called to inquire after him.
"You see, my good fellow," quoth M. Segmuller, despondently, "that this
mysterious murderer is fatal to us magistrates. Ah! he is too much for
us; he will preserve the secret of his identity."
"Possibly," replied Lecoq. "At all events, there is now but one way left
to discover his secret; we must allow him to escape--and then track him
to his lair."
This expedient, although at first sight a very startling one, was not of
Lecoq's own invention, nor was it by any means novel. At all times, in
cases of necessity, have the police closed their eyes and opened the
prison doors for the release of suspected criminals. And not a few,
dazzled by liberty and ignorant of being watched, have foolishly
betrayed themselves. All prisoners are not like the Marquis de
Lavalette, protected by royal connivance; and one might enumerate
many individuals who have been released, only to be rearrested after
confessing their guilt to police spies or auxiliaries who have won their
confidence.
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