What luck! the experiment was successful!  The plaster united in a homogeneous mass, forming a perfect model of the impression.  Thus, after an hour’s labor, Lecoq possessed half a dozen of these casts, which might, perhaps, be a little wanting in clearness of outline, but which were quite perfect enough to be used as evidence.

The young detective’s alarm had been well founded, for it was already beginning to rain.  Still, he had plenty of time to cover a number of the footprints with the boxes and pieces of board which Father Absinthe had collected, thus placing them, as it were, beyond the reach of a thaw.  Now he could breathe.  The authorities might come, for the most important part of his task was completed.

V

It was some distance from the Poivriere to the Rue de Chevaleret, even by way of the plain, and fully four hours had been occupied by Lecoq and his colleague in collecting their elements of information.

All this while, the Widow Chupin’s abode had remained open, accessible to any chance visitor.  Still, when, on his return, the young police agent remembered this neglect of elementary precautions, he did not feel alarmed.  Considering all the circumstances, it was very difficult to believe that any serious harm could have resulted from this carelessness.

For who would have been likely to visit this drinking-den after midnight?  Its bad name served the purpose of a bulwark.  The most daring vagrants did not drink there without some disquietude, fearing that if the liquor caused them to lose consciousness, they might be robbed or perhaps even murdered.  Hence, if any one had been attracted to this notoriously dangerous drinking-shop by the light that streamed through the open door, it could only have been some very reckless person returning late at night from the ball at the Rainbow, with a few sous left in his pocket.  But, even then, a single glance inside would have sufficed to put the bravest to flight.

In less than a second the young police agent had weighed all these possibilities, concerning which he did not breathe a word to Father Absinthe.  When, little by little, the excitement caused by his successive hopes and disappointments, and by the accomplishment of the experiment with the footprints had died away, and he had regained his usual calm of mind, he made a careful inspection of the abode, and was by no means satisfied with himself.  He had experimented upon Father Absinthe with his new system of investigation, just as an aspiring orator tries his powers before his least gifted friends, not before the cleverest.  He had certainly overwhelmed the old veteran by his superiority; he had literally crushed him.  But what great merit, what wonderful victory was this?  Why should he boast of having outwitted Father Absinthe, one of the least sagacious men in the service?