“As you may suppose,” continued the coachman, “I wasn’t inclined to trust two such suspicious characters, alone at that hour and in that part of the city.  So, just as they were about to get into the cab, I called to them:  ’Wait a bit, my little friends, you have promised papa some sous; where are they?’ The one who had called after the cab at once handed me thirty francs, saying:  ‘Above all, make haste!’”

“Your recital could not be more minute,” exclaimed Lecoq, approvingly.  “Now, how about these two women?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what kind of women did they seem to be; what did you take them for?”

“Oh, for nothing very good!” replied the driver, with a knowing smile.

“Ah! and how were they dressed?”

“Like most of the girls who go to dance at the Rainbow.  One of them, however, was very neat and prim, while the other—­well! she was a terrible dowdy.”

“Which ran after you?”

“The girl who was neatly dressed, the one who—­” The driver suddenly paused:  some vivid remembrance passed through his brain, and, abruptly jerking the rains, he brought his horse to a standstill.

“Thunder!” he exclaimed.  “Now I think of it, I did notice something strange.  One of the two women called the other ‘Madame’ as large as life, while the other said ‘thee’ and ‘thou,’ and spoke as if she were somebody.”

“Oh! oh! oh!” exclaimed the young detective, in three different keys.  “And which was it that said ‘thee’ and ’thou’?”

“Why, the dowdy one.  She with shabby dress and shoes as big as a gouty man’s.  You should have seen her shake the prim-looking girl, as if she had been a plum tree.  ‘You little fool!’ said she, ’do you want to ruin us?  You will have time to faint when we get home; now come along.  And then she began to sob:  ‘Indeed, madame, indeed I can’t!’ she said, and really she seemed quite unable to move:  in fact, she appeared to be so ill that I said to myself:  ’Here is a young woman who has drunk more than is good for her!’”

These facts confirmed even if they corrected Lecoq’s first suppositions.  As he had suspected, the social position of the two women was not the same.  He had been mistaken, however, in attributing the higher standing to the woman wearing the shoes with the high heels, the marks of which he had so particularly noticed in the snow, with all the attendant signs of precipitation, terror, and weakness.  In reality, social preeminence belonged to the woman who had left the large, broad footprints behind her.  And not merely was she of a superior rank, but she had also shown superior energy.  Contrary to Lecoq’s original idea, it now seemed evident that she was the mistress, and her companion the servant.

“Is that all, my good fellow?” he asked the driver, who during the last few minutes had been busy with his horses.

“Yes,” replied the cabman, “except that I noticed that the shabbily dressed woman who paid me had a hand as small as a child’s, and in spite of her anger, her voice was as sweet as music.”