Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/210

me (I had then just escaped from the Bagne) I secretly took a place by the diligence and absconded.

How little did I then think that, after a lapse of twenty years, I should meet again in the police office, my little Humpina of the Rue Saint Martin: the proverb would have it so: two mountains never meet.

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CHAPTER XLII.

The jolly butcher—A still tongue shows a wise head—The harmlessness of light wines—A murder—The magistrates of Corbeil—The removal of the body—The accusing address—'Tis either he, or his brother—The criminating wound—I hit upon the right man—The mark of Cain—The morning's alarm—Arrest of a suspected pair—One culprit taken—A second sought after—he is accused of being a liberal—The goguettes, or the bards of the quai du Nord—A pretext—Seditious songs—I become an assistant in the kitchen—Genuine wine—The man of principle—A removal to the prefecture—Confession—Resurrection of a dealer in poultry, &c.—A scene of somnambulism—The guilty parties confronted—Habemus confitentes reos—A friendly embrace—A supper under lock and key—Departure from Paris.

For upwards of four months, a great number of murders and highway robberies had been committed on all the roads conducting to the capital, without it having been possible to discover the perpetrators of these crimes. In vain had the police kept a strict watch upon the actions of all suspected persons—their utmost diligence was fruitless; when a fresh attempt, attended with circumstances of the most horrible nature, supplied them with hints from which they could at length anticipate bringing the culprits to justice. A man named Fontaine, a butcher living at La Courtille, was going to a fair in the district of Corbeil, carrying with him his leather bag, in which was safely deposited the sum of 1,500 francs; he had passed the Cour de France and was walking on in the direction of Essonne, when, at a trifling distance from an auberge where he had