Through the Wall | Page 2

resulted, no one understood why, in his leaving the Paris detective force at the very moment of his glory, when the whole city was praising him for the St. Germain investigation. _Beau Cocono!_ That was the name they had given him; he could hear the night crowds shouting it in a silly couplet:
Il nous faut-o Beau Cocono-o!
And then what a change within a week! What bitterness and humiliation! M. Paul Coquenil, after scores of brilliant successes, had withdrawn from the police force for personal reasons, said the newspapers. His health was affected, some declared; he had laid by a tidy fortune and wished to enjoy it, thought others; but many shook their heads mysteriously and whispered that there was something queer in all this. Coquenil himself said nothing.
But now facts would speak for him more eloquently than any words; now, within twenty-four hours, it would be announced that he had been chosen, on the recommendation of the Paris police department, to organize the detective service of a foreign capital, with a life position at the head of this service and a much larger salary than he had ever received, a larger salary, in fact, than Paris paid to its own chief of police.
M. Coquenil had reached this point in his musings when he caught sight of a red-faced man, with a large purplish nose and a suspiciously black mustache (for his hair was gray), coming forward from the prefecture to meet him.
"Ah, Papa Tignol!" he said briskly. "How goes it?"
The old man saluted deferentially, and then, half shutting his small gray eyes, replied with an ominous chuckle, as one who enjoys bad news: "Eh, well enough, M. Paul; but I don't like that." And, lifting an unshaven chin, he pointed over his shoulder with a long, grimy thumb to the western sky.
"Always croaking!" laughed the other. "Why, it's a fine sunset, man!"
Tignol answered slowly, with objecting nod: "It's too red. And it's barred with purple!"
"Like your nose. Ha, ha!" And Coquenil's face lighted gaily. "Forgive me, Papa Tignol."
"Have your joke, if you will, but," he turned with sudden directness, "don't you remember when we had a blood-red sky like that? Ah, you don't laugh now!"
It was true, Coquenil's look had deepened into one of somber reminiscence.
"You mean the murders in the Rue Montaigne?"
"Pre-cisely."
"Pooh! A foolish fancy! How many red sunsets have there been since we found those two poor women stretched out in their white-and-gold _salon_? Well, I must get on. Come to-night at nine. There will be news for you."
"News for me," echoed the old man. "Au revoir, M. Paul," and he watched the slender, well-knit figure as the detective moved across the Place Notre-Dame, snapping his fingers playfully at the splendid animal that bounded beside him and speaking to the dog in confidential friendliness.
"We'll show 'em, eh, Caesar?" And the dog answered with eager barking and quick-wagging tail.
[Illustration: "'We'll show 'em, eh, Caesar?'"]
So these two companions advanced toward the great cathedral, directing their steps to the left-hand portal under the Northern tower. Here they paused before statues of various saints and angels that overhang the blackened doorway while Coquenil said something to a professional beggar, who straightway disappeared inside the church. Caesar, meantime, with panting tongue, was eying the decapitated St. Denis, asking himself, one would say, how even a saint could carry his head in his hands.
And presently there appeared a white-bearded sacristan in a three-cornered hat of blue and gold and a gold-embroidered coat. For all his brave apparel he was a small, mild-mannered person, with kindly brown eyes and a way of smiling sadly as if he had forgotten how to laugh.
"Ah, Bonneton, my friend!" said Coquenil, and then, with a quizzical glance: "My decorative friend!"
"Good evening, M. Paul," answered the other, while he patted the dog affectionately. "Shall I take Caesar?"
"One moment; I have news for you." Then, while the other listened anxiously, he told of his brilliant appointment in Rio Janeiro and of his imminent departure. He was sailing for Brazil in three days.
"_Mon Dieu!_" murmured Bonneton in dismay. "Sailing for Brazil! So our friends leave us. Of course I'm glad for you; it's a great chance, but--will you take Caesar?"
"I couldn't leave my dog, could I?" smiled Coquenil.
"Of course not! Of course not! And such a dog! You've been kind to let him guard the church since old Max died. Come, Caesar! Just a moment, M. Paul." And with real emotion the sacristan led the dog away, leaving the detective all unconscious that he had reached a critical moment in his destiny.
How the course of events would have been changed had Paul Coquenil remained outside Notre-Dame on this occasion it is impossible to know; the fact is he did not remain outside, but, growing impatient at Bonneton's delay, he pushed open the