Page:Gaboriu - Monsieur Lecoq.djvu/18

6 struggle—of fierce imprecations, hollow groans, and occasionally the sobs of a woman.

"Horrible!" cried the policeman, who was peering through the shutters; "it is horrible!"

This exclamation decided Gevrol.

"Open, in the name of the law!" he cried, a third time.

And no person responding, with a blow of his shoulder that was as violent as a blow from a battering-ram, he dashed open the door.

Then the horror-stricken accent of the man who had been peering through the shutters was explained.

The room presented such a spectacle that all the agents, and even Gevrol himself, remained for a moment rooted to their places, cold with unspeakable horror.

Everything about the place denoted that it had been the scene of a terrible struggle, one of those savage conflicts that too often stain the drinking saloons of the barrières with blood.

The lights had been extinguished at the beginning of the strife, but a huge fire of pine logs illuminated the remotest corners of the room.

Tables, glasses, decanters, household utensils, and stools had been overturned, thrown in every direction, trodden upon and shivered into fragments.

Near the fireplace two men were stretched upon the floor. They were lying motionless upon their backs, their arms crossed. A third was lying in the middle of the room.

A woman crouched upon the lower steps of a staircase leading up to the floor above. She had thrown her apron over her head, and was uttering inarticulate moans.