Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/141

 I believed them, and as I saw in them my future colleagues, I evinced a confidence almost boundless; we shall see how they deserved it.

For some months two or three particularly adroit rouletiers had arrived at Paris, where they did not sleep. Declarations poured in upon the prefecture; they committed robberies with incredible audacity, and it was the more difficult to catch them in the fact, as they only went out at night, and as, in their expeditions on the roads round the capital, they were always armed to the teeth. The capture of such brigands must confer honour upon me; to effect it, I was ready to confront all peril, when one day Gosnet, with whom I had often conversed on the subject, said to me, "Jules, if you wish to catch Mayer, Victor Marquet, and his brother in the fact, there is but one way; you must come and sleep at our house, and then we shall be better able to go out at the proper hours."

I believed Gosnet was sincere; and agreed to go and instal myself immediately in the apartment which he shared with Doré, and we soon began to make our nocturnal explorations together on the route which Mayer and the two Marquets generally frequented. We frequently met them, but unwilling to seize them, except in the commission of some robbery, or at least with the spoil in their possession, we were compelled to let them pass. We had already made several of these fruitless tours, when I began to remark at my companions' domicile something which gave me cause of disquiet. There was somewhat of constraint in their conduct towards me, and they might (I thought) be plotting against me. I could not read their thoughts, but at all risks, I was never with them without being armed with a brace of pistols, of which they had no knowledge.

One night that we were going out, Doré suddenly complained of an attack of colic, which tormented him most excruciatingly; the pains became more and more severe, he was torn and bent double by them, and it was