into the glass for an instant, involuntary shivers running down his spine as he gazed at the reflection that was now Jacques Perdeau.
Mortain's ugly features suddenly twisted in a smirk as Perdeau laughed.
"You are certainly an ugly fellow in your new garb, Jacques," Perdeau told the mirror. And then he laughed again, and in his clumsy body moved to the door of the laboratory. For a moment he paused there, before switching off the lights, looking at his own body still lying drunkenly on the floor.
"Patience," Perdeau smirked. "I shall be back in you before long."
HE SHUT the laboratory door behind him, then, and locking it securely he made his way into the street.
Twenty minutes later Perdeau, now growing accustomed to his new body, entered a pawnshop.
"I want a gun," he told the silk-capped little proprietor who shuffled toward him. His voice, he was pleased to note, was just as Mortain's had been, rasping and harsh.
Perdeau made a point of standing beneath the brightest lights in the pawnshop while he inspected the revolvers the dealer brought to him. He wanted the little proprietor to have every chance in the world of identifying him. He had to smile at this thought. As though anyone might forget the face and voice of Mortain!
Ten minutes later, Perdeau emerged from the pawnshop with a gun in his pocket. He turned his steps immediately toward the church to which he had trailed Mortain on those two occasions. It was not a long walk before he reached it.
"Father," Perdeau said at the door to the rectory, "I have come to get back those papers I entrusted to your care."
The priest, the same he had seen talking to Mortain, seemed surprised. Shaking his gray head he said kindly:
"Certainly, my son. Though I must say you have made some odd requests from me during the past weeks. You may have your papers. Wait, please."
Perdeau waited while the priest disappeared into the rectory. After a moment he returned. In his hand was a sheaf of dirty, sealed envelopes. Perdeau focused Mortain's eyes suspiciously on the priest.
"These have not been tampered with?" he demanded.
The priest registered injured kindliness.
"Certainly not," he said. "I know no more of what is in them, than at the very moment you gave them to me. Whatever secrets they may contain are still inviolate."
"I had to make sure," Perdeau said, giving the priest one of Mortain's twisted apologetic smiles. "They are of much value."
IN AN alley five minutes later, Perdeau tore open the dirty envelopes. There were four of them. His face, as he read the contents, tightened with rage. Mortain hadn't been lying. In these papers he hadn't left a thing about the unwholesome aspects of Perdeau's past untold. It was a crude, damning record of the past crimes of Jacques Perdeau, painstakingly compiled. The papers even told of Mortain's minor part in the crimes, and of the misdirected sentence imposed on Mortain after he had been convicted of Perdeau's major part in them.
"These," Perdeau muttered, "would have made interesting reading for the police." He fished into Mortain's pockets and found matches. Seconds later the last fragments of the papers curled in flame at his feet.
