Title: Crime d'Orcival. English - The Mystery of Orcival
Author: Gaboriau, Émile, 1832-1873
Language: English
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                       The Mystery of Orcival

                                 By

                           Emile Gaboriau



                                 I

On Thursday, the 9th of July, 186-, Jean Bertaud and his son, well
known at Orcival as living by poaching and marauding, rose at three
o'clock in the morning, just at daybreak, to go fishing.

Taking their tackle, they descended the charming pathway, shaded
by acacias, which you see from the station at Evry, and which leads
from the burg of Orcival to the Seine.

They made their way to their boat, moored as usual some fifty yards
above the wire bridge, across a field adjoining Valfeuillu, the
imposing estate of the Count de Tremorel.

Having reached the river-bank, they laid down their tackle, and
Jean jumped into the boat to bail out the water in the bottom.

While he was skilfully using the scoop, he perceived that one of
the oar-pins of the old craft, worn by the oar, was on the point
of breaking.

"Philippe," cried he, to his son, who was occupied in unravelling
a net, "bring me a bit of wood to make a new oar-pin."

"All right," answered Philippe.

There was no tree in the field. The young man bent his steps toward
the park of Valfeuillu, a few rods distant; and, neglectful of
Article 391 of the Penal Code, jumped across the wide ditch which
surrounds M. de Tremorel's domain. He thought he would cut off a
branch of one of the old willows, which at this place touch the
water with their drooping branches.

He had scarcely drawn his knife from his pocket, while looking
about him with the poacher's unquiet glance, when he uttered a low
cry, "Father! Here! Father!"

"What's the matter?" responded the old marauder, without pausing
from his work.

"Father, come here!" continued Philippe. "In Heaven's name, come
here, quick!"

Jean knew by the tone of his son's voice that something unusual had
happened. He threw down his scoop, and, anxiety quickening him, in
three leaps was in the park. He also stood still, horror-struck,
before the spectacle which had terrified Philippe.

On the bank of the river, among the stumps and flags, was stretched
a woman's body. Her long, dishevelled locks lay among the
water-shrubs; her dress--of gray silk--was soiled with mire and
blood. All the upper part of the body lay in shallow water, and
her face had sunk in the mud.

"A murder!" muttered Philippe, whose voice trembled.

"That's certain," responded Jean, in an indifferent tone. "But who
can this woman be? Really one would say, the countess."

"We'll see," said the young man. He stepped toward the body; his
father caught him by the arm.

"What would you do, fool?" said he. "You ought never to touch the
body of a murdered person without legal authority."

"You think so?"

"Certainly. There are penalties for it."

"Then, come along and let's inform the Mayor."

"Why? as if people hereabouts were not against us enough already!
Who knows that they would not accuse us--"

"But, father--"

"If we go and inform Monsieur Courtois, he will ask us how and why
we came to be in Monsieur de Tremorel's park to find this out. What
is it to you, that the countess has been killed? They'll find her
body without you. Come, let's go away."

But Philippe did not budge. Hanging his head, his chin resting
upon his palm, he reflected.

"We must make this known," said he, firmly. "We are not savages;
we will tell Monsieur Courtois that in passing along by the park in
our boat, we perceived the body."

Old Jean resisted at first; then, seeing that his son would, if
need be, go without him, yielded.

They re-crossed the ditch, and leaving their fishing-tackle in the
field, directed their steps hastily toward the mayor's house.

Orcival, situated a mile or more from Corbeil, on the right bank
of the Seine, is one of the most charming villages in the environs
of Paris, despite the infernal etymology of its name. The gay and
thoughtless Parisian, who, on Sunday, wanders about the fields,
more destructive than the rook, has not yet discovered this smiling
country. The distressing odor of the frying from coffee-gardens
does not there stifle the perfume of the honeysuckles. The refrains
of bargemen, the brazen voices of boat-horns, have never awakened
echoes there. Lazily situated on the gentle slopes of a bank washed
by the Seine, the houses of Orcival are white, and there are
delicious shades, and a bell-tower which is the pride of the place.
On all sides vast pleasure domains, kept up at great cost, surround
it. From the upper part, the weathercocks of twenty chateaux may
be seen. On the right is the forest of Mauprevoir, and the pretty
country-house of the Countess de la Breche; opposite, on the other
side of the river, is Mousseaux and Petit-Bourg, the ancient domain
of Aguado, now the property of a famous coach-maker; on the left,
those beautiful copses belong to the Count de Tremorel, that large
park is d'Etiolles, and in the distance beyond is Corbeil; that vast
building, whose roofs are higher than the oaks, is the Darblay mill.

The mayor of Orcival occupies a handsome, pleasant mansion, at the
upper end of the village. Formerly a manufacturer of dry goods, M.
Courtois entered business without a penny, and after thirty years
of absorbing toil, he retired with four round millions of francs.

Then he proposed to live tranquilly with his wife and children,
passing the winter at Paris and the summer at his country-house.

But all of a sudden he was observed to be disturbed and agitated.
Ambition stirred his heart. He took vigorous measures to be
forced to accept the mayoralty of Orcival. And he accepted it,
quite in self-defence, as he will himself tell you. This office
was at once his happiness and his despair; apparent despair,
interior and real happiness.

It quite befits him, with clouded brow, to rail at the cares of
power; he appears yet better when, his waist encircled with the
gold-laced scarf, he goes in triumph at the head of the municipal
body.

Everybody was sound asleep at the mayor's when the two Bertauds
rapped the heavy knocker of the door. After a moment, a servant,
half asleep, appeared at one of the ground-floor windows.

"What's the matter, you rascals?" asked he, growling.

Jean did not think it best to revenge an insult which his
reputation in the village too well justified.

"We want to speak to Monsieur the Mayor," he answered. "There is
terrible need of it. Go call him, Monsieur Baptiste; he won't
blame you."

"I'd like to see anybody blame me," snapped out Baptiste.

It took ten minutes of talking and explaining to persuade the
servant. Finally, the Bertauds were admitted to a little man, fat
and red, very much annoyed at being dragged from his bed so early.
It was M. Courtois.

They had decided that Philippe should speak.

"Monsieur Mayor," he said, "we have come to announce to you a great
misfortune. A crime has been committed at Monsieur de Tremorel's."

M. Courtois was a friend of the count's; he became whiter than his
shirt at this sudden news.

"My God!" stammered he, unable to control his emotion, "what do you
say--a crime!"

"Yes; we have just discovered a body; and as sure as you are here,
I believe it to be that of the countess."

The worthy man raised his arms heavenward, with a wandering air.

"But where, when?"

"Just now, at the foot of the park, as we were going to take up
our nets."

"It is horrible!" exclaimed the good M. Courtois; "what a calamity!
So worthy a lady! But it is not possible--you must be mistaken;
I should have been informed--"

"We saw it distinctly, Monsieur Mayor."

"Such a crime in my village! Well, you have done wisely to come
here. I will dress at once, and will hasten off--no, wait." He
reflected a moment, then called:

"Baptiste!"

The valet was not far off. With ear and eye alternately pressed
against the key-hole, he heard and looked with all his might. At
the sound of his master's voice he had only to stretch out his hand
and open the door.

"Monsieur called me?"

"Run to the justice of the peace," said the mayor. "There is not
a moment to lose. A crime has been committed--perhaps a murder
--you must go quickly. And you," addressing the poachers, "await
me here while I slip on my coat."

The justice of the peace at Orcival, M. Plantat--"Papa Plantat,"
as he was called--was formerly an attorney at Melun. At fifty,
Mr. Plantat, whose career had been one of unbroken prosperity,
lost in the same month, his wife, whom he adored, and his two sons,
charming youths, one eighteen, the other twenty-two years old.
These successive losses crushed a man whom thirty years of happiness
left without defence against misfortune. For a long time his reason
was despaired of. Even the sight of a client, coming to trouble his
grief, to recount stupid tales of self-interest, exasperated him.
It was not surprising that he sold out his professional effects and
good-will at half price. He wished to establish himself at his ease
in his grief, with the certainty of not being disturbed in its
indulgence.

But the intensity of his mourning diminished, and the ills of
idleness came. The justiceship of the peace at Orcival was vacant,
and M. Plantat applied for and obtained it. Once installed in this
office, he suffered less from ennui. This man, who saw his life
drawing to an end, undertook to interest himself in the thousand
diverse cases which came before him. He applied to these all the
forces of a superior intelligence, the resources of a mind admirably
fitted to separate the false from the true among the lies he was
forced to hear. He persisted, besides, in living alone, despite
the urging of M. Courtois; pretending that society fatigued him,
and that an unhappy man is a bore in company.

Misfortune, which modifies characters, for good or bad, had made
him, apparently, a great egotist. He declared that he was only
interested in the affairs of life as a critic tired of its active
scenes. He loved to make a parade of his profound indifference
for everything, swearing that a rain of fire descending upon Paris,
would not even make him turn his head. To move him seemed
impossible. "What's that to me?" was his invariable exclamation.

Such was the man who, a quarter of an hour after Baptiste's
departure, entered the mayor's house.

M. Plantat was tall, thin, and nervous. His physiognomy was not
striking. His hair was short, his restless eyes seemed always to
be seeking something, his very long nose was narrow and sharp.
After his affliction, his mouth, formerly well shaped, became
deformed; his lower lip had sunk, and gave him a deceptive look of
simplicity.

"They tell me," said he, at the threshold, "that Madame de Tremorel
has been murdered."

"These men here, at least, pretend so," answered the mayor, who had
just reappeared.

M. Courtois was no longer the same man. He had had time to make
his toilet a little. His face attempted to express a haughty
coldness. He had been reproaching himself for having been wanting
in dignity, in showing his grief before the Bertauds. "Nothing
ought to agitate a man in my position," said he to himself. And,
being terribly agitated, he forced himself to be calm, cold, and
impassible.

M. Plantat was so naturally.

"This is a very sad event," said he, in a tone which he forced
himself to make perfectly disinterested; "but after all, how does
it concern us? We must, however, hurry and ascertain whether it
is true. I have sent for the brigadier, and he will join us."

"Let us go," said M. Courtois; "I have my scarf in my pocket."

They hastened off. Philippe and his father went first, the young
man eager and impatient, the old one sombre and thoughtful. The
mayor, at each step, made some exclamation.

"I can't understand it," muttered he; "a murder in my commune! a
commune where, in the memory of men, no crime has been committed!"

And he directed a suspicious glance toward the two Bertauds. The
road which led toward the chateau of M. de Tremorel was an
unpleasant one, shut in by walls a dozen feet high. On one side
is the park of the Marchioness de Lanascol; on the other the
spacious garden of Saint Jouan. The going and coming had taken
time; it was nearly eight o'clock when the mayor, the justice,
and their guides stopped before the gate of M. de Tremorel.

The mayor rang. The bell was very large; only a small gravelled
court of five or six yards separated the gate from the house;
nevertheless no one appeared.

The mayor rang more vigorously, then with all his strength; but in
vain.

Before the gate of Mme. de Lanascol's chateau, nearly opposite, a
groom was standing, occupied in cleaning and polishing a bridle-bit.
"It's of no use to ring, gentlemen," said this man; "there's nobody
in the chateau."

"How! nobody?" asked the mayor, surprised.

"I mean," said the groom, "that there is no one there but the master
and mistress. The servants all went away last evening by the 8.40
train to Paris, to the wedding of the old cook, Madame Denis. They
ought to return this morning by the first train. I was invited
myself--"

"Great God!" interrupted M. Courtois, "then the count and countess
remained alone last night?"

"Entirely alone, Monsieur Mayor."

"It is horrible!"

M. Plantat seemed to grow impatient during this dialogue. "Come,"
said he, "we cannot stay forever at the gate. The gendarmes do not
come; let us send for the locksmith." Philippe was about to hasten
off, when, at the end of the road, singing and laughing were heard.
Five persons, three women and two men, soon appeared.

"Ah, there are the people of the chateau," cried the groom, whom
this morning visit seemed to annoy, "they ought to have a key."

The domestics, seeing the group about the gate, became silent and
hastened their steps. One of them began to run ahead of the others;
it was the count's valet de chambre.

"These gentlemen perhaps wish to speak to Monsieur the Count?"
asked he, having bowed to M. Plantat.

"We have rung five times, as hard as we could," said the mayor.

"It is surprising," said the valet de chambre, "the count sleeps
very lightly. Perhaps he has gone out."

"Horror!" cried Philippe. "Both of them have been murdered!" These
words shocked the servants, whose gayety announced a reasonable
number of healths drunk to the happiness of the newly wedded pair.
M. Courtois seemed to be studying the attitude of old Bertaud.

"A murder!" muttered the valet de chambre. "It was for money then;
it must have been known--"

"What?" asked the mayor.

"Monsieur the Count received a very large sum yesterday morning."

"Large! yes," added a chambermaid. "He had a large package of
bank-bills. Madame even said to Monsieur that she should not shut
her eyes the whole night, with this immense sum in the house."

There was a silence; each one looked at the others with a frightened
air. M. Courtois reflected.

"At what hour did you leave the chateau last evening?" asked he of
the servants.

"At eight o'clock; we had dinner early."

"You went away all together?"

"Yes, sir."

"You did not leave each other?"

"Not a minute."

"And you returned all together?"

The servants exchanged a significant look.

"All," responded a chambermaid--"that is to say, no. One left us
on reaching the Lyons station at Paris; it was Guespin."

"Yes, sir; he went away, saying that he would rejoin us at Wepler's,
in the Batignolles, where the wedding took place." The mayor
nudged the justice with his elbow, as if to attract his attention,
and continued to question the chambermaid.

"And this Guespin, as you call him--did you see him again?"

"No, sir. I asked several times during the evening in vain, what
had become of him; his absence seemed to me suspicious." Evidently
the chambermaid tried to show superior perspicacity. A little more,
and she would have talked of presentiments.

"Has this Guespin been long in the house?"

"Since spring."

"What were his duties?"

"He was sent from Paris by the house of the 'Skilful Gardener,' to
take care of the rare flowers in Madame's conservatory."

"And did he know of this money?"

The domestics again exchanged significant glances.

"Yes," they answered in chorus, "we had talked a great deal about
it among ourselves."

The chambermaid added: "He even said to me, 'To think that Monsieur
the Count has enough money in his cabinet to make all our fortunes.'"

"What kind of a man is this?"

This question absolutely extinguished the talkativeness of the
servants. No one dared to speak, perceiving that the least word
might serve as the basis of a terrible accusation. But the groom
of the house opposite, who burned to mix himself up in the affair,
had none of these scruples. "Guespin," answered he, "is a good
fellow. Lord, what jolly things he knows! He knows everything
you can imagine. It appears he has been rich in times past, and if
he wished--But dame! he loves to have his work all finished, and
go off on sprees. He's a crack billiard-player, I can tell you."

Papa Plantat, while listening in an apparently absent-minded way
to these depositions, or rather these scandals, carefully examined
the wall and the gate. He now turned, and interrupting the groom:

"Enough of this," said he, to the great scandal of M. Courtois.
"Before pursuing this interrogatory, let us ascertain the crime,
if crime there is; for it is not proved. Let whoever has the key,
open the gate."

The valet de chambre had the key; he opened the gate, and all
entered the little court. The gendarmes had just arrived. The
mayor told the brigadier to follow him, and placed two men at the
gate, ordering them not to permit anyone to enter or go out,
unless by his orders. Then the valet de chambre opened the door
of the house.



                                 II

If there had been no crime, at least something extraordinary had
taken place at the chateau; the impassible justice might have
been convinced of it, as soon as he had stepped into the
vestibule. The glass door leading to the garden was wide open,
and three of the panes were shattered into a thousand pieces. The
carpeting of waxed canvas between the doors had been torn up, and
on the white marble slabs large drops of blood were visible. At
the foot of the staircase was a stain larger than the rest, and
upon the lowest step a splash hideous to behold.

Unfitted for such spectacles, or for the mission he had now to
perform, M. Courtois became faint. Luckily, he borrowed from the
idea of his official importance, an energy foreign to his character.
The more difficult the preliminary examination of this affair
seemed, the more determined he was to carry it on with dignity.

"Conduct us to the place where you saw the body," said he to
Bertaud. But Papa Plantat intervened.

"It would be wiser, I think," he objected, "and more methodical,
to begin by going through the house."

"Perhaps--yes--true, that's my own view," said the mayor, grasping at
the other's counsel, as a drowning man clings to a plank. And he
made all retire excepting the brigadier and the valet de chambre,
the latter remaining to serve as guide. "Gendarmes," cried he to
the men guarding the gate, "see to it that no one goes out; prevent
anybody from entering the house, and above all, let no one go into
the garden."

Then they ascended the staircase. Drops of blood were sprinkled
all along the stairs. There was also blood on the baluster, and M.
Courtois perceived, with horror, that his hands were stained.

When they had reached the first landing-stage, the mayor said to
the valet de chambre:

"Tell me, my friend, did your master and mistress occupy the same
chamber?"

"Yes, sir."

"And where is their chamber?"

"There, sir."

As he spoke, the valet de chambre staggered back terrified, and
pointed to a door, the upper panel of which betrayed the imprint
of a bloody hand. Drops of perspiration overspread the poor
mayor's forehead. He too was terrified, and could hardly keep on
his feet. Alas, authority brings with it terrible obligations!
The brigadier, an old soldier of the Crimea, visibly moved,
hesitated.

M. Plantat alone, as tranquil as if he were in his garden, retained
his coolness, and looked around upon the others.

"We must decide," said he.

He entered the room; the rest followed.

There was nothing unusual in the apartment; it was a boudoir hung
in blue satin, furnished with a couch and four arm-chairs, covered
also with blue satin. One of the chairs was overturned.

They passed on to the bed-chamber.

A frightful disorder appeared in this room. There was not an
article of furniture, not an ornament, which did not betray that a
terrible, enraged and merciless struggle had taken place between
the assassins and their victims. In the middle of the chamber a
small table was overturned, and all about it were scattered lumps
of sugar, vermilion cups, and pieces of porcelain.

"Ah!" said the valet de chambre, "Monsieur and Madame were taking
tea when the wretches came in!"

The mantel ornaments had been thrown upon the floor; the clock,
in falling, had stopped at twenty minutes past three. Near the
clock were the lamps; the globes were in pieces, the oil had been
spilled.

The canopy of the bed had been torn down, and covered the bed.
Someone must have clutched desperately at the draperies. All the
furniture was overturned. The coverings of the chairs had been
hacked by strokes of a knife, and in places the stuffing protruded.
The secretary had been broken open; the writing-slide, dislocated,
hung by its hinges; the drawers were open and empty, and everywhere,
blood--blood upon the carpet, the furniture, the curtains--above
all, upon the bed-curtains.

"Poor wretches!" stammered the mayor. "They were murdered here."

Every one for a moment was appalled. But meanwhile, the justice of
the peace devoted himself to a minute scrutiny, taking notes upon
his tablets, and looking into every corner. When he had finished:

"Come," said he, "let us go into the other rooms."

Everywhere there was the same disorder. A band of furious maniacs,
or criminals seized with a frenzy, had certainly passed the night
in the house.

The count's library, especially, had been turned topsy-turvy. The
assassins had not taken the trouble to force the locks; they had
gone to work with a hatchet. Surely they were confident of not
being overheard; for they must have struck tremendous blows to make
the massive oaken bureau fly in pieces.

Neither parlor nor smoking-room had been respected. Couches, chairs,
canopies were cut and torn as if they had been lunged at with swords.
Two spare chambers for guests were all in confusion.

They then ascended to the second story.

There, in the first room which they penetrated, they found, beside
a trunk which had been assaulted, but which was not opened, a
hatchet for splitting wood which the valet de chambre recognized as
belonging to the house.

"Do you understand now?" said the mayor to M. Plantat. "The
assassins were in force, that's clear. The murder accomplished,
they scattered through the chateau, seeking everywhere the money
they knew they would find here. One of them was engaged in breaking
open this trunk, when the others, below, found the money; they
called him; he hastened down, and thinking all further search
useless, he left the hatchet here."

"I see it," said the brigadier, "just as if I had been here."

The ground-floor, which they next visited, had been respected.
Only, after the crime had been committed, and the money secured,
the murderers had felt the necessity of refreshing themselves.
They found the remains of their supper in the dining-room. They
had eaten up all the cold meats left in the cupboard. On the
table, beside eight empty bottles of wine and liqueurs, were ranged
five glasses.

"There were five of them," said the mayor.

By force of will, M. Courtois had recovered his self-possession.

"Before going to view the bodies," said he, "I will send word to
the procureur of Corbeil. In an hour, we will have a judge of
instruction, who will finish our painful task."

A gendarme was instructed to harness the count's buggy, and to
hasten to the procureur. Then the mayor and the justice, followed
by the brigadier, the valet de chambre, and the two Bertauds, took
their way toward the river.

The park of Valfeuillu was very wide from right to left. From the
house to the Seine it was almost two hundred steps. Before the
house was a grassy lawn, interspersed with flower-beds. Two paths
led across the lawn to the river-bank.

But the murderers had not followed the paths. Making a short cut,
they had gone straight across the lawn. Their traces were perfectly
visible. The grass was trampled and stamped down as if a heavy load
had been dragged over it. In the midst of the lawn they perceived
something red; M. Plantat went and picked it up. It was a slipper,
which the valet de chambre recognized as the count's. Farther on,
they found a white silk handkerchief, which the valet declared he
had often seen around the count's neck. This handkerchief was
stained with blood.

At last they arrived at the river-bank, under the willows from
which Philippe had intended to cut off a branch; there they saw the
body. The sand at this place was much indented by feet seeking a
firm support. Everything indicated that here had been the supreme
struggle.

M. Courtois understood all the importance of these traces.

"Let no one advance," said he, and, followed by the justice of the
peace, he approached the corpse. Although the face could not be
distinguished, both recognized the countess. Both had seen her in
this gray robe, adorned with blue trimmings.

Now, how came she there?

The mayor thought that having succeeded in escaping from the hands
of the murderers, she had fled wildly. They had pursued her, had
caught up with her there, and she had fallen to rise no more. This
version explained the traces of the struggle. It must have been
the count's body that they had dragged across the lawn.

M. Courtois talked excitedly, trying to impose his ideas on the
justice. But M. Plantat hardly listened; you might have thought
him a hundred leagues from Valfeuillu; he only responded by
monosyllables--yes, no, perhaps. And the worthy mayor gave
himself great pains; he went and came, measured steps, minutely
scrutinized the ground.

There was not at this place more than a foot of water. A mud-bank,
upon which grew some clumps of flags and some water-lilies,
descended by a gentle decline from the bank to the middle of the
river. The water was very clear, and there was no current; the
slippery and slimy mire could be distinctly seen.

M. Courtois had gone thus far in his investigations, when he was
struck by a sudden idea.

"Bertaud," said he, "come here."

The old poacher obeyed.

"You say that you saw the body from your boat?"

"Yes, Monsieur Mayor."

"Where is your boat?"

"There, hauled up to that field."

"Well, lead us to it."

It was clear to all that this order had a great effect upon the man.
He trembled and turned pale under his rough skin, tanned as it was
by sun and storm. He was even seen to cast a menacing look toward
his son.

"Let us go," said he at last.

They were returning to the house when the valet proposed to pass
over the ditch. "That will be the quickest way," said he, "I will
go for a ladder which we will put across."

He went off, and quickly reappeared with his improvised foot-bridge.
But at the moment he was adjusting it, the mayor cried out to him:

"Stop!"

The imprints left by the Bertauds on both sides of the ditch had
just caught his eye.

"What is this?" said he; "evidently someone has crossed here, and
not long ago; for the traces of the steps are quite fresh."

After an examination of some minutes he ordered that the ladder
should be placed farther off. When they had reached the boat, he
said to Jean, "Is this the boat with which you went to take up your
nets this morning?"

"Yes."

"Then," resumed M. Courtois, "what implements did you use? your
cast net is perfectly dry; this boat-hook and these oars have not
been wet for twenty-four hours."

The distress of the father and son became more and more evident.

"Do you persist in what you say, Bertaud?" said the mayor.

"Certainly."

"And you, Philippe?"

"Monsieur," stammered the young man, "we have told the truth."

"Really!" said M. Courtois, in an ironical tone. "Then you will
explain to the proper authorities how it was that you could see
anything from a boat which you had not entered. It will be proved
to you, also, that the body is in a position where it is impossible
to see it from the middle of the river. Then you will still have
to tell what these foot-prints on the grass are, which go from your
boat to the place where the ditch has been crossed several times
and by several persons."

The two Bertauds hung their heads.

"Brigadier," ordered the mayor, "arrest these two men in the name
of the law, and prevent all communication between them."

Philippe seemed to be ill. As for old Jean, he contented himself
with shrugging his shoulders and saying to his son:

"Well, you would have it so, wouldn't you?"

While the brigadier led the two poachers away, and shut them up
separately, and under the guard of his men, the justice and the
mayor returned to the park. "With all this," muttered M. Courtois,
"no traces of the count."

They proceeded to take up the body of the countess. The mayor sent
for two planks, which, with a thousand precautions, they placed on
the ground, being able thus to move the countess without effacing
the imprints necessary for the legal examination. Alas! it was
indeed she who had been the beautiful, the charming Countess de
Tremorel! Here were her smiling face, her lovely, speaking eyes,
her fine, sensitive mouth.

There remained nothing of her former self. The face was
unrecognizable, so soiled and wounded was it. Her clothes were in
tatters. Surely a furious frenzy had moved the monsters who had
slain the poor lady! She had received more than twenty
knife-wounds, and must have been struck with a stick, or rather
with a hammer; she had been dragged by her feet and by her hair!

In her left hand she grasped a strip of common cloth, torn,
doubtless, from the clothes of one of the assassins. The mayor,
in viewing the spectacle, felt his legs fail him, and supported
himself on the arm of the impassible Plantat.

"Let us carry her to the house," said the justice, "and then we
will search for the count."

The valet and brigadier (who had now returned) called on the
domestics for assistance. The women rushed into the garden.
There was then a terrible concert of cries, lamentations, and
imprecations.

"The wretches! So noble a mistress! So good a lady!"

M. and Mme. de Tremorel, one could see, were adored by their people.

The countess had just been laid upon the billiard-table, on the
ground-floor, when the judge of instruction and a physician were
announced.

"At last!" sighed the worthy mayor; and in a lower tone he added,
"the finest medals have their reverse."

For the first time in his life, he seriously cursed his ambition,
and regretted being the most important personage in Orcival.



                                III

The judge of instruction of the tribunal at Corbeil, was M. Antoine
Domini, a remarkable man, since called to higher functions. He was
forty years of age, of a prepossessing person, and endowed with a
very expressive, but too grave physiognomy. In him seemed typified
the somewhat stiff solemnity of the magistracy. Penetrated with the
dignity of his office, he sacrificed his life to it, rejecting the
most simple distractions, and the most innocent pleasures.

He lived alone, seldom showing himself abroad; rarely received his
friends, not wishing, as he said, that the weaknesses of the man
should derogate from the sacred character of the judge. This latter
reason had deterred him from marrying, though he felt the need of a
domestic sphere.

Always and everywhere he was the magistrate--that is, the
representative, even to fanaticism, of what he thought the most
august institution on the earth. Naturally gay, he would
double-lock himself in when he wished to laugh. He was witty; but
if a bright sally escaped him, you may be sure he repented of it.
Body and soul he gave to his vocation; and no one could bring more
conscientiousness to the discharge of what he thought to be his
duty. He was also inflexible. It was monstrous, in his eyes, to
discuss an article of the code. The law spoke; it was enough; he
shut his eyes, covered his ears, and obeyed.

From the day when a legal investigation commenced, he did not sleep,
and he employed every means to discover the truth. Yet he was not
regarded as a good judge of instruction; to contend by tricks with
a prisoner was repugnant to him; to lay a snare for a rogue he
thought debasing; in short, he was obstinate--obstinate to
foolishness, sometimes to absurdity; even to denying the existence
of the sun at mid-day.

The mayor and Papa Plantat hastened to meet M. Domini. He bowed
to them gravely, as if he had not known them, and presenting to
them a man of some sixty years who accompanied him:

"Messieurs," said he, "this is Doctor Gendron."

Papa Plantat shook hands with the doctor; the mayor smiled
graciously at him, for Dr. Gendron was well-known in those parts;
he was even celebrated, despite the nearness of Paris. Loving his
art and exercising it with a passionate energy, he yet owed his
renown less to his science than his manners. People said: "He is
an original;" they admired his affectation of independence, of
scepticism, and rudeness. He made his visits from five to nine in
the morning--all the worse for those for whom these hours were
inconvenient. After nine o'clock the doctor was not to be had.
The doctor was working for himself, the doctor was in his
laboratory, the doctor was inspecting his cellar. It was rumored
that he sought for secrets of practical chemistry, to augment still
more his twenty thousand livres of income. And he did not deny it;
for in truth he was engaged on poisons, and was perfecting an
invention by which could be discovered traces of all the alkaloids
which up to that time had escaped analysis. If his friends
reproached him, even jokingly, on sending away sick people in the
afternoon, he grew red with rage.

"Parbleu!" he answered, "I find you superb! I am a doctor four
hours in the day. I am paid by hardly a quarter of my patients
--that's three hours I give daily to humanity, which I despise.
Let each of you do as much, and we shall see."

The mayor conducted the new-comers into the drawing-room, where he
installed himself to write down the results of his examination.

"What a misfortune for my town, this crime!" said he to M. Domini.
"What shame! Orcival has lost its reputation."

"I know nothing of the affair," returned the judge. "The gendarme
who went for me knew little about it."

M. Courtois recounted at length what his investigation had
discovered, not forgetting the minutest detail, dwelling especially
on the excellent precautions which he had had the sagacity to take.
He told how the conduct of the Bertauds had at first awakened his
suspicions; how he had detected them, at least in a pointblank lie;
how, finally, he had determined to arrest them. He spoke standing,
his head thrown back, with wordy emphasis. The pleasure of
speaking partially rewarded him for his recent distress.

"And now," he concluded, "I have just ordered the most exact search,
so that doubtless we shall find the count's body. Five men,
detailed by me, and all the people of the house, are searching the
park. If their efforts are not crowned with success, I have here
some fishermen who will drag the river."

M. Domini held his tongue, only nodding his head from time to time,
as a sign of approbation. He was studying, weighing the details
told him, building up in his mind a plan of proceeding.

"You have acted wisely," said he, at last. "The misfortune is a
great one, but I agree with you that we are on the track of the
criminals. These poachers, or the gardener who has disappeared,
have something, perhaps, to do with this abominable crime."

Already, for some minutes, M. Plantat had rather awkwardly concealed
some signs of impatience.

"The misfortune is," said he, "that if Guespin is guilty, he will
not be such a fool as to show himself here."

"Oh, we'll find him," returned M. Domini. "Before leaving Corbeil,
I sent a despatch to the prefecture of police at Paris, to ask for
a police agent, who will doubtless be here shortly."

"While waiting," proposed the mayor, "perhaps you would like to see
the scene of the crime?"

M. Domini made a motion as if to rise; then sat down again.

"In fact, no," said he; "we will see nothing till the agent arrives.
But I must have some information concerning the Count and Countess
de Tremorel."

The worthy mayor again triumphed.

"Oh, I can give it to you," answered he quickly, "better than
anybody. Ever since their advent here, I may say, I have been one
of their best friends. Ah, sir, what charming people! excellent,
and affable, and devoted--"

And at the remembrance of all his friends' good qualities, M.
Courtois choked in his utterance.

"The Count de Tremorel," he resumed, "was a man of thirty-four
years, handsome, witty to the tips of his nails. He had sometimes,
however, periods of melancholy, during which he did not wish to see
anybody; but he was ordinarily so affable, so polite, so obliging;
he knew so well how to be noble without haughtiness, that everybody
here esteemed and loved him."

"And the countess?" asked the judge of instruction.

"An angel, Monsieur, an angel on earth! Poor lady! You will soon
see her remains, and surely you would not guess that she has been
the queen of the country, by reason of her beauty."

"Were they rich?"

"Yes; they must have had, together, more than a hundred thousand
francs income--oh, yes, much more; for within five or six months
the count, who had not the bucolic tastes of poor Sauvresy, sold
some lands to buy consols."

"Have they been married long?"

M. Courtois scratched his head; it was his appeal to memory.

"Faith," he answered, "it was in September of last year; just six
months ago. I married them myself. Poor Sauvresy had been dead a
year."

The judge of instruction looked up from his notes with a surprised
air.

"Who is this Sauvresy," he inquired, "of whom you speak?"

Papa Plantat, who was furiously biting his nails in a corner,
apparently a stranger to what was passing, rose abruptly.

"Monsieur Sauvresy," said he, "was the first husband of Madame de
Tremorel. My friend Courtois has omitted this fact."

"Oh!" said the mayor, in a wounded tone, "it seems to me that under
present circumstances--"

"Pardon me," interrupted the judge. "It is a detail such as may
well become valuable, though apparently foreign to the case, and
at the first view, insignificant."

"Hum!" grunted Papa Plantat. "Insignificant--foreign to it!"

His tone was so singular, his air so strange, that M. Domini was
struck by it.

"Do you share," he asked, "the opinion of the mayor regarding the
Tremorels?"

Plantat shrugged his shoulders.

"I haven't any opinions," he answered: "I live alone--see nobody;
don't disturb myself about anything. But--"

"It seems to me," said M. Courtois, "that nobody should be better
acquainted with people who were my friends than I myself."

"Then, you are telling the story clumsily," said M. Plantat, dryly.

The judge of instruction pressed him to explain himself. So M.
Plantat, without more ado, to the great scandal of the mayor, who
was thus put into the background, proceeded to dilate upon the main
features of the count's and countess's biography.

"The Countess de Tremorel, nee Bertha Lechaillu, was the daughter
of a poor village school-master. At eighteen, her beauty was
famous for three leagues around, but as she only had for dowry her
great blue eyes and blond ringlets, but few serious lovers presented
themselves. Already Bertha, by advice of her family, had resigned
herself to take a place as a governess--a sad position for so
beautiful a maid--when the heir of one of the richest domains in
the neighborhood happened to see her, and fell in love with her.

"Clement Sauvresy was just thirty; he had no longer any family,
and possessed nearly a hundred thousand livres income from lands
absolutely free of incumbrance. Clearly, he had the best right in
the world to choose a wife to his taste. He did not hesitate. He
asked for Bertha's hand, won it, and, a month after, wedded her at
mid-day, to the great scandal of the neighboring aristocracy, who
went about saying: 'What folly! what good is there in being rich,
if it is not to double one's fortune by a good marriage!'

"Nearly a month before the marriage, Sauvresy set the laborers to
work at Valfeuillu, and in no long time had spent, in repairs and
furniture, a trifle of thirty thousand crowns. The newly married
pair chose this beautiful spot in which to spend their honeymoon.
They were so well-contented there that they established themselves
permanently at Valfeuillu, to the great satisfaction of the
neighborhood.

"Bertha was one of those persons, it seemed, who are born especially
to marry millionnaires. Without awkwardness or embarrassment, she
passed easily from the humble school-room, where she had assisted
her father, to the splendid drawing-room of Valfeuillu. And when
she did the honors of her chateau to all the neighboring aristocracy,
it seemed as though she had never done anything else. She knew how
to remain simple, approachable, modest, all the while that she took
the tone of the highest society. She was beloved."

"But it appears to me," interrupted the mayor, "that I said the
same thing, and it was really not worth while--"

A gesture from M. Domini closed his mouth, and M. Plantat continued:

"Sauvresy was also liked, for he was one of those golden hearts
which know not how to suspect evil. He was one of those men with
a robust faith, with obstinate illusions, whom doubts never disturb.
He was one of those who thoroughly confide in the sincerity of
their friends, in the love of their mistresses. This new domestic
household ought to be happy; it was so. Bertha adored her husband
--that frank man, who, before speaking to her a word of love,
offered her his hand. Sauvresy professed for his wife a worship
which few thought foolish. They lived in great style at Valfeuillu.
They received a great deal. When autumn came all the numerous spare
chambers were filled. The turnouts were magnificent.

"Sauvresy had been married two years, when one evening he brought
from Paris one of his old and intimate friends, a college comrade
of whom he had often spoken, Count Hector de Tremorel. The count
intended to remain but a short time at Valfeuillu; but weeks passed
and then months, and he still remained. It was not surprising.
Hector had passed a very stormy youth, full of debauchery, of clubs,
of gambling, and of amours. He had thrown to the winds of his
caprices an immense fortune; the relatively calm life of Valfeuillu
was a relief. At first people said to him, 'You will soon have
enough of the country.' He smiled, but said nothing. It was then
thought, and rightly, perhaps, that having become poor, he cared
little to display his ruin before those who had obscured his
splendor. He absented himself rarely, and then only to go to
Corbeil, almost always on foot. There he frequented the Belle Image
hotel, the best in the town, and met, as if by chance, a young lady
from Paris. They spent the afternoon together, and separated when
the last train left."

"Peste!" growled the mayor, "for a man who lives alone, who sees
nobody, who would not for the world have anything to do with other
people's business, it seems to me our dear Monsieur Plantat is
pretty well informed."

Evidently M. Courtois was jealous. How was it that he, the first
personage in the place, had been absolutely ignorant of these
meetings? His ill-humor was increasing, when Dr. Gendron answered:

"Pah! all Corbeil prated about that at the time."

M. Plantat made a movement with his lips as if to say, "I know
other things besides." He went on, however, with his story.

"The visit of Count Hector made no change in the habits at the
chateau. Monsieur and Madame Sauvresy had a brother; that was all.
Sauvresy at this time made several journeys to Paris, where, as
everybody knew, he was engaged in arranging his friend's affairs.

"This charming existence lasted a year. Happiness seemed to be
fixed forever beneath the delightful shades of Valfeuillu. But
alas! one evening on returning from the hunt, Sauvresy became so
ill that he was forced to take to his bed. A doctor was called;
inflammation of the chest had set in. Sauvresy was young,
vigorous as an oak; his state did not at first cause anxiety.
A fortnight afterward, in fact, he was up and about. But he was
imprudent and had a relapse. He again nearly recovered; a week
afterward there was another relapse, and this time so serious,
that a fatal end of his illness was foreseen. During this long
sickness, the love of Bertha and the affection of Tremorel for
Sauvresy were tenderly shown. Never was an invalid tended with
such solicitude--surrounded with so many proofs of the purest
devotion. His wife and his friend were always at his couch,
night and day. He had hours of suffering, but never a second of
weariness. He repeated to all who went to see him, that he had
come to bless his illness. He said to himself, 'If I had not
fallen ill, I should never have known how much I was beloved.'"

"He said the same thing to me," interrupted the mayor, "more than a
hundred times. He also said so to Madame Courtois, to Laurence,
my eldest daughter--"

"Naturally," continued M. Plantat. "But Sauvresy's distemper was
one against which the science of the most skilful physicians and
the most constant care contend in vain.

"He said that he did not suffer much, but he faded perceptibly, and
was no more than the shadow of his former self. At last, one night,
toward two or three o'clock, he died in the arms of his wife and
his friend. Up to the last moment, he had preserved the full force
of his faculties. Less than an hour before expiring, he wished
everyone to be awakened, and that all the servants of the castle
should be summoned. When they were all gathered about the bedside,
he took his wife's hand, placed it in that of the Count de Tremorel,
and made them swear to marry each other when he was no more. Bertha
and Hector began to protest, but he insisted in such a manner as to
compel assent, praying and adjuring them, and declaring that their
refusal would embitter his last moments. This idea of the marriage
between his widow and his friend seems, besides, to have singularly
possessed his thoughts toward the close of his life. In the
preamble of his will, dictated the night before his death, to M.
Bury, notary of Orcival, he says formally that their union is his
dearest wish, certain as he is of their happiness, and knowing well
that his memory will be piously kept."

"Had Monsieur and Madame Sauvresy no children?" asked the judge of
instruction.

"No," answered the mayor.

M. Plantat continued:

"The grief of the count and the young widow was intense. M. de
Tremorel, especially, seemed absolutely desperate, and acted like a
madman. The countess shut herself up, forbidding even those whom
she loved best from entering her chamber--even Madame Courtois.
When the count and Madame Bertha reappeared, they were scarcely to
be recognized, so much had both changed. Monsieur Hector seemed
to have grown twenty years older. Would they keep the oath made at
the death-bed of Sauvresy, of which everyone was apprised? This
was asked with all the more curiosity, because their profound
sorrow for a man who well merited it, was admired."

The judge of instruction stopped M. Plantat with a motion of his
hand.

"Do you know," asked he, "whether the rendezvous at the Hotel Belle
Image had ceased?"

"I suppose so, sir; I think so."

"I am almost sure of it," said Dr. Gendron. "I have often heard
it said--they know everything at Corbeil--that there was a heated
explanation between M. de Tremorel and the pretty Parisian lady.
After this quarrel, they were no longer seen at the Belle Image."

The old justice of the peace smiled.

"Melun is not at the end of the world," said he, "and there are
hotels at Melun. With a good horse, one is soon at Fontainebleau,
at Versailles, even at Paris. Madame de Tremorel might have been
jealous; her husband had some first-rate trotters in his stables."

Did M. Plantat give an absolutely disinterested opinion, or did he
make an insinuation? The judge of instruction looked at him
attentively, to reassure himself, but his visage expressed nothing
but a profound serenity. He told the story as he would any other,
no matter what.

"Please go on, Monsieur," resumed M. Domini.

"Alas!" said M. Plantat, "nothing here below is eternal, not even
grief. I know it better than anybody. Soon, to the tears of the
first days, to violent despair, there succeeded, in the count and
Madame Bertha, a reasonable sadness, then a soft melancholy. And
in one year after Sauvresy's death Monsieur de Tremorel espoused
his widow."

During this long narrative the mayor had several times exhibited
marks of impatience. At the end, being able to hold in no longer,
he exclaimed:

"There, those are surely exact details; but I question whether they
have advanced us a step in this grave matter which occupies us all
--to find the murderers of the count and countess."

M. Plantat, at these words, bent on the judge of instruction his
clear and deep look, as if to search his conscience to the bottom.

"These details were indispensable," returned M. Domini, "and they
are very clear. Those rendezvous at the hotel struck me; one knows
not to what extremities jealousy might lead a woman--"

He stopped abruptly, seeking, no doubt, some connection between the
pretty Parisian and the murderers; then resumed:

"Now that I know the Tremorels as if I had lived with them
intimately, let us proceed to the actual facts."

The brilliant eye of M. Plantat immediately grew dim; he opened his
lips as if to speak; but kept his peace. The doctor alone, who had
not ceased to study the old justice of the peace, remarked the sudden
change of his features.

"It only remains," said M. Domini, "to know how the new couple lived."

M. Courtois thought it due to his dignity to anticipate M. Plantat.

"You ask how the new couple lived," said he hastily; "they lived in
perfect concord; nobody knows better about it than I, who was most
intimate with them. The memory of poor Sauvresy was a bond of
happiness between them; if they liked me so well, it was because I
often talked of him. Never a cloud, never a cross word. Hector
--I called him so, familiarly, this poor, dear count--gave his
wife the tender attentions of a lover; those delicate cares, which
I fear most married people soon dispense with."

"And the countess?" asked M. Plantat, in a tone too marked not to
be ironical.

"Bertha?" replied the worthy mayor--"she permitted me to call her
thus, paternally--I have cited her many and many a time as an
example and model, to Madame Courtois. She was worthy of Hector
and of Sauvresy, the two most worthy men I have ever met!"

Then, perceiving that his enthusiasm somewhat surprised his hearers,
he added, more softly:

"I have my reasons for expressing myself thus; and I do not
hesitate to do so before men whose profession and character will
justify my discretion. Sauvresy, when living, did me a great
service--when I was forced to take the mayoralty. As for Hector,
I knew well that he had departed--from the dissipations of his
youth, and thought I discerned that he was not indifferent to my
eldest daughter, Laurence; and I dreamed of a marriage all the more
proper, as, if the Count Hector had a great name, I would give to
my daughter a dowry large enough to gild any escutcheon. Only
events modified my projects."

The mayor would have gone on singing the praises of the Tremorels,
and his own family, if the judge of instruction had not interposed.

"Here I am fixed," he commenced, "now, it seems to me--"

He was interrupted by a loud noise in the vestibule. It seemed
like a struggle, and cries and shouts reached the drawing-room.
Everybody rose.

"I know what it is," said the mayor, "only too well. They have
just found the body of the Count de Tremorel."



                                 IV

The mayor was mistaken. The drawing-room door opened suddenly,
and a man of slender form, who was struggling furiously, and with
an energy which would not have been suspected, appeared, held on
one side by a gendarme, and on the other by a domestic.

The struggle had already lasted long, and his clothes were in great
disorder. His new coat was torn, his cravat floated in strips, the
button of his collar had been wrenched off, and his open shirt left
his breast bare. In the vestibule and court were heard the frantic
cries of the servants and the curious crowd--of whom there were
more than a hundred, whom the news of the crime had collected about
the gate, and who burned to hear, and above all to see.

This enraged crowd cried:

"It is he! Death to the assassin! It is Guespin! See him!"

And the wretch, inspired by an immense fright, continued to struggle.

"Help!" shouted he hoarsely. "Leave me alone. I am innocent!"

He had posted himself against the drawing-room door, and they could
not force him forward.

"Push him," ordered the mayor, "push him."

It was easier to command than to execute. Terror lent to Guespin
enormous force. But it occurred to the doctor to open the second
wing of the door; the support failed the wretch, and he fell, or
rather rolled at the foot of the table at which the judge of
instruction was seated. He was straightway on his feet again, and
his eyes sought a chance to escape. Seeing none--for the windows
and doors were crowded with the lookers-on--he fell into a chair.
The fellow appeared the image of terror, wrought up to paroxysm. On
his livid face, black and blue, were visible the marks of the blows
he had received in the struggle; his white lips trembled, and he
moved his jaws as if he sought a little saliva for his burning
tongue; his staring eyes were bloodshot, and expressed the wildest
distress; his body was bent with convulsive spasms. So terrible
was this spectacle, that the mayor thought it might be an example
of great moral force. He turned toward the crowd, and pointing to
Guespin, said in a tragic tone:

"See what crime is!"

The others exchanged surprised looks.

"If he is guilty," muttered M. Plantat, "why on earth has he
returned?"

It was with difficulty that the crowd was kept back; the brigadier
was forced to call in the aid of his men. Then he returned and
placed himself beside Guespin, thinking it not prudent to leave
him alone with unarmed men.

But the man was little to be feared. The reaction came; his
over-excited energy became exhausted, his strained muscles flaccid,
and his prostration resembled the agony of brain fever. Meanwhile
the brigadier recounted what had happened.

"Some of the servants of the chateau and the neighboring houses were
chatting near the gate, about the crime, and the disappearance of
Guespin last night, when all of a sudden, someone perceived him at
a distance, staggering, and singing boisterously, as if he were
drunk."

"Was he really drunk?" asked M. Domini.

"Very," returned the brigadier.

"Then we owe it to the wine that we have caught him, and thus all
will be explained."

"On perceiving this wretch," pursued the gendarme, who seemed not
to have the shadow of a doubt of Guespin's guilt, "Francois, the
count's valet de chambre, and Baptiste, the mayor's servant, who
were there, hastened to meet him, and seized him. He was so tipsy
that he thought they were fooling with him. When he saw my men,
he was undeceived. Just then one of the women cried out, 'Brigand,
it was you who have this night assassinated the count and the
countess!' He immediately became paler than death, and remained
motionless and dumb. Then he began to struggle so violently that
he nearly escaped. Ah! he's strong, the rogue, although he does
not look like it."

"And he said nothing?" said Plantat.

"Not a word; his teeth were so tightly shut with rage that I'm sure
he couldn't say 'bread.' But we've got him. I've searched him,
and this is what I have found in his pockets: a handkerchief, a
pruning-knife, two small keys, a scrap of paper covered with
figures, and an address of the establishment of 'Vulcan's Forges.'
But that's not all--"

The brigadier took a step, and eyed his auditors mysteriously; he
was preparing his effect.

"That's not all. While they were bringing him along in the
court-yard, he tried to get rid of his wallet. Happily I had my
eyes open, and saw the dodge. I picked up the wallet, which he
had thrown among the flowers near the door; here it is. In it are
a one-hundred-franc note, three napoleons, and seven francs in
change. Yesterday the rascal hadn't a sou--"

"How do you know that?" asked M. Domini.

"Dame! Monsieur Judge, he borrowed of the valet Francois (who
told me of it) twenty-five francs, pretending that it was to pay
his share of the wedding expenses."

"Tell Francois to come here," said the judge of instruction. "Now,
sir," he continued, when the valet presented himself, "do you know
whether Guespin had any money yesterday?"

"He had so little, Monsieur," answered Francois promptly, "that he
asked me to lend him twenty-five francs during the day, saying that
otherwise he could not go to the wedding, not having enough even to
pay his railway fare."

"But he might have some savings--a hundred-franc note, for
instance, which he didn't like to change."

Francois shook his head with an incredulous smile.

"Guespin isn't the man to have savings," said he; "Women and cards
exhaust all his wages. No longer ago than last week, the keeper of
the Cafe du Commerce came here and made a row on account of what he
owed him, and threatened to go to the count about it."

Perceiving the effect of what he said, the valet, as if to correct
himself, hastened to add:

"I have no ill-will toward Guespin; before to-day I've always
considered him a clever fellow, though he was too much of a
practical joker; he was, perhaps, a little proud, considering his
bringing up--"

"You may go," said the judge, cutting the disquisition of M.
Francois short; the valet retired.

During this colloquy, Guespin had little by little come to himself.
The judge of instruction, Plantat, and the mayor narrowly watched
the play of his countenance, which he had not the coolness to
compose, while the doctor held his pulse and counted its beating.

"Remorse, and fear of punishment," muttered the mayor.

"Innocence, and the impossibility of proving it," responded Plantat
in a low tone.

M. Domini heard both these exclamations, but did not appear to take
notice of them. His opinion was not formed, and he did not wish
that anyone should be able to foretell, by any word of his, what
it would be.

"Are you better, my friend?" asked Dr. Gendron, of Guespin.

The poor fellow made an affirmative sign. Then, having looked
around with the anxious glance of a man who calculates a precipice
over which he has fallen, he passed his hand across his eyes and
stammered:

"Something to drink!"

A glass of water was brought, and he drank it at a draught, with
an expression of intense satisfaction. Then he got upon his feet.

"Are you now in a fit state to answer me?" asked the judge.

Guespin staggered a little, then drew himself up. He continued
erect before the judge, supporting himself against a table. The
nervous trembling of his hands diminished, the blood returned to
his cheeks, and as he listened, he arranged the disorder of his
clothes.

"You know the events of this night, don't you?" commenced the
judge; "the Count and Countess de Tremorel have been murdered. You
went away yesterday with all the servants of the chateau; you left
them at the Lyons station about nine o'clock; you have just
returned, alone. Where have you passed the night?"

Guespin hung his head and remained silent.

"That is not all," continued M. Domini; "yesterday you had no money,
the fact is well known; one of your fellow-servants has just proved
it. To-day, one hundred and sixty-seven francs are found in your
wallet. Where did you get this money?"

The unhappy creature's lip moved as if he wished to answer; a
sudden thought seemed to check him, for he did not speak.

"More yet. What is this card of a hardware establishment that has
been found in your pocket?"

Guespin made a sign of desperation, and stammered:

"I am innocent."

"I have not as yet accused you," said the judge of instruction,
quickly. "You knew, perhaps, that the count received a considerable
sum yesterday?"

A bitter smile parted Guespin's lips as he answered:

"I know well enough that everything is against me."

There was a profound silence. The doctor, the mayor, and Plantat,
seized with a keen curiosity, dared not move. Perhaps nothing in
the world is more thrilling than one of these merciless duels
between justice and a man suspected of a crime. The questions may
seem insignificant, the answers irrelevant; both questions and
answers envelop terrible, hidden meanings. The smallest gesture,
the most rapid movement of physiognomy may acquire deep significance,
a fugitive light in the eye betray an advantage gained; an
imperceptible change in the voice may be confession.

The coolness of M. Domini was disheartening.

"Let us see," said he after a pause: "where did you pass the night?
How did you get this money? And what does this address mean?"

"Eh!" cried Guespin, with the rage of powerlessness, "I should tell
you what you would not believe."

The judge was about to ask another question, but Guespin cut him
short.

"No; you wouldn't believe me," he repeated, his eyes glistening with
anger. "Do men like you believe men like me? I have a past, you
know, of antecedents, as you would say. The past! They throw that
in my face, as if, the future depended on the past. Well, yes; it's
true, I'm a debauchee, a gambler, a drunkard, an idler, but what of
it? It's true I have been before the police court, and condemned
for night poaching--what does that prove? I have wasted my life,
but whom have I wronged if not myself? My past! Have I not
sufficiently expiated it?"

Guespin was self-possessed, and finding in himself sensations which
awoke a sort of eloquence, he expressed himself with a savage energy
well calculated to strike his hearers.

"I have not always served others," he continued; "my father was in
easy circumstances--almost rich. He had large gardens, near
Saumur, and he passed for one of the best gardeners of that region.
I was educated, and when sixteen years old, began to study law.
Four years later they thought me a talented youth. Unhappily for
me, my father died. He left me a landed property worth a hundred
thousand francs: I sold it out for sixty thousand and went to Paris.
I was a fool then. I had the fever of pleasure-seeking, a thirst
for all sorts of pastimes, perfect health, plenty of money. I found
Paris a narrow limit for my vices; it seemed to me that the objects
of my desires were wanting. I thought my sixty thousand francs
would last forever."

Guespin paused; a thousand memories of those times rushed into his
thoughts and he muttered:

"Those were good times."

"My sixty thousand francs," he resumed, "held out eight years.
Then I hadn't a sou, yet I longed to continue my way of living.
You understand, don't you? About this time, the police, one night,
arrested me. I was 'detained' six months. You will find the
records of the affair at the prefecture. Do you know what it will
tell you? It will tell you that on leaving prison I fell into that
shameful and abominable misery which exists in Paris. It will tell
you that I have lived among the worst and lowest outcasts of Paris
--and it is the truth."

The worthy mayor was filled with consternation.

"Good Heaven!" thought he, "what an audacious and cynical rascal!
and to think that one is liable at any time to admit such servants
into his house!"

The judge held his tongue. He knew that Guespin was in such a state
that, under the irresistible impulse of passion, he might betray his
innermost thoughts.

"But there is one thing," continued the suspected man, "that the
record will not tell you; that, disgusted with this abject life, I
was tempted to suicide. It will not tell you anything of my
desperate attempts, my repentance, my relapses. At last, I was
able in part to reform. I got work; and after being in four
situations, engaged myself here. I found myself well off. I always
spent my month's wages in advance, it's true--but what would you
have? And ask if anyone has ever had to complain of me."

It is well known that among the most intelligent criminals, those
who have had a certain degree of education, and enjoyed some good
fortune, are the most redoubtable. According to this, Guespin was
decidedly dangerous. So thought those who heard him. Meanwhile,
exhausted by his excitement, he paused and wiped his face, covered
with perspiration.

M. Domini had not lost sight of his plan of attack.

"All that is very well," said he, "we will return to your confession
at the proper time and place. But just now the question is, how you
spent your night, and where you got this money."

This persistency seemed to exasperate Guespin.

"Eh!" cried he, "how do you want me to answer? The truth? You
wouldn't credit it. As well keep silent. It is a fatality."

"I warn you for your own sake," resumed the judge, "that if you
persist in refusing to answer, the charges which weigh upon you are
such that I will have you arrested as suspected of this murder."

This menace seemed to have a remarkable effect on Guespin. Great
tears filled his eyes, up to that time dry and flashing, and
silently rolled down his cheeks. His energy was exhausted; he fell
on his knees, crying:

"Mercy! I beg you, Monsieur, not to arrest me; I swear I am
innocent, I swear it!"

"Speak, then."

"You wish it," said Guespin, rising. Then he suddenly changed his
tone. "No, I will not speak, I cannot! One man alone could save
me; it is the count; and he is dead. I am innocent; yet if the
guilty are not found, I am lost. Everything is against me. I know
it too well. Now, do with me as you please; I will not say another
word."

Guespin's determination, confirmed by his look, did not surprise the
judge.

"You will reflect," said he, quietly, "only, when you have
reflected, I shall not have the same confidence in what you say
as I should have now. Possibly," and the judge spoke slowly and
with emphasis, "you have only had an indirect part in this crime;
if so--"

"Neither indirect nor direct," interrupted Guespin; and he added,
violently, "what misery! To be innocent, and not able to defend
myself."

"Since it is so," resumed M. Domini, "you should not object to be
placed before Mme. de Tremorel's body?"

The accused did not seem affected by this menace. He was conducted
into the hall whither they had fetched the countess. There, he
examined the body with a cold and calm eye. He said, simply:

"She is happier than I; she is dead, she suffers no longer; and I,
who am not guilty, am accused of her death."

M. Domini made one more effort.

"Come, Guespin; if in any way you know of this crime, I conjure
you, tell me. If you know the murderers, name them. Try to merit
some indulgence for your frankness and repentance."

Guespin made a gesture as if resigned to persecution. "By all that
is most sacred," he answered, "I am innocent. Yet I see clearly
that if the murderer is not found, I am lost."

Little by little M. Domini's conviction was formed and confirmed.
An inquest of this sort is not so difficult as may be imagined.
The difficulty is to seize at the beginning; in the entangled skein,
the main thread, which must lead to the truth through all the mazes,
the ruses, silence, falsehoods of the guilty. M. Domini was
certain that he held this precious thread. Having one of the
assassins, he knew well that he would secure the others. Our
prisons, where good soup is eaten, and good beds are provided, have
tongues, as well as the dungeons of the medieval ages.

The judge ordered the brigadier to arrest Guespin, and told him not
to lose sight of him. He then sent for old Bertaud. This worthy
personage was not one of the people who worry themselves. He had
had so many affairs with the men of law, that one inquisition the
more disturbed him little.

"This man has a bad reputation in my commune," whispered the mayor
to M. Domini.

Bertaud heard it, however, and smiled.

Questioned by the judge of instruction, he recounted very clearly
and exactly what had happened in the morning, his resistance, and
his son's determination. He explained the reason for the
falsehood they told; and here again the chapter of antecedents
came up.

"Look here; I'm better than my reputation, after all," said he.
"There are many folks who can't say as much. You see many things
when you go about at night--enough."

He was urged to explain his allusions, but in vain.

When he was asked where and how he had passed the night, he
answered, that having left the cabaret at ten o'clock, he went to
put down some traps in Mauprevoir wood; and had gone home and to
bed about one o'clock.

"By the bye," added he, "there ought to be some game in those
traps by this time."

"Can you bring a witness to prove that you went home at one?"
asked the mayor, who bethought him of the count's clock, stopped
at twenty minutes past three.

"Don't know, I'm sure," carelessly responded the poacher, "it's
quite likely that my son didn't wake up when I went to bed."

He added, seeing the judge reflect:

"I suspect that you are going to imprison me until the murderers
are discovered. If it was winter, I wouldn't complain much; a
fellow is well off in prison then, for it's warm there. But just
at the time for hunting, it's provoking. It will be a good lesson
for that Philippe; it'll teach him what it costs to render a service
to gentlefolks."

"Enough!" interrupted M. Domini, sternly. "Do you know Guespin?"

This name suddenly subdued the careless insolence of the marauder;
his little gray eyes experienced a singular restlessness.

"Certainly," he answered in an embarrassed tone, "we have often made
a party at cards, you understand, while sipping our 'gloria.'"*

  [* Coffee and brandy.]

The man's inquietude struck the four who heard him. Plantat,
especially, betrayed profound surprise. The old vagabond was too
shrewd not to perceive the effect which he produced.

"Faith, so much the worse!" cried he: "I'll tell you everything.
Every man for himself, isn't it? If Guespin has done the deed, it
will not blacken him any more, nor make him any the worse off. I
know him, simply because he used to sell me the grapes and
strawberries from the count's conservatories; I suppose he stole
them; we divided the money, and I left."

Plantat could not refrain from an exclamation of satisfaction, as
if to say, "Good luck! I knew it well enough!"

When he said he would be sent to prison, Bertaud was not wrong.
The judge ordered his arrest.

It was now Philippe's turn.

The poor fellow was in a pitiable state; he was crying bitterly.

"To accuse me of such a crime, me!" he kept repeating.

On being questioned he told the pure and simple truth, excusing
himself, however, for having dared to penetrate into the park.
When he was asked at what hour his father reached home, he said he
knew nothing about it; he had gone to bed about nine, and had not
awoke until morning. He knew Guespin, from having seen him at his
father's several times. He knew that the old man had some
transactions with the gardener, but he was ignorant as to what they
were. He had never spoken four times to Guespin. The judge
ordered Philippe to be set at liberty, not that he was wholly
convinced of his innocence, but because if the crime had been
committed by several persons, it was well to have one of them
free; he could be watched, and he would betray the whereabouts
of the rest.

Meanwhile the count's body was nowhere to be found. The park had
been rigidly searched, but in vain. The mayor suggested that he
had been thrown into the river, which was also M. Domini's opinion;
and some fishermen were sent to drag the Seine, commencing their
search a little above the place where the countess was found.

It was then nearly three o'clock. M. Plantat remarked that probably
no one had eaten anything during the day. Would it not be wise to
take something, he suggested, if the investigations were to be
pursued till night? This appeal to the trivial necessities of our
frail humanity highly displeased the worthy mayor; but the rest
readily assented to the suggestion, and M. Courtois, though not in
the least hungry, followed the general example. Around the table
which was yet wet with the wine spilt by the assassins, the judge,
M. Plantat, the mayor, and the doctor sat down, and partook of an
improvised collation.



                                 V

The staircase had been put under guard, but the vestibule had
remained free. People were heard coming and going, tramping and
coughing; then rising above this continuous noise, the oaths of
the gendarmes trying to keep back the crowd. From time to time, a
scared face passed by the dining-room door, which was ajar. These
were curious folks who, more daring than the rest, wished to see
the "men of justice" eating, and tried to hear a word or two, to
report them, and so become important in the eyes of the others.
But the "men of justice"--as they said at Orcival--took care to
say nothing of moment while the doors were open, and while a
servant was passing to and fro. Greatly moved by this frightful
crime, disturbed by the mystery which surrounded it, they hid
their impressions. Each, on his part, studied the probability of
his suspicions, and kept his opinion to himself.

M. Domini, as he ate, put his notes in order, numbering the leaves,
marking certain peculiarly significant answers of the suspected
persons with a cross. He was, perhaps, the least tormented of the
four companions at this funereal repast. The crime did not seem to
him one of those which keep judges of instruction sleepless through
the night; he saw clearly the motive of it; and he had Bertaud and
Guespin, two of the assassins, or at least accomplices, secure.

M. Plantat and Dr. Gendron, seated next each other, were talking
of the illness which carried off Sauvresy. M. Courtois listened to
the hubbub without.

The news of the double murder was soon noised about the neighborhood,
and the crowd increased every minute. It filled the court, and
became bolder and bolder; the gendarmes were overwhelmed. Then or
never was the time for the mayor to show his authority. "I am going
to make these people listen to reason," said he, "and make them
retire." And at once, wiping his mouth, he threw his tumbled napkin
on the table, and went out.

It was time. The brigadier's injunctions were no longer heeded.
Some curious people, more eager than the rest, had flanked the
position and were forcing an entrance through the gate leading to
the garden. The mayor's presence did not perhaps intimidate the
crowd much, but it redoubled the energy of the gendarmes;
the vestibule was cleared, amid murmurings against the arm of the
law. What a chance for a speech! M. Courtois was not wanting to
the occasion. He believed that his eloquence, endowed with the
virtues of a cold showerbath, would calm this unwonted effervescence
of his constituency. He stepped forward upon the steps, his left
hand resting in the opening of his vest, gesturing with his right in
the proud and impassible attitude which the sculptor lends to great
orators. It was thus that he posed before his council when, finding
unexpected opposition, he undertook to impose his will upon them,
and recall the recalcitrant members to their duty.

His speech, in fragments, penetrated to the dining-room. According
as he turned to the right or to the left, his voice was clear and
distinct, or was lost in space. He said:

"Fellow-citizens, an atrocious crime, unheard of before in our
commune, has shocked our peaceable and honest neighborhood. I
understand and excuse your feverish emotion, your natural
indignation. As well as you, my friends, more than you--I cherished
and esteemed the noble Count de Tremorel, and his virtuous wife. We
mourn them together--"

"I assure you," said Dr. Gendron to M. Plantat, "that the symptoms
you describe are not uncommon after pleurisy. From the acute state,
the inflammation passes to the chronic state, and becomes complicated
with pneumonia."

"But nothing," pursued the mayor, "can justify a curiosity, which
by its importunate attempts to be satisfied, embarrasses the
investigation, and is, at all events, a punishable interference
with the cause of justice. Why this unwonted gathering? Why these
rumors and noises? These premature conjectures?"

"There were several consultations," said M. Plantat, "which did not
have favorable results. Sauvresy suffered altogether strange and
unaccountable tortures. He complained of troubles so unwonted, so
absurd, if you'll excuse the word, that he discouraged all the
conjectures of the most experienced physicians."

"Was it not R---, of Paris, who attended him?"

"Exactly. He came daily, and often remained overnight. Many times
I have seen him ascending the principal street of the village, with
troubled countenance, as he went to give his prescription to the
apothecary.

"Be wise enough," cried M. Courtois, "to moderate your just anger;
be calm; be dignified."

"Surely," continued Dr. Gendron, "your apothecary is an intelligent
man; but you have at Orcival a fellow who quite outdoes him, a
fellow who knows how to make money; one Robelot--"

"Robelot, the bone-setter?"

"That's the man. I suspect him of giving consultations, and
prescribing sub rosa. He is very clever. In fact I educated him.
Five or six years ago, he was my laboratory boy, and even now I
employ him when I have a delicate operation on hand--"

The doctor stopped, struck by the alteration in the impassible
Plantat's features.

"What is the matter, my friend?" he asked. "Are you ill?"

The judge left his notes, to look at him. "Why," said he, "Monsieur
Plantat is very pale--"

But M. Plantat speedily resumed his habitual expression.

"'Tis nothing," he answered, "really nothing. With my abominable
stomach, as soon as I change my hour of eating--"

Having reached his peroration, M. Courtois raised his voice.

"Return," said he, "to your peaceable homes, your quiet avocations.
Rest assured the law protects you. Already justice has begun its
work; two of the criminals are in its power, and we are on the track
of their accomplices."

"Of all the servants of the chateau," remarked M. Plantat, "there
remains not one who knew Sauvresy. The domestics have one by one
been replaced."

"No doubt," answered the doctor, "the sight of the old servants
would be disagreeable to Monsieur de Tremorel."

He was interrupted by the mayor, who re-entered, his eyes glowing,
his face animated, wiping his forehead.

"I have let the people know," said he, "the indecency of their
curiosity. They have all gone away. They were anxious to get at
Philippe Bertaud, the brigadier says; public opinion has a sharp
scent."

Hearing the door open, he turned, and found himself face to face
with a man whose features were scarcely visible, so profoundly did
he bow, his hat pressed against his breast.

"What do you wish?" sternly asked M. Courtois. "By what right have
you come in here?--Who are you?"

The man drew himself up.

"I am Monsieur Lecoq," he replied, with a gracious smile. "Monsieur
Lecoq of the detective force, sent by the prefect of police in reply
to a telegram, for this affair."

This declaration clearly surprised all present, even the judge of
instruction.

In France, each profession has its special externals, as it were,
insignia, which betray it at first view. Each profession has its
conventional type, and when public opinion has adopted a type, it
does not admit it possible that the type should be departed from.
What is a doctor? A grave man, all in black, with a white cravat.
A gentleman with a capacious stomach, adorned with heavy gold seals,
can only be a banker. Everybody knows that the artist is a merry
liver, with a peaked hat, a velvet vest, and enormous ruffles. By
virtue of this rule, the detective of the prefecture ought to have
an eye full of mystery, something suspicious about him, a negligence
of dress, and imitation jewelry. The most obtuse shopkeeper is sure
that he can scent a detective at twenty paces a big man with
mustaches, and a shining felt hat, his throat imprisoned by a collar
of hair, dressed in a black, threadbare surtout, carefully buttoned
up on account of the entire absence of linen. Such is the type.
But, according to this, M. Lecoq, as he entered the dining-room at
Valfeuillu, had by no means the air of a detective. True, M. Lecoq
can assume whatever air he pleases. His friends declare that he
has a physiognomy peculiar to himself, which he resumes when he
enters his own house, and which he retains by his own fireside, with
his slippers on; but the fact is not well proved. What is certain,
is that his mobile face lends itself to strange metamorphoses; that
he moulds his features according to his will, as the sculptor moulds
clay for modelling. He changes everything, even his look.

"So," said the judge of instruction, "the prefect has sent you to me,
in case certain investigations become necessary."

"Yes, Monsieur, quite at your service."

M. Lecoq had on this day assumed a handsome wig of lank hair, of
that vague color called Paris blonde, parted on the side by a line
pretentiously fanciful; whiskers of the same color puffed out with
bad pomade, encircled a pallid face. His big eyes seemed congealed
within their red border, an open smile rested on his thick lips,
which, in parting, discovered a range of long yellow teeth. His
face, otherwise, expressed nothing in particular. It was a nearly
equal mixture of timidity, self-sufficiency, and contentment. It
was quite impossible to concede the least intelligence to the
possessor of such a phiz. One involuntarily looked for a goitre.
The retail haberdashers, who, having cheated for thirty years in
their threads and needles, retire with large incomes, should have
such heads as this. His apparel was as dull as his person. His
coat resembled all coats, his trousers all trousers. A hair chain,
the same color as his whiskers, was attached to a large silver watch,
which bulged out his left waistcoat pocket. While speaking, he
fumbled with a confection-box made of transparent horn, full of
little square lozenges, and adorned by a portrait of a very homely,
well-dressed woman--"the defunct," no doubt. As the conversation
proceeded, according as he was satisfied or disturbed, M. Lecoq
munched a lozenge, or directed glances toward the portrait which
were quite a poem in themselves.

Having examined the man a long time, the judge of instruction
shrugged his shoulders. "Well," said M. Domini, finally, "now
that you are here, we will explain to you what has occurred."

"Oh, that's quite useless," responded Lecoq, with a satisfied air,
"perfectly useless, sir."

"Nevertheless, it is necessary that you should know--"

"What? that which monsieur the judge knows?" interrupted the
detective, "for that I already know. Let us agree there has been
a murder, with theft as its motive; and start from that point. The
countess's body has been found--not so that of the count. What
else? Bertaud, an acknowledged rogue, is arrested; he merits a
little punishment, doubtless. Guespin came back drunk; ah, there
are sad charges against this Guespin! His past is deplorable; it
is not known where he passed the night, he refuses to answer, he
brings no alibi--this is indeed grave!"

M. Plantat gazed at the detective with visible pleasure.

"Who has told you about these things?" asked M. Domini.

"Well--everybody has told me a little."

"But where?"

"Here: I've already been here two hours, and even heard the mayor's
speech."

And, satisfied with the effect he had produced, M. Lecoq munched a
lozenge.

"You were not aware, then," resumed the judge, "that I was waiting
for you?"

"Pardon me," said the detective; "I hope you will be kind enough to
hear me. You see, it is indispensable to study the ground; one must
look about, establish his batteries. I am anxious to catch the
general rumor--public opinion, as they say, so as to distrust it."

"All this," answered M. Domini, severely, "does not justify your
delay."

M. Lecoq glanced tenderly at the portrait.

"Monsieur the judge," said he, "has only to inquire at the
prefecture, and he will learn that I know my profession. The great
thing requisite, in order to make an effective search, is to remain
unknown. The police are not popular. Now, if they knew who I was,
and why I was here, I might go out, but nobody would tell me
anything; I might ask questions--they'd serve me a hundred lies;
they would distrust me, and hold their tongues."

"Quite true--quite true," murmured Plantat, coming to the support
of the detective.

M. Lecoq went on:

"So that when I was told that I was going into the country, I put
on my country face and clothes. I arrive here and everybody, on
seeing me, says to himself, 'Here's a curious bumpkin, but not a
bad fellow.' Then I slip about, listen, talk, make the rest talk!
I ask this question and that, and am answered frankly; I inform
myself, gather hints, no one troubles himself about me. These
Orcival folks are positively charming; why, I've already made several
friends, and am invited to dine this very evening."

M. Domini did not like the police, and scarcely concealed it. He
rather submitted to their co-operation than accepted it, solely
because he could not do without them. While listening to M. Lecoq,
he could not but approve of what he said; yet he looked at him with
an eye by no means friendly.

"Since you know so much about the matter," observed he, dryly, "we
will proceed to examine the scene of the crime."

"I am quite at Monsieur the judge's orders," returned the detective,
laconically. As everyone was getting up, he took the opportunity
to offer M. Plantat his lozenge-box.

"Monsieur perhaps uses them?"

Plantat, unwilling to decline, appropriated a lozenge, and the
detective's face became again serene. Public sympathy was necessary
to him, as it is to all great comedians.



                                VI

M. Lecoq was the first to reach the staircase, and the spots of
blood at once caught his eye.

"Oh," cried he, at each spot he saw, "oh, oh, the wretches!"

M. Courtois was much moved to find so much sensibility in a
detective. The latter, as he continued to ascend, went on:

"The wretches! They don't often leave traces like this everywhere
--or at least they wipe them out."

On gaining the first landing, and the door of the boudoir which led
into the chamber, he stopped, eagerly scanning, before he entered,
the position of the rooms.

Then he entered the boudoir, saying:

"Come; I don't see my way clear yet."

"But it seems to me," remarked the judge, "that we have already
important materials to aid your task. It is clear that Guespin,
if he is not an accomplice, at least knew something about the crime."

M. Lecoq had recourse to the portrait in the lozenge-box. It was
more than a glance, it was a confidence. He evidently said something
to the dear defunct, which he dared not say aloud.

"I see that Guespin is seriously compromised," resumed he. "Why
didn't he want to tell where he passed the night? But, then, public
opinion is against him, and I naturally distrust that."

The detective stood alone in the middle of the room, the rest, at
his request, remained at the threshold, and looking keenly about
him, searched for some explanation of the frightful disorder of the
apartment.

"Fools!" cried he, in an irritated tone, "double brutes! Because
they murder people so as to rob them, is no reason why they should
break everything in the house. Sharp folks don't smash up furniture;
they carry pretty picklocks, which work well and make no noise.
Idiots! one would say--"

He stopped with his mouth wide open.

"Eh! Not so bungling, after all, perhaps."

The witnesses of this scene remained motionless at the door,
following, with an interest mingled with surprise, the detective's
movements.

Kneeling down, he passed his flat palm over the thick carpet, among
the broken porcelain.

"It's damp; very damp. The tea was not all drunk, it seems, when
the cups were broken."

"Some tea might have remained in the teapot," suggested Plantat.

"I know it," answered M. Lecoq, "just what I was going to say. So
that this dampness cannot tell us the exact moment when the crime
was committed."

"But the clock does, and very exactly," interrupted the mayor.

"The mayor," said M. Domini, "in his notes, well explains that the
movements of the clock stopped when it fell."

"But see here," said M. Plantat, "it was the odd hour marked by
that clock that struck me. The hands point to twenty minutes past
three; yet we know that the countess was fully dressed, when she
was struck. Was she up taking tea at three in the morning? It's
hardly probable."

"I, too, was struck with that circumstance," returned M. Lecoq, "and
that's why I said, 'not so stupid!' Well, let's see."

He lifted the clock with great care, and replaced it on the mantel,
being cautious to set it exactly upright. The hands continued to
point to twenty minutes past three.

"Twenty past three!" muttered he, while slipping a little wedge
under the stand. "People don't take tea at that hour. Still less
common is it that people are murdered at daylight."

He opened the clock-case with some difficulty, and pushed the longer
hand to the figure of half-past three.

The clock struck eleven!

"Good," cried M. Lecoq, triumphantly. "That is the truth!" and
drawing the lozenge-box from his pocket, he excitedly crushed a
lozenge between his teeth.

The simplicity of this discovery surprised the spectators; the idea
of trying the clock in this way had occurred to no one. M. Courtois,
especially, was bewildered.

"There's a fellow," whispered he to the doctor, "who knows what
he's about."

"Ergo," resumed M. Lecoq (who knew Latin), "we have here, not brutes,
as I thought at first, but rascals who looked beyond the end of their
knife. They intended to put us off the scent, by deceiving us as to
the hour."

"I don't see their object very clearly," said M. Courtois, timidly.

"Yet it is easy to see it," answered M. Domini. "Was it not for
their interest to make it appear that the crime was committed after
the last train for Paris had left? Guespin, leaving his companions
at the Lyons station at nine, might have reached here at ten,
murdered the count and countess, seized the money which he knew to
be in the count's possession, and returned to Paris by the last
train."

"These conjectures are very shrewd," interposed M. Plantat; "but
how is it that Guespin did not rejoin his comrades in the
Batignolles? For in that way, to a certain degree, he might have
provided a kind of alibi."

Dr. Gendron had been sitting on the only unbroken chair in the
chamber, reflecting on Plantat's sudden embarrassment, when he
had spoken of Robelot the bone-setter. The remarks of the judge
drew him from his revery; he got up, and said:

"There is another point; putting forward the time was perhaps
useful to Guespin, but it would greatly damage Bertaud, his
accomplice."

"But," answered M. Domini, "it might be that Bertaud was not
consulted. As to Guespin, he had no doubt good reasons for not
returning to the wedding. His restlessness, after such a deed,
would possibly have betrayed him."

M. Lecoq had not thought fit to speak as yet. Like a doctor at a
sick bedside, he wanted to be sure of his diagnosis. He had
returned to the mantel, and again pushed forward the hands of the
clock. It sounded, successively, half-past eleven, then twelve,
then half-past twelve, then one.

As he moved the hands, he kept muttering:

"Apprentices--chance brigands! You are malicious, parbleu, but
you don't think of everything. You give a push to the hands, but
don't remember to put the striking in harmony with them. Then
comes along a detective, an old rat who knows things, and the dodge
is discovered."

M. Domini and Plantat held their tongues. M. Lecoq walked up to
them.

"Monsieur the Judge," said he, "is perhaps now convinced that the
deed was done at half-past ten."

"Unless," interrupted M. Plantat, "the machinery of the clock has
been out of order."

"That often happens," added M. Courtois. "The clock in my
drawing-room is in such a state that I never know the time of day."

M. Lecoq reflected.

"It is possible," said he, "that Monsieur Plantat is right. The
probability is in favor of my theory; but probability, in such an
affair, is not sufficient; we must have certainty. There happily
remains a mode of testing the matter--the bed; I'll wager it is
rumpled up." Then addressing the mayor, "I shall need a servant to
lend me a hand."

"I'll help you," said Plantat, "that will be a quicker way."

They lifted the top of the bed and set it on the floor, at the
same time raising the curtains.

"Hum!" cried M. Lecoq, "was I right?"

"True," said M. Domini, surprised, "the bed is rumpled."

"Yes; and yet no one has lain in it."

"But--" objected M. Courtois.

"I am sure of what I say," interrupted the detective. "The sheets,
it is true, have been thrown back, perhaps someone has rolled about
in the bed; the pillows have been tumbled, the quilts and curtains
ruffled, but this bed has not the appearance of having been slept
in. It is, perhaps, more difficult to rumple up a bed than to put
it in order again. To make it up, the coverings must be taken off,
and the mattresses turned. To disarrange it, one must actually lie
down in it, and warm it with the body. A bed is one of those
terrible witnesses which never misguide, and against which no counter
testimony can be given. Nobody has gone to bed in this--"

"The countess," remarked Plantat, "was dressed; but the count might
have gone to bed first."

"No," answered M. Lecoq, "I'll prove to the contrary. The proof is
easy, indeed, and a child of ten, having heard it, wouldn't think
of being deceived by this intentional disorder of the bedclothes."

M. Lecoq's auditors drew up to him. He put the coverings back upon
the middle of the bed, and went on:

"Both of the pillows are much rumpled, are they not? But look under
the bolster--it is all smooth, and you find none of those wrinkles
which are made by the weight of the head and the moving about of
the arms. That's not all; look at the bed from the middle to the
foot. The sheets being laid carefully, the upper and under lie
close together everywhere. Slip your hand underneath--there--you
see there is a resistance to your hand which would not occur if the
legs had been stretched in that place. Now Monsieur de Tremorel
was tall enough to extend the full length of the bed."

This demonstration was so clear, its proof so palpable, that it
could not be gainsaid.

"This is nothing," continued M. Lecoq. "Let us examine the second
mattress. When a person purposely disarranges a bed, he does not
think of the second mattress."

He lifted up the upper mattress, and observed that the covering of
the under one was perfectly even.

"H'm, the second mattress," muttered M. Lecoq, as if some memory
crossed his mind.

"It appears to be proved," observed the judge, "that Monsieur de
Tremorel had not gone to bed."

"Besides," added the doctor, "if he had been murdered in his bed,
his clothes would be lying here somewhere."

"Without considering," suggested M. Lecoq, "that some blood must
have been found on the sheets. Decidedly, these criminals were
not shrewd."

"What seems to me surprising," M. Plantat observed to the judge,
"is that anybody would succeed in killing, except in his sleep, a
young man so vigorous as Count Hector."

"And in a house full of weapons," added Dr. Gendron; "for the
count's cabinet is full of guns, swords and hunting knives; it's
a perfect arsenal."

"Alas!" sighed M. Courtois, "we know of worse catastrophes. There
is not a week that the papers don't--"

He stopped, chagrined, for nobody was listening to him. Plantat
claimed the general attention, and continued:

"The confusion in the house seems to you surprising; well now, I'm
surprised that it is not worse than it is. I am, so to speak, an
old man; I haven't the energy of a young man of thirty-five; yet it
seems to me that if assassins should get into my house, when I was
there, and up, it would go hard with them. I don't know what I
would do; probably I should be killed; but surely I would give the
alarm. I would defend myself, and cry out, and open the windows,
and set the house afire."

"Let us add," insisted the doctor, "that it is not easy to surprise
a man who is awake. There is always an unexpected noise which puts
one on his guard. Perhaps it is a creaking door, or a cracking
stair. However cautious the murderer, he does not surprise his
victim."

"They may have used fire-arms;" struck in the worthy mayor, "that
has been done. You are quietly sitting in your chamber; it is
summer, and your windows are open; you are chatting with your wife,
and sipping a cup of tea; outside, the assassins are supplied with
a short ladder; one ascends to a level with the window, sights you
at his ease, presses the trigger, the bullet speeds--"

"And," continued the doctor, "the whole neighborhood, aroused by it,
hastens to the spot."

"Permit me, pardon, permit me," said M. Courtois, testily, "that
would be so in a populous town. Here, in the midst of a vast park,
no. Think, doctor, of the isolation of this house. The nearest
neighbor is a long way off, and between there are many large trees,
intercepting the sound. Let us test it by experience. I will fire
a pistol in this room, and I'll wager that you will not hear the
echo in the road."

"In the daytime, perhaps, but not in the night."

"Well," said M. Domini, who had been reflecting while M. Courtois
was talking, "if against all hope, Guespin does not decide to speak
to-night, or to-morrow, the count's body will afford us a key to
the mystery."

During this discussion, M. Lecoq had continued his investigations,
lifting the furniture, studying the fractures, examining the
smallest pieces, as if they might betray the truth. Now and then,
he took out an instrument-case, from which he produced a shank,
which he introduced and turned in the locks. He found several keys
on the carpet, and on a rack, a towel, which he carefully put one
side, as if he deemed it important. He came and went from the
bedroom to the count's cabinet, without losing a word that was said;
noting in his memory, not so much the phrases uttered, as the
diverse accents and intonations with which they were spoken. In an
inquest such as that of the crime of Orcival, when several officials
find themselves face to face, they hold a certain reserve toward
each other. They know each other to have nearly equal experience,
to be shrewd, clear-headed, equally interested in discovering the
truth, not disposed to confide in appearances, difficult to
surprise. Each one, likely enough, gives a different interpretation
to the facts revealed; each may have a different theory of the deed;
but a superficial observer would not note these differences. Each,
while dissimulating his real thoughts, tries to penetrate those of
his neighbor, and if they are opposed to his own, to convert him
to his opinion. The great importance of a single word justifies
this caution. Men who hold the liberty and lives of others in their
hands, a scratch of whose pen condemns to death, are apt to feel
heavily the burden of their responsibility. It is an ineffable
solace, to feel that this burden is shared by others. This is, why
no one dares take the initiative, or express himself openly; but
each awaits other opinions, to adopt or oppose them. They exchange
fewer affirmations than suggestions. They proceed by insinuation;
then they utter commonplaces, ridiculous suppositions, asides,
provocative, as it were, of other explanations.

In this instance, the judge of instruction and Plantat were far
from being of the same opinion; they knew it before speaking a word.
But M. Domini, whose opinion rested on material and palpable facts,
which appeared to him indisputable, was not disposed to provoke
contradiction. Plantat, on the contrary, whose system seemed to
rest on impressions, on a series of logical deductions, would not
clearly express himself, without a positive and pressing invitation.
His last speech, impressively uttered, had not been replied to; he
judged that he had advanced far enough to sound the detective.

"Well, Monsieur Lecoq," asked he, "have you found any new traces?"

M. Lecoq was at that moment curiously examining a large portrait
of the Count Hector, which hung opposite the bed. Hearing M.
Plantat's question, he turned.

"I have found nothing decisive," answered he, "and I have found
nothing to refute my conjectures. But--"

He did not finish; perhaps he too, recoiled before his share of the
responsibility.

"What?" insisted M. Domini, sternly.

"I was going to say," resumed M. Lecoq, "that I am not yet satisfied.
I have my lantern and a candle in it; I only need a match--"

"Please preserve your decorum," interrupted the judge severely.

"Very well, then," continued M. Lecoq, in a tone too humble to be
serious, "I still hesitate. If the doctor, now, would kindly
proceed to examine the countess's body, he would do me a great
service."

"I was just going to ask the same favor, Doctor," said M. Domini.

The doctor answering, "Willingly," directed his steps toward the
door.

M. Lecoq caught him by the arm.

"If you please," said he, in a tone totally unlike that he had used
up to this time, "I would like to call your attention to the wounds
on the head, made by a blunt instrument, which I suppose to be a
hammer. I have studied these wounds, and though I am no doctor,
they seem to me suspicious."

"And to me," M. Plantat quickly added. "It seemed to me, that in
the places struck, there was no emission of blood in the cutaneous
vessels."

"The nature of these wounds," continued M. Lecoq, "will be a
valuable indication, which will fix my opinion." And, as he felt
keenly the brusque manner of the judge, he added:

"It is you, Doctor, who hold the match."

M. Gendron was about to leave the room, when Baptiste, the mayor's
servant--the man who wouldn't be scolded--appeared. He bowed and
said:

"I have come for Monsieur the Mayor."

"For me? why?" asked M. Courtois. "What's the matter? They don't
give me a minute's rest! Answer that I am busy."

"It's on account of madame," resumed the placid Baptiste; "she isn't
at all well." The excellent mayor grew slightly pale.

"My wife!" cried he, alarmed. "What do you mean? Explain yourself."

"The postman arrived just now," returned Baptiste with a most
tranquil air, "and I carried the letters to madame, who was in the
drawing-room. Hardly had I turned on my heels when I heard a shriek,
and the noise of someone falling to the floor." Baptiste spoke
slowly, taking artful pains to prolong his master's anguish.

"Speak! go on!" cried the mayor, exasperated. "Speak, won't you?"

"I naturally opened the drawing-room door again. What did I see?
 madame, at full length on the floor. I called for help; the
chambermaid, cook, and others came hastening up, and we carried
madame to her bed. Justine said that it was a letter from
Mademoiselle Laurence which overcame my mistress--"

At each word Baptiste hesitated, reflected; his eyes, giving the
lie to his solemn face, betrayed the great satisfaction he felt in
relating his master's misfortunes.

His master was full of consternation. As it is with all of us,
when we know not exactly what ill is about to befall us, he dared
not ask any questions. He stood still, crushed; lamenting, instead
of hastening home. M. Plantat profited by the pause to question
the servant, with a look which Baptiste dared not disobey.

"What, a letter from Mademoiselle Laurence? Isn't she here, then?"

"No, sir: she went away a week ago, to pass a month with one of her
aunts."

"And how is madame?"

"Better, sir; only she cries piteously."

The unfortunate mayor had now somewhat recovered his presence of
mind. He seized Baptiste by the arm.

"Come along," cried he, "come along!"

They hastened off.

"Poor man!" said the judge of instruction. "Perhaps his daughter
is dead."

M. Plantat shook his head.

"If it were only that!" muttered he. He added, turning to M.
Domini:

"Do you recall the allusions of Bertaud, monsieur?"



                                VII

The judge of instruction, the doctor, and M. Plantat exchanged a
significant look. What misfortune had befallen M. Courtois, this
worthy, and despite his faults, excellent person? Decidedly, this
was an ill-omened day!

"If we are to speak of Bertaud's allusions," said M. Lecoq, "I have
heard two very curious stories, though I have been here but a few
hours. It seems that this Mademoiselle Laurence--"

M. Plantat abruptly interrupted the detective.

"Calumnies! odious calumnies! The lower classes, to annoy the rich,
do not hesitate to say all sorts of things against them. Don't you
know it? Is it not always so? The gentry, above all, those of a
provincial town, live in glass houses. The lynx eyes of envy watch
them steadily night and day, spy on them, surprise what they regard
as their most secret actions to arm themselves against them. The
bourgeois goes on, proud and content; his business prospers; he
possesses the esteem and friendship of his own class; all this
while, he is vilified by the lower classes, his name dragged in the
dust, soiled by suppositions the most mischievous. Envy, Monsieur,
respects nothing, no one."

"If Laurence has been slandered," observed Dr. Gendron, smiling,
"she has a good advocate to defend her."

The old justice of the peace (the man of bronze, as M. Courtois
called him) blushed slightly, a little embarrassed.

"There are causes," said he, quietly, "which defend themselves.
Mademoiselle Courtois is one of those young girls who has a right
to all respect. But there are evils which no laws can cure, and
which revolt me. Think of it, monsieurs, our reputations, the
honor of our wives and daughters, are at the mercy of the first
petty rascal who has imagination enough to invent a slander. It
is not believed, perhaps; but it is repeated, and spreads. What
can be done? How can we know what is secretly said against us;
will we ever know it?"

"Eh!" replied the doctor, "what matters it? There is only one
voice, to my mind, worth listening to--that of conscience. As to
what is called 'public opinion,' as it is the aggregate opinion of
thousands of fools and rogues, I only despise it."

This discussion might have been prolonged, if the judge of
instruction had not pulled out his watch, and made an impatient
gesture.

"While we are talking, time is flying," said he. "We must hasten
to the work that still remains."

It was then agreed that while the doctor proceeded to his autopsy,
the judge should draw up his report of the case. M. Plantat was
charged with watching Lecoq's investigations.

As soon as the detective found himself alone with M. Plantat:

"Well," he said, drawing a long breath, as if relieved of a heavy
burden, "now we can get on."

Plantat smiled; the detective munched a lozenge, and added:

"It was very annoying to find the investigation already going on
when I reached here. Those who were here before me have had time
to get up a theory, and if I don't adopt it at once, there is the
deuce to pay!"

M. Domini's voice was heard in the entry, calling out to his clerk.

"Now there's the judge of instruction," continued Lecoq, "who thinks
this a very simple affair; while I, Lecoq, the equal at least of
Gevrol, the favorite pupil of Papa Tabaret--I do not see it at all
clearly yet."

He stopped; and after apparently going over in his mind the result
of his discoveries, went on: "No; I'm off the track, and have
almost lost my way. I see something underneath all this--but
what? what?"

M. Plantat's face remained placid, but his eyes shone.

"Perhaps you are right," said he, carelessly; "perhaps there is
something underneath." The detective looked at him; he didn't
stir. His face seemed the most undisturbed in the world. There
was a long silence, by which M. Lecoq profited to confide to the
portrait of the defunct the reflections which burdened his brain.

"See here, my dear darling," said he, "this worthy person seems a
shrewd old customer, and I must watch his actions and gestures
carefully. He does not argue with the judge; he's got an idea that
he doesn't dare to tell, and we must find it out. At the very first
he guessed me out, despite these pretty blond locks. As long as he
thought he could, by misleading me, make me follow M. Domini's tack,
he followed and aided me showing me the way. Now that he sees me
on the scent, he crosses his arms and retires. He wants to leave
me the honor of the discovery. Why? He lives here--perhaps he
is afraid of making enemies. No. He isn't a man to fear much of
anything. What then? He shrinks from his own thoughts. He has
found something so amazing, that he dares not explain himself."

A sudden reflection changed the course of M. Lecoq's confidences.

"A thousand imps!" thought he. "Suppose I'm wrong! Suppose this
old fellow is not shrewd at all! Suppose he hasn't discovered
anything, and only obeys the inspirations of chance! I've seen
stranger things. I've known so many of these folks whose eyes
seem so very mysterious, and announce such wonders; after all, I
found nothing, and was cheated. But I intend to sound this old
fellow well."

And, assuming his most idiotic manner, he said aloud:

"On reflection, Monsieur, little remains to be done. Two of the
principals are in custody, and when they make up their minds to
talk--they'll do it, sooner or later, if the judge is determined
they shall--we shall know all."

A bucket of ice-water falling on M. Plantat's head could not have
surprised him more, or more disagreeably, than this speech.

"What!" stammered he, with an air of frank amazement, "do you, a
man of experience, who--"

Delighted with the success of his ruse, Lecoq could not keep his
countenance, and Plantat, who perceived that he had been caught in
the snare, laughed heartily. Not a word, however, was exchanged
between these two men, both subtle in the science of life, and
equally cunning in its mysteries. They quite understood each other.

"My worthy old buck," said the detective to himself, "you've got
something in your sack; only it's so big, so monstrous, that you
won't exhibit it, not for a cannon-ball. You wish your hand forced,
do you? Ve-ry well!"

"He's sly," thought M. Plantat. "He knows that I've got an idea;
he's trying to get at it--and I believe he will."

M. Lecoq had restored his lozenge-box to his pocket, as he always
did when he went seriously to work. His amour-propre was enlisted;
he played a part--and he was a rare comedian.

"Now," cried he, "let's to horse. According to the mayor's account,
the instrument with which all these things were broken has been
found."

"In the room in the second story," answered M. Plantat, "overlooking
the garden, we found a hatchet on the floor, near a piece of
furniture which had been assailed, but not broken open; I forbade
anyone to touch it."

"And you did well. Is it a heavy hatchet?"

"It weighs about two pounds."

"Good. Let's see it."

They ascended to the room in question, and M. Lecoq, forgetting his
part of a haberdasher, and regardless of his clothes, went down flat
on his stomach, alternately scrutinizing the hatchet--which was a
heavy, terrible weapon--and the slippery and well-waxed oaken floor.

"I suppose," observed M. Plantat, "that the assassins brought this
hatchet up here and assailed this cupboard, for the sole purpose of
putting us off our scent, and to complicate the mystery. This
weapon, you see, was by no means necessary for breaking open the
cupboard, which I could smash with my fist. They gave one blow
--only one--and quietly put the hatchet down."

The detective got up and brushed himself.

"I think you are mistaken," said he. "This hatchet wasn't put on
the floor gently; it was thrown with a violence betraying either
great terror or great anger. Look here; do you see these three
marks, near each other, on the floor? When the assassin threw the
hatchet, it first fell on the edge--hence this sharp cut; then it
fell over on one side; and the flat, or hammer end left this mark
here, under my finger. Therefore, it was thrown with such violence
that it turned over itself and that its edge a second time cut in
the floor, where you see it now."

"True," answered M. Plantat. The detective's conjectures doubtless
refuted his own theory, for he added, with a perplexed air:

"I don't understand anything about it."

M. Lecoq went on:

"Were the windows open this morning as they are now?"

"Yes."

"Ah! The wretches heard some noise or other in the garden, and
they went and looked out. What did they see? I can't tell. But
I do know that what they saw terrified them, that they threw down
the hatchet furiously, and made off. Look at the position of these
cuts--they are slanting of course--and you will see that the
hatchet was thrown by a man who was standing, not by the cupboard,
but close by the open window."

Plantat in his turn knelt down, and looked long and carefully.
The detective was right. He got up confused, and after meditating
a moment, said:

"This perplexes me a little; however--"

He stopped, motionless, in a revery, with one of his hands on his
forehead.

"All might yet be explained," he muttered, mentally searching for a
solution of the mystery, "and in that case the time indicated by
the clock would be true."

M. Lecoq did not think of questioning his companion. He knew that
he would not answer, for pride's sake.

"This matter of the hatchet puzzles me, too," said he. "I thought
that these assassins had worked leisurely; but that can't be so.
I see they were surprised and interrupted."

Plantat was all ears.

"True," pursued M. Lecoq, slowly, "we ought to divide these
indications into two classes. There are the traces left on purpose
to mislead us--the jumbled-up bed, for instance; then there are
the real traces, undesigned, as are these hatchet cuts. But here
I hesitate. Is the trace of the hatchet true or false, good or
bad? I thought myself sure of the character of these assassins:
but now--" He paused; the wrinkles on his face, the contraction
of his mouth, betrayed his mental effort.

"But now?" asked M. Plantat.

M. Lecoq, at this question, seemed like a man just roused from sleep.

"I beg your pardon," said he. "I forgot myself. I've a bad habit
of reflecting aloud. That's why I almost always insist on working
alone. My uncertainty, hesitation, the vacillation of my suspicions,
lose me the credit of being an astute detective--of being an agent
for whom there's no such thing as a mystery."

Worthy M. Plantat gave the detective an indulgent smile.

"I don't usually open my mouth," pursued M. Lecoq, "until my mind
is satisfied; then I speak in a peremptory tone, and say--this is
thus, or this is so. But to-day I am acting without too much
restraint, in the company of a man who knows that a problem such
as this seems to me to be, is not solved at the first attempt. So
I permit my gropings to be seen without shame. You cannot always
reach the truth at a bound, but by a series of diverse calculations,
by deductions and inductions. Well, just now my logic is at fault."

"How so?"

"Oh, it's very simple. I thought I understood the rascals, and
knew them by heart; and yet I have only recognized imaginary
adversaries. Are they fools, or are they mighty sly? That's what
I ask myself. The tricks played with the bed and clock had, I
supposed, given me the measure and extent of their intelligence
and invention. Making deductions from the known to the unknown,
I arrived, by a series of very simple consequences, at the point
of foreseeing all that they could have imagined, to throw us off
the scent. My point of departure admitted, I had only, in order
to reach the truth, to take the contrary of that which appearances
indicated. I said to myself:

"A hatchet has been found in the second story; therefore the
assassins carried it there, and designedly forgot it.

"They left five glasses on the dining-room table; therefore they
were more or less than five, but they were not five.

"There were the remains of a supper on the table; therefore they
neither drank nor ate.

"The countess's body was on the river-bank; therefore it was placed
there deliberately. A piece of cloth was found in the victim's hand;
therefore it was put there by the murderers themselves.

"Madame de Tremorel's body is disfigured by many dagger-strokes, and
horribly mutilated; therefore she was killed by a single blow--"

"Bravo, yes, bravo," cried M. Plantat, visibly charmed.

"Eh! no, not bravo yet," returned M. Lecoq. "For here my thread
is broken; I have reached a gap. If my deductions were sound, this
hatchet would have been very carefully placed on the floor."

"Once more, bravo," added the other, "for this does not at all
affect our general theory. It is clear, nay certain, that the
assassins intended to act as you say. An unlooked-for event
interrupted them."

"Perhaps; perhaps that's true. But I see something else--"

"What?"

"Nothing--at least, for the moment. Before all, I must see the
dining-room and the garden."

They descended at once, and Plantat pointed out the glasses and
bottles, which he had put one side. The detective took the glasses,
one after another, held them level with his eye, toward the light,
and scrutinized the moist places left on them.

"No one has drank from these glasses," said he, firmly.

"What, from neither one of them?"

The detective fixed a penetrating look upon his companion, and in
a measured tone, said:

"From neither one."

M. Plantat only answered by a movement of the lips, as if to say,
"You are going too far."

The other smiled, opened the door, and called:

"Francois!"

The valet hastened to obey the call. His face was suffused with
tears; he actually bewailed the loss of his master.

"Hear what I've got to say, my lad," said M. Lecoq, with true
detective-like familiarity. "And be sure and answer me exactly,
frankly, and briefly."

"I will, sir."

"Was it customary here at the chateau, to bring up the wine before
it was wanted?"

"No, sir; before each meal, I myself went down to the cellar for it."

"Then no full bottles were ever kept in the dining-room?"

"Never."

"But some of the wine might sometimes remain in draught?"

"No; the count permitted me to carry the dessert wine to the
servants' table."

"And where were the empty bottles put?"

"I put them in this corner cupboard, and when they amounted to a
certain number, I carried them down cellar."

"When did you last do so?"

"Oh"--Francois reflected--"at least five or six days ago."

"Good. Now, what liqueurs did the count drink?"

"The count scarcely ever drank liqueurs. If, by chance, he took a
notion to have a small glass of eau-de-vie, he got it from the
liqueur closet, there, over the stove."

"There were no decanters of rum or cognac in any of the cupboards?"

"No."

"Thanks; you may retire."

As Francois was going out, M. Lecoq called him back.

"While we are about it, look in the bottom of the closet, and see
if you find the right number of empty bottles."

The valet obeyed, and looked into the closet.

"There isn't one there."

"Just so," returned M. Lecoq. "This time, show us your heels for
good."

As soon as Francois had shut the door, M. Lecoq turned to Plantat
and asked:

"What do you think now?"

"You were perfectly right."

The detective then smelt successively each glass and bottle.

"Good again! Another proof in aid of my guess."

"What more?"

"It was not wine that was at the bottom of these glasses. Among
all the empty bottles put away in the bottom of that closet, there
was one--here it is--which contained vinegar; and it was from
this bottle that they turned what they thought to be wine into the
glasses."

Seizing a glass, he put it to M. Plantat's nose, adding:

"See for yourself."

There was no disputing it; the vinegar was good, its odor of the
strongest; the villains, in their haste, had left behind them an
incontestable proof of their intention to mislead the officers of
justice. While they were capable of shrewd inventions, they did
not have the art to perform them well. All their oversights could,
however, be accounted for by their sudden haste, caused by the
occurrence of an unlooked-for incident. "The floors of a house
where a crime has just been committed," said a famous detective,
"burn the feet." M. Lecoq seemed exasperated, like a true artist,
before the gross, pretentious, and ridiculous work of some green
and bungling scholar.

"These are a parcel of vulgar ruffians, truly! able ones, certainly;
but they don't know their trade yet, the wretches."

M. Lecoq, indignant, ate three or four lozenges at a mouthful.

"Come, now," said Plantat, in a paternally severe tone. "Don't
let's get angry. The people have failed in address, no doubt; but
reflect that they could not, in their calculations, take account
of the craft of a man like you."

M. Lecoq, who had the vanity which all actors possess, was flattered
by the compliment, and but poorly dissimulated an expression of
pleasure.

"We must be indulgent; come now," pursued Plantat. "Besides," he
paused a moment to give more weight to what he was going to say,
"besides, you haven't seen everything yet."

No one could tell when M. Lecoq was playing a comedy. He did not
always know, himself. This great artist, devoted to his art,
practised the feigning of all the emotions of the human soul, just
as he accustomed himself to wearing all sorts of costumes. He was
very indignant against the assassins, and gesticulated about in
great excitement; but he never ceased to watch Plantat slyly, and
the last words of the latter made him prick up his ears.

"Let's see the rest, then," said he.

As he followed his worthy comrade to the garden, he renewed his
confidences to the dear defunct.

"Confound this old bundle of mystery! We can't take this obstinate
fellow by surprise, that's clear. He'll give us the word of the
riddle when we have guessed it; not before. He is as strong as we,
my darling; he only needs a little practice. But look you--if he
has found something which has escaped us, he must have previous
information, that we don't know of."

Nothing had been disturbed in the garden.

"See here, Monsieur Lecoq," said the old justice of the peace, as he
followed a winding pathway which led to the river. "It was here that
one of the count's slippers was found; below there, a little to the
right of these geraniums, his silk handkerchief was picked up."

They reached the river-bank, and lifted, with great care, the planks
which had been placed there to preserve the foot-prints.

"We suppose," said M. Plantat, "that the countess, in her flight,
succeeded in getting to this spot; and that here they caught up
with her and gave her a finishing blow."

Was this really Plantat's opinion, or did he only report the
morning's theory? M. Lecoq could not tell.

"According to my calculations," he said, "the countess could not
have fled, but was brought here already dead, or logic is not logic.
However, let us examine this spot carefully."

He knelt down and studied the sand on the path, the stagnant water,
and the reeds and water-plants. Then going along a little distance,
he threw a stone, approaching again to see the effect produced on
the mud. He next returned to the house, and came back again under
the willows, crossing the lawn, where were still clearly visible
traces of a heavy burden having been dragged over it. Without the
least respect for his pantaloons, he crossed the lawn on all-fours,
scrutinizing the smallest blades of grass, pulling away the thick
tufts to see the earth better, and minutely observing the direction
of the broken stems. This done, he said:

"My conclusions are confirmed. The countess was carried across here."

"Are you sure of it?" asked Plantat.

There was no mistaking the old man's hesitation this time; he was
clearly undecided, and leaned on the other's judgment for guidance.

"There can be no error, possibly."

The detective smiled, as he added:

"Only, as two heads are better than one, I will ask you to listen
to me, and then, you will tell me what you think."

M. Lecoq had, in searching about, picked up a little flexible stick,
and while he talked, he used it to point out this and that object,
like the lecturer at the panorama.

"No," said he, "Madame de Tremorel did not fly from her murderers.
Had she been struck down here, she would have fallen violently; her
weight, therefore, would have made the water spirt to some distance,
as well as the mud; and we should certainly have found some splashes."

"But don't you think that, since morning, the sun--"

"The sun would have absorbed the water; but the stain of dry mud
would have remained. I have found nothing of the sort anywhere.
You might object, that the water and mud would have spirted right
and left; but just look at the tufts of these flags, lilies, and
stems of cane--you find a light dust on every one. Do you find
the least trace of a drop of water? No. There was then no splash,
therefore no violent fall; therefore the countess was not killed
here; therefore her body was brought here, and carefully deposited
where you found it."

M. Plantat did not seem to be quite convinced yet.

"But there are the traces of a struggle in the sand," said he.

His companion made a gesture of protest.

"Monsieur deigns to have his joke; those marks would not deceive a
school-boy."

"It appears to me, however--"

"There can be no mistake, Monsieur Plantat. Certain it is that the
sand has been disturbed and thrown about. But all these trails that
lay bare the earth which was covered by the sand, were made by the
same foot. Perhaps you don't believe it. They were made, too, with
the end of the foot; that you may see for yourself."

"Yes, I perceive it."

"Very well, then; when there has been a struggle on ground like
this, there are always two distinct kinds of traces--those of the
assailant and those of the victim. The assailant, throwing himself
forward, necessarily supports himself on his toes, and imprints the
fore part of his feet on the earth. The victim, on the contrary,
falling back, and trying to avoid the assault, props himself on his
heels, and therefore buries the heels in the soil. If the
adversaries are equally strong, the number of imprints of the toes
and the heels will be nearly equal, according to the chances of the
struggle. But what do we find here?"

M. Plantat interrupted:

"Enough; the most incredulous would now be convinced." After
thinking a moment, he added:

"No, there is no longer any possible doubt of it."

M. Lecoq thought that his argument deserved a reward, and treated
himself to two lozenges at a mouthful.

"I haven't done yet," he resumed. "Granted, that the countess could
not have been murdered here; let's add that she was not carried
hither, but dragged along. There are only two ways of dragging a
body; by the shoulders, and in this case the feet, scraping along
the earth, leave two parallel trails; or by the legs--in which
case the head, lying on the earth, leaves a single furrow, and that
a wide one."

Plantat nodded assent.

"When I examined the lawn," pursued M. Lecoq, "I found the parallel
trails of the feet, but yet the grass was crushed over a rather
wide space. How was that? Because it was the body, not of a man,
but of a woman, which was dragged across the lawn--of a woman
full-dressed, with heavy petticoats; that, in short, of the countess,
and not of the count."

M. Lecoq paused, in expectation of a question, or a remark.

But the old justice of the peace did not seem to be listening, and
appeared to be plunged in the deepest meditation. Night was falling;
a light fog hung like smoke over the Seine.

"We must go in," said M. Plantat, abruptly, "and see how the doctor
has got on with his autopsy."

They slowly approached the house. The judge of instruction awaited
them on the steps. He appeared to have a satisfied air.

"I am going to leave you in charge," said he to M. Plantat, "for if
I am to see the procureur, I must go at once. When you sent for
him this morning, he was absent."

M. Plantat bowed.

"I shall be much obliged if you will watch this affair to the end.
The doctor will have finished in a few minutes, he says, and will
report to-morrow morning. I count on your co-operation to put
seals wherever they are necessary, and to select the guard over the
chateau. I shall send an architect to draw up an exact plan of the
house and garden. Well, sir," asked M. Domini, turning to the
detective, "have you made any fresh discoveries?"

"I have found some important facts; but I cannot speak decisively
till I have seen everything by daylight. If you will permit me, I
will postpone making my report till to-morrow afternoon. I think
I may say, however, that complicated as this affair is--"

M. Domini did not let him finish.

"I see nothing complicated in the affair at all; everything strikes
me as very simple."

"But," objected M. Lecoq, "I thought--"

"I sincerely regret," continued the judge, "that you were so hastily
called, when there was really no serious reason for it. The
evidences against the arrested men are very conclusive."

Plantat and Lecoq exchanged a long look, betraying their great
surprise.

"What!" exclaimed the former, "have, you discovered any new
indications?"

"More than indications, I believe," responded M. Domini. "Old
Bertaud, whom I have again questioned, begins to be uneasy. He has
quite lost his arrogant manner. I succeeded in making him
contradict himself several times, and he finished by confessing
that he saw the assassins."

"The assassins!" exclaimed M. Plantat. "Did he say assassins?"

"He saw at least one of them. He persists in declaring that he did
not recognize him. That's where we are. But prison walls have
salutary terrors. To-morrow after a sleepless night, the fellow
will be more explicit, if I mistake not."

"But Guespin," anxiously asked the old man, "have you questioned
him?"

"Oh, as for him, everything is clear."

"Has he confessed?" asked M. Lecoq, stupefied.

The judge half turned toward the detective, as if he were displeased
that M. Lecoq should dare to question him.

"Guespin has not confessed," he answered, "but his case is none the
better for that. Our searchers have returned. They haven't yet
found the count's body, and I think it has been carried down by the
current. But they found at the end of the park, the count's other
slipper, among the roses; and under the bridge, in the middle of
the river, they discovered a thick vest which still bears the marks
of blood."

"And that vest is Guespin's?"

"Exactly so. It was recognized by all the domestics, and Guespin
himself did not hesitate to admit that it belonged to him. But that
is not all--"

M. Domini stopped as if to take breath, but really to keep Plantat
in suspense. As they differed in their theories, he thought Plantat
betrayed a stupid opposition to him; and he was not sorry to have a
chance for a little triumph.

"That is not all," he went on; "this vest had, in the right pocket,
a large rent, and a piece of it had been torn off. Do you know what
became of that piece of Guespin's vest?"

"Ah," muttered M. Plantat, "it was that which we found in the
countess's hand."

"You are right, Monsieur. And what think you of this proof, pray,
of the prisoner's guilt?"

M. Plantat seemed amazed; his arms fell at his side. As for M.
Lecoq, who, in presence of the judge, had resumed his haberdasher
manner, he was so much surprised that he nearly strangled himself
with a lozenge.

"A thousand devils!" exclaimed he. "That's tough, that is!" He
smiled sillily, and added in a low tone, meant only for Plantat's
ear.

"Mighty tough! Though quite foreseen in our calculations. The
countess held a piece of cloth tightly in her hand; therefore it
was put there, intentionally, by the murderers."

M. Domini did not hear this remark. He shook hands with M. Plantat
and made an appointment to meet him on the morrow, at the court-house.
Then he went away with his clerk.

Guespin and old Bertaud, handcuffed, had a few minutes before being
led off to the prison of Corbeil, under the guard of the Orcival
gendarmes.



                                VIII

Dr. Gendron had just finished his sad task in the billiard-room.
He had taken off his long coat, and pulled up his shirt-sleeves
above his elbows. His instruments lay on a table near him; he had
covered the body with a long white sheet. Night had come, and a
large lamp, with a crystal globe, lighted up the gloomy scene.
The doctor, leaning over a water-basin, was washing his hands, when
the old justice of the peace and the detective entered.

"Ah, it's you, Plantat," said the doctor in a suppressed tone;
"where is Monsieur Domini?"

"Gone."

The doctor did not take the trouble to repress a vexed motion.

"I must speak with him, though," said he, "it's absolutely necessary
--and the sooner the better; for perhaps I am wrong--I may be
mistaken--"

M. Lecoq and M. Plantat approached him, having carefully closed
the door. The doctor was paler than the corpse which lay under the
sheet. His usually calm features betrayed great distress. This
change could not have been caused by the task in which he had been
engaged. Of course it was a painful one; but M. Gendron was one
of those experienced practitioners who have felt the pulse of every
human misery, and whose disgust had become torpid by the most
hideous spectacles. He must have discovered something extraordinary.

"I am going to ask you what you asked me a while ago," said M.
Plantat. "Are you ill or suffering?"

M. Gendron shook his head sorrowfully, and answered, slowly and
emphatically:

"I will answer you, as you did me; 'tis nothing, I am already
better."

Then these two, equally profound, turned away their heads, as if
fearing to exchange their ideas; they doubted lest their looks
should betray them.

M. Lecoq advanced and spoke.

"I believe I know the cause of the doctor's emotion. He has just
discovered that Madame de Tremorel was killed by a single blow, and
that the assassins afterward set themselves to disfiguring the body,
when it was nearly cold."

The doctor's eyes fastened on the detective, with a stupefied
expression.

"How could you divine that?" he asked.

"Oh, I didn't guess it alone; I ought to share the honor of the
theory which has enabled us to foresee this fact, with Monsieur
Plantat."

"Oh," cried the doctor, striking his forehead, "now, I recollect
your advice; in my worry, I must say, I had quite forgotten it.

"Well," he added, "your foresight is confirmed. Perhaps not so
much time as you suppose elapsed between the first blow and the
rest; but I am convinced that the countess had ceased to live
nearly three hours, when the last blows were struck."

M. Gendron went to the billiard-table, and slowly raised the sheet,
discovering the head and part of the bust.

"Let us inform ourselves, Plantat," he said.

The old justice of the peace took the lamp, and passed to the other
side of the table. His hand trembled so that the globe tingled.
The vacillating light cast gloomy shadows upon the walls. The
countess's face had been carefully bathed, the blood and mud
effaced. The marks of the blows were thus more visible, but they
still found upon that livid countenance, the traces of its beauty.
M. Lecoq stood at the head of the table, leaning over to see more
clearly.

"The countess," said Dr. Gendron, "received eighteen blows from a
dagger. Of these, but one is mortal; it is this one, the direction
of which is nearly vertical--a little below the shoulder, you see."
He pointed out the wound, sustaining the body in his left arm. The
eyes had preserved a frightful expression. It seemed as if the
half-open mouth were about to cry "Help! Help!"

Plantat, the man with a heart of stone, turned away his head, and
the doctor, having mastered his first emotion, continued in a
professionally apathetic tone:

"The blade must have been an inch wide, and eight inches long. All
the other wounds--those on the arms, breast, and shoulders, are
comparatively slight. They must have been inflicted at least two
hours after that which caused death."

"Good," said M. Lecoq.

"Observe that I am not positive," returned the doctor quickly. "I
merely state a probability. The phenomena on which I base my own
conviction are too fugitive, too capricious in their nature, to
enable me to be absolutely certain."

This seemed to disturb M. Lecoq.

"But, from the moment when--"

"What I can affirm," interrupted Dr. Gendron, "what I would affirm
under oath, is, that all the wounds on the head, excepting one, were
inflicted after death. No doubt of that whatever--none whatever.
Here, above the eye, is the blow given while the countess was alive."

"It seems to me, Doctor," observed M. Lecoq, "that we may conclude
from the proved fact that the countess, after death, was struck by
a flat implement, that she had also ceased to live when she was
mutilated by the knife."

M. Gendron reflected a moment.

"It is possible that you are right; as for me, I am persuaded of it.
Still the conclusions in my report will not be yours. The physician
consulted by the law, should only pronounce upon patent,
demonstrated facts. If he has a doubt, even the slightest, he
should hold his tongue. I will say more; if there is any
uncertainty, my opinion is that the accused, and not the prosecution,
should have the benefit of it."

This was certainly not the detective's opinion, but he was cautious
not to say so. He had followed Dr. Gendron with anxious attention,
and the contraction of his face showed the travail of his mind.

"It seems to me now possible," said he, "to determine how and where
the countess was struck."

The doctor had covered the body, and Plantat had replaced the lamp
on the little table. Both asked M. Lecoq to explain himself.

"Very well," resumed the detective. "The direction of the wound
proves to me that the countess was in her chamber taking tea,
seated, her body inclined a little forward, when she was murdered.
The assassin came up behind her with his arm raised; he chose his
position coolly, and struck her with terrific force. The violence
of the blow was such that the victim fell forward, and in the fall,
her forehead struck the end of the table; she thus gave herself the
only fatal blow which we have discovered on the head."

M. Gendron looked from one to the other of his companions, who
exchanged significant glances. Perhaps he suspected the game they
were playing.

"The crime must evidently have been committed as you say," said he.

There was another embarrassing silence. M. Lecoq's obstinate
muteness annoyed Plantat, who finally asked him:

"Have you seen all you want to see?"

"All for to-day; I shall need daylight for what remains. I am
confident, indeed, that with the exception of one detail that
worries me, I have the key to the mystery."

"We must be here, then, early to-morrow morning."

"I will be here at any hour you will name."

"Your search finished, we will go together to Monsieur Domini, at
Corbeil."

"I am quite at your orders."

There was another pause.

M. Plantat perceived that M. Lecoq guessed his thoughts; and did
not understand the detective's capriciousness; a little while before,
he had been very loquacious, but now held his tongue. M. Lecoq, on
the other hand, was delighted to puzzle the old man a little, and
formed the intention to astonish him the next morning, by giving
him a report which should faithfully reflect all his ideas.
Meanwhile he had taken out his lozenge-box, and was intrusting a
hundred secrets to the portrait.

"Well," said the doctor, "there remains nothing more to be done
except to retire."

"I was just going to ask permission to do so," said M. Lecoq. "I
have been fasting ever since morning."

M. Plantat now took a bold step.

"Shall you return to Paris to-night, Monsieur Lecoq?" asked he,
abruptly.

"No; I came prepared to remain over-night; I've brought my
night-gown, which I left, before coming up here, at the little
roadside inn below. I shall sup and sleep there."

"You will be poorly off at the Faithful Grenadier," said the old
justice of the peace. "You will do better to come and dine with me."

"You are really too good, Monsieur--"

"Besides, we have a good deal to say, and so you must remain the
night with me; we will get your night-clothes as we pass along."

M. Lecoq bowed, flattered and grateful for the invitation.

"And I shall carry you off, too, Doctor," continued M. Plantat,
"whether you will or not. Now, don't say no. If you insist on
going to Corbeil to-night, we will carry you over after supper."

The operation of fixing the seals was speedily concluded; narrow
strips of parchment, held by large waxen seals, were affixed to all
the doors, as well as to the bureau in which the articles gathered
for the purposes of the investigation had been deposited.



                                IX

Despite the haste they made, it was nearly ten o'clock when M.
Plantat and his guests quitted the chateau of Valfeuillu. Instead
of taking the high road, they cut across a pathway which ran along
beside Mme. de Lanascol's park, and led diagonally to the wire
bridge; this was the shortest way to the inn where M. Lecoq had left
his slight baggage. As they went along, M. Plantat grew anxious
about his good friend, M. Courtois.

"What misfortune can have happened to him?" said he to Dr. Gendron.

"Thanks to the stupidity of that rascal of a servant, we learned
nothing at all. This letter from Mademoiselle Laurence has caused
the trouble, somehow."

They had now reached the Faithful Grenadier.

A big red-faced fellow was smoking a long pipe at the door, his
back against the house. He was talking with a railway employee.
It was the landlord.

"Well, Monsieur Plantat," he cried, "what a horrible affair this is!
Come in, come in; there are several folks in the hall who saw the
assassins. What a villain old Bertaud is! And that Guespin; ah, I
would willingly trudge to Corbeil to see them put up the scaffold!"

"A little charity, Master Lenfant; you forget that both these men
were among your best customers."

Master Lenfant was confused by this reply; but his native impudence
soon regained the mastery.

"Fine customers, parbleu!" he answered, "this thief of a Guespin
has got thirty francs of mine which I'll never see again."

"Who knows?" said Plantat, ironically. "Besides, you are going to
make more than that to-night, there's so much company at the Orcival
festival."

During this brief conversation, M. Lecoq entered the inn for his
night-gown. His office being no longer a secret, he was not now
welcomed as when he was taken for a simple retired haberdasher.
Mme. Lenfant, a lady who had no need of her husband's aid to show
penniless sots the door, scarcely deigned to answer him. When he
asked how much he owed, she responded, with a contemptuous gesture,
"Nothing." When he returned to the door, his night-gown in hand,
M. Plantat said:

"Let's hurry, for I want to get news of our poor mayor."

The three hastened their steps, and the old justice of the peace,
oppressed with sad presentiments, and trying to combat them,
continued:

"If anything had happened at the mayor's, I should certainly have
been informed of it by this time. Perhaps Laurence has written that
she is ill, or a little indisposed. Madame Courtois, who is the best
woman in the world, gets excited about nothing; she probably wanted
to send her husband for Laurence at once. You'll see that it's some
false alarm."

No; some catastrophe had happened. A number of the village women
were standing before the mayor's gate. Baptiste, in the midst of
the group, was ranting and gesticulating. But at M. Plantat's
approach, the women fled like a troop of frightened gulls. The old
man's unexpected appearance annoyed the placid Baptiste not a little,
for he was interrupted, by the sudden departure of his audience, in
the midst of a superb oratorical flight. As he had a great fear of
M. Plantat, however, he dissimulated his chagrin with his habitual
smile.

"Ah, sir," cried he, when M. Plantat was three steps off, "ah, what
an affair! I was going for you--"

"Does your master wish me?"

"More than you can think. He ran so fast from Valfeuillu here, that
I could scarcely keep up with him. He's not usually fast, you know;
but you ought to have seen him this time, fat as he is!"

M. Plantat stamped impatiently.

"Well, we got here at last," resumed the man, "and monsieur rushed
into the drawing-room, where he found madame sobbing like a Magdalene.
He was so out of breath he could scarcely speak. His eyes stuck
out of his head, and he stuttered like this--'What's-the-matter?
What's the-matter?' Madame, who couldn't speak either, held out
mademoiselle's letter, which she had in her hand."

The three auditors were on coals of fire; the rogue perceived it,
and spoke more and more slowly.

"Then monsieur took the letter, went to the window, and at a glance
read it through. He cried out hoarsely, thus: 'Oh!' then he went
to beating the air with his hands, like a swimming dog; then he
walked up and down and fell, pouf! like a bag, his face on the floor.
That was all."

"Is he dead?" cried all three in the same breath.

"Oh, no; you shall see," responded Baptiste, with a placid smile.

M. Lecoq was a patient man, but not so patient as you might think.
Irritated by the manner of Baptiste's recital, he put down his
bundle, seized the man's arm with his right hand, while with the
left he whisked a light flexible cane, and said:

"Look here, fellow, I want you to hurry up, you know."

That was all he said; the servant was terribly afraid of this little
blond man, with a strange voice, and a fist harder than a vice. He
went on very rapidly this time, his eye fixed on M. Lecoq's rattan.

"Monsieur had an attack of vertigo. All the house was in confusion;
everybody except I, lost their heads; it occurred to me to go for
a doctor, and I started off for one--for Doctor Gendron, whom I
knew to be at the chateau, or the doctor near by, or the apothecary
--it mattered not who. By good luck, at the street corner, I came
upon Robelot, the bone-setter--'Come, follow me,' said I. He did
so; sent away those who were tending monsieur, and bled him in both
arms. Shortly after, he breathed, then he opened his eyes, and
then he spoke. Now he is quite restored, and is lying on one of
the drawing-room lounges, crying with all his might. He told me
he wanted to see Monsieur Plantat, and I--"

"And--Mademoiselle Laurence?" asked M. Plantat, with a trembling
voice. Baptiste assumed a tragic pose.

"Ah, gentlemen," said he, "don't ask me about her--'tis
heartrending!"

The doctor and M. Plantat heard no more, but hurried in; M. Lecoq
followed, having confided his night-gown to Baptiste, with, "Carry
that to M. Plantat's--quick!"

Misfortune, when it enters a house, seems to leave its fatal imprint
on the very threshold. Perhaps it is not really so, but it is the
feeling which those who are summoned to it experience. As the
physician and the justice of the peace traversed the court-yard,
this house, usually so gay and hospitable, presented a mournful
aspect. Lights were seen coming and going in the upper story.
Mlle. Lucile, the mayor's youngest daughter, had had a nervous
attack, and was being tended. A young girl, who served as Laurence's
maid, was seated in the vestibule, on the lower stair, weeping
bitterly. Several domestics were there also, frightened, motionless,
not knowing what to do in all this fright. The drawing-room door
was wide open; the room was dimly lighted by two candles; Mme.
Courtois lay rather than sat in a large arm-chair near the fireplace.
Her husband was reclining on a lounge near the windows at the rear
of the apartment. They had taken off his coat and had torn away
his shirt-sleeves and flannel vest, when he was to be bled. There
were strips of cotton wrapped about his naked arms. A small man,
habited like a well-to-do Parisian artisan, stood near the door,
with an embarrassed expression of countenance. It was Robelot, who
had remained, lest any new exigency for his services should arise.

The entrance of his friend startled M. Courtois from the sad stupor
into which he had been plunged. He got up and staggered into the
arms of the worthy Plantat, saying, in a broken voice:

"Ah, my friend, I am most miserable--most wretched!"

The poor mayor was so changed as scarcely to be recognizable. He
was no longer the happy man of the world, with smiling face, firm
look, the pride of which betrayed plainly his self-importance and
prosperity. In a few hours he had grown twenty years older. He
was broken, overwhelmed; his thoughts wandered in a sea of
bitterness. He could only repeat, vacantly, again and again:

"Wretched! most wretched!"

M. Plantat was the right sort of a friend for such a time. He led
M. Courtois back to the sofa and sat down beside him, and taking
his hand in his own, forced him to calm his grief. He recalled to
him that his wife, the companion of his life, remained to him, to
mourn the dear departed with him. Had he not another daughter to
cherish? But the poor man was in no state to listen to all this.

"Ah, my friend," said he shuddering, "you do not know all! If she
had died here, in the midst of us, comforted by our tender care,
my despair would be great; but nothing compared with that which
now tortures me. If you only knew--"

M. Plantat rose, as if terrified by what he was about to hear.

"But who can tell," pursued the wretched man, "where or how she
died? Oh, my Laurence, was there no one to hear your last agony
and save you? What has become of you, so young and happy?"

He rose, shaking with anguish and cried:

"Let us go, Plantat, and look for her at the Morgue." Then he fell
back again, muttering the lugubrious word, "the Morgue."

The witnesses of this scene remained, mute, motionless, rigid,
holding their breath. The stifled sobs and groans of Mme. Courtois
and the little maid alone broke the silence.

"You know that I am your friend--your best friend," said M. Plantat,
softly; "confide in me--tell me all."

"Well," commenced M. Courtois, "know"--but his tears choked his
utterance, and he could not go on. Holding out a crumpled letter,
wet with tears, he stammered:

"Here, read--it is her last letter."

M. Plantat approached the table, and, not without difficulty, read:

  "DEARLY BELOVED PARENTS--

  "Forgive, forgive, I beseech you, your unhappy
  daughter, the distress she is about to cause you. Alas!
  I have been very guilty, but the punishment is terrible!
  In a day of wandering, I forgot all--the example and
  advice of my dear, sainted mother, my most sacred
  duty, and your tenderness. I could not, no, I could not
  resist him who wept before me in swearing for me an
  eternal love--and who has abandoned me. Now, all
  is over; I am lost, lost. I cannot long conceal my
  dreadful sin. Oh, dear parents, do not curse me. I
  am your daughter--I cannot bear to face contempt, I
  will not survive my dishonor.

  "When this letter reaches you, I shall have ceased to
  live; I shall have quitted my aunt's, and shall have
  gone far away, where no one will find me. There I
  shall end my misery and despair. Adieu, then, oh,
  beloved parents, adieu! I would that I could, for the
  last time, beg your forgiveness on my knees. My dear
  mother, my good father, have pity on a poor wanderer;
  pardon me, forgive me. Never let my sister Lucile
  know. Once more, adieu--I have courage--honor
  commands! For you is the last prayer and supreme
  thought of your poor            LAURENCE."


Great tears rolled silently down the old man's cheeks as he
deciphered this sad letter. A cold, mute, terrible anger shrivelled
the muscles of his face. When he had finished, he said, in a hoarse
voice:

"Wretch!"

M. Courtois heard this exclamation.

"Ah, yes, wretch indeed," he cried, "this vile villain who has crept
in in the dark, and stolen my dearest treasure, my darling child!
Alas, she knew nothing of life. He whispered into her ear those
fond words which make the hearts of all young girls throb; she had
faith in him; and now he abandons her. Oh, if I knew who he was
--if I knew--"

He suddenly interrupted himself. A ray of intelligence had just
illumined the abyss of despair into which he had fallen.

"No," said he, "a young girl is not thus abandoned, when she has a
dowry of a million, unless for some good reason. Love passes away;
avarice remains. The infamous wretch was not free--he was married.
He could only be the Count de Tremorel. It is he who has killed
my child."

The profound silence which succeeded proved to him that his
conjecture was shared by those around him.

"I was blind, blind!" cried he. "For I received him at my house,
and called him my friend. Oh, have I not a right to a terrible
vengeance?"

But the crime at Valfeuillu occurred to him; and it was with a tone
of deep disappointment that he resumed:

"And not to be able to revenge myself! I could riot, then, kill
him with my own hands, see him suffer for hours, hear him beg for
mercy! He is dead. He has fallen under the blows of assassins,
less vile than himself."

The doctor and M. Plantat strove to comfort the unhappy man; but
he went on, excited more and more by the sound of his own voice.

"Oh, Laurence, my beloved, why did you not confide in me? You
feared my anger, as if a father would ever cease to love his child.
Lost, degraded, fallen to the ranks of the vilest, I would still
love thee. Were you not my own? Alas! you knew not a father's
heart. A father does not pardon; he forgets. You might still have
been happy, my lost love."

He wept; a thousand memories of the time when Laurence was a child
and played about his knees recurred to his mind; it seemed as though
it were but yesterday.

"Oh, my daughter, was it that you feared the world--the wicked,
hypocritical world? But we should have gone away. I should have
left Orcival, resigned my office. We should have settled down far
away, in the remotest corner of France, in Germany, in Italy. With
money all is possible. All? No! I have millions, and yet my
daughter has killed herself."

He concealed his face in his hands; his sobs choked him.

"And not to know what has become of her!" he continued. "Is it not
frightful? What death did she choose? You remember, Doctor, and
you, Plantat, her beautiful curls about her pure forehead, her great,
trembling eyes, her long curved lashes? Her smile--do you know, it
was the sun's ray of my life. I so loved her voice, and her mouth
so fresh, which gave me such warm, loving kisses. Dead! Lost! And
not to know what has become of her sweet form--perhaps abandoned in
the mire of some river. Do you recall the countess's body this
morning? It will kill me! Oh, my child--that I might see her one
hour--one minute--that I might give her cold lips one last kiss!"

M. Lecoq strove in vain to prevent a warm tear which ran from his
eyes, from falling. M. Lecoq was a stoic on principle, and by
profession. But the desolate words of the poor father overcame
him. Forgetting that his emotion would be seen, he came out from
the shadow where he had stood, and spoke to M. Courtois:

"I, Monsieur Lecoq, of the detectives, give you my honor that I
will find Mademoiselle Laurence's body."

The poor mayor grasped desperately at this promise, as a drowning
man to a straw.

"Oh, yes, we will find her, won't we? You will help me. They say
that to the police nothing is impossible--that they see and know
everything. We will see what has become of my child."

He went toward M. Lecoq, and taking him by the hand:

"Thank you," added he, "you are a good man. I received you ill a
while ago, and judged you with foolish pride: forgive me. We will
succeed--you will see, we will aid each other, we will put all the
police on the scent, we will search through France, money will do
it--I have it--I have millions--take them--"

His energies were exhausted: he staggered and fell heavily on the
lounge.

"He must not remain here long," muttered the doctor in Plantat's
ear, "he must get to bed. A brain fever, after such excitement,
would not surprise me."

The old justice of the peace at once approached Mme. Courtois, who
still reclined in the arm-chair, apparently having seen or heard
nothing of what had passed, and oblivious in her grief.

"Madame!" said he, "Madame!"

She shuddered and rose, with a wandering air.

"It is my fault," said she, "my miserable fault! A mother should
read her daughter's heart as in a book. I did not suspect Laurence's
secret; I am a most unhappy mother."

The doctor also came to her.

"Madame," said he, in an imperious tone, "your husband must be
persuaded to go to bed at once. His condition is very serious, and
a little sleep is absolutely necessary. I will have a potion
prepared--"

"Oh, my God!" cried the poor lady, wringing her hands, in the fear
of a new misfortune, as bitter as the first; which, however,
restored her to her presence of mind. She called the servants, who
assisted the mayor to regain his chamber. Mme. Courtois also
retired, followed by the doctor. Three persons only remained in
the drawing-room--Plantat, Lecoq, and Robelot, who still stood
near the door.

"Poor Laurence!" murmured Plantat. "Poor girl!"

"It seems to me that her father is most to be pitied," remarked M.
Lecoq. "Such a blow, at his age, may be more than he can bear.
Even should he recover, his life is broken."

"I had a sort of presentiment," said the other, "that this misfortune
would come. I had guessed Laurence's secret, but I guessed it too
late."

"And you did not try--"

"What? In a delicate case like this, when the honor of a family
depends on a word, one must be circumspect. What could I do? Put
Courtois on his guard? Clearly not. He would have refused to
believe me. He is one of those men who will listen to nothing, and
whom the brutal fact alone can undeceive."

"You might have dealt with the Count de Tremorel."

"The count would have denied all. He would have asked what right
I had to interfere in his affairs."

"But the girl?"

M. Plantat sighed heavily.

"Though I detest mixing up with what does not concern me, I did try
one day to talk with her. With infinite precaution and delicacy,
and without letting her see that I knew all, I tried to show her
the abyss near which she was drawing."

"And what did she reply?"

"Nothing. She laughed and joked, as women who have a secret which
they wish to conceal, do. Besides, I could not get a quarter of
an hour alone with her, and it was necessary to act, I knew--for I
was her best friend--before committing this imprudence of speaking
to her. Not a day passed that she did not come to my garden and
cull my rarest flowers--and I would not, look you, give one of my
flowers to the Pope himself. She had instituted me her florist in
ordinary. For her sake I collected my briars of the Cape--"

He was talking on so wide of his subject that M. Lecoq could not
repress a roguish smile. The old man was about to proceed when he
heard a noise in the hall, and looking up he observed Robelot for
the first time. His face at once betrayed his great annoyance.

"You were there, were you?" he said.

The bone-setter smiled obsequiously.

"Yes, Monsieur, quite at your service."

"You have been listening, eh?"

"Oh, as to that, I was waiting to see if Madame Courtois had any
commands for me."

A sudden reflection occurred to M. Plantat; the expression of his
eye changed. He winked at M. Lecoq to call his attention, and
addressing the bone-setter in a milder tone, said: "Come here,
Master Robelot."

Lecoq had read the man at a glance. Robelot was a small,
insignificant-looking man, but really of herculean strength. His
hair, cut short behind, fell over his large, intelligent forehead.
His eyes shone with the fire of covetousness, and expressed, when
he forgot to guard them, a cynical boldness. A sly smile was always
playing about his thin lips, beneath which there was no beard. A
little way off, with his slight figure and his beardless face, he
looked like a Paris gamin--one of those little wretches who are
the essence of all corruption, whose imagination is more soiled
than the gutters where they search for lost pennies.

Robelot advanced several steps, smiling and bowing. "Perhaps,"
said he, "Monsieur has, by chance, need of me?"

"None whatever, Master Robelot, I only wish to congratulate you on
happening in so apropos, to bleed Monsieur Courtois. Your lancet
has, doubtless, saved his life."

"It's quite possible."

"Monsieur Courtois is generous--he will amply recompense this
great service."

"Oh, I shall ask him nothing. Thank God, I want nobody's help.
If I am paid my due, I am content."

"I know that well enough; you are prosperous--you ought to be
satisfied."

M. Plantat's tone was friendly, almost paternal. He was deeply
interested, evidently, in Robelot's prosperity.

"Satisfied!" resumed the bone-setter. "Not so much as you might
think. Life is very dear for poor people."

"But, haven't you just purchased an estate near d'Evry?"

"Yes."

"And a nice place, too, though a trifle damp. Happily you have
stone to fill it in with, on the land that you bought of the widow
Frapesle."

Robelot had never seen the old justice of the peace so talkative,
so familiar; he seemed a little surprised.

"Three wretched pieces of land!" said he.

"Not so bad as you talk about. Then you've also bought something
in the way of mines, at auction, haven't you?"

"Just a bunch of nothing at all."

"True, but it pays well. It isn't so bad, you see, to be a doctor
without a diploma."

Robelot had been several times prosecuted for illegal practicing;
so he thought he ought to protest against this.

"If I cure people," said he, "I'm not paid for it."

"Then your trade in herbs isn't what has enriched you."

The conversation was becoming a cross-examination. The bone-setter
was beginning to be restless.

"Oh, I make something out of the herbs," he answered.

"And as you are thrifty, you buy land."

"I've also got some cattle and horses, which bring in something.
I raise horses, cows, and sheep."

"Also without diploma?"

Robelot waxed disdainful.

"A piece of parchment does not make science. I don't fear the men
of the schools. I study animals in the fields and the stable,
without bragging. I haven't my equal for raising them, nor for
knowing their diseases."

M. Plantat's tone became more and more winning.

"I know that you are a bright fellow, full of experience. Doctor
Gendron, with whom you served, was praising your cleverness a
moment ago."

The bone-setter shuddered, not so imperceptibly as to escape
Plantat, who continued: "Yes, the good doctor said he never had
so intelligent an assistant. 'Robelot,' said he, 'has such an
aptitude for chemistry, and so much taste for it besides, that
he understands as well as I many of the most delicate operations.'"

"Parbleu! I did my best, for I was well paid, and I was always fond
of learning."

"And you were an apt scholar at Doctor Gendron's, Master Robelot;
he makes some very curious studies. His work and experience on
poisons are above all remarkable."

Robelot's uneasiness became apparent; his look wavered.

"Yes;" returned he, "I have seen some strange experiments."

"Well, you see, you may think yourself lucky--for the doctor is
going to have a splendid chance to study this sort of thing, and
he will undoubtedly want you to assist him."

But Robelot was too shrewd not to have already guessed that this
cross-examination had a purpose. What was M. Plantat after? he
asked himself, not without a vague terror. And, going over in
his mind the questions which had been asked, and the answers he had
given, and to what these questions led, he trembled. He thought
to escape further questioning by saying:

"I am always at my old master's orders when he needs me."

"He'll need you, be assured," said M. Plantat, who added, in a
careless tone, which his rapid glance at Robelot belied, "The
interest attaching to this case will be intense, and the task
difficult. Monsieur Sauvresy's body is to be disinterred."

Robelot was certainly prepared for something strange, and he was
armed with all his audacity. But the name of Sauvresy fell upon
his head like the stroke of a club, and he stammered, in a choked
voice:

"Sauvresy!"

M. Plantat had already turned his head, and continued in an
indifferent tone:

"Yes, Sauvresy is to be exhumed. It is suspected that his death
was not wholly a natural one. You see, justice always has its
suspicions."

Robelot leaned against the wall so as not to fall. M. Plantat
proceeded:

"So Doctor Gendron has been applied to. He has, as you know, found
reactive drugs which betray the presence of an alkaloid, whatever
it may be, in the substances submitted to him for analysis. He has
spoken to me of a certain sensitive paper--"

Appealing to all his energy, Robelot forced himself to stand up and
resume a calm countenance.

"I know Doctor Gendron's process," said he, "but I don't see who
could be capable of the suspicions of which you speak."

"I think there are more than suspicions," resumed M. Plantat.
"Madame de Tremorel, you know, has been murdered: her papers have,
of course, been examined; letters have been found, with very
damaging revelations, receipts, and so on."

Robelot, apparently, was once more self-possessed; he forced himself
to answer:

"Bast! let us hope that justice is in the wrong."

Then, such was this man's self-control, despite a nervous trembling
which shook his whole body as the wind does the leaves, that he
added, constraining his thin lips to form a smile:

"Madame Courtois does not come down; I am waited for at home, and
will drop in again to-morrow. Good-evening, gentlemen."

He walked away, and soon the sand in the court was heard creaking
with his steps. As he went, he staggered like a drunken man.

M. Lecoq went up to M. Plantat, and taking off his hat:

"I surrender," said he, "and bow to you; you are great, like my
master, the great Tabaret."

The detective's amour-propre was clearly aroused; his professional
zeal was inspired; he found himself before a great crime--one of
those crimes which triple the sale of the Gazette of the Courts.
Doubtless many of its details escaped him: he was ignorant of the
starting-point; but he saw the way clearing before him. He had
surprised Plantat's theory, and had followed the train of his
thought step by step; thus he discovered the complications of the
crime which seemed so simple to M. Domini. His subtle mind had
connected together all the circumstances which had been disclosed
to him during the day, and now he sincerely admired the old
justice of the peace. As he gazed at his beloved portrait, he
thought, "Between the two of us--this old fox and I--we will
unravel the whole web." He would not, however, show himself to be
inferior to his companion.

"Monsieur," said he, "while you were questioning this rogue, who
will be very useful to us, I did not lose any time. I've been
looking about, under the furniture and so on, and have found this
slip of paper."

"Let's see."

"It is the envelope of the young lady's letter. Do you know where
her aunt, whom she was visiting, lives?"

"At Fontainebleau, I believe."

"Ah; well, this envelope is stamped 'Paris,' Saint-Lazare branch
post-office. I know this stamp proves nothing--"

"It is, of course, an indication."

"That is not all; I have read the letter itself--it was here on
the table."

M. Plantat frowned involuntarily.

"It was, perhaps, a liberty," resumed M. Lecoq, "but the end
justifies the means. Well, you have read this letter; but have you
studied it, examined the hand-writing, weighed the words, remarked
the context of the sentences?"

"Ah," cried Plantat, "I was not mistaken then--you had the same
idea strike you that occurred to me!"

And, in the energy of his excitement he seized the detective's hands
and pressed them as if he were an old friend. They were about to
resume talking when a step was heard on the staircase; and presently
Dr. Gendron appeared.

"Courtois is better," said he, "he is in a doze, and will recover."

"We have nothing more, then, to keep us here," returned M. Plantat.
"Let's be off. Monsieur Lecoq must be half dead with hunger."

As they went away, M. Lecoq slipped Laurence's letter, with the
envelope, into his pocket.



                                 X

M. Plantat's house was small and narrow; a philosopher's house.
Three large rooms on the ground-floor, four chambers in the first
story, an attic under the roof for the servants, composed all its
apartments. Everywhere the carelessness of a man who has withdrawn
from the world into himself, for years, ceasing to have the least
interest in the objects which surround him, was apparent. The
furniture was shabby, though it had been elegant; the mouldings
had come off, the clocks had ceased to keep time, the chairs showed
the stuffing of their cushions, the curtains, in places, were faded
by the sun. The library alone betrayed a daily care and attention.

Long rows of books in calf and gilt were ranged on the carved oaken
shelves, a movable table near the fireplace contained M. Plantat's
favorite books, the discreet friends of his solitude. A spacious
conservatory, fitted with every accessory and convenience, was his
only luxury. In it flourished one hundred and thirty-seven
varieties of briars.

Two servants, the widow Petit, cook and house-keeper, and Louis,
gardener, inhabited the house. If they did not make it a noisy one,
it was because Plantat, who talked little, detested also to hear
others talk. Silence was there a despotic law. It was very hard
for Mme. Petit, especially at first. She was very talkative, so
talkative that when she found no one to chat with, she went to
confession; to confess was to chat. She came near leaving the place
twenty times; but the thought of an assured pension restrained her.
Gradually she became accustomed to govern her tongue, and to this
cloistral silence. But she revenged herself outside for the
privations of the household, and regained among the neighbors the
time lost at home.

She was very much wrought up on the day of the murder. At eleven
o'clock, after going out for news, she had prepared monsieur's
dinner; but he did not appear. She waited one, two hours, five
hours, keeping her water boiling for the eggs; no monsieur. She
wanted to send Louis to look for him, but Louis being a poor talker
and not curious, asked her to go herself. The house was besieged
by the female neighbors, who, thinking that Mme. Petit ought to be
well posted, came for news; no news to give.

Toward five o'clock, giving up all thought of breakfast, she began
to prepare for dinner. But when the village bell struck eight
o'clock, monsieur had not made his appearance. At nine, the good
woman was beside herself, and began to scold Louis, who had just
come in from watering the garden, and, seated at the kitchen table,
was soberly eating a plate of soup.

The bell rung.

"Ah, there's monsieur, at last."

No, it was not monsieur, but a little boy, whom M. Plantat had sent
from Valfeuillu to apprise Mme. Petit that he would soon return,
bringing with him two guests who would dine and sleep at the house.
The worthy woman nearly fainted. It was the first time that M.
Plantat had invited anyone to dinner for five years. There was
some mystery at the bottom of it--so thought Mme. Petit, and her
anger doubled with her curiosity.

"To order a dinner at this hour," she grumbled. "Has he got
common-sense, then?" But reflecting that time pressed, she
continued:

"Go along, Louis; this is not the moment for two feet to stay in
one shoe. Hurry up, and wring three chickens' heads; see if there
ain't some ripe grapes in the conservatory; bring on some preserves;
fetch some wine from the cellar!" The dinner was well advanced
when the bell rung again. This time Baptiste appeared, in exceeding
bad humor, bearing M. Lecoq's night-gown.

"See here," said he to the cook, "what the person, who is with your
master, gave me to bring here."

"What person?"

"How do I know? He's a spy sent down from Paris about this
Valfeuillu affair; not much good, probably--ill-bred--a brute--and
a wretch."

"But he's not alone with monsieur?"

"No; Doctor Gendron is with them."

Mme. Petit burned to get some news out of Baptiste; but Baptiste
also burned to get back and know what was taking place at his
master's--so off he went, without having left any news behind.

An hour or more passed, and Mme. Petit had just angrily declared
to Louis that she was going to throw the dinner out the window,
when her master at last appeared, followed by his guests. They had
not exchanged a word after they left the mayor's. Aside from the
fatigues of the evening, they wished to reflect, and to resume their
self-command. Mme. Petit found it useless to question their faces
--they told her nothing. But she did not agree with Baptiste about
M. Lecoq: she thought him good-humored, and rather silly. Though
the party was less silent at the dinner-table, all avoided, as if
by tacit consent, any allusion to the events of the day. No one
would ever have thought that they had just been witnesses of, almost
actors in, the Valfeuillu drama, they were so calm, and talked so
glibly of indifferent things. From time to time, indeed, a question
remained unanswered, or a reply came tardily; but nothing of the
sensations and thoughts, which were concealed beneath the uttered
commonplaces, appeared on the surface.

Louis passed to and fro behind the diners, his white cloth on his
arm, carving and passing the wine. Mme. Petit brought in the
dishes, and came in thrice as often as was necessary, her ears wide
open, leaving the door ajar as often as she dared. Poor woman!
she had prepared an excellent dinner, and nobody paid any attention
to it.

M. Lecoq was fond of tit-bits; yet, when Louis placed on the table
a dish of superb grapes--quite out of season--his mouth did not
so much as expand into a smile. Dr. Gendron would have been
puzzled to say what he had eaten. The dinner was nearly over, when
M. Plantat began to be annoyed by the constraint which the presence
of the servants put upon the party. He called to the cook:

"You will give us our coffee in the library, and may then retire,
as well as Louis."

"But these gentlemen do not know their rooms," insisted Mme. Petit,
whose eavesdropping projects were checked by this order. "They will,
perhaps, need something."

"I will show them their rooms," said M. Plantat, dryly. "And if
they need anything, I shall be here."

They went into the library. M. Plantat brought out a box of cigars
and passed them round:

"It will be healthful to smoke a little before retiring."

M. Lecoq lit an aromatic weed, and remarked:

"You two may go to bed if you like; I am condemned, I see, to a
sleepless night. But before I go to writing, I wish to ask you a
few things, Monsieur Plantat."

M. Plantat bowed in token of assent.

"We must resume our conversation," continued the detective, "and
compare our inferences. All our lights are not too much to throw
a little daylight upon this affair, which is one of the darkest I
have ever met with. The situation is dangerous, and time presses.
On our acuteness depends the fate of several innocent persons, upon
whom rest very serious charges. We have a theory: but Monsieur
Domini also has one, and his, let us confess, is based upon material
facts, while ours rests upon very disputable sensations and logic."

"We have more than sensations," responded M. Plantat.

"I agree with you," said the doctor, "but we must prove it."

"And I will prove it, parbleu," cried M. Lecoq, eagerly. "The
affair is complicated and difficult--so much the better. Eh!
If it were simple, I would go back to Paris instanter, and to-morrow
I would send you one of my men. I leave easy riddles to infants.
What I want is the inexplicable enigmas, so as to unravel it; a
struggle, to show my strength; obstacles, to conquer them."

M. Plantat and the doctor looked steadily at the speaker. He was
as if transfigured. It was the same yellow-haired and whiskered
man, in a long overcoat: yet the voice, the physiognomy, the very
features, had changed. His eyes shone with the fire of his
enthusiasm, his voice was metallic and vibrating, his imperious
gesture affirmed the audacity and energy of his resolution.

"If you think, my friends," pursued he, "that they don't manufacture
detectives like me at so much a year, you are right. When I was
twenty years old, I took service with an astronomer, as his
calculator, after a long course of study. He gave me my breakfasts
and seventy francs a month; by means of which I dressed well, and
covered I know not how many square feet with figures daily."

M. Lecoq puffed vigorously at his cigar a moment, casting a curious
glance at M. Plantat. Then he resumed:

"Well, you may imagine that I wasn't the happiest of men. I forgot
to mention that I had two little vices: I loved the women, and I
loved play. All are not perfect. My salary seemed too small, and
while I added up my columns of figures, I was looking about for a
way to make a rapid fortune. There is, indeed, but one means; to
appropriate somebody else's money, shrewdly enough not to be found
out. I thought about it day and night. My mind was fertile in
expedients, and I formed a hundred projects, each more practicable
than the others. I should frighten you if I were to tell you half
of what I imagined in those days. If many thieves of my calibre
existed, you'd have to blot the word 'property' out of the dictionary.
Precautions, as well as safes, would be useless. Happily for men
of property, criminals are idiots."

"What is he coming to?" thought the doctor.

"One day, I became afraid of my own thoughts. I had just been
inventing a little arrangement by which a man could rob any banker
whatever of 200,000 francs without any more danger or difficulty
than I raise this cup. So I said to myself, 'Well, my boy, if this
goes on a little longer, a moment will come when, from the idea,
you will naturally proceed to the practice.' Having, however, been
born an honest lad--a mere chance--and being determined to use
the talents which nature had given me, eight days afterward I bid
my astronomer good-morning, and went to the prefecture. My fear
of being a burglar drove me into the police."

"And you are satisfied with the exchange?" asked Dr. Gendron.

"I' faith, Doctor, my first regret is yet to come. I am happy,
because I am free to exercise my peculiar faculties with
usefulness to my race. Existence has an enormous attraction for
me, because I have still a passion which overrides all others
--curiosity."

The detective smiled, and continued:

"There are people who have a mania for the theatre. It is like my
own mania. Only, I can't understand how people can take pleasure
in the wretched display of fictions, which are to real life what
a tallow dip is to the sun. It seems to me monstrous that people
can be interested in sentiments which, though well represented, are
fictitious. What! can you laugh at the witticisms of a comedian,
whom you know to be the struggling father of a family? Can you
pity the sad fate of the poor actress who poisons herself, when you
know that on going out you will meet her on the boulevards? It's
pitiable!"

"Let's shut up the theatres," suggested Dr. Gendron.

"I am more difficult to please than the public," returned M. Lecoq.
"I must have veritable comedies, or real dramas. My theatre is
--society. My actors laugh honestly, or weep with genuine tears.
A crime is committed--that is the prologue; I reach the scene,
the first act begins. I seize at a glance the minutest shades of
the scenery. Then I try to penetrate the motives, I group the
characters, I link the episodes to the central fact, I bind in a
bundle all the circumstances. The action soon reaches the crisis,
the thread of my inductions conducts me to the guilty person; I
divine him, arrest him, deliver him up. Then comes the great scene;
the accused struggles, tries tricks, splits straws; but the judge,
armed with the arms I have forged for him, overwhelms the wretch;
he does not confess, but he is confounded. And how many secondary
personages, accomplices, friends, enemies, witnesses are grouped
about the principal criminal! Some are terrible, frightful, gloomy
--others grotesque. And you know not what the ludicrous in the
horrible is. My last scene is the court of assize. The prosecutor
speaks, but it is I who furnished his ideas; his phrases are
embroideries set around the canvas of my report. The president
submits his questions to the jury; what emotion! The fate of my
drama is being decided. The jury, perhaps, answers, 'Not guilty;'
very well, my piece was bad, I am hissed. If 'Guilty,' on the
contrary, the piece was good, I am applauded, and victorious. The
next day I can go and see my hero, and slapping him on the shoulder,
say to him, 'You have lost, old fellow, I am too much for you!'"

Was M. Lecoq in earnest now, or was he playing a part? What was
the object of this autobiography? Without appearing to notice the
surprise of his companions, he lit a fresh cigar; then, whether
designedly or not, instead of replacing the lamp with which he lit
it on the table, he put it on one corner of the mantel. Thus M.
Plantat's face was in full view, while that of M. Lecoq remained
in shadow.

"I ought to confess," he continued, "without false modesty, that I
have rarely been hissed. Like every man I have my Achilles heel.
I have conquered the demon of play, but I have not triumphed over
my passion for woman."

He sighed heavily, with the resigned gesture of a man who has chosen
his path. "It's this way. There is a woman, before whom I am but
an idiot. Yes, I the detective, the terror of thieves and murderers,
who have divulged the combinations of all the sharpers of all the
nations, who for ten years have swum amid vice and crime; who wash
the dirty linen of all the corruptions, who have measured the depths
of human infamy; I who know all, who have seen and heard all; I,
Lecoq, am before her, more simple and credulous than an infant. She
deceives me--I see it--and she proves that I have seen wrongly.
She lies--I know it, I prove it to her--and I believe her. It is
because this is one of those passions," he added, in a low,
mournful tone, "that age, far from extinguishing, only fans, and to
which the consciousness of shame and powerlessness adds fire. One
loves, and the certainty that he cannot be loved in return is one
of those griefs which you must have felt to know its depth. In a
moment of reason, one sees and judges himself; he says, no, it's
impossible, she is almost a child, I almost an old man. He says
this--but always, in the heart, more potent than reason, than will,
than experience, a ray of hope remains, and he says to himself,
'who knows--perhaps!' He awaits, what--a miracle? There are none,
nowadays. No matter, he hopes on."

M. Lecoq stopped, as if his emotion prevented his going on. M.
Plantat had continued to smoke mechanically, puffing the smoke out
at regular intervals; but his face seemed troubled, his glance was
unsteady, his hands trembled. He got up, took the lamp from the
mantel and replaced it on the table, and sat down again. The
significance of this scene at last struck Dr. Gendron.

In short, M. Lecoq, without departing widely from the truth, had
just attempted one of the most daring experiments of his repertoire,
and he judged it useless to go further. He knew now what he wished
to know. After a moment's silence, he shuddered as though awaking
from a dream, and pulling out his watch, said:

"Par le Dieu! How I chat on, while time flies!"

"And Guespin is in prison," remarked the doctor.

"We will have him out," answered the detective, "if, indeed, he is
innocent; for this time I have mastered the mystery, my romance,
if you wish, and without any gap. There is, however, one fact of
the utmost importance, that I by myself cannot explain."

"What?" asked M. Plantat.

"Is it possible that Monsieur de Tremorel had a very great interest
in finding something--a deed, a letter, a paper of some sort
--something of a small size, secreted in his own house?"

"Yes--that is possible," returned the justice of the peace.

"But I must know for certain."

M. Plantat reflected a moment.

"Well then," he went on, "I am sure, perfectly sure, that if Madame
de Tremorel had died suddenly, the count would have ransacked the
house to find a certain paper, which he knew to be in his wife's
possession, and which I myself have had in my hands."

"Then," said M. Lecoq, "there's the drama complete. On reaching
Valfeuillu, I, like you, was struck with the frightful disorder of
the rooms. Like you, I thought at first that this disorder was the
result of design. I was wrong; a more careful scrutiny has
convinced me of it. The assassin, it is true, threw everything
into disorder, broke the furniture, hacked the chairs in order to
make us think that some furious villains had been there. But amid
these acts of premeditated violence I have followed up the
involuntary traces of an exact, minute, and I may say patient search.
Everything seemed turned topsy-turvy by chance; articles were broken
open with the hatchet, which might have been opened with the hands;
drawers had been forced which were not shut, and the keys of which
were in the locks. Was this folly? No. For really no corner or
crevice where a letter might be hid has been neglected. The table
and bureau-drawers had been thrown here and there, but the narrow
spaces between the drawers had been examined--I saw proofs of it,
for I found the imprints of fingers on the dust which lay in these
spaces. The books had been thrown pell-mell upon the floor, but
every one of them had been handled, and some of them with such
violence that the bindings were torn off. We found the
mantel-shelves in their places, but every one had been lifted up.
The chairs were not hacked with a sword, for the mere purpose of
ripping the cloth--the seats were thus examined. My conviction
of the certainty that there had been a most desperate search, at
first roused my suspicions. I said to myself, 'The villains have
been looking for the money which was concealed; therefore they did
not belong to the household.'"

"But," observed the doctor, "they might belong to the house, and
yet not know the money was hidden; for Guespin--"

"Permit me," interrupted M. Lecoq, "I will explain myself. On the
other hand, I found indications that the assassin must have been
closely connected with Madame de Tremorel--her lover, or her
husband. These were the ideas that then struck me."

"And now?"

"Now," responded the detective, "with the certainty that something
besides booty might have been the object of the search, I am not
far from thinking that the guilty man is he whose body is being
searched for--the Count Hector de Tremorel."

M. Plantat and Dr. Gendron had divined the name; but neither had
as yet dared to utter his suspicions. They awaited this name of
Tremorel; and yet, pronounced as it was in the middle of the night,
in this great sombre room, by this at least strange personage, it
made them shudder with an indescribable fright.

"Observe," resumed M. Lecoq, "what I say; I believe it to be so.
In my eyes, the count's guilt is only as yet extremely probable.
Let us see if we three can reach the certainty of it. You see,
gentlemen, the inquest of a crime is nothing more nor less than
the solution of a problem. Given the crime, proved, patent, you
commence by seeking out all the circumstances, whether serious or
superficial; the details and the particulars. When these have been
carefully gathered, you classify them, and put them in their order
and date. You thus know the victim, the crime, and the
circumstances; it remains to find the third term of the problem,
that is, x, the unknown quantity--the guilty party. The task is
a difficult one, but not so difficult as is imagined. The object
is to find a man whose guilt explains all the circumstances, all
the details found--all, understand me. Find such a man, and it
is probable--and in nine cases out of ten, the probability becomes
a reality--that you hold the perpetrator of the crime."

So clear had been M. Lecoq's exposition, so logical his argument,
that his hearers could not repress an admiring exclamation:

"Very good! Very good!"

"Let us then examine together if the assumed guilt of the Count de
Tremorel explains all the circumstances of the crime at Valfeuillu."

He was about to continue when Dr. Gendron, who sat near the window,
rose abruptly.

"There is someone in the garden," said he.

All approached the window. The weather was glorious, the night
very clear, and a large open space lay before the library window;
they looked out, but saw no one.

"You are mistaken, Doctor," said Plantat, resuming his arm-chair.

M. Lecoq continued:

"Now let us suppose that, under the influence of certain events
that we will examine presently, Monsieur de Tremorel had made up
his mind to get rid of his wife. The crime once resolved upon, it
was clear that the count must have reflected, and sought out the
means of committing it with impunity; he must have weighed the
circumstances, and estimated the perils of his act. Let us admit,
also, that the events which led him to this extremity were such
that he feared to be disturbed, and that he also feared that a
search would be made for certain things, even should his wife die
a natural death."

"That is true," said M. Plantat, nodding his head.

"Monsieur de Tremorel, then, determined to kill his wife, brutally,
with a knife, with the idea of so arranging everything, as to make
it believed that he too had been assassinated; and he also decided
to endeavor to thrust suspicion on an innocent person, or at least,
an accomplice infinitely less guilty than he.

"He made up his mind in advance, in adopting this course, to
disappear, fly, conceal himself, change his personality; to suppress,
in short, Count Hector de Tremorel, and make for himself, under
another name, a new position and identity. These hypotheses, easily
admitted, suffice to explain the whole series of otherwise
inconsistent circumstances. They explain to us in the first place,
how it was that on the very night of the murder, there was a large
fortune in ready money at Valfeuillu; and this seems to me decisive.
Why, when a man receives sums like this, which he proposes to keep
by him, he conceals the fact as carefully as possible. Monsieur de
Tremorel had not this common prudence. He shows his bundles of
bank-notes freely, handles them, parades them; the servants see
them, almost touch them. He wants everybody to know and repeat
that there is a large sum in the house, easy to take, carry off,
and conceal. And what time of all times, does he choose for this
display? Exactly the moment when he knows, and everyone in the
neighborhood knows, that he is going to pass the night at the
chateau, alone with Madame de Tremorel.

"For he is aware that all his servants are invited, on the evening
of July 8th to the wedding of the former cook. So well aware of
it is he, that he defrays the wedding expenses, and himself names
the day. You will perhaps say that it was by chance that this
money was sent to Valfeuillu on the very night of the crime. At
the worst that might be admitted. But believe me, there was no
chance about it, and I will prove it. We will go to-morrow to the
count's banker, and will inquire whether the count did not ask him,
by letter or verbally, to send him these funds precisely on July 8th.
Well, if he says yes, if he shows us such a letter, or if he
declares that the money was called for in person, you will confess,
no doubt, that I have more than a probability in favor of my theory."

Both his hearers bowed in token of assent.

"So far, then, there is no objection."

"Not the least," said M. Plantat.

"My conjectures have also the advantage of shedding light on
Guespin's position. Honestly, his appearance is against him, and
justifies his arrest. Was he an accomplice or entirely innocent?
We certainly cannot yet decide. But it is a fact that he has fallen
into an admirably well-laid trap. The count, in selecting him for
his victim, took all care that every doubt possible should weigh
upon him. I would wager that Monsieur de Tremorel, who knew this
fellow's history, thought that his antecedents would add probability
to the suspicions against him, and would weigh with a terrible
weight in the scales of justice. Perhaps, too, he said to himself
that Guespin would be sure to prove his innocence in the end, and
he only wished to gain time to elude the first search. It is
impossible that we can be deceived. We know that the countess died
of the first blow, as if thunderstruck. She did not struggle;
therefore she could not have torn a piece of cloth off the assassin's
vest. If you admit Guespin's guilt, you admit that he was idiot
enough to put a piece of his vest in his victim's hand; you admit
that he was such a fool as to go and throw this torn and bloody vest
into the Seine, from a bridge, in a place where he might know search
would be made--and all this, without taking the common precaution
of attaching it to a stone to carry it to the bottom. That would
be absurd.

"To me, then, this piece of cloth, this smeared vest, indicate at
once Guespin's innocence and the count's guilt."

"But," objected Dr. Gendron, "if Guespin is innocent, why don't
he talk? Why don't he prove an alibi? How was it he had his purse
full of money?"

"Observe," resumed the detective, "that I don't say he is innocent;
we are still among the probabilities. Can't you suppose that the
count, perfidious enough to set a trap for his servant, was shrewd
enough to deprive him of every means of proving an alibi?"

"But you yourself deny the count's shrewdness."

"I beg your pardon; please hear me. The count's plan was excellent,
and shows a superior kind of perversity; the execution alone was
defective. This is because the plan was conceived and perfected
in safety, while when the crime had been committed, the murderer,
distressed, frightened at his danger, lost his coolness and only
half executed his project. But there are other suppositions. It
might be asked whether, while Madame de Tremorel was being murdered,
Guespin might not have been committing some other crime elsewhere."

This conjecture seemed so improbable to the doctor that he could
not avoid objecting to it. "Oh!" muttered he.

"Don't forget," replied Lecoq, "that the field of conjectures has
no bounds. Imagine whatever complication of events you may, I am
ready to maintain that such a complication has occurred or will
present itself. Lieuben, a German lunatic, bet that he would
succeed in turning up a pack of cards in the order stated in the
written agreement. He turned and turned ten hours per day for
twenty years. He had repeated the operation 4,246,028 times, when
he succeeded."

M. Lecoq was about to proceed with another illustration, when M.
Plantat interrupted him by a gesture.

"I admit your hypotheses; I think they are more than probable
--they are true."

M. Lecoq, as he spoke, paced up and down between the window and
the book-shelves, stopping at emphatic words, like a general who
dictates to his aides the plan of the morrow's battle. To his
auditors, he seemed a new man, with serious features, an eye bright
with intelligence, his sentences clear and concise--the Lecoq, in
short, which the magistrates who have employed his talents, would
recognize.

"Now," he resumed, "hear me. It is ten o'clock at night. No noise
without, the road deserted, the village lights extinguished, the
chateau servants away at Paris. The count and countess are alone
at Valfeuillu.

"They have gone to their bedroom.

"The countess has seated herself at the table where tea has been
served. The count, as he talks with her, paces up and down the
chamber.

"Madame de Tremorel has no ill presentiment; her husband, the past
few days, has been more amiable, more attentive than ever. She
mistrusts nothing, and so the count can approach her from behind,
without her thinking of turning her head.

"When she hears him coming up softly, she imagines that he is going
to surprise her with a kiss. He, meanwhile, armed with a long dagger,
stands beside his wife. He knows where to strike that the wound may
be mortal. He chooses the place at a glance; takes aim; strikes a
terrible blow--so terrible that the handle of the dagger imprints
itself on both sides of the wound. The countess falls without a
sound, bruising her forehead on the edge of the table, which is
overturned. Is not the position of the terrible wound below the
left shoulder thus explained--a wound almost vertical, its
direction being from right to left?"

The doctor made a motion of assent.

"And who, besides a woman's lover or her husband is admitted to her
chamber, or can approach her when she is seated without her turning
round?"

"That's clear," muttered M. Plantat.

"The countess is now dead," pursued M. Lecoq. "The assassin's first
emotion is one of triumph. He is at last rid of her who was his wife,
whom he hated enough to murder her, and to change his happy, splendid,
envied existence for a frightful life, henceforth without country,
friend, or refuge, proscribed by all nations, tracked by all the
police, punishable by the laws of all the world! His second thought
is of this letter or paper, this object of small size which he knows
to be in his wife's keeping, which he has demanded a hundred times,
which she would not give up to him, and which he must have."

"Add," interrupted M. Plantat, "that this paper was one of the
motives of the crime."

"The count thinks he knows where it is. He imagines that he can
put his hand on it at once. He is mistaken. He looks into all the
drawers and bureaus used by his wife--and finds nothing. He
searches every corner, he lifts up the shelves, overturns
everything in the chamber--nothing. An idea strikes him. Is this
letter under the mantel-shelf? By a turn of the arm he lifts it
--down the clock tumbles and stops. It is not yet half-past ten."

"Yes," murmured the doctor, "the clock betrays that."

"The count finds nothing under the mantel-shelf except the dust,
which has retained traces of his fingers. Then he begins to be
anxious. Where can this paper be, for which he has risked his life?
He grows angry. How search the locked drawers? The keys are on the
carpet--I found them among the debris of the tea service--but he
does not see them. He must have some implement with which to break
open everything. He goes downstairs for a hatchet. The drunkenness
of blood and vengeance is dissipated on the staircase; his terrors
begin. All the dark corners are peopled, now, with those spectres
which form the cortege of assassins; he is frightened, and hurries
on. He soon goes up again, armed with a large hatchet--that found
on the second story--and makes the pieces of wood fly about him.
He goes about like a maniac, rips up the furniture at hazard; but
he pursues a desperate search, the traces of which I have followed,
among the debris. Nothing, always nothing! Everything in the room
is topsy-turvy; he goes into his cabinet and continues the
destruction; the hatchet rises and falls without rest. He breaks
his own bureau, since he may find something concealed there of which
he is ignorant. This bureau belonged to the first husband--to
Sauvresy. He takes out all the books in the library, one by one,
shakes them furiously, and throws them about the floor. The infernal
paper is undiscoverable. His distress is now too great for him to
pursue the search with the least method. His wandering reason no
longer guides him. He staggers, without calculation, from one thing
to another, fumbling a dozen times in the same drawer, while he
completely forgets others just by him. Then he thinks that this
paper may have been hid in the stuffing of a chair. He seizes a
sword, and to be certain, he slashes up the drawing-room chairs and
sofas and those in the other rooms."

M. Lecoq's voice, accent, gestures, gave a vivid character to his
recital. The hearer might imagine that he saw the crime committed,
and was present at the terrible scenes which he described. His
companions held their breath, unwilling by a movement to distract
his attention.

"At this moment," pursued he, "the count's rage and terror were at
their height. He had said to himself, when he planned the murder,
that he would kill his wife, get possession of the letter, execute
his plan quickly, and fly. And now all his projects were baffled!
How much time was being lost, when each minute diminished the chances
of escape! Then the probability of a thousand dangers which had not
occurred to him, entered his mind. What if some friend should
suddenly arrive, expecting his hospitality, as had occurred twenty
times? What if a passer-by on the road should notice a light flying
from room to room? Might not one of the servants return? When he
is in the drawing-room, he thinks he hears someone ring at the gate;
such is his terror, that he lets his candle fall--for I have found
the marks of it on the carpet. He hears strange noises, such as
never before assailed his ears; he thinks he hears walking in the
next room; the floor creaks. Is his wife really dead; will she not
suddenly rise up, run to the window, and scream for help? Beset by
these terrors, he returns to the bedroom, seizes his dagger, and
again strikes the poor countess. But his hand is so unsteady that
the wounds are light. You have observed, doctor, that all these
wounds take the same direction. They form right angles with the
body, proving that the victim was lying down when they were
inflicted. Then, in the excess of his frenzy, he strikes the body
with his feet, and his heels form the contusions discovered by the
autopsy."

M. Lecoq paused to take breath. He not only narrated the drama, he
acted it, adding gesture to word; and each of his phrases made a
scene, explained a fact, and dissipated a doubt. Like all true
artists who wrap themselves up in the character they represent, the
detective really felt something of the sensations which he
interpreted, and his expressive face was terrible in its contortions.

"That," he resumed, "is the first act of the drama. An irresistible
prostration succeeds the count's furious passion. The various
circumstances which I am describing to you are to be noticed in
nearly all great crimes. The assassin is always seized, after the
murder, with a horrible and singular hatred against his victim, and
he often mutilates the body. Then comes the period of a prostration
so great, of torpor so irresistible, that murderers have been known
literally to go to sleep in the blood, that they have been surprised
sleeping, and that it was with great difficulty that they were
awakened. The count, when he has frightfully disfigured the poor
lady, falls into an arm-chair; indeed, the cloth of one of the
chairs has retained some wrinkles, which shows that someone had sat
in it. What are then the count's thoughts? He reflects on the
long hours which have elapsed, upon the few hours which remain to
him. He reflects that he has found nothing; that he will hardly
have time, before day, to execute his plans for turning suspicion
from him, and assure his safety, by creating an impression that he,
too, has been murdered. And he must fly at once--fly, without that
accursed paper. He summons up his energies, rises, and do you know
what he does? He seizes a pair of scissors and cuts off his long,
carefully cultivated beard."

"Ah!" interrupted M. Plantat, "that's why you examined the portrait
so closely."

M. Lecoq was too intent on following the thread of his deductions
to note the interruption.

"This is one of those vulgar details," pursued he, "whose very
insignificance makes them terrible, when they are attended by
certain circumstances. Now imagine the Count de Tremorel, pale,
covered with his wife's blood, shaving himself before his glass;
rubbing the soap over his face, in that room all topsy-turvy,
while three steps off lies the still warm and palpitating body!
It was an act of terrible courage, believe me, to look at himself
in the glass after a murder--one of which few criminals are
capable. The count's hands, however, trembled so violently that
he could scarcely hold his razor, and his face must have been cut
several times."

"What!" said Dr. Gendron, "do you imagine that the count spared
the time to shave?"

"I am positively sure of it, pos-i-tive-ly. A towel on which I
have found one of those marks which a razor leaves when it is
wiped--and one only--has put me on the track of this fact. I
looked about, and found a box of razors, one of which had recently
been used, for it was still moist; and I have carefully preserved
both the towel and the box. And if these proofs are not enough,
I will send to Paris for two of my men, who will find, somewhere in
the house or the garden, both the count's beard and the cloth with
which he wiped his razor. As to the fact which surprises you,
Doctor, it seems to me very natural; more, it is the necessary
result of the plan he adopted. Monsieur de Tremorel has always worn
his full beard: he cuts it off, and his appearance is so entirely
altered, that if he met anyone in his flight, he would not be
recognized."

The doctor was apparently convinced, for he cried:

"It's clear--it's evident,"

"Once thus disguised, the count hastens to carry out the rest of
his plan, to arrange everything to throw the law off the scent, and
to make it appear that he, as well as his wife, has been murdered.
He hunts up Guespin's vest, tears it out at the pocket, and puts a
piece of it in the countess's hand. Then taking the body in his
arms, crosswise, he goes downstairs. The wounds bleed frightfully
--hence the numerous stains discovered all along his path. Reaching
the foot of the staircase he is obliged to put the countess down,
in order to open the garden-door. This explains the large stain
in the vestibule. The count, having opened the door, returns for
the body and carries it in his arms as far as the edge of the lawn;
there he stops carrying it, and drags it by the shoulders, walking
backward, trying thus to create the impression that his own body
has been dragged across there and thrown into the Seine. But the
wretch forgot two things which betray him to us. He did not reflect
that the countess's skirts, in being dragged along the grass,
pressing it down and breaking it for a considerable space, spoiled
his trick. Nor did he think that her elegant and well-curved feet,
encased in small high-heeled boots, would mould themselves in the
damp earth of the lawn, and thus leave against him a proof clearer
than the day."

M. Plantat rose abruptly.

"Ah," said he, "you said nothing of this before."

"Nor of several other things, either. But I was before ignorant of
some facts which I now know; and as I had reason to suppose that
you were better informed than I, I was not sorry to avenge myself
for a caution which seemed to me mysterious."

"Well, you are avenged," remarked the doctor, smiling.

"On the other side of the lawn," continued M. Lecoq, "the count
again took up the countess's body. But forgetting the effect of
water when it spirts, or--who knows?--disliking to soil himself,
instead of throwing her violently in the river, he put her down
softly, with great precaution. That's not all. He wished it to
appear that there had been a terrible struggle. What does he do?
Stirs up the sand with the end of his foot. And he thinks that
will deceive the police!"

"Yes, yes," muttered Plantat, "exactly so--I saw it."

"Having got rid of the body, the count returns to the house. Time
presses, but he is still anxious to find the paper. He hastens to
take the last measures to assure his safety. He smears his slippers
and handkerchief with blood. He throws his handkerchief and one of
his slippers on the sward, and the other slipper into the river.
His haste explains the incomplete execution of his manoeuvres. He
hurries--and commits blunder after blunder. He does not reflect
that his valet will explain about the empty bottles which he puts
on the table. He thinks he is turning wine into the five glasses
--it is vinegar, which will prove that no one has drunk out of them.
He ascends, puts forward the hands of the clock, but forgets to put
the hands and the striking bell in harmony. He rumples up the bed,
but he does it awkwardly--and it is impossible to reconcile these
three facts, the bed crumpled, the clock showing twenty minutes past
three, and the countess dressed as if it were mid-day. He adds as
much as he can to the disorder of the room. He smears a sheet with
blood; also the bed-curtains and furniture. Then he marks the door
with the imprint of a bloody hand, too distinct and precise not to
be done designedly. Is there so far a circumstance or detail of
the crime, which does not explain the count's guilt?"

"There's the hatchet," answered M. Plantat, "found on the second
story, the position of which seemed so strange to you."

"I am coming to that. There is one point in this mysterious affair,
which, thanks to you, is now clear. We know that Madame de Tremorel,
known to her husband, possessed and concealed a paper or a letter,
which he wanted, and which she obstinately refused to give up in
spite of all his entreaties. You have told us that the anxiety
--perhaps the necessity--to have this paper, was a powerful motive
of the crime. We will not be rash then in supposing that the
importance of this paper was immense--entirely beyond an ordinary
affair. It must have been, somehow, very damaging to one or the
other. To whom? To both, or only the count? Here I am reduced to
conjectures. It is certain that it was a menace--capable of being
executed at any moment--suspended over the head of him or them
concerned by it. Madame de Tremorel surely regarded this paper
either as a security, or as a terrible arm which put her husband
at her mercy. It was surely to deliver himself from this perpetual
menace that the count killed his wife."

The logic was so clear, the last words brought the evidence out so
lucidly and forcibly, that his hearers were struck with admiration.
They both cried:

"Very good!"

"Now," resumed M. Lecoq, "from the various elements which have
served to form our conviction, we must conclude that the contents
of this letter, if it can be found, will clear away our last doubts,
will explain the crime, and will render the assassin's precautions
wholly useless. The count, therefore, must do everything in the
world, must attempt the impossible, not to leave this danger behind
him. His preparations for flight ended, Hector, in spite of his
deadly peril, of the speeding time, of the coming day, instead of
flying recommences with more desperation than ever his useless
search. Again he goes through all the furniture, the books, the
papers--in vain. Then he determines to search the second story,
and armed with his hatchet, goes up to it. He has already attacked
a bureau, when he hears a cry in the garden. He runs to the window
--what does he see? Philippe and old Bertaud are standing on the
river-bank under the willows, near the corpse. Can you imagine his
immense terror? Now, there's not a second to lose--he has already
delayed too long. The danger is near, terrible. Daylight has come,
the crime is discovered, they are coming, he sees himself lost
beyond hope. He must fly, fly at once, at the peril of being seen,
met, arrested. He throws the hatchet down violently--it cuts the
floor. He rushes down, slips the bank-notes in his pocket, seizes
Guespin's torn and smeared vest, which he will throw into the river
from the bridge, and saves himself by the garden. Forgetting all
caution, confused, beside himself, covered with blood, he runs,
clears the ditch, and it is he whom old Bertaud sees making for the
forest of Mauprevoir, where he intends to arrange the disorder of
his clothes. For the moment he is safe. But he leaves behind him
this letter, which is, believe me, a formidable witness, which will
enlighten justice and will betray his guilt and the perfidy of his
projects. For he has not found it, but we will find it; it is
necessary for us to have it to defeat Monsieur Domini, and to change
our doubts into certainty."



                                 XI

A long silence followed the detective's discourse. Perhaps his
hearers were casting about for objections. At last Dr. Gendron
spoke:

"I don't see Guespin's part in all this."

"Nor I, very clearly," answered M. Lecoq. "And here I ought to
confess to you not only the strength, but the weakness also, of the
theory I have adopted. By this method, which consists of
reconstructing the crime before discovering the criminal, I can be
neither right nor wrong by halves. Either all my inferences are
correct, or not one of them is. It's all, or nothing. If I am
right, Guespin has not been mixed up with this crime, at least
directly; for there isn't a single circumstance which suggests
outside aid. If, on the other hand, I am wrong--"

M. Lecoq paused. He seemed to have heard some unexpected noise
in the garden.

"But I am not wrong. I have still another charge against the count,
of which I haven't spoken, but which seems to be conclusive."

"Oh," cried the doctor, "what now?"

"Two certainties are better than one, and I always doubt. When I
was left alone a moment with Francois, the valet, I asked him if
he knew exactly the number of the count's shoes; he said yes, and
took me to a closet where the shoes are kept. A pair of boots,
with green Russia leather tops, which Francois was sure the count
had put on the previous morning, was missing. I looked for them
carefully everywhere, but could not find them. Again, the blue
cravat with white stripes which the count wore on the 8th, had also
disappeared."

"There," cried M. Plantat, "that is indisputable proof that your
supposition about the slippers and handkerchief was right."

"I think that the facts are sufficiently established to enable us
to go forward. Let's now consider the events which must have
decided--"

M. Lecoq again stopped, and seemed to be listening. All of a sudden,
without a word he jumped on the window-sill and from thence into the
garden, with the bound of a cat which pounces on a mouse. The noise
of a fall, a stifled cry, an oath, were heard, and then a stamping as
if a struggle were going on. The doctor and M. Plantat hastened to
the window. Day was breaking, the trees shivered in the fresh wind
of the early morning,--objects were vaguely visible without distinct
forms across the white mist which hangs, on summer nights, over the
valley of the Seine. In the middle of the lawn, at rapid intervals,
they heard the blunt noise of a clinched fist striking a living body,
and saw two men, or rather two phantoms, furiously swinging their
arms. Presently the two shapes formed but one, then they separated,
again to unite; one of the two fell, rose at once, and fell again.

"Don't disturb yourselves," cried M. Lecoq's voice. "I've got the
rogue."

The shadow of the detective, which was upright, bent over, and the
conflict was recommenced. The shadow stretched on the ground
defended itself with the dangerous strength of despair; his body
formed a large brown spot in the middle of the lawn, and his legs,
kicking furiously, convulsively stretched and contracted. Then
there was a moment when the lookers-on could not make out which was
the detective. They rose again and struggled; suddenly a cry of pain
escaped, with a ferocious oath.

"Ah, wretch!"

And almost immediately a loud shout rent the air, and the detective's
mocking tones were heard:

"There he is! I've persuaded him to pay his respects to us--light
me up a little."

The doctor and his host hastened to the lamp; their zeal caused a
delay, and at the moment that the doctor raised the lamp, the door
was rudely pushed open.

"I beg to present to you," said M. Lecoq, "Master Robelot,
bone-setter of Orcival, herborist by prudence, and poisoner by
vocation."

The stupefaction of the others was such that neither could speak.

It was really the bone-setter, working his jaws nervously. His
adversary had thrown him down by the famous knee-stroke which is
the last resort of the worst prowlers about the Parisian barriers.
But it was not so much Robelot's presence which surprised M. Plantat
and his friend. Their stupor was caused by the detective's
appearance; who, with his wrist of steel--as rigid as handcuffs
--held the doctor's ex-assistant, and pushed him forward. The voice
was certainly Lecoq's; there was his costume, his big-knotted
cravat, his yellow-haired watch-chain--still it was no longer Lecoq.
He was blond, with highly cultivated whiskers, when he jumped out
the window; he returned, brown, with a smooth face. The man who
had jumped out was a middle-aged person, with an expressive face
which was in turn idiotic and intelligent; the man who returned by
the door was a fine young fellow of thirty-five, with a beaming eye
and a sensitive lip; a splendid head of curly black hair, brought
out vividly the pallor of his complexion, and the firm outline of
his head and face. A wound appeared on his neck, just below the
chin.

"Monsieur Lecoq!" cried M. Plantat, recovering his voice.

"Himself," answered the detective, "and this time the true Lecoq."
Turning to Robelot, he slapped him on the shoulder and added:

"Go on, you."

Robelot fell upon a sofa, but the detective continued to hold him
fast.

"Yes," he continued, "this rascal has robbed me of my blond locks.
Thanks to him and in spite of myself, you see me as I am, with the
head the Creator gave me, and which is really my own." He gave a
careless gesture, half angry, half good-humored. "I am the true
Lecoq; and to tell the truth, only three persons besides yourselves
really know him--two trusted friends, and one who is infinitely
less so--she of whom I spoke a while ago."

The eyes of the other two met as if to question each other, and M.
Lecoq continued:

"What can a fellow do? All is not rose color in my trade. We run
such dangers, in protecting society, as should entitle us to the
esteem, if not the affection of our fellow-men: Why, I am condemned
to death, at this moment, by seven of the most dangerous criminals
in France. I have caught them, you see, and they have sworn--they
are men of their word, too--that I should only die by their hands.
Where are these wretches? Four at Cayenne, one at Brest; I've had
news of them. But the other two? I've lost their track. Who knows
whether one of them hasn't followed me here, and whether to-morrow,
at the turning of some obscure road, I shall not get six inches of
cold steel in my stomach?"

He smiled sadly.

"And no reward," pursued he, "for the perils which we brave. If I
should fall to-morrow, they would take up my body, carry it to my
house, and that would be the end." The detective's tone had become
bitter, the irritation of his voice betrayed his rancor. "My
precautions happily are taken. While I am performing my duties, I
suspect everything, and when I am on my guard I fear no one. But
there are days when one is tired of being on his guard, and would
like to be able to turn a street corner without looking for a dagger.
On such days I again become myself; I take off my false beard, throw
down my mask, and my real self emerges from the hundred disguises
which I assume in turn. I have been a detective fifteen years, and
no one at the prefecture knows either my true face or the color of
my hair."

Master Robelot, ill at ease on his lounge, attempted to move.

"Ah, look out!" cried M. Lecoq, suddenly changing his tone. "Now
get up here, and tell us what you were about in the garden?"

"But you are wounded!" exclaimed Plantat, observing stains of blood
on M. Lecoq's shirt.

"Oh, that's nothing--only a scratch that this fellow gave me with a
big cutlass he had."

M. Plantat insisted on examining the wound, and was not satisfied
until the doctor declared it to be a very slight one.

"Come, Master Robelot," said the old man, "what were you doing here?"

The bone-setter did not reply.

"Take care," insisted M. Plantat, "your silence will confirm us in
the idea that you came with the worst designs."

But it was in vain that M. Plantat wasted his persuasive eloquence.
Robelot shut himself up in a ferocious and dogged silence. M.
Gendron, hoping, not without reason, that he might have some influence
over his former assistant, spoke:

"Answer us; what did you come for?"

Robelot made an effort; it was painful, with his broken jaw, to speak.

"I came to rob; I confess it."

"To rob--what?"

"I don't know."

"But you didn't scale a wall and risk the jail without a definite
object?"

"Well, then, I wanted--"

He stopped.

"What? Go on."

"To get some rare flowers in the conservatory."

"With your cutlass, hey?" said M. Lecoq. Robelot gave him a
terrible look; the detective continued:

"You needn't look at me that way--you don't scare me. And don't
talk like a fool, either. If you think we are duller than you, you
are mistaken--I warn you of it."

"I wanted the flower-pots," stammered the man.

"Oh, come now," cried M. Lecoq, shrugging his shoulders, "don't
repeat such nonsense. You, a man that buys large estates for cash,
steal flower-pots! Tell that to somebody else. You've been turned
over to-night, my boy, like an old glove. You've let out in spite
of yourself a secret that tormented you furiously, and you came
here to get it back again. You thought that perhaps Monsieur Plantat
had not told it to anybody, and you wanted to prevent him from
speaking again forever."

Robelot made a sign of protesting.

"Shut up now," said M. Lecoq. "And your cutlass?"

While this conversation was going on, M. Plantat reflected.

"Perhaps," he murmured, "I've spoken too soon."

"Why so?" asked M. Lecoq. "I wanted a palpable proof for Monsieur
Domini; we'll give him this rascal, and if he isn't satisfied, he's
difficult to please."

"But what shall we do with him?"

"Shut him up somewhere in the house; if necessary, I'll tie him up."

"Here's a dark closet."

"Is it secure?"

"There are thick walls on three sides of it, and the fourth is
closed with a double door; no openings, no windows, nothing."

"Just the place."

M. Plantat opened the closet, a black-looking hole, damp, narrow,
and full of old books and papers.

"There," said M. Lecoq to his prisoner, "in here you'll be like a
little king," and he pushed him into the closet. Robelot did not
resist, but he asked for some water and a light. They gave him a
bottle of water and a glass.

"As for a light," said M. Lecoq, "you may dispense with it. You'll
be playing us some dirty trick."

M. Plantat, having shut the closet-door, took the detective's hand.

"Monsieur," said he, earnestly, "you have probably just saved my
life at the peril of your own; I will not thank you. The day will
come, I trust, when I may--"

The detective interrupted him with a gesture.

"You know how I constantly expose myself," said he, "once more or
less does not matter much. Besides, it does not always serve a man
to save his life." He was pensive a moment, then added: "You will
thank me after awhile, when I have gained other titles to your
gratitude."

M. Gendron also cordially shook the detective's hand, saying:

"Permit me to express my admiration of you. I had no idea what the
resources of such a man as you were. You got here this morning
without information, without details, and by the mere scrutiny of
the scene of the crime, by the sole force of reasoning, have found
the criminal: more, you have proved to us that the criminal could
be no other than he whom you have named."

M. Lecoq bowed modestly. These praises evidently pleased him greatly.

"Still," he answered, "I am not yet quite satisfied. The guilt of
the Count de Tremorel is of course abundantly clear to me. But what
motives urged him? How was he led to this terrible impulse to kill
his wife, and make it appear that he, too, had been murdered?"

"Might we not conclude," remarked the doctor, "that, disgusted with
Madame de Tremorel, he has got rid of her to rejoin another woman,
adored by him to madness?"

M. Lecoq shook his head.

"People don't kill their wives for the sole reason that they are
tired of them and love others. They quit their wives, live with
the new loves--that's all. That happens every day, and neither
the law nor public opinion condemns such people with great severity."

"But it was the wife who had the fortune."

"That wasn't the case here. I have been posting myself up. M. de
Tremorel had a hundred thousand crowns, the remains of a colossal
fortune saved by his friend Sauvresy; and his wife by the marriage
contract made over a half million to him. A man can live in ease
anywhere on eight hundred thousand francs. Besides, the count was
master of all the funds of the estate. He could sell, buy, realize,
borrow, deposit, and draw funds at will."

The doctor had nothing to reply. M. Lecoq went on, speaking with
a certain hesitation, while his eyes interrogated M. Plantat.

"We must find the reasons of this murder, and the motives of the
assassin's terrible resolution--in the past. Some crime so
indissolubly linked the count and countess, that only the death of
one of them could free the other. I suspected this crime the first
thing this morning, and have seen it all the way through; and the
man that we have just shut up in there--Robelot--who wanted to
murder Monsieur Plantat, was either the agent or the accomplice of
this crime."

The doctor had not been present at the various episodes which,
during the day at Valfeuillu and in the evening at the mayor's, had
established a tacit understanding between Plantat and Lecoq. He
needed all the shrewdness he possessed to fill up the gaps and
understand the hidden meanings of the conversation to which he had
been listening for two hours. M. Lecoq's last words shed a ray of
light upon it all, and the doctor cried, "Sauvresy!"

"Yes--Sauvresy," answered M. Lecoq. "And the paper which the
murderer hunted for so eagerly, for which he neglected his safety
and risked his life, must contain the certain proof of the crime."

M. Plantat, despite the most significant looks and the direct
provocation to make an explanation, was silent. He seemed a hundred
leagues off in his thoughts, and his eyes, wandering in space,
seemed to follow forgotten episodes in the mists of the past. M.
Lecoq, after a brief pause, decided to strike a bold blow.

"What a past that must have been," exclaimed he, "which could drive
a young, rich, happy man like Hector de Tremorel to plan in cool
blood such a crime, to resign himself to disappear after it, to
cease to exist, as it were to lose all at once his personality, his
position, his honor and his name! What a past must be that which
drives a young girl of twenty to suicide!"

M. Plantat started up, pale, more moved than he had yet appeared.

"Ah," cried he, in an altered voice, "you don't believe what you say!
Laurence never knew about it, never!"

The doctor, who was narrowly watching the detective, thought he
saw a faint smile light up his mobile features. The old justice of
the peace went on, now calmly and with dignity, in a somewhat
haughty tone:

"You didn't need tricks or subterfuge, Monsieur Lecoq, to induce me
to tell what I know. I have evinced enough esteem and confidence in
you to deprive you of the right to arm yourself against me with the
sad secret which you have surprised."

M. Lecoq, despite his cool-headedness, was disconcerted.

"Yes," pursued M. Plantat, "your astonishing genius for penetrating
dramas like this has led you to the truth. But you do not know all,
and even now I would hold my tongue, had not the reasons which
compelled me to be silent ceased to exist."

He opened a secret drawer in an old oaken desk near the fireplace
and took out a large paper package, which he laid on the table.

"For four years," he resumed, "I have followed, day by day--I might
say, hour by hour--the various phases of the dreadful drama which
ended in blood last night at Valfeuillu. At first, the curiosity
of an old retired attorney prompted me. Later, I hoped to save the
life and honor of one very dear to me. Why did I say nothing of my
discoveries? That, my friends, is the secret of my conscience--it
does not reproach me. Besides, I shut my eyes to the evidence even
up to yesterday; I needed the brutal testimony of this deed!"

Day had come. The frightened blackbirds flew whistling by. The
pavement resounded with the wooden shoes of the workmen going
fieldward. No noise troubled the sad stillness of the library,
unless it were the rustling of the leaves which M. Plantat was
turning over, or now and then a groan from Robelot.

"Before commencing," said the old man, "I ought to consider your
weariness; we have been up twenty-four hours--"

But the others protested that they did not need repose. The fever
of curiosity had chased away their exhaustion. They were at last
to know the key of the mystery.

"Very well," said their host, "listen to me."



                                XII

The Count Hector de Tremorel, at twenty-six, was the model and
ideal of the polished man of the world, proper to our age; a man
useless alike to himself and to others, harmful even, seeming to
have been placed on earth expressly to play at the expense of all.
Young, noble, elegant, rich by millions, endowed with vigorous
health, this last descendant of a great family squandered most
foolishly and ignobly both his youth and his patrimony. He acquired
by excesses of all kinds a wide and unenviable celebrity. People
talked of his stables, his carriages, his servants, his furniture,
his dogs, his favorite loves. His cast-off horses still took
prizes, and a jade distinguished by his notice was eagerly sought
by the young bloods of the town. Do not think, however, that he
was naturally vicious; he had a warm heart, and even generous
emotions at twenty. Six years of unhealthy pleasures had spoiled
him to the marrow. Foolishly vain, he was ready to do anything to
maintain his notoriety. He had the bold and determined egotism of
one who has never had to think of anyone but himself, and has never
suffered. Intoxicated by the flatteries of the so-called friends
who drew his money from him, he admired himself, mistaking his
brutal cynicism for wit, and his lofty disdain of all morality and
his idiotic scepticism, for character. He was also feeble; he had
caprices, but never a will; feeble as a child, a woman, a girl.
His biography was to be found in the petty journals of the day,
which retailed his sayings--or what he might have said; his
least actions and gestures were reported.

One night when he was supping at the Cafe de Paris, he threw all
the plates out the window. It cost him twenty thousand francs.
Bravo! One morning gossiping Paris learned with stupefaction that
he had eloped to Italy with the wife of X---, the banker, a lady
nineteen years married. He fought a duel, and killed his man. The
week after, he was wounded in another. He was a hero! On one
occasion he went to Baden, where he broke the bank. Another time,
after playing sixty hours, he managed to lose one hundred and twenty
thousand francs--won by a Russian prince.

He was one of those men whom success intoxicates, who long for
applause, but who care not for what they are applauded. Count
Hector was more than ravished by the noise he made in the world.
It seemed to him the acme of honor and glory to have his name or
initials constantly in the columns of the Parisian World. He did
not betray this, however, but said, with charming modesty, after
each new adventure:

"When will they stop talking about me?"

On great occasions, he borrowed from Louis XIV the epigram:

"After me the deluge."

The deluge came in his lifetime.

One April morning, his valet, a villainous fellow, drilled and
dressed up by the count--woke him at nine o'clock with this speech:

"Monsieur, a bailiff is downstairs in the ante-chamber, and has come
to seize your furniture."

Hector turned on his pillow, yawned, stretched, and replied:

"Well, tell him to begin operations with the stables and
carriage-house; and then come up and dress me."

He did not seem disturbed, and the servant retired amazed at his
master's coolness. The count had at least sense enough to know the
state of his finances; and he had foreseen, nay, expected the
bailiff's visit. Three years before, when he had been laid up for
six weeks in consequence of a fall from his horse, he had measured
the depth of the gulf toward which he was hastening. Then, he might
yet have saved himself. But he must have changed his whole course
of life, reformed his household, learned that twenty-one franc
pieces made a napoleon. Fie, never! After mature reflection he had
said to himself that he would go on to the end. When the last hour
came, he would fly to the other end of France, erase his name from
his linen, and blow his brains out in some forest.

This hour had now come.

By contracting debts, signing bills, renewing obligations, paying
interests and compound interests, giving commissions by always
borrowing, and never paying, Hector had consumed the princely
heritage--nearly four millions in lands--which he had received
at his father's death. The winter just past had cost him fifty
thousand crowns. He had tried eight days before to borrow a hundred
thousand francs, and had failed. He had been refused, not because
his property was not as much as he owed, but because it was known
that property sold by a bankrupt does not bring its value.

Thus it was that when the valet came in and said, "The bailiff is
here," he seemed like a spectre commanding suicide.

Hector took the announcement coolly and said, as he got up:

"Well, here's an end of it."

He was very calm, though a little confused. A little confusion is
excusable when a man passes from wealth to beggary. He thought he
would make his last toilet with especial care. Parbleu! The French
nobility goes into battle in court costume! He was ready in less
than an hour. He put on his bejewelled watch-chain; then he put a
pair of little pistols, of the finest quality, in his overcoat
pocket; then he sent the valet away, and opening his desk, he
counted up what funds he had left. Ten thousand and some hundreds
of francs remained. He might with this sum take a journey, prolong
his life two or three months; but he repelled with disdain the
thought of a miserable subterfuge, of a reprieve in disguise. He
imagined that with this money he might make a great show of
generosity, which would be talked of in the world; it would be
chivalrous to breakfast with his inamorata and make her a present
of this money at dessert. During the meal he would be full of
nervous gayety, of cynical humor, and then he would announce his
intention to kill himself. The girl would not fail to narrate the
scene everywhere; she would repeat his last conversation, his last
will and gift; all the cafes would buzz with it at night; the papers
would be full of it.

This idea strangely excited him, and comforted him at once. He was
going out, when his eyes fell upon the mass of papers in his desk.
Perhaps there was something there which might dim the positiveness
of his resolution. He emptied all the drawers without looking or
choosing, and put all the papers in the fire. He looked with pride
upon this conflagration; there were bills, love letters, business
letters, bonds, patents of nobility, deeds of property. Was it not
his brilliant past which flickered and consumed in the fireplace?

The bailiff occurred to him, and he hastily descended. He was the
most polite of bailiffs, a man of taste and wit, a friend of artists,
himself a poet at times. He had already seized eight horses in the
stables with all their harness and trappings, and five carriages
with their equipage, in the carriage-house.

"I'm going on slowly, Count," said he bowing. "Perhaps you wish
to arrest the execution. The sum is large, to be sure, but a man
in your position--"

"Believe that you are here because it suits me," interrupted Hector,
proudly, "this house doesn't suit me; I shall never enter it again.
So, as you are master, go on."

And wheeling round on his heel he went off.

The astonished bailiff proceeded with his work. He went from room
to room, admiring and seizing. He seized cups gained at the races,
collections of pipes and arms, and the library, containing many
sporting-books, superbly bound.

Meanwhile the Count de Tremorel, who was resolved more than ever on
suicide, ascending the boulevards came to his inamorata's house,
which was near the Madeleine. He had introduced her some six months
before into the demi-monde as Jenny Fancy. Her real name was
Pelagie Taponnet, and although the count did not know it, she was
his valet's sister. She was pretty and lively, with delicate hands
and a tiny foot, superb chestnut hair, white teeth, and great
impertinent black eyes, which were languishing, caressing, or
provoking, at will. She had passed suddenly from the most abject
poverty to a state of extravagant luxury. This brilliant change did
not astonish her as much as you might think. Forty-eight hours
after her removal to her new apartments, she had established order
among the servants; she made them obey a glance or a gesture; and
she made her dress-makers and milliners submit with good grace to
her orders. Jenny soon began to languish, in her fine rooms, for
new excitement; her gorgeous toilets no longer amused her. A woman's
happiness is not complete unless seasoned by the jealousy of rivals.
Jenny's rivals lived in the Faubourg du Temple, near the barrier;
they could not envy her splendor, for they did not know her, and
she was strictly forbidden to associate with and so dazzle them.
As for Tremorel, Jenny submitted to him from necessity. He seemed
to her the most tiresome of men. She thought his friends the
dreariest of beings. Perhaps she perceived beneath their ironically
polite manner, a contempt for her, and understood of how little
consequence she was to these rich people, these high livers,
gamblers, men of the world. Her pleasures comprised an evening with
someone of her own class, card-playing, at which she won, and a
midnight supper. The rest of the time she suffered ennui. She was
wearied to death: A hundred times she was on the point of discarding
Tremorel, abandoning all this luxury, money, servants, and resuming
her old life. Many a time she packed up; her vanity always checked
her at the last moment.

Hector de Tremorel rang at her door at eleven on the morning in
question. She did not expect him so early, and she was evidently
surprised when he told her he had come to breakfast, and asked her
to hasten the cook, as he was in a great hurry.

She had never, she thought, seen him so amiable, so gay. All
through breakfast he sparkled, as he promised himself he would,
with spirit and fun. At last, while they were sipping their coffee,
Hector spoke:

"All this, my dear, is only a preface, intended to prepare you for
a piece of news which will surprise you. I am a ruined man."

She looked at him with amazement, not seeming to comprehend him.

"I said--ruined," said he, laughing bitterly, "as ruined as man
can be."

"Oh, you are making fun of me, joking--"

"I never spoke so seriously in my life. It seems strange to you,
doesn't it? Yet it's sober truth."

Jenny's large eyes continued to interrogate him.

"Why," he continued, with lofty carelessness, "life, you know, is
like a bunch of grapes, which one either eats gradually, piece by
piece, or squeezes into a glass to be tossed off at a gulp. I've
chosen the latter way. My grape was four million francs; they are
drunk up to the dregs. I don't regret them, I've had a jolly life
for my money. But now I can flatter myself that I am as much of a
beggar as any beggar in France. Everything at my house is in the
bailiff's hands--I am without a domicile, without a penny."

He spoke with increasing animation as the multitude of diverse
thoughts passed each other tumultuously in his brain. And he was
not playing a part. He was speaking in all good faith.

"But--then--" stammered Jenny.

"What? Are you free? Just so--"

She hardly knew whether to rejoice or mourn.

"Yes," he continued, "I give you back your liberty."

Jenny made a gesture which Hector misunderstood.

"Oh! be quiet," he added quickly, "I sha'n't leave you thus; I would
not desert you in a state of need. This furniture is yours, and I
have provided for you besides. Here in my pocket are five hundred
napoleons; it is my all; I have brought it to give to you."

He passed the money over to her on a plate, laughingly, imitating
the restaurant waiters. She pushed it back with a shudder.

"Oh, well," said he, "that's a good sign, my dear; very good, very
good. I've always thought and said that you were a good girl--in
fact, too good; you needed correcting."

She did, indeed, have a good heart; for instead of taking Hector's
bank-notes and turning him out of doors, she tried to comfort and
console him. Since he had confessed to her that he was penniless,
she ceased to hate him, and even commenced to love him. Hector,
homeless, was no longer the dreaded man who paid to be master, the
millionnaire who, by a caprice, had raised her from the gutter. He
was no longer the execrated tyrant. Ruined, he descended from his
pedestal, he became a man like others, to be preferred to others,
as a handsome and gallant youth. Then Jenny mistook the last
artifice of a discarded vanity for a generous impulse of the heart,
and was deeply touched by this splendid last gift.

"You are not as poor as you say," she said, "for you still have so
large a sum."

"But, dear child, I have several times given as much for diamonds
which you envied."

She reflected a moment, then as if an idea had struck her, exclaimed:

"That's true enough; but I can spend, oh, a great deal less, and
yet be just as happy. Once, before I knew you, when I was young
(she was now nineteen), ten thousand francs seemed to me to be one
of those fabulous sums which were talked about, but which few men
ever saw in one pile, and fewer still held in their hands."

She tried to slip the money into the count's pocket; but he
prevented it.

"Come, take it back, keep it--"

"What shall I do with it?"

"I don't know, but wouldn't this money bring in more? Couldn't you
speculate on the Bourse, bet at the races, play at Baden, or
something? I've heard of people that are now rich as kings, who
commenced with nothing, and hadn't your talents either. Why don't
you do as they did?"

She spoke excitedly, as a woman does who is anxious to persuade.
He looked at her, astonished to find her so sensitive, so
disinterested.

"You will, won't you?" she insisted, "now, won't you?"

"You are a good girl," said he, charmed with her, "but you must take
this money. I give it to you, don't be worried about anything."

"But you--have you still any money? What have you?"

"I have yet--"

He stopped, searched his pockets, and counted the money in his purse.

"Faith, here's three hundred and forty francs--more than I need.
I must give some napoleons to your servants before I go."

"And what for Heaven's sake will become of you?"

He sat back in his chair, negligently stroked his handsome beard,
and said:

"I am going to blow my brains out."

"Oh!"

Hector thought that she doubted what he said. He took his pistols
out of his pockets, showed them to her, and went on:

"You see these toys? Well, when I leave you, I shall go somewhere
--no matter where--put the muzzle to my temple, thus, press the
trigger--and all will be over!"

She gazed at him, her eyes dilated with terror, pale, breathing
hard and fast. But at the same time, she admired him. She marvelled
at so much courage, at this calm, this careless railing tone. What
superb disdain of life! To exhaust his fortune and then kill
himself, without a cry, a tear, or a regret, seemed to her an act
of heroism unheard of, unexampled. It seemed to her that a new,
unknown, beautiful, radiant man stood before her. She loved him as
she had never loved before!

"No!" she cried, "no! It shall not be!"

And rising suddenly, she rushed to him and seized him by the arm.

"You will not kill yourself, will you? Promise me, swear it to me.
It isn't possible, you would not! I love you--I couldn't bear you
before. Oh, I did not know you, but now--come, we will be happy.
You, who have lived with millions don't know how much ten thousand
francs are--but I know. We can live a long time on that, and very
well, too. Then, if we are obliged to sell the useless things--the
horses, carriages, my diamonds, my green cashmere, we can have three
or four times that sum. Thirty thousand francs--it's a fortune!
Think how many happy days--"

The Count de Tremorel shook his head, smilingly. He was ravished;
his vanity was flattered by the heat of the passion which beamed
from the poor girl's eyes. How he was beloved! How he would be
regretted! What a hero the world was about to lose!

"For we will not stay here," Jenny went on, "we will go and conceal
ourselves far from Paris, in a little cottage. Why, on the other
side of Belleville you can get a place surrounded by gardens for
a thousand francs a year. How well off we should be there! You
would never leave me, for I should be jealous--oh, so jealous!
We wouldn't have any servants, and you should see that I know how
to keep house."

Hector said nothing.

"While the money lasts," continued Jenny, "we'll laugh away the
days. When it's all gone, if you are still decided, you will kill
yourself--that is, we will kill ourselves together. But not with
a pistol--No! We'll light a pan of charcoal, sleep in one another's
arms, and that will be the end. They say one doesn't suffer that
way at all."

This idea drew Hector from his torpor, and awoke in him a
recollection which ruffled all his vanity.

Three or four days before, he had read in a paper the account of
the suicide of a cook, who, in a fit of love and despair, had
bravely suffocated himself in his garret. Before dying he had
written a most touching letter to his faithless love. The idea of
killing himself like a cook made him shudder. He saw the
possibility of the horrible comparison. How ridiculous! And
the Count de Tremorel had a wholesome fear of ridicule. To
suffocate himself, at Belleville, with a grisette, how dreadful!
He almost rudely pushed Jenny's arms away, and repulsed her.

"Enough of that sort of thing," said he, in his careless tone.
"What you say, child, is all very pretty, but utterly absurd. A
man of my name dies, and doesn't choke." And taking the bank-notes
from his pocket, where Jenny had slipped them, he threw them on the
table.

"Now, good-by."

He would have gone, but Jenny, red and with glistening eyes, barred
the door with her body.

"You shall not go!" she cried, "I won't have you; you are mine--for
I love you; if you take one step, I will scream."

The count shrugged his shoulders.

"But we must end all this!"

"You sha'n't go!"

"Well, then, I'll blow my brains out here." And taking out one of
his pistols, he held it to his forehead, adding, "If you call out
and don't let me pass, I shall fire." He meant the threat for
earnest.

But Jenny did not call out; she could not; she uttered a deep groan
and fainted.

"At last!" muttered Hector, replacing the pistol in his pocket.

He went out, not taking time to lift her from the floor where she
had fallen, and shut the door. Then he called the servants into
the vestibule, gave them ten napoleons to divide among them, and
hastened away.



                                XIII

The Count de Tremorel, having reached the street, ascended the
boulevard. All of a sudden he bethought him of his friends. The
story of the execution must have already spread.

"No; not that way," he muttered.

This was because, on the boulevard, he would certainly meet some
of his very dear cronies, and he desired to escape their condolence
and offers of service. He pictured to himself their sorry visages,
concealing a hidden and delicious satisfaction. He had wounded so
many vanities that he must look for terrible revenges. The friends
of an insolently prosperous man are rejoiced in his downfall.

Hector crossed the street, went along the Rue Duphot, and reached
the quays. Where was he going? He did not know, and did not even
ask himself. He walked at random, enjoying the physical content
which follows a good meal, happy to find himself still in the land
of the living, in the soft April sunlight.

The weather was superb, and all Paris was out of doors. There was
a holiday air about the town. The flower-women at the corners of
the bridges had their baskets full of odorous violets. The count
bought a bouquet near the Pont Neuf and stuck it in his button-hole,
and without waiting for his change, passed on. He reached the large
square at the end of the Bourdon boulevard, which is always full of
jugglers and curiosity shows; here the noise, the music, drew him
from his torpor, and brought his thoughts back to his present
situation.

"I must leave Paris," thought he.

He crossed toward the Orleans station at a quicker pace. He entered
the waiting-room, and asked what time the train left for Etampes.
Why did he choose Etampes? A train had just gone, and there would
not be another one for two hours. He was much annoyed at this, and
as he could not wait there two hours, he wended his way, to kill
time, toward the Jardin des Plantes. He had not been there for ten
or twelve years--not since, when at school, his teachers had brought
him there to look at the animals. Nothing had changed. There were
the groves and parterres, the lawns and lanes, the beasts and birds,
as before. The principal avenue was nearly deserted. He took a
seat opposite the mineralogical museum. He reflected on his
position. He glanced back through the departed years, and did not
find one day among those many days which had left him one of those
gracious memories which delight and console. Millions had slipped
through his prodigal hands, and he could not recall a single useful
expenditure, a really generous one, amounting to twenty francs. He,
who had had so many friends, searched his memory in vain for the
name of a single friend whom he regretted to part from. The past
seemed to him like a faithful mirror; he was surprised, startled at
the folly of the pleasures, the inane delights, which had been the
end and aim of his existence. For what had he lived? For others.

"Ah, what a fool I was!" he muttered, "what a fool!"

After living for others, he was going to kill himself for others.
His heart became softened. Who would think of him, eight days
hence? Not one living being. Yes--Jenny, perhaps. Yet, no.
She would be consoled with a new lover in less than a week.

The bell for closing the garden rang. Night had come, and a thick
and damp mist had covered the city. The count, chilled to the bones,
left his seat.

"To the station again," muttered he.

It was a horrible idea to him now--this of shooting himself in the
silence and obscurity of the forest. He pictured to himself his
disfigured body, bleeding, lying on the edge of some ditch. Beggars
or robbers would despoil him. And then? The police would come and
take up this unknown body, and doubtless would carry it, to be
identified, to the Morgue. "Never!" cried he, at this thought, "no,
never!"

How die, then? He reflected, and it struck him that he would kill
himself in some second-class hotel on the left bank of the Seine.

"Yes, that's it," said he to himself.

Leaving the garden with the last of the visitors, he wended his way
toward the Latin Quarter. The carelessness which he had assumed
in the morning gave way to a sad resignation. He was suffering;
his head was heavy, and he was cold.

"If I shouldn't die to-night," he thought, "I shall have a terrible
cold in the morning."

This mental sally did not make him smile, but it gave him the
consciousness of being firm and determined. He went into the Rue
Dauphine and looked about for a hotel. Then it occurred to him
that it was not yet seven o'clock, and it might arouse suspicions
if he asked for a room at that early hour. He reflected that he
still had over one hundred francs, and resolved to dine. It should
be his last meal. He went into a restaurant and ordered it. But
he in vain tried to throw off the anxious sadness which filled him.
He drank, and consumed three bottles of wine without changing the
current of his thoughts.

The waiters were surprised to see him scarcely touch the dishes set
before him, and growing more gloomy after each potation. His dinner
cost ninety francs; he threw his last hundred-franc note on the
table, and went out. As it was not yet late, he went into another
restaurant where some students were drinking, and sat down at a
table in the farther corner of the room. He ordered coffee and
rapidly drank three or four cups. He wished to excite himself, to
screw up his courage to do what he had resolved upon; but he could
not; the drink seemed only to make him more and more irresolute.

A waiter, seeing him alone at the table, offered him a newspaper.
He took it mechanically, opened it, and read:

"Just as we are going to press, we learn that a well-known person
has disappeared, after announcing his intention to commit suicide.
The statements made to us are so strange, that we defer details
till to-morrow, not having time to send for fuller information now."

These lines startled Hector. They were his death sentence, not to
be recalled, signed by the tyrant whose obsequious courtier he had
always been--public opinion.

"They will never cease talking about me," he muttered angrily. Then
he added, firmly, "Come, I must make an end of this."

He soon reached the Hotel Luxembourg. He rapped at the door, and was
speedily conducted to the best room in the house. He ordered a fire
to be lighted. He also asked for sugar and water, and writing
materials. At this moment he was as firm as in the morning.

"I must not hesitate," he muttered, "nor recoil from my fate."

He sat down at the table near the fireplace, and wrote in a firm
hand a declaration which he destined for the police.

"No one must be accused of my death," he commenced; and he went on
by asking that the hotel-keeper should be indemnified.

The hour by the clock was five minutes before eleven; he placed his
pistols on the mantel.

"I will shoot myself at midnight," thought he. "I have yet an hour
to live."

The count threw himself in an arm-chair and buried his face in his
hands. Why did he not kill himself at once? Why impose on himself
this hour of waiting, of anguish and torture? He could not have told.
He began again to think over the events of his life, reflecting on
the headlong rapidity of the occurrences which had brought him to
that wretched room. How time had passed! It seemed but yesterday
that he first began to borrow. It does little good, however, to a
man who has fallen to the bottom of the abyss, to know the causes
why he fell.

The large hand of the clock had passed the half hour after eleven.

He thought of the newspaper item which he had just read. Who
furnished the information? Doubtless it was Jenny. She had come to
her senses, tearfully hastened after him. When she failed to find
him on the boulevard, she had probably gone to his house, then to
his club, then to some of his friends. So that to-night, at this
very moment, the world was discussing him.

"Have you heard the news?"

"Ah, yes, poor Tremorel! What a romance! A good fellow, only--"

He thought he heard this "only" greeted with laughter and innuendoes.
Time passed on. The ringing vibration of the clock was at hand; the
hour had come.

The count got up, seized his pistols, and placed himself near the
bed, so as not to fall on the floor.

The first stroke of twelve; he did not fire.

Hector was a man of courage; his reputation for bravery was high.
He had fought at least ten duels; and his cool bearing on the ground
had always been admiringly remarked. One day he had killed a man,
and that night he slept very soundly.

But he did not fire.

There are two kinds of courage. One, false courage, is that meant
for the public eye, which needs the excitement of the struggle, the
stimulus of rage, and the applause of lookers-on. The other, true
courage, despises public opinion, obeys conscience, not passion;
success does not sway it, it does its work noiselessly.

Two minutes after twelve--Hector still held the pistol against his
forehead.

"Am I going to be afraid?" he asked himself.

He was afraid, but would not confess it to himself. He put his
pistols back on the table and returned to his seat near the fire.
All his limbs were trembling.

"It's nervousness," he muttered. "It'll pass off."

He gave himself till one o'clock. He tried to convince himself of
the necessity of committing suicide. If he did not, what would
become of him? How would he live? Must he make up his mind to work?
Besides, could he appear in the world, when all Paris knew of his
intention? This thought goaded him to fury; he had a sudden courage,
and grasped his pistols. But the sensation which the touch of the
cold steel gave him, caused him to drop his arm and draw away
shuddering.

"I cannot," repeated he, in his anguish. "I cannot!"

The idea of the physical pain of shooting himself filled him with
horror. Why had he not a gentler death? Poison, or perhaps
charcoal--like the little cook? He did not fear the ludicrousness
of this now; all that he feared was, that the courage to kill
himself would fail him.

He went on extending his time of grace from half-hour to half-hour.
It was a horrible night, full of the agony of the last night of the
criminal condemned to the scaffold. He wept with grief and rage
and wrung his hands and prayed. Toward daylight he fell exhausted
into an uneasy slumber, in his arm-chair. He was awakened by three
or four heavy raps on the door, which he hastily opened. It was the
waiter, who had come to take his order for breakfast, and who started
back with amazement on seeing Hector, so disordered was his clothing
and so livid the pallor of his features.

"I want nothing," said the count. "I'm going down."

He had just enough money left to pay his bill, and six sous for the
waiter. He quitted the hotel where he had suffered so much, without
end or aim in view. He was more resolved than ever to die, only he
yearned for several days of respite to nerve himself for the deed.
But how could he live during these days? He had not so much as a
centime left. An idea struck him--the pawnbrokers!

He knew that at the Monte-de-Piete* a certain amount would be
advanced to him on his jewelry. But where find a branch office?
He dared not ask, but hunted for one at hazard. He now held his
head up, walked with a firmer step; he was seeking something, and
had a purpose to accomplish. He at last saw the sign of the
Monte-de-Piete on a house in the Rue Conde, and entered. The hall
was small, damp, filthy, and full of people. But if the place was
gloomy, the borrowers seemed to take their misfortunes good-humoredly.
They were mostly students and women, talking gayly as they waited
for their turns. The Count de Tremorel advanced with his watch,
chain, and a brilliant diamond that he had taken from his finger.
He was seized with the timidity of misery, and did not know how to
open his business. A young woman pitied his embarrassment.

  [* The public pawnbroker establishment of Paris, which has
     branch bureaus through the city.]

"See," said she, "put your articles on this counter, before that
window with green curtains."

A moment after he heard a voice which seemed to proceed from the
next room:

"Twelve hundred francs for the watch and ring."

This large amount produced such a sensation as to arrest all the
conversation. All eyes were turned toward the millionnaire who was
going to pocket such a fortune. The millionnaire made no response.

The same woman who had spoken before nudged his arm.

"That's for you," said she. "Answer whether you will take it or
not."

"I'll take it," cried Hector.

He was filled with a joy which made him forget the night's torture.
Twelve hundred francs! How many days it would last! Had he not
heard there were clerks who hardly got that in a year?

Hector waited a long time, when one of the clerks, who was writing
at a desk, called out:

"Whose are the twelve hundred francs?"

The count stepped forward.

"Mine," said he.

"Your name?"

Hector hesitated. He would never give his name aloud in such a
place as this. He gave the first name that occurred to him.

"Durand."

"Where are your papers?"

"What papers?"

"A passport, a receipt for lodgings, a license to hunt--"

"I haven't any."

"Go for them, or bring two well-known witnesses."

"But--"

"There is no 'but.' The next--"

Hector was provoked by the clerk's abrupt manner.

"Well, then," said he, "give me back the jewelry."

The clerk looked at him jeeringly.

"Can't be done. No goods that are registered, can be returned
without proof of rightful possession." So saying, he went on with
his work. "One French shawl, thirty-five francs, whose is it?"

Hector meanwhile went out of the establishment. He had never
suffered so much, had never imagined that one could suffer so much.
After this ray of hope, so abruptly put out, the clouds lowered
over him thicker and more hopelessly. He was worse off than the
shipwrecked sailor; the pawnbroker had taken his last resources.
All the romance with which he had invested the idea of his suicide
now vanished, leaving bare the stern and ignoble reality. He must
kill himself, not like the gay gamester who voluntarily leaves upon
the roulette table the remains of his fortune, but like the Greek,
who surprised and hunted, knows that every door will be shut upon
him. His death would not be voluntary; he could neither hesitate
nor choose the fatal hour; he must kill himself because he had not
the means of living one day longer.

And life never before seemed to him so sweet a thing as now. He
never felt so keenly the exuberance of his youth and strength. He
suddenly discovered all about him a crowd of pleasures each more
enviable than the others, which he had never tasted. He who
flattered himself that he had squeezed life to press out its
pleasures, had not really lived. He had had all that is to be
bought or sold, nothing of what is given or achieved. He already
not only regretted giving the ten thousand francs to Jenny, but the
two hundred francs to the servants--nay the six sous given to the
waiter at the restaurant, even the money he had spent on the bunch
of violets. The bouquet still hung in his buttonhole, faded and
shrivelled. What good did it do him? While the sous which he had
paid for it--! He did not think of his wasted millions, but could
not drive away the thought of that wasted franc!

True, he might, if he chose, find plenty of money still, and easily.
He had only to return quietly to his house, to discharge the bailiffs,
and to resume the possession of his remaining effects. But he would
thus confront the world, and confess his terrors to have overcome
him at the last moment; he would have to suffer glances more cruel
than the pistol-ball. The world must not be deceived; when a man
announces that he is going to kill himself--he must kill himself.

So Hector was going to die because he had said he would, because
the newspapers had announced the fact. He confessed this to himself
as he went along, and bitterly reproached himself.

He remembered a pretty spot in Viroflay forest, where he had once
fought a duel; he would commit the deed there. He hastened toward
it. The weather was fine and he met many groups of young people
going into the country for a good time. Workmen were drinking and
clinking their glasses under the trees along the river-bank. All
seemed happy and contented, and their gayety seemed to insult
Hector's wretchedness. He left the main road at the Sevres bridge,
and descending the embankment reached the borders of the Seine.
Kneeling down, he took up some water in the palm of his hand, and
drank--an invincible lassitude crept over him. He sat, or rather
fell, upon the sward. The fever of despair came, and death now
seemed to him a refuge, which he could almost welcome with joy.
Some feet above him the windows of a Sevres restaurant opened toward
the river. He could be seen from there, as well as from the bridge;
but he did not mind this, nor anything else.

"As well here, as elsewhere," he said to himself.

He had just drawn his pistol out, when he heard someone call:

"Hector! Hector!"

He jumped up at a bound, concealed the pistol, and looked about.
A man was running down the embankment toward him with outstretched
arms. This was a man of his own age, rather stout, but well shaped,
with a fine open face and, large black eyes in which one read
frankness and good-nature; one of those men who are sympathetic at
first sight, whom one loves on a week's acquaintance.

Hector recognized him. It was his oldest friend, a college mate;
they had once been very intimate, but the count not finding the
other fast enough for him, had little by little dropped his intimacy,
and had now lost sight of him for two years.

"Sauvresy!" he exclaimed, stupefied.

"Yes," said the young man, hot, and out of breath, "I've been watching
you the last two minutes; what were you doing here?"

"Why--nothing."

"How! What they told me at your house this morning was true, then!
I went there."

"What did they say?"

"That nobody knew what had become of you, and that you declared to
Jenny when you left her the night before that you were going to blow
your brains out. The papers have already announced your death, with
details."

This news seemed to have a great effect on the count.

"You see, then," he answered tragically, "that I must kill myself!"

"Why? In order to save the papers from the inconvenience of
correcting their error."

"People will say that I shrunk--"

"Oh, 'pon my word now! According to you, a man must make a fool
of himself because it has been reported that he would do it.
Absurd, old fellow. What do you want to kill yourself for?"

Hector reflected; he almost saw the possibility of living.

"I am ruined," answered he, sadly.

"And it's for this that--stop, my friend, let me tell you, you
are an ass! Ruined! It's a misfortune, but when a man is of your
age he rebuilds his fortune. Besides, you aren't as ruined as you
say, because I've got an income of a hundred thousand francs."

"A hundred thousand francs--"

"Well, my fortune is in land, which brings in about four per cent."

Tremorel knew that his friend was rich, but not that he was as rich
as this. He answered with a tinge of envy in his tone:

"Well, I had more than that; but I had no breakfast this morning."

"And you did not tell me! But true, you are in a pitiable state;
come along, quick!"

And he led him toward the restaurant.

Tremorel reluctantly followed this friend, who had just saved his
life. He was conscious of having been surprised in a distressingly
ridiculous situation. If a man who is resolved to blow his brains
out is accosted, he presses the trigger, he doesn't conceal his
pistol. There was one alone, among all his friends, who loved him
enough not to see the ludicrousness of his position; one alone
generous enough not to torture him with raillery; it was Sauvresy.

But once seated before a well-filled table, Hector could not
preserve his rigidity. He felt the joyous expansion of spirit
which follows assured safety after terrible peril. He was himself,
young again, once more strong. He told Sauvresy everything; his
vain boasting, his terror at the last moment, his agony at the
hotel, his fury, remorse, and anguish at the pawnbroker's.

"Ah!" said he. "You have saved me! You are my friend, my only
friend, my brother."

They talked for more than two hours.

"Come," said Sauvresy at last, "let us arrange our plans. You want
to disappear awhile; I see that. But to-night you must write four
lines to the papers. To-morrow I propose to take your affairs in
hand, that's a thing I know how to do. I don't know exactly how
you stand; but I will agree to save something from the wreck. We've
got money, you see; your creditors will be easy with us."

"But where shall I go?" asked Hector, whom the mere idea of
isolation terrified.

"What? You'll come home with me, parbleu, to Valfeuillu. Don't
you know that I am married? Ah, my friend, a happier man than I
does not exist! I've married--for love--the loveliest and best
of women. You will be a brother to us. But come, my carriage is
right here near the door."



                                XIV

M. Plantat stopped. His companions had not suffered a gesture or
a word to interrupt him. M. Lecoq, as he listened, reflected. He
asked himself where M. Plantat could have got all these minute
details. Who had written Tremorel's terrible biography? As he
glanced at the papers from which Plantat read, he saw that they
were not all in the same handwriting.

The old justice of the peace pursued the story:

Bertha Lechaillu, though by an unhoped-for piece of good fortune
she had become Madame Sauvresy, did not love her husband. She was
the daughter of a poor country school-master, whose highest ambition
had been to be an assistant teacher in a Versailles school; yet she
was not now satisfied. Absolute queen of one of the finest domains
in the land, surrounded by every luxury, spending as she pleased,
beloved, adored, she was not content. Her life, so well regulated,
so constantly smooth, without annoyances and disturbance, seemed to
her insipid. There were always the same monotonous pleasures,
always recurring each in its season. There were parties and
receptions, horse rides, hunts, drives--and it was always thus!
Alas, this was not the life she had dreamed of; she was born for
more exciting pleasures. She yearned for unknown emotions and
sensations, the unforeseen, abrupt transitions, passions, adventures.
She had not liked Sauvresy from the first day she saw him, and her
secret aversion to him increased in proportion as her influence over
him grew more certain. She thought him common, vulgar, ridiculous.
She thought the simplicity of his manners, silliness. She looked
at him, and saw nothing in him to admire. She did not listen to
him when he spoke, having already decided in her wisdom that he
could say nothing that was not tedious or commonplace. She was angry
that he had not been a wild young man, the terror of his family.

He had, however, done as other young men do. He had gone to Paris
and tried the sort of life which his friend Tremorel led. He had
enough of it in six months, and hastily returned to Valfeuillu, to
rest after such laborious pleasures. The experience cost him a
hundred thousand francs, but he said he did not regret purchasing
it at this price.

Bertha was wearied with the constancy and adoration of her husband.
She had only to express a desire to be at once obeyed, and this
blind submission to all her wishes appeared to her servile in a man.
A man is born, she thought, to command, and not to obey; to be
master, and not slave. She would have preferred a husband who
would come in in the middle of the night, still warm from his orgy,
having lost at play, and who would strike her if she upbraided him.
A tyrant, but a man. Some months after her marriage she suddenly
took it into her head to have absurd freaks and extravagant caprices.
She wished to prove him, and see how far his constant complacence
would go. She thought she would tire him out. It was intolerable
to feel absolutely sure of her husband, to know that she so filled
his heart that he had room for no other, to have nothing to fear,
not even the caprice of an hour. Perhaps there was yet more than
this in Bertha's aversion. She knew herself, and confessed to
herself that had Sauvresy wished, she would have been his without
being his wife. She was so lonely at her father's, so wretched in
her poverty, that she would have fled from her home, even for this.
And she despised her husband because he had not despised her enough!

People were always telling her that she was the happiest of women.
Happy! And there were days when she wept when she thought that she
was married. Happy! There were times when she longed to fly, to
seek adventure and pleasure, all that she yearned for, what she had
not had and never would have. The fear of poverty--which she knew
well--restrained her. This fear was caused in part by a wise
precaution which her father, recently dead, had taken. Sauvresy
wished to insert in the marriage-contract a settlement of five
hundred thousand francs on his affianced. The worthy Lechailin had
opposed this generous act.

"My daughter," he said, "brings you nothing. Settle forty thousand
francs on her if you will, not a sou more; otherwise there shall be
no marriage."

As Sauvresy insisted, the old man added:

"I hope that she will be a good and worthy wife; if so, your fortune
will be hers. But if she is not, forty thousand francs will be none
too little for her. Of course, if you are afraid that you will die
first, you can make a will."

Sauvresy was forced to yield. Perhaps the worthy school-master
knew his daughter; if so he was the only one. Never did so
consummate a hypocrisy minister to so profound a perversity, and a
depravity so inconceivable in a young and seemingly innocent girl.
If, at the bottom of her heart, she thought herself the most
wretched of women, there was nothing of it apparent--it was a
well-kept secret. She knew how to show to her husband, in place
of the love she did not feel, the appearance of a passion at once
burning and modest, betraying furtive glances and a flush as of
pleasure, when he entered the room.

All the world said:

"Bertha is foolishly fond of her husband."

Sauvresy was sure of it, and he was the first to say, not caring
to conceal his joy:

"My wife adores me."

Such were man and wife at Valfeuillu when Sauvresy found Tremorel
on the banks of the Seine with a pistol in his hand. Sauvresy
missed his dinner that evening for the first time since his marriage,
though he had promised to be prompt, and the meal was kept waiting
for him. Bertha might have been anxious about this delay; she was
only indignant at what she called inconsiderateness. She was asking
herself how she should punish her husband, when, at ten o'clock at
night, the drawing-room door was abruptly thrown open, and Sauvresy
stood smiling upon the threshold.

"Bertha," said he, "I've brought you an apparition."

She scarcely deigned to raise her head. Sauvresy continued:

"An apparition whom you know, of whom I have often spoken to you,
whom you will like because I love him, and because he is my oldest
comrade, my best friend."

And standing aside, he gently pushed Hector into the room.

"Madame Sauvresy, permit me to present to you Monsieur the Count
de Tremorel."

Bertha rose suddenly, blushing, confused, agitated by an indefinable
emotion, as if she saw in reality an apparition. For the first time
in her life she was abashed, and did not dare to raise her large,
clear blue eyes.

"Monsieur," she stammered, "you are welcome."

She knew Tremorel's name well. Sauvresy had often mentioned it,
and she had seen it often in the papers, and had heard it in the
drawing-rooms of all her friends. He who bore it seemed to her,
after what she had heard a great personage. He was, according to
his reputation, a hero of another age, a social Don Quixote, a
terribly fast man of the world. He was one of those men whose lives
astonish common people, whom the well-to-do citizen thinks faithless
and lawless, whose extravagant passions overleap the narrow bounds
of social prejudice; a man who tyrannizes over others, whom all fear,
who fights on the slightest provocation, who scatters gold with a
prodigal hand, whose iron health resists the most terrible excesses.
She had often in her miserable reveries tried to imagine what kind
of man this Count de Tremorel was. She awarded him with such
qualities as she desired for her fancied hero, with whom she could
fly from her husband in search of new adventures. And now, of a
sudden, he appeared before her.

"Give Hector your hand, dear," said Sauvresy. She held out her
hand, which Tremorel lightly pressed, and his touch seemed to give
her an electric shock.

Sauvresy threw himself into an arm-chair.

"You see, Bertha," said he, "our friend Hector is exhausted with
the life he has been leading. He has been advised to rest, and
has come to seek it here, with us."

"But, dear," responded Bertha, "aren't you afraid that the count
will be bored a little here?"

"Why?"

"Valfeuillu is very quiet, and we are but dull country folks."

Bertha talked for the sake of talking, to break a silence which
embarrassed her, to make Tremorel speak, and hear his voice. As
she talked she observed him, and studied the impression she made
on him. Her radiant beauty usually struck those who saw her for
the first time with open admiration. He remained impassible. She
recognized the worn-out rake of title, the fast man who has tried,
experienced, exhausted all things, in his coldness and superb
indifference. And because he did not admire her she admired him
the more.

"What a difference," thought she, "between him and that vulgar
Sauvresy, who is surprised at everything, whose face shows all
that he thinks, whose eye betrays what he is going to say before
he opens his mouth."

Bertha was mistaken. Hector was not as cold and indifferent as she
imagined. He was simply wearied, utterly exhausted. He could
scarcely sit up after the terrible excitements of the last
twenty-four hours. He soon asked permission to retire. Sauvresy,
when left alone with his wife, told her all that happened, and the
events which resulted in Tremorel's coming to Valfeuillu; but like
a true friend omitted everything that would cast ridicule upon his
old comrade.

"He's a big child," said he, "a foolish fellow, whose brain is weak
but we'll take care of him and cure him."

Bertha never listened to her husband so attentively before. She
seemed to agree with him, but she really admired Tremorel. Like
Jenny, she was struck with the heroism which could squander a
fortune and then commit suicide.

"Ah!" sighed she, "Sauvresy would not have done it!"

No, Sauvresy was quite a different man from the Count de Tremorel.
The next day he declared his intention to adjust his friend's
affairs. Hector had slept well, having spent the night on an
excellent bed, undisturbed by pressing anxieties; and he appeared
in the morning sleek and well-dressed, the disorder and desperation
of the previous evening having quite disappeared. He had a nature
not deeply impressible by events; twenty-four hours consoled him
for the worst catastrophes, and he soon forgot the severest lessons
of life. If Sauvresy had bid him begone, he would not have known
where to go; yet he had already resumed the haughty carelessness of
the millionnaire, accustomed to bend men and circumstances to his
will. He was once more calm and cold, coolly joking, as if years
had passed since that night at the hotel, and as if all the disasters
to his fortune had been repaired. Bertha was amazed at this
tranquillity after such great reverses, and thought this childish
recklessness force of character.

"Now," said Sauvresy, "as I've become your man of business, give me
my instructions, and some valuable hints. What is, or was, the
amount of your fortune?"

"I haven't the least idea."

Sauvresy provided himself with a pencil and a large sheet of paper,
ready to set down the figures. He seemed a little surprised.

"All right," said he, "we'll put x down as the unknown quantity of
the assets: now for the liabilities."

Hector made a superbly disdainful gesture.

"Don't know, I'm sure, what they are."

"What, can't you give a rough guess?"

"Oh, perhaps. For instance, I owe between five and six hundred
thousand francs to Clair & Co., five hundred thousand to Dervoy;
about as much to Dubois, of Orleans--"

"Well?"

"I can't remember any more."

"But you must have a memorandum of your loans somewhere?"

"No."

"You have at least kept your bonds, bills, and the sums of your
various debts?"

"None of them. I burnt up all my papers yesterday."

Sauvresy jumped up from his chair in astonishment; such a method
of doing business seemed to him monstrous; he could not suppose
that Hector was lying. Yet he was lying, and this affectation of
ignorance was a conceit of the aristocratic man of the world. It
was very noble, very distingue, to ruin one's self without knowing
how!

"But, my dear fellow," cried Sauvresy, "how can we clear up your
affairs?"

"Oh, don't clear them up at all; do as I do--let the creditors act
as they please, they will know how to settle it all, rest assured;
let them sell out my property."

"Never! Then you would be ruined, indeed!"

"Well, it's only a little more or a little less."

"What splendid disinterestedness!" thought Bertha; "what coolness,
what admirable contempt of money, what noble disdain of the petty
details which annoy common people! Was Sauvresy capable of all
this?"

She could not at least accuse him of avarice, since for her he was
as prodigal as a thief; he had never refused her anything; he
anticipated her most extravagant fancies. Still he had a strong
appetite for gain, and despite his large fortune, he retained the
hereditary respect for money. When he had business with one of his
farmers, he would rise very early, mount his horse, though it were
mid-winter, and go several leagues in the snow to get a hundred
crowns. He would have ruined himself for her if she had willed it,
this she was convinced of; but he would have ruined himself
economically, in an orderly way.

Sauvresy reflected.

"You are right," said he to Hector, "your creditors ought to know
your exact position. Who knows that they are not acting in concert?
Their simultaneous refusal to lend you a hundred thousand makes me
suspect it. I will go and see them."

"Clair & Co., from whom I received my first loans, ought to be the
best informed."

"Well, I will see Clair & Co. But look here, do you know what you
would do if you were reasonable?"

"What?"

"You would go to Paris with me, and both of us--"

Hector turned very pale, and his eyes shone.

"Never!" he interrupted, violently, "never!"

His "dear friends" still terrified him. What! Reappear on the
theatre of his glory, now that he was fallen, ruined, ridiculous by
his unsuccessful suicide? Sauvresy had held out his arms to him.
Sauvresy was a noble fellow, and loved Hector sufficiently not to
perceive the falseness of his position, and not to judge him a
coward because he shrank from suicide. But the others!--

"Don't talk to me about Paris," said he in a calmer tone. "I shall
never set my foot in it again."

"All right--so much the better; stay with us; I sha'n't complain of
it, nor my wife either. Some fine day we'll find you a pretty
heiress in the neighborhood. But," added Sauvresy, consulting his
watch, "I must go if I don't want to lose the train."

"I'll go to the station with you," said Tremorel.

This was not solely from a friendly impulse. He wanted to ask
Sauvresy to look after the articles left at the pawnbroker's in the
Rue de Condo, and to call on Jenny. Bertha, from her window,
followed with her eyes the two friends; who, with arms interlocked,
ascended the road toward Orcival. "What a difference," thought she,
"between these two men! My husband said he wished to be his friend's
steward; truly he has the air of a steward. What a noble gait the
count has, what youthful ease, what real distinction! And yet I'm
sure that my husband despises him, because he has ruined himself by
dissipation. He affected--I saw it--an air of protection. Poor
youth! But everything about the count betrays an innate or acquired
superiority; even his name, Hector--how it sounds!" And she
repeated "Hector" several times, as if it pleased her, adding,
contemptuously, "My husband's name is Clement!"

M. de Tremorel returned alone from the station, as gayly as a
convalescent taking his first airing. As soon as Bertha saw him
she left the window. She wished to remain alone, to reflect upon
this event which had happened so suddenly, to analyze her
sensations, listen to her presentiments, study her impressions and
decide, if possible, upon her line of conduct. She only reappeared
when the tea was set for her husband, who returned at eleven in the
evening. Sauvresy was faint from hunger, thirst, and fatigue, but
his face glowed with satisfaction.

"Victory!" exclaimed he, as he ate his soup. "We'll snatch you
from the hands of the Philistines yet. Parbleu! The finest
feathers of your plumage will remain, after all, and you will be
able to save enough for a good cosey nest."

Bertha glanced at her husband.

"How is that?" said she.

"It's very simple. At the very first, I guessed the game of our
friend's creditors. They reckoned on getting a sale of his effects;
would have bought them in a lump dirt cheap, as it always happens,
and then sold them in detail, dividing the profits of the operation."

"And can you prevent that?" asked Tremorel, incredulously.

"Certainly. Ah, I've completely checkmated these gentlemen. I've
succeeded by chance--I had the good luck to get them all together
this evening. I said to them, you'll let us sell this property as
we please, voluntarily, or I'll outbid you all, and spoil your cards.
They looked at me in amazement. My notary, who was with me, remarked
that I was Monsieur Sauvresy, worth two millions. Our gentlemen
opened their eyes very wide, and consented to grant my request."

Hector, notwithstanding what he had said, knew enough about his
affairs to see that this action would save him a fortune--a small
one, as compared with what he had possessed, yet a fortune.

The certainty of this delighted him, and moved by a momentary and
sincere gratitude, he grasped both of Sauvresy's hands in his.

"Ah, my friend," cried he, "you give me my honor, after saving my
life! How can I ever repay you?"

"By committing no imprudences or foolishnesses, except reasonable
ones. Such as this," added Sauvresy, leaning toward Bertha and
embracing her.

"And there is nothing more to fear?"

"Nothing! Why I could have borrowed the two millions in an hour,
and they knew it. But that's not all. The search for you is
suspended. I went to your house, took the responsibility of sending
away all your servants except your valet and a groom. If you agree,
we'll send the horses to be sold to-morrow, and they'll fetch a
good price; your own saddle-horse shall be brought here."

These details annoyed Bertha. She thought her husband exaggerated
his services, carrying them even to servility.

"Really," thought she, "he was born to be a steward."

"Do you know what else I did?" pursued Sauvresy. "Thinking that
perhaps you were in want of a wardrobe, I had three or four trunks
filled with your clothes, sent them out by rail, and one of the
servants has just gone after them."

Hector, too, began to find Sauvresy's services excessive, and thought
he treated him too much like a child who could foresee nothing. The
idea of having it said before a woman that he was in want of clothes
irritated him. He forgot that he had found it a very simple thing
in the morning to ask his friend for some linen.

Just then a noise was heard in the vestibule. Doubtless the trunks
had come. Bertha went out to give the necessary orders.

"Quick!" cried Sauvresy. "Now that we are alone, here are your
trinkets. I had some trouble in getting them. They are suspicious
at the pawnbroker's. I think they began to suspect that I was one
of a band of thieves."

"You didn't mention my name, did you?"

"That would have been useless. My notary was with me, fortunately.
One never knows how useful one's notary may be. Don't you think
society is unjust toward notaries?"

Tremorel thought his friend talked very lightly about a serious
matter, and this flippancy vexed him.

"To finish up, I paid a visit to Miss Jenny. She has been abed
since last evening, and her chambermaid told me she had not ceased
sobbing bitterly ever since your departure."

"Had she seen no one?"

"Nobody at all. She really thought you dead, and when I told her
you were here with me, alive and well, I thought she would go mad
for joy. Do you know, Hector, she's really pretty."

"Yes--not bad."

"And a very good little body, I imagine. She told me some very
touching things. I would wager, my friend, that she don't care so
much for your money as she does for yourself."

Hector smiled superciliously.

"In short, she was anxious to follow me, to see and speak to you.
I had to swear with terrible oaths that she should see you
to-morrow, before she would let me go; not at Paris, as you said
you would never go there, but at Corbeil."

"Ah, as for that--"

"She will be at the station to-morrow at twelve. We will go down
together, and I will take the train for Paris. You can get into
the Corbeil train, and breakfast with Miss Jenny at the hotel of
the Belle Image."

Hector began to offer an objection. Sauvresy stopped him with a
gesture.

"Not a word," said he. "Here is my wife."



                                 XV

On going to bed, that night, the count was less enchanted than ever
with the devotion of his friend Sauvresy. There is not a diamond on
which a spot cannot be found with a microscope.

"Here he is," thought he, "abusing his privileges as the saver of
my life. Can't a man do you a service, without continually making
you feel it? It seems as though because he prevented me from
blowing my brains out, I had somehow become something that belongs
to him! He came very near upbraiding me for Jenny's extravagance.
Where will he stop?"

The next day at breakfast he feigned indisposition so as not to
eat, and suggested to Sauvresy that he would lose the train.

Bertha, as on the evening before, crouched at the window to see
them go away. Her troubles during the past eight-and-forty hours
had been so great that she hardly recognized herself. She scarcely
dared to reflect or to descend to the depths of her heart. What
mysterious power did this man possess, to so violently affect her
life? She wished that he would go, never to return, while at the
same time she avowed to herself that in going he would carry with
him all her thoughts. She struggled under the charm, not knowing
whether she ought to rejoice or grieve at the inexpressible emotions
which agitated her, being irritated to submit to an influence
stronger than her own will.

She decided that to-day she would go down to the drawing-room. He
would not fail--were it only for politeness--to go in there; and
then, she thought, by seeing him nearer, talking with him, knowing
him better, his influence over her would vanish. Doubtless he
would return, and so she watched for him, ready to go down as soon
as she saw him approaching. She waited with feverish shudderings,
anxiously believing that this first tete-a-tete in her husband's
absence would be decisive. Time passed; it was more than two hours
since he had gone out with Sauvresy, and he had not reappeared.
Where could he be?

At this moment, Hector was awaiting Jenny at the Corbeil station.
The train arrived, and Jenny soon appeared. Her grief, joy, emotion
had not made her forget her toilet, and never had she been so
rollickingly elegant and pretty. She wore a green dress with a
train, a velvet mantle, and the jauntiest little hat in the world.
As soon as she saw Hector standing near the door, she uttered a cry,
pushed the people aside, and rushed into his arms, laughing and
crying at the same time. She spoke quite loud, with wild gestures,
so that everyone could hear what she said.

"You didn't kill yourself, after all," said she. "Oh, how I have
suffered; but what happiness I feel to-day!"

Tremorel struggled with her as he could, trying to calm her
enthusiastic exclamations, softly repelling her, charmed and
irritated at once, and exasperated at all these eyes rudely fixed
on him. For none of the passengers had gone out. They were all
there, staring and gazing. Hector and Jenny were surrounded by a
circle of curious folks.

"Come along," said Hector, his patience exhausted. He drew her out
of the door, hoping to escape this prying curiosity; but he did not
succeed. They were persistently followed. Some of the Corbeil
people who were on the top of the omnibus begged the conductor to
walk his horses, that this singular couple might not be lost to
view, and the horses did not get into a trot until they had
disappeared in the hotel.

Sauvresy's foresight in recommending the place of meeting had thus
been disconcerted by Jenny's sensational arrival. Questions were
asked; the hostess was adroitly interrogated, and it was soon known
that this person, who waited for eccentric young ladies at the
Corbeil station, was an intimate friend of the owner of Valfeuillu.
Neither Hector nor Jenny doubted that they formed the general topic
of conversation. They breakfasted gayly in the best room at the
Belle Image, during which Tremorel recounted a very pretty story
about his restoration to life, in which he played a part, the
heroism of which was well calculated to redouble the little lady's
admiration. Then Jenny in her turn unfolded her plans for the
future, which were, to do her justice, most reasonable. She had
resolved more than ever to remain faithful to Hector now that he
was ruined, to give up her elegant rooms, sell her furniture, and
undertake some honest trade. She had found one of her old friends,
who was now an accomplished dressmaker, and who was anxious to
obtain a partner who had some money, while she herself furnished
the experience. They would purchase an establishment in the Breda
quarter, and between them could scarcely fail to prosper. Jenny
talked with a pretty, knowing, business-like air, which made Hector
laugh. These projects seemed very comic to him; yet he was touched
by this unselfishness on the part of a young and pretty woman, who
was willing to work in order to please him.

But, unhappily, they were forced to part. Jenny had gone to Corbeil
intending to stay a week; but the count told her this was absolutely
impossible. She cried bitterly at first, then got angry, and finally
consoled herself with a plan to return on the following Tuesday.

"Good-by," said she, embracing Hector, "think of me." She smilingly
added, "I ought to be jealous; for they say your friend's wife is
perhaps the handsomest woman in France. Is it true?"

"Upon my word, I don't know. I've forgotten to look at her."

Hector told the truth. Although he did not betray it, he was still
under the surprise of his chagrin at the failure of his attempt at
suicide. He felt the dizziness which follows great moral crises as
well as a heavy blow on the head, and which distracts the attention
from exterior things. But Jenny's words, "the handsomest woman in
France," attracted his notice, and he could, that very evening,
repair his forgetfulness. When he returned to Valfeuillu, his
friend had not returned; Mme. Sauvresy was alone reading, in the
brilliantly lighted drawing-room. Hector seated himself opposite
her, a little aside, and was thus able to observe her at his ease,
while engaging her in conversation. His first impression was an
unfavorable one. He found her beauty too sculptural and polished.
He sought for imperfections, and finding none, was almost terrified
by this lovely, motionless face, these clear, cold eyes. Little by
little, however, he accustomed himself to pass the greater part of
the afternoon with Bertha, while Sauvresy was away arranging his
affairs--selling, negotiating, using his time in cutting down
interests and discussing with agents and attorneys. He soon
perceived that she listened to him with pleasure, and he judged
from this that she was a decidedly superior woman, much better than
her husband. He had no wit, but possessed an inexhaustible fund of
anecdotes and adventures. He had seen so many things and known so
many people that he was as interesting as a chronicle. He had a
sort of frothy fervor, not wanting in brilliancy, and a polite
cynicism which, at first, surprised one. Had Bertha been
unimpassioned, she might have judged him at his value; but she had
lost her power of insight. She heard him, plunged in a foolish
ecstasy, as one hears a traveller who has returned from far and
dangerous countries, who has visited peoples of whose language the
hearer is ignorant, and lived in the midst of manners and customs
incomprehensible to ourselves.

Days, weeks, months passed on, and the Count de Tremorel did not
find life at Valfeuillu as dull as he had thought. He insensibly
slipped along the gentle slope of material well-being, which leads
directly to brutishness. A physical and moral torpor had succeeded
the fever of the first days, free from disagreeable sensations,
though wanting in excitement. He ate and drank much, and slept
twelve round hours. The rest of the time, when he did not talk
with Bertha, he wandered in the park, lounged in a rocking-chair,
or took a jaunt in the saddle. He even went fishing under the
willows at the foot of the garden; and grew fat. His best days
were those which he spent at Corbeil with Jenny. He found in her
something of his past, and she always quarrelled with him, which
woke him up. Besides, she brought him the gossip of Paris and the
small talk of the boulevards. She came regularly every week, and
her love for Hector, far from diminishing, seemed to grow with each
interview. The poor girl's affairs were in a troubled condition.
She had bought her establishment at too high a price, and her
partner at the end of the first month decamped, carrying off three
thousand francs. She knew nothing about the trade which she had
undertaken, and she was robbed without mercy on all sides. She
said nothing of these troubles to Hector, but she intended to ask
him to come to her assistance. It was the least that he could do.

At first, the visitors to Valfeuillu were somewhat astonished at
the constant presence there of a young man of leisure; but they got
accustomed to him. Hector assumed a melancholy expression of
countenance, such as a man ought to have who had undergone
unheard-of misfortunes, and whose life had failed of its promise.
He appeared inoffensive; people said:

"The count has a charming simplicity."

But sometimes, when alone, he had sudden and terrible relapses.
"This life cannot last," thought he; and he was overcome with
childish rage when he contrasted the past with the present. How
could he shake off this dull existence, and rid himself of these
stiffly good people who surrounded him, these friends of Sauvresy?
Where should he take refuge? He was not tempted to return to Paris;
what could he do there? His house had been sold to an old leather
merchant; and he had no money except that which he borrowed of
Sauvresy. Yet Sauvresy, to Hector's mind, was a most uncomfortable,
wearisome, implacable friend; he did not understand half-way
measures in desperate situations.

"Your boat is foundering," he said to Hector; "let us begin by
throwing all that is superfluous into the sea. Let us keep nothing
of the past; that is dead; we will bury it, and nothing shall recall
it. When your situation is relieved, we will see."

The settlement of Hector's affairs was very laborious. Creditors
sprung up at every step, on every side, and the list of them seemed
never to be finished. Some had even come from foreign lands.
Several of them had been already paid, but their receipts could not
be found, and they were clamorous. Others, whose demands had been
refused as exorbitant, threatened to go to law, hoping to frighten
Sauvresy into paying. Sauvresy wearied his friend by his incessant
activity. Every two or three days he went to Paris, and he attended
the sales of the property in Burgundy and Orleans. The count at
last detested and hated him; Sauvresy's happy, cheerful air annoyed
him; jealousy stung him. One thought--that a wretched one--consoled
him a little. "Sauvresy's happiness," said he to himself, "is owing
to his imbecility. He thinks his wife dead in love with him,
whereas she can't bear him."

Bertha had, indeed, permitted Hector to perceive her aversion to
her husband. She no longer studied the emotions of her heart; she
loved Tremorel, and confessed it to herself. In her eyes he realized
the ideal of her dreams. At the same time she was exasperated to
see in him no signs of love for her. Her beauty was not, then,
irresistible, as she had often been told. He was gallant and
courteous to her--nothing more.

"If he loved me," thought she, "he would tell me so, for he is
bold with women and fears no one."

Then she began to hate the girl, her rival, whom Hector went to
meet at Corbeil every week. She wished to see her, to know her.
Who could she be? Was she handsome? Hector had been very reticent
about Jenny. He evaded all questions about her, not sorry to let
Bertha's imagination work on his mysterious visits.

The day at last came when she could no longer resist the intensity
of her curiosity. She put on the simplest of her toilets, in black,
threw a thick veil over her head, and hastened to the Corbeil station
at the hour that she thought the unknown girl would present herself
there. She took a seat on a bench in the rear of the waiting-room.
She had not long to wait. She soon perceived the count and a young
girl coming along the avenue, which she could see from where she sat.
They were arm in arm, and seemed to be in a very happy mood. They
passed within a few steps of her, and as they walked very slowly,
she was able to scrutinize Jenny at her ease. She saw that she was
pretty, but that was all. Having seen that which she wished, and
become satisfied that Jenny was not to be feared (which showed her
inexperience) Bertha directed her steps homeward. But she chose her
time of departure awkwardly; for as she was passing along behind the
cabs, which concealed her, Hector came out of the station. They
crossed each other's paths at the gate, and their eyes met. Did he
recognize her? His face expressed great surprise, yet he did not
bow to her. "Yes, he recognized me," thought Bertha, as she returned
home by the river-road; and surprised, almost terrified by her
boldness, she asked herself whether she ought to rejoice or mourn
over this meeting. What would be its result? Hector cautiously
followed her at a little distance. He was greatly astonished. His
vanity, always on the watch, had already apprised him of what was
passing in Bertha's heart, but, though modesty was no fault of his,
he was far from guessing that she was so much enamoured of him as
to take such a step.

"She loves me!" he repeated to himself, as he went along. "She
loves me!"

He did not yet know what to do. Should he fly? Should he still
appear the same in his conduct toward her, pretending not to have
seen her? He ought to fly that very evening, without hesitation,
without turning his head; to fly as if the house were about to
tumble about his head. This was his first thought. It was quickly
stifled under the explosion of the base passions which fermented in
him. Ah, Sauvresy had saved him when he was dying! Sauvresy, after
saving him, had welcomed him, opened to him his heart, purse, house;
at this very moment he was making untiring efforts to restore his
fortunes. Men like Tremorel can only receive such services as
outrages. Had not his sojourn at Valfeuillu been a continual
suffering? Was not his self-conceit tortured from morning till
night? He might count the days by their humiliations. What! Must
he always submit to--if he was not grateful for--the superiority
of a man whom he had always been wont to treat as his inferior?

"Besides," thought he, judging his friend by himself, "he only acts
thus from pride and ostentation. What am I at his house, but a
living witness of his generosity and devotion? He seems to live
for me--it's Tremorel here and Tremorel there! He triumphs over
my misfortunes, and makes his conduct a glory and title to the public
admiration."

He could not forgive his friend for being so rich, so happy, so
highly respected, for having known how to regulate his life, while
he had exhausted his own fortune at thirty. And should he not seize
so good an opportunity to avenge himself for the favors which
overwhelmed him?

"Have I run after his wife?" said he to himself, trying to impose
silence on his conscience. "She comes to me of her own will,
herself, without the least temptation from me. I should be a fool
if I repelled her."

Conceit has irresistible arguments. Hector, when he entered the
house, had made up his mind. He did not fly. Yet he had the excuse
neither of passion nor of temptation; he did not love her, and his
infamy was deliberate, coldly premeditated. Between her and him a
chain more solid than mutual attraction was riveted; their common
hatred of Sauvresy. They owed too much to him. His hand had held
both from degradation.

The first hours of their mutual understanding were spent in angry
words, rather than the cooings of love. They perceived too clearly
the disgrace of their conduct not to try to reassure each other
against their remorse. They tried to prove to each other that
Sauvresy was ridiculous and odious; as if they were absolved by his
deficiencies, if deficiencies he had. If indeed trustfulness is
foolishness, Sauvresy was indeed a fool, because he could be deceived
under his own eyes, in his own house, because he had perfect faith
in his wife and his friend. He suspected nothing, and every day he
rejoiced that he had been able to keep Tremorel by him. He often
repeated to his wife:

"I am too happy."

Bertha employed all her art to encourage these joyous illusions.
She who had before been so capricious, so nervous, wilful, became
little by little submissive to the degree of an angelic softness.
The future of her love depended on her husband, and she spared no
pains to prevent the slightest suspicion from ruffling his calm
confidence. Such was their prudence that no one in the house
suspected their state. And yet Bertha was not happy. Her love did
not yield her the joys she had expected. She hoped to be transported
to the clouds, and she remained on the earth, hampered by all the
miserable ties of a life of lies and deceit.

Perhaps she perceived that she was Hector's revenge on her husband,
and that he only loved in her the dishonored wife of an envied
friend. And to crown all, she was jealous. For several months she
tried to persuade Tremorel to break with Jenny. He always had the
same reply, which, though it might be prudent, was irritating.

"Jenny is our security--you must think of that."

The fact was, however, that he was trying to devise some means of
getting rid of Jenny. It was a difficult matter. The poor girl,
having fallen into comparative poverty, became more and more
tenacious of Hector's affection. She often gave him trouble by
telling him that he was no longer the same, that he was changed;
she was sad, and wept, and had red eyes.

One evening, in a fit of anger, she menaced him with a singular
threat.

"You love another," she said. "I know it, for I have proofs of it.
Take care! If you ever leave me, my anger will fall on her head,
and I will not have any mercy on her."

The count foolishly attached no importance to these words; they only
hastened the separation.

"She is getting very troublesome," thought he. "If some day I
shouldn't go when she was expecting me, she might come up to
Valfeuillu, and make a wretched scandal."

He armed himself with all his courage, which was assisted by Bertha's
tears and entreaties, and started for Corbeil resolved to break off
with Jenny. He took every precaution in declaring his intentions,
giving the best reasons for his decision that he could think of.

"We must be careful, you know, Jenny," said he, "and cease to meet
for a while. I am ruined, you know, and the only thing that can
save me is marriage."

Hector had prepared himself for an explosion of fury, piercing cries,
hysterics, fainting-fits. To his great surprise, Jenny did not
answer a word. She became as white as her collar, her ruddy lips
blanched, her eyes stared.

"So," said she, with her teeth tightly shut to contain herself, "so
you are going to get married?"

"Alas, I must," he answered with a hypocritical sigh. "You know
that lately I have only been able to get money for you by borrowing
from my friend; his purse will not be at my service forever."

Jenny took Hector by the hand, and led him to the window. There,
looking intently at him, as if her gaze could frighten the truth
out of him, she said, slowly:

"It is really true, is it, that you are going to leave me to get
married?"

Hector disengaged one of his hands, and placed it on his heart.

"I swear it on my honor," said he.

"I ought to believe you, then."

Jenny returned to the middle of the room. Standing erect before
the mirror, she put on her hat, quietly disposing its ribbons as
if nothing had occurred. When she was ready to go, she went up
to Tremorel. "For the last time," said she, in a tone which she
forced to be firm, and which belied her tearful, glistening eyes.
"For the last time, Hector, are we really to part?"

"We must."

Jenny made a gesture which Tremorel did not see; her face had a
malicious expression; her lips parted to utter some sarcastic
response; but she recovered herself almost immediately.

"I am going, Hector," said she, after a moment's reflection; "If
you are really leaving me to get married, you shall never hear of
me again."

"Why, Jenny, I hope I shall still remain your friend."

"Well, only if you abandon me for another reason, remember what I
tell you; you will be a dead man, and she, a lost woman."

She opened the door; he tried to take her hand; she repulsed him.

"Adieu!"

Hector ran to the window to assure himself of her departure. She
was ascending the avenue leading to the station.

"Well, that's over," thought he, with a sigh of relief. "Jenny was
a good girl."



                                XVI

The count told half a truth when he spoke to Jenny of his marriage.
Sauvresy and he had discussed the subject, and if the matter was
not as ripe as he had represented, there was at least some prospect
of such an event. Sauvresy had proposed it in his anxiety to
complete his work of restoring Hector to fortune and society.

One evening, about a month before the events just narrated, he had
led Hector into the library, saying:

"Give me your ear for a quarter of an hour, and don't answer me
hastily. What I am going to propose to you deserves serious
reflection."

"Well, I can be serious when it is necessary."

"Let's begin with your debts. Their payment is not yet completed,
but enough has been done to enable us to foresee the end. It is
certain that you will have, after all debts are paid, from three
to four hundred thousand francs."

Hector had never, in his wildest hopes, expected such success.

"Why, I'm going to be rich," exclaimed he joyously.

"No, not rich, but quite above want. There is, too, a mode in
which you can regain your lost position."

"A mode? what?"

Sauvresy paused a moment, and looked steadily at his friend.

"You must marry," said he at last.

This seemed to surprise Hector, but not disagreeably.

"I, marry? It's easier to give that advice than to follow it."

"Pardon me--you ought to know that I do not speak rashly. What
would you say to a young girl of good family, pretty, well brought
up, so charming that, excepting my own wife, I know of no one more
attractive, and who would bring with her a dowry of a million?"

"Ah, my friend, I should say that I adore her! And do you know
such an angel?"

"Yes, and you too, for the angel is Mademoiselle Laurence Courtois."

Hector's radiant face overclouded at this name, and he made a
discouraged gesture.

"Never," said he. "That stiff and obstinate old merchant, Monsieur
Courtois, would never consent to give his daughter to a man who has
been fool enough to waste his fortune."

Sauvresy shrugged his shoulders.

"Now, there's what it is to have eyes, and not see. Know that this
Courtois, whom you think so obstinate, is really the most romantic
of men, and an ambitious old fellow to boot. It would seem to him
a grand good speculation to give his daughter to the Count Hector de
Tremorel, cousin of the Duke of Samblemeuse, the relative of the
Commarins, even though you hadn't a sou. What wouldn't he give to
have the delicious pleasure of saying, Monsieur the Count, my
son-in-law; or my daughter, Madame the Countess Hector! And you
aren't ruined, you know, you are going to have an income of twenty
thousand francs, and perhaps enough more to raise your capital to a
million."

Hector was silent. He had thought his life ended, and now, all of
a sudden, a splendid perspective unrolled itself before him. He
might then rid himself of the patronizing protection of his friend;
he would be free, rich, would have a better wife, as he thought,
than Bertha; his house would outshine Sauvresy's. The thought of
Bertha crossed his mind, and it occurred to him that he might thus
escape a lover who although beautiful and loving was proud and bold,
and whose domineering temper began to be burdensome to him.

"I may say," said he, seriously to his friend, "that I have always
thought Monsieur Courtois an excellent and honorable man, and
Mademoiselle Laurence seems to me so accomplished a young lady, that
a man might be happy in marrying her even without a dowry."

"So much the better, my dear Hector, so much the better. But you
know, the first thing is to engage Laurence's affections; her father
adores her, and would not, I am sure, give her to a man whom she
herself had not chosen."

"Don't disturb yourself," answered Hector, with a gesture of triumph,
"she will love me."

The next day he took occasion to encounter M. Courtois, who invited
him to dinner. The count employed all his practised seductions on
Laurence, which were so brilliant and able that they were well
fitted to surprise and dazzle a young girl. It was not long before
the count was the hero of the mayor's household. Nothing formal
had been said, nor any direct allusion or overture made; yet M.
Courtois was sure that Hector would some day ask his daughter's
hand, and that he should freely answer, "yes;" while he thought it
certain that Laurence would not say "no."

Bertha suspected nothing; she was now very much worried about Jenny,
and saw nothing else. Sauvresy, after spending an evening with the
count at the mayor's, during which Hector had not once quitted the
whist-table, decided to speak to his wife of the proposed marriage,
which he thought would give her an agreeable surprise. At his first
words, she grew pale. Her emotion was so great that, seeing she
would betray herself, she hastily retired to her boudoir. Sauvresy,
quietly seated in one of the bedroom arm-chairs, continued to
expatiate on the advantages of such a marriage--raising his voice,
so that Bertha might hear him in the neighboring room.

"Do you know," said he, "that our friend has an income of sixty
thousand crowns? We'll find an estate for him near by, and then we
shall see him and his wife every day. They will be very pleasant
society for us in the autumn months. Hector is a fine fellow, and
you've often told me how charming Laurence is."

Bertha did not reply. This unexpected blow was so terrible that
she could not think clearly, and her brain whirled.

"You don't say anything," pursued Sauvresy. "Don't you approve of
my project? I thought you'd be enchanted with it."

She saw that if she were silent any longer, her husband would go
in and find her sunk upon a chair, and would guess all. She made
an effort and said, in a strangled voice, without attaching any
sense to her words:

"Yes, yes; it is a capital idea."

"How you say that! Do you see any objections?"

She was trying to find some objection, but could not.

"I have a little fear of Laurence's future," said she at last.

"Bah! Why?"

"I only say what I've heard you say. You told me that Monsieur
Tremorel has been a libertine, a gambler, a prodigal--"

"All the more reason for trusting him. His past follies guarantee
his future prudence. He has received a lesson which he will not
forget. Besides, he will love his wife."

"How do you know?"

"Parbleu, he loves her already."

"Who told you so?"

"Himself."

And Sauvresy began to laugh about Hector's passion, which he said
was becoming quite pastoral.

"Would you believe," said he, laughing, "that he thinks our worthy
Courtois a man of wit? Ah, what spectacles these lovers look
through! He spends two or three hours every day with the mayor.
What do you suppose he does there?"

Bertha, by great effort, succeeded in dissembling her grief; she
reappeared with a smiling face. She went and came, apparently calm,
though suffering the bitterest anguish a woman can endure. And she
could not run to Hector, and ask him if it were true!

For Sauvresy must be deceiving her. Why? She knew not. No matter.
She felt her hatred of him increasing to disgust; for she excused
and pardoned her lover, and she blamed her husband alone. Whose
idea was this marriage? His. Who had awakened Hector's hopes, and
encouraged them? He, always he. While he had been harmless, she
had been able to pardon him for having married her; she had
compelled herself to bear him, to feign a love quite foreign to her
heart. But now he became hateful; should she submit to his
interference in a matter which was life or death to her?

She did not close her eyes all night; she had one of those horrible
nights in which crimes are conceived. She did not find herself
alone with Hector until after breakfast the next day, in the
billiard-hall.

"Is it true?" she asked.

The expression of her face was so menacing that he quailed before
it. He stammered:

"True--what?"

"Your marriage."

He was silent at first, asking himself whether he should tell the
truth or equivocate. At last, irritated by Bertha's imperious tone,
he replied:

"Yes."

She was thunderstruck at this response. Till then, she had a
glimmer of hope. She thought that he would at least try to reassure
her, to deceive her. There are times when a falsehood is the highest
homage. But no--he avowed it. She was speechless; words failed her.

Tremorel began to tell her the motives which prompted his conduct.
He could not live forever at Valfeuillu. What could he, with his
habits and tastes, do with a few thousand crowns a year? He was
thirty; he must, now or never, think of the future. M. Courtois
would give his daughter a million, and at his death there would be
a great deal more. Should he let this chance slip? He cared little
for Laurence, it was the dowry he wanted. He took no pains to
conceal his meanness; he rather gloried in it, speaking of the
marriage as simply a bargain, in which he gave his name and title
in exchange for riches. Bertha stopped him with a look full of
contempt.

"Spare yourself," said she. "You love Laurence."

He would have protested; he really disliked her.

"Enough," resumed Bertha. "Another woman would have reproached you;
I simply tell you that this marriage shall not be; I do not wish it.
Believe me, give it up frankly, don't force me to act."

She retired, shutting the door violently; Hector was furious.

"How she treats me!" said he to himself. "Just as a queen would
speak to a serf. Ah, she don't want me to marry Laurence!" His
coolness returned, and with it serious reflections. If he insisted
on marrying, would not Bertha carry out her threats? Evidently;
for he knew well that she was one of those women who shrink from
nothing, whom no consideration could arrest. He guessed what she
would do, from what she had said in a quarrel with him about Jenny.
She had told him, "I will confess everything to Sauvresy, and we
will be the more bound together by shame than by all the ceremonies
of the church."

This was surely the mode she would adopt to break a marriage which
was so hateful to her; and Tremorel trembled at the idea of Sauvresy
knowing all.

"What would he do," thought he, "if Bertha told him? He would kill
me off-hand--that's what I would do in his place. Suppose he
didn't; I should have to fight a duel with him, and if I killed him,
quit the country. Whatever would happen, my marriage is irrevocably
broken, and Bertha seems to be on my hands for all time."

He saw no possible way out of the horrible situation in which he had
put himself.

"I must wait," thought he.

And he waited, going secretly to the mayor's, for he really loved
Laurence. He waited, devoured by anxiety, struggling between
Sauvresy's urgency and Bertha's threats. How he detested this woman
who held him, whose will weighed so heavily on him! Nothing could
curb her ferocious obstinacy. She had one fixed idea. He had
thought to conciliate her by dismissing Jenny. It was a mistake.
When he said to her:

"Bertha, I shall never see Jenny again."

She answered, ironically:

"Mademoiselle Courtois will be very grateful to you!"

That evening, while Sauvresy was crossing the court-yard, he saw a
beggar at the gate, making signs to him.

"What do you want, my good man?"

The beggar looked around to see that no one was listening.

"I have brought you a note," said he, rapidly, and in a low tone.
"I was told to give it, only to you, and to ask you to read it when
you are alone."

He mysteriously slipped a note, carefully sealed, into Sauvresy's
hand.

"It comes from pretty girl," added he, winking.

Sauvresy, turning his back to the house, opened it and read:

  "SIR--You will do a great favor to a poor and unhappy girl, if
  you will come to-morrow to the Belle Image, at Corbeil, where
  you will be awaited all day.

  "Your humble servant,
  "JENNY F---."

There was also a postscript.

  "Please, sir, don't say a word of this to the Count de Tremorel."

"Ah ha," thought Sauvresy, "there's some trouble about Hector,
that's bad for the marriage."

"I was told, sir," said the beggar, "there would be an answer."

"Say that I will come," answered Sauvresy, throwing him a franc piece.



                                XVII

The next day was cold and damp. A fog, so thick that one could not
discern objects ten steps off, hung over the earth. Sauvresy, after
breakfast, took his gun and whistled to his dogs.

"I'm going to take a turn in Mauprevoir wood," said he.

"A queer idea," remarked Hector, "for you won't see the end of your
gun-barrel in the woods."

"No matter, if I see some pheasants."

This was only a pretext, for Sauvresy, on leaving Valfeuillu, took
the direct road to Corbeil, and half an hour later, faithful to his
promise, he entered the Belle Image tavern.

Jenny was waiting for him in the large room which had always been
reserved for her since she became a regular customer of the house.
Her eyes were red with recent tears; she was very pale, and her
marble color showed that she had not slept. Her breakfast lay
untouched on the table near the fireplace, where a bright fire was
burning. When Sauvresy came in, she rose to meet him, and took him
by the hand with a friendly motion.

"Thank you for coming," said she. "Ah, you are very good."

Jenny was only a girl, and Sauvresy detested girls; but her grief
was so sincere and seemed so deep, that he was touched.

"You are suffering, Madame?" asked he.

"Oh, yes, very much."

Her tears choked her, and she concealed her face in her handkerchief.

"I guessed right," thought Sauvresy. "Hector has deserted her.
Now I must smooth the wound, and yet make future meetings between
them impossible."

He took the weeping Jenny's hand, and softly pulled away the
handkerchief.

"Have courage," said he.

She lifted her tearful eyes to him, and said:

"You know, then?"

"I know nothing, for, as you asked me, I have said nothing to
Tremorel; but I can imagine what the trouble is."

"He will not see me any more," murmured Jenny. "He has deserted me."

Sauvresy summoned up all his eloquence. The moment to be persuasive
and paternal had come. He drew a chair up to Jenny's, and sat down.

"Come, my child," pursued he, "be resigned. People are not always
young, you know. A time comes when the voice of reason must be
heard. Hector does not desert you, but he sees the necessity of
assuring his future, and placing his life on a domestic foundation;
he feels the need of a home."

Jenny stopped crying. Nature took the upper hand, and her tears
were dried by the fire of anger which took possession of her. She
rose, overturning her chair, and walked restlessly up and down the
room.

"Do you believe that?" said she. "Do you believe that Hector
troubles himself about his future? I see you don't know his
character. He dream of a home, or a family? He never has and never
will think of anything but himself. If he had any heart, would he
have gone to live with you as he has? He had two arms to gain his
bread and mine. I was ashamed to ask money of him, knowing that
what he gave me came from you."

"But he is my friend, my dear child."

"Would you do as he has done?"

Sauvresy did not know what to say; he was embarrassed by the logic
of this daughter of the people, judging her lover rudely, but justly.

"Ah, I know him, I do," continued Jenny, growing more excited as her
mind reverted to the past. "He has only deceived me once--the
morning he came and told me he was going to kill himself. I was
stupid enough to think him dead, and to cry about it. He, kill
himself? Why, he's too much of a coward to hurt himself! Yes, I
love him, but I don't esteem him. That's our fate, you see, only
to love the men we despise."

Jenny talked loud, gesticulating, and every now and then thumping
the table with her fist so that the bottles and glasses jingled.
Sauvresy was somewhat fearful lest the hotel people should hear her;
they knew him, and had seen him come in. He began to be sorry that
he had come, and tried to calm the girl.

"But Hector is not deserting you," repeated he. "He will assure
you a good position."

"Humph! I should laugh at such a thing! Have I any need of him?
As long as I have ten fingers and good eyes, I shall not be at the
mercy of any man. He made me change my name, and wanted to accustom
me to luxury! And now there is neither a Miss Jenny, nor riches, but
there is a Pelagie, who proposes to get her fifty sous a day, without
much trouble."

"No," said Sauvresy, "you will not need--"

"What? To work? But I like work; I am not a do-nothing. I will
go back to my old life. I used to breakfast on a sou's worth of
biscuit and a sou's worth of potatoes, and was well and happy. On
Sundays, I dined at the Turk for thirty sous. I laughed more then
in one afternoon, than in all the years I have known Tremorel."

She no longer cried, nor was she angry; she was laughing. She was
thinking of her old breakfasts, and her feasts at the Turk.

Sauvresy was stupefied. He had no idea of this Parisian nature,
detestable and excellent, emotional to excess, nervous, full of
transitions, which laughs and cries, caresses and strikes in the
same minute, which a passing idea whirls a hundred leagues from
the present moment.

"So," said Jenny, more calmly, "I snap my fingers at Hector,"
--she had just said exactly the contrary, and had forgotten it
--"I don't care for him, but I will not let him leave me in this
way. It sha'n't be said that he left me for another. I won't have
it."

Jenny was one of those women who do not reason, but who feel; with
whom it is folly to argue, for their fixed idea is impregnable to
the most victorious arguments. Sauvresy asked himself why she had
asked him to come, and said to himself that the part he had intended
to play would be a difficult one. But he was patient.

"I see, my child," he commenced, "that you haven't understood or
even heard me. I told you that Hector was intending to marry."

"He!" answered Jenny, with an ironical gesture. "He get married."

She reflected a moment, and added:

"If it were true, though--"

"I tell you it is so."

"No," cried Jenny, "no, that can't be possible. He loves another,
I am sure of it, for I have proofs."

Sauvresy smiled; this irritated her.

"What does this letter mean," cried she warmly, "which I found in
his pocket, six months ago? It isn't signed to be sure, but it must
have come from a woman."

"A letter?"

"Yes, one that destroys all doubts. Perhaps you ask, why I did not
speak to him about it? Ah, you see, I did not dare. I loved him.
I was afraid if I said anything, and it was true he loved another,
I should lose him. And so I resigned myself to humiliation, I
concealed myself to weep, for I said to myself, he will come back to
me. Poor fool!"

"Well, but what will you do?"

"Me? I don't know--anything. I didn't say anything about the
letter, but I kept it; it is my weapon--I will make use of it.
When I want to, I shall find out who she is, and then--"

"You will compel Tremorel, who is kindly disposed toward you, to
use violence."

"He? What can he do to me? Why, I will follow him like his shadow
--I will cry out everywhere the name of this other. Will he have
me put in St. Lazare prison? I will invent the most dreadful
calumnies against him. They will not believe me at first; later,
part of it will be believed. I have nothing to fear--I have no
parents, no friends, nobody on earth who cares for me. That's what
it is to raise girls from the gutter. I have fallen so low that I
defy him to push me lower. So, if you are his friend, sir, advise
him to come back to me."

Sauvresy was really alarmed; he saw clearly how real and earnest
Jenny's menaces were. There are persecutions against which the
law is powerless. But he dissimulated his alarm under the blandest
air he could assume.

"Hear me, my child," said he. "If I give you my word of honor to
tell you the truth, you'll believe me, won't you?"

She hesitated a moment, and said:

"Yes, you are honorable; I will believe you."

"Then, I swear to you that Tremorel hopes to marry a young girl who
is immensely rich, whose dowry will secure his future."

"He tells you so; he wants you to believe it."

"Why should he? Since he came to Valfeuillu, he could have had no
other affair than this with you. He lives in my house, as if he
were my brother, between my wife and myself, and I could tell you
how he spends his time every hour of every day as well as what I do
myself."

Jenny opened her mouth to reply, but a sudden reflection froze the
words on her lips. She remained silent and blushed violently,
looking at Sauvresy with an indefinable expression. He did not
observe this, being inspired by a restless though aimless curiosity.
This proof, which Jenny talked about, worried him.

"Suppose," said he, "you should show me this letter."

She seemed to feel at these words an electric shock.

"To you?" she said, shuddering. "Never!"

If, when one is sleeping, the thunder rolls and the storm bursts,
it often happens that the sleep is not troubled; then suddenly, at
a certain moment, the imperceptible flutter of a passing insect's
wing awakens one.

Jenny's shudder was like such a fluttering to Sauvresy. The sinister
light of doubt struck on his soul. Now his confidence, his
happiness, his repose, were gone forever. He rose with a flashing
eye and trembling lips.

"Give me the letter," said he, in an imperious tone. Jenny recoiled
with terror. She tried to conceal her agitation, to smile, to turn
the matter into a joke.

"Not to-day," said she. "Another time; you are too curious."

But Sauvresy's anger was terrible; he became as purple as if he had
had a stroke of apoplexy, and he repeated, in a choking voice:

"The letter, I demand the letter."

"Impossible," said Jenny. "Because," she added, struck with an
idea, "I haven't got it here."

"Where is it?"

"At my room, in Paris."

"Come, then, let us go there."

She saw that she was caught; and she could find no more excuses,
quick-witted as she was. She might, however, easily have followed
Sauvresy, put his suspicions to sleep with her gayety, and when
once in the Paris streets, might have eluded him and fled. But she
did not think of that. It occurred to her that she might have time
to reach the door, open it, and rush downstairs. She started to do
so. Sauvresy caught her at a bound, shut the door, and said, in a
low, hoarse voice:

"Wretched girl! Do you wish me to strike you?"

He pushed her into a chair, returned to the door, double locked it,
and put the keys in his pocket. "Now," said he, returning to the
girl, "the letter."

Jenny had never been so terrified in her life. This man's rage
made her tremble; she saw that he was beside himself, that she was
completely at his mercy; yet she still resisted him.

"You have hurt me very much," said she, crying, "but I have done
you no harm."

He grasped her hands in his, and bending over her, repeated:

"For the last time, the letter; give it to me, or I will take it
by force."

It would have been folly to resist longer. "Leave me alone," said
she. "You shall have it."

He released her, remaining, however, close by her side, while she
searched in all her pockets. Her hair had been loosened in the
struggle, her collar was torn, she was tired, her teeth chattered,
but her eyes shone with a bold resolution.

"Wait--here it is--no. It's odd--I am sure I've got it though
--I had it a minute ago--"

And, suddenly, with a rapid gesture, she put the letter, rolled into
a ball, into her mouth, and tried to swallow it. But Sauvresy as
quickly grasped her by the throat, and she was forced to disgorge it.

He had the letter at last. His hands trembled so that he could
scarcely open it.

It was, indeed, Bertha's writing.

Sauvresy tottered with a horrible sensation of dizziness; he could
not see clearly; there was a red cloud before his eyes; his legs
gave way under him, he staggered, and his hands stretched out for
a support. Jenny, somewhat recovered, hastened to give him help;
but her touch made him shudder, and he repulsed her. What had
happened he could not tell. Ah, he wished to read this letter and
could not. He went to the table, turned out and drank two large
glasses of water one after another. The cold draught restored him,
his blood resumed its natural course, and he could see. The note
was short, and this was what he read:

"Don't go to-morrow to Petit-Bourg; or rather, return before
breakfast. He has just told me that he must go to Melun, and that
he should return late. A whole day!"

"He"--that was himself. This other lover of Hector's was Bertha,
his wife. For a moment he saw nothing but that; all thought was
crushed within him. His temples beat furiously, he heard a dreadful
buzzing in his ears, it seemed to him as if the earth were about to
swallow him up. He fell into a chair; from purple he became ashy
white. Great tears trickled down his cheeks.

Jenny understood the miserable meanness of her conduct when she saw
this great grief, this silent despair, this man with a broken heart.
Was she not the cause of all? She had guessed who the writer of the
note was. She thought when she asked Sauvresy to come to her, that
she could tell him all, and thus avenge herself at once upon Hector
and her rival. Then, on seeing this man refusing to comprehend her
hints, she had been full of pity for him. She had said to herself
that he would be the one who would be most cruelly punished; and
then she had recoiled--but too late--and he had snatched the
secret from her.

She approached Sauvresy and tried to take his hands; he still
repulsed her.

"Let me alone," said he.

"Pardon me, sir--I am a wretch, I am horrified at myself."

He rose suddenly; he was gradually coming to himself.

"What do you want?"

"That letter--I guessed--"

He burst into a loud, bitter, discordant laugh, and replied:

"God forgive me! Why, my dear, did you dare to suspect my wife?"

While Jenny was muttering confused excuses, he drew out his
pocket-book and took from it all the money it contained--some
seven or eight hundred francs--which he put on the table.

"Take this, from Hector," said he, "he will not permit you to suffer
for anything; but, believe me, you had best let him get married."

Then he mechanically took up his gun, opened the door, and went out.
His dogs leaped upon him to caress him; he kicked them off. Where
was he going? What was he going to do?



                               XVIII

A small, fine, chilly rain had succeeded the morning fog; but
Sauvresy did not perceive it. He went across the fields with his
head bare, wandering at hazard, without aim or discretion. He
talked aloud as he went, stopping ever and anon, then resuming
his course. The peasants who met him--they all knew him--turned
to look at him after having saluted him, asking themselves whether
the master of Valfeuillu had not gone mad. Unhappily he was not
mad. Overwhelmed by an unheard-of, unlooked-for catastrophe, his
brain had been for a moment paralyzed. But one by one he collected
his scattered ideas and acquired the faculty of thinking and of
suffering. Each one of his reflections increased his mortal anguish.
Yes, Bertha and Hector had deceived, had dishonored him. She,
beloved to idolatry; he, his best and oldest friend, a wretch that
he had snatched from misery, who owed him everything. And it was
in his house, under his own roof, that this infamy had taken place.
They had taken advantage of his noble trust, had made a dupe of him.
The frightful discovery not only embittered the future, but also
the past. He longed to blot out of his life these years passed with
Bertha, with whom, but the night before, he had recalled these
"happiest years of his life." The memory of his former happiness
filled his soul with disgust. But how had this been done? When?
How was it he had seen nothing of it? And now things came into
his mind which should have warned him had he not been blind. He
recalled certain looks of Bertha, certain tones of voice, which were
an avowal. At times, he tried to doubt. There are misfortunes so
great that to be believed there must be more than evidence.

"It is not possible!" muttered he.

Seating himself upon a prostrate tree in the midst of Mauprevoir
forest, he studied the fatal letter for the tenth time within four
hours.

"It proves all," said he, "and it proves nothing."

And he read once more.

"Do not go to-morrow to Petit-Bourg--"

Well, had he not again and again, in his idiotic confidence, said
to Hector:

"I shall be away to-morrow, stay here and keep Bertha company."

This sentence, then, had no positive signification. But why add:

"Or rather, return before breakfast."

This was what betrayed fear, that is, the fault. To go away and
return again anon, was to be cautious, to avoid suspicion. Then,
why "he," instead of, "Clement?" This word was striking. "He"
--that is, the dear one, or else, the master that one hates. There
is no medium--'tis the husband, or the lover. "He," is never an
indifferent person. A husband is lost when his wife, in speaking
of him, says, "He."

But when had Bertha written these few lines? Doubtless some evening
after they had retired to their room. He had said to her, "I'm
going to-morrow to Melun," and then she had hastily scratched off
this note and given it, in a book, to Hector.

Alas! the edifice of his happiness, which had seemed to him strong
enough to defy every tempest of life, had crumbled, and he stood
there lost in the midst of its debris. No more happiness, joys,
hopes--nothing! All his plans for the future rested on Bertha; her
name was mingled in his every dream, she was at once the future and
the dream. He had so loved her that she had become something of
himself, that he could not imagine himself without her. Bertha
lost to him, he saw no direction in life to take, he had no further
reason for living. He perceived this so vividly that the idea of
suicide came to him. He had his gun, powder and balls; his death
would be attributed to a hunting accident, and all would be over.

Oh, but the guilty ones!

They would doubtless go on in their infamous comedy--would seem
to mourn for him, while really their hearts would bound with joy.
No more husband, no more hypocrisies or terrors. His will giving
his fortune to Bertha, they would be rich. They would sell
everything, and would depart rejoicing to some distant clime. As
to his memory, poor man, it would amuse them to think of him as the
cheated and despised husband.

"Never!" cried he, drunk with fury, "never! I must kill myself,
but first, I must avenge my dishonor!"

But he tried in vain to imagine a punishment cruel or terrible
enough. What chastisement could expiate the horrible tortures which
he endured? He said to himself that, in order to assure his
vengeance, he must wait--and he swore that he would wait. He would
feign the same stolid confidence, and resigned himself to see and
hear everything.

"My hypocrisy will equal theirs," thought he.

Indeed a cautious duplicity was necessary. Bertha was most cunning,
and at the first suspicion would fly with her lover. Hector had
already--thanks to him--several hundred thousand francs. The
idea that they might escape his vengeance gave him energy and a
clear head.

It was only then that he thought of the flight of time, the rain
falling in torrents, and the state of his clothes.

"Bah!" thought he, "I will make up some story to account for myself."

He was only a league from Valfeuillu, but he was an hour and a half
reaching home. He was broken, exhausted; he felt chilled to the
marrow of his bones. But when he entered the gate, he had succeeded
in assuming his usual expression, and the gayety which so well
hinted his perfect trustfulness. He had been waited for, but in
spite of his resolutions, he could not sit at table between this
man and woman, his two most cruel enemies. He said that he had
taken cold, and would go to bed. Bertha insisted in vain that he
should take at least a bowl of broth and a glass of claret.

"Really," said he, "I don't feel well."

When he had retired, Bertha said:

"Did you notice, Hector?"

"What?"

"Something unusual has happened to him."

"Very likely, after being all day in the rain."

"No. His eye had a look I never saw before."

"He seemed to be very cheerful, as he always is."

"Hector, my husband suspects!"

"He? Ah, my poor good friend has too much confidence in us to think
of being jealous."

"You deceive yourself, Hector; he did not embrace me when he came
in, and it is the first time since our marriage."

Thus, at the very first, he had made a blunder. He knew it well;
but it was beyond his power to embrace Bertha at that moment; and
he was suffering more than he thought he should. When his wife and
his friend ascended to his room, after dinner, they found him
shivering under the sheets, red, his forehead burning, his throat
dry, and his eyes shining with an unusual brilliancy. A fever soon
came on, attended by delirium. A doctor was called, who at first
said he would not answer for him. The next day he was worse. From
this time both Hector and Bertha conceived for him the most tender
devotion. Did they think they should thus in some sort expiate
their crime? It is doubtful. More likely they tried to impose on
the people about them; everyone was anxious for Sauvresy. They
never deserted him for a moment, passing the night by turns near
his bed. And it was painful to watch over him; a furious delirium
never left him. Several times force had to be used to keep him on
the bed; he tried to throw himself out of the window. The third
day he had a strange fancy; he did not wish to stay in his chamber.
He kept crying out:

"Carry me away from here, carry me away from here."

The doctor advised that he should be humored; so a bed was made up
for him in a little room on the ground-floor, overlooking the garden.
His wanderings did not betray anything of his suspicions; perhaps
the firm will was able even to control the delirium. The fever
finally yielded on the ninth day. His breathing became calmer, and
he slept. When he awoke, reason had returned. That was a frightful
moment. He had, so to speak, to take up the burden of his misery.
At first he thought it the memory of a horrid night-mare; but no.
He had not dreamed. He recalled the Belle Image, Jenny, the forest,
the letter. What had become of the letter? Then, having the vague
impression of a serious illness, he asked himself if he had said
anything to betray the source of his misery. This anxiety prevented
his making the slightest movement, and he opened his eyes softly and
cautiously. It was eleven at night, and all the servants had gone
to bed. Hector and Bertha alone were keeping watch; he was reading
a paper, she was crocheting. Sauvresy saw by their placid
countenances that he had betrayed nothing. He moved slightly;
Bertha at once arose and came to him.

"How are you, dear Clement?" asked she, kissing him fondly on the
forehead.

"I am no longer in pain."

"You see the result of being careless."

"How many days have I been sick?"

"Eight days."

"Why was I brought here?"

"Because you wished it."

Tremorel had approached the bedside.

"You refused to stay upstairs," said he, "you were ungovernable
till we had you brought here."

"But don't tire yourself," resumed Hector. "Go to sleep again, and
you will be well by to-morrow. And good-night, for I am going to
bed now, and shall return and wake your wife at four o'clock."

He went out, and Bertha, having given Sauvresy something to drink,
returned to her seat.

"What a friend Tremorel is," murmured she. Sauvresy did not answer
this terribly ironical exclamation. He shut his eyes, pretended to
sleep, and thought of the letter. What had he done with it? He
remembered that he had carefully folded it and put it in the
right-hand pocket of his vest. He must have this letter. It would
balk his vengeance, should it fall into his wife's hands; and this
might happen at any moment. It was a miracle that his valet had
not put it on the mantel, as he was accustomed to do with the things
which he found in his master's pockets. He was reflecting on some
means of getting it, of the possibility of going up to his bedroom,
where his vest ought to be, when Bertha got up softly. She came to
the bed and whispered gently:

"Clement, Clement!"

He did not open his eyes, and she, persuaded that he was sleeping,
though very lightly, stole out of the room, holding her breath as
she went.

"Oh, the wretch!" muttered Sauvresy, "she is going to him!"

At the same time the necessity of recovering the letter occurred to
him more vividly than ever.

"I can get to my room," thought he, "without being seen, by the
garden and back-stairs. She thinks I'm asleep; I shall get back
and abed before she returns."

Then, without asking himself whether he were not too feeble, or
what danger there might be in exposing himself to the cold, he got
up, threw a gown around him, put on his slippers and went toward
the door.

"If anyone sees me, I will feign delirium," said he to himself.

The vestibule lamp was out and he found some difficulty in opening
the door; finally, he descended into the garden. It was intensely
cold, and snow had fallen. The wind shook the limbs of the trees
crusted with ice. The front of the house was sombre. One window
only was lighted--that of Tremorel's room; that was lighted
brilliantly, by a lamp and a great blazing fire. The shadow of a
man--of Hector--rested on the muslin curtains; the shape was
distinct. He was near the window, and his forehead was pressed
against the panes. Sauvresy instinctively stopped to look at his
friend, who was so at home in his house, and who, in exchange for
the most brotherly hospitality, had brought dishonor, despair and
death.

Hector made a sudden movement, and turned around as if he was
surprised by an unwonted noise. What was it? Sauvresy only knew
too well. Another shadow appeared on the curtain--that of Bertha.
And he had forced himself to doubt till now! Now proofs had come
without his seeking. What had brought her to that room, at that
hour? She seemed to be talking excitedly. He thought he could
hear that full, sonorous voice, now as clear as metal, now soft and
caressing, which had made all the chords of passion vibrate in him.
He once more saw those beautiful eyes which had reigned so
despotically over his heart, and whose expressions he knew so well.
But what was she doing? Doubtless she had gone to ask Hector
something, which he refused her, and she was pleading with him;
Sauvresy saw that she was supplicating, by her motions; he knew the
gesture well. She lifted her clasped hands as high as her forehead,
bent her head, half shut her eyes. What languor had been in her
voice when she used to say:

"Say, dear Clement, you will, will you not?"

And now she was using the same blandishments on another. Sauvresy
was obliged to support himself against a tree. Hector was evidently
refusing what she wished; then she shook her finger menacingly, and
tossed her head angrily, as if she were saying:

"You won't? You shall see, then."

And then she returned to her supplications.

"Ah," thought Sauvresy, "he can resist her prayers; I never had
such courage. He can preserve his coolness, his will, when she
looks at him; I never said no to her; rather, I never waited for
her to ask anything of me; I have passed my life in watching her
lightest fancies, to gratify them. Perhaps that is what has
ruined me!"

Hector was obstinate, and Bertha was roused little by little; she
must be angry. She recoiled, holding out her arms, her head thrown
back; she was threatening him. At last he was conquered; he nodded,
"Yes." Then she flung herself upon him, and the two shadows were
confounded in a long embrace.

Sauvresy could not repress an agonized cry, which was lost amid the
noises of the night. He had asked for certainty; here it was. The
truth, indisputable, evident, was clear to him. He had to seek for
nothing more, now, except for the means to punish surely and
terribly. Bertha and Hector were talking amicably. Sauvresy saw
that she was about to go downstairs, and that he could not now go
for the letter. He went in hurriedly, forgetting, in his fear of
being discovered, to lock the garden door. He did not perceive that
he had been standing with naked feet in the snow, till he had
returned to his bedroom again; he saw some flakes on his slippers,
and they were damp; quickly he threw them under the bed, and jumped
in between the clothes, and pretended to be asleep.

It was time, for Bertha soon came in. She went to the bed, and
thinking that he had not woke up, returned to her embroidery by the
fire. Tremorel also soon reappeared; he had forgotten to take his
paper, and had come back for it. He seemed uneasy.

"Have you been out to-night, Madame?" asked he, in a low voice.

"No."

"Have all the servants gone to bed?"

"I suppose so; but why do you ask?"

"Since I have been upstairs, somebody has gone out into the garden,
and come back again."

Bertha looked at him with a troubled glance.

"Are you sure of what you say?"

"Certainly. Snow is falling, and whoever went out brought some
back on his shoes. This has melted in the vestibule--"

Mme. Sauvresy seized the lamp, and interrupting Hector, said:

"Come."

Tremorel was right. Here and there on the vestibule pavement were
little puddles.

"Perhaps this water has been here some time," suggested Bertha.

"No. It was not there an hour ago, I could swear. Besides, see,
here is a little snow that has not melted yet."

"It must have been one of the servants."

Hector went to the door and examined it.

"I do not think so," said he. "A servant would have shut the bolts;
here they are, drawn back. Yet I myself shut the door to-night, and
distinctly recollect fastening the bolts."

"It's very strange!"

"And all the more so, look you, because the traces of the water do
not go much beyond the drawing-room door."

They remained silent, and exchanged anxious looks. The same
terrible thought occurred to them both.

"If it were he?"

But why should he have gone into the garden? It could not have
been to spy on them.

They did not think of the window.

"It couldn't have been Clement," said Bertha, at last. "He was
asleep when I went back, and he is in a calm and deep slumber now."

Sauvresy, stretched upon his bed, heard what his enemies were
saying. He cursed his imprudence.

"Suppose," thought he, "they should think of looking at my gown and
slippers!"

Happily this simple idea did not occur to them; after reassuring
each other as well as they were able, they separated; but each
heart carried an anxious doubt. Sauvresy on that night had a
terrible crisis in his illness. Delirium, succeeding this ray of
reason, renewed its possession of his brain. The next morning Dr.
R--- pronounced him in more danger than ever; and sent a despatch
to Paris, saying that he would be detained at Valfeuillu three or
four days. The distemper redoubled in violence; very contradictory
symptoms appeared. Each day brought some new phase of it, which
confounded the foresight of the doctors. Every time that Sauvresy
had a moment of reason, the scene at the window recurred to him,
and drove him to madness again.

On that terrible night when he had gone out into the snow, he had
not been mistaken; Bertha was really begging something of Hector.
This was it:

M. Courtois, the mayor, had invited Hector to accompany himself and
his family on an excursion to Fontainebleau on the following day.
Hector had cordially accepted the invitation. Bertha could not bear
the idea of his spending the day in Laurence's company, and begged
him not to go. She told him there were plenty of excuses to relieve
him from his promise; for instance, he might urge that it would not
be seemly for him to go when his friend lay dangerously ill. At
first he positively refused to grant her prayer, but by her
supplications and menaces she persuaded him, and she did not go
downstairs until he had sworn that he would write to M. Courtois
that very evening declining the invitation. He kept his word, but
he was disgusted by her tyrannical behavior. He was tired of
forever sacrificing his wishes and his liberty, so that he could
plan nothing, say or promise nothing without consulting this jealous
woman, who would scarcely let him wander out of her sight. The
chain became heavier and heavier to bear, and he began to see that
sooner or later it must be wrenched apart. He had never loved
either Bertha or Jenny, or anyone, probably; but he now loved the
mayor's daughter. Her dowry of a million had at first dazzled him,
but little by little he had been subdued by Laurence's charms of
mind and person. He, the dissipated rake, was seduced by such grave
and naive innocence, such frankness and beauty; he would have
married Laurence had she been poor--as Sauvresy married Bertha.
But he feared Bertha too much to brave her suddenly, and so he
waited. The next day after the quarrel about Fontainebleau, he
declared that he was indisposed, attributed it to the want of
exercise, and took to the saddle for several hours every day
afterward. But he did not go far; only to the mayor's. Bertha at
first did not perceive anything suspicious in Tremorel's rides; it
reassured her to see him go off on his horse. After some days,
however, she thought she saw in him a certain feeling of satisfaction
concealed under the semblance of fatigue. She began to have doubts,
and these increased every time he went out; all sorts of conjectures
worried her while he was away. Where did he go? Probably to see
Laurence, whom she feared and detested. The suspicion soon became
a certainty with her. One evening Hector appeared, carrying in his
button-hole a flower which Laurence herself had put there, and which
he had forgotten to take out. Bertha took it gently, examined it,
smelt it, and, compelling herself to smile:

"Why," said she, "what a pretty flower!"

"So I thought," answered Hector, carelessly, "though I don't know
what it is called."

"Would it be bold to ask who gave it to you?"

"Not at all. It's a present from our good Plantat."

All Orcival knew that M. Plantat, a monomaniac on flowers, never
gave them away to anyone except Mme. Laurence. Hector's evasion
was an unhappy one, and Bertha was not deceived.

"You promised me, Hector," said she, "not to see Laurence any more,
and to give up this marriage."

He tried to reply.

"Let me speak," she continued, "and explain yourself afterward.
You have broken your word--you are deceiving my confidence! But
I tell you, you shall not marry her!" Then, without awaiting his
reply, she overwhelmed him with reproaches. Why had he come here
at all? She was happy in her home before she knew him. She did
not love Sauvresy, it was true; but she esteemed him, and he was
good to her. Ignorant of the happiness of true love, she did not
desire it. But he had come, and she could not resist his
fascination. And now, after having engaged her affection, he was
going to desert her, to marry another! Tremorel listened to her,
perfectly amazed at her audacity. What! She dared to pretend that
it was he who had abused her innocence, when, on the contrary, he
had sometimes been astonished at her persistency! Such was the
depth of her corruption, as it seemed to him, that he wondered
whether he were her first or her twentieth lover. And she had so
led him on, and had so forcibly made him feel the intensity of her
will, that he had been fain still to submit to this despotism. But
he had now determined to resist on the first opportunity; and he
resisted.

"Well, yes," said he, frankly, "I did deceive you; I have no fortune
--this marriage will give me one; I shall get married." He went on
to say that he loved Laurence less than ever, but that he coveted
her money more and more every day. "To prove this," he pursued,
"if you will find me to-morrow a girl who has twelve hundred
thousand francs instead of a million, I will marry her in preference
to Mademoiselle Courtois."

She had never suspected he had so much courage. She had so long
moulded him like soft wax, and this unexpected conduct disconcerted
her. She was indignant, but at the same time she felt that
unhealthy satisfaction that some women feel, when they meet a master
who subdues them; and she admired Tremorel more than ever before.
This time, he had taken a tone which conquered her; she despised
him enough to think him quite capable of marrying for money. When
he had done, she said:

"It's really so, then; you only care for the million of dowry?"

"I've sworn it to you a hundred times."

"Truly now, don't you love Laurence?"

"I have never loved her, and never shall." He thought that he would
thus secure his peace until the wedding-day; once married, he cared
not what would happen. What cared he for Sauvresy? Life is only a
succession of broken friendships. What is a friend, after all?
One who can and ought to serve you. Ability consists in breaking
with people, when they cease to be useful to you.

Bertha reflected.

"Hear me, Hector," said she at last. "I cannot calmly resign
myself to the sacrifice which you demand. Let me have but a few
days, to accustom myself to this dreadful blow. You owe me as much
--let Clement get well, first."

He did not expect to see her so gentle and subdued; who would have
looked for such concessions, so easily obtained? The idea of a
snare did not occur to him. In his delight he betrayed how he
rejoiced in his liberty, which ought to have undeceived Bertha; but
she did not perceive it. He grasped her hand, and cried:

"Ah, you are very good--you really love me."



                                XIX

The Count de Tremorel did not anticipate that the respite which
Bertha begged would last long. Sauvresy had seemed better during
the last week. He got up every day, and commenced to go about the
house; he even received numerous visits from the neighbors; without
apparent fatigue. But alas, the master of Valfeuillu was only the
shadow of himself. His friends would never have recognized in that
emaciated form and white face, and burning, haggard eye, the robust
young man with red lips and beaming visage whom they remembered.
He had suffered so! He did not wish to die before avenging himself
on the wretches who had filched his happiness and his life. But
what punishment should he inflict? This fixed idea burning in his
brain, gave his look a fiery eagerness. Ordinarily, there are
three modes in which a betrayed husband may avenge himself. He
has the right, and it is almost a duty--to deliver the guilty ones
up to the law, which is on his side. He may adroitly watch them,
surprise them and kill them. There is a law which does not absolve,
but excuses him, in this. Lastly, he may affect a stolid
indifference, laugh the first and loudest at his misfortune, drive
his wife from his roof, and leave her to starve. But what poor,
wretched methods of vengeance. Give up his wife to the law? Would
not that be to offer his name, honor, and life to public ridicule?
To put himself at the mercy of a lawyer, who would drag him through
the mire. They do not defend the erring wife, they attack her
husband. And what satisfaction would he get? Bertha and Tremorel
would be condemned to a year's imprisonment, perhaps eighteen
months, possibly two years. It seemed to him simpler to kill them.
He might go in, fire a revolver at them, and they would not have
time to comprehend it, for their agony would be but for a moment;
and then? Then, he must become a prisoner, submit to a trial,
invoke the judge's mercy, and risk conviction. As to turning his
wife out of doors, that was to hand her over quietly to Hector. He
imagined them leaving Valfeuillu, hand in hand, happy and smiling,
and laughing in his face. At this thought he had a fit of cold
rage; his self-esteem adding the sharpest pains to the wounds in
his heart. None of these vulgar methods could satisfy him. He
longed for some revenge unheard-of, strange, monstrous, as his
tortures were. Then he thought of all the horrible tales he had
read, seeking one to his purpose; he had a right to be particular,
and he was determined to wait until he was satisfied. There was
only one thing that could balk his progress--Jenny's letter. What
had become of it? Had he lost it in the woods? He had looked for
it everywhere, and could not find it.

He accustomed himself, however, to feign, finding a sort of fierce
pleasure in the constraint. He learned to assume a countenance
which completely hid his thoughts. He submitted to his wife's
caresses without an apparent shudder; and shook Hector by the hand
as heartily as ever. In the evening, when they were gathered about
the drawing-room table, he was the gayest of the three. He built
a hundred air-castles, pictured a hundred pleasure-parties, when
he was able to go abroad again. Hector rejoiced at his returning
health.

"Clement is getting on finely," said he to Bertha, one evening.

She understood only too well what he meant.

"Always thinking of Laurence?"

"Did you not permit me to hope?"

"I asked you to wait, Hector, and you have done well not to be in
a hurry. I know a young girl who would bring you, not one, but
three millions as dowry."

This was a painful surprise. He really had no thoughts for anyone
but Laurence, and now a new obstacle presented itself.

"And who is that?"

She leaned over, and whispered tremblingly in his ear:

"I am Clement's sole heiress; perhaps he'll die; I might be a widow
to-morrow."

Hector was petrified.

"But Sauvresy, thank God! is getting well fast."

Bertha fixed her large, clear eyes upon him, and with frightful
calmness said:

"What do you know about it?"

Tremorel dared not ask what these strange words meant. He was one
of those men who shun explanations, and who, rather than put
themselves on their guard in time, permit themselves to be drawn
on by circumstances; soft and feeble beings, who deliberately
bandage their eyes so as not to see the danger which threatens
them, and who prefer the sloth of doubt, and acts of uncertainty
to a definite and open position, which they have not the courage
to face.

Besides, Hector experienced a childish satisfaction in seeing
Bertha's distress, though he feared and detested her. He conceived
a great opinion of his own value and merit, when he saw the
persistency and desperation with which she insisted on keeping her
hold on him.

"Poor woman!" thought he. "In her grief at losing me, and seeing
me another's, she has begun to wish for her husband's death!"

Such was the torpor of his moral sense that he did not see the
vileness of Bertha's and his own thoughts.

Meanwhile Sauvresy's state was not reassuring for Hector's hopes
and plans. On the very day when he had this conversation with
Bertha, her husband was forced to take to his bed again. This
relapse took place after he had drank a glass of quinine and water,
which he had been accustomed to take just before supper; only, this
time, the symptoms changed entirely, as if one malady had yielded
to another of a very different kind. He complained of a pricking
in his skin, of vertigo, of convulsive twitches which contracted
and twisted his limbs, especially his arms. He cried out with
excruciating neuralgic pains in the face. He was seized with a
violent, persistent, tenacious craving for pepper, which nothing
could assuage. He was sleepless, and morphine in large doses
failed to bring him slumber; while he felt an intense chill within
him, as if the body's temperature were gradually diminishing.
Delirium had completely disappeared, and the sick man retained
perfectly the clearness of his mind. Sauvresy bore up wonderfully
under his pains, and seemed to take a new interest in the business
of his estates. He was constantly in consultation with bailiffs
and agents, and shut himself up for days together with notaries and
attorneys. Then, saying that he must have distractions, he received
all his friends, and when no one called, he sent for some
acquaintance to come and chat with him in order to forget his
illness. He gave no hint of what he was doing and thinking, and
Bertha was devoured by anxiety. She often watched for her husband's
agent, when, after a conference of several hours, he came out of
his room; and making herself as sweet and fascinating as possible,
she used all her cunning to find out something which would
enlighten her as to what he was about. But no one could, or at
least would, satisfy her curiosity; all gave evasive replies, as
if Sauvresy had cautioned them, or as if there were nothing to tell.

No complaints were heard from Sauvresy. He talked constantly of
Bertha and Hector; he wished all the world to know their devotion
to him; he called them his "guardian angels," and blessed Heaven
that had given him such a wife and such a friend. Sauvresy's
illness now became so serious that Tremorel began to despair; he
became alarmed; what position would his friend's death leave him
in? Bertha, having become a widow, would be implacable. He
resolved to find out her inmost thoughts at the first opportunity;
she anticipated him, and saved him the trouble of broaching the
subject. One afternoon, when they were alone, M. Plantat being
in attendance at the sick man's bedside, Bertha commenced.

"I want some advice, Hector, and you alone can give it to me. How
can I find out whether Clement, within the past day or two, has not
changed his will in regard to me?"

"His will?"

"Yes, I've already told you that by a will of which I myself have a
copy, Sauvresy has left me his whole fortune. I fear that he may
perhaps revoke it."

"What an idea!"

"Ah, I have reasons for my apprehensions. What are all these agents
and attorneys doing at Valfeuillu? A stroke of this man's pen may
ruin me. Don't you see that he can deprive me of his millions, and
reduce me to my dowry of fifty thousand francs?"

"But he will not do it; he loves you--"

"Are you sure of it? I've told you, there are three millions; I
must have this fortune--not for myself, but for you; I want it, I
must have it! But how can I find out--how? how?"

Hector was very indignant. It was to this end, then, that his
delays had conducted him! She thought that she had a right now to
dispose of him in spite of himself, and, as it were, to purchase
him. And he could not, dared not, say anything!

"We must be patient," said he, "and wait--"

"Wait--for what? Till he's dead?"

"Don't speak so."

"Why not?" Bertha went up to him, and in a low voice, muttered:

"He has only a week to live; and see here--"

She drew a little vial from her pocket, and held it up to him.

"That is what convinces me that I am not mistaken."

Hector became livid, and could not stifle a cry of horror. He
comprehended all now--he saw how it was that Bertha had been so
easily subdued, why she had refrained from speaking of Laurence,
her strange words, her calm confidence.

"Poison!" stammered he, confounded.

"Yes, poison."

"You have not used it?"

She fixed a hard, stern look upon him--the look which had subdued
his will, against which he had struggled in vain--and in a calm
voice, emphasizing each word, answered:

"I have used it."

The count was, indeed, a dangerous man, unscrupulous, not recoiling
from any wickedness when his passions were to be indulged, capable
of everything; but this horrible crime awoke in him all that remained
of honest energy.

"Well," he cried, in disgust, "you will not use it again!"

He hastened toward the door, shuddering; she stopped him.

"Reflect before you act," said she, coldly. "I will betray the
fact of your relations with me; who will then believe that you are
not my accomplice?"

He saw the force of this terrible menace, coming from Bertha.

"Come," said she, ironically, "speak--betray me if you choose.
Whatever happens, for happiness or misery, we shall no longer be
separated; our destinies will be the same."

Hector fell heavily into a chair, more overwhelmed than if he had
been struck with a hammer. He held his bursting forehead between
his hands; he saw himself shut up in an infernal circle, without
outlet.

"I am lost!" he stammered, without knowing what he said, "I am lost!"

He was to be pitied; his face was terribly haggard, great drops of
perspiration stood at the roots of his hair, his eyes wandered as
if he were insane. Bertha shook him rudely by the arm, for his
cowardice exasperated her.

"You are afraid," she said. "You are trembling! Lost? You would
not say so, if you loved me as I do you. Will you be lost because
I am to be your wife, because we shall be free to love in the face
of all the world? Lost! Then you have no idea of what I have
endured? You don't know, then, that I am tired of suffering,
fearing, feigning."

"Such a crime!"

She burst out with a laugh that made him shudder.

"You ought to have said so," said she, with a look full of contempt,
"the day you won me from Sauvresy--the day that you stole the wife
of this friend who saved your life. Do you think that was a less
horrid crime? You knew as well as I did how much my husband loved
me, and that he would have preferred to die, rather than lose me
thus."

"But he knows nothing, suspects nothing of it."

"You are mistaken; Sauvresy knows all."

"Impossible!"

"All, I tell you--and he has known all since that day when he came
home so late from hunting. Don't you remember that I noticed his
strange look, and said to you that my husband suspected something?
You shrugged your shoulders. Do you forget the steps in the
vestibule the night I went to your room? He had been spying on us.
Well, do you want a more certain proof? Look at this letter,
which I found, crumpled up and wet, in one of his vest pockets."

She showed him the letter which Sauvresy had forcibly taken from
Jenny, and he recognized it well.

"It is a fatality," said he, overwhelmed. "But we can separate
and break off with each other. Bertha, I can go away."

"It's too late. Believe me, Hector, we are to-day defending our
lives. Ah, you don't know Clement! You don't know what the fury
of a man like him can be, when he sees that his confidence has
been outrageously abused, and his trust vilely betrayed. If he
has said nothing to me, and has not let us see any traces of his
implacable anger, it is because he is meditating some frightful
vengeance."

This was only too probable, and Hector saw it clearly.

"What shall we do?" he asked, in a hoarse voice; he was almost
speechless.

"Find out what change he has made in his will."

"But how?"

"I don't know yet. I came to ask your advice, and I find you more
cowardly than a woman. Let me act, then; don't do anything yourself;
I will do all."

He essayed an objection.

"Enough," said she. "He must not ruin us after all--I will see
--I will think."

Someone below called her. She went down, leaving Hector overcome
with despair.

That evening, during which Bertha seemed happy and smiling, his
face finally betrayed so distinctly the traces of his anguish, that
Sauvresy tenderly asked him if he were not ill?

"You exhaust yourself tending on me, my good Hector," said he.
"How can I ever repay your devotion?"

Tremorel had not the strength to reply.

"And that man knows all," thought he. "What courage! What fate
can he be reserving for us?"

The scene which was passing before Hector's eyes made his flesh
creep. Every time that Bertha gave her husband his medicine, she
took a hair-pin from her tresses, and plunged it into the little
vial which she had shown him, taking up thus some small, white
grains, which she dissolved in the potions prescribed by the doctor.

It might be supposed that Tremorel, enslaved by his horrid position,
and harassed by increasing terror, would renounce forever his
proposed marriage with Laurence. Not so. He clung to that project
more desperately than ever. Bertha's threats, the great obstacles
now intervening, his anguish, crime, only augmented the violence of
his love for her, and fed the flame of his ambition to secure her
as his wife. A small and flickering ray of hope which lighted the
darkness of his despair, consoled and revived him, and made the
present more easy to bear. He said to himself that Bertha could not
be thinking of marrying him the day after her husband's death.
Months, a whole year must pass, and thus he would gain time; then
some day he would declare his will. What would she have to say?
Would she divulge the crime, and try to hold him as her accomplice?
Who would believe her? How could she prove that he, who loved and
had married another woman, had any interest in Sauvresy's death?
People don't kill their friends for the mere pleasure of it. Would
she provoke the law to exhume her husband? She was now in a
position, thought he, wherein she could, or would not exercise her
reason. Later on, she would reflect, and then she would be arrested
by the probability of those dangers, the certainty of which did not
now terrify her.

He did not wish that she should ever be his wife at any price. He
would have detested her had she possessed millions; he hated her
now that she was poor, ruined, reduced to her own narrow means.
And that she was so, there was no doubt, Sauvresy indeed knew all.
He was content to wait; he knew that Laurence loved him enough to
wait for him one, or three years, if necessary. He already had
such absolute power over her, that she did not try to combat the
thoughts of him, which gently forced themselves on her, penetrated
to her soul, and filled her mind and heart. Hector said to himself
that in the interest of his designs, perhaps it was well that
Bertha was acting as she did. He forced himself to stifle his
conscience in trying to prove that he was not guilty. Who thought
of this crime? Bertha. Who was executing it? She alone. He
could only be reproached with moral complicity in it, a complicity
involuntary, forced upon him, imposed somehow by the care for his
own life. Sometimes, however, a bitter remorse seized him. He
could have understood a sudden, violent, rapid murder; could have
explained to himself a knife-stroke; but this slow death, given
drop by drop, horribly sweetened by tenderness, veiled under kisses,
appeared to him unspeakably hideous. He was mortally afraid of
Bertha, as of a reptile, and when she embraced him he shuddered
from head to foot.

She was so calm, so engaging, so natural; her voice had the same
soft and caressing tones, that he could not forget it. She plunged
her hair-pin into the fatal vial without ceasing her conversation,
and he did not surprise her in any shrinking or shuddering, nor
even a trembling of the eyelids. She must have been made of brass.
Yet he thought that she was not cautious enough; and that she put
herself in danger of discovery; and he told her of these fears,
and how she made him tremble every moment.

"Have confidence in me," she answered. "I want to succeed--I am
prudent."

"But you may be suspected."

"By whom?"

"Eh! How do I know? Everyone--the servants, the doctor."

"No danger. And suppose they did suspect?"

"They would make examinations, Bertha; they would make a minute
scrutiny."

She gave a smile of the most perfect security.

"They might examine and experiment as much as they pleased, they
would find nothing. Do you think I am such a fool as to use
arsenic?"

"For Heaven's sake, hush!"

"I have procured one of those poisons which are as yet unknown, and
which defy all analysis; one of which many doctors--and learned
ones, too--could not even tell the symptoms!"

"But where did you get this--this--"

He dared not say, "poison."

"Who gave you that?" resumed he.

"What matters it? I have taken care that he who gave it to me
should run the same danger as myself, and he knows it. There's
nothing to fear from that quarter. I've paid him enough to smother
all his regrets."

An objection came to his lips; he wanted to say, "It's too slow;"
but he had not the courage, though she read his thought in his eyes.

"It is slow, because that suits me," said she. "Before all, I
must know about the will--and that I am trying to find out."

She occupied herself constantly about this will, and during the
long hours that she passed at Sauvresy's bedside, she gradually,
with the greatest craft and delicacy, led her husband's mind in
the direction of his last testament, with such success that he
himself mentioned the subject which so absorbed Bertha.

He said that he did not comprehend why people did not always have
their worldly affairs in order, and their wishes fully written down,
in case of accident. What difference did it make whether one were
ill or well? At these words Bertha attempted to stop him. Such
ideas, she said, pained her too much. She even shed real tears,
which fell down her cheeks and made her more beautiful and
irresistible than before; real tears which moistened her handkerchief.

"You dear silly creature," said Sauvresy, "do you think that makes
one die?"

"No; but I do not wish it."

"But, dear, have we been any the less happy because, on the day
after our marriage, I made a will bequeathing you all my fortune?
And, stop; you have a copy of it, haven't you? If you were kind,
you would go and fetch it for me."

She became very red, then very pale. Why did he ask for this copy?
Did he want to tear it up? A sudden thought reassured her; people
do not tear up a document which can be cancelled by a scratch of
the pen on another sheet of paper. Still, she hesitated a moment.

"I don't know where it can be."

"But I do. It is in the left-hand drawer of the glass cupboard;
come, please me by getting it."

While she was gone, Sauvresy said to Hector:

"Poor girl! Poor dear Bertha! If I died, she never would survive
me!"

Tremorel thought of nothing to reply; his anxiety was intense and
visible.

"And this man," thought he, "suspects something! No; it is not
possible."

Bertha returned.

"I have found it," said she.

"Give it to me."

He took the copy of his will, and read it with evident satisfaction,
nodding his head at certain passages in which he referred to his
love for his wife. When he had finished reading, he said:

"Now give me a pen and some ink."

Hector and Bertha reminded him that it would fatigue him to write;
but he insisted. The two guilty ones, seated at the foot of the
bed and out of Sauvresy's sight, exchanged looks of alarm. What
was he going to write? But he speedily finished it.

"Take this," said he to Tremorel, "and read aloud what I have just
added."

Hector complied with his friend's request, with trembling voice:

  "This day, being sound in mind, though much suffering, I declare
  that I do not wish to change a line of this will. Never have I
  loved my wife more--never have I so much desired to leave her
  the heiress of all I possess, should I die before her.

  "CLEMENT SAUVRESY."


Mistress of herself as Bertha was, she succeeded in concealing the
unspeakable satisfaction with which she was filled. All her wishes
were accomplished, and yet she was able to veil her delight under
an apparent sadness.

"Of what good is this?" said she, with a sigh.

She said this, but half an hour afterward, when she was alone with
Hector, she gave herself up to the extravagance of her delight.

"Nothing more to fear," exclaimed she. "Nothing! Now we shall
have liberty, fortune, love, pleasure, life! Why, Hector, we shall
have at least three millions; you see, I've got this will myself,
and I shall keep it. No more agents or notaries shall be admitted
into this house henceforth. Now I must hasten!"

The count certainly felt a satisfaction in knowing her to be rich,
for he could much more easily get rid of a millionnaire widow than
of a poor penniless woman. Sauvresy's conduct thus calmed many
sharp anxieties. Her restless gayety, however, her confident
security, seemed monstrous to Hector. He would have wished for
more solemnity in the execution of the crime; he thought that he
ought at least to calm Bertha's delirium.

"You will think more than once of Sauvresy," said he, in a graver
tone.

She answered with a "prrr," and added vivaciously:

"Of him? when and why? Oh, his memory will not weigh on me very
heavily. I trust that we shall be able to live still at Valfeuillu,
for the place pleases me; but we must also have a house at Paris
--or we will buy yours back again. What happiness, Hector!"

The mere prospect of this anticipated felicity so shocked Hector,
that his better self for the moment got the mastery; he essayed to
move Bertha.

"For the last time," said he, "I implore you to renounce this
terrible, dangerous project. You see that you were mistaken--that
Sauvresy suspects nothing, but loves you as well as ever."

The expression of Bertha's face suddenly changed; she sat quite
still, in a pensive revery.

"Don't let's talk any more of that," said she, at last. "Perhaps
I was mistaken. Perhaps he only had doubts--perhaps, although he
has discovered something, he hopes to win me back by his goodness.
But you see--"

She stopped. Doubtless she did not wish to alarm him.

He was already much alarmed. The next day he went off to Melun
without a word; being unable to bear the sight of this agony, and
fearing to betray himself. But he left his address, and when she
sent word that Sauvresy was always crying out for him, he hastily
returned. Her letter was most imprudent and absurd, and made his
hair stand on end. He had intended, on his arrival, to reproach
her; but it was she who upbraided him.

"Why this flight?"

"I could not stay here--I suffered, trembled, felt as if I were
dying."

"What a coward you are!"

He would have replied, but she put her finger on his mouth, and
pointed with her other hand to the door of the next room.

"Sh! Three doctors have been in consultation there for the past
hour, and I haven't been able to hear a word of what they said. Who
knows what they are about? I shall not be easy till they go away."

Bertha's fears were not without foundation. When Sauvresy had his
last relapse, and complained of a severe neuralgia in the face and
an irresistible craving for pepper, Dr. R--- had uttered a significant
exclamation. It was nothing, perhaps--yet Bertha had heard it, and
she thought she surprised a sudden suspicion on the doctor's part;
and this now disturbed her, for she thought that it might be the
subject of the consultation. The suspicion, however, if there had
ever been any, quickly vanished. The symptoms entirely changed
twelve hours later, and the next day the sick man felt pains quite
the opposite of those which had previously distressed him. This
very inconstancy of the distemper served to puzzle the doctor's
conclusions. Sauvresy, in these latter days, had scarcely suffered
at all, he said, and had slept well at night; but he had, at times,
strange and often distressing sensations. He was evidently failing
hourly; he was dying--everyone perceived it. And now Dr. R--- asked
for a consultation, the result of which had not been reached when
Tremorel returned.

The drawing-room door at last swung open, and the calm faces of the
physicians reassured the poisoner. Their conclusions were that the
case was hopeless; everything had been tried and exhausted; no human
resources had been neglected; the only hope was in Sauvresy's strong
constitution.

Bertha, colder than marble, motionless, her eyes full of tears,
seemed so full of grief on hearing this cruel decision, that all
the doctors were touched.

"Is there no hope then? Oh, my God!" cried she, in agonizing tones.

Dr. R--- hardly dared to attempt to comfort her; he answered her
questions evasively.

"We must never despair," said he, "when the invalid is of Sauvresy's
age and constitution; nature often works miracles when least
expected."

The doctor, however, lost no time in taking Hector apart and begging
him to prepare the poor, devoted, loving young lady for the terrible
blow about to ensue.

"For you see," added he, "I don't think Monsieur Sauvresy can live
more than two days!"

Bertha, with her ear at the keyhole, had heard the doctor's
prediction; and when Hector returned from conducting the physician
to the door, he found her radiant. She rushed into his arms.

"Now" cried she, "the future truly belongs to us. Only one black
point obscured our horizon, and it has cleared away. It is for me
to realize Doctor R---'s prediction." They dined together, as usual,
in the dining-room, while one of the chambermaids remained beside
the sick-bed. Bertha was full of spirits which she could scarcely
control. The certainty of success and safety, the assurance of
reaching the end, made her imprudently gay. She spoke aloud, even
in the presence of the servants, of her approaching liberty.
During the evening she was more reckless than ever. If any of the
servants should have a suspicion, or a shadow of one she might be
discovered and lost. Hector constantly nudged her under the table
and frowned at her, to keep her quiet; he felt his blood run cold
at her conduct; all in vain. There are times when the armor of
hypocrisy becomes so burdensome that one is forced, cost what it
may, to throw it off if only for an instant.

While Hector was smoking his cigar, Bertha was more freely pursuing
her dream. She was thinking that she could spend the period of her
mourning at Valfeuillu, and Hector, for the sake of appearances,
would hire a pretty little house somewhere in the suburbs. The
worst of it all was that she would be forced to seem to mourn for
Sauvresy, as she had pretended to love him during his lifetime.
But at last a day would come when, without scandal, she might throw
off her mourning clothes, and then they would get married. Where?
At Paris or Orcival?

Hector's thoughts ran in the same channel. He, too, wished to see
his friend under the ground to end his own terrors, and to submit
to Bertha's terrible yoke.



                                 XX

Time passed. Hector and Bertha repaired to Sauvresy's room; he was
asleep. They noiselessly took chairs beside the fire, as usual,
and the maid retired. In order that the sick man might not be
disturbed by the light of the lamp, curtains had been hung so that,
when lying down, he could not see the fireplace and mantel. In
order to see these, he must have raised himself on his pillow and
leaned forward on his right arm. But now he was asleep, breathing
painfully, feverish, and shuddering convulsively. Bertha and Hector
did not speak; the solemn and sinister silence was only broken by
the ticking of the clock, or by the leaves of the book which Hector
was reading. Ten o'clock struck; soon after Sauvresy moved, turned
over, and awoke. Bertha was at his side in an instant; she saw that
his eyes were open.

"Do you feel a little better, dear Clement?" she asked.

"Neither better nor worse."

"Do you want anything?"

"I am thirsty."

Hector, who had raised his eyes when his friend spoke, suddenly
resumed his reading.

Bertha, standing by the mantel, began to prepare with great care
Dr. R---'s last prescription; when it was ready, she took out the
fatal little vial as usual, and thrust one of her hair-pins into it.

She had not time to draw it out before she felt a light touch upon
her shoulder. A shudder shook her from head to foot; she suddenly
turned and uttered a loud scream, a cry of terror and horror.

"Oh!"

The hand which had touched her was her husband's. While she was
busied with the poison at the mantel, Sauvresy had softly raised
himself; more softly still, he had pulled the curtain aside, and
had stretched out his arm and touched her. His eyes glittered
with hate and anger.

Bertha's cry was answered by another dull cry, or rather groan;
Tremorel had seen and comprehended all; he was overwhelmed.

"All is discovered!" Their eyes spoke these three words to each
other. They saw them everywhere, written in letters of fire. There
was a moment of stupor, of silence so profound that Hector heard his
temples beat. Sauvresy had got back under the bed-clothes again.
He laughed loudly, wildly, just as a skeleton might have laughed
whose jaws and teeth rattled together.

But Bertha was not one of those persons who are overcome by a single
blow, terrible as it might be. She trembled like a leaf; her legs
staggered; but her mind was already at work seeking a subterfuge.
What had Sauvresy seen--anything? What did he know? For even
had he seen the vial, this might be explained. It could only have
been by simple chance that he had touched her at the moment when
she was using the poison. All these thoughts flashed across her
mind in a moment, as rapid as lightning shooting between the clouds.
And then she dared to approach the bed, and, with a frightfully
constrained smile, to say:

"How you frightened me then!"

He looked at her a moment, which seemed to her an age--and simply
replied:

"I understand it."

There was no longer any uncertainty. Bertha saw only too well in
her husband's eyes that he knew something. But what--how much?
She nerved herself to go on:

"Are you still suffering?"

"No."

"Then why did you get up?"

He raised himself upon his pillow, and with a sudden strength, he
continued:

"I got up to tell you that I have had enough of these tortures,
that I have reached the limits of human energy, that I cannot endure
one day longer the agony of seeing myself put to death slowly, drop
by drop, by the hands of my wife and my best friend!"

He stopped. Hector and Bertha were thunderstruck. "I wanted to
tell you also, that I have had enough of your cruel caution, and
that I suffer. Ah, don't you see that I suffer horribly? Hurry,
cut short my agony! Kill me, and kill me at a blow--poisoners!"

At the last word, the Count de Tremorel sprang up as if he had
moved by a spring, his eyes haggard, his arms stretched out.
Sauvresy, seeing this, quickly slipped his hand under the pillow,
pulled out a revolver, and pointed the barrel at Hector, crying out:

"Don't advance a step!"

He thought that Tremorel, seeing that they were discovered, was
going to rush upon him and strangle him; but he was mistaken. It
seemed to Hector as though he were losing his mind. He fell down
as heavily as if he were a log. Bertha was more self-possessed;
she tried to resist the torpor of terror which she felt coming on.

"You are worse, my Clement," said she. "This is that dreadful fever
which frightens me so. Delirium--"

"Have I really been delirious?" interrupted he, with a surprised air.

"Alas, yes, dear, that is what haunts you, and fills your poor sick
head with horrid visions."

He looked at her curiously. He was really stupefied by this
boldness, which constantly grew more bold.

"What! you think that we, who are so dear to you, your friends, I,
your--"

Her husband's implacable look forced her to stop, and the words
expired on her lips.

"Enough of these lies, Bertha," resumed Sauvresy, "they are useless.
No, I have not been dreaming, nor have I been delirious. The poison
is only too real, and I could tell you what it is without your
taking it out of your pocket."

She recoiled as if she had seen her husband's hand stretched out to
snatch the blue vial.

"I guessed it and recognized it at the very first; for you have
chosen one of those poisons which, it is true, leave scarcely any
trace of themselves, but the symptoms of which are not deceptive.
Do you remember the day when I complained of a morbid taste for
pepper? The next day I was certain of it, and I was not the only
one. Doctor R---, too, had a suspicion."

Bertha tried to stammer something; her husband interrupted her.

"People ought to try their poisons," pursued he, in an ironical
tone, "before they use them. Didn't you understand yours, or what
its effects were? Why, your poison gives intolerable neuralgia,
sleeplessness, and you saw me without surprise, sleeping soundly
all night long! I complained of a devouring fire within me, while
your poison freezes the blood and the entrails, and yet you are not
astonished. You see all the symptoms change and disappear, and
that does not enlighten you. You are fools, then. Now see what
I had to do to divert Doctor R---'s suspicions. I hid the real pains
which your poison caused, and complained of imaginary, ridiculous
ones. I described sensations just the opposite of those which I
felt. You were lost, then--and I saved you."

Bertha's malignant energy staggered beneath so many successive blows.
She wondered whether she were not going mad; had she heard aright?
Was it really true that her husband had perceived that he was being
poisoned, and yet said nothing; nay, that he had even deceived the
doctor? Why? What was his purpose?

Sauvresy paused several minutes, and then went on:

"I have held my tongue and so saved you, because the sacrifice of
my life had already been made. Yes, I had been fatally wounded in
the heart on the day that I learned that you were faithless to me."

He spoke of his death without apparent emotion; but at the words,
"You were faithless to me," his voice faltered and trembled.

"I would not, could not believe it at first. I doubted the evidence
of my senses, rather than doubt you. But I was forced to believe at
last. I was no longer anything in my house but a laughing-stock.
But I was in your way. You and your lover needed more room and
liberty. You were tired of constraint and hypocrisy. Then it was
that, believing that my death would make you free and rich, you
brought in poison to rid yourselves of me."

Bertha had at least the heroism of crime. All was discovered; well,
she threw down the mask. She tried to defend her accomplice, who
lay unconscious in a chair.

"It is I that have done it all," cried she. "He is innocent."

Sauvresy turned pale with rage.

"Ah, really," said he, "my friend Hector is innocent! It wasn't he,
then, who, to pay me up--not for his life, for he was too cowardly
to kill himself; but for his honor, which he owes to me--took my
wife from me? Wretch! I hold out my hand to him when he is
drowning, I welcome him like a brother, and in return, he desolates
my hearth! . . . And you knew what you were doing, my friend Hector
--for I told you a hundred times that my wife was my all here below,
my present and my future, my dream and happiness and hope and very
life! You knew that for me to lose her was to die. But if you had
loved her--no, it was not that you loved her; you hated me. Envy
devoured you, and you could not tell me to my face, 'You are too
happy.' Then, like a coward, you dishonored me in the dark. Bertha
was only the instrument of your rancor; and she weighs upon you
to-day--you despise and fear her. My friend, Hector, you have been
in this house the vile lackey who thinks to avenge his baseness by
spitting upon the meats which he puts on his master's table!"

The count only responded by a shudder. The dying man's terrible
words fell more cruelly on his conscience than blows upon his cheek.

"See, Bertha," continued Sauvresy, "that's the man whom you have
preferred to me, and for whom you have betrayed me. You never
loved me--I see it now--your heart was never Mine. And I--I
loved you so! From the day I first saw you, you were my only
thought; as if your heart had beaten in place of Mine. Everything
about you was dear and precious to me; I adored your whims,
caprices, even your faults. There was nothing I would not do for
a smile from you, so that you would say to me, Thank you, between
two kisses. You don't know that for years after our marriage it
was my delight to wake up first so as to gaze upon you as you lay
asleep, to admire and touch your lovely hair, lying dishevelled
across the pillow. Bertha!"

He softened at the remembrance of these past joys, which would not
come again. He forgot their presence, the infamous treachery, the
poison; that he was about to die, murdered by this beloved wife;
and his eyes filled with tears, his voice choked.

Bertha, more motionless and pallid than marble, listened to him
breathlessly.

"It is true, then," continued the sick man, "that these lovely eyes
conceal a soul of filth! Ah, who would not have been deceived, as
I was? Bertha, what did you dream of when you were sleeping in my
arms? Tremorel came, and you thought you saw in him the ideal of
your dreams. You admired the precocious wrinkles which betrayed an
exhausted life, like the fatal seal which marks the fallen
archangel's forehead. Your love, without thought of mine, rushed
toward him, though he did not think of you. You went to evil as if
it were your nature. And yet I thought you more immaculate than
the Alpine snows. You did not even have a struggle with yourself;
you betrayed no confusion which would reveal your first fault to
me. You brought me your forehead soiled with his kisses without
blushing."

Weariness overcame his energies; his voice became little by little
feebler and less distinct.

"You had your happiness in your hands, Bertha, and you carelessly
destroyed it, as the child breaks the toy of whose value he is
ignorant. What did you expect from this wretch for whom you had
the frightful courage to kill me, with a kiss upon your lips,
slowly, hour by hour? You thought you loved him, but disgust
ought to have come at last. Look at him, and judge between us.
See which is the--man--I, extended on this bed where I shall
soon die, or he shivering there in a corner. You have the energy
of crime, but he has only the baseness of it. Ah, if my name was
Hector de Tremorel, and a man had spoken as I have just done,
that man should live no longer, even if he had ten revolvers like
this I am holding to defend himself with!"

Hector, thus taunted, tried to get up and reply; but his legs would
not support him, and his throat only gave hoarse, unintelligible
sounds. Bertha, as she looked at the two men, recognized her error
with rage and indignation. Her husband, at this moment, seemed to
her sublime; his eyes gleamed, his face was radiant; while the other
--the other! She felt sick with disgust when she but glanced toward
him.

Thus all these deceptive chimeras after which she had run, love,
passion, poetry, were already hers; she had held them in her hands
and she had not been able to perceive it. But what was Sauvresy's
purpose?

He continued, painfully:

"This then, is our situation; you have killed me, you are going to
be free, yet you hate and despise each other--"

He stopped, and seemed to be suffocating; he tried to raise himself
on his pillow and to sit up in bed, but found himself too feeble.

"Bertha," said he, "help me get up."

She leaned over the bed, and taking her husband in her arms,
succeeded in placing him as he wished. He appeared more at ease
in his new position, and took two or three long breaths.

"Now," he said, "I should like something to drink. The doctor lets
me take a little old wine, if I have a fancy for it; give me some."

She hastened to bring him a glass of wine, which he emptied and
handed back to her.

"There wasn't any poison in it, was there?" he asked.

This ghastly question and the smile which accompanied it, melted
Bertha's callousness; remorse had already taken possession of her,
as her disgust of Tremorel increased.

"Poison?" she cried, eagerly, "never!"

"You must give me some, though, presently, so as to help me to die."

"You die, Clement? No; I want you to live, so that I may redeem
the past. I am a wretch, and have committed a hideous crime--but
you are good. You will live; I don't ask to be your wife, but
only your servant. I will love you, humiliate myself, serve you
on my knees, so that some day, after ten, twenty years of expiation,
you will forgive me!"

Hector in his mortal terror and anguish, was scarcely able to
distinguish what was taking place. But he saw a dim ray of hope
in Bertha's gestures and accent, and especially in her last words;
he thought that perhaps it was all going to end and be forgotten,
and that Sauvresy would pardon them. Half-rising, he stammered:

"Yes, forgive us, forgive us!"

Sauvresy's eyes glittered, and his angry voice vibrated as if it
came from a throat of metal.

"Forgive!" cried he, "pardon! Did you have pity on me during all
this year that you have been playing with my happiness, during this
fortnight that you have been mixing poison in all my potions?
Pardon? What, are you fools? Why do you think I held my tongue,
when I discovered your infamy, and let myself be poisoned, and
threw the doctors off the scent? Do you really hope that I did
this to prepare a scene of heartrending farewells, and to give
you my benediction at the end? Ah, know me better!"

Bertha was sobbing; she tried to take her husband's hand, but he
rudely repulsed her.

"Enough of these falsehoods," said he. "Enough of these perfidies.
I hate you! You don't seem to perceive that hate is all that is
still living in me."

Sauvresy's expression was at this moment ferocious. "It is almost
two months since I learned the truth; it broke me up, soul and body.
Ah, it cost me a good deal to keep quiet--it almost killed me.
But one thought sustained me; I longed to avenge myself. My mind
was always bent on that; I searched for a punishment as great as
this crime; I found none, could find none. Then you resolved to
poison me. Mark this--that the very day when I guessed about the
poison I had a thrill of joy, for I had discovered my vengeance!"

A constantly increasing terror possessed Bertha, and now stupefied
her, as well as Tremorel.

"Why do you wish for my death? To be free and marry each other?
Very well; I wish that also. The Count de Tremorel will be Madame
Sauvresy's second husband."

"Never!" cried Bertha. "No, never!"

"Never!" echoed Hector.

"It shall be so; nevertheless because I wish it. Oh, my precautions
have been well taken, and you can't escape me. Now hear me. When
I became certain that I was being poisoned, I began to write a
minute history of all three of us; I did more--I have kept a
journal day by day and hour by hour, narrating all the particulars
of my illness; then I kept some of the poison which you gave me--"

Bertha made a gesture of denial. Sauvresy proceeded:

"Certainly, I kept it, and I will tell you how. Every time that
Bertha gave me a suspicious potion, I kept a portion of it in my
mouth, and carefully ejected it into a bottle which I kept hid
under the bolster. Ah, you ask how I could have done all this
without your suspecting it, or without being seen by any of the
servants. Know that hate is stronger than love, be sure that I
have left nothing to chance, nor have I forgotten anything."

Hector and Bertha looked at Sauvresy with a dull, fixed gaze. They
forced themselves to understand him, but could scarcely do so.

"Let's finish," resumed the dying man, "my strength is waning.
This very morning, the bottle containing the poison I have preserved,
our biographies, and the narrative of my poisoning, have been put
in the hands of a trustworthy and devoted person, whom, even if
you knew him, you could not corrupt. He does not know the
contents of what has been confided to him. The day that you get
married this friend will give them all up to you. If, however,
you are not married in a year from to-day, he has instructions to
put these papers and this bottle into the hands of the officers of
the law."

A double cry of horror and anguish told Sauvresy that he had well
chosen his vengeance.

"And reflect," added he, "that this package once delivered up to
justice, means the galleys, if not the scaffold for both of you."

Sauvresy had overtasked his strength. He fell panting upon the
bed, his mouth open, his eyes filmy, and his features so distorted
that he seemed to be on the point of death. But neither Bertha
nor Tremorel thought of trying to relieve him. They remained
opposite each other with dilated eyes, stupefied, as if their
thoughts were bent upon the torments of that future which the
implacable vengeance of the man whom they had outraged imposed
upon them. They were indissolubly united, confounded in a common
destiny; nothing could separate them but death. A chain stronger
and harder than that of the galley-slave bound them together; a
chain of infamies and crimes, of which the first link was a kiss,
and the last a murder by poison. Now Sauvresy might die; his
vengeance was on their heads, casting a cloud upon their sun. Free
in appearance, they would go through life crushed by the burden of
the past, more slaves than the blacks in the American rice-fields.
Separated by mutual hate and contempt, they saw themselves riveted
together by the common terror of punishment, condemned to an
eternal embrace.

Bertha at this moment admired her husband. Now that he was so
feeble that he breathed as painfully as an infant, she looked upon
him as something superhuman. She had had no idea of such
constancy and courage allied with so much dissimulation and genius.
How cunningly he had found them out! How well he had known how to
avenge himself! To be the master, he had only to will it. In a
certain way she rejoiced in the strange atrocity of this scene; she
felt something like a bitter pride in being one of the actors in it.
At the same time she was transported with rage and sorrow in
thinking that she had had this man in her power, that he had been
at her feet. She almost loved him. Of all men, it was he whom she
would have chosen were she mistress of her destinies; and he was
going to escape her.

Tremorel, while these strange ideas crowded upon Bertha's mind,
began to come to himself. The certainty that Laurence was now
forever lost for him occurred to him, and his despair was without
bounds. The silence continued a full quarter of an hour. Sauvresy
at last subdued the spasm which had exhausted him, and spoke.

"I have not said all yet," he commenced.

His voice was as feeble as a murmur, and yet it seemed terrible to
his hearers.

"You shall see whether I have reckoned and foreseen well. Perhaps,
when I was dead, the idea of flying and going abroad would strike
you. I shall not permit that. You must stay at Orcival--at
Valfeuillu. A--friend--not he with the package--is charged,
without knowing the reason for it, with the task of watching you.
Mark well what I say--if either of you should disappear for eight
days, on the ninth, the man who has the package would receive a
letter which would cause him to resort at once to the police."

Yes, he had foreseen all, and Tremorel, who had already thought of
flight, was overwhelmed.

"I have so arranged, besides, that the idea of flight shall not
tempt you too much. It is true I have left all my fortune to
Bertha, but I only give her the use of it; the property itself will
not be hers until the day after your marriage."

Bertha made a gesture of repugnance which her husband misinterpreted.

"You are thinking of the copy of my will which is in your possession.
It is a useless one, and I only added to it some valueless words
because I wanted to put your suspicions to sleep. My true will is
in the notary's hands, and bears a date two days later. I can read
you the rough draft of it."

He took a sheet of paper from a portfolio which was concealed; like
the revolver, under the bolster, and read:

"Being stricken with a fatal malady, I here set down freely, and
in the fulness of my faculties, my last wishes:

"My dearest wish is that my well-beloved widow, Bertha, should
espouse, as soon as the delay enjoined by law has expired, my
dear friend, the Count Hector de Tremorel. Having appreciated the
grandeur of soul and nobleness of sentiment which belong to my
wife and friend, I know that they are worthy of each other, and
that each will be happy in the other. I die the more peacefully,
as I leave my Bertha to a protector whose--"

It was impossible for Bertha to hear more.

"For pity's sake," cried she, "enough."

"Enough? Well, let it be so," responded Sauvresy. "I have read
this paper to you to show you that while I have arranged everything
to insure the execution of my will; I have also done all that can
preserve to you the world's respect. Yes, I wish that you should
be esteemed and honored, for it is you alone upon whom I rely for
my vengeance. I have knit around you a net-work which you can
never burst asunder. You triumph; my tombstone shall be, as you
hoped, the altar of your nuptials, or else--the galleys."

Tremorel's pride at last revolted against so many humiliations, so
many whip-strokes lashing his face.

"You have only forgotten one thing, Sauvresy; that a man can die."

"Pardon me," replied the sick man, coldly. "I have foreseen that
also, and was just going to tell you so. Should one of you die
suddenly before the marriage, the police will be called in."

"You misunderstood me; I meant that a man can kill himself."

"You kill yourself? Humph! Jenny, who disdains you almost as much
as I do, has told me about your threats to kill yourself. You!
See here; here is my revolver; shoot yourself, and I will forgive
my wife!"

Hector made a gesture of anger, but did not take the pistol.

"You see," said Sauvresy, "I knew it well. You are afraid."
Turning to Bertha, he added, "This is your lover."

Extraordinary situations like this are so unwonted and strange
that the actors in them almost always remain composed and natural,
as if stupefied. Bertha, Hector, and Sauvresy accepted, without
taking note of it, the strange position in which they found
themselves; and they talked naturally, as if of matters of
every-day life, and not of terrible events. But the hours flew,
and Sauvresy perceived his life to be ebbing from him.

"There only remains one more act to play," said he. "Hector, go
and call the servants, have those who have gone to bed aroused, I
want to see them before dying."

Tremorel hesitated.

"Come, go along; or shall I ring, or fire a pistol to bring them
here?"

Hector went out; Bertha remained alone with her husband--alone!
She had a hope that perhaps she might succeed in making him change
his purpose, and that she might obtain his forgiveness. She knelt
beside the bed. Never had she been so beautiful, so seductive, so
irresistible. The keen emotions of the evening had brought her
whole soul into her face, and her lovely eyes supplicated, her
breast heaved, her mouth was held out as if for a kiss, and her
new-born passion for Sauvresy burst out into delirium.

"Clement," she stammered, in a voice full of tenderness, "my
husband, Clement!"

He directed toward her a glance of hatred.

"What do you wish?"

She did not know how to begin--she hesitated, trembled and sobbed.

"Hector would not kill himself," said she, "but I--"

"Well, what do you wish to say? Speak!"

"It was I, a wretch, who have killed you. I will not survive you."

An inexpressible anguish distorted Sauvresy's features. She kill
herself! If so, his vengeance was vain; his own death would then
appear only ridiculous and absurd. And he knew that Bertha would
not be wanting in courage at the critical moment.

She waited, while he reflected.

"You are free," said he, at last, "this would merely be a sacrifice
to Hector. If you died, he would marry Laurence Courtois, and in
a year would forget even our name."

Bertha sprang to her feet; she pictured Hector to herself married
and happy. A triumphant smile, like a sun's ray, brightened
Sauvresy's pale face. He had touched the right chord. He might
sleep in peace as to his vengeance. Bertha would live. He knew
how hateful to each other were these enemies whom he left linked
together.

The servants came in one by one; nearly all of them had been long
in Sauvresy's service, and they loved him as a good master. They
wept and groaned to see him lying there so pale and haggard, with
the stamp of death already on his forehead. Sauvresy spoke to
them in a feeble voice, which was occasionally interrupted by
distressing hiccoughs. He thanked them, he said, for their
attachment and fidelity, and wished to apprise them that he had
left each of them a goodly sum in his will. Then turning to Bertha
and Hector, he resumed:

"You have witnessed, my people, the care and solicitude with which
my bedside has been surrounded by this incomparable friend and my
adored Bertha. You have seen their devotion. Alas, I know how
keen their sorrow will be! But if they wish to soothe my last
moments and give me a happy death, they will assent to the prayer
which I earnestly make, to them, and will swear to espouse each
other after I am gone. Oh, my beloved friends, this seems cruel
to you now; but you know not how all human pain is dulled in me.
You are young, life has yet much happiness in store for you. I
conjure you yield to a dying man's entreaties!"

They approached the bed, and Sauvresy put Bertha's hand into
Hector's.

"Do you swear to obey me?" asked he.

They shuddered to hold each other's hands, and seemed near
fainting; but they answered, and were heard to murmur:

"We swear it."

The servants retired, grieved at this distressing scene, and
Bertha muttered:

"Oh, 'tis infamous, 'tis horrible!"

"Infamous--yes," returned Sauvresy, "but not more so than your
caresses, Bertha, or than your hand-pressures, Hector; not more
horrible than your plans, than your hopes--"

His voice sank into a rattle. Soon the agony commenced. Horrible
convulsions distorted his limbs; twice or thrice he cried out:

"I am cold; I am cold!"

His body was indeed stiff, and nothing could warm it.

Despair filled the house, for a death so sudden was not looked for.
The domestics came and went, whispering to each other, "He is going,
poor monsieur; poor madame!"

Soon the convulsions ceased. He lay extended on his back, breathing
so feebly that twice they thought his breath had ceased forever. At
last, a little before ten o'clock, his cheeks suddenly colored and
he shuddered. He rose up in bed, his eye staring, his arm
stretched out toward the window, and he cried:

"There--behind the curtain--I see them--I see them!"

A last convulsion stretched him again on his pillow.

Clement Sauvresy was dead!



                                XXI

The old justice of the peace ceased reading his voluminous record.
His hearers, the detective and the doctor remained silent under the
influence of this distressing narrative. M. Plantat had read it
impressively, throwing himself into the recital as if he had been
personally an actor in the scenes described.

M. Lecoq was the first to recover himself.

"A strange man, Sauvresy," said he.

It was Sauvresy's extraordinary idea of vengeance which struck him
in the story. He admired his "good playing" in a drama in which
he knew he was going to yield up his life.

"I don't know many people," pursued the detective, "capable of so
fearful a firmness. To let himself be poisoned so slowly and
gently by his wife! Brrr! It makes a man shiver all over!"

"He knew how to avenge himself," muttered the doctor.

"Yes," answered M. Plantat, "yes, Doctor; he knew how to avenge
himself, and more terribly than he supposed, or than you can imagine."

The detective rose from his seat. He had remained motionless,
glued to his chair for more than three hours, and his legs were
benumbed.

"For my part," said he, "I can very well conceive what an infernal
existence the murderers began to suffer the day after their victim's
death. You have depicted them, Monsieur Plantat, with the hand of
a master. I know them as well after your description as if I had
studied them face to face for ten years."

He spoke deliberately, and watched for the effect of what he said
in M. Plantat's countenance.

"Where on earth did this old fellow get all these details?" he
asked himself. "Did he write this narrative, and if not, who did?
How was it, if he had all this information, that he has said
nothing?"

M. Plantat appeared to be unconscious of the detective's searching
look.

"I know that Sauvresy's body was not cold," said he, "before his
murderers began to threaten each other with death."

"Unhappily for them," observed Dr. Gendron, "Sauvresy had foreseen
the probability of his widow's using up the rest of the vial of
poison."

"Ah, he was shrewd," said M. Lecoq, in a tone of conviction,
"very shrewd."

"Bertha could not pardon Hector," continued M. Plantat, "for
refusing to take the revolver and blow his brains out; Sauvresy,
you see, had foreseen that. Bertha thought that if her lover were
dead, her husband would have forgotten all; and it is impossible to
tell whether she was mistaken or not."

"And nobody knew anything of this horrible struggle that was going
on in the house?"

"No one ever suspected anything."

"It's marvellous!"

"Say, Monsieur Lecoq, that is scarcely credible. Never was
dissimulation so crafty, and above all, so wonderfully sustained.
If you should question the first person you met in Orcival, he
would tell you, as our worthy Courtois this morning told Monsieur
Domini, that the count and countess were a model pair and adored
each other. Why I, who knew--or suspected, I should say--what
had passed, was deceived myself."

Promptly as M. Plantat had corrected himself, his slip of the
tongue did not escape M. Lecoq.

"Was it really a slip, or not?" he asked himself.

"These wretches have been terribly punished," pursued M. Plantat,
"and it is impossible to pity them; all would have gone rightly if
Sauvresy, intoxicated by his hatred, had not committed a blunder
which was almost a crime."

"A crime!" exclaimed the doctor.

M. Lecoq smiled and muttered in a low tone:

"Laurence."

But low as he had spoken, M. Plantat heard him.

"Yes, Monsieur Lecoq," said he severely. "Yes, Laurence. Sauvresy
did a detestable thing when he thought of making this poor girl the
accomplice, or I should say, the instrument of his wrath. He
piteously threw her between these two wretches, without asking
himself whether she would be broken. It was by using Laurence's
name that he persuaded Bertha not to kill herself. Yet he knew of
Tremorel's passion for her, he knew her love for him, and he knew
that his friend was capable of anything. He, who had so well
foreseen all that could serve his vengeance, did not deign to
foresee that Laurence might be dishonored; and yet he left her
disarmed before this most cowardly and infamous of men!"

The detective reflected.

"There is one thing," said he, "that I can't explain. Why was it
that these two, who execrated each other, and whom the implacable
will of their victim chained together despite themselves, did not
separate of one accord the day after their marriage, when they had
fulfilled the condition which had established their crime?"

The old justice of the peace shook his head.

"I see," he answered, "that I have not yet made you understand
Bertha's resolute character. Hector would have been delighted with
a separation; his wife could not consent to it. Ah, Sauvresy knew
her well! She saw her life ruined, a horrible remorse lacerated
her; she must have a victim upon whom to expiate her errors and
crimes; this victim was Hector. Ravenous for her prey, she would
not let him go for anything in the world."

"I' faith," observed Dr. Gendron, "your Tremorel was a
chicken-hearted wretch. What had he to fear when Sauvresy's
manuscript was once destroyed?"

"Who told you it had been destroyed?" interrupted M. Plantat.

M. Lecoq at this stopped promenading up and down the room, and sat
down opposite M. Plantat.

"The whole case lies there," said he. "Whether these proofs have
or have not been destroyed."

M. Plantat did not choose to answer directly.

"Do you know," asked he, "to whom Sauvresy confided them for
keeping?"

"Ah," cried the detective, as if a sudden idea had enlightened him,
"it was you."

He added to himself, "Now, my good man, I begin to see where all
your information comes from."

"Yes, it was I," resumed M. Plantat. "On the day of the marriage
of Madame Sauvresy and Count Hector, in conformity with the last
wishes of my dying friend, I went to Valfeuillu and asked to see
Monsieur and Madame de Tremorel. Although they were full of
company, they received me at once in the little room on the
ground-floor where Sauvresy was murdered. They were both very pale
and terribly troubled. They evidently guessed the purpose of my
visit, for they lost no time in admitting me to an interview. After
saluting them I addressed myself to Bertha, being enjoined to do so
by the written instructions I had received; this was another
instance of Sauvresy's foresight. 'Madame,' said I, 'I was charged
by your late husband to hand to you, on the day of your second
marriage, this package, which he confided to my care.' She took the
package, in which the bottle and the manuscript were enclosed,
with a smiling, even joyous air, thanked me warmly, and went out.
The count's expression instantly changed; he appeared very restless
and agitated; he seemed to be on coals. I saw well enough that he
burned to rush after his wife, but dared not; I was going to retire;
but he stopped me. 'Pardon me,' said he, abruptly, 'you will permit
me, will you not? I will return immediately,' with which he ran
out. When I saw him and his wife a few minutes afterward, they
were both very red; their eyes had a strange expression and their
voices trembled, as they accompanied me to the door. They had
certainly been having a violent altercation."

"The rest may be conjectured," interrupted M. Lecoq. "She had gone
to secrete the manuscript in some safe place; and when her new
husband asked her to give it up to him, she replied, 'Look for it.'"

"Sauvresy had enjoined on me to give it only into her hands."

"Oh, he knew how to work his revenge. He had it given to his wife
so that she might hold a terrible arm against Tremorel, all ready
to crush him. If he revolted, she always had this instrument of
torture at hand. Ah, the man was a miserable wretch, and she must
have made him suffer terribly."

"Yes," said Dr. Gendron, "up to the very day he killed her."

The detective had resumed his promenade up and down the library.

"The question as to the poison," said he, "remains. It is a simple
one to resolve, because we've got the man who sold it to her in
that closet."

"Besides," returned the doctor, "I can tell something about the
poison. This rascal of a Robelot stole it from my laboratory, and
I know only too well what it is, even if the symptoms, so well
described by our friend Plantat, had not indicated its name to me.
I was at work upon aconite when Sauvresy died; and he was poisoned
with aconitine."

"Ah, with aconitine," said M. Lecoq, surprised. "It's the first
time that I ever met with that poison. Is it a new thing?"

"Not exactly. Medea is said to have extracted her deadliest poisons
from aconite, and it was employed in Rome and Greece in criminal
executions."

"And I did not know of it! But I have very little time to study.
Besides, this poison of Medea's was perhaps lost, as was that of
the Borgias; so many of these things are!"

"No, it was not lost, be assured. But we only know of it nowadays
by Mathiole's experiments on felons sentenced to death, in the
sixteenth century; by Hers, who isolated the active principle, the
alkaloid, in 1833 and lastly by certain experiments made by
Bouchardat, who pretends--"

Unfortunately, when Dr. Gendron was set agoing on poisons, it was
difficult to stop him; but M. Lecoq, on the other hand, never lost
sight of the end he had in view.

"Pardon me for interrupting you, Doctor," said he. "But would
traces of aconitine be found in a body which had been two years
buried? For Monsieur Domini is going to order the exhumation of
Sauvresy."

"The tests of aconitine are not sufficiently well known to permit
of the isolation of it in a body. Bouchardat tried ioduret of
potassium, but his experiment was not successful."

"The deuce!" said M. Lecoq. "That's annoying."

The doctor smiled benignly.

"Reassure yourself," said he. "No such process was in existence
--so I invented one."

"Ah," cried Plantat. "Your sensitive paper!"

"Precisely."

"And could you find aconitine in Sauvresy's body?"

"Undoubtedly."

M. Lecoq was radiant, as if he were now certain of fulfilling what
had seemed to him a very difficult task.

"Very well," said he. "Our inquest seems to be complete. The
history of the victims imparted to us by Monsieur Plantat gives us
the key to all the events which have followed the unhappy Sauvresy's
death. Thus, the hatred of this pair, who were in appearance so
united, is explained; and it is also clear why Hector has ruined a
charming young girl with a splendid dowry, instead of making her his
wife. There is nothing surprising in Tremorel's casting aside his
name and personality to reappear under another guise; he killed his
wife because he was constrained to do so by the logic of events. He
could not fly while she was alive, and yet he could not continue to
live at Valfeuillu. And above all, the paper for which he searched
with such desperation, when every moment was an affair of life and
death to him, was none other than Sauvresy's manuscript, his
condemnation and the proof of his first crime."

M. Lecoq talked eagerly, as if he had a personal animosity against
the Count de Tremorel; such was his nature; and he always avowed
laughingly that he could not help having a grudge against the
criminals whom he pursued. There was an account to settle between
him and them; hence the ardor of his pursuit. Perhaps it was a
simple matter of instinct with him, like that which impels the
hunting hound on the track of his game.

"It is clear enough now," he went on, "that it was Mademoiselle
Courtois who put an end to his hesitation and eternal delay. His
passion for her, irritated by obstacles, goaded him to delirium.
On learning her condition, he lost his head and forgot all prudence
and reason. He was wearied, too, of a punishment which began anew
each morning; he saw himself lost, and his wife sacrificing herself
for the malignant pleasure of sacrificing him. Terrified, he took
the resolution to commit this murder."

Many of the circumstances which had established M. Lecoq's
conviction had escaped Dr. Gendron.

"What!" cried he, stupefied. "Do you believe in Mademoiselle
Laurence's complicity?"

The detective earnestly protested by a gesture.

"No, Doctor, certainly not; heaven forbid that I should have such
an idea. Mademoiselle Courtois was and is still ignorant of this
crime. But she knew that Tremorel would abandon his wife for her.
This flight had been discussed, planned, and agreed upon between
them; they made an appointment to meet at a certain place, on a
certain day."

"But this letter," said the doctor.

M. Plantat could scarcely conceal his emotion when Laurence was
being talked about.

"This letter," cried he, "which has plunged her family into the
deepest grief, and which will perhaps kill poor Courtois, is only
one more scene of the infamous drama which the count has planned."

"Oh," said the doctor, "is it possible?"

"I am firmly of Monsieur Plantat's opinion," said the detective.
"Last evening we had the same suspicion at the same moment at the
mayor's. I read and re-read her letter, and could have sworn that
it did not emanate from herself. The count gave her a rough draft
from which she copied it. We mustn't deceive ourselves; this letter
was meditated, pondered on, and composed at leisure. Those were not
the expressions of an unhappy young girl of twenty who was going to
kill herself to escape dishonor."

"Perhaps you are right," remarked the doctor visibly moved. "But
how can you imagine that Tremorel succeeded in persuading her to
do this wretched act?"

"How? See here, Doctor, I am not much experienced in such things,
having seldom had occasion to study the characters of well-brought-up
young girls; yet it seems to me very simple. Mademoiselle Courtois
saw the time coming when her disgrace would be public, and so
prepared for it, and was even ready to die if necessary."

M. Plantat shuddered; a conversation which he had had with Laurence
occurred to him. She had asked him, he remembered, about certain
poisonous plants which he was cultivating, and had been anxious to
know how the poisonous juices could be extracted from them.

"Yes," said he, "she has thought of dying."

"Well," resumed the detective, "the count took her in one of the
moods when these sad thoughts haunted the poor girl, and was easily
able to complete his work of ruin. She undoubtedly told him that
she preferred death to shame, and he proved to her that, being in
the condition in which she was, she had no right to kill herself.
He said that he was very unhappy; and that not being free, he could
not repair his fault; but he offered to sacrifice his life for her.
What should she do to save both of them? Abandon her parents, make
them believe that she had committed suicide, while he, on his side,
would desert his house and his wife. Doubtless she resisted for
awhile; but she finally consented to everything; she fled, and
copied and posted the infamous letter dictated by her lover."

The doctor was convinced.

"Yes," he muttered, "those are doubtless the means he employed."

"But what an idiot he was," resumed M. Lecoq, "not to perceive that
the strange coincidence between his disappearance and Laurence's
suicide would be remarked! He said to himself, 'Probably people
will think that I, as well as my wife, have been murdered; and the
law, having its victim in Guespin, will not look for any other.'"

M. Plantat made a gesture of impotent rage.

"Ah," cried he, "and we know not where the wretch has hid himself
and Laurence."

The detective took him by the arm and pressed it.

"Reassure yourself," said he, coolly. "We'll find him, or my name's
not Lecoq; and to be honest, I must say that our task does not seem
to me a difficult one."

Several timid knocks at the door interrupted the speaker. It was
late, and the household was already awake and about. Mme. Petit
in her anxiety and curiosity had put her ear to the key-hole at
least ten times, but in vain.

"What can they be up to in there?" said she to Louis. "Here they've
been shut up these twelve hours without eating or drinking. At all
events I'll get breakfast."

It was not Mme. Petit, however, who dared to knock on the door; but
Louis, the gardener, who came to tell his master of the ravages
which had been made in his flower-pots and shrubs. At the same time
he brought in certain singular articles which he had picked up on
the sward, and which M. Lecoq recognized at once.

"Heavens!" cried he, "I forgot myself. Here I go on quietly
talking with my face exposed, as if it was not broad daylight; and
people might come in at any moment!" And turning to Louis, who was
very much surprised to see this dark young man whom he had certainly
not admitted the night before, he added:

"Give me those little toilet articles, my good fellow; they belong
to me."

Then, by a turn of his hand, he readjusted his physiognomy of last
night, while the master of the house went out to give some orders,
which M. Lecoq did so deftly, that when M. Plantat returned, he
could scarcely believe his eyes.

They sat down to breakfast and ate their meal as silently as they
had done the dinner of the evening before, losing no time about it.
They appreciated the value of the passing moments; M. Domini was
waiting for them at Corbeil, and was doubtless getting impatient at
their delay.

Louis had just placed a sumptuous dish of fruit upon the table,
when it occurred to M. Lecoq that Robelot was still shut up in the
closet.

"Probably the rascal needs something," said he.

M. Plantat wished to send his servant to him; but M. Lecoq objected.

"He's a dangerous rogue," said he. "I'll go myself."

He went out, but almost instantly his voice was heard:

"Messieurs! Messieurs, see here!"

The doctor and M. Plantat hastened into the library.

Across the threshold of the closet was stretched the body of the
bone-setter. He had killed himself.



                                XXII

Robelot must have had rare presence of mind and courage to kill
himself in that obscure closet, without making enough noise to
arouse the attention of those in the library. He had wound a
string tightly around his neck, and had used a piece of pencil as
a twister, and so had strangled himself. He did not, however,
betray the hideous look which the popular belief attributes to
those who have died by strangulation. His face was pale, his eyes
and mouth half open, and he had the appearance of one who has
gradually and without much pain lost his consciousness by congestion
of the brain.

"Perhaps he is not quite dead yet," said the doctor. He quickly
pulled out his case of instruments and knelt beside the motionless
body.

This incident seemed to annoy M. Lecoq very much; just as everything
was, as he said, "running on wheels," his principal witness, whom he
had caught at the peril of his life, had escaped him. M. Plantat,
on the contrary, seemed tolerably well satisfied, as if the death
of Robelot furthered projects which he was secretly nourishing, and
fulfilled his secret hopes. Besides, it little mattered if the
object was to oppose M. Domini's theories and induce him to change
his opinion. This corpse had more eloquence in it than the most
explicit of confessions.

The doctor, seeing the uselessness of his pains, got up.

"It's all over," said he. "The asphyxia was accomplished in a very
few moments."

The bone-setter's body was carefully laid on the floor in the
library.

"There is nothing more to be done," said M. Plantat, "but to carry
him home; we will follow on so as to seal up his effects, which
perhaps contain important papers. Run to the mairie," he added,
turning to his servant, "and get a litter and two stout men."

Dr. Gendron's presence being no longer necessary, he promised M.
Plantat to rejoin him at Robelot's, and started off to inquire
after M. Courtois's condition.

Louis lost no time, and soon reappeared followed, not by two, but
ten men. The body was placed on a litter and carried away. Robelot
occupied a little house of three rooms, where he lived by himself;
one of the rooms served as a shop, and was full of plants, dried
herbs, grain, and other articles appertaining to his vocation as
an herbist. He slept in the back room, which was better furnished
than most country rooms. His body was placed upon the bed. Among
the men who had brought it was the "drummer of the town," who was
at the same time the grave-digger. This man, expert in everything
pertaining to funerals, gave all the necessary instructions on the
present occasion, himself taking part in the lugubrious task.

Meanwhile M. Plantat examined the furniture, the keys of which had
been taken from the deceased's pocket. The value of the property
found in the possession of this man, who had, two years before,
lived from day to day on what he could pick up, were an
over-whelming proof against him in addition to the others already
discovered. But M. Plantat looked in vain for any new indications
of which he was ignorant. He found deeds of the Morin property and
of the Frapesle and Peyron lands; there were also two bonds, for
one hundred and fifty and eight hundred and twenty francs, signed
by two Orcival citizens in Robelot's favor. M. Plantat could
scarcely conceal his disappointment.

"Nothing of importance," whispered he in M. Lecoq's ear. "How do
you explain that?"

"Perfectly," responded the detective. "He was a sly rogue, this
Robelot, and he was cunning enough to conceal his sudden fortune
and patient enough to appear to be years accumulating it. You only
find in his secretary effects which he thought he could avow
without danger. How much is there in all?"

Plantat rapidly added up the different sums, and said:

"About fourteen thousand five hundred francs."

"Madame Sauvresy gave him more than that," said the detective,
positively. "If he had no more than this, he would not have been
such a fool as to put it all into land. He must have a hoard of
money concealed somewhere."

"Of course he must. But where?"

"Ah, let me look."

He began to rummage about, peering into everything in the room,
moving the furniture, sounding the floor with his heels, and rapping
on the wall here and there. Finally he came to the fireplace, before
which he stopped.

"This is July," said he. "And yet there are cinders here in the
fireplace."

"People sometimes neglect to clean them out in the spring."

"True; but are not these very clean and distinct? I don't find any
of the light dust and soot on them which ought to be there after
they have lain several months."

He went into the second room whither he had sent the men after they
had completed their task, and said:

"I wish one of you would get me a pickaxe."

All the men rushed out; M. Lecoq returned to his companion.

"Surely," muttered he, as if apart, "these cinders have been
disturbed recently, and if they have been--"

He knelt down, and pushing the cinders away, laid bare the stones
of the fireplace. Then taking a thin piece of wood, he easily
inserted it into the cracks between the stones.

"See here, Monsieur Plantat," said he. "There is no cement between
these stones, and they are movable; the treasure must be here."

When the pickaxe was brought, he gave a single blow with it; the
stones gaped apart, and betrayed a wide and deep hole between them.

"Ah," cried he, with a triumphant air, "I knew it well enough."

The hole was full of rouleaux of twenty-franc pieces; on counting
them, M. Lecoq found that there were nineteen thousand five hundred
francs.

The old justice's face betrayed an expression of profound grief.

"That," thought he, "is the price of my poor Sauvresy's life."

M. Lecoq found a small piece of paper, covered with figures,
deposited with the gold; it seemed to be Robelot's accounts. He
had put on the left hand the sum of forty thousand francs; on the
right hand, various sums were inscribed, the total of which was
twenty-one thousand five hundred francs. It was only too clear;
Mme. Sauvresy had paid Robelot forty thousand francs for the bottle
of poison. There was nothing more to learn at his house. They
locked the money up in the secretary, and affixed seals everywhere,
leaving two men on guard.

But M. Lecoq was not quite satisfied yet. What was the manuscript
which Plantat had read? At first he had thought that it was simply
a copy of the papers confided to him by Sauvresy; but it could not
be that; Sauvresy couldn't have thus described the last agonizing
scenes of his life. This mystery mightily worried the detective
and dampened the joy he felt at having solved the crime at
Valfeuillu. He made one more attempt to surprise Plantat into
satisfying his curiosity. Taking him by the coat-lapel, he drew
him into the embrasure of a window, and with his most innocent air,
said:

"I beg your pardon, are we going back to your house?"

"Why should we? You know the doctor is going to meet us here."

"I think we may need the papers you read to us, to convince Monsieur
Domini."

M. Plantat smiled sadly, and looking steadily at him, replied:

"You are very sly, Monsieur Lecoq; but I too am sly enough to keep
the last key of the mystery of which you hold all the others."

"Believe me--" stammered M. Lecoq.

"I believe," interrupted his companion, "that you would like very
well to know the source of my information. Your memory is too good
for you to forget that when I began last evening I told you that
this narrative was for your ear alone, and that I had only one
object in disclosing it--to aid our search. Why should you wish
the judge of instruction to see these notes, which are purely
personal, and have no legal or authentic character?"

He reflected a few moments, and added:

"I have too much confidence in you, Monsieur Lecoq, and esteem you
too much, not to have every trust that you will not divulge these
strict confidences. What you will say will be of as much weight as
anything I might divulge--especially now that you have Robelot's
body to back your assertions, as well as the money found in his
possession. If Monsieur Domini still hesitates to believe you, you
know that the doctor promises to find the poison which killed
Sauvresy."

M. Plantat stopped and hesitated.

"In short," he resumed, "I think you will be able to keep silence
as to what you have heard from me."

M. Lecoq took him by the hand, and pressing it significantly, said:

"Count on me, Monsieur."

At this moment Dr. Gendron appeared at the door.

"Courtois is better," said he. "He weeps like a child; but he will
come out of it."

"Heaven be praised!" cried the old justice of the peace. "Now,
since you've come, let us hurry off to Corbeil; Monsieur Domini,
who is waiting for us this morning, must be mad with impatience."



                               XXIII

M. Plantat, in speaking of M. Domini's impatience, did not exaggerate
the truth. That personage was furious; he could not comprehend the
reason of the prolonged absence of his three fellow-workers of the
previous evening. He had installed himself early in the morning in
his cabinet, at the court-house, enveloped in his judicial robe; and
he counted the minutes as they passed. His reflections during the
night, far from shaking, had only confirmed his opinion. As he
receded from the period of the crime, he found it very simple and
natural--indeed, the easiest thing in the world to account for.
He was annoyed that the rest did not share his convictions, and he
awaited their report in a state of irritation which his clerk only
too well perceived. He had eaten his breakfast in his cabinet, so
as to be sure and be beforehand with M. Lecoq. It was a useless
precaution; for the hours passed on and no one arrived.

To kill time, he sent for Guespin and Bertaud and questioned them
anew, but learned nothing more than he had extracted from them the
night before. One of the prisoners swore by all things sacred that
he knew nothing except what he had already told; the other preserved
an obstinate and ferocious silence, confining himself to the remark:
"I know that I am lost; do with me what you please."

M. Domini was just going to send a mounted gendarme to Orcival to
find out the cause of the delay, when those whom he awaited were
announced. He quickly gave the order to admit them, and so keen
was his curiosity, despite what he called his dignity, that he got
up and went forward to meet them.

"How late you are!" said he.

"And yet we haven't lost a minute," replied M. Plantat. "We haven't
even been in bed."

"There is news, then? Has the count's body been found?"

"There is much news, Monsieur," said M. Lecoq. "But the count's
body has not been found, and I dare even say that it will not be
found--for the very simple fact that he has not been killed. The
reason is that he was not one of the victims, as at first supposed,
but the assassin."

At this distinct declaration on M. Lecoq's part, the judge started
in his seat.

"Why, this is folly!" cried he.

M. Lecoq never smiled in a magistrate's presence. "I do not think
so," said he, coolly; "I am persuaded that if Monsieur Domini will
grant me his attention for half an hour I will have the honor of
persuading him to share my opinion."

M. Domini's slight shrug of the shoulders did not escape the
detective, but he calmly continued:

"More; I am sure that Monsieur Domini will not permit me to leave
his cabinet without a warrant to arrest Count Hector de Tremorel,
whom at present he thinks to be dead."

"Possibly," said M. Domini. "Proceed."

M. Lecoq then rapidly detailed the facts gathered by himself and M.
Plantat from the beginning of the inquest. He narrated them not as
if he had guessed or been told of them, but in their order of time
and in such a manner that each new incident which, he mentioned
followed naturally from the preceding one. He had completely
resumed his character of a retired haberdasher, with a little piping
voice, and such obsequious expressions as, "I have the honor," and
"If Monsieur the Judge will deign to permit me;" he resorted to the
candy-box with the portrait, and, as the night before at Valfeuillu,
chewed a lozenge when he came to the more striking points. M.
Domini's surprise increased every minute as he proceeded; while at
times, exclamations of astonishment passed his lips: "Is it
possible?" "That is hard to believe!"

M. Lecoq finished his recital; he tranquilly munched a lozenge, and
added:

"What does Monsieur the Judge of Instruction think now?"

M. Domini was fain to confess that he was almost satisfied. A man,
however, never permits an opinion deliberately and carefully formed
to be refuted by one whom he looks on as an inferior, without a
secret chagrin. But in this case the evidence was too abundant,
and too positive to be resisted.

"I am convinced," said he, "that a crime was committed on Monsieur
Sauvresy with the dearly paid assistance of this Robelot. To-morrow
I shall give instructions to Doctor Gendron to proceed at once to an
exhumation and autopsy of the late master of Valfeuillu."

"And you may be sure that I shall find the poison," chimed in the
doctor.

"Very well," resumed M. Domini. "But does it necessarily follow that
because Monsieur Tremorel poisoned his friend to marry his widow, he
yesterday killed his wife and then fled? I don't think so."

"Pardon me," objected Lecoq, gently. "It seems to me that
Mademoiselle Courtois's supposed suicide proves at least something."

"That needs clearing up. This coincidence can only be a matter of
pure chance."

"But I am sure that Monsieur Tremorel shaved himself--of that we
have proof; then, we did not find the boots which, according to
the valet, he put on the morning of the murder."

"Softly, softly," interrupted the judge. "I don't pretend that you
are absolutely wrong; it must be as you say; only I give you my
objections. Let us admit that Tremorel killed his wife, that he
fled and is alive. Does that clear Guespin, and show that he took
no part in the murder?"

This was evidently the flaw in Lecoq's case; but being convinced
of Hector's guilt, he had given little heed to the poor gardener,
thinking that his innocence would appear of itself when the real
criminal was arrested. He was about to reply, when footsteps and
voices were heard in the corridor.

"Stop," said M. Domini. "Doubtless we shall now hear something
important about Guespin."

"Are you expecting some new witness?" asked M. Plantat.

"No; I expect one of the Corbeil police to whom I have given an
important mission."

"Regarding Guespin?"

"Yes. Very early this morning a young working-woman of the town,
whom Guespin has been courting, brought me an excellent photograph
of him. I gave this portrait to the agent with instructions to go
to the Vulcan's Forges and ascertain if Guespin had been seen there,
and whether he bought anything there night before last."

M. Lecoq was inclined to be jealous; the judge's proceeding
ruffled him, and he could not conceal an expressive grimace.

"I am truly grieved," said he, dryly, "that Monsieur the Judge
has so little confidence in me that he thinks it necessary to give
me assistance."

This sensitiveness aroused M. Domini, who replied:

"Eh! my dear man, you can't be everywhere at once. I think you
very shrewd, but you were not here, and I was in a hurry."

"A false step is often irreparable."

"Make yourself easy; I've sent an intelligent man." At this moment
the door opened, and the policeman referred to by the judge
appeared on the threshold. He was a muscular man about forty years
old, with a military pose, a heavy mustache, and thick brows,
meeting over the nose. He had a sly rather than a shrewd expression,
so that his appearance alone seemed to awake all sorts of suspicions
and put one instinctively on his guard.

"Good news!" said he in a big voice: "I didn't make the journey to
Paris for the King of Prussia; we are right on the track of this
rogue of a Guespin."

M. Domini encouraged him with an approving gesture.

"See here, Goulard," said he, "let us go on in order if we can. You
went then, according to my instructions, to the Vulcan's Forges?"

"At once, Monsieur."

"Precisely. Had they seen the prisoner there?"

"Yes; on the evening of Wednesday, July 8th."

"At what hour?"

"About ten o'clock, a few minutes before they shut up; so that he
was remarked, and the more distinctly observed."

The judge moved his lips as if to make an objection, but was stopped
by a gesture from M. Lecoq.

"And who recognized the photograph?"

"Three of the clerks. Guespin's manner first attracted their
attention. It was strange, so they said, and they thought he was
drunk, or at least tipsy. Then their recollection was fixed by his
talking very fast, saying that he was going to patronize them a
great deal, and that if they would make a reduction in their prices
he would procure for them the custom of an establishment whose
confidence he possessed, the Gentil Jardinier, which bought a great
many gardening tools."

M. Domini interrupted the examination to consult some papers which
lay before him on his desk. It was, he found, the Gentil Jardinier
which had procured Guespin his place in Tremorel's household. The
judge remarked this aloud, and added:

"The question of identity seems to be settled. Guespin was
undoubtedly at the Vulcan's Forges on Wednesday night."

"So much the better for him," M. Lecoq could not help muttering.

The judge heard him, but though the remark seemed singular to him
he did not notice it, and went on questioning the agent.

"Well, did they tell you what Guespin went there to obtain?"

"The clerks recollected it perfectly. He first bought a hammer,
a cold chisel, and a file."

"I knew it," exclaimed the judge. "And then?"

"Then--"

Here the man, ambitious to make a sensation among his hearers,
rolled his eyes tragically, and in a dramatic tone, added:

"Then he bought a dirk knife!"

The judge felt that he was triumphing over M. Lecoq.

"Well," said he to the detective in his most ironical tone, "what
do you think of your friend now? What do you say to this honest
and worthy young man, who, on the very night of the crime, leaves
a wedding where he would have had a good time, to go and buy a
hammer, a chisel, and a dirk--everything, in short, used in the
murder and the mutilation of the body?"

Dr. Gendron seemed a little disconcerted at this, but a sly smile
overspread M. Plantat's face. As for M. Lecoq, he had the air of
one who is shocked by objections which he knows he ought to
annihilate by a word, and yet who is fain to be resigned to waste
time in useless talk, which he might put to great profit.

"I think, Monsieur," said he, very humbly, "that the murderers at
Valfeuillu did not use either a hammer or a chisel, or a file, and
that they brought no instrument at all from outside--since they
used a hammer."

"And didn't they have a dirk besides?" asked the judge in a
bantering tone, confident that he was on the right path.

"That is another question, I confess; but it is a difficult one
to answer."

He began to lose patience. He turned toward the Corbeil policeman,
and abruptly asked him:

"Is this all you know?"

The big man with the thick eyebrows superciliously eyed this little
Parisian who dared to question him thus. He hesitated so long that
M. Lecoq, more rudely than before, repeated his question.

"Yes, that's all," said Goulard at last, "and I think it's
sufficient; the judge thinks so too; and he is the only person who
gives me orders, and whose approbation I wish for."

M. Lecoq shrugged his shoulders, and proceeded:

"Let's see; did you ask what was the shape of the dirk bought by
Guespin? Was it long or short, wide or narrow?"

"Faith, no. What was the use?"

"Simply, my brave fellow, to compare this weapon with the victim's
wounds, and to see whether its handle corresponds to that which left
a distinct and visible imprint between the victim's shoulders."

"I forgot it; but it is easily remedied."

"An oversight may, of course, be pardoned; but you can at least tell
us in what sort of money Guespin paid for his purchases?"

The poor man seemed so embarrassed, humiliated, and vexed, that the
judge hastened to his assistance.

"The money is of little consequence, it seems to me," said he.

"I beg you to excuse me I don't agree with you," returned M. Lecoq.
"This matter may be a very grave one. What is the most serious
evidence against Guespin? The money found in his pocket. Let us
suppose for a moment that night before last, at ten o'clock, he
changed a one-thousand-franc note in Paris. Could the obtaining
of that note have been the motive of the crime at Valfeuillu? No,
for up to that hour the crime had not been committed. Where could
it have come from? That is no concern of mine, at present. But if
my theory is correct, justice will be forced to agree that the
several hundred francs found in Guespin's possession can and must
be the change for the note."

"That is only a theory," urged M. Domini in an irritated tone.

"That is true; but one which may turn out a certainty. It remains
for me to ask this man how Guespin carried away the articles which
he bought? Did he simply slip them into his pocket, or did he have
them done up in a bundle, and if so, how?"

The detective spoke in a sharp, hard, freezing tone, with a bitter
raillery in it, frightening his Corbeil colleague out of his
assurance.

"I don't know," stammered the latter. "They didn't tell me--I
thought--"

M. Lecoq raised his hands as if to call the heavens to witness: in
his heart, he was charmed with this fine occasion to revenge himself
for M. Domini's disdain. He could not, dared not say anything to
the judge; but he had the right to banter the agent and visit his
wrath upon him.

"Ah so, my lad," said he, "what did you go to Paris for? To show
Guespin's picture and detail the crime to the people at Vulcan's
Forges? They ought to be very grateful to you; but Madame Petit,
Monsieur Plantat's housekeeper, would have done as much."

At this stroke the man began to get angry; he frowned, and in his
bluffest tone, began:

"Look here now, you--"

"Ta, ta, ta," interrupted M. Lecoq. "Let me alone, and know who
is talking to you. I am Monsieur Lecoq."

The effect of the famous detective's name on his antagonist was
magical. He naturally laid down his arms and surrendered,
straightway becoming respectful and obsequious. It almost flattered
him to be roughly handled by such a celebrity. He muttered, in an
abashed and admiring tone:

"What, is it possible? You, Monsieur Lecoq!"

"Yes, it is I, young man; but console yourself; I bear no grudge
against you. You don't know your trade, but you have done me a
service and you have brought us a convincing proof of Guespin's
innocence."

M. Domini looked on at this scene with secret chagrin. His recruit
went over to the enemy, yielding without a struggle to a confessed
superiority. M. Lecoq's presumption, in speaking of a prisoner's
innocence whose guilt seemed to the judge indisputable, exasperated
him.

"And what is this tremendous proof, if you please?" asked he.

"It is simple and striking," answered M. Lecoq, putting on his most
frivolous air as his conclusions narrowed the field of probabilities.

"You doubtless recollect that when we were at Valfeuillu we found
the hands of the clock in the bedroom stopped at twenty minutes past
three. Distrusting foul play, I put the striking apparatus in
motion--do you recall it? What happened? The clock struck eleven.
That convinced us that the crime was committed before that hour. But
don't you see that if Guespin was at the Vulcan's Forges at ten he
could not have got back to Valfeuillu before midnight? Therefore it
was not--he who did the deed."

The detective, as he came to this conclusion, pulled out the
inevitable box and helped himself to a lozenge, at the same time
bestowing upon the judge a smile which said:

"Get out of that, if you can."

The judge's whole theory tumbled to pieces if M. Lecoq's deductions
were right; but he could not admit that he had been so much
deceived; he could not renounce an opinion formed by deliberate
reflection.

"I don't pretend that Guespin is the only criminal," said he. "He
could only have been an accomplice; and that he was."

"An accomplice? No, Judge, he was a victim. Ah, Tremorel is a
great rascal! Don't you see now why he put forward the hands? At
first I didn't perceive the object of advancing the time five hours;
now it is clear. In order to implicate Guespin the crime must
appear to have been committed after midnight, and--"

He suddenly checked himself and stopped with open mouth and fixed
eyes as a new idea crossed his mind. The judge, who was bending
over his papers trying to find something to sustain his position,
did not perceive this.

"But then," said the latter, "how do you explain Guespin's refusal
to speak and to give an account of where he spent the night?"

M. Lecoq had now recovered from his emotion, and Dr. Gendron and M.
Plantat, who were watching him with the deepest attention, saw a
triumphant light in his eyes. Doubtless he had just found a
solution of the problem which had been put to him.

"I understand," replied he, "and can explain Guespin's obstinate
silence. I should be perfectly amazed if he decided to speak just
now."

M. Domini misconstrued the meaning of this; he thought he saw in it
a covert intention to banter him.

"He has had a night to reflect upon it," he answered. "Is not twelve
hours enough to mature a system of defence?"

The detective shook his head doubtfully.

"It is certain that he does not need it," said he. "Our prisoner
doesn't trouble himself about a system of defence, that I'll
swear to."

"He keeps quiet, because he hasn't been able to get up a plausible
story."

"No, no; believe me, he isn't trying to get up one. In my opinion,
Guespin is a victim; that is, I suspect Tremorel of having set an
infamous trap for him, into which he has fallen, and in which he
sees himself so completely caught that he thinks it useless to
struggle. The poor wretch is convinced that the more he resists
the more surely he will tighten the web that is woven around him."

"I think so, too," said M. Plantat.

"The true criminal, Count Hector," resumed the detective, "lost his
presence of mind at the last moment, and thus lost all the advantages
which his previous caution had gained. Don't let us forget that he
is an able man, perfidious enough to mature the most infamous
stratagems, and unscrupulous enough to execute them. He knows that
justice must have its victims, one for every crime; he does not
forget that the police, as long as it has not the criminal, is
always on the search with eye and ear open; and he has thrown us
Guespin as a huntsman, closely pressed, throws his glove to the bear
that is close upon him. Perhaps he thought that the innocent man
would not be in danger of his life; at all events he hoped to gain
time by this ruse; while the bear is smelling and turning over the
glove, the huntsman gains ground, escapes and reaches his place of
refuge; that was what Tremorel proposed to do."

The Corbeil policeman was now undoubtedly Lecoq's most enthusiastic
listener. Goulard literally drank in his chief's words. He had
never heard any of his colleagues express themselves with such
fervor and authority; he had had no idea of such eloquence, and he
stood erect, as if some of the admiration which he saw in all the
faces were reflected back on him. He grew in his own esteem as he
thought that he was a soldier in an army commanded by such generals.
He had no longer any opinion excepting that of his superior. It
was not so easy to persuade, subjugate, and convince the judge.

"But," objected the latter, "you saw Guespin's countenance?"

"Ah, what matters the countenance--what does that prove? Don't
we know if you and I were arrested to-morrow on a terrible charge,
what our bearing would be?"

M. Domini gave a significant start; this hypothesis scarcely
pleased him.

"And yet you and I are familiar with the machinery of justice. When
I arrested Lanscot, the poor servant in the Rue Marignan, his first
words were: 'Come on, my account is good.' The morning that Papa
Tabaret and I took the Viscount de Commarin as he was getting out
of bed, on the accusation of having murdered the widow Lerouge, he
cried: 'I am lost.' Yet neither of them were guilty; but both of
them, the viscount and the valet, equal before the terror of a
possible mistake of justice, and running over in their thoughts
the charges which would be brought against them, had a moment of
overwhelming discouragement."

"But such discouragement does not last two days," said M. Domini.

M. Lecoq did not answer this; he went on, growing more animated
as he proceeded.

"You and I have seen enough prisoners to know how deceitful
appearances are, and how little they are to be trusted. It would
be foolish to base a theory upon a prisoner's bearing. He who
talked about 'the cry of innocence' was an idiot, just as the man
was who prated about the 'pale stupor' of guilt. Neither crime
nor virtue have, unhappily, any especial countenance. The Simon
girl, who was accused of having killed her father, absolutely
refused to answer any questions for twenty-two days; on the
twenty-third, the murderer was caught. As to the Sylvain affair--"

M. Domini rapped lightly on his desk to check the detective. As a
man, the judge held too obstinately to his opinions; as a magistrate
he was equally obstinate, but was at the same time ready to make any
sacrifice of his self-esteem if the voice of duty prompted it. M.
Lecoq's arguments had not shaken his convictions, but they imposed
on him the duty of informing himself at once, and to either conquer
the detective or avow himself conquered.

"You seem to be pleading," said he to M. Lecoq. "There is no need
of that here. We are not counsel and judge; the same honorable
intentions animate us both. Each, in his sphere, is searching after
the truth. You think you see it shining where I only discern clouds;
and you may be mistaken as well as I."

Then by an act of heroism, he condescended to add:

"What do you think I ought to do?"

The judge was at least rewarded for the effort he made by approving
glances from M. Plantat and the doctor. But M. Lecoq did not hasten
to respond; he had many weighty reasons to advance; that, he saw,
was not what was necessary. He ought to present the facts, there
and at once, and produce one of those proofs which can be touched
with the finger. How should he do it? His active mind searched
eagerly for such a proof.

"Well?" insisted M. Domini.

"Ah," cried the detective. "Why can't I ask Guespin two or three
questions?"

The judge frowned; the suggestion seemed to him rather presumptuous.
It is formally laid down that the questioning of the accused should
be done in secret, and by the judge alone, aided by his clerk. On
the other hand it is decided, that after he has once been
interrogated he may be confronted with witnesses. There are,
besides, exceptions in favor of the members of the police force.
M. Domini reflected whether there were any precedents to apply to
the case.

"I don't know," he answered at last, "to what point the law permits
me to consent to what you ask. However, as I am convinced the
interests of truth outweigh all rules, I shall take it on myself
to let you question Guespin."

He rang; a bailiff appeared.

"Has Guespin been carried back to prison?"

"Not yet, Monsieur."

"So much the better; have him brought in here."

M. Lecoq was beside himself with joy; he had not hoped to achieve
such a victory over one so determined as M. Domini.

"He will speak now," said he, so full of confidence that his eyes
shone, and he forgot the portrait of the dear defunct, "for I have
three means of unloosening his tongue, one of which is sure to
succeed. But before he comes I should like to know one thing. Do
you know whether Tremorel saw Jenny after Sauvresy's death?"

"Jenny?" asked M. Plantat, a little surprised.

"Yes."

"Certainly he did."

"Several times?"

"Pretty often. After the scene at the Belle Image the poor girl
plunged into terrible dissipation. Whether she was smitten with
remorse, or understood that it was her conduct which had killed
Sauvresy, or suspected the crime, I don't know. She began, however,
to drink furiously, falling lower and lower every week--"

"And the count really consented to see her again?"

"He was forced to do so; she tormented him, and he was afraid of
her. When she had spent all her money she sent to him for more,
and he gave it. Once he refused; and that very evening she went
to him the worse for wine, and he had the greatest difficulty in
the world to send her away again. In short, she knew what his
relations with Madame Sauvresy had been, and she threatened him;
it was a regular black-mailing operation. He told me all about
the trouble she gave him, and added that he would not be able to
get rid of her without shutting her up, which he could not bring
himself to do."

"How long ago was their last interview?"

"Why," answered the doctor, "not three weeks ago, when I had a
consultation at Melun, I saw the count and this demoiselle at a
hotel window; when he saw me he suddenly drew back."

"Then," said the detective, "there is no longer any doubt--"

He stopped. Guespin came in between two gendarmes.

The unhappy gardener had aged twenty years in twenty-four hours.
His eyes were haggard, his dry lips were bordered with foam.

"Let us see," said the judge. "Have you changed your mind about
speaking?"

The prisoner did not answer.

"Have you decided to tell us about yourself?"

Guespin's rage made him tremble from head to foot, and his eyes
became fiery.

"Speak!" said he hoarsely. "Why should I?"

He added with the gesture of a desperate man who abandons himself,
renounces all struggling and all hope:

"What have I done to you, my God, that you torture me this way?
What do you want me to say? That I did this crime--is that what
you want? Well, then--yes--it was I. Now you are satisfied.
Now cut my head off, and do it quick--for I don't want to suffer
any longer."

A mournful silence welcomed Guespin's declaration. What, he
confessed it!

M. Domini had at least the good taste not to exult; he kept still,
and yet this avowal surprised him beyond all expression.

M. Lecoq alone, although surprised, was not absolutely put out of
countenance. He approached Guespin and tapping him on the shoulder,
said in a paternal tone:

"Come, comrade, what you are telling us is absurd. Do you think
the judge has any secret grudge against you? No, eh? Do you
suppose I am interested to have you guillotined? Not at all. A
crime has been committed, and we are trying to find the assassin.
If you are innocent, help us to find the man who isn't: What were
you doing from Wednesday evening till Thursday morning?"

But Guespin persisted in his ferocious and stupid obstinacy.

"I've said what I have to say," said he.

M. Lecoq changed his tone to one of severity, stepping back to watch
the effect he was about to produce upon Guespin.

"You haven't any right to hold your tongue. And even if you do,
you fool, the police know everything. Your master sent you on an
errand, didn't he, on Wednesday night; what did he give you? A
one-thousand-franc note?"

The prisoner looked at M. Lecoq in speechless amazement.

"No," he stammered. "It was a five-hundred-franc note."

The detective, like all great artists in a critical scene, was
really moved. His surprising genius for investigation had just
inspired him with a bold stroke, which, if it succeeded, would
assure him the victory.

"Now," said he, "tell me the woman's name."

"I don't know."

"You are only a fool then. She is short, isn't she, quite pretty,
brown and pale, with very large eyes?"

"You know her, then?" said Guespin, in a voice trembling with
emotion.

"Yes, comrade, and if you want to know her name, to put in your
prayers, she is called--Jenny."

Men who are really able in some specialty, whatever it may be, never
uselessly abuse their superiority; their satisfaction at seeing it
recognized is sufficient reward. M. Lecoq softly enjoyed his
triumph, while his hearers wondered at his perspicacity. A rapid
chain of reasoning had shown him not only Tremorel's thoughts, but
also the means he had employed to accomplish his purpose.

Guespin's astonishment soon changed to anger. He asked himself how
this man could have been informed of things which he had every
reason to believe were secret. Lecoq continued:

"Since I have told you the woman's name, tell me now, how and why
the count gave you a five-hundred-franc note."

"It was just as I was going out. The count had no change, and did
not want to send me to Orcival for it. I was to bring back the
rest."

"And why didn't you rejoin your companions at the wedding in the
Batignolles?"

No answer.

"What was the errand which you were to do for the count?"

Guespin hesitated. His eyes wandered from one to another of those
present, and he seemed to discover an ironical expression on all
the faces. It occurred to him that they were making sport of him,
and had set a snare into which he had fallen. A great despair
took possession of him.

"Ah," cried he, addressing M. Lecoq, "you have deceived me. You
have been lying so as to find out the truth. I have been such a
fool as to answer you, and you are going to turn it all against me."

"What? Are you going to talk nonsense again?"

"No, but I see just how it is, and you won't catch me again! Now
I'd rather die than say a word."

The detective tried to reassure him; but he added:

"Besides, I'm as sly as you; I've told you nothing but lies."

This sudden whim surprised no one. Some prisoners intrench
themselves behind a system of defence, and nothing can divert them
from it; others vary with each new question, denying what they have
just affirmed, and constantly inventing some new absurdity which
anon they reject again. M. Lecoq tried in vain to draw Guespin
from his silence; M. Domini made the same attempt, and also failed;
to all questions he only answered, "I don't know."

At last the detective waxed impatient.

"See here," said he to Guespin, "I took you for a young man of
sense, and you are only an ass. Do you imagine that we don't know
anything? Listen: On the night of Madame Denis's wedding, you
were getting ready to go off with your comrades, and had just
borrowed twenty francs from the valet, when the count called you.
He made you promise absolute secrecy (a promise which, to do you
justice, you kept); he told you to leave the other servants at
the station and go to Vulcan's Forges, where you were to buy for
him a hammer, a file, a chisel, and a dirk; these you were to carry
to a certain woman. Then he gave you this famous five-hundred-franc
note, telling you to bring him back the change when you returned
next day. Isn't that so?"

An affirmative response glistened in the prisoner's eyes; still,
he answered, "I don't recollect it."

"Now," pursued M. Lecoq, "I'm going to tell you what happened
afterwards. You drank something and got tipsy, and in short spent
a part of the change of the note. That explains your fright when
you were seized yesterday morning, before anybody said a word to
you. You thought you were being arrested for spending that money.
Then, when you learned that the count had been murdered during the
night, recollecting that on the evening before you had bought all
kinds of instruments of theft and murder, and that you didn't know
either the address or the name of the woman to whom you gave up
the package, convinced that if you explained the source of the
money found in your pocket, you would not be believed--then,
instead of thinking of the means to prove your innocence, you
became afraid, and thought you would save yourself by holding your
tongue."

The prisoner's countenance visibly changed; his nerves relaxed;
his tight lips fell apart; his mind opened itself to hope. But he
still resisted.

"Do with me as you like," said he.

"Eh! What should we do with such a fool as you?" cried M. Lecoq
angrily. "I begin to think you are a rascal too. A decent fellow
would see that we wanted to get him out of a scrape, and he'd tell
us the truth. You are prolonging your imprisonment by your own
will. You'd better learn that the greatest shrewdness consists in
telling the truth. A last time, will you answer?"

Guespin shook his head; no.

"Go back to prison, then; since it pleases you," concluded the
detective. He looked at the judge for his approval, and added:

"Gendarmes, remove the prisoner."

The judge's last doubt was dissipated like the mist before the sun.
He was, to tell the truth, a little uneasy at having treated the
detective so rudely; and he tried to repair it as much as he could.

"You are an able man, Monsieur Lecoq," said he. "Without speaking
of your clearsightedness, which is so prompt as to seem almost like
second sight, your examination just now was a master-piece of its
kind. Receive my congratulations, to say nothing of the reward
which I propose to recommend in your favor to your chiefs."

The detective at these compliments cast down his eyes with the
abashed air of a virgin. He looked tenderly at the dear defunct's
portrait, and doubtless said to it:

"At last, darling, we have defeated him--this austere judge who so
heartily detests the force of which we are the brightest ornament,
makes his apologies; he recognizes and applauds our services."

He answered aloud:

"I can only accept half of your eulogies, Monsieur; permit me to
offer the other half to my friend Monsieur Plantat."

M. Plantat tried to protest.

"Oh," said he, "only for some bits of information! You would have
ferreted out the truth without me all the same."

The judge arose and graciously, but not without effort, extended
his hand to M. Lecoq, who respectfully pressed it.

"You have spared me," said the judge, "a great remorse. Guespin's
innocence would surely sooner or later have been recognized; but
the idea of having imprisoned an innocent man and harassed him with
my interrogatories, would have disturbed my sleep and tormented my
conscience for a long time."

"God knows this poor Guespin is not an interesting youth," returned
the detective. "I should be disposed to press him hard were I not
certain that he's half a fool."

M. Domini gave a start.

"I shall discharge him this very day," said he, "this very hour."

"It will be an act of charity," said M. Lecoq; "but confound his
obstinacy; it was so easy for him to simplify my task. I might be
able, by the aid of chance, to collect the principal facts--the
errand, and a woman being mixed up in the affair; but as I'm no
magician, I couldn't guess all the details. How is Jenny mixed
up in this affair? Is she an accomplice, or has she only been
made to play an ignorant part in it? Where did she meet Guespin
and whither did she lead him? It is clear that she made the poor
fellow tipsy so as to prevent his going to the Batignolles.
Tremorel must have told her some false story--but what?"

"I don't think Tremorel troubled his head about so small a matter,"
said M. Plantat. "He gave Guespin and Jenny some task, without
explaining it at all."

M. Lecoq reflected a moment.

"Perhaps you are right. But Jenny must have had special orders to
prevent Guespin from putting in an alibi."

"But," said M. Domini, "Jenny will explain it all to us."

"That is what I rely on; and I hope that within forty-eight hours
I shall have found her and brought her safely to Corbeil."

He rose at these words, took his cane and hat, and turning to the
judge, said:

"Before retiring--"

"Yes, I know," interrupted M. Domini, "you want a warrant to arrest
Hector de Tremorel."

"I do, as you are now of my opinion that he is still alive."

"I am sure of it."

M. Domini opened his portfolio and wrote off a warrant as follows:

"By the law:
"We, judge of instruction of the first tribunal, etc., considering
articles 91 and 94 of the code of criminal instruction, command and
ordain to all the agents of the police to arrest, in conformity
with the law, one Hector de Tremorel, etc."

When he had finished, he said:

"Here it is, and may you succeed in speedily finding this great
criminal."

"Oh, he'll find him," cried the Corbeil policeman.

"I hope so, at least. As to how I shall go to work, I don't know
yet. I will arrange my plan of battle to-night."

The detective then took leave of M. Domini and retired, followed
by M. Plantat. The doctor remained with the judge to make
arrangements for Sauvresy's exhumation.

M. Lecoq was just leaving the court-house when he felt himself
pulled by the arm. He turned and found that it was Goulard who
came to beg his favor and to ask him to take him along, persuaded
that after having served under so great a captain he must inevitably
become a famous man himself. M. Lecoq had some difficulty in
getting rid of him; but he at length found himself alone in the
street with the old justice of the peace.

"It is late," said the latter. "Would it be agreeable to you to
partake of another modest dinner with me, and accept my cordial
hospitality?"

"I am chagrined to be obliged to refuse you," replied M. Lecoq.
"But I ought to be in Paris this evening."

"But I--in fact, I--was very anxious to talk to you--about--"

"About Mademoiselle Laurence?"

"Yes; I have a plan, and if you would help me--"

M. Lecoq affectionately pressed his friend's hand.

"I have only known you a few hours," said he, "and yet I am as
devoted to you as I would be to an old friend. All that is humanly
possible for me to do to serve you, I shall certainly do."

"But where shall I see you? They expect me to-day at Orcival."

"Very well; to-morrow morning at nine, at my rooms. No--Rue
Montmartre."

"A thousand thanks; I shall be there."

When they had reached the Belle Image they separated.



                                XXIV

Nine o'clock had just struck in the belfry of the church of St.
Eustache, when M. Plantat reached Rue Montmartre, and entered the
house bearing the number which M. Lecoq had given him.

"Monsieur Lecoq?" said he to an old woman who was engaged in getting
breakfast for three large cats which were mewing around her. The
woman scanned him with a surprised and suspicious air. M. Plantat,
when he was dressed up, had much more the appearance of a fine old
gentleman than of a country attorney; and though the detective
received many visits from all sorts of people, it was rarely that
the denizens of the Faubourg Saint Germaine rung his bell.

"Monsieur Lecoq's apartments," answered the old woman, "are on the
third story, the door facing the stairs."

The justice of the peace slowly ascended the narrow, ill-lighted
staircase, which in its dark corners was almost dangerous. He was
thinking of the strange step he was about to take. An idea had
occurred to him, but he did not know whether it were practicable,
and at all events he needed the aid and advice of the detective.
He was forced to disclose his most secret thoughts, as it were,
to confess himself; and his heart beat fast. The door opposite the
staircase on the third story was not like other doors; it was of
plain oak, thick, without mouldings, and fastened with iron bars.
It would have looked like a prison door had not its sombreness been
lightened by a heavily colored engraving of a cock crowing, with
the legend "Always Vigilant." Had the detective put his coat of
arms up there? Was it not more likely that one of his men had done
it? After examining the door more than a minute, and hesitating
like a youth before his beloved's gate, he rang the bell. A
creaking of locks responded, and through the narrow bars of the
peephole he saw the hairy face of an old crone.

"What do you want?" said the woman, in a deep, bass voice.

"Monsieur Lecoq."

"What do you want of him?"

"He made an appointment with me for this morning."

"Your name and business?"

"Monsieur Plantat, justice of the peace at Orcival."

"All right. Wait."

The peephole was closed and the old man waited.

"Peste!" growled he. "Everybody can't get in here, it seems."
Hardly had this reflection passed through his mind when the door
opened with a noise as of chains and locks. He entered, and the
old crone, after leading him through a dining-room whose sole
furniture was a table and six chairs, introduced him to a large
room, half toilet-room and half working-room, lighted by two windows
looking on the court, and guarded by strong, close bars.

"If you will take the trouble to sit," said the servant, "Monsieur
Lecoq will soon be here; he is giving orders to one of his men."

But M. Plantat did not take a seat; he preferred to examine the
curious apartment in which he found himself. The whole of one
side of the wall was taken up with a long rack, where hung the
strangest and most incongruous suits of clothes. There were
costumes belonging to all grades of society; and on some wooden
pegs above, wigs of all colors were hanging; while boots and shoes
of various styles were ranged on the floor. A toilet-table,
covered with powders, essences, and paints, stood between the
fireplace and the window. On the other side of the room was a
bookcase full of scientific works, especially of physic and
chemistry. The most singular piece of furniture in the apartment,
however, was a large ball, shaped like a lozenge, in black velvet,
suspended beside the looking-glass. A quantity of pins were stuck
in this ball, so as to form the letters composing these two names:
HECTOR-JENNY.

These names glittering on the black background attracted the old
man's attention at once. This must have been M. Lecoq's reminder.
The ball was meant to recall to him perpetually the people of whom
he was in pursuit. Many names, doubtless, had in turn glittered on
that velvet, for it was much frayed and perforated. An unfinished
letter lay open upon the bureau.

M. Plantat leaned over to read it; but he took his trouble for
nothing, for it was written in cipher.

He had no sooner finished his inspection of the room than the noise
of a door opening made him turn round. He saw before him a man of
his own age, of respectable mien, and polite manners, a little bald,
with gold spectacles and a light-colored flannel dressing-gown.

M. Plantat bowed, saying:

"I am waiting here for Monsieur Lecoq."

The man in gold spectacles burst out laughing, and clapped his
hands with glee.

"What, dear sir," said he, "don't you know me? Look at me well
--it is I--Monsieur Lecoq!" And to convince him, he took off his
spectacles. Those might, indeed, be Lecoq's eyes, and that his
voice; M. Plantat was confounded.

"I never should have recognized you," said he.

"It's true, I have changed a little--but what would you have? It's
my trade."

And pushing a chair toward his visitor, he pursued:

"I have to beg a thousand pardons for the formalities you've had
to endure to get in here; it's a dire necessity, but one I can't
help. I have told you of the dangers to which I am exposed; they
pursue me to my very door. Why, last week a railway porter brought
a package here addressed to me. Janouille--that's my old woman
--suspected nothing, though she has a sharp nose, and told him to
come in. He held out the package, I went up to take it, when pif!
paf! off went two pistol-shots. The package was a revolver wrapped
up in oilcloth, and the porter was a convict escaped from Cayenne,
caught by me last year. Ah, I put him through for this though!"

He told this adventure carelessly, as if it were the most natural
thing in the world.

"But let's not starve ourselves to death," he continued, ringing
the bell. The old hag appeared, and he ordered her to bring on
breakfast forthwith, and above all, some good wine.

"You are observing my Janouille," remarked he, seeing that M.
Plantat looked curiously at the servant. "She's a pearl, my dear
friend, who watches over me as if I were her child, and would go
through the fire for me. I had a good deal of trouble the other
day to prevent her strangling the false railway porter. I picked
her out of three or four thousand convicts. She had been convicted
of infanticide and arson. I would bet a hundred to one that,
during the three years that she has been in my service, she has not
even thought of robbing me of so much as a centime."

But M. Plantat only listened to him with one ear; he was trying to
find an excuse for cutting Janouille's story short, and to lead the
conversation to the events of the day before.

"I have, perhaps, incommoded you a little this morning, Monsieur
Lecoq?"

"Me? then you did not see my motto--'always vigilant?' Why, I've
been out ten times this morning; besides marking out work for three
of my men. Ah, we have little time to ourselves, I can tell you.
I went to the Vulcan's Forges to see what news I could get of that
poor devil of a Guespin."

"And what did you hear?"

"That I had guessed right. He changed a five-hundred-franc note
there last Wednesday evening at a quarter before ten."

"That is to say, he is saved?"

"Well, you may say so. He will be, as soon as we have found Miss
Jenny."

The old justice of the peace could not avoid showing his uneasiness.

"That will, perhaps, be long and difficult?"

"Bast! Why so? She is on my black ball there--we shall have her,
accidents excepted, before night."

"You really think so?"

"I should say I was sure, to anybody but you. Reflect that this
girl has been connected with the Count de Tremorel, a man of the
world, a prince of the mode. When a girl falls to the gutter, after
having, as they say, dazzled all Paris for six months with her
luxury, she does not disappear entirely, like a stone in the mud.
When she has lost all her friends there are still her creditors, who
follow and watch her, awaiting the day when fortune will smile on
her once more. She doesn't trouble herself about them, she thinks
they've forgotten her; a mistake! I know a milliner whose head is
a perfect dictionary of the fashionable world; she has often done
me a good turn. We will go and see her if you say so, after
breakfast, and in two hours she will give us Jenny's address. Ah,
if I were only as sure of pinching Tremorel!"

M. Plantat gave a sigh of relief. The conversation at last took
the turn he wished.

"You are thinking of him, then?" asked he.

"Am I?" shouted M. Lecoq, who started from his seat at the question.
"Now just look at my black ball there. I haven't thought of anybody
else, mark you, since yesterday; I haven't had a wink of sleep all
night for thinking of him. I must have him, and I will!"

"I don't doubt it; but when?"

"Ah, there it is! Perhaps to-morrow, perhaps in a month; it depends
on the correctness of my calculations and the exactness of my plan."

"What, is your plan made?"

"And decided on."

M. Plantat became attention itself.

"I start from the principle that it is impossible for a man,
accompanied by a woman, to hide from the police. In this case,
the woman is young, pretty, and in a noticeable condition; three
impossibilities more. Admit this, and we'll study Hector's
character. He isn't a man of superior shrewdness, for we have
found out all his dodges. He isn't a fool, because his dodges
deceived people who are by no means fools. He is then a medium
sort of a man, and his education, reading, relations, and daily
conversation have procured him a number of acquaintances whom he
will try to use. Now for his mind. We know the weakness of his
character; soft, feeble, vacillating, only acting in the last
extremity. We have seen him shrinking from decisive steps, trying
always to delay matters. He is given to being deceived by
illusions, and to taking his desires for accomplished events. In
short, he is a coward. And what is his situation? He has killed
his wife, he hopes he has created a belief in his own death, he has
eloped with a young girl, and he has got nearly or quite a million
of francs in his pocket. Now, this position admitted, as well as
the man's character and mind, can we by an effort of thought,
reasoning from his known actions, discover what he has done in such
and such a case? I think so, and I hope I shall prove it to you."

M. Lecoq rose and promenaded, as his habit was, up and down the
room. "Now let's see," he continued, "how I ought to proceed in
order to discover the probable conduct of a man whose antecedents,
traits, and mind are known to me. To begin with, I throw off my
own individuality and try to assume his. I substitute his will for
my own. I cease to be a detective and become this man, whatever he
is. In this case, for instance, I know very well what I should do
if I were Tremorel. I should take such measures as would throw all
the detectives in the universe off the scent. But I must forget
Monsieur Lecoq in order to become Hector de Tremorel. How would a
man reason who was base enough to rob his friend of his wife, and
then see her poison her husband before his very eyes? We already
know that Tremorel hesitated a good while before deciding to commit
this crime. The logic of events, which fools call fatality, urged
him on. It is certain that he looked upon the murder in every point
of view, studied its results, and tried to find means to escape from
justice. All his acts were determined on long beforehand, and
neither immediate necessity nor unforeseen circumstances disturbed
his mind. The moment he had decided on the crime, he said to
himself: 'Grant that Bertha has been murdered; thanks to my
precautions, they think that I have been killed too; Laurence,
with whom I elope, writes a letter in which she announces her
suicide; I have money, what must I do?' The problem, it seems to
me, is fairly put in this way."

"Perfectly so," approved M. Plantat.

"Naturally, Tremorel would choose from among all the methods of
flight of which he had ever heard, or which he could imagine, that
which seemed to him the surest and most prompt. Did he meditate
leaving the country? That is more than probable. Only, as he was
not quite out of his senses, he saw that it was most difficult, in
a foreign country, to put justice off the track. If a man flies
from France to escape punishment, he acts absurdly. Fancy a man
and woman wandering about a country of whose language they are
ignorant; they attract attention at once, are observed, talked
about, followed. They do not make a purchase which is not remarked;
they cannot make any movement without exciting curiosity. The
further they go the greater their danger. If they choose to cross
the ocean and go to free America, they must go aboard a vessel; and
the moment they do that they may be considered as good as lost.
You might bet twenty to one they would find, on landing on the other
side, a detective on the pier armed with a warrant to arrest them.
I would engage to find a Frenchman in eight days, even in London,
unless he spoke pure enough English to pass for a citizen of the
United Kingdom. Such were Tremorel's reflections. He recollected
a thousand futile attempts, a hundred surprising adventures,
narrated by the papers; and it is certain that he gave up the idea
of going abroad."

"It's clear," cried M. Plantat, "perfectly plain and precise. We
must look for the fugitives in France."

"Yes," replied M. Lecoq. "Now let's find out where and how people
can hide themselves in France. Would it be in the provinces?
Evidently not. In Bordeaux, one of our largest cities, people stare
at a man who is not a Bordelais. The shopkeepers on the quays say
to their neighbors: 'Eh! do you know that man?' There are two
cities, however, where a man may pass unnoticed--Marseilles and
Lyons; but both of these are distant, and to reach them a long
journey must be risked--and nothing is so dangerous as the railway
since the telegraph was established. One can fly quickly, it's
true; but on entering a railway carriage a man shuts himself in,
and until he gets out of it he remains under the thumb of the
police. Tremorel knows all this as well as we do. We will put all
the large towns, including Lyons and Marseilles, out of the
question."

"In short, it's impossible to hide in the provinces."

"Excuse me--there is one means; that is, simply to buy a modest
little place at a distance from towns and railways, and to go and
reside on it under a false name. But this excellent project is
quite above Tremorel's capacity, and requires preparatory steps
which he could not risk, watched as he was by his wife. The field
of investigation is thus much narrowed. Putting aside foreign
parts, the provinces, the cities, the country, Paris remains. It
is in Paris that we must look for Tremorel."

M. Lecoq spoke with the certainty and positiveness of a
mathematical professor; the old justice of the peace listened, as
do the professor's scholars. But he was already accustomed to the
detective's surprising clearness, and was no longer astonished.
During the four-and-twenty hours that he had been witnessing M.
Lecoq's calculations and gropings, he had seized the process and
almost appropriated it to himself. He found this method of
reasoning very simple, and could now explain to himself certain
exploits of the police which had hitherto seemed to him miraculous.
But M. Lecoq's "narrow field" of observation appeared still immense.

"Paris is a large place," observed the old justice.

M. Lecoq smiled loftily.

"Perhaps so; but it is mine. All Paris is under the eye of the
police, just as an ant is under that of the naturalist with his
microscope. How is it, you may ask, that Paris still holds so
many professional rogues? Ah, that is because we are hampered by
legal forms. The law compels us to use only polite weapons against
those to whom all weapons are serviceable. The courts tie our
hands. The rogues are clever, but be sure that our cleverness is
much greater than theirs."

"But," interrupted M. Plantat, "Tremorel is now outside the law;
we have the warrant."

"What matters it? Does the warrant give me the right to search any
house in which I may have reason to suppose he is hiding himself?
No. If I should go to the house of one of Hector's old friends he
would kick me out of doors. You must know that in France the police
have to contend not only with the rogues, but also with the honest
people."

M. Lecoq always waxed warm on this subject; he felt a strong
resentment against the injustice practised on his profession.
Fortunately, at the moment when he was most excited, the black ball
suddenly caught his eye.

"The devil!" exclaimed he, "I was forgetting Hector."

M. Plantat, though listening patiently to his companion's indignant
utterances, could not help thinking of the murderer.

"You said that we must look for Tremorel in Paris," he remarked.

"And I said truly," responded M. Lecoq in a calmer tone. "I have
come to the conclusion that here, perhaps within two streets of
us, perhaps in the next house, the fugitives are hid. But let's go
on with our calculation of probabilities. Hector knows Paris too
well to hope to conceal himself even for a week in a hotel or
lodging-house; he knows these are too sharply watched by the police.
He had plenty of time before him, and so arranged to hire apartments
in some convenient house."

"He came to Paris three or four times some weeks ago."

"Then there's no longer any doubt about it. He hired some
apartments under a false name, paid in advance, and to-day he is
comfortably ensconced in his new residence."

M. Plantat seemed to feel extremely distressed at this.

"I know it only too well, Monsieur Lecoq," said he, sadly. "You
must be right. But is not the wretch thus securely hidden from us?
Must we wait till some accident reveals him to us? Can you search
one by one all the houses in Paris?"

The detective's nose wriggled under his gold spectacles, and the
justice of the peace, who observed it, and took it for a good sign,
felt all his hopes reviving in him.

"I've cudgelled my brain in vain--" he began.

"Pardon me," interrupted M. Lecoq. "Having hired apartments,
Tremorel naturally set about furnishing them."

"Evidently."

"Of course he would furnish them sumptuously, both because he is
fond of luxury and has plenty of money, and because he couldn't
carry a young girl from a luxurious home to a garret. I'd wager
that they have as fine a drawing-room as that at Valfeuillu."

"Alas! How can that help us?"

"Peste! It helps us much, my dear friend, as you shall see. Hector,
as he wished for a good deal of expensive furniture, did not have
recourse to a broker; nor had he time to go to the Faubourg St.
Antoine. Therefore, he simply went to an upholsterer."

"Some fashionable upholsterer--"

"No, he would have risked being recognized. It is clear that he
assumed a false name, the same in which he had hired his rooms. He
chose some shrewd and humble upholsterer, ordered his goods, made
sure that they would be delivered on a certain day, and paid for
them."

M. Plantat could not repress a joyful exclamation; he began to see
M. Lecoq's drift.

"This merchant," pursued the latter, "must have retained his rich
customer in his memory, this customer who did not beat him down,
and paid cash. If he saw him again, he would recognize him."

"What an idea!" cried M. Plantat, delighted. "Let's get photographs
and portraits of Tremorel as quick as we can--let's send a man to
Orcival for them."

M. Lecoq smiled shrewdly and proceeded:

"Keep yourself easy; I have done what was necessary. I slipped
three of the count's cartes-de-visite in my pocket yesterday during
the inquest. This morning I took down, out of the directory, the
names of all the upholsterers in Paris, and made three lists of
them. At this moment three of my men, each with a list and a
photograph, are going from upholsterer to upholsterer showing them
the picture and asking them if they recognize it as the portrait of
one of their customers. If one of them answers 'yes,' we've got
our man."

"And we will get him!" cried the old man, pale with emotion.

"Not yet; don't shout victory too soon. It is possible that Hector
was prudent enough not to go to the upholsterer's himself. In this
case we are beaten in that direction. But no, he was not so sly
as that--"

M. Lecoq checked himself. Janouille, for the third time, opened
the door, and said, in a deep bass voice:

"Breakfast is ready."

Janouille was a remarkable cook; M. Plantat had ample experience of
the fact when he began upon her dishes. But he was not hungry, and
could not force himself to eat; he could not think of anything but
a plan which he had to propose to his host, and he had that
oppressive feeling which is experienced when one is about to do
something which has been decided on with hesitation and regret.
The detective, who, like all men of great activity, was a great
eater, vainly essayed to entertain his guest, and filled his glass
with the choicest Chateau Margaux; the old man sat silent and sad,
and only responded by monosyllables. He tried to speak out and to
struggle against the hesitation he felt. He did not think, when he
came, that he should have this reluctance; he had said to himself
that he would go in and explain himself. Did he fear to be
ridiculed? No. His passion was above the fear of sarcasm or irony.
And what did he risk? Nothing. Had not M. Lecoq already divined
the secret thoughts he dared not impart to him, and read his heart
from the first? He was reflecting thus when the door-bell rang.
Janouille went to the door, and speedily returned with the
announcement that Goulard begged to speak with M. Lecoq, and asked
if she should admit him.

"Certainly."

The chains clanked and the locks scraped, and presently Goulard
made his appearance. He had donned his best clothes, with spotless
linen, and a very high collar. He was respectful, and stood as
stiffly as a well-drilled grenadier before his sergeant.

"What the deuce brought you here?" said M. Lecoq, sternly. "And
who dared to give you my address?"

"Monsieur," said Goulard, visibly intimidated by his reception,
"please excuse me; I was sent by Doctor Gendron with this letter
for Monsieur Plantat."

"Oh," cried M. Plantat, "I asked the doctor, last evening, to let
me know the result of the autopsy, and not knowing where I should
put up, took the liberty of giving your address."

M. Lecoq took the letter and handed it to his guest. "Read it,
read it," said the latter. "There is nothing in it to conceal."

"All right; but come into the other room. Janouille, give this man
some breakfast. Make yourself at home, Goulard, and empty a bottle
to my health."

When the door of the other room was closed, M. Lecoq broke the seal
of the letter, and read:

"MY DEAR PLANTAT:

"You asked me for a word, so I scratch off a line or two which I
shall send to our sorcerer's--"

"Oh, ho," cried M. Lecoq. "Monsieur Gendron is too good, too
flattering, really!"

No matter, the compliment touched his heart. He resumed the letter:

"At three this morning we exhumed poor Sauvresy's body. I
certainly deplore the frightful circumstances of this worthy man's
death as much as anyone; but on the other hand, I cannot help
rejoicing at this excellent opportunity to test the efficacy of my
sensitive paper--"

"Confound these men of science," cried the indignant Plantat. "They
are all alike!"

"Why so? I can very well comprehend the doctor's involuntary
sensations. Am I not ravished when I encounter a fine crime?"

And without waiting for his guest's reply, he continued reading the
letter:

"The experiments promised to be all the more conclusive as
aconitine is one of those drugs which conceal themselves most
obstinately from analysis. I proceed thus: After heating the
suspected substances in twice their weight of alcohol, I drop the
liquid gently into a vase with edges a little elevated, at the
bottom of which is a piece of paper on which I have placed my tests.
If my paper retains its color, there is no poison; if it changes,
the poison is there. In this case my paper was of a light yellow
color, and if we were not mistaken, it ought either to become
covered with brown spots, or completely brown. I explained this
experiment beforehand to the judge of instruction and the experts
who were assisting me. Ah, my friend, what a success I had! When
the first drops of alcohol fell, the paper at once became a dark
brown; your suspicions are thus proved to be quite correct. The
substances which I submitted to the test were liberally saturated
with aconitine. I never obtained more decisive results in my
laboratory. I expect that my conclusions will be disputed in court;
but I have means of verifying them, so that I shall surely confound
all the chemists who oppose me. I think, my dear friend, that you
will not be indifferent to the satisfaction I feel--"

M. Plantat lost patience.

"This is unheard-of!" cried he. "Incredible! Would you say, now,
that this poison which he found in Sauvresy's body was stolen from
his own laboratory? Why, that body is nothing more to him than
'suspected matter!' And he already imagines himself discussing the
merits of his sensitive paper in court!"

"He has reason to look for antagonists in court."

"And meanwhile he makes his experiments, and analyzes with the
coolest blood in the world; he continues his abominable cooking,
boiling and filtering, and preparing his arguments--!"

M. Lecoq did not share in his friend's indignation; he was not sorry
at the prospect of a bitter struggle in court, and he imagined a
great scientific duel, like that between Orfila and Raspail, the
provincial and Parisian chemists.

"If Tremorel has the face to deny his part in Sauvresy's murder,"
said he, "we shall have a superb trial of it."

This word "trial" put an end to M. Plantat's long hesitation.

"We mustn't have any trial," cried he.

The old man's violence, from one who was usually so calm and
self-possessed, seemed to amaze M. Lecoq.

"Ah ha," thought he, "I'm going to know all." He added aloud:

"What, no trial?"

M. Plantat had turned whiter than a sheet; he was trembling, and
his voice was hoarse, as if broken by sobs.

"I would give my fortune," resumed he "to avoid a trial--every
centime of it, though it doesn't amount to much. But how can we
secure this wretch Tremorel from a conviction? What subterfuge
shall we invent? You alone, my friend, can advise me in the
frightful extremity to which you see me reduced, and aid me to
accomplish what I wish. If there is any way in the world, you
will find it and save me--"

"But, my--"

"Pardon--hear me, and you will comprehend me. I am going to be frank
with you, as I would be with myself; and you will see the reason of
my hesitation, my silence, in short, of all my conduct since the
discovery of the crime."

"I am listening."

"It's a sad history, Lecoq. I had reached an age at which a man's
career is, as they say, finished, when I suddenly lost my wife and
my two sons, my whole joy, my whole hope in this world. I found
myself alone in life, more lost than the shipwrecked man in the
midst of the sea, without a plank to sustain me. I was a soulless
body, when chance brought me to settle down at Orcival. There I
saw Laurence; she was just fifteen, and never lived there a
creature who united in herself so much intelligence, grace,
innocence, and beauty. Courtois became my friend, and soon Laurence
was like a daughter to me. I doubtless loved her then, but I did
not confess it to myself, for I did not read my heart clearly. She
was so young, and I had gray hairs! I persuaded myself that my
love for her was like that of a father, and it was as a father that
she cherished me. Ah, I passed many a delicious hour listening to
her gentle prattle and her innocent confidences; I was happy when
I saw her skipping about in my garden, picking the roses I had
reared for her, and laying waste my parterres; and I said to
myself that existence is a precious gift from God. My dream then
was to follow her through life. I fancied her wedded to some
good man who made her happy, while I remained the friend of the
wife, after having been the confidant of the maiden. I took good
care of my fortune, which is considerable, because I thought of
her children, and wished to hoard up treasures for them. Poor,
poor Laurence!"

M. Lecoq fidgeted in his chair, rubbed his face with his
handkerchief, and seemed ill at ease. He was really much more
touched than he wished to appear.

"One day," pursued the old man, "my friend Courtois spoke to me of
her marriage with Tremorel; then I measured the depth of my love.
I felt terrible agonies which it is impossible to describe; it was
like a long-smothered fire which suddenly breaks forth and devours
everything. To be old, and to love a child! I thought I was
going crazy; I tried to reason, to upbraid myself, but it was of
no avail. What can reason or irony do against passion? I kept
silent and suffered. To crown all, Laurence selected me as her
confidant--what torture! She came to me to talk of Hector; she
admired in him all that seemed to her superior to other men, so
that none could be compared with him. She was enchanted with his
bold horseback riding, and thought everything he said sublime."

"Did you know what a wretch Tremorel was?"

"Alas, I did not yet know it. What was this man who lived at
Valfeuillu to me? But from the day that I learned that he was
going to deprive me of my most precious treasure, I began to
study him. I should have been somewhat consoled if I had found
him worthy of her; so I dogged him, as you, Monsieur Lecoq, cling
to the criminal whom you are pursuing. I went often to Paris to
learn what I could of his past life; I became a detective, and
went about questioning everybody who had known him, and the more
I heard of him the more I despised him. It was thus that I found
out his interviews with Jenny and his relations with Bertha."

"Why didn't you divulge them?"

"Honor commanded silence. Had I a right to dishonor my friend and
ruin his happiness and life, because of this ridiculous, hopeless
love? I kept my own counsel after speaking to Courtois about Jenny,
at which he only laughed. When I hinted something against Hector
to Laurence, she almost ceased coming to see me."

"Ah! I shouldn't have had either your patience or your generosity."

"Because you are not as old as I, Monsieur Lecoq. Oh, I cruelly
hated this Tremorel! I said to myself, when I saw three women of
such different characters smitten with him, 'what is there in him
to be so loved?'"

"Yes," answered M. Lecoq, responding to a secret thought, "women
often err; they don't judge men as we do."

"Many a time," resumed the justice of the peace, "I thought of
provoking him to fight with me, that I might kill him; but then
Laurence would not have looked at me any more. However, I should
perhaps have spoken at last, had not Sauvresy fallen ill and died.
I knew that he had made his wife and Tremorel swear to marry each
other; I knew that a terrible reason forced them to keep their
oath; and I thought Laurence saved. Alas, on the contrary she was
lost! One evening, as I was passing the mayor's house, I saw a
man getting over the wall into the garden; it was Tremorel. I
recognized him perfectly. I was beside myself with rage, and swore
that I would wait and murder him. I did wait, but he did not come
out that night."

M. Plantat hid his face in his hands; his heart bled at the
recollection of that night of anguish, the whole of which he had
passed in waiting for a man in order to kill him. M. Lecoq trembled
with indignation.

"This Tremorel," cried he, "is the most abominable of scoundrels.
There is no excuse for his infamies and crimes. And yet you want
to save him from trial, the galleys, the scaffold which await him."

The old man paused a moment before replying. Of the thoughts which
now crowded tumultuously in his mind, he did not know which to
utter first. Words seemed powerless to betray his sensations; he
wanted to express all that he felt in a single sentence.

"What matters Tremorel to me?" said he at last. "Do you think I
care about him? I don't care whether he lives or dies, whether he
succeeds in flying or ends his life some morning in the Place
Roquette."

"Then why have you such a horror of a trial?"

"Because--"

"Are you a friend to his family, and anxious to preserve the great
name which he has covered with mud and devoted to infamy?"

"No, but I am anxious for Laurence, my friend; the thought of her
never leaves me."

"But she is not his accomplice; she is totally ignorant--there's
no doubt of it--that he has killed his wife."

"Yes," resumed M. Plantat, "Laurence is innocent; she is only the
victim of an odious villain. It is none the less true, though,
that she would be more cruelly punished than he. If Tremorel is
brought before the court, she will have to appear too, as a witness
if not as a prisoner. And who knows that her truth will not be
suspected? She will be asked whether she really had no knowledge
of the project to murder Bertha, and whether she did not encourage
it. Bertha was her rival; it is natural to suppose that she
hated her. If I were the judge I should not hesitate to include
Laurence in the indictment."

"With our aid she will prove victoriously that she was ignorant of
all, and has been outrageously deceived."

"May be; but will she be any the less dishonored and forever lost?
Must she not, in that case, appear in public, answer the judge's
questions, and narrate the story of her shame and misfortunes?
Must not she say where, when, and how she fell, and repeat the
villain's words to her? Can you imagine that of her own free will
she compelled herself to announce her suicide at the risk of
killing her parents with grief? No. Then she must explain what
menaces forced her to do this, which surely was not her own idea.
And worse than all, she will be compelled to confess her love for
Tremorel."

"No," answered the detective. "Let us not exaggerate anything.
You know as well as I do that justice is most considerate with the
innocent victims of affairs of this sort."

"Consideration? Eh! Could justice protect her, even if it would,
from the publicity in which trials are conducted? You might touch
the magistrates' hearts; but there are fifty journalists who, since
this crime, have been cutting their pens and getting their paper
ready. Do you think that, to please us, they would suppress the
scandalous proceedings which I am anxious to avoid, and which the
noble name of the murderer would make a great sensation? Does not
this case unite every feature which gives success to judicial
dramas? Oh, there's nothing wanting, neither unworthy passion,
nor poison, nor vengeance, nor murder. Laurence represents in it
the romantic and sentimental element; she--my darling girl--will
become a heroine of the assizes; it is she who will attract the
readers of the Police Gazette; the reporters will tell when she
blushes and when she weeps; they will rival each other in describing
her toilet and bearing. Then there will be the photographers
besieging her, and if she refuses to sit, portraits of some hussy
of the street will be sold as hers. She will yearn to hide herself
--but where? Can a few locks and bars shelter her from eager
curiosity? She will become famous. What shame and misery! If she
is to be saved, Monsieur Lecoq, her name must not be spoken. I ask
of you, is it possible? Answer me."

The old man was very violent, yet his speech was simple, devoid of
the pompous phrases of passion. Anger lit up his eyes with a
strange fire; he seemed young again--he loved, and defended his
beloved.

M. Lecoq was silent; his companion insisted.

"Answer me."

"Who knows?"

"Why seek to mislead me? Haven't I as well as you had experience
in these things? If Tremorel is brought to trial, all is over with
Laurence! And I love her! Yes, I dare to confess it to you, and
let you see the depth of my grief, I love her now as I have never
loved her. She is dishonored, an object of contempt, perhaps still
adores this wretch--what matters it? I love her a thousand times
more than before her fall, for then I loved her without hope, while
now--"

He stopped, shocked at what he was going to say. His eyes fell
before M. Lecoq's steady gaze, and he blushed for this shameful yet
human hope that he had betrayed.

"You know all, now," resumed he, in a calmer tone; "consent to aid
me, won't you? Ah, if you only would, I should not think I had
repaid you were I to give you half my fortune--and I am rich--"

M. Lecoq stopped him with a haughty gesture.

"Enough, Monsieur Plantat," said he, in a bitter tone, "I can do a
service to a person whom I esteem, love and pity with all my soul;
but I cannot sell such a service."

"Believe that I did not wish--"

"Yes, yes, you wished to pay me. Oh, don't excuse yourself, don't
deny it. There are professions, I know, in which manhood and
integrity seem to count for nothing. Why offer me money? What
reason have you for judging me so mean as to sell my favors? You
are like the rest, who can't fancy what a man in my position is.
If I wanted to be rich--richer than you--I could be so in a
fortnight. Don't you see that I hold in my hands the honor and
lives of fifty people? Do you think I tell all I know? I have
here," added he, tapping his forehead, "twenty secrets that I could
sell to-morrow, if I would, for a plump hundred thousand apiece."

He was indignant, but beneath his anger a certain sad resignation
might be perceived. He had often to reject such offers.

"If you go and resist this prejudice established for ages, and say
that a detective is honest and cannot be otherwise, that he is
tenfold more honest than any merchant or notary, because he has
tenfold the temptations, without the benefits of his honesty; if
you say this, they'll laugh in your face. I could get together
to-morrow, with impunity, without any risk, at least a million.
Who would mistrust it? I have a conscience, it's true; but a
little consideration for these things would not be unpleasant.
When it would be so easy for me to divulge what I know of those
who have been obliged to trust me, or things which I have surprised,
there is perhaps a merit in holding my tongue. And still, the
first man who should come along to-morrow--a defaulting banker,
a ruined merchant, a notary who has gambled on 'change--would
feel himself compromised by walking up the boulevard with me! A
policeman--fie! But old Tabaret used to say to me, that the
contempt of such people was only one form of fear."

M. Plantat was dismayed. How could he, a man of delicacy, prudence
and finesse, have committed such an awkward mistake? He had just
cruelly wounded this man, who was so well disposed toward him, and
he had everything to fear from his resentment.

"Far be it from me, dear friend," he commenced, "to intend the
offence you imagine. You have misunderstood an insignificant
phrase, which I let escape carelessly, and had no meaning at all."

M. Lecoq grew calmer.

"Perhaps so. You will forgive my being so susceptible, as I am
more exposed to insults than most people. Let's leave the subject,
which is a painful one, and return to Tremorel."

M. Plantat was just thinking whether he should dare to broach his
projects again, and he was singularly touched by M. Lecoq's
delicately resuming the subject of them.

"I have only to await your decision," said the justice of the peace.

"I will not conceal from you," resumed M. Lecoq, "that you are
asking a very difficult thing, and one which is contrary to my duty,
which commands me to search for Tremorel, to arrest him, and deliver
him up to justice. You ask me to protect him from the law--"

"In the name of an innocent creature whom you will thereby save."

"Once in my life I sacrificed my duty. I could not resist the
tears of a poor old mother, who clung to my knees and implored
pardon for her son. To-day I am going to exceed my right, and to
risk an attempt for which my conscience will perhaps reproach me.
I yield to your entreaty."

"Oh, my dear Lecoq, how grateful I am!" cried M. Plantat,
transported with joy.

But the detective remained grave, almost sad, and reflected.

"Don't let us encourage a hope which may be disappointed," he
resumed. "I have but one means of keeping a criminal like Tremorel
out of the courts; will it succeed?"

"Yes, yes. If you wish it, it will!"

M. Lecoq could not help smiling at the old man's faith.

"I am certainly a clever detective," said he. "But I am only a man
after all, and I can't answer for the actions of another man. All
depends upon Hector. If it were another criminal, I should say I
was sure. I am doubtful about him, I frankly confess. We ought,
above all, to count upon the firmness of Mademoiselle Courtois;
can we, think you?"

"She is firmness itself."

"Then there's hope. But can we really suppress this affair? What
will happen when Sauvresy's narrative is found? It must be
concealed somewhere in Valfeuillu, and Tremorel, at least, did not
find it."

"It will not be found," said M. Plantat, quickly.

"You think so?"

"I am sure of it."

M. Lecoq gazed intently at his companion, and simply said:

"Ah!"

But this is what he thought: "At last I am going to find out where
the manuscript which we heard read the other night, and which is
in two handwritings, came from."

After a moment's hesitation, M. Plantat went on:

"I have put my life in your hands, Monsieur Lecoq; I can, of
course, confide my honor to you. I know you. I know that, happen
what may--"

"I shall keep my mouth shut, on my honor."

"Very well. The day that I caught Tremorel at the mayor's, I
wished to verify the suspicions I had, and so I broke the seal of
Sauvresy's package of papers."

"And you did not use them?"

"I was dismayed at my abuse of confidence. Besides, had I the right
to deprive poor Sauvresy, who was dying in order to avenge himself,
of his vengeance?"

"But you gave the papers to Madame de Tremorel?"

"True; but Bertha had a vague presentiment of the fate that was in
store for her. About a fortnight before her death she came and
confided to me her husband's manuscript, which she had taken care
to complete. I broke the seals and read it, to see if he had died
a violent death."

"Why, then, didn't you tell me? Why did you let me hunt, hesitate,
grope about--"

"I love Laurence, Monsieur Lecoq, and to deliver up Tremorel was to
open an abyss between her and me."

The detective bowed. "The deuce," thought he, "the old justice is
shrewd--as shrewd as I am. Well, I like him, and I'm going to give
him a surprise."

M. Plantat yearned to question his host and to know what the sole
means of which he spoke were, which might be successful in preventing
a trial and saving Laurence, but he did not dare to do so.

The detective bent over his desk lost in thought. He held a pencil
in his hand and mechanically drew fantastic figures on a large sheet
of white paper which lay before him. He suddenly came out of his
revery. He had just solved a last difficulty; his plan was now
entire and complete. He glanced at the clock.

"Two o'clock," cried he, "and I have an appointment between three
and four with Madame Charman about Jenny."

"I am at your disposal," returned his guest.

"All right. When Jenny is disposed of we must look after Tremorel;
so let's take our measures to finish it up to-day."

"What! do you hope to do everything to-day--"

"Certainly. Rapidity is above all necessary in our profession. It
often takes a month to regain an hour lost. We've a chance now of
catching Hector by surprise; to-morrow it will be too late. Either
we shall have him within four-and-twenty hours or we must change
our batteries. Each of my three men has a carriage and a good
horse; they may be able to finish with the upholsterers within an
hour from now. If I calculate aright, we shall have the address
in an hour, or at most in two hours, and then we will act."

Lecoq, as he spoke, took a sheet of paper surmounted by his arms out
of his portfolio, and rapidly wrote several lines.

"See here," said he, "what I've written to one of my lieutenants."

"MONSIEUR JOB--
"Get together six or eight of our men at once and take them to the
wine merchant's at the corner of the Rue des Martyrs and the Rue
Lamartine; await my orders there."

"Why there and not here?"

"Because we must avoid needless excursions. At the place I have
designated we are only two steps from Madame Charman's and near
Tremorel's retreat; for the wretch has hired his rooms in the
quarter of Notre Dame de Lorette."

M. Plantat gave an exclamation of surprise.

"What makes you think that?"

The detective smiled, as if the question seemed foolish to him.

"Don't you recollect that the envelope of the letter addressed by
Mademoiselle Courtois to her family to announce her suicide bore
the Paris postmark, and that of the branch office of Rue St. Lazare?
Now listen to this: On leaving her aunt's house, Laurence must have
gone directly to Tremorel's apartments, the address of which he had
given her, and where he had promised to meet her on Thursday morning.
She wrote the letter, then, in his apartments. Can we admit that
she had the presence of mind to post the letter in another quarter
than that in which she was? It is at least probable that she was
ignorant of the terrible reasons which Tremorel had to fear a search
and pursuit. Had Hector foresight enough to suggest this trick to
her? No, for if he wasn't a fool he would have told her to post
the letter somewhere outside of Paris. It is therefore scarcely
possible that it was posted anywhere else than at the nearest
branch office."

These suppositions were so simple that M. Plantat wondered he had
not thought of them before. But men do not see clearly in affairs
in which they are deeply interested; passion dims the eyes, as heat
in a room dims a pair of spectacles. He had lost, with his
coolness, a part of his clearsightedness. His anxiety was very
great; for he thought M. Lecoq had a singular mode of keeping his
promise.

"It seems to me," he could not help remarking, "that if you wish
to keep Hector from trial, the men you have summoned together will
be more embarrassing than useful."

M. Lecoq thought that his guest's tone and look betrayed a certain
doubt, and was irritated by it.

"Do you distrust me, Monsieur Plantat?"

The old man tried to protest.

"Believe me--"

"You have my word," resumed M. Lecoq, "and if you knew me better
you would know that I always keep it when I have given it. I have
told you that I would do my best to save Mademoiselle Laurence; but
remember that I have promised you my assistance, not absolute
success. Let me, then, take such measures as I think best."

So saying, he rang for Janouille.

"Here's a letter," said he when she appeared, "which must be sent
to Job at once."

"I will carry it."

"By no means. You will be pleased to remain here and wait for the
men that I sent out this morning. As they come in, send them to
the wine merchant's at the corner of the Rue des Martyrs; you know
it--opposite the church. They'll find a numerous company there."

As he gave his orders, he took off his gown, assumed a long black
coat, and carefully adjusted his wig.

"Will Monsieur be back this evening?" asked Janouille.

"I don't know."

"And if anybody comes from over yonder?"

"Over yonder" with a detective, always means "the house"--otherwise
the prefecture of police.

"Say that I am out on the Corbeil affair."

M. Lecoq was soon ready. He had the air, physiognomy, and manners
of a highly respectable chief clerk of fifty. Gold spectacles, an
umbrella, everything about him exhaled an odor of the ledger.

"Now," said he to M. Plantat. "Let's hurry away." Goulard, who
had made a hearty breakfast, was waiting for his hero in the
dining-room.

"Ah ha, old fellow," said M. Lecoq. "So you've had a few words
with my wine. How do you find it?"

"Delicious, my chief; perfect--that is to say, a true nectar."

"It's cheered you up, I hope."

"Oh, yes, my chief."

"Then you may follow us a few steps and mount guard at the door of
the house where you see us go in. I shall probably have to confide
a pretty little girl to your care whom you will carry to Monsieur
Domini. And open your eyes; for she's a sly creature, and very
apt to inveigle you on the way and slip through your fingers."

They went out, and Janouille stoutly barricaded herself behind them.



                                XXV

Whosoever needs a loan of money, or a complete suit of clothes in
the top of the fashion, a pair of ladies' boots, or an Indian
cashmere; a porcelain table service or a good picture; whosoever
desires diamonds, curtains, laces, a house in the country, or a
provision of wood for winter fires--may procure all these, and
many other things besides, at Mme. Charman's.

Mme. Charman lives at 136, Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, on the
first story above the ground-floor. Her customers must give madame
some guarantee of their credit; a woman, if she be young and pretty,
may be accommodated at madame's at the reasonable rate of two
hundred per cent interest. Madame has, at these rates, considerable
custom, and yet has not made a large fortune. She must necessarily
risk a great deal, and bears heavy losses as well as receives large
profits. Then she is, as she is pleased to say, too honest; and
true enough, she is honest--she would rather sell her dress off her
back than let her signature go to protest.

Madame is a blonde, slight, gentle, and not wanting in a certain
distinction of manner; she invariably wears, whether it be summer
or winter, a black silk dress. They say she has a husband, but no
one has ever seen him, which does not prevent his reputation for
good conduct from being above suspicion. However, honorable as may
be Mme. Charman's profession, she has more than once had business
with M. Lecoq; she has need of him and fears him as she does fire.
She, therefore, welcomed the detective and his companion--whom she
took for one of his colleagues--somewhat as the supernumerary of a
theatre would greet his manager if the latter chanced to pay him a
visit in his humble lodgings.

She was expecting them. When they rang, she advanced to meet them
in the ante-chamber, and greeted M. Lecoq graciously and smilingly.
She conducted them into her drawing-room, invited them to sit in
her best arm-chairs, and pressed some refreshments upon them.

"I see, dear Madame," began M. Lecoq, "that you have received my
little note."

"Yes, Monsieur Lecoq, early this morning; I was not up."

"Very good. And have you been so kind as to do the service I asked?"

"How can you ask me, when you know that I would go through the fire
for you? I set about it at once, getting up expressly for the
purpose."

"Then you've got the address of Pelagie Taponnet, called Jenny?"

"Yes, I have," returned Mme. Charman, with an obsequious bow. "If
I were the kind of woman to magnify my services, I would tell you
what trouble it cost me to find this address, and how I ran all
over Paris and spent ten francs in cab hire."

"Well, let's come to the point."

"The truth is, I had the pleasure of seeing Miss Jenny day before
yesterday."

"You are joking!"

"Not the least in the world. And let me tell you that she is a
very courageous and honest girl."

"Really!"

"She is, indeed. Why, she has owed me four hundred and eighty
francs for two years. I hardly thought the debt worth much, as
you may imagine. But Jenny came to me day before yesterday all out
of breath and told me that she had inherited some money, and had
brought me what she owed me. And she was not joking, either; for
her purse was full of bank notes, and she paid me the whole of my
bill. She's a good girl!" added Mme. Charman, as if profoundly
convinced of the truth of her encomium.

M. Lecoq exchanged a significant glance with the old justice; the
same idea struck them both at the same moment. These bank-notes
could only be the payment for some important service rendered by
Jenny to Tremorel. M. Lecoq, however, wished for more precise
information.

"What was Jenny's condition before this windfall?" asked he.

"Ah, Monsieur Lecoq, she was in a dreadful condition. Since the
count deserted her she has been constantly falling lower and lower.
She sold all she had piece by piece. At last, she mixed with the
worst kind of people, drank absinthe, they say, and had nothing to
put to her back. When she got any money she spent it on a parcel
of hussies instead of buying clothes."

"And where is she living?"

"Right by, in a house in the Rue Vintimille."

"If that is so," replied M. Lecoq, severely, "I am astonished that
she is not here."

"It's not my fault, dear Monsieur Lecoq; I know where the nest is,
but not where the bird is. She was away this morning when I sent
for her."

"The deuce! But then--it's very annoying; I must hunt her up at
once."

"You needn't disturb yourself. Jenny ought to return before four
o'clock, and one of my girls is waiting for her with orders to
bring her here as soon as she comes in, without even letting her go
up to her room."

"We'll wait for her then."

M. Lecoq and his friend waited about a quarter of an hour, when Mme.
Charman suddenly got up.

"I hear my girl's step on the stairs," said she.

"Listen to me," answered M. Lecoq, "if it is she, manage to make
Jenny think that it was you who sent for her; we will seem to have
come in by the merest chance."

Mme. Charman responded by a gesture of assent. She was going
towards the door when the detective detained her by the arm.

"One word more. When you see me fairly engaged in conversation with
her, please be so good as to go and overlook your work-people in
the shops. What I have to say will not interest you in the least."

"I understand."

"But no trickery, you know. I know where the closet of your bedroom
is, well enough to be sure that everything that is said here may be
overheard in it."

Mme. Charman's emissary opened the door; there was a loud rustling
of silks along the corridor; and Jenny appeared in all her glory.
She was no longer the fresh and pretty minx whom Hector had known
--the provoking large-eyed Parisian demoiselle, with haughty head
and petulant grace. A single year had withered her, as a too hot
summer does the roses, and had destroyed her fragile beauty beyond
recall. She was not twenty, and still it was hard to discern that
she had been charming, and was yet young. For she had grown old
like vice; her worn features and hollow cheeks betrayed the
dissipations of her life; her eyes had lost their long, languishing
lids; her mouth had a pitiful expression of stupefaction; and
absinthe had broken the clear tone of her voice. She was richly
dressed in a new robe, with a great deal of lace and a jaunty hat;
yet she had a wretched expression; she was all besmeared with
rouge and paint.

When she came in she seemed very angry.

"What an idea!" she cried, without taking the trouble to bow to
anyone; "what sense is there in sending for me to come here in
this way, almost by force, and by a very impudent young woman?"

Mme. Charman hastened to meet her old customer, embraced her in
spite of herself, and pressed her to her heart.

"Why, don't be so angry, dear--I thought you would be delighted
and overwhelm me with thanks."

"I? What for?"

"Because, my dear girl, I had a surprise in store for you. Ah, I'm
not ungrateful; you came here yesterday and settled your account
with me, and to-day I mean to reward you for it. Come, cheer up;
you're going to have a splendid chance, because just at this moment
I happen to have a piece of exquisite velvet--"

"A pretty thing to bring me here for!"

"All silk, my dear, at thirty francs the yard. Ha, 'tis wonderfully
cheap, the best--"

"Eh! What care I for your 'chance?' Velvet in July--are you making
fun of me?"

"Let me show it to you, now."

"Never! I am expected to dinner at Asnieres, and so--"

She was about to go away despite Mme. Charman's attempts to detain
her, when M. Lecoq thought it was time to interfere.

"Why, am I mistaken?" cried he, as if amazed; "is it really Miss
Jenny whom I have the honor of seeing?"

She scanned him with a half-angry, half-surprised air, and said:

"Yes, it is I; what of it?"

"What! Are you so forgetful? Don't you recognize me?"

"No, not at all."

"Yet I was one of your admirers once, my dear, and used to breakfast
with you when you lived near the Madeleine; in the count's time,
you know."

He took off his spectacles as if to wipe them, but really to launch
a furious look at Mme. Charman, who, not daring to resist, beat a
hasty retreat.

"I knew Tremorel well in other days," resumed the detective. "And
--by the bye, have you heard any news of him lately?"

"I saw him about a week ago."

"Stop, though--haven't you heard of that horrible affair?"

"No. What was it?"

"Really, now, haven't you heard? Don't you read the papers? It
was a dreadful thing, and has been the talk of all Paris for the
past forty-eight hours."

"Tell me about it, quick!"

"You know that he married the widow of one of his friends. He was
thought to be very happy at home; not at all; he has murdered his
wife with a knife."

Jenny grew pale under her paint.

"Is it possible?" stammered she. She seemed much affected, but not
very greatly surprised, which M. Lecoq did not fail to remark.

"It is so possible," he resumed, "that he is at this moment in
prison, will soon be tried, and without a doubt will be convicted."

M. Plantat narrowly observed Jenny; he looked for an explosion of
despair, screams, tears, at least a light nervous attack; he was
mistaken.

Jenny now detested Tremorel. Sometimes she felt the weight of her
degradation, and she accused Hector of her present ignominy. She
heartily hated him, though she smiled when she saw him, got as much
money out of him as she could, and cursed him behind his back.
Instead of bursting into tears, she therefore laughed aloud.

"Well done for Tremorel," said she. "Why did he leave me? Good
for her too."

"Why so?"

"What did she deceive her husband for? It was she who took Hector
from me--she, a rich, married woman! But I've always said Hector
was a poor wretch."

"Frankly, that's my notion too. When a man acts as Tremorel has
toward you, he's a villain."

"It's so, isn't it?"

"Parbleu! But I'm not surprised at his conduct. For his wife's
murder is the least of his crimes; why, he tried to put it off upon
somebody else!"

"That doesn't surprise me."

"He accused a poor devil as innocent as you or I, who might have
been condemned to death if he hadn't been able to tell where he
was on Wednesday night."

M. Lecoq said this lightly, with intended deliberation, so as to
watch the impression he produced on Jenny.

"Do you know who the man was?" asked she in a tremulous voice.

"The papers said it was a poor lad who was his gardener."

"A little man, wasn't he, thin, very dark, with black hair?"

"Just so."

"And whose name was--wait now--was--Guespin."

"Ah ha, you know him then?"

Jenny hesitated. She was trembling very much, and evidently
regretted that she had gone so far.

"Bah!" said she at last. "I don't see why I shouldn't tell what I
know. I'm an honest girl, if Tremorel is a rogue; and I don't want
them to condemn a poor wretch who is innocent."

"You know something about it, then?"

"Well, I know nearly all about it--that's honest, ain't it? About
a week ago Hector wrote to me to meet him at Melun; I went, found
him, and we breakfasted together. Then he told me that he was very
much annoyed about his cook's marriage; for one of his servants was
deeply in love with her, and might go and raise a rumpus at the
wedding."

"Ah, he spoke to you about the wedding, then?"

"Wait a minute. Hector seemed very much embarrassed, not knowing
how to avoid the disturbance he feared. Then I advised him to send
the servant off out of the way on the wedding-day. He thought a
moment, and said that my advice was good. He added that he had
found a means of doing this; on the evening of the marriage he
would send the man on an errand for me, telling him that the affair
was to be concealed from the countess. I was to dress up--as a
chambermaid, and wait for the man at the cafe in the Place du
Chatelet, between half-past nine and ten that evening; I was to sit
at the table nearest the entrance on the right, with a bouquet in
my hand, so that he should recognize me. He would come in and give
me a package; then I was to ask him to take something, and so get
him tipsy if possible, and then walk about Paris with him till
morning."

Jenny expressed herself with difficulty, hesitating, choosing her
words, and trying to remember exactly what Tremorel said.

"And you," interrupted M. Lecoq, "did you believe all this story
about a jealous servant?"

"Not quite; but I fancied that he had some intrigue on foot, and I
wasn't sorry to help him deceive a woman whom I detested, and who
had wronged me."

"So you did as he told you?"

"Exactly, from beginning to end; everything happened just as Hector
had foreseen. The man came along at just ten o'clock, took me for
a maid, and gave me the package. I naturally offered him a glass
of beer; he took it and proposed another, which I also accepted.
He is a very nice fellow, this gardener, and I passed a very
pleasant evening with him. He knew lots of queer things, and--"

"Never mind that. What did you do then?"

"After the beer we had some wine, then some beer again, then some
punch, then some more wine--the gardener had his pockets full of
money. He was very tipsy by eleven and invited me to go and have
a dance with him at the Batignolles. I refused, and asked him to
escort me back to my mistress at the upper end of the Champs
Elysees. We went out of the cafe and walked up the Rue de Rivoli,
stopping every now and then for more wine and beer. By two o'clock
the fellow was so far gone that he fell like a lump on a bench near
the Arc de Triomphe, where he went to sleep; and there I left him."

"Well, where did you go?"

"Home."

"What has become of the package?"

"Oh, I intended to throw it into the Seine, as Hector wished, but
I forgot it; you see, I had drunk almost as much as the gardener
--so I carried it back home with me, and it is in my room now."

"Have you opened it?"

"Well--what do you think?"

"What did it contain?"

"A hammer, two other tools and a large knife."

Guespin's innocence was now evident, and the detective's foresight
was realized.

"Guespin's all right," said M. Plantat. "But we must know--"

M. Lecoq interrupted him; he knew now all he wished. Jenny could
tell him nothing more, so he suddenly changed his tone from a
wheedling one to abrupt severity.

"My fine young woman," said he, "you have saved an innocent man,
but you must repeat what you have just said to the judge of
instruction at Corbeil. And as you might lose yourself on the way,
I'll give you a guide."

He went to the window and opened it; perceiving Goulard on the
sidewalk, he cried out to him:

"Goulard, come up here."

He turned to the astonished Jenny, who was so frightened that she
dared not either question him or get angry, and said:

"Tell me how much Tremorel paid you for the service you rendered
him."

"Ten thousand francs; but it is my due, I swear to you; for he
promised it to me long ago, and owed it to me."

"Very good; it can't be taken away from you." He added, pointing
out Goulard who entered just then: "Go with this man to your room,
take the package which Guespin brought you, and set out at once for
Corbeil. Above all, no tricks, Miss--or beware of me!"

Mme. Charman came in just in time to see Jenny leave the room with
Goulard.

"Lord, what's the matter?" she asked M. Lecoq.

"Nothing, my dear Madame, nothing that concerns you in the least.
And so, thank you and good-evening; we are in a great hurry."



                                XXVI

When M. Lecoq was in a hurry he walked fast. He almost ran down
the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, so that Plantat had great
difficulty in keeping up with him; and as he went along he pursued
his train of reflection, half aloud, so that his companion caught
here and there a snatch of it.

"All goes well," he muttered, "and we shall succeed. It's seldom
that a campaign which commences so well ends badly. If Job is at
the wine merchant's, and if one of my men has succeeded in his
search, the crime of Valfeuillu is solved, and in a week people
will have forgotten it."

He stopped short on reaching the foot of the street opposite the
church.

"I must ask you to pardon me," said he to the old justice, "for
hurrying you on so and making you one of my trade; but your
assistance might have been very useful at Madame Charman's, and
will be indispensable when we get fairly on Tremorel's track."

They went across the square and into the wine shop at the corner of
the Rue des Martyrs. Its keeper was standing behind his counter
turning wine out of a large jug into some litres, and did not seem
much astonished at seeing his new visitors. M. Lecoq was quite at
home (as he was everywhere), and spoke to the man with an air of
easy familiarity.

"Aren't there six or eight men waiting for somebody here?" he asked.

"Yes, they came about an hour ago."

"Are they in the big back room?"

"Just so, Monsieur," responded the wine merchant, obsequiously.

He didn't exactly know who was talking to him, but he suspected him
to be some superior officer from the prefecture; and he was not
surprised to see that this distinguished personage knew the ins and
outs of his house. He opened the door of the room referred to
without hesitation. Ten men in various guises were drinking there
and playing cards. On M. Lecoq's entrance with M. Plantat, they
respectfully got up and took off their hats.

"Good for you, Job," said M. Lecoq to him who seemed to be their
chief, "you are prompt, and it pleases me. Your ten men will be
quite enough, for I shall have the three besides whom I sent out
this morning."

M. Job bowed, happy at having pleased a master who was not very
prodigal in his praises.

"I want you to wait here a while longer," resumed M. Lecoq, "for my
orders will depend on a report which I am expecting." He turned to
the men whom he had sent out among the upholsterers:

"Which of you was successful?"

"I, Monsieur," replied a big white-faced fellow, with insignificant
mustaches.

"What, you again, Palot? really, my lad, you are lucky. Step into
this side room--first, though, order a bottle of wine, and ask the
proprietor to see to it that we are not disturbed."

These orders were soon executed, and M. Plantat being duly ensconced
with them in the little room, the detective turned the key.

"Speak up now," said he to Palot, "and be brief."

"I showed the photograph to at least a dozen upholsterers without
any result; but at last a merchant in the Faubourg St. Germain,
named Rech, recognized it."

"Tell me just what he said, if you can."

"He told me that it was the portrait of one of his customers. A
month ago this customer came to him to buy a complete set of
furniture--drawing-room, dining-room, bed-room, and the rest--for
a little house which he had just rented. He did not beat him down
at all, and only made one condition to the purchase, and that was,
that everything should be ready and in place, and the curtains and
carpets put in, within three weeks from that time; that is a week
ago last Monday."

"And what was the sum-total of the purchase?"

"Eighteen thousand francs, half paid down in advance, and half on
the day of delivery."

"And who carried the last half of the money to the upholsterer?"

"A servant."

"What name did this customer give?"

"He called himself Monsieur James Wilson; but Monsieur Rech said
he did not seem like an English-man."

"Where does he live?"

"The furniture was carried to a small house, No. 34 Rue St. Lazare,
near the Havre station."

M. Lecoq's face, which had up to that moment worn an anxious
expression, beamed with joy. He felt the natural pride of a
captain who has succeeded in his plans for the enemy's destruction.
He tapped the old justice of the peace familiarly on the shoulder,
and pronounced a single word:

"Nipped!"

Palot shook his head.

"It isn't certain," said he.

"Why?"

"You may imagine, Monsieur Lecoq, that when I got the address,
having some time on my hands, I went to reconnoitre the house."

"Well?"

"The tenant's name is really Wilson, but it's not the man of the
photograph, I'm certain."

M. Plantat gave a groan of disappointment, but M. Lecoq was not so
easily discouraged.

"How did you find out?"

"I pumped one of the servants."

"Confound you!" cried M. Plantat. "Perhaps you roused suspicions."

"Oh, no," answered M. Lecoq. "I'll answer for him. Palot is a
pupil of mine. Explain yourself, Palot."

"Recognizing the house--an elegant affair it is, too--I said to
myself: 'I' faith, here's the cage; let's see if the bird is in
it.' I luckily happened to have a napoleon in my pocket; and I
slipped it without hesitation into the drain which led from the
house to the street-gutter."

"Then you rang?"

"Exactly. The porter--there is a porter--opened the door, and
with my most vexed air I told him how, in pulling out my
handkerchief, I had dropped a twenty-franc piece in the drain, and
begged him to lend me something to try to get it out. He lent me
a poker and took another himself, and we got the money out with no
difficulty; I began to jump about as if I were delighted, and begged
him to let me treat him to a glass of wine."

"Not bad."

"Oh, Monsieur Lecoq, it is one of your tricks, you know. My porter
accepted my invitation, and we soon got to be the best friends in
the world over some wine in a shop just across the street from the
house. We were having a jolly talk together when, all of a sudden,
I leaned over as if I had just espied something on the floor, and
picked up--the photograph, which I had dropped and soiled a little
with my foot. 'What,' cried I, 'a portrait?' My new friend took
it, looked at it, and didn't seem to recognize it. Then, to be
certain, I said, 'He's a very good-looking fellow, ain't he now?
Your master must be some such a man.' But he said no, that the
photograph was of a man who was bearded, while his master was as
clean-faced as an abbe. 'Besides,' he added, 'my master is an
American; he gives us our orders in French, but Madame and he always
talk English together.'"

M. Lecoq's eye glistened as Palot proceeded.

"Tremorel speaks English, doesn't he?" asked he of M. Plantat.

"Quite well; and Laurence too."

"If that is so, we are on the right track, for we know that Tremorel
shaved his beard off on the night of the murder. We can go on--"

Palot meanwhile seemed a little uneasy at not receiving the praise
he expected.

"My lad," said M. Lecoq, turning to him, "I think you have done
admirably, and a good reward shall prove it to you. Being ignorant
of what we know, your conclusions were perfectly right. But let's
go to the house at once; have you got a plan of the ground-floor?"

"Yes, and also of the first floor above. The porter was not dumb,
and so he gave me a good deal of information about his master and
mistress, though he has only been there two days. The lady is
dreadfully melancholy, and cries all the time."

"We know it; the plan--"

"Below, there is a large and high paved arch for the carriages to
pass through; on the other side is a good-sized courtyard, at the
end of which are the stable and carriage-house. The porter's lodge
is on the left of the arch; on the right a glass door opens on a
staircase with six steps, which conducts to a vestibule into which
the drawing-room, dining-room, and two other little rooms open.
The chambers are on the first floor, a study, a--"

"Enough," M. Lecoq said, "my plan is made."

And rising abruptly, he opened the door, and followed by M. Plantat
and Palot, went into the large room. All the men rose at his
approach as before.

"Monsieur Job," said the detective, "listen attentively to what I
have to say. As soon as I am gone, pay up what you owe here, and
then, as I must have you all within reach, go and install yourselves
in the first wine-shop on the right as you go up the Rue d'Amsterdam.
Take your dinner there, for you will have time--but soberly, you
understand."

He took two napoleons out of his pocket and placed them on the
table, adding:

"That's for the dinner."

M. Lecoq and the old justice went into the street, followed closely
by Palot. The detective was anxious above all to see for himself
the house inhabited by Tremorel. He saw at a glance that the
interior must be as Palot had described.

"That's it, undoubtedly," said he to M. Plantat; "we've got the
game in our hands. Our chances at this moment are ninety to ten."

"What are you going to do?" asked the justice, whose emotion
increased as the decisive moment approached.

"Nothing, just yet, I must wait for night before I act. As it is
two hours yet before dark, let's imitate my men; I know a restaurant
just by here where you can dine capitally; we'll patronize it."

And without awaiting a reply, he led M. Plantat to a restaurant in
the Passage du Havre. But at the moment he was about to open the
door, he stopped and made a signal. Palot immediately appeared.

"I give you two hours to get yourself up so that the porter won't
recognize you, and to have some dinner. You are an upholsterer's
apprentice. Now clear out; I shall wait for you here."

M. Lecoq was right when he said that a capital dinner was to be
had in the Passage du Havre; unfortunately M. Plantat was not in a
state to appreciate it. As in the morning, he found it difficult
to swallow anything, he was so anxious and depressed. He longed to
know the detective's plans; but M. Lecoq remained impenetrable,
answering all inquiries with:

"Let me act, and trust me."

M. Plantat's confidence was indeed very great; but the more he
reflected, the more perilous and difficult seemed the attempt to
save Tremorel from a trial. The most poignant doubts troubled and
tortured his mind. His own life was at stake; for he had sworn to
himself that he would not survive the ruin of Laurence in being
forced to confess in full court her dishonor and her love for
Hector.

M. Lecoq tried hard to make his companion eat something, to take at
least some soup and a glass of old Bordeaux; but he soon saw the
uselessness of his efforts and went on with his dinner as if he
were alone. He was very thoughtful, but any uncertainty of the
result of his plans never entered his head. He drank much and
often, and soon emptied his bottle of Leoville. Night having now
come on the waiters began to light the chandeliers, and the two
friends found themselves almost alone.

"Isn't it time to begin?" asked the old justice, timidly.

"We have still nearly an hour," replied M. Lecoq, consulting his
watch; "but I shall make my preparations now."

He called a waiter, and ordered a cup of coffee and writing
materials.

"You see," said he, while they were waiting to be served, "we must
try to get at Laurence without Tremorel's knowing it. We must have
a ten minutes' talk with her alone, and in the house. That is a
condition absolutely necessary to our success."

M. Plantat had evidently been expecting some immediate and decisive
action, for M. Lecoq's remark filled him with alarm.

"If that's so," said he mournfully, "it's all over with our
project."

"How so?"

"Because Tremorel will not leave Laurence by herself for a moment."

"Then I'll try to entice him out."

"And you, you who are usually so clear-sighted, really think that
he will let himself be taken in by a trick! You don't consider his
situation at this moment. He must be a prey to boundless terrors.
We know that Sauvresy's declaration will not be found, but he does
not; he thinks that perhaps it has been found, that suspicions have
been aroused, and that he is already being searched for and pursued
by the police."

"I've considered all that," responded M. Lecoq with a triumphant
smile, "and many other things besides. Well, it isn't easy to
decoy Tremorel out of the house. I've been cudgelling my brain
about it a good deal, and have found a way at last. The idea
occurred to me just as we were coming in here. The Count de Tremorel,
in an hour from now, will be in the Faubourg St. Germain. It's true
it will cost me a forgery, but you will forgive me under the
circumstances. Besides, he who seeks the end must use the means."

He took up a pen, and as he smoked his cigar, rapidly wrote the
following:

"MONSIEUR WILSON:

"Four of the thousand-franc notes which you paid me are
counterfeits; I have just found it out by sending them to my
banker's. If you are not here to explain the matter before ten
o'clock, I shall be obliged to put in a complaint this evening
before the procureur.

"RECH."

"Now," said M. Lecoq, passing the letter to his companion. "Do you
comprehend?"

The old justice read it at a glance and could not repress a joyful
exclamation, which caused the waiters to turn around and stare at
him.

"Yes," said he, "this letter will catch him; it'll frighten him out
of all his other terrors. He will say to himself that he might
have slipped some counterfeit notes among those paid to the
upholsterer, that a complaint against him will provoke an inquiry,
and that he will have to prove that he is really Monsieur Wilson
or he is lost."

"So you think he'll come out?"

"I'm sure of it, unless he has become a fool."

"I tell you we shall succeed then, for this is the only serious
obstacle--"

He suddenly interrupted himself. The restaurant door opened ajar,
and a man passed his head in and withdrew it immediately.

"That's my man," said M. Lecoq, calling the waiter to pay for the
dinner, "he is waiting for us in the passage; let us go."

A young man dressed like a journeyman upholsterer was standing in
the passage looking in at the shop-windows. He had long brown
locks, and his mustache and eyebrows were coal-black. M. Plantat
certainly did not recognize him as Palot, but M. Lecoq did, and
even seemed dissatisfied with his get-up.

"Bad," growled he, "pitiable. Do you think it is enough, in order
to disguise yourself, to change the color of your beard? Look in
that glass, and tell me if the expression of your face is not just
what it was before? Aren't your eye and smile the same? Then your
cap is too much on one side, it is not natural; and your hand is
put in your pocket awkwardly."

"I'll try to do better another time, Monsieur Lecoq," Palot
modestly replied.

"I hope so; but I guess your porter won't recognize you to-night,
and that is all we want."

"And now what must I do?"

"I'll give you your orders; and be very careful not to blunder.
First, hire a carriage, with a good horse; then go to the wine-shop
for one of our men, who will accompany you to Monsieur Wilson's
house. When you get there ring, enter alone and give the porter
this letter, saying that it is of the utmost importance. This
done, put yourself with your companion in ambuscade before the house.
If Monsieur Wilson goes out--and he will go out or I am not Lecoq
--send your comrade to me at once. As for you, you will follow
Monsieur Wilson and not lose sight of him. He will take a carriage,
and you will follow him with yours, getting up on the hackman's
seat and keeping a lookout from there. Have your eyes open, for he
is a rascal who may feel inclined to jump out of his cab and leave
you in pursuit of an empty vehicle."

"Yes, and the moment I am informed--"

"Silence, please, when I am speaking. He will probably go to the
upholsterer's in the Rue des Saints-Peres, but I may be mistaken.
He may order himself to be carried to one of the railway stations,
and may take the first train which leaves. In this case, you must
get into the same railway carriage that he does, and follow him
everywhere he goes; and be sure and send me a despatch as soon
as you can."

"Very well, Monsieur Lecoq; only if I have to take a train--"

"What, haven't you any money?"

"Well--no, my chief."

"Then take this five-hundred-franc note; that's more than is
necessary to make the tour of the world. Do you comprehend
everything?"

"I beg your pardon--what shall I do if Monsieur Wilson simply
returns to his house?"

"In that case I will finish with him. If he returns, you will come
back with him, and the moment his cab stops before the house give
two loud whistles, you know. Then wait for me in the street, taking
care to retain your cab, which you will lend to Monsieur Plantat if
he needs it."

"All right," said Palot, who hastened off without more ado.

M. Plantat and the detective, left alone, began to walk up and down
the gallery; both were grave and silent, as men are at a decisive
moment; there is no chatting about a gaming-table. M. Lecoq
suddenly started; he had just seen his agent at the end of the
gallery. His impatience was so great that he ran toward him,
saying:

"Well?"

"Monsieur, the game has flown, and Palot after him!"

"On foot or in a cab?"

"In a cab."

"Enough. Return to your comrades, and tell them to hold themselves
ready."

Everything was going as Lecoq wished, and he grasped the old
justice's hand, when he was struck by the alteration in his features.

"What, are you ill?" asked he, anxiously.

"No, but I am fifty-five years old, Monsieur Lecoq, and at that age
there are emotions which kill one. Look, I am trembling at the
moment when I see my wishes being realized, and I feel as if a
disappointment would be the death of me. I'm afraid, yes, I'm
afraid. Ah, why can't I dispense with following you?"

"But your presence is indispensable; without your help I can do
nothing:"

"What could I do?"

"Save Laurence, Monsieur Plantat."

This name restored a part of his courage.

"If that is so--" said he. He began to walk firmly toward the
street, but M. Lecoq stopped him.

"Not yet," said the detective, "not yet; the battle now depends on
the precision of our movements. A single fault miserably upsets
all my combinations, and then I shall be forced to arrest and
deliver up the criminal. We must have a ten minutes' interview
with Mademoiselle Laurence, but not much more, and it is
absolutely necessary that this interview should be suddenly
interrupted by Tremorel's return. Let's make our calculations.
It will take the rascal half an hour to go to the Rue des
Saints-Peres, where he will find nobody; as long to get back; let
us throw in fifteen minutes as a margin; in all, an hour and a
quarter. There are forty minutes left us."

M. Plantat did not reply, but his companion said that he could not
stay so long on his feet after the fatigues of the day, agitated
as he was, and having eaten nothing since the evening before. He
led him into a neighboring cafe, and forced him to eat a biscuit and
drink a glass of wine. Then seeing that conversation would be
annoying to the unhappy old man, he took up an evening paper and
soon seemed to be absorbed in the latest news from Germany. The
old justice, his head leaning on the back of his chair and his eyes
wandering over the ceiling, passed in mental review the events of
the past four years. It seemed to him but yesterday that Laurence,
still a child, ran up his garden-path and picked his roses and
honeysuckles. How pretty she was, and how divine were her great
eyes! Then, as it seemed, between dusk and dawn, as a rose blooms
on a June night, the pretty child had become a sweet and radiant
young girl. She was timid and reserved with all but him--was he
not her old friend, the confidant of all her little griefs and her
innocent hopes? How frank and pure she was then; what a heavenly
ignorance of evil!

Nine o'clock struck; M. Lecoq laid down his paper.

"Let us go," said he.

M. Plantat followed him with a firmer step, and they soon reached
M. Wilson's house, accompanied by Job and his men.

"You men," said M. Lecoq, "wait till I call before you go in; I
will leave the door ajar."

He rang; the door swung open; and M. Plantat and the detective went
in under the arch. The porter was on the threshold of his lodge.

"Monsieur Wilson?" asked M. Lecoq.

"He is out."

"I will speak to Madame, then."

"She is also out."

"Very well. Only, as I must positively speak with Madame Wilson,
I'm going upstairs."

The porter seemed about to resist him by force; but, as Lecoq now
called in his men, he thought better of it and kept quiet.

M. Lecoq posted six of his men in the court, in such a position
that they could be easily seen from the windows on the first floor,
and instructed the others to place themselves on the opposite
sidewalk, telling them to look ostentatiously at the house. These
measures taken, he returned to the porter.

"Attend to me, my man. When your master, who has gone out, comes
in again, beware that you don't tell him that we are upstairs; a
single word would get you into terribly hot water--"

"I am blind," he answered, "and deaf."

"How many servants are there in the house?"

"Three; but they have all gone out."

The detective then took M. Plantat by the arm, and holding him
firmly:

"You see, my dear friend," said he, "the game is ours. Come along
--and in Laurence's name, have courage!"



                               XXVII

All M. Lecoq's anticipations were realized. Laurence was not dead,
and her letter to her parents was an odious trick. It was really
she who lived in the house as Mme. Wilson. How had the lovely
young girl, so much beloved by the old justice, come to such a
dreadful extremity? The logic of life, alas, fatally enchains all
our determinations to each other. Often an indifferent action,
little wrongful in itself, is the beginning of an atrocious crime.
Each of our new resolutions depends upon those which have preceded
it, and is their logical sequence just as the sum-total is the
product of the added figures. Woe to him who, being seized with a
dizziness at the brink of the abyss, does not fly as fast as
possible, without turning his head; for soon, yielding to an
irresistible attraction, he approaches, braves the danger, slips,
and is lost. Whatever thereafter he does or attempts he will roll
down the faster, until he reaches the very bottom of the gulf.

Tremorel had by no means the implacable character of an assassin;
he was only feeble and cowardly; yet he had committed abominable
crimes. All his guilt came from the first feeling of envy with
which he regarded Sauvresy, and which he had not taken the pains
to subdue. Laurence, when, on the day that she became enamoured
of Tremorel, she permitted him to press her hand, and kept it from
her mother, was lost. The hand-pressure led to the pretence of
suicide in order to fly with her lover. It might also lead to
infanticide.

Poor Laurence, when she was left alone by Hector's departure to the
Faubourg St. Germain, on receiving M. Lecoq's letter, began to
reflect upon the events of the past year. How unlooked-for and
rapidly succeeding they had been! It seemed to her that she had
been whirled along in a tempest, without a second to think or act
freely. She asked herself if she were not a prey to some hideous
nightmare, and if she should not presently awake in her pretty
maidenly chamber at Orcival. Was it really she who was there in
a strange house, dead to everyone, leaving behind a withered memory,
reduced to live under a false name, without family or friends
henceforth, or anyone in the world to help her feebleness, at the
mercy of a fugitive like herself, who was free to break to-morrow
the bonds of caprice which to-day bound him to her? Was it she,
too, who was about to become a mother, and found herself suffering
from the excessive misery of blushing for that maternity which is
the pride of pure young wives? A thousand memories of her past
life flocked through her brain and cruelly revived her despair.
Her heart sank as she thought of her old friendships, of her mother,
her sister, the pride of her innocence, and the pure joys of the
home fireside.

As she half reclined on a divan in Hector's library, she wept
freely. She bewailed her life, broken at twenty, her lost youth,
her vanished, once radiant hopes, the world's esteem, and her own
self-respect, which she should never recover.

Of a sudden the door was abruptly opened.

Laurence thought it was Hector returned, and she hastily rose,
passing her handkerchief across her face to try to conceal her
tears.

A man whom she did not know stood upon the threshold, respectfully
bowing. She was afraid, for Tremorel had said to her many times
within the past two days, "We are pursued; let us hide well;" and
though it seemed to her that she had nothing to fear, she trembled
without knowing why.

"Who are you?" she asked, haughtily, "and who has admitted you here?
What do you want?"

M. Lecoq left nothing to chance or inspiration; he foresaw
everything, and regulated affairs in real life as he would the
scenes in a theatre. He expected this very natural indignation and
these questions, and was prepared for them. The only reply he made
was to step one side, thus revealing M. Plantat behind him.

Laurence was so much overcome on recognizing her old friend, that,
in spite of her resolution, she came near falling.

"You!" she stammered; "you!"

The old justice was, if possible, more agitated than Laurence. Was
that really his Laurence there before him? Grief had done its work
so well that she seemed old.

"Why did you seek for me?" she resumed. "Why add another grief to
my life? Ah, I told Hector that the letter he dictated to me would
not be believed. There are misfortunes for which death is the only
refuge."

M. Plantat was about to reply, but Lecoq was determined to take the
lead in the interview.

"It is not you, Madame, that we seek," said he, "but Monsieur de
Tremorel."

"Hector! And why, if you please? Is he not free?"

M. Lecoq hesitated before shocking the poor girl, who had been but
too credulous in trusting to a scoundrel's oaths of fidelity. But
he thought that the cruel truth is less harrowing than the suspense
of intimations.

"Monsieur de Tremorel," he answered, "has committed a great crime."

"He! You lie, sir."

The detective sorrowfully shook his head.

"Unhappily I have told you the truth. Monsieur de Tremorel murdered
his wife on Wednesday night. I am a detective and I have a warrant
to arrest him."

He thought this terrible charge would overwhelm Laurence; he was
mistaken. She was thunderstruck, but she stood firm. The crime
horrified her, but it did not seem to her entirely improbable,
knowing as she did the hatred with which Hector was inspired by
Bertha.

"Well, perhaps he did," cried she, sublime in her energy and despair;
"I am his accomplice, then--arrest me."

This cry, which seemed to proceed from the most senseless passion,
amazed the old justice, but did not surprise M. Lecoq.

"No, Madame," he resumed, "you are not this man's accomplice.
Besides, the murder of his wife is the least of his crimes. Do you
know why he did not marry you? Because in concert with Bertha, he
poisoned Monsieur Sauvresy, who saved his life and was his best
friend. We have the proof of it."

This was more than poor Laurence could bear; she staggered and fell
upon a sofa. But she did not doubt the truth of what M. Lecoq said.
This terrible revelation tore away the veil which, till then, had
hidden the past from her. The poisoning of Sauvresy explained all
Hector's conduct, his position, his fears, his promises, his lies,
his hate, his recklessness, his marriage, his flight. Still she
tried not to defend him, but to share the odium of his crimes.

"I knew it," she stammered, in a voice broken by sobs, "I knew it
all."

The old justice was in despair.

"How you love him, poor child!" murmured he.

This mournful exclamation restored to Laurence all her energy; she
made an effort and rose, her eyes glittering with indignation:

"I love him!" cried she. "I! Ah, I can explain my conduct to you,
my old friend, for you are worthy of hearing it. Yes, I did love
him, it is true--loved him to the forgetfulness of duty, to
self-abandonment. But one day he showed himself to me as he was;
I judged him, and my love did not survive my contempt. I was
ignorant of Sauvresy's horrible death. Hector confessed to me that
his life and honor were in Bertha's hands--and that she loved him.
I left him free to abandon me, to marry, thus sacrificing more than
my life to what I thought was his happiness; yet I was not deceived.
When I fled with him I once more sacrificed myself, when I saw that
it was impossible to conceal my shame. I wanted to die. I lived,
and wrote an infamous letter to my mother, and yielded to Hector's
prayers, because he pleaded with me in the name of my--of our
child!"

M. Lecoq, impatient at the loss of time, tried to say something;
but Laurence would not listen to him.

"But what matter?" she continued. "I loved him, followed him, and
am his! Constancy at all hazards is the only excuse for a fault like
mine. I will do my duty. I cannot be innocent when Hector has
committed a crime; I desire to suffer half the punishment."

She spoke with such remarkable animation that the detective
despaired of calming her, when two whistles in the street struck
his ear. Tremorel was returning and there was not a moment to be
lost. He suddenly seized Laurence by the arm.

"You will tell all this to the judges, Madame," said he, sternly.
"My orders are only for M. de Tremorel. Here is the warrant to
arrest him."

He took out the warrant and laid it upon the table. Laurence, by
the force of her will, had become almost calm.

"You will let me speak five minutes with the Count de Tremorel,
will you not?" she asked.

M. Lecoq was delighted; he had looked for this request, and
expected it.

"Five minutes? Yes," he replied. "But abandon all hope, Madame,
of saving the prisoner; the house is watched; if you look in the
court and in the street you will see my men in ambuscade. Besides,
I am going to stay here in the next room."

The count was heard ascending the stairs.

"There's Hector!" cried Laurence, "quick, quick! conceal yourselves!"

She added, as they were retiring, in a low tone, but not so low as
to prevent the detective from hearing her:

"Be sure, we will not try to escape."

She let the door-curtain drop; it was time. Hector entered. He
was paler than death, and his eyes had a fearful, wandering
expression.

"We are lost!" said he, "they are pursuing us. See, this letter
which I received just now is not from the man whose signature it
professes to bear; he told me so himself. Come, let us go, let
us leave this house--"

Laurence overwhelmed him with a look full of hate and contempt,
and said:

"It is too late."

Her countenance and voice were so strange that Tremorel, despite
his distress, was struck by it, and asked:

"What is the matter?"

"Everything is known; it is known that you killed your wife."

"It's false!"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, then, it is true," he added, "for I loved you so--"

"Really! And it was for love of me that you poisoned Sauvresy?"

He saw that he was discovered, that he had been caught in a trap,
that they had come, in his absence, and told Laurence all. He did
not attempt to deny anything.

"What shall I do?" cried he, "what shall I do?"

Laurence drew him to her, and muttered in a shuddering voice:

"Save the name of Tremorel; there are pistols here."

He recoiled, as if he had seen death itself.

"No," said he. "I can yet fly and conceal myself; I will go alone,
and you can rejoin me afterward."

"I have already told you that it is too late. The police have
surrounded the house. And--you know--it is the galleys, or--the
scaffold!"

"I can get away by the courtyard."

"It is guarded; look."

He ran to the window, saw M. Lecoq's men, and returned half mad
and hideous with terror.

"I can at least try," said he, "by disguising myself--"

"Fool! A detective is in there, and it was he who left that
warrant to arrest you on the table."

He saw that he was lost beyond hope.

"Must I die, then?" he muttered.

"Yes, you must; but before you die write a confession of your
crimes, for the innocent may be suspected--"

He sat down mechanically, took the pen which Laurence held out to
him, and wrote:

"Being about to appear before God, I declare that I alone, and
without accomplices, poisoned Sauvresy and murdered the Countess
de Tremorel, my wife."

When he had signed and dated this, Laurence opened a bureau drawer;
Hector seized one of the brace of pistols which were lying in it,
and she took the other. But Tremorel, as before at the hotel, and
then in the dying Sauvresy's chamber, felt his heart fail him as he
placed the pistol against his forehead. He was livid, his teeth
chattered, and he trembled so violently that he let the pistol drop.

"Laurence, my love," he stammered, "what will--become of you?"

"Me! I have sworn that I will follow you always and everywhere.
Do you understand?"

"Ah, 'tis horrible!" said he. "It was not I who poisoned Sauvresy
--it was she--there are proofs of it; perhaps, with a good
advocate--"

M. Lecoq did not lose a word or a gesture of this tragical scene.
Either purposely or by accident, he pushed the door-curtain, which
made a slight noise.

Laurence thought the door was being opened, that the detective was
returning, and that Hector would fall alive into their hands.

"Miserable coward!" she cried, pointing her pistol at him, "shoot,
or else--"

He hesitated; there was another rustle at the door; she fired.

Tremorel fell dead.

Laurence, with a rapid movement, took up the other pistol, and was
turning it against herself, when M. Lecoq sprung upon her and tore
the weapon from her grasp.

"Unhappy girl!" cried he, "what would you do?"

"Die. Can I live now?"

"Yes, you can live," responded M. Lecoq. "And more, you ought to
live."

"I am a lost woman--"

"No, you are a poor child lured away by a wretch. You say you are
very guilty; perhaps so; live to repent of it. Great sorrows like
yours have their missions in this world, one of devotion and
charity. Live, and the good you do will attach you once more to
life. You have yielded to the deceitful promises of a villain.
Remember, when you are rich, that there are poor innocent girls
forced to lead a life of miserable shame for a morsel of bread.
Go to these unhappy creatures, rescue them from debauchery, and
their honor will be yours."

M. Lecoq narrowly watched Laurence as he spoke, and perceived that
he had touched her. Still, her eyes were dry, and were lit up with
a strange light.

"Besides, your life is not your own--you know."

"Ah," she returned, "I must die now, even for my child, if I would
not die of shame when he asks for his father--"

"You will reply, Madame, by showing him an honest man and an old
friend, who is ready to give him his name--Monsieur Plantat."

The old justice was broken with grief; yet he had the strength to
say:

"Laurence, my beloved child, I beg you accept me--"

These simple words, pronounced with infinite gentleness and
sweetness, at last melted the unhappy young girl, and determined
her. She burst into tears.

She was saved.

M. Lecoq hastened to throw a shawl which he saw on a chair about
her shoulders, and passed her arm through M. Plantat's, saying to
the latter:

"Go, lead her away; my men have orders to let you pass, and Palot
will lend you his carriage."

"But where shall we go?"

"To Orcival; Monsieur Courtois has been informed by a letter from
me that his daughter is living, and he is expecting her. Come,
lose no time."

M. Lecoq, when he was left alone, listened to the departure of the
carriage which took M. Plantat and Laurence away; then he returned
to Tremorel's body.

"There," said he to himself, "lies a wretch whom I have killed
instead of arresting and delivering him up to justice. Have I done
my duty? No; but my conscience will not reproach me, because I have
acted rightly."

And running to the staircase, he called his men.



                              XXVIII

The day after Tremorel's death, old Bertaud and Guespin were set at
liberty, and received, the former four thousand francs to buy a boat
and new tackle, and the latter ten thousand francs, with a promise
of a like sum at the end of the year, if he would go and live in
his own province. Fifteen days later, to the great surprise of the
Orcival gossips, who had never learned the details of these events,
M. Plantat wedded Mlle. Laurence Courtois; and the groom and bride
departed that very evening for Italy, where it was announced they
would linger at least a year.

As for Papa Courtois, he has offered his beautiful domain at Orcival
for sale; he proposes to settle in the middle of France, and is on
the lookout for a commune in need of a good mayor.

M. Lecoq, like everybody else, would, doubtless, have forgotten the
Valfeuillu affair, had it not been that a notary called on him
personally the other morning with a very gracious letter from
Laurence, and an enormous sheet of stamped paper. This was no
other than a title deed to M. Plantat's pretty estate at Orcival,
"with furniture, stable, carriage-house, garden, and other
dependencies and appurtenances thereunto belonging," and some
neighboring acres of pleasant fields.

"Prodigious!" cried M. Lecoq. "I didn't help ingrates, after all!
I am willing to become a landed proprietor, just for the rarity of
the thing."





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