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diff --git a/34058.txt b/34058.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..90f1fd0 --- /dev/null +++ b/34058.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6999 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crime of the Boulevard, by Jules Claretie + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Crime of the Boulevard + +Author: Jules Claretie + +Translator: Mrs. Carlton A. Kingsbury + +Release Date: October 11, 2010 [EBook #34058] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRIME OF THE BOULEVARD *** + + + + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Ernest Schaal, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + _The Crime of + The Boulevard_ + + + [Decoration] + + + By JULES CLARETIE + Member of the French Academy + + + [Decoration] + + + Translated by + MRS. CARLTON A. KINGSBURY + + + [Decoration] + + + R. F. FENNO & COMPANY + Eighteen East Seventeenth Street :: NEW YORK + + + + + Copyright, 1897 + BY + R. F. FENNO & COMPANY + + + + + The Crime of the Boulevard + + + + + THE + CRIME OF THE BOULEVARD. + + CHAPTER I. + + +"WHERE does Bernardet live?" + +"At the passage to the right--Yes, that house which you see with the +grating and the garden behind it." + +The man to whom a passer-by had given this information hurried away in +the direction pointed out; although gasping for breath, he tried to run, +in order to more quickly reach the little house at the end of the +passage of the Elysee des Beaux Arts. This passage, a sort of +cul-de-sac, on either side of which were black buildings, strange old +houses, and dilapidated storehouses, opened upon a boulevard filled with +life and movement; with people promenading; with the noise of tramways; +with gaiety and light. + +The man wore the dress and had the bearing of a workman. He was very +short, very fat, and his bald head was bared to the warm October rain. +He was a workman, in truth, who labored in his concierge lodge, making +over and mending garments for his neighbors, while his wife looked after +the house, swept the staircases, and complained of her lot. + +Mme. Moniche found life hard and disagreeable, and regretted that it had +not given her what it promised when, at eighteen, and very pretty, she +had expected something better than to watch beside a tailor bent over +his work in a concierge's lodge. Into her life a tragedy had suddenly +precipitated itself, and Mme. Moniche found, that day, something to +brighten up her afternoon. Entering a moment before, the apartment +occupied by M. Rovere, she had found her lodger lying on his back, his +eyes fixed, his arms flung out, with a gash across his throat! + +M. Rovere had lived alone in the house for many years, receiving a few +mysterious persons. Mme. Moniche looked after his apartment, entering by +using her own key whenever it was necessary; and her lodger had given +her permission to come there at any time to read the daily papers. + +Mme. Moniche hurried down the stairs. + +"M. Rovere is dead! M. Rovere has been murdered! His throat has been +cut! He has been assassinated!" And, pushing her husband out of the +door, she exclaimed: + +"The police! Go for the police!" + +This word "police" awakened in the tailor's mind, not the thought of the +neighboring Commissary, but the thought of the man to whom he felt that +he ought to appeal, whom he ought to consult. This man was the good +little M. Bernardet, who passed for a man of genius of his kind, at the +Surete, and for whom Moniche had often repaired coats and rehemmed +trousers. + +From the mansion in the Boulevard de Clichy, where Moniche lived, to M. +Bernardet's house, was but a short distance, and the concierge knew the +way very well, as he had often been there. But the poor man was so +stupefied, so overwhelmed, by the sudden appearance of his wife in his +room, by the brutal revelation which came to him as the blow of a fist, +by the horrible manner of M. Rovere's death, that he lost his head. +Horrified, breathless, he asked the first passer-by where Bernardet +lived, and he ran as fast as he could in the direction pointed out. + +Arrived at the grating, the worthy man, a little confused, stopped +short. He was very strongly moved. It seemed to him that he had been +cast into the agony of a horrible nightmare. An assassination in the +house! A murder in the Boulevard de Clichy in broad daylight, just over +his head, while he was quietly repairing a vest! + +He stood looking at the house without ringing. M. Bernardet was, no +doubt, breakfasting with his family, for it was Sunday, and the police +officer, meeting Moniche the evening before, had said to him: +"To-morrow is my birthday." + +Moniche hesitated a moment, then he rang the bell. He was not kept +waiting; the sudden opening of the grating startled him; he pushed back +the door and entered. He crossed a little court, at the end of which was +a pavilion; he mounted the three steps and was met on the threshold by a +little woman, as rosy and fresh as an apple, who, napkin in hand, gayly +saluted him. + +"Eh, Monsieur Moniche!" + +It was Mme. Bernardet, a Burgundian woman, about thirty-five years of +age, trim and coquettish, who stepped back so that the tailor could +enter. + +"What is the matter, M. Moniche?" + +Poor Moniche rolled his frightened eyes around and gasped out: "I must +speak to M. Bernardet." + +"Nothing easier," said the little woman. "M. Bernardet is in the garden. +Yes, he is taking advantage of the beautiful day; he is taking a +group"---- + +"What group?" + +"You know very well, photography is his passion. Come with me." + +And Mme. Bernardet pointed to the end of the corridor, where an open +door gave a glimpse of the garden at the rear of the house. M. +Bernardet, the Inspector, had posed his three daughters with their +mother about a small table, on which coffee had been served. + +"I had just gone in to get my napkin, when I heard you ring," Mme. +Bernardet said. + +Bernardet made a sign to Moniche not to advance. He was as plump and as +gay as his wife. His moustache was red, his double chin smooth-shaven +and rosy, his eyes had a sharp, cunning look, his head was round and +closely cropped. + +The three daughters, clothed alike in Scotch plaid, were posing in front +of a photographic apparatus which stood on a tripod. The eldest was +about twelve years of age; the youngest a child of five. They were all +three strangely alike. + +M. Bernardet, in honor of his birthday, was taking a picture of his +daughters. The ferret who, from morning till night, tracked robbers and +malefactors into their hiding places, was taking his recreation in his +damp garden. The sweet idyl of this hidden life repaid him for his +unceasing investigations, for his trouble and fatiguing man-hunts +through Paris. + +"There!" he said, clapping the cap over the lens. "That is all! Go and +play now, my dears. I am at your service, Moniche." + +He shut up his photographic apparatus, pulling out the tripod from the +deep soil in which it was imbedded, while his daughters joyously ran to +their mother. The young girls stood gazing at Moniche with their great +blue eyes, piercing and clear. Bernardet turned to look at him, and at +once divined that something had happened. + +"You are as white as your handkerchief, Moniche," he said. + +"Ah! Monsieur Bernardet! It is enough to terrify one! There has been a +murder in the house." + +"A murder?" + +His face, which had been so gay and careless, suddenly took on a strange +expression, at once tense and serious; the large blue eyes shone as with +an inward fire. + +"A murder, yes, Monsieur Bernardet. M. Rovere--you did not know him?" + +"No." + +"He was an original--a recluse. And now he has been assassinated. My +wife went to his room to read the papers"---- + +Bernardet interrupted him brusquely: + +"When did it happen?" + +"Ah! _Dame!_ Monsieur, I do not know. All I know is my wife found the +body still warm. She was not afraid; she touched it." + +"Still warm!" + +These words struck Bernardet. He reflected a moment, then he said: + +"Come; let us go to your house." + +Then, struck with a sudden idea, he added: "Yes, I will take it." + +He unfastened his camera from the tripod. "I have three plates left +which I can use," he said. + +Mme. Bernardet, who was standing at a little distance, with the children +clinging to her skirts, perceived that the concierge had brought +important news. Bernardet's smiling face had suddenly changed; the +expression became serious, his glance fixed and keen. + +"Art thou going with him?" Mme. Bernardet asked, as she saw her husband +buckle on a leather bandolier. + +"Yes!" he answered. + +"Ah! Mon Dieu! my poor Sunday, and this evening--can we not go to the +little theatre at Montmartre this evening?" + +"I do not know," he replied. + +"You promised! The poor children! You promised to take them to see +Closerie des Genets!" + +"I cannot tell; I do not know--I will see," the little man said. "My +dear Moniche, to-day is my fortieth birthday. I promised to take them to +the theatre--but I must go with you." Turning to his wife, he added: +"But I will come back as soon as I can. Come, Moniche, let us hasten to +your M. Rovere." + +He kissed his wife on the forehead, and each little girl on both cheeks, +and, strapping the camera in the bandolier, he went out, followed by the +tailor. As they walked quickly along Moniche kept repeating: "Still +warm; yes, Monsieur Bernardet, still warm!" + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + +BERNARDET was quite an original character. Among the agents, some of +whom were very odd, and among the devoted subalterns, this little man, +with his singular mind, with his insatiable curiosity, reading anything +he could lay his hands on, passed for a literary person. His chief +sometimes laughingly said to him: + +"Bernardet, take care! You have literary ambitions. You will begin to +dream of writing for the papers." + +"Oh, no, Monsieur Morel--but what would you?--I am simply amusing +myself." + +This was true. Bernardet was a born hunter. With a superior education, +he might have become a savant, a frequenter of libraries, passing his +life in working on documents and in deciphering manuscripts. The son of +a dairyman; brought up in a Lancastrian school; reading with avidity all +the daily papers; attracted by everything mysterious which happened in +Paris; having accomplished his military duty, he applied for admission +to the Police Bureau, as he would have embarked for the New World, for +Mexico, or for Tonquin, in order to travel in a new country. Then he +married, so that he might have, in his checkered existence, which was +dangerous and wearying,--a haven of rest, a fireside of peaceful joy. + +So he lived a double life--tracking malefactors like a bloodhound, and +cultivating his little garden. There he devoured old books, for which he +had paid a few sous at some book stall; he read and pasted in old, odd +leaves, re-bound them himself, and cut clippings from papers. He filled +his round, bald head with a mass of facts which he investigated, +classified, put into their proper place, to be brought forth as occasion +demanded. + +He was an inquisitive person, a very inquisitive person, indeed. +Curiosity filled his life. He performed with pleasure the most fatiguing +and repulsive tasks that fall to a police officer's lot. They satisfied +the original need of his nature, and permitted him to see everything, to +hear everything, to penetrate into the most curious mysteries. To-day, +in a dress suit with white tie, carelessly glancing over the crowds at +the opera, to discover the thieves who took opera glasses, which they +sent to accomplices in Germany to be sold; to-morrow, going in ragged +clothes to arrest a murderer in some cutthroat den in the Glaciere. + +M. Bernardet had taken possession of the office of the most powerful +bankers, seized their books and made them go away with him in a cab. He +had followed, by order, the intrigues of more than one fine lady, who +owed to him her salvation. What if M. Bernardet had thought fit to +speak? But he never spoke, and reporters came out worsted from any +attempt at an interview with him. "An interview is silver, but silence +is gold," he was wont to say, for he was not a fool. + +He had assisted at spiritual seances and attended secret meetings of +Anarchists. He had occupied himself with occult matters, consulting the +magicians of chance, and he had at his tongue's end the list of +conspirators. He knew the true names of the famous Greeks who shuffled +cards as one scouts about under an assumed name. The gambling hells were +all familiar to him; he knew the churches in whose dark corners +associates assembled to talk of _affairs_, who did not wish to be seen +in beer shops nor spied upon in cabarets. + +Of the millions in Paris, he knew the secrets of this whirlpool of +humanity. + +Oh! if he had ever become prefect of police, he would have studied his +Paris, not at a distance, looking up statistics in books, or from the +windows of a police bureau, but in the streets, in wretched lodgings, in +hovels, in the asylums of misery and of crime. But Bernardet was not +ambitious. Life suited him very well as he found it. His good wife had +brought to him a small dower, and Bernardet, content with this poor +little fortune, found that he had all the power he wanted--the power, +when occasion demanded, of putting his hand on the shoulder of a former +Minister and of taking a murderer by the throat. + +One day a financier, threatened with imprisonment in Mazas, pleased him +very much. Bernardet entered his office to arrest him. He did not wish +to have a row in the bank. The police officer and banker found +themselves alone, face to face, in a very small room, a private office, +with heavy curtains and a thick carpet, which stifled all noise. + +"Fifty thousand francs if you will let me escape," said the banker. + +"Monsieur le Comte jests"---- + +"A hundred thousand!" + +"The pleasantry is very great, but it is a pleasantry." + +Then the Count, very pale, said: "And what if I crack your head?" + +"My brother officers are waiting for me," Bernardet simply replied. +"They know that our interview does not promise to be a long one, and +this last proposition, which I wish to forget like the others, would +only aggravate, I believe, if it became known, M. le Comte's case." + +Two minutes afterward the banker went out, preceding Bernardet, who +followed him with bared head. The banker said to his employes, in an +easy tone: "Good-by for the moment, Messieurs, I will return soon." + +It was also Bernardet who, visiting the Bank Hauts-Plateaux, said to his +chief: "Monsieur Morel, something very serious is taking place there." + +"What is it, Bernardet?" + +"I do not know, but there is a meeting of the bank directors, and +to-day, I saw two servants carry a man in there in an invalid's chair. +It was the Baron de Cheylard." + +"Well?" + +"Baron Cheylard, in his quality of ex-Senator of the Second Empire, of +ex-President of the Council, an ex-Commissioner of Industrial +Expositions, is Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. Grand Cross--that is +to say, that he cannot be pursued only after a decision of the Council +of the Order. And then, you understand--if the Bank of Hauts-Plateaux +demands the presence of its Vice-president, the Baron of Cheylard, +paralyzed, half dead"---- + +"It means that it has need of a thunderbolt?" + +"The Grand Cross, Monsieur. They would hesitate to deliver up to us the +Grand Cross." + +"You are right, Bernardet. The bank must be in a bad fix. And you are a +very keen observer. The mind of a literary man, Bernardet." + +"Oh, rather a photographic eye, Monsieur Morel. The habit of using a +kodak." + +Thus Bernardet passed his life in Paris. Capable of amassing a fortune +in some Tricoche Agency if he had wished to exploit, for his own +benefit, his keen observing powers, he thought only of doing his duty, +bringing up his little girls and loving his wife. Mme. Bernardet was +amazed at the astonishing stories which her husband often related to +her, and very proud that he was such an able man. + +M. Bernardet hurried toward M. Rovere's lodgings and Moniche trotted +along beside him. As they neared the house they saw that a crowd had +begun to collect. + +"It is known already," Moniche said. "Since I left they have begun"---- + +"If I enter there," interrupted the officer, "it is all right. You have +a right to call any one you choose to your aid. But I am not a +Magistrate. You must go for a Commissary of Police." + +"Oh, M. Bernardet," Moniche exclaimed. "You are worth more than all the +Commissaries put together." + +"That does not make it so. A Commissary is a Commissary. Go and hunt for +one." + +"But since you are here"---- + +"But I am nothing. We must have a magistrate." + +"You are not a magistrate, then?" + +"I am simply a police spy." + +Then he crossed the street. + +The neighbors had gathered about the door like a swarm of flies around a +honey-comb. A rumor had spread about which brought together a crowd +animated by the morbid curiosity which is aroused in some minds of the +hint of a mystery, and attracted by that strange magnetism which that +sinister thing, "a crime," arouses. The women talked in shrill tones, +inventing strange stories and incredible theories. Some of the common +people hurried up to learn the news. + +At the moment Bernardet came up, followed by the concierge, a coupe +stopped at the door and a tall man got out, asking: + +"Where is M. Morel? I wish to see M. Morel." + +The Chief had not yet been advised, and he was not there. But the tall +young man suddenly recognized Bernardet, and laid hold of him, pulling +him after him through the half-open door, which Moniche hastened to shut +against the crowd. + +"We must call some officers," Bernardet said to the concierge, "or the +crowd will push in." + +Mme. Moniche was standing at the foot of the staircase, surrounded by +the lodgers, men and women, to whom she was recounting, for the +twentieth time, the story of how she had found M. Rovere with his throat +cut. + +"I was going in to read the paper--the story--it is very interesting, +that story. The moment had come when the Baron had insulted the +American colonel. M. Rovere said to me only yesterday, poor man: 'I am +anxious to find out which one will be killed--the colonel or the baron.' +He will never know! And it is he"---- + +"Mme. Moniche," interrupted Bernardet, "have you any one whom you can +send for a Commissary?" + +"Any one?" + +"Yes," added Moniche. "M. Bernardet needs a magistrate. It is not +difficult to understand." + +"A Commissary?" repeated Mme. Moniche. "That is so. A Commissary; and +what if I go for the Commissary myself, M. Bernardet?" + +"All right, provided you do not let the crowd take the house by assault +when you open the door." + +"Fear nothing," the woman said, happy in having something important to +do, in relating the horrible news to the Commissary how, when she was +about to enter the room for the purpose of reading, the---- + +While she was going toward the door Bernardet slowly mounted the two +flights of stairs, followed by Moniche and the tall young man who had +arrived in his coupe at a gallop, in order to get the first news of the +murder and make a "scoop" for his paper. + +The news had traveled fast, and his paper had sent him in haste to get +all the details of the affair which could be obtained. + +The three men reached M. Rovere's door. Moniche unlocked it and stepped +back, Bernardet, with the reporter at his heels, note book in hand, +entered the room. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + +NOTHING in the ante-chamber indicated that a tragedy had taken place +there. There were pictures on the walls, pieces of faience, some arms of +rare kinds, Japanese swords and a Malay creese. Bernardet glanced at +them as he passed by. + +"He is in the salon," said the concierge, in a low tone. + +One of the folding doors stood open, and, stopping on the threshold, in +order to take in the entire aspect of the place, Bernardet saw in the +centre of the room, lying on the floor in a pool of blood, the body of +M. Rovere, clothed in a long, blue dressing gown, bound at the waist +with a heavy cord, which lay in coils on the floor, like a serpent. The +corpse was extended between the two windows, which opened on the +Boulevard de Clichy, and Bernardet's first thought was that it was a +miracle that the victim could have met his death in such a horrible +manner, two steps from the passers-by on the street. + +"Whoever struck the blow did it quickly," thought the police officer. He +advanced softly toward the body, casting his eye upon the inert mass and +taking in at a glance the smallest objects near it and the most minute +details. He bent over and studied it thoroughly. + +M. Rovere seemed living in his tragic pose. The pale face, with its +pointed and well-trimmed gray beard, expressed in its fierce immobility +a sort of menacing anger. This man of about fifty years had evidently +died cursing some one in his supreme agony. The frightful wound seemed +like a large red cravat, which harmonized strangely with the +half-whitened beard, the end of which was wet with blood. + +But what struck Bernardet above everything else, arrested his attention, +and glued him to the spot, was the look, the extraordinary expression in +the eyes. The mouth was open, as if to cry out, the eyes seemed to +menace some one, and the lips about to speak. + +They were frightful. Those tragic eyes were wide open, as if transfixed +by fear or fury. + +They seemed fathomless, staring, ready to start from their sockets. The +eyebrows above them were black and bristling. They seemed living eyes in +that dead face. They told of a final struggle, of some atrocious duel of +looks and of words. They appeared, in their ferocious immobility, as +when they gazed upon the murderer, eye to eye, face to face. + +Bernardet looked at the hands. + +They were contracted and seemed, in some obstinate resistance, to have +clung to the neck or the clothing of the assassin. + +"There ought to be blood under the nails, since he made a struggle," +said Bernardet, thinking aloud. + +And Paul Rodier, the reporter, hurriedly wrote, "There was blood under +the nails." + +Bernardet returned again and again to the eyes--those wide-open eyes, +frightful, terrible eyes, which, in their fierce depths, retained +without doubt the image or phantom of some nightmare of death. + +He touched the dead man's hand. The flesh had become cold and _rigor +mortis_ was beginning to set in. + +The reporter saw the little man take from his pocket a sort of rusty +silver ribbon and unroll it, and heard him ask Moniche to take hold of +one end of it; this ribbon or thread looked to Paul Rodier like brass +wire. Bernardet prepared his kodak. + +"Above everything else," murmured Bernardet, "let us preserve the +expression of those eyes." + +"Close the shutters. The darkness will be more complete." + +The reporter assisted Moniche in order to hasten the work. The shutters +closed, the room was quite dark, and Bernardet began his task. Counting +off a few steps, he selected the best place from which to take the +picture. + +"Be kind enough to light the end of the magnesium wire," he said to the +concierge. "Have you any matches?" + +"No, M. Bernardet." + +The police office indicated by a sign of the head, a match safe which he +had noticed on entering the room. + +"There are some there." + +Bernardet had with one sweeping glance of the eye taken in everything in +the room; the fauteuils, scarcely moved from their places; the pictures +hanging on the walls; the mirrors; the bookcases; the cabinets, etc. + +Moniche went to the mantelpiece and took a match from the box. It was M. +Rovere himself who furnished the light by which a picture of his own +body was taken. + +"We could obtain no picture in this room without the magnesium wire," +said the agent, as calm while taking a photograph of the murdered man, +as he had been a short time ago in his garden. "The light is +insufficient. When I say: 'Go!' Moniche you must light the wire, and I +will take three or four negatives. Do you understand? Stand there to my +left. Now! Attention!" + +Bernardet took his position and the porter stood ready, match and wire +in hand, like a gunner who awaits the order to fire. + +"Go!" said the agent. + +A rapid, clear flame shot up; and suddenly lighted the room. +The pale face seemed livid, the various objects in the room +took on a fantastic appearance, in this sort of tempestuous +apotheosis, and Paul Rodier hastily inscribed on his writing pad: +"Picturesque--bizarre--marvelous--devilish--suggestive." + +"Let us try it again," said M. Bernardet. + +For the third time in this weird light the visage of the dead man +appeared, whiter, more sinister, frightful; the wound deeper, the gash +redder; and the eyes, those wide-open, fixed, tragic, menacing, speaking +eyes--eyes filled with scorn, with hate, with terror, with the ferocious +resistance of a last struggle for life; immovable, eloquent--seemed +under the fantastic light to glitter, to be alive, to menace some one. + +"That is all," said Bernardet, very softly. "If with these three +negatives"---- + +He stopped to look around toward the door, which was closed. Someone was +raining ringing blows on the door, loud and imperative. + +"It is the Commissary; open the door, Moniche." + +The reporter was busy taking notes, describing the salon, sketching it, +drawing a plan for his journal. + +It was, in fact, the Commissary, who was followed by Mme. Moniche and a +number of curious persons who had forced their way in when the front +door was opened. + +The Commissary, before entering, took a comprehensive survey of the +room, and said in a short tone: "Every one must go out. Madame, make all +these people go out. No one must enter." + +There arose an uproar--each one tried to explain his right to be there. +They were all possessed with an irresistible desire to assist at this +sinister investigation. + +"But we belong to the press!" + +"The reporters may enter when they have showed their cards," the +Commissary replied. "The others--no!" There was a murmur from the crowd. + +"The others--no!" repeated the Commissary. He made a sign to two +officers who accompanied him, and they demanded the reporters' cards of +identification. The concourse of curious ones rebelled, protested, +growled and declaimed against the representatives of the press, who took +precedence everywhere. + +"The Fourth Power!" shouted an old man from the foot of the staircase. +He lived in the house and passed for a correspondent of the Institute. +He shouted furiously: "When a crime is committed under my very roof, I +am not even allowed to write an account of it, and strangers, because +they are reporters, can have the exclusive privilege of writing it up!" + +The Commissary did not listen to him, but those who were his +fellow-sufferers applauded him to the echo. The Commissary shrugged his +shoulders at the hand-clappings. + +"It is but right," he said to the reporter, "that the agents of the +press should be admitted in preference to any one else. Do you think +that it is easy to discover a criminal? I have been a journalist, too. +Yes, at times. In the Quartier, occasionally. I have even written a +piece for the theatre. But we will not talk of that. Enter! Enter, I beg +of you--and we shall see"--and elegant, amiable, polished, smiling, he +looked toward M. Bernardet, and his eyes asked the question: "Where is +it?" + +"Here! M. le Commissaire." + +Bernardet stood respectfully in front of his superior officer, as a +soldier carrying arms, and the Commissary, in his turn, approached the +body, while the curious ones, quietly kept back by Moniche, formed a +half circle around the pale and bloody corpse. The Commissary, like +Bernardet, was struck by the haughty expression of that livid face. + +"Poor man!" he said, shaking his head. "He is superb! superb! He reminds +me of the dead Duke de Guise, in Paul Delaroche's picture. I have seen +it also at Chantilly, in Gerome's celebrated picture of _Le Duel de +Pierrot_." + +Possibly in speaking aloud his thoughts, the Commissary was talking so +that the reporters might hear him. They stood, notebooks in hand, +taking notes, and Paul Rodier, catching the names, wrote rapidly in his +book: "M. Desbriere, the learned Commissary, so artistic, so well +disposed toward the press, was at one time a journalist. He noticed that +the victim's pale face, with its strong personal characteristics, +resembled the dead Duke de Guise, in Gerome's celebrated picture, which +hangs in the galleries at Chantilly." + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + +M. DESBRIERE now began the investigation. He questioned the porter and +portress, while he studied the salon in detail. Bernardet roamed about, +examining at very close range each and every object in the room, as a +dog sniffs and scents about for a trail. + +"What kind of a man was your lodger?" was the first question. + +Moniche replied in a tone which showed that he felt that his tenant had +been accused of something. + +"Oh! Monsieur le Commissaire, a very worthy man, I swear it!" + +"The best man in the world," added his wife, wiping her eyes. + +"I am not inquiring about his moral qualities," M. Desbriere said. "What +I want to know is, how did he live and whom did he receive?" + +"Few people. Very few," the porter answered. "The poor man liked +solitude. He lived here eight years. He received a few friends, but, I +repeat, a very small number." + +M. Rovere had rented the apartment in 1888, he installed himself in his +rooms, with his pictures and books. The porter was much astonished at +the number of pictures and volumes which the new lodger brought. It +took a long time to settle, as M. Rovere was very fastidious and +personally superintended the hanging of his canvases and the placing of +his books. He thought that he must have been an artist, although he said +that he was a retired merchant. He had heard him say one day that he had +been Consul to some foreign country--Spain or South America. + +He lived quite simply, although they thought that he must be rich. Was +he a miser? Not at all. Very generous, on the contrary. But, plainly, he +shunned the world. He had chosen their apartment because it was in a +retired spot, far from the Parisian boulevards. Four or five years +before a woman, clothed in black, had come there. A woman who seemed +still young--he had not seen her face, which was covered with a heavy +black veil--she had visited M. Rovere quite often. He always accompanied +her respectfully to the door when she went away. Once or twice he had +gone out with her in a carriage. No, he did not know her name. M. +Rovere's life was regulated with military precision. He usually held +himself upright--of late sickness had bowed him somewhat; he went out +whenever he was able, going as far as the Bois and back. Then, after +breakfasting, he shut himself up in his library and read and wrote. He +passed nearly all of his evenings at home. + +"He never made us wait up for him, as he never went to the theatre," +said Moniche. + +The malady from which he suffered, and which puzzled the physicians, had +seized him on his return from a Summer sojourn at Aix-les-Bains for his +health. The neighbors had at once noticed the effect produced by the +cure. When he went away he had been somewhat troubled with rheumatism, +but when he returned he was a confirmed sufferer. Since the beginning of +September he had not been out, receiving no visits, except from his +doctor, and spending whole days in his easy chair or upon his lounge, +while Mme. Moniche read the daily papers to him. + +"When I say that he saw no one," said the porter, "I make a mistake. +There was that gentleman"---- + +And he looked at his wife. + +"What gentleman?" + +Mme. Moniche shook her head, as if he ought not to answer. + +"Of whom do you speak?" repeated the Commissary, looking at both of +them. + +At this moment, Bernardet, standing on the threshold of the library +adjoining the salon, looked searchingly about the room in which M. +Rovere ordinarily spent his time, and which he had probably left to meet +his fate. His ear was as quick to hear as his eye to see, and as he +heard the question he softly approached and listened for the answer. + +"What gentleman? and what did he do?" asked the Commissary, a little +brusquely, for he noticed a hesitation to reply in both Moniche and his +wife. + +"Well, and what does this mean?" + +"Oh, well, Monsieur le Commissaire, it is this--perhaps it means +nothing," and the concierge went on to tell how, one evening, a very +fine gentleman, and very polished, moreover, had come to the house and +asked to see M. Rovere; he had gone to his apartment, and had remained a +long time. It was, he thought, about the middle of October, and Mme. +Moniche, who had gone upstairs to light the gas, met the man as he was +coming out of M. Rovere's rooms, and had noticed at the first glance the +troubled air of the individual. (Moniche already called the gentleman +_the 'individual,'_) who was very pale and whose eyes were red. + +Then, at some time or other, the individual had made another visit to M. +Rovere. More than once the portress had tried to learn his name. Up to +this moment she had not succeeded. One day she asked M. Rovere who it +was, and he very shortly asked her what business it was of hers. She did +not insist, but she watched the individual with a vague doubt. + +"Instinct. Monsieur; my instinct told me"---- + +"Enough," interrupted M. Desbriere; "if we had only instinct to guide us +we should make some famous blunders." + +"Oh, it was not only by instinct, Monsieur." + +"Ah! ah! let us hear it"---- + +Bernardet, with his eyes fastened upon Mme. Moniche, did not lose a +syllable of her story, which her husband occasionally interrupted to +correct her or to complete a statement, or to add some detail. The +corpse, with mouth open and fiery, ferocious eyes, seemed also to +listen. + +Mme. Moniche, as we already know, entered M. Rovere's apartment whenever +she wished. She was his landlady, his reader, his friend. Rovere was +brusque, but he was good. So it was nothing strange when the woman, +urged by curiosity, suddenly appeared in his rooms, for him to say: "Ah, +you here? Is that you? I did not call you." An electric bell connected +the rooms with the concierge lodge. Usually she would reply: "I thought +I heard the bell." And she would profit by the occasion to fix up the +fire, which M. Rovere, busy with his reading or writing, had forgotten +to attend to. She was much attached to him. She did not wish to have him +suffer from the cold, and recently had entered as often as possible, +under one pretext or another, knowing that he was ill, and desiring to +be at hand in case of need. When, one evening, about eight days before, +she had entered the room while the visitor, whom Moniche called the +individual, was there, the portress had been astonished to see the two +men standing before Rovere's iron safe, the door wide open and both +looking at some papers spread out on the desk. + +Rovere, with his sallow, thin face, was holding some papers in his hand, +and the other was bent over, looking with eager eyes at--Mme. Moniche +had seen them well--some rent rolls, bills and deeds. Perceiving Mme. +Moniche, who stood hesitating on the threshold, M. Rovere frowned, +mechanically made a move as if to gather up the scattered papers. But +the portress said, "Pardon!" and quickly withdrew. Only--ah! only--she +had time to see, to see plainly the iron safe, the heavy doors standing +open, the keys hanging from the lock, and M. Rovere in his dressing +gown; the official papers, yellow and blue, others bearing seals and a +ribbon, lying there before him. He seemed in a bad humor, but said +nothing. Not a word. + +"And the other one?" + +The other man was as pale as M. Rovere. He resembled him, moreover. It +was, perhaps, a relative. Mme. Moniche had noticed the expression with +which he contemplated those papers and the fierce glance which he cast +at her when she pushed open the door without knowing what sight awaited +her. She had gone downstairs, but she did not at once tell her husband +about what she had seen. It was some time afterward. The individual had +come again. He remained closeted with M. Rovere for some hours. The +sick man was lying on the lounge. The portress had heard them through +the door talking in low tones. She did not know what they said. She +could hear only a murmur. And she had very good ears, too. But she heard +only confused sounds, not one plain word. When, however, the visitor was +going away she heard Rovere say to him: "I ought to have told all +earlier." + +Did the dead man possess a secret which weighed heavily upon him, and +which he shared with that other? And the other? Who was he? Perhaps an +accomplice. Everything she had said belonged to the Commissary of Police +and to the press. She had told her story with omissions, with timorous +looks, with sighs of doubts and useless gestures. Bernardet listened, +noting each word, the purposes of this portress, the melodramatic gossip +in certain information in which he verified the precision--all this was +engraven on his brain, as earlier in the day the expression of the dead +man's eyes had been reflected in the kodak. + +He tried to distinguish, as best he could, the undeniable facts in this +first deposition, when a woman of the people, garrulous, indiscreet, +gossiping and zealous, has the joy of playing a role. He mentally +examined her story, with the interruptions which her husband made when +she accused the individual. He stopped her with a look, placing his hand +on her arm and said: "One must wait! One does not know. He had the +appearance of a worthy man." The woman, pointing out with a grand +gesture, the body lying upon the floor, said: "Oh, well! And did not M. +Rovere have the appearance of a worthy man also? And did it hinder him +from coming to that?" + +Over Bernardet's face a mocking little smile passed. + +"He always had the appearance of a worthy man," he said, looking at the +dead man, "and he even seemed like a worthy man who looked at rascals +with courage. I am certain," slowly added the officer, "that if one +could know the last thought in that brain which thinks no more, could +see in those unseeing eyes the last image upon which they looked, one +would learn all that need be known about that individual of whom you +speak and the manner of his death." + +"Possibly he killed himself," said the Commissary. + +But the hypothesis of suicide was not possible, as Bernardet remarked to +him, much to the great contempt of the reporters who were covering their +notebooks with a running handwriting and with hieroglyphics. The wound +was too deep to have been made by the man's own hand. And, besides, they +would find the weapon with which that horrible gash had been made, near +at hand. There was no weapon of any kind near the body. The murderer +had either carried it away with him in his flight or he had thrown it +away in some other part of the apartment. They would soon know. + +They need not even wait for an autopsy to determine that it was an +assassination. "That is evident," interrupted the Commissary; "the +autopsy will be made, however." + +And, with an insistence which surprised the Commissary a little, +Bernardet, in courteous tones, evidently haunted by one particular idea, +begged and almost supplicated M. Desbriere to send for the Attorney for +the Republic, so that the corpse could be taken as soon as possible to +the Morgue. + +"Poor man!" exclaimed Mme. Moniche. "To the Morgue! To the Morgue!" +Bernardet calmed her with a word. + +"It is necessary. It is the law. Oh, Monsieur le Commissaire, let us do +it quickly, quickly. I will tell you why. Time will be gained--I mean to +say, saved--and the criminal found." + +Then, while M. Desbriere sent an officer to the telephone office to ask +for the Attorney for the Republic to come as quickly as possible to the +Boulevard de Clichy, Mme. Moniche freed her mind to the reporters in +regard to some philosophical considerations upon human destiny, which +condemned in so unforeseen, so odiously brutal a manner, a good lodger, +as respectable as M. Rovere, to be laid upon a slab at the Morgue, like +a thief or a vagabond--he who went out but seldom, and who "loved his +home so much." + +"The everlasting antithesis of life!" replied Paul Rodier, who made a +note of his reflection. + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + +SOME time passed before the arrival of the Attorney, and through the +closed Venetian blinds the murmurs of the crowd collected below could be +heard. The Commissary wrote his report on the corner of a table, by the +light of a single candle, and now and then asked for some detail of +Bernardet, who seemed very impatient. A heavy silence had fallen on the +room; those who a short time before had exchanged observations in loud +tones, since the Commissary had finished with Mme. Moniche had dropped +their voices and spoke in hushed tones, as if they were in a sick room. +Suddenly a bell rang, sending shrill notes through the silent room. +Bernardet remarked that no doubt, the Attorney had arrived. He looked at +his watch, a simple, silver Geneva watch, but which he prized highly--a +present from his wife--and murmured: + +"There is yet time." It was, in fact, the Attorney for the Republic, who +came in, accompanied by the Examining Magistrate, M. Ginory, whom +criminals called "the vise," because he pressed them so hard when he got +hold of them. M. Ginory was in the Attorney's office when the officer +had telephoned to M. Jacquelin des Audrays, and the latter had asked +him to accompany him to the scene of the murder. Bernardet knew them +both well. He had more than once been associated with M. Audrays. He +also knew M. Ginory as a very just, a very good man, although he was +much feared, for, while searching for the truth of a matter he reserved +judgment of those whom he had fastened in his vise. M. Audrays was still +a young man, slender and correct, tightly buttoned up in his redingote, +smooth-shaven, wearing eyeglasses. + +The red ribbon in his buttonhole seemed a little too large, like a +rosette worn there through coquetry. M. Ginory, on the contrary, wore +clothes too large for him; his necktie was tied as if it was a black +cord; his hat was half brushed; he was short, stout and sanguine, with +his little snub nose and his mouth, with its heavy jaws. He seemed, +beside the worldly magistrate, like a sort of professor, or savant, or +collector, who, with a leather bag stuffed with books, seemed more +fitted to pore over some brochures or precious old volumes than to spend +his time over musty law documents. Robust and active, with his +fifty-five years, he entered that house of crime as an expert +topographist makes a map, and who scarcely needs a guide, even in an +unknown country. He went straight to the body, which, as we have said, +lay between the two front windows, and both he and M. Audrays stood a +moment looking at it, taking in, as had the others, all the details +which might serve to guide them in their researches. The Attorney for +the Republic asked the Commissary if he had made his report, and the +latter handed it to him. He read it with satisfied nods of his head; +during this time Bernardet had approached M. Ginory, saluted him and +asked for a private interview with a glance of his eye; the Examining +Magistrate understood what he meant. + +"Ah! Is it you, Bernardet? You wish to speak to me?" + +"Yes, Monsieur Ginory. I beg of you to get the body to the dissecting +room for the autopsy as soon as possible." He had quietly and almost +imperceptibly drawn the Magistrate away toward a window, away from the +reporters, who wished to hear every word that was uttered, where he had +him quite by himself, in a corner of the room near the library door. + +"There is an experiment which must be tried, Monsieur, and it ought to +tempt a man like you," he said. + +Bernardet knew very well that, painstaking even to a fault, taken with +any new scientific discoveries, with a receptive mind, eager to study +and to learn, M. Ginory would not refuse him any help which would aid +justice. Had not the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences crowned, +the year before, M. Ginory's book on "The Duties of a Magistrate to the +Discoveries of Science?" + +The word "experiment" was not said in order to frighten M. Ginory. + +"What do you mean by that, Bernardet?" the Magistrate asked. Bernardet +shook his head as if to intimate that the explanation was too long to +give him there. They were not alone. Some one might hear them. And if a +journal should publish the strange proposition which he wished to---- + +"Ah! Ah!" exclaimed the Examining Magistrate, "then it is something +strange, your experiment?" + +"Any Magistrate but you would think it wild, unreasonable, or +ridiculous, which is worse. But you--oh! I do not say it to flatter you, +Monsieur," quickly added the police officer, seeing that the praise +troubled this man, who always shrank from it. "I speak thus because it +is the very truth, and any one else would treat me as crack-brained. But +you--no!" + +M. Ginory looked curiously at the little man, whose attitude was humble +and even supplicating, and seemed to seek a favorable response, and +whose eyes sparkled and indicated that his idea was no common one. + +"What is that room there?" asked M. Ginory, pointing to the half-open +library door. + +"It is the study of M. Rovere--the victim"---- + +"Let us go in there," said M. Ginory. + +In this room no one could hear them; they could speak freely. On +entering, the Examining Magistrate mechanically cast his eye over the +books, stopping at such and such a title of a rare work, and, seating +himself in a low, easy chair, covered with Caramanie, he made a sign to +the police officer to speak. Bernardet stood, hat in hand, in front of +him. + +"M. le Juge," Bernardet began, "I beg your pardon for asking you to +grant me an interview. But, allowing for the difference in our +positions, which is very great, I am, like you, a scholar; very curious. +I shall never belong to the Institute, and you will"---- + +"Go on, Bernardet." + +"And you will belong to it, M. Ginory, but I strive also, in my lower +sphere, to keep myself _au courant_ with all that is said and with all +that is written. I was in the service of the Academy when your beautiful +work was crowned, and when the perpetual secretary spoke of those +Magistrates who knew how to unite the love of letters with a study of +justice; I thought that lower down, much lower down on the ladder, M. le +Juge, he might have also searched for and found some men who studied to +learn and to do their best in doing their duty." + +"Ah! I know you, Bernardet. Your chief has often spoken of you." + +"I know that M. Leriche is very good to me. But it is not for me to +boast of that. I wish only to inspire confidence in you, because what I +wish to say to you is so strange--so very strange"---- + +Bernardet suddenly stopped. "I know," he began, "that if I were to say +to a physician what I am about to say to you he would think I ought to +be shut up in Sainte-Anne. And yet I am not crazy, I beg of you to +believe. No! but I have searched and searched. It seems to me that there +is a mass of inventions, of discoveries, which we police officers ought +to make use of. And, although I am a sub-Inspector"---- + +"Go on! Go on!" said the Magistrate, quickly, with a movement of the +head toward the open door of the salon, where the Attorney for the +Republic was conducting the investigation, and his nod seemed to say: +"They are at work in there--let us make haste." + +"I will be as brief as possible," said Bernardet, who understood what he +meant. + +"Monsieur," (and his tone became rapid, precise, running up and down +like a ball), "thirty years, or, rather, to be exact, twenty-six years +ago, some American journals, not political, but scientific, published +the fact that the daguerrotype--we have made long strides since then in +photography--had permitted them to find in the retina of a murdered +man's eye the image of the one who struck him." + +"Yes, I know," said M. Ginory. + +"In 1860, I was too young, and I had no desire to prove the truth of +this discovery. I adore photography as I adore my profession. I pass my +leisure hours in taking instantaneous pictures, in developing them, +printing, and finishing them. The idea of what I am about to propose to +you came to me by chance. I bought upon one of the quays a volume of the +Societe de Medicine Legale of 1869, in which Dr. Vernois gives an +account of a communication sent to the society by a physician, who also +sent photographic proofs, thus indorsed: 'Photographs taken of the +retina of a woman assassinated the 14th of June, 1868.'" + +"Yes," again said M. Ginory. "It was a communication from Dr. Bourion, +of Darnez." + +"Precisely." + +"And the proof sent by the Doctor showed the instant when, after +striking the mother, the assassin killed the child, while the dog sprang +toward the little carriage in which the little one lay." + +"Yes, Monsieur Ginory." + +"Oh, well, but my poor Bernardet, Dr. Vernois, since you have read his +report"---- + +"By chance, Monsieur, I found it on a book stall and it has kept running +in my head ever since, over and over and over again." + +"Dr. Vernois, my poor fellow, made many experiments. At first the proof +sent was so confused, so hazy, that no one who had not seen what +Bourion had written could have told what it was. If Vernois, who was a +very scientific man, could find nothing--nothing, I repeat--which +justified Dr. Bourion's declarations, what do you expect that any one +else could make of those researches? Do not talk any more or even think +any more about it." + +"I beg your pardon, Monsieur Ginory; one can and ought to think about +it. In any case, I am thinking about it." + +A smile of doubt crossed M. Ginory's lips. Bernardet quickly added: +"Photography of the invisible has been proven. Are not the Roentgen +Rays, the famous X Rays, as incredible as that photography can find the +image of a murderer on the retina of a dead person's eye? They invent +some foolish things, those Americans, but they often presage the truth. +Do they not catch, by photography, the last sighs of the dying? Do they +not fix upon the film or on plates that mysterious thing which haunts +us, the occult? They throw bridges across unknown abysses as over great +bodies of water or from one precipice to another, and they reach the +other side. I beg your pardon, Monsieur," and the police officer stopped +short in his enthusiastic defence as he caught sight of M. Ginory's +astonished face; "I seem to have been making a speech, a thing I +detest." + +"Why do you say that to me? Because I looked astonished at what you have +told me? I am not only surprised, I am charmed. Go on! Go on!" + +"Oh! well, what seemed folly yesterday will be an established fact +to-morrow. A fact is a fact. Dr. Vernois had better have tested again +and again his contradictory experiments. Dr. Bourion's experiments had +preceded his own. If Dr. Vernois saw nothing in the picture taken of the +retina of the eye of the woman assassinated June 14, 1868, I have seen +something--yes, I have seen with a magnifying glass, while studying +thoroughly the proof given to the society and reproduced in the bulletin +of Volume I., No. 2, of 1870; I have seen deciphered the image which Dr. +Bourion saw, and which Dr. Vernois did not see. Ah! it was confused, the +proof was hazy. It was scarcely recognizable, I confess. But there are +mirrors which are not very clear and which reflect clouded vision; +nevertheless, the image is there. And I have seen, or what one calls +seen, the phantom of the murderer which Dr. Bourion saw, and which +escaped the eyes of the member of the Academy of Medicine and of the +Hygiene Council, Honorary Physician of the Hospital, if you please." + +M. Ginory, who had listened to the officer with curiosity, began to +laugh, and remarked to Bernardet that, according to this reasoning, +illustrated medical science would find itself sacrificed to the +instinct, the divination of a provincial physician, and that it was only +too easy to put the Academicians in the wrong and the Independents in +the right. + +"Oh, Monsieur, pardon; I put no one in the right or wrong. Dr. Bourion +believed that he had made a discovery. Dr. Vernois was persuaded that +Dr. Bourion had discovered nothing at all. Each had the courage of his +conviction. What I contest is that, for twenty-six years, no one has +experimented, no one has made any researches, since the first +experiment, and that Dr. Bourion's communication has been simply dropped +and forgotten." + +"I ask your pardon in my turn, Bernardet," replied M. Ginory, a little +quizzically. "I have also studied the question, which seems to me a +curious"---- + +"Have you photographed any yourself, M. Ginory?" + +"No." + +"Ah! There is where the proof is." + +"But in 1877, the very learned Doyen of the Academy of Medicine, M. +Brouardel, whose great wisdom, and whose sovereign opinion was law, one +of those men who is an honor to his country, told me that when he was in +Heidelberg he had heard Professor Kuhne say that he had studied this +same question; he had made impressions of the retina of the eye in the +following cases: After the death of a dog or a wolf, he had taken out +the eye and replaced it with the back part of the eye in front; then he +took a very strong light and placed it in front of the eye and between +the eye and the light he placed a small grating. This grating, after an +exposure of a quarter of an hour, was visible upon the retina. But those +are very different experiments from the ones one hears of in America." + +"They could see the bars in the grating? If that was visible, why could +not the visage of the murderer be found there?" + +"Eh! Other experiments have been attempted, even after those of which +Professor Kuhne told our compatriot. Every one, you understand, has +borne only negative results, and M. Brouardel could tell you, better +than I, that in the physiological and oculistic treatises, published +during the last ten years, no allusion has been made to the preservation +of the image on the retina after death. It is an _affair classe_, +Bernardet." + +"Ah! Monsieur, yet"--and the police officer hesitated. Shaking his head, +he again repeated: "Yet--yet!" + +"You are not convinced?" + +"No, Monsieur Ginory, and shall I tell you why? You, yourself, in spite +of the testimony of illustrious savants, still doubt. I pray you to +pardon me, but I see it in your eyes." + +"That is still another way to use the retina," said Ginory, laughing. +"You read one's thoughts." + +"No, Monsieur, but you are a man of too great intelligence to say to +yourself that there is nothing in this world _classe_, that every matter +can be taken up again. The idea has come to me to try the experiment if +I am permitted. Yes, Monsieur, those eyes, did you see them, the eyes of +the dead man? They seemed to speak; they seemed to see. Their expression +is of lifelike intensity. They see, I tell you, they see! They perceive +something which we cannot see, and which is frightful. They bear--and no +one can convince me to the contrary--they bear on the retina the +reflection of the last being whom the murdered man saw before he died. +They keep it still, they still retain that image. They are going to hold +an autopsy; they will tell us that the throat is cut. Eh! Parbleu! We +know it well. We see it for ourselves. Moniche, the porter, knows it as +well as any doctor. But when one questions those eyes, when one searches +in that black chamber where the image appears as on a plate, when one +demands of those eyes their secret, I am convinced that one will find +it." + +"You are obstinate, Bernardet." + +"Yes, very obstinate, Monsieur Ginory, and very patient. The pictures +which I took with my kodak will give us the expression, the interior, so +to speak; those which we would take of the retina would reveal to us the +secret of the agony. And, moreover, unless I deceive myself, what +danger attends such an experiment? One opens the poor eyes, and that is +sinister, certainly, but when one holds an autopsy at the Morgue, when +one enlarges the gash in the throat in order to study it, when one +dissects the body, is it any more respectful or proper? Ah! Monsieur, if +I but had your power"---- + +M. Ginory seemed quite struck with all that the police officer had said +to him, but while he still held to his convictions, he did not seem +quite averse to trying the experiment. Who can say to science "Halt!" +and impose upon it limits which cannot be passed? No one! + +"We will see, Bernardet." + +And in that "we will see" there was already a half promise. + +"Ah! if you only will, and what would it cost you?" added Bernardet, +still urgent; indeed, almost suppliant. + +"Let us finish this now. They are waiting for me," said the Examining +Magistrate. + +As he left M. Rovere's study, he instinctively cast a glance at the rare +volumes, with their costly bindings, and he reentered the salon where M. +Jacquelin des Audrays had, without doubt, finished his examination. + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + +THE attorney for the Republic called in the Examining Magistrate. +Nothing more was to be done. The Magistrate had studied the position of +the corpse, examined the wound, and now, having told M. Ginory his +impressions, he did not hide from him his belief that the crime had been +committed by a professional, as the stroke of the knife across the +throat had been given neatly, scientifically, according to all the +established rules. + +"One might well take it for the work of a professional butcher." + +"Yes, without doubt, M. Ginory; but one does not know. Brute force--a +strong blow--can produce exactly what science can." + +More agitated than he wished to appear by the strange conversation +between the Agent of Surete and himself, the Examining Magistrate stood +at the foot of the corpse and gazed, with a fixity almost fierce, not at +the gaping wound of which M. Jacquelin des Audrays had spoken to him, +but at those eyes,--those fixed eyes, those eyes which no opacity had +yet invaded, which, open, frightful, seemingly burning with anger, +menacing, full of accusations of some sort and animated with vengeance, +gave him a look, immovable, most powerful. + +It was true! it was true! They lived! those eyes spoke. They cried to +him for justice. They retained the expression of some atrocious vision: +the expression of violent rage. They menaced some one--who? If the +picture of some one was graven there, was it not the last image +reflected on the little mirror of the retina? What if a face was +reflected there! What if it was still retained in the depths of those +wide-open eyes! That strange creature, Bernardet, half crazy, enthused +with new ideas, with the mysteries which traverse chimerical brains, +troubled him--Ginory, a man of statistics and of facts. + +But truly those dead eyes seemed to appeal, to speak, to designate some +one. What more eloquent, what more terrible witness could there be than +the dead man himself, if it was possible for his eyes to speak; if that +organ of life should contain, shut up within it, preserved, the secret +of death? Bernardet, whose eyes never left the magistrate's face, ought +to have been content, for it plainly expressed doubt, a hesitation, and +the police officer heard him cursing under his breath. + +"Folly! Stupidity! Bah! we shall see!" + +Bernardet was filled with hope. M. Ginory, the Examining Magistrate, +was, moreover, convinced that, for the present, and the sooner the +better, the corpse should be sent to the Morgue. There, only, could a +thorough and scientific examination be made. The reporter listened +intently to the conversation, and Mme. Moniche clasped her hands, more +and more agonized by that word Morgue, which, among the people, produces +the same terror that that other word, which means, however, careful +attendance, scientific treatment and safety,--hospital, does. + +Nothing was now to be done except to question some of the neighbors and +to take a sketch of the salon. Bernardet said to the Magistrate: "My +photograph will give you that!" While some one went out to get a hearse, +the Magistrates went away, the police officer placed a guard in front of +the house. The crowd was constantly increasing and becoming more and +more curious, violently excited and eager to see the spectacle--the +murdered man borne from his home. + +Bernardet did not allow M. Ginory to go away without asking respectfully +if he would be allowed to photograph the dead man's eye. Without giving +him a formal answer, M. Ginory simply told him to be present at the +autopsy at the Morgue. Evidently if the Magistrate had not been already +full of doubt his reply would have been different. Why did that inferior +officer have the audacity to give his opinion on the subject of +conducting a judicial investigation? M. Ginory would long before this +have sent him about his business if he had not become suddenly +interested in him. In his quality of Judge he had come to know +Bernardet's history and his exploits in the service. No more capable +man, in his line, could be found. He was perfectly and utterly devoted +to his profession. Some strange tales were told of his methods. It was +he who once passed an entire night on a bench, pretending intoxication, +in order to gain sufficient information to enable him to arrest a +murderer in the morning in a wretched hovel at La Vilette--a murderer +armed to the teeth. It was Bernardet who, without arms--as all those +agents--caught the famous bandit, the noted Taureau de la Glaciere, a +foreign Hercules, who had strangled his mistress. Bernardet arrested him +by holding to his temple the cold neck of a bottle and saying, "Hands up +or I fire!" Now what the bandit took for the cold muzzle of a pistol was +a vial containing some medicine which Bernardet had purchased of a +pharmacist for his liver. + +Deeds of valor against thieves, malefactors and insurrectionists +abounded in Bernardet's life; and M. Ginory had just discovered in this +man, whom he believed simply endowed with the activity and keenness of a +hunting dog, an intelligence singularly watchful, deep and complicated. +Bernardet, who had nothing more to do until the body should be taken to +the Morgue, left the house directly after the Magistrates. + +"Where are you going?" asked Paul Rodier, the reporter. + +"Home. A few steps from here." + +"May I go along with you?" asked the journalist. + +"To find an occasion to make me speak? But I know nothing! I suspect +nothing; I shall say nothing!" + +"Do you believe that it is the work of a thief, or revenge?" + +"I am certain that it was no thief. Nothing in the apartment was +touched. As for the rest, who knows?" + +"M. Bernardet," laughingly said the reporter, as he walked along by the +officer's side, "you do not wish to speak." + +"What good will that do?" Bernardet replied, also laughingly; "it will +not prevent you from publishing an interview." + +"You think so. _Au revoir!_ I must hurry and make my copy. And you?" + +"I? A photograph." + +They separated, and Bernardet entered his house. His daughters had +grieved over his sudden departure on Sunday on his fete day. They met +him with joyous shouts when he appeared, and threw themselves upon him. +"Papa! Here is papa!" + +Mme. Bernardet was also happy. They could go then to the garden and +finish the picture. But their joy subsided, night had fallen, and +Bernardet, preoccupied, wished to shut himself up so that he might +reflect on all that had happened, and perhaps to work a little, even +to-day. + +"It is thy fete day, Bernardet. Wilt thou not rest to-day?" + +"I can rest at dinner, dear. Until then, I must use the time reading +over a mass of evidence." + +"Then thou wilt need a lamp?" asked Mme. Bernardet. + +"Yes, my dear; light the lamp." + +Next to their bedchamber M. Bernardet had fitted up a little room for +his private use. It was a tiny den, in which was a mahogany table loaded +with books and papers, and at which he worked when he had time, reading, +annotating, copying from the papers, and collecting extracts for hours +at a time. No one was allowed to enter this room, filled with old +papers. Mme. Bernardet well called it "a nest of microbes." Bernardet +found pleasure in this sporadic place, which in Summer was stifling. In +Winter he worked without a fire. + +Mme. Bernardet was unhappy as she saw that their holiday was spoiled. +But she very well knew that when her husband was devoured with +curiosity, carried away by a desire to elucidate a puzzle, there was +nothing to be said. He listened to no remonstrances, and the daughters +knew that when they asked if their father was not coming to renew his +games with them they were obliged to content themselves with the excuse +which they knew so well from having heard it so often: "Papa is studying +out a crime!" + +Bernardet was anxious to read over his notes, the verification of his +hopes, of those so-called certainties of to-day. That is why he wished +to be alone. As soon as he had closed the door he at once, from among +the enormous piles of dust-laden books and files of old newspapers, with +the unerring instinct of the habitual searcher who rummages through book +stalls, drew forth a gray-covered pamphlet in which he had read, with +feverish astonishment, the experiments and report of Dr. Vernois upon +the application of photography in criminal researches. He quickly seated +himself, and with trembling fingers eagerly turned over the leaves of +the book so often read and studied, and came to the report of the member +of the Academy of Medicine; he compared it with the proof submitted by +Dr. Bourion, of the Medical Society, in which it was stated that the +most learned savants had seen nothing. + +"Seen nothing, or wished to see nothing, perhaps!" he murmured. + +The light fell upon the photograph which had been sent, a long time +before, to the Society, and Bernardet set himself to study out the old +crime with the most careful attention; with the passion of a +paleographer deciphering a palimpsest. This poor devil of a police +officer, in his ardent desire to solve the vexing problem, brought to it +the same ardor and the same faith as a bibliophile. He went over and +over with the method of an Examining Magistrate all that old forgotten +affair, and in the solitude and silence of his little room the last +reflections of the setting sun falling on his papers and making pale the +light of his lamp, he set himself the task of solving, like a +mathematical problem, that question which he had studied, but which he +wished to know from the very beginning, without any doubts, before +seeing M. Ginory again at the Morgue, beside the body of M. Rovere. He +took his pamphlet and read: "The photograph sent to the Society of +Medical Jurisprudence by Dr. Bourion taken upon the retina of the eye of +a woman who had been murdered the 14th of June, 1868, represents the +moment when the assassin, after having struck the mother, kills the +infant, and the dog belonging to the house leaps toward the unfortunate +little victim to save it." + +Then studying, turn by turn, the photograph yellowed by time, and the +article which described it, Bernardet satisfied himself, and learned the +history by heart. + +M. Gallard, General Secretary of the Society, after having carefully +hidden the back part of the photograph, had circulated it about among +the members with this note: "Enigma of Medical Jurisprudence." And no +one had solved the tragic enigma. Even when he had explained, no one +could see in the photograph what Dr. Bourion saw there. Some were able +on examining that strange picture to see in the black and white haze +some figures as singular and dissimilar as those which the amiable +Polonius perceived in the clouds under the suggestion of Hamlet. + +Dr. Vernois, appointed to write a report on Dr. Bourion's communication, +asked him then how the operation had been conducted, and Dr. Bourion had +given him these details, which Bernardet was now reading and studying: +The assassination had taken place on Sunday between noon and 4 o'clock; +the extraction of the eyes from their orbits had not been made until the +following day at 6 o'clock in the evening. + +The experiment on the eyes, those terribly accusing eyes of this dead +man, could be made twenty-four hours earlier than that other experiment. +The image--if there was any image--ought to be, in consequence, more +clearly defined than in Dr. Bourion's experiment. + +"About 6 o'clock in the evening," thought Bernardet, "and the +photographic light was sufficient." + +Dr. Bourion had taken pictures of both of the child's eyes as well as +both of the mother's eyes. The child's eyes showed nothing but hazy +clouds. But the mother's eyes were different. Upon the left eye, next to +a circular section back of the iris, a delicately marked image of a +dog's head appeared. On the same section of the right eye, another +picture; one could see the assassin raising his arm to strike and the +dog leaping to protect his little charge. + +"With much good will, it must be confessed," thought Bernardet, looking +again and again at the photograph, "and with much imagination, too. But +it was between fifty and fifty-two hours after the murder that the proof +was taken, while this time it will be while the body is still warm that +the experiment will be tried." + +Seventeen times already had Dr. Vernois experimented on animals; +sometimes just after he had strangled them, again when they had died +from Prussic acid. He had held in front of their eyes a simple object +which could be easily recognized. He had taken out the eyes and hurried +with them to the photographer. He had, in order to better expose the +retina to photographic action, made a sort of Maltese cross, by making +four incisions on the edge of the sclerotic. He removed the vitreous +humor, fixed it on a piece of card with four pins and submitted the +retina as quickly as possible to the camera. + +In re-reading the learned man's report, Bernardet studied, pored over, +carefully scrutinized the text, investigated the dozen proofs submitted +to the Society of Medical Jurisprudence by Dr. Vernois: + +Retina of a cat's eye killed by Prussic acid; Vernois had held the +animal in front of the bars of the cage in which it was confined. No +result! + +Retina of a strangled dog's eye. A watch was held in front of its eyes. +No result! + +Retina of a dog killed by a strangulation. A bunch of shining keys was +held in front of his eyes. No result! + +Retina of the eye of a strangled dog. An eyeglass held in front of its +eyes. Photograph made two hours after death. Nothing! In all Dr. +Vernois's experiments--nothing! Nothing! + +Bernardet repeated the word angrily. Still he kept on; he read page +after page. But all this was twenty-six years ago--photography has made +great strides since then. What wonderful results have been obtained! The +skeleton of the human body seen through the flesh! The instantaneous +photograph! The kinetoscopic views! Man's voice registered for eternity +in the phonograph! The mysterious dragged forth into the light of day! +Many hitherto unknown secrets become common property! The invisible, +even the invisible, the occult, placed before our eyes, as a spectacle! + +"One does not know all that may be done with a kodak," murmured +Bernardet. + +As he ascertained, in re-reading Dr. Vernois's report on "The +Application of Photography to Medical Jurisprudence," the savant +himself, even while denying the results of which Dr. Bourion spoke in +his communication, devoted himself to the general consideration upon the +role which photography ought to play in medical jurisprudence. Yes, in +1869, he asked that in the researches on poisonous substances, where the +microscope alone had been used, photography should be applied. He +advocated what in our day is so common, the photographing of the +features of criminals, their deformities, their scars, their tattooings. +He demanded that pictures should be taken of an accused person in many +ways, without wigs and with them, with and without beards, in diverse +costumes. + +"These propositions," thought Bernardet, "seem hardly new; it is +twenty-six years since they were discovered, and now they seem as +natural as that two and two make four. In twenty-six years from now, who +knows what science will have done? + +"Vernois demanded that wounds be reproduced, their size, the instruments +with which the crime was committed, the leaves of plants in certain +cases of poisoning, the shape of the victim's garments, the prints of +their hands and feet, the interior view of their rooms, the signature +of certain accused affected with nervous disorders, parts of bodies and +of bones, and, in fact, everything in any way connected with the crime. +It was said that he asked too much. Did he expect judges to make +photographs? To-day, everything that Vernois demanded in 1869, has been +done, and, in truth, the instantaneous photograph has almost superseded +the minutes of an investigation. + +"We photograph a spurious bank note. It is magnified, and, by the +absence of a tiny dot the proof of the alteration is found. On account +of the lack of a dot the forger is detected. The savant, Helmholtz, was +the discoverer of this method of detecting these faults. Two bank notes, +one authentic, the other a forgery, were placed side by side in a +stereoscope of strong magnifying power, when the faults were at once +detected. Helmholtz's experiment probably seemed fantastic to the forger +condemned by a stereoscope. Oh, well, to-day ought not a like experiment +on the retina of a dead man's eye give a like result? + +"Instruments have been highly perfected since the time when Dr. Bourion +made his experiments, and if the law of human physiology has not changed +the seekers of invisible causes must have rapidly advanced in their +mysterious pursuits. Who knows whether, at the instant of the last +agony, that the dying person does not put all the intensity of life +into the retina, giving a hundredfold power to that last supreme look?" + +At this point of his reflections Bernardet experienced some hesitation. +While he was not thoroughly acquainted with physiology and philosophy, +yet he had seen so much, so many things; had known so many strange +occurrences, and had studied many men. He knew--for he had closely +questioned wretches who had been saved from drowning at the very last +possible moment, some of whom had attempted suicide, others who had been +almost drowned through accident, and each one had told him that his +whole life, from his earliest recollection, had flashed through his mind +in the instant of mortal agony. Yes, a whole lifetime in one instant of +cerebral excitement! + +Had savants been able to solve this wonderful mystery? The _resume_ of +an existence in one vibration! Was it possible? Yet--Bernardet still +used the word. + +And why, in an analogous sensation, could not the look of a dying man be +seized in an intensity lasting an instant, as memory brought in a single +flash so many diverse remembrances? + +"I know, since it is the imagination, and that the dead cannot see, +while the image on the retina is a fact, a fact contradicted by wiser +men than I." Bernardet thought on these mysteries until his head began +to ache. + +"I shall make myself ill over it," he thought. "And there is something +to be done." + +Then in his dusty little room, his brain overexcited, he became enthused +with one idea. His surroundings fell away from him, he saw +nothing--everything disappeared--the books, the papers, the walls, the +visible objects, as did also the objections, the denials, the +demonstrative impossibilities. And absolute conviction seized him to the +exclusion of all extraneous surroundings. This conviction was absolute, +instinctive, irresistible, powerful, filling him with entire faith. + +"This unknown thing I will find. What is to be done I will do," he +declared to himself. + +He threw the pamphlet on the table, arose from his chair and descended +to the dining-room, where his wife and children were waiting for him. He +rubbed his hands with glee, and his face looked joyous. + +"Didst thou discover the trail?" Mme. Bernardet asked very simply, as a +working woman would ask her husband if he had had a good day. The eldest +of the little girls rushed toward him. + +"Papa, my dear little papa!" + +"My darling!" + +The child asked her father in a sweet voice: "Art thou satisfied with +thy crime, papa?" + +"We will not talk about that," Bernardet replied. "To table! After +dinner I will develop the pictures which I have taken with my kodak, but +let us amuse ourselves now; it is my fete day; I wish to forget all +about business. Let us dine now and be as happy as possible." + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + +THE murder of M. Rovere, committed in broad daylight, in a quarter of +Paris filled with life and movement, caused a widespread sensation. +There was so much mystery mixed in the affair. What could be ascertained +about the dead man's life was very dramatically written up by Paul +Rodier in a sketch, and this, republished everywhere and enlarged upon, +soon gave to the crime of the Boulevard de Clichy the interest of a +judicial romance. All that there was of vulgar curiosity in man awoke, +as atavistic bestiality at the smell of blood. + +What was this M. Rovere, former Consul to Buenos Ayres or Havana, +amateur collector of objects of virtu, member of the Society of +Bibliophiles, where he had not been seen for a long time? What enemy had +entered his room for the purpose of cutting his throat? Might he not +have been assassinated by some thief who knew that his rooms contained a +collection of works of art? The fete at Montmartre was often in full +blast in front of the house where the murder had been committed, and +among the crowd of ex-prison birds and malefactors who are always +attendant upon foreign kirmesses might not some one of them have +returned and committed the crime? The papers took advantage of the +occasion to moralize upon permitting these fetes to be held in the +outlying boulevards, where vice and crime seemed to spring spontaneously +from the soil. + +But no one, not one journal--perhaps by order--spoke of that unknown +visitor whom Moniche called _the individual_, and whom the portress had +seen standing beside M. Rovere in front of the open safe. Paul Rodier in +his sketch scarcely referred to the fact that justice had a clew +important enough to penetrate the mystery of the crime, and in the end +arrest the murderer. And the readers while awaiting developments asked +what mystery was hidden in this murder. Moniche at times, wore a +frightened yet important air. He felt that he was an object of curiosity +to many, the centre of prejudices. The porter and his wife possessed a +terrible secret. They were raised in their own estimation. + +"We shall appear at the trial," said Moniche, seeing himself already +before the red robes, and holding up his hand to swear that he would +tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. + +And as they sat together in their little lodge they talked the matter +over and over, and brought up every incident in M. Rovere's life which +might have a bearing on the case. + +"Do you remember the young man who came one day and insisted on seeing +Monsieur le Consul?" + +"Ah! Very well, indeed," said Moniche. "I had forgotten that one. A felt +hat, his face bronzed, and a droll accent. He had come from away off +somewhere. He was probably a Spaniard." + +"Some beggar, likely. A poor devil whom the Consul had known in America, +in the Colonies, one knows not where." + +"A bad face!" said Moniche. "M. Rovere received him, however, and gave +him aid, I remember. If the young man had come often, I should think +that he struck the blow. And also, I ought to add, if there was not the +other." + +"Yes, but there is the other," his wife replied. "There is the one whom +I saw standing in front of the coupons, and who was looking at those +other papers with flashing eyes, I give my word. There is that one, +Moniche, and I am willing to put my hand into the fire and yours, too, +Moniche, if it is not he." + +"If he is the one, he will be found." + +"Oh! but if he has disappeared? One disappears very quickly in these +days." + +"We shall see! we shall see! Justice reigns, and we are here!" He said +that "we are here!" as a grenadier of the guard before an important +engagement. + +They had taken the body to the Morgue. At the hour fixed for the autopsy +Bernardet arrived. He seemed much excited, and asked M. Ginory if, +since their conversation in M. Rovere's library, he had reflected and +decided to permit him to make the experiment--the famous experiment +reported for so many years as useless, absurd, almost ridiculous. + +"With any one but M. Ginory I should not dare to hope," thought the +police officer, "but he does not sneer at strange discoveries." + +He had brought his photographic apparatus, that kodak which he declared +was more dangerous to the criminal than a loaded weapon. He had +developed the negatives which he had taken, and of the three, two had +come out in good condition. The face of the murdered man appeared with a +clearness which, in the proofs, rendered it formidable as in the +reality; and the eyes, those tragic, living eyes, retained their +terrible, accusing expression which the supreme agony had left in them. +The light had struck full on the eyes--and they spoke. Bernardet showed +the proofs to M. Ginory. They examined them with a magnifying glass, but +they showed only the emotion, the agony, the anger of that last moment. +Bernardet hoped to convince M. Ginory that Bourion's experiment was not +a failure. + +Eleven o'clock was the hour named for the autopsy. Twenty minutes +before, Bernardet was at the Morgue. He walked restlessly about outside +among the spectators--some were women, young girls, students, and +children who were hovering about the place, hoping that some chance +would permit them to satisfy their morbid curiosity and to enter and +gaze on those slabs whereon lay--swollen, livid, disfigured--the bodies. + +Never, perhaps, in his life had the police officer been so strongly +moved with a desire to succeed. He brought to his tragic task all the +ardor of an apostle. It was not the idea of success, the renown, or the +possibility of advancement which urged him on; it was the joy, the glory +of aiding progress, of attaching his name to a new discovery. He worked +for art and the love of art. As he wandered about, his sole thought was +of his desire to test Dr. Bourion's experiment; of the realization of +his dream. "Ah! if M. Ginory will only permit it," he thought. + +As he formulated that hope in his mind, he saw M. Ginory descend from +the fiacre; he hurried up to him and saluted him respectfully. Seeing +Bernardet so moved and the first one on the spot, he could not repress a +smile. + +"I see you are still enthused." + +"I have thought of nothing else all night, Monsieur Ginory." + +"Well, but," said Monsieur Ginory in a tone which seemed to Bernardet to +imply hope, "no idea must be rejected, and I do not see why we should +not try the experiment. I have reflected upon it. Where is the +unsuitableness?" + +"Ah, Monsieur le Juge," cried the agent, "if you permit it who knows but +that we may revolutionize medical jurisprudence?" + +"Revolutionize, revolutionize!" Would the Examining Magistrate yet find +it an idiotic idea? + +M. Ginory passed around the building and entered by a small door opening +on the Seine. The registrar followed him, and behind him came the police +agent. Bernardet wished to wait until the doctors delegated to perform +the autopsy should arrive, and the head keeper of the Morgue advised him +to possess himself with patience, and while he was waiting to look +around and see the latest cadavers which had been brought there. + +"We have had, in eight days, a larger number of women than men, which is +rare. And these women were nearly all habitues of the public balls and +race tracks." + +"And how can you tell that?" + +"Because they have pretty feet." + +Professor Morin arrived with a confrere, a young Pasteurian doctor, with +a singular mind, broad and receptive, and who passed among his +companions for a man fond of chimeras, a little retiring, however, and +giving over to making experiments and to vague dreams. Monsieur Morin +saluted M. Ginory and presented to him the young doctor, Erwin by name, +and said to the Magistrate that the house students had probably begun +the autopsy to gain time. + +The body, stripped of its clothing, lay upon the dissecting table, and +three young men, in velvet skull caps, with aprons tied about their +waists, were standing about the corpse; they had already begun the +autopsy. The mortal wound looked redder than ever in the whiteness of +the naked body. + +Bernardet glided into the room, trying to keep out of sight, listening +and looking, and, above everything, not losing sight of M. Ginory's +face. A face in which the look was keen, penetrating, sharp as a knife, +as he bent over the pale face of the murdered man, regarding it as +searchingly as the surgeons' scalpels were searching the wound and the +flesh. Among those men in their black clothes, some with bared heads, in +order to work better; others with hats on, the stretched-out corpse +seemed like a wax figure upon a marble slab. Bernardet thought of those +images which he had seen copied from Rembrandt's pictures--the poet with +the anatomical pincers and the shambles. The surgeons bent over the +body, their hands busy and their scissors cutting the muscles. That +wound, which had let out his life, that large wound, like a monstrous +and grimacing mouth, they enlarged still more; the head oscillated from +side to side, and they were obliged to prop it with some mats. The eyes +remained the same, and, in spite of the hours which had passed, seemed +as living, as menacing and eloquent as the night before; they were, +however, veiled with something vitreous over the pupils, like the +amaurosis of death, yet full of that anger, of that fright, or that +ferocious malediction which was reproduced in a startling manner in the +negatives taken by Bernardet. + +"The secret of the crime is in that look," thought the police agent. +"Those eyes see, those eyes speak; they tell what they know, they accuse +some one." + +Then, while the professor, his associates and his students went on with +the autopsy, exchanging observations, following in the mutilated body, +their researches for the truth, trying to be very accurate as to the +nature of the wound, the form even of the knife with which it was made, +Bernardet softly approached the Examining Magistrate and in a low tone, +timidly, respectfully, he spoke some words, which were insistent, +however, and pressing, urging the Magistrate to quickly interfere. + +"Ah! Monsieur le Juge, this is the moment; you who can do +everything"---- + +The Examining Magistrate has, with us, absolute power. He does whatever +seems to him best. And he wishes to do a thing, because he wishes to do +it. M. Ginory, curious by nature and because it was his duty, +hesitated, scratched his ear, rubbed his nose, bit his lips, listened to +the supplicating murmur of the police officer; but decided not to speak +just then, and continued gazing with a fixed stare at the dead man. + +This thought came to him, moreover, insistent and imperious, that he was +there to testify in all things in favor of that truth, the discovery of +which imposed upon him--and suddenly, his sharp voice interrupted the +surgeon's work. + +"Messieurs, does not the expression of the open eyes strike you?" + +"Yes; they express admirably the most perfect agony," M. Morin replied. + +"And does it not seem," asked the Examining Magistrate, "as if they were +fixed with that expression on the murderer?" + +"Without doubt! The mouth seems to curse and the eyes to menace." + +"And what if the last image seen, in fact, that of the murderer, still +remains upon the retina of the eyes?" + +M. Morin looked at the Magistrate in astonishment, his air was slightly +mocking and the lips and eyes assumed a quizzical expression. But +Bernardet was very much surprised when he heard one remark. Dr. Erwin +raised his head and while he seemed to approve of that which M. Ginory +had advanced, he said: "That image must have disappeared from the +retina some time ago." + +"Who knows?" said M. Ginory. + +Bernardet experienced a profound emotion. He felt that this time the +problem would be officially settled. M. Ginory had not feared ridicule +when he spoke, and a discussion arose there, in that dissecting room, in +the presence of the corpse. What had existed only in a dream, in +Bernardet's little study, became here, in the presence of the Examining +Magistrate, a member of the Institute, and the young students, almost +full fledged doctors, a question frankly discussed in all its bearings. +And it was he, standing back, he, a poor devil of a police officer, who +had urged this Examining Magistrate to question this savant. + +"At the back of the eyes," said the Professor, touching the eyes with +his scalpel, "there is nothing, believe me. It is elsewhere that you +must look for your proof." + +"But"--and M. Ginory repeated his "Who knows?"--"What if we try it this +time; will it inconvenience you, my dear Master?" M. Morin made a +movement with his lips which meant _peuh!_ and his whole countenance +expressed his scorn. "But, I see no inconvenience." At the end of a +moment he said in a sharp tone: "It will be lost time." + +"A little more, a little less," replied M. Ginory, "the experiment is +worth the trouble to make it." + +M. Ginory had proved without doubt that he, like Bernardet, wished to +satisfy his curiosity, and in looking at the open eyes of the corpse, +although in his duties he never allowed himself to be influenced by the +sentimental or the dramatic, yet it seemed to him that those eyes urged +him to insist, nay, even supplicated him. + +"I know, I know," said M. Morin, "what you dream of in your magistrate's +brain is as amusing as a tale of Edgar Poe's. But to find in those eyes +the image of the murderer--come now, leave that to the inventive genius +of a Rudyard Kipling, but do not mix the impossible with our researches +in medical jurisprudence. Let us not make romance; let us make, you the +examinations and I the dissection." + +The short tone in which the Professor had spoken did not exactly please +M. Ginory, who now, a little through self-conceit (since he had made the +proposition), a little through curiosity, decided that he would not beat +a retreat. "Is there anything to risk?" he asked. "And it might be one +chance in a thousand." + +"But there is no chance," quickly answered M. Morin. "None--none!" + +Then, relenting a little, he entered the discussion, explaining why he +had no faith. + +"It is not I, M. Ginory, who will deny the possibility of such a result. +But it would be miraculous. Do you believe in miracles, the impressions +of heat, of the blood, of light, on our tissues are not catalogueable, +if I may be allowed the expression. The impression on the retina is +produced by the refraction which is called ethereal, phosphorescent, and +which is almost as difficult to seize as to weigh the imponderable. To +think to find on the retina a luminous impression after a certain number +of hours and days would be, as Vernois has very well said, to think one +can find in the organs of hearing the last sound which reverberated +through them. _Peuh!_ Seize the air-bubble at the end of a tube and +place it in a museum as a curiosity. Is there anything left of it but a +drop of water which is burst, while of the fleeting vision or the +passing sound nothing remains." + +The unfortunate Bernardet suffered keenly when he heard this. He wished +to answer. The words came to his lips. Ah! if he was only in M. Ginory's +place. The latter, with bowed head, listened and seemed to weigh each +word as it dropped from M. Morin's lips. + +"Let us reason it, but," the Professor went on, "since the +ophthalmoscope does not show to the oculist on the retina, any of the +objects or beings which a sick man sees--you understand, not one of +them--how can you think that photography can find that object or being +on the retina of a dead man's eye?" + +He waited for objections from the Examining Magistrate and Bernardet +hoped that M. Ginory would combat some of the Professor's arguments. He +had only to say: "What of it? Let us see! Let us experiment!" And +Bernardet had longed for just these words from him; but the Magistrate +remained silent, his head still bent. The police agent felt, with +despair, his chance slipping, slipping away from him, and that never, +never again would he find a like opportunity to test the experiment. +Suddenly, the strident tones of Dr. Erwin's voice rung out sharply, like +an electric bell, and Bernardet experienced a sensation like that of a +sudden unexpected illumination. + +"My dear Master," he respectfully began, "I saw at home in Denmark, a +poor devil, picked up dying, half devoured by a wolf; and who, when +taken from the very jaws of the beast, still retained in the eye a very +visible image in which one could see the nose and teeth of the brute. A +vision! Imagination, perhaps! But the fact struck me at the time and we +made a note of it." + +"And?" questioned M. Morin, in a tone of raillery. + +Bernardet cocked his ears as a dog does when he hears an unusual sound. +M. Ginory looked at this slender young man with his long blond hair, his +eyes as blue as the waters of a lake, his face pale and wearing the +peculiar look common to searchers after the mysterious. The students and +the others gathered about their master, remained motionless and listened +intently as to a lecture. + +"And," Dr. Erwin went on frigidly, "if we had found absolutely nothing +we would, at least, have kept silent about an unsuccessful research, it +is useless to say. Think, then, my dear Master, the exterior objects +must have imprinted themselves on the retina, did they not? reduced in +size, according to the size of the place wherein they were reflected; +they appeared there, they certainly appeared there! There is--I beg your +pardon for referring to it, but it is to these others (and Dr. Erwin +designated M. Ginory, his registrar, and Bernardet)--there is in the +retina a substance of a red color, the _pourpre retinien_, very +sensitive to the light. Upon the deep red of this membrane objects are +seen white. And one can fix the image. M. Edmond Perrier, professor in +the Museum of Natural History, reports (you know it better than I, my +dear Master), in a work on animal anatomy and physiology which our +students are all familiar with, that he made an experiment. After +removing a rabbit's eye, a living rabbit's eye--yes, science is +cruel--he placed it in a dark room, so that he could obtain upon the +retina the image of some object, a window for instance, and plunged it +immediately into a solution of alum and prevented the decomposition of +the _pourpre retinien_, and the window could plainly be seen, fixed on +the eye. In that black chamber which we have under our eyebrows, in the +orbit, is a storehouse, a storehouse of images which are retained, like +the image which the old Dane's eye held of the wolf's nose and teeth. +And who knows? Perhaps it is possible to ask of a dead man's eye the +secret of what it saw when living." + +This was, put in more scientific terms by the young Danish doctor, the +substance of what Bernardet believed possible. The young men had +listened with the attractive sympathy, which is displayed when anything +novel is explained. Rigid, upon the marble slab, the victim seemed to +wait for the result of the discussion, deaf to all the confused sounds +about him; his eye fixed upon the infinite, upon the unknowable which he +now knew. + +It was, however, this insensible body which had caused the discussion of +what was an enigma to savants. What was the secret of his end? The last +word of his agony? Who made that wound which had ended his life? And +like a statue lying on its stone couch, the murdered man seemed to wait. +What they knew not, he knew. What they wished to know, he still knew, +perhaps! This doubt alone, rooted deep in M. Ginory's mind, was enough +to urge him to have the experiment tried, and, excusing himself for his +infatuation, he begged M. Morin to grant permission to try the +experiment, which some of the doctors had thought would be successful. + +"We shall be relieved even if we do not succeed, and we can but add our +defeat to the others." + +M. Morin's face still bore its sceptical smile. But after all, the +Examining Magistrate was master of the situation, and since young Dr. +Erwin brought the result of the Denmark experiment--a contribution new +in these researches--to add weight to the matter, the Professor +requested that he should not be asked to lend himself to an experiment +which he declared in advance would be a perfectly useless one. + +There was a photographic apparatus at the Morgue as at the Prefecture, +used for anthropometry. Bernardet, moreover, had his kodak in his hand. +One could photograph the retina as soon as the membrane was separated +from the eye by the autopsy, and when, like the wing of a butterfly, it +had been fastened to a piece of cork. And while Bernardet was accustomed +to all the horrors of crime, yet he felt his heart beat almost to +suffocation during this operation. He noticed that M. Ginory became very +pale, and that he bit his lips, casting occasional pitying glances +toward the dead man. On the contrary, the young men bent over the body +and studied it with the admiration and joy of treasure seekers digging +in a mine. Each human fibre seemed to reveal to them some new truth. +They were like jewelers before a casket full of gems, and what they +studied, weighed, examined, was a human corpse. And when those eyes, +living, terrible, accusing, were removed, leaving behind them two empty +orbits, the Professor suddenly spoke with marvelous eloquence, flowing +and picturesque, as if he were speaking of works of art. And it was, in +truth, a work of art, this wonderful mechanism which he explained to his +students, who listened eagerly to each word. It was a work of art, this +eye, with its sclerotic, its transparent cornea, its aqueous and +vitreous humor, its crystalline lens, and the retina, like a +photographic plate in that black chamber in which the luminous rays +reflect, reversed, the objects seen. And M. Morin, holding between his +fingers the object which he was demonstrating, spoke of the membrane +formed of fibres and of the terminal elements of the optic nerve, as a +professor of painting or of sculpture speaks of a gem chased by a +Benvenuto. + +"The human body is a marvel," cried M. Morin, "a marvel, Messieurs," and +he held forth for several minutes upon the wonderful construction of +this marvel. His enthusiasm was shared, moreover, by the young men and +Dr. Erwin, who listened intently. Bernardet, ignorant and respectful, +felt troubled in the presence of this renowned physiologist, and +congratulated himself that it was he who had insisted on this experiment +and caused a member of the Institute to hold forth thus. As for M. +Ginory, he left the room a moment, feeling the need of air. The +operation, which the surgeons prolonged with joy, made him ill, and he +felt very faint. He quickly recovered, however, and returned to the +dissecting room, so as not to lose any of the explanation which M. Morin +was giving as he stood with the eye in his hand. And in that eye an +image remained, perhaps. He was anxious to search for it, to find it. + +"I will take it upon myself," Bernardet said. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + +THE police officer did not follow the autopsical operations closely. He +was eager to know--he was impatient for the moment when, having taken +the picture, he might develop the negatives and study them to see if he +could discover anything, could decipher any image. He had used +photography in the service of anthropometry; he had taken the pictures +at the Morgue with his kodak, and now, at home in his little room, which +he was able to darken completely, he was developing his plates. + +Mme. Bernardet and the children were much struck with the expression of +his face. It was not troubled, but preoccupied and as if he were +completely absorbed. He was very quiet, eating very little, and seemed +thoughtful. His wife asked him, "Art thou ill?" He responded, "No, I +think not." And his little girls said to each other in low tones, "Papa +is on a trail!" + +He was, in truth! The hunting dog smelled the scent! The pictures which +he had taken of the retina and had developed showed a result +sufficiently clear for Bernardet to feel confident enough to tell his +chief that he distinctly saw a visage, the face of a man, confused, no +doubt, but clear enough to recognize not only a type, but a distinct +type. As from the depths of a cloud, in a sort of white halo, a human +face appeared whose features could be distinctly seen with a magnifying +glass! The face of a man with a pointed black beard, the forehead a +little bald, and blackish spots which indicated the eyes. It was only a +phantom, evidently, and the photographer at the Prefecture seemed more +moved than Bernardet by the proofs obtained. Clearer than in spirit +photographs, which so many credulous people believe in, the image showed +plainly, and in studying it one could distinctly follow the contours. A +spectre, perhaps, but the spectre of a man who was still young and +resembled, with his pointed beard, some trooper of the sixteenth +century, a phantom of some Seigneur Clouet. + +"For example," said the official photographer, "if one could discover a +murderer by photographing a dead man's eyes, this would be miraculous. +It is incredible!" + +"Not more incredible," Bernardet replied, "than what the papers publish: +Edison is experimenting on making the blind see by using the Roentgen +Rays. There is a miracle!" + +Then Bernardet took his proofs to M. Ginory. The police officer felt +that the magistrate, the sovereign power in criminal researches, ought, +above everything, to collaborate with him, to consent to these +experiments which so many others had declared useless and absurd. The +taste for researches, which was with M. Ginory a matter of temperament +as well as a duty to his profession, was, fortunately, keen on this +scent. Criminals call in their argot, the judges, "the pryers." +Curiosity in this man was combined with a knowledge of profound +researches. + +When Bernardet spread out on M. Ginory's desk the four photographs which +he had brought with him, the first remark which the examining Magistrate +made was: "But I see nothing--a cloud, a mist, and then after?" +Bernardet drew a magnifying glass from his pocket and pointed out as he +would have explained an enigmatical design, the lineaments, moving his +finger over the contour of the face which his nail outlined, that human +face which he had seen and studied in his little room in the passage of +the Elysee des Beaux-Arts. He made him see--after some moments of minute +examination--he made him see that face. "It is true--there is an image +there," exclaimed M. Ginory. He added: "Is it plain enough for me to see +it so that I can from it imagine a living being? I see the form, divined +it at first, saw it clearly defined afterward. At first it seemed very +vague, but I find it sufficiently well defined so that I can see each +feature, but without any special character. Oh!" continued M. Ginory, +excitedly, rubbing his plump little hands, "if it was only possible, if +it was only possible! What a marvel!" + +"It is possible, Monsieur le Juge! have faith," Bernardet replied. +"I swear to you that it is possible." This enthusiasm gained over +the Examining Magistrate. Bernardet had found a fellow-sympathizer +in his fantastic ideas. M. Ginory was now--if only to try the +experiment--resolved to direct the investigation on this plan. He was +anxious to first show the proofs to those who would be apt to recognize +in them a person whom they might have once seen in the flesh. "To +Moniche first and then to his wife," said Bernardet. + +"Who is Moniche?" + +"The concierge in the Boulevard de Clichy." + +Ordered to come to the court, M. and Mme. Moniche were overjoyed. They +were summoned to appear before the Judges. They had become important +personages. Perhaps their pictures would be published in the papers. +They dressed themselves as for a fete. Mme. Moniche in her Sunday best +strove to do honor to M. Rovere. She said to Moniche in all sincerity: +"Our duty is to avenge him." + +While sitting on a bench in one of the long, cold corridors, the porter +and his wife saw pass before them prisoners led by their jailers; some +looked menacing, while others had a cringing air and seemed to try to +escape notice. These two persons felt that they were playing roles as +important as those in a melodrama at the Ambigu. The time seemed long +to them, and M. Ginory did not call them as soon as they wished that he +would. They thought of their home, which, while they were detained +there, would be invaded by the curious, the gossips and reporters. + +"How slow these Judges are," growled Moniche. + +When he was conducted into the presence of M. Ginory and his registrar, +and seated upon a chair, he was much confused and less bitter. He felt a +vague terror of all the paraphernalia of justice which surrounded him. +He felt that he was running some great danger, and to the Judge's +questions he replied with extreme prudence. Thanks to him and his wife +M. Ginory found out a great deal about M. Rovere's private life; he +penetrated into that apparently hidden existence, he searched to see if +he could discover, among the people who had visited the old ex-Consul +the one among all others who might have committed the deed. + +"You never saw the woman who visited Rovere?" + +"Yes. The veiled lady. The Woman in Black. But I do not know her. No one +knew her." + +The story told by the portress about the time when she surprised the +stranger and Rovere with the papers in his hand in front of the open +safe made quite an impression on the Examining Magistrate. + +"Do you know the name of the visitor?" + +"No, Monsieur," the portress replied. + +"But if you should see him again would you recognize him?" + +"Certainly! I see his face there, before me!" + +She made haste to return to her home so that she might relate her +impressions to her fellow gossips. The worthy couple left the court +puffed up with self-esteem because of the role which they had been +called upon to play. The obsequies were to be held the next day, and the +prospect of a dramatic day in which M. and Mme. Moniche would still play +this important role, created in them an agony which was almost joyous. +The crowd around the house of the crime was always large. Some few +passers-by stopped--stopped before the stone facade behind which a +murder had been committed. The reporters returned again and again for +news, and the couple, greedy for glory, could not open a paper without +seeing their names printed in large letters. One journal had that +morning even published an especial article: "Interviews with M. and Mme. +Moniche." + +The crowd buzzed about the lodge like a swarm of flies. M. Rovere's body +had been brought back from the Morgue. The obsequies would naturally +attract an enormous crowd; all the more, as the mystery was still as +deep as ever. Among his papers had been found a receipt for a tomb in +the cemetery at Montmartre, bought by him about a year before. In +another paper, not dated, were found directions as to how his funeral +was to be conducted. M. Rovere, after having passed a wandering life, +wished to rest in his native country. But no other indications of his +wishes, nothing about his relatives, had been found. It seemed as if he +was a man without a family, without any place in society, or any claim +on any one to bury him. And this distressing isolation added to the +morbid curiosity which was attached to the house, now all draped in +black, with the letter "R" standing out in white against its silver +escutcheon. + +Who would be chief mourner? M. Rovere had appointed no one. He had asked +in that paper that a short notice should be inserted in the paper giving +the hour and date of the services, and giving him the simple title +ex-Consul. "I hope," went on the writer, "to be taken to the cemetery +quietly and followed by intimate friends, if any remain." + +Intimate friends were scarce in that crowd, without doubt, but the dead +man's wish could hardly be carried out. Those obsequies which he had +wished to be quiet became a sort of fete, funereal and noisy; where the +thousands of people crowding the Boulevard crushed each other in their +desire to see, and pressed almost upon the draped funeral car which the +neighbors had covered with flowers. + +Everything is a spectacle for Parisians. The guardians of the peace +strove to keep back the crowds; some gamins climbed into the branches of +the trees. The bier had been placed at the foot of the staircase in the +narrow corridor opening upon the street. Mme. Moniche had placed upon a +table in the lodge some loose leaves, where Rovere's unknown friends +could write their names. + +Bernardet, alert, with his eyes wide open, studying the faces, searching +the eyes, mingled with the crowd, looked at the file of people, +scrutinized, one by one, the signatures; Bernardet, in mourning, wearing +black gloves, seemed more like an undertaker's assistant than a police +spy. Once he found himself directly in front of the open door of the +lodge and the table where the leaves lay covered with signatures; when +in the half light of the corridor draped with black, where the bier lay, +he saw a man of about fifty, pale and very sad looking. He had arrived, +in his turn in the line, at the table, where he signed his name. Mme. +Moniche, clothed in black, with a white handkerchief in her hand, +although she was not weeping, found herself side by side with Bernardet; +in fact, their elbows touched. When the man reached the table, coming +from the semi-darkness of the passage, and stepped into the light which +fell full on him from the window, the portress involuntarily exclaimed, +"Ah!" She was evidently much excited, and caught the police officer by +the hand and said: + +"I am afraid!" + +She spoke in such a low tone that Bernardet divined rather than heard +what she meant in that stifled cry. He looked at her from the corner of +his eye. He saw that she was ghastly, and again she spoke in a low tone: +"He! he whom I saw with M. Rovere before the open safe!" + +Bernardet gave the man one sweeping glance of the eye. He fairly pierced +him through with his sharp look. The unknown, half bent over the table +whereon lay the papers, showed a wide forehead, slightly bald, and a +pointed beard, a little gray, which almost touched the white paper as he +wrote his name. + +Suddenly the police officer experienced a strange sensation; it seemed +to him that this face, the shape of the head, the pointed beard, he had +recently seen somewhere, and that this human silhouette recalled to him +an image which he had recently studied. The perception of a possibility +of a proof gave him a shock. This man who was there made him think +suddenly of that phantom discernible in the photographs taken of the +retina of the murdered man's eye. + +"Who is that man?" + +Bernardet shivered with pleasurable excitement, and, insisting upon his +own impression that this unknown strongly recalled the image obtained, +and mentally he compared this living man, bending over the table, +writing his name, with that spectre which had the air of a trooper which +appeared in the photograph. The contour was the same, not only of the +face, but the beard. This man reminded one of a Seigneur of the time of +Henry III., and Bernardet found in that face something formidable. The +man had signed his name. He raised his head, and his face, of a dull +white, was turned full toward the police officer; their looks crossed, +keen on Bernardet's side, veiled in the unknown. But before the fixity +of the officer's gaze the strange man dropped his head for a moment; +then, in his turn, he fixed a piercing, almost menacing, gaze on +Bernardet. Then the latter slowly dropped his eyes and bowed; the +unknown went out quickly and was lost in the crowd before the house. + +"It is he! it is he!" repeated the portress, who trembled as if she had +seen a ghost. + +Scarcely had the unknown disappeared than the police officer took but +two steps to reach the table, and bending over it in his turn, he read +the name written by that man: + +"Jacques Dantin." + +The name awakened no remembrance in Bernardet's mind, and now it was a +living problem that he had to solve. + +"Tell no one that you have seen that man," he hastily said to Mme. +Moniche. "No one! Do you hear?" And he hurried out into the Boulevard, +picking his way through the crowd and watching out to find that Jacques +Dantin, whom he wished to follow. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + +JACQUES DANTIN, moreover, was not difficult to find in the crowd. He +stood near the funeral car; his air was very sad. Bernardet had a fine +opportunity to examine him at his ease. He was an elegant looking man, +slender, with a resolute air, and frowning eyebrows which gave his face +a very energetic look. His head bared to the cold wind, he stood like a +statue while the bearers placed the casket in the funeral car, and +Bernardet noticed the shaking of the head--a distressed shaking. The +longer the police officer looked at him, studied him, the stronger grew +the resemblance to the image in the photograph. Bernardet would soon +know who this Jacques Dantin was, and even at this moment he asked a +question or two of some of the assistants. + +"Do you know who that gentleman is standing near the hearse?" + +"No." + +"Do you know what Jacques Dantin does? Was he one of M. Rovere's +intimate friends?" + +"Jacques Dantin?" + +"Yes; see, there, with the pointed beard." + +"I do not know him." + +Bernardet thought that if he addressed the question to M. Dantin himself +he might learn all he wished to know at once, and he approached him at +the moment the procession started, and walked along with him almost to +the cemetery, striving to enter into conversation with him. He spoke of +the dead man, sadly lamenting M. Rovere's sad fate. But he found his +neighbor very silent. Upon the sidewalk of the Boulevard the dense crowd +stood in respectful silence and uncovered as the cortege passed, and the +officer noticed that some loose petals from the flowers dropped upon the +roadway. + +"There are a great many flowers," he remarked to his neighbor. "It is +rather surprising, as M. Rovere seemed to have so few friends." + +"He has had many," the man brusquely remarked. His voice was hoarse, and +quivered with emotion. Bernardet saw that he was strongly moved. Was it +sorrow? Was it bitterness of spirit? Remorse, perhaps! The man did not +seem, moreover, in a very softened mood. He walked along with his eyes +upon the funeral car, his head uncovered in spite of the cold, and +seemed to be in deep thought. The police officer studied him from a +corner of his eye. His wrinkled face was intelligent, and bore an +expression of weariness, but there was something hard about the set of +the mouth and insolent in the turned-up end of his mustache. + +As they approached the cemetery at Montmartre--the journey was not a +long one in which to make conversation--Bernardet ventured a decisive +question: "Did you know M. Rovere very well?" + +The other replied: "Very well." + +"And whom do you think could have had any interest in this matter?" The +question was brusque and cut like a knife. Jacques Dantin hesitated in +his reply, looking keenly as they walked along at this little man with +his smiling aspect, whose name he did not know and who had questioned +him. + +"It is because I have a great interest in at once commencing my +researches," said Bernardet, measuring his words in order to note the +effect which they would produce on this unknown man. "I am a police +detective." + +Oh! This time Bernardet saw Dantin shiver. There was no doubt of it; +this close contact with a police officer troubled him, and he turned +pale and a quick spasm passed over his face. His anxious eyes searched +Bernardet's face, but, content with stealing an occasional glance of +examination toward his neighbor, the little man walked along with eyes +cast toward the ground. He studied Jacques Dantin in sudden, quick turns +of the eye. + +The car advanced slowly, turned the corner of the Boulevard and passed +into the narrow avenue which led to God's Acre. The arch of the iron +bridge led to the Campo-Santo like a viaduct of living beings, over to +the Land of Sleep, for it was packed with a curious crowd; it was a +scene for a melodrama, the cortege and the funeral car covered with +wreaths. Bernardet, still walking by Dantin's side, continued to +question him. The agent noticed that these questions seemed to embarrass +M. Rovere's pretended friend. + +"Is it a long time since M. Rovere and Jacques Dantin have known each +other?" + +"We have been friends since childhood." + +"And did you see him often?" + +"No. Life had separated us." + +"Had you seen him recently? Mme. Moniche said that you had." + +"Who is Mme. Moniche?" + +"The concierge of the house, and a sort of housekeeper for M. Rovere." + +"Ah! Yes!" said Jacques Dantin, as if he had just remembered some +forgotten sight. Bernardet, by instinct, read this man's thoughts; saw +again with him also the tragic scene when the portress, suddenly +entering M. Rovere's apartments, had seen him standing, face to face +with Dantin, in front of the open safe, with a great quantity of papers +spread out. + +"Do you believe that he had many enemies?" asked the police agent, with +deliberate calculation. + +"No," Dantin sharply replied, without hesitation. Bernardet waited a +moment, then in a firm voice he said: "M. Ginory will no doubt count a +good deal on you in order to bring about the arrest of the assassin." + +"M. Ginory?" + +"The Examining Magistrate." + +"Then he will have to make haste with his investigation," Jacques Dantin +replied. "I shall soon be obliged to leave Paris." This reply astonished +Bernardet. This departure, of which the motive was probably a simple +one, seemed to him strange under the tragic circumstances. M. Dantin, +moreover, did not hesitate to give him, without his asking for it, his +address, adding that he would hold himself in readiness from his return +from the cemetery at the disposition of the Examining Magistrate. + +"The misfortune is that I can tell nothing, as I know nothing. I do not +even suspect who could have any interest in killing that unfortunate +man. A professional criminal, without doubt." + +"I do not believe so." + +The cortege had now reached one of the side avenues; a white fog +enveloped everything, and the marble tombs shone ghostly through it. The +spot chosen by M. Rovere himself was at the end of the Avenue de la +Cloche. The car slowly rolled toward the open grave. Mme. Moniche, +overcome with grief, staggered as she walked along, but her husband, +the tailor, seemed to be equal to the occasion and his role. They both +assumed different expressions behind their dead. And Paul Rodier walked +along just in front of them, note book in hand. Bernardet promised +himself to keep close watch of Dantin and see in what manner he carried +himself at the tomb. A pressure of the crowd separated them for a +moment, but the officer was perfectly satisfied. Standing on the other +side of the grave, face to face with him, was Dantin; a row of the most +curious had pushed in ahead of Bernardet, but in this way he could +better see Dantin's face, and not miss the quiver of a muscle. He stood +on tiptoe and peered this way and that, between the heads, and could +thus scrutinize and analyze, without being perceived himself. + +Dantin was standing on the very edge of the grave. He held himself very +upright, in a tense, almost aggressive way, and looked, from time to +time, into the grave with an expression of anger and almost defiance. Of +what was he thinking? In that attitude, which seemed to be a revolt +against the destiny which had come to his friend, Bernardet read a kind +of hardening of the will against an emotion which might become excessive +and telltale. He was not, as yet, persuaded of the guiltiness of this +man, but he did not find in that expression of defiance the tenderness +which ought to be shown for a friend--a lifelong friend, as Dantin had +said that Rovere was. And then the more he examined him--there, for +example, seeing his dark silhouette clearly defined in front of the +dense white of a neighboring column--the more the aspect of this man +corresponded with that of the vision transfixed in the dead man's eye. +Yes, it was the same profile of a trooper, his hand upon his hip, as if +resting upon a rapier. Bernardet blinked his eyes in order to better see +that man. He perceived a man who strongly recalled the vague form found +in that retina, and his conviction came to the aid of his instinct, +gradually increased, and became, little by little, invincible, +irresistible. He repeated the address which this man had given him: +"Jacques Dantin, Rue de Richelieu, 114." He would make haste to give +that name to M. Ginory, and have a citation served upon him. Why should +this Dantin leave Paris? What was his manner of living? his means of +existence? What were the passions, the vices, of the man standing there +with the austere mien of a Huguenot, in front of the open grave? + +Bernardet saw that, despite his strong will and his wish to stand there +impassive, Jacques Dantin was troubled when, with a heavy sound, the +casket glided over the cords down into the grave. He bit the ends of his +mustache and his gloved hand made several irresistible, nervous +movements. And the look cast into that grave! The look cast at that +casket lying in the bottom of that grave! On that casket was a plate +bearing the inscription: "Louis Pierre Rovere." That mute look, rapid +and grief-stricken, was cast upon that open casket, which contained the +body--the gash across its throat, dissected, mutilated; the face with +those dreadful eyes, which had been taken from their orbits, and, after +delivering up their secret, replaced! + +They now defiled past the grave, and Dantin, the first, with a hand +which trembled, sprinkled upon the casket those drops of water which are +for our dead the last tears. Ah! but he was pale, almost livid; and how +he trembled--this man with a stern face! Bernardet noticed the slightest +trace of emotion. He approached in his turn and took the holy water +sprinkler; then, as he turned away, desirous of catching up with M. +Dantin, he heard his name called, and, turning, saw Paul Rodier, whose +face was all smiles. + +"Well! Monsieur Bernardet, what new?" he asked. The tall young man had a +charming air. + +"Nothing new," said the agent. + +"You know that this murder has aroused a great deal of interest?" + +"I do not doubt it." + +"Leon Luzarche is enchanted. Yes, Luzarche, the novelist. He had begun a +novel, of which the first instalment was published in the same paper +which brought out the first news of 'The Crime of the Boulevard de +Clichy,' and as the paper has sold, sold, sold, he thinks that it is his +story which has caused the immense and increased sales. No one is +reading 'l'Ange-Gnome,' but the murder. All novelists ought to try to +have a fine assassination published at the same time as their serials, +so as to increase the sales of the paper. What a fine collaboration, +Monsieur! Pleasantry, Monsieur! Have you any unpublished facts?" + +"No." + +"Not one? Not a trace?" + +"Nothing," Bernardet replied. + +"Oh, well! I--I have some, Monsieur--but it will surprise you. Read my +paper! Make the papers sell." + +"But"--began the officer. + +"See here! Professional secret! Only, have you thought of the woman in +black who came occasionally to see the ex-Consul?" + +"Certainly." + +"Well, she must be made to come back--that woman in black. It is not an +easy thing to do. But I believe that I have ferreted her out. Yes, in +one of the provinces." + +"Where?" + +"Professional secret," repeated the reporter, laughing. + +"And if M. Ginory asks for your professional secret?" + +"I will answer him as I answer you. Read my paper! Read _Lutece_!" + +"But the Judge, to him"---- + +"Professional secret," said Paul Rodier for the third time. "But what a +romance it would make! The Woman in Black!" + +While listening, Bernardet had not lost sight of M. Dantin, who, in the +centre of one of the avenues, stood looking at the slowly moving crowd +of curiosity seekers. He seemed to be vainly searching for a familiar +face. He looked haggard. Whether it was grief or remorse, he certainly +showed violent emotion. The police officer divined that a sharp struggle +was taking place within that man's heart, and the sadness was great with +which he watched that crowd in order to discover some familiar face, but +he beheld only those of the curious. What Bernardet considered of the +greatest importance was not to lose sight of this person of whose +existence he was ignorant an hour before; and who, to him, was the +perpetrator of the deed or an accomplice. He followed Dantin at a +distance, who, from the cemetery at Montmartre went on foot directly to +the Rue de Richelieu, and stopped at the number he had given, 114. + +Bernardet allowed some minutes to pass after the man on whose track he +was had entered. Then he asked the concierge if M. Jacques Dantin was +at home. He questioned him closely and became convinced that M. +Rovere's friend had really lived there two years and had no profession. + +"Then," said the police agent, "it is not this Dantin for whom I am +looking. He is a banker." He excused himself, went out, hailed a fiacre, +and gave the order: "To the Prefecture." + +His report to the Chief, M. Morel, was soon made. He listened to him +with attention, for he had absolute confidence in the police officer. +"Never any _gaff_ with Bernardet," M. Morel was wont to say. He, like +Bernardet, soon felt convinced that this man was probably the murderer +of the ex-Consul. + +"As to the motive which led to the crime, we shall know it later." + +He wished, above everything else, to have strict inquiries made into +Dantin's past life, in regard to his present existence; and the +inquiries would be compared with his answers to the questions which M. +Ginory would ask him when he had been cited as a witness. + +"Go at once to M. Ginory's room, Bernardet," said the Chief. "During +this time I would learn a little about what kind of a man this is." + +Bernardet had only to cross some corridors and mount a few steps to +reach the gallery upon which M. Ginory's room opened. While waiting to +be admitted he passed up and down; seated on benches were a number of +malefactors, some of whom knew him well, who were waiting examination. +He was accustomed to see this sight daily, and without being moved, but +this time he was overcome by a sort of agony, a spasm which contracted +even his fingers and left his nerves in as quivering a state as does +insomnia. Truly, in the present case he was much more concerned than in +an ordinary manhunt. The officer experienced the fear which an inventor +feels before the perfection of a new discovery. He had undertaken a +formidable problem, apparently insoluble, and he desired to solve it. +Once or twice he took out from the pocket of his redingote an old worn +case and looked at the proofs of the retina which he had pasted on a +card. There could be no doubt. This figure, a little confused, had the +very look of the man who had bent over the grave. M. Ginory would be +struck by it when he had Jacques Dantin before him. Provided the +Examining Magistrate still had the desire which Bernardet had incited in +him, to push the matter to the end. Fortunately M. Ginory was very +curious. With this curiosity anything might happen. The time seemed +long. What if this Dantin, who spoke of leaving Paris, should disappear, +should escape the examination? What miserable little affair occupied M. +Ginory? Would he ever be at liberty? + +The door opened, a man in a blouse was led out; the registrar appeared +on the threshold and Bernardet asked if he could not see M. Ginory +immediately, as he had an important communication to make to him. + +"I will not detain him long," he said. + +Far from appearing annoyed, the Magistrate seemed delighted to see the +officer. He related to him all he knew, how he had seen the man at M. +Rovere's funeral. That Mme. Moniche had recognized him as the one whom +she had surprised standing with M. Rovere before the open safe. That he +had signed his name and took first rank in the funeral cortege, less by +reason of an old friendship which dated from childhood than by that +strange and impulsive sentiment which compels the guilty man to haunt +the scene of his crime, to remain near his victim, as if the murder, the +blood, the corpse, held for him a morbid fascination. + +"I shall soon know," said M. Ginory. He dictated to the registrar a +citation to appear before him, rang the bell and gave the order to serve +the notice on M. Dantin at the given address and to bring him to the +Palais. + +"Do not lose sight of him," he said to Bernardet, and began some other +examinations. Bernardet bowed and his eyes shone like those of a sleuth +hound on the scent of his prey. + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + +BETWEEN the examining Magistrate, who questioned, and the man cited to +appear before him, who replied, it was a duel; a close game, rapid and +tragic, in which each feint might make a mortal wound; in which each +parry and thrust might be decisive. No one in the world has the power of +the man who, in a word, can change to a prisoner the one who enters the +Palais as a passer-by. Behind this inquisitor of the law the prison +stands; the tribunal in its red robes appears; the beams of the scaffold +cast their sinister shadows, and the magistrate's cold chamber already +seems to have the lugubrious humidity of the dungeons where the +condemned await their fate. + +Jacques Dantin arrived at the Palais in answer to the Magistrate's +citation, with the apparent alacrity of a man who, regretting a friend +tragically put out of the world, wishes to aid in avenging him. He did +not hesitate a second, and Bernardet, who saw him enter the carriage, +was struck with the seeming eagerness and haste with which he responded +to the Magistrate's order. When M. Ginory was informed that Jacques +Dantin had arrived, he allowed an involuntary "Ah!" to escape him. This +ah! seemed to express the satisfaction of an impatient spectator when +the signal is given which announces that the curtain is about to be +raised. For the Examining Magistrate, the drama in which he was about to +unravel the mystery was to begin. He kept his eyes fixed upon the door, +attributing, correctly, a great importance to the first impression the +comer would make upon him as he entered the room. M. Ginory found that +he was much excited; this was to him a novel thing; but by exercising +his strong will he succeeded in mastering the emotion, and his face and +manner showed no trace of it. + +In the open door M. Jacques Dantin appeared. The first view, for the +Magistrate, was favorable. The man was tall, well built; he bowed with +grace and looked straight before him. But at the same time M. Ginory was +struck by the strange resemblance of this haughty face to that image +obtained by means of Bernardet's kodak. It seemed to him that this image +had the same stature, the same form as that man surrounded by the hazy +clouds. Upon a second examination it seemed to the Magistrate that the +face betrayed a restrained violence, a latent brutality. The eyes were +stern, under their bristling brows; the pointed beard, quite thin on the +cheeks, showed the heavy jaws, and under the gray mustache the under lip +protruded like those of certain Spanish cavaliers painted by Velasquez. + +"Prognathous," thought M. Ginory, as he noticed this characteristic. +With a gesture he motioned M. Dantin to a chair. The man was there +before the Judge who, with crossed hands, his elbows leaning on his +papers, seemed ready to talk of insignificant things, while the +registrar's bald head was bent over his black table as he rapidly took +notes. The interview took on a grave tone, but as between two men who, +meeting in a salon, speak of the morning or of the premiere of the +evening before, and M. Ginory asked M. Dantin for some information in +regard to M. Rovere. + +"Did you know him intimately?" + +"Yes, M. le Juge." + +"For how many years?" + +"For more than forty. We were comrades at a school in Bordeaux." + +"You are a Bordelais?" + +"Like Rovere, yes," Dantin replied. + +"Of late, have you seen M. Rovere frequently?" + +"I beg your pardon, M. le Juge, but what do you mean by of late?" + +M. Ginory believed that he had discovered in this question put by a man +who was himself being interrogated--a tactic--a means of finding before +replying, time for reflection. He was accustomed to these manoeuvres +of the accused. + +"When I say of late," he replied, "I mean during the past few weeks or +days which preceded the murder--if that suits you." + +"I saw him often, in fact, even oftener than formerly." + +"Why?" + +Jacques Dantin seemed to hesitate. "I do not know--chance. In Paris one +has intimate friends, one does not see them for some months; and +suddenly one sees them again, and one meets them more frequently." + +"Have you ever had any reason for the interruptions in your relations +with M. Rovere when you ceased to see him, as you say?" + +"None whatever." + +"Was there between you any sort of rivalry, any motive for coldness?" + +"Any motive--any rivalry. What do you mean?" + +"I do not know," said the great man; "I ask you. I am questioning you." + +The registrar's pen ran rapidly and noiselessly over the paper, with the +speed of a bird on the wing. + +These words, "I am questioning you," seemed to make an unexpected, +disagreeable impression on Dantin, and he frowned. + +"When did you visit Rovere the last time?" + +"The last time?" + +"Yes. Strive to remember." + +"Two or three days before the murder." + +"It was not two or three days; it was two days exactly before the +assassination." + +"You are right, I beg your pardon." + +The Examining Magistrate waited a moment, looking the man full in the +eyes. It seemed to him that a slight flush passed over his hitherto pale +face. + +"Do you suspect anyone as the murderer of Rovere?" asked M. Ginory after +a moment's reflection. + +"No one," said Dantin. "I have tried to think of some one." + +"Had Rovere any enemies?" + +"I do not know of any." + +The Magistrate swung around by a detour habitual with him to Jacques +Dantin's last visit to the murdered man, and begged him to be precise, +and asked him if anything had especially struck him during that last +interview with his friend. + +"The idea of suicide having been immediately dropped on the simple +examination of the wound, no doubt exists as to the cause of death. +Rovere was assassinated. By whom? In your last interview was there any +talk between you of any uneasiness which he felt in regard to anything? +Was he occupied with any especial affair? Had he--sometimes one has +presentiments--any presentiment of an impending evil, that he was +running any danger?" + +"No," Dantin replied. "Rovere made no allusion to me of any peril which +he feared. I have asked myself who could have any interest in his death. +One might have done the deed for plunder." + +"That seems very probable to me," said the Magistrate, "but the +examination made in the apartment proves that not a thing had been +touched. Theft was not the motive." + +"Then?" asked Dantin. + +The sanguine face of the Magistrate, that robust visage, with its +massive jaws, lighted up with a sort of ironical expression. + +"Then we are here to search for the truth and to find it." In this +response, made in a mocking tone, the registrar, who knew every varying +shade of tone in his Chief's voice, raised his head, for in this tone he +detected a menace. + +"Will you tell me all that passed in that last interview?" + +"Nothing whatever which could in any way put justice on the track of the +criminal." + +"But yet can you, or, rather, I should say, ought you not to relate to +me all that was said or done? The slightest circumstance might enlighten +us." + +"Rovere spoke to me of private affairs," Dantin replied, but quickly +added: "They were insignificant things." + +"What are insignificant things?" + +"Remembrances--family matters." + +"Family things are not insignificant, above all in a case like this. Had +Rovere any family? No relative assisted at the obsequies." + +Jacques Dantin seemed troubled, unnerved rather, and this time it was +plainly visible. He replied in a short tone, which was almost brusque: + +"He talked of the past." + +"What past?" asked the Judge, quickly. + +"Of his youth--of moral debts." + +M. Ginory turned around in his chair, leaned back, and said in a caustic +tone: "Truly, Monsieur, you certainly ought to complete your information +and not make an enigma of your deposition. I do not understand this +useless reticence, and moral debts, to use your words; they are only to +gain time. What, then, was M. Rovere's past?" + +Dantin hesitated a moment; not very long. Then he firmly said: "That, +Monsieur le Juge, is a secret confided to me by my friend, and as it has +nothing to do with this matter, I ask you to refrain from questioning me +about it." + +"I beg your pardon," the magistrate replied. "There is not, there cannot +be a secret for an Examining Magistrate. In Rovere's interests, whose +memory ought to have public vindication, yes, in his interests, and I +ought to say also in your own, it is necessary that you should state +explicitly what you have just alluded to. You tell me that there is a +secret. I wish to know it." + +"It is the confidence of a dead person, Monsieur," Dantin replied, in +vibrating tones. + +"There are no confidences when justice is in the balance." + +"But it is also the secret of a living person," said Jacques Dantin. + +"Is it of yourself of whom you speak?" + +He gazed keenly at the face, now tortured and contracted. + +Dantin replied: "No, I do not speak of myself, but of another." + +"That other--who is he?" + +"It is impossible to tell you." + +"Impossible?" + +"Absolutely impossible!" + +"I will repeat to you my first question--'Why?'" + +"Because I have sworn on my honor to reveal it to no one." + +"Ah, ah!" said Ginory, mockingly; "it was a vow? That is perfect!" + +"Yes, Monsieur le Juge; it was a vow." + +"A vow made to whom?" + +"To Rovere." + +"Who is no longer here to release you from it. I understand." + +"And," asked Dantin, with a vehemence which made the registrar's thin +hand tremble as it flew over the paper, "what do you understand?" + +"Pardon," said M. Ginory; "you are not here to put questions, but to +answer those which are asked you. It is certain that a vow which binds +the holder of a secret is a means of defence, but the accused have, by +making common use of it, rendered it useless." + +The Magistrate noticed the almost menacing frown with which Dantin +looked at him at the words, "the accused." + +"The accused?" said the man, turning in his chair. "Am I one of the +accused?" His voice was strident, almost strangled. + +"I do not know that," said M. Ginory, in a very calm tone; "I say that +you wish to keep your secret, and it is a claim which I do not admit." + +"I repeat, Monsieur le Juge, that the secret is not mine." + +"It is no longer a secret which can remain sacred here. A murder has +been committed, a murderer is to be found, and everything you know you +ought to reveal to justice." + +"But if I give you my word of honor that it has not the slightest +bearing on the matter--with the death of Rovere?" + +"I shall tell my registrar to write your very words in reply--he has +done it--I shall continue to question you, precisely because you speak +to me of a secret which has been confided to you and which you refuse to +disclose to me. Because you do refuse?" + +"Absolutely!" + +"In spite of what I have said to you? It is a warning; you know it +well!" + +"In spite of your warning!" + +"Take care!" M. Ginory softly said. His angry face had lost its wonted +amiability. The registrar quickly raised his head. He felt that a +decisive moment had come. The Examining Magistrate looked directly into +Dantin's eyes and slowly said: "You remember that you were seen by the +portress at the moment when Rovere, standing with you in front of his +open safe, showed you some valuables?" + +Dantin waited a moment before he replied, as if measuring these words, +and searching to find out just what M. Ginory was driving at. This +silence, short and momentous, was dramatic. The Magistrate knew it +well--that moment of agony when the question seems like a cord, like a +lasso suddenly thrown, and tightening around one's neck. There was +always, in his examination, a tragic moment. + +"I remember very well that I saw a person whom I did not know enter the +room where I was with M. Rovere," Jacques Dantin replied at last. + +"A person whom you did not know? You knew her very well, since you had +more than once asked her if M. Rovere was at home. That person is Mme. +Moniche, who has made her deposition." + +"And what did she say in her deposition?" + +The Magistrate took a paper from the table in front of him and read: +"When I entered, M. Rovere was standing before his safe, and I noticed +that the individual of whom I spoke (the individual is you) cast upon +the coupons a look which made me cold. I thought to myself: 'This man +looks as if he is meditating some bad deed.'" + +"That is to say," brusquely said Dantin, who had listened with frowning +brows and with an angry expression, "that Mme. Moniche accuses me of +having murdered M. Rovere!" + +"You are in too much haste. Mme. Moniche has not said that precisely. +She was only surprised--surprised and frightened--at your expression as +you looked at the deeds, bills and coupons." + +"Those coupons," asked Dantin rather anxiously, "have they, then, been +stolen?" + +"Ah, that we know nothing about," and the Magistrate smiled. + +"One has found in Rovere's safe in the neighborhood of 460,000 francs in +coupons, city of Paris bonds, shares in mining societies, rent rolls; +but nothing to prove that there was before the assassination more than +that sum." + +"Had it been forced open?" + +"No; but anyone familiar with the dead man, a friend who knew the secret +of the combination of the safe, the four letters forming the word, could +have opened it without trouble." + +Among these words Dantin heard one which struck him full in the +face--"friend." M. Ginory had pronounced it in an ordinary tone, but +Dantin had seized and read in it a menace. For a moment the man who was +being questioned felt a peculiar sensation. It seemed to him one day +when he had been almost drowned during a boating party that same agony +had seized him; it seemed that he had fallen into some abyss, some icy +pool, which was paralyzing him. Opposite to him the Examining Magistrate +experienced a contrary feeling. The caster of a hook and line feels a +similar sensation; but it was intensified a hundred times in the +Magistrate, a fisher of truth, throwing the line into a human sea, the +water polluted, red with blood and mixed with mud. + +A friend! A friend could have abused the dead man's secret and opened +that safe! And that friend--what name did he bear? Whom did M. Ginory +wish to designate? Dantin, in spite of his _sang froid_, experienced a +violent temptation to ask the man what he meant by those words. But the +strange sensation which this interview caused him increased. It seemed +to him that he had been there a long time--a very long time since he +had crossed that threshold--and that this little room, separated from +the world like a monk's cell, had walls thick enough to prevent any one +from hearing anything outside. He felt as if hypnotized by that man, who +at first had met him with a pleasant air, and who now bent upon him +those hard eyes. Something doubtful, like vague danger, surrounded him, +menaced him, and he mechanically followed the gesture which M. Ginory +made as he touched the ivory button of an electric bell, as if on this +gesture depended some event of his life. A guard entered. M. Ginory said +to him in a short tone: "Have the notes been brought?" + +"M. Bernardet has just brought them to me, Monsieur le Juge." + +"Give them to me!" He then added: "Is Monsieur Bernardet here?" + +"Yes, Monsieur le Juge." + +"Very well." + +Jacques Dantin remembered the little man with whom he had talked in the +journey from the house of death to the tomb, where he had heard some one +call "Bernardet." He did not know at the time, but the name had struck +him. Why did his presence seem of so much importance to this Examining +Magistrate? And he looked, in his turn, at M. Ginory, who, a little +near-sighted, was bending his head, with its sandy hair, its bald +forehead, on which the veins stood out like cords, over his notes, +which had been brought to him. Interesting notes--important, without +doubt--for, visibly satisfied, M. Ginory allowed a word or two to escape +him: "Good! Yes--Yes--Fine! Ah! Ah!--Very good!" Then suddenly Dantin +saw Ginory raise his head and look at him--as the saying is--in the +white of the eyes. He waited a moment before speaking, and suddenly put +this question, thrust at Dantin like a knife-blow: + +"Are you a gambler, as I find?" + +The question made Jacques Dantin fairly bound from his chair. A gambler! +Why did this man ask him if he was a gambler? What had his habits, his +customs, his vices even, to do with this cause for which he had been +cited, to do with Rovere's murder? + +"You are a gambler," continued the Examining Magistrate, casting from +time to time a keen glance toward his notes. "One of the inspectors of +gambling dens saw you lose at the Cercle des Publicistes 25,000 francs +in one night." + +"It is possible; the only important point is that I paid them!" The +response was short, crisp, showing a little irritation and stupefaction. + +"Assuredly," said the Judge. "But you have no fortune. You have recently +borrowed a considerable sum from the usurers in order to pay for some +losses at the Bourse." + +Dantin became very pale, his lips quivered, and his hands trembled. +These signs of emotion did not escape the eyes of M. Ginory nor the +registrar's. + +"Is it from your little notes that you have learned all that?" he +demanded. + +"Certainly," M. Ginory replied. "We have been seeking for some hours for +accurate information concerning you; started a sort of diary or rough +draught of your biography. You are fond of pleasure. You are seen, in +spite of your age--I pray you to pardon me, there is no malice in the +remark: I am older than you--everywhere where is found the famous +Tout-Paris which amuses itself. The easy life is the most difficult for +those who have no fortune. And, according to these notes--I refer to +them again--of fortune you have none." + +"That is to say," interrupted Dantin, brusquely, "it would be very +possible that, in order to obtain money for my needs, in order to steal +the funds in his iron safe, I would assassinate my friend?" + +M. Ginory did not allow himself to display any emotion at the insolent +tone of these words, which had burst forth, almost like a cry. He looked +Dantin full in the face, and with his hands crossed upon his notes, he +said: + +"Monsieur, in a matter of criminal investigation a Magistrate, eager for +the truth ought to admit that anything is possible, even probable, but +in this case I ought to recognize the fact that you have not helped me +in my task. A witness finds you tete-a-tete with the victim and +surprises your trouble at the moment when you are examining Rovere's +papers. I ask what it was that happened between you, you reply that that +is your secret, and for explanation you give me your word of honor that +it had nothing whatever to do with the murder. You would yourself think +that I was very foolish if I insisted any longer. True, there was no +trace of any violence in the apartment, whatever subtraction may have +been made from the safe. It appears that you are in a position to know +the combination; it appears, also, that you are certainly in need of +money; as clearly known as it is possible to learn in a hurried inquiry +such as has been made, while you have been here. I question you. I let +you know what you ought to know, and you fly into a passion. And note +well! it is you yourself, in your anger and your violence, who speaks +first the word of which I have not pronounced a syllable. It is you who +have jumped straight to a logical conclusion of the suppositions which +are still defective, without doubt, but are not the less suppositions; +yes, it is you who say that with a little logic one can certainly accuse +you of the murder of the one whom you called your friend." + +Each word brought to Dantin's face an angry or a frightened expression, +and the more slowly M. Ginory spoke, the more measured his words, +emphasizing his verbs, with a sort of professional habit, as a surgeon +touches a wound with a steel instrument, the questioned man, put through +a sharp cross-examination, experienced a frightful anger, a strong +internal struggle, which made the blood rush to his ears and ferocious +lightnings dart through his eyes. + +"It is easy, moreover," continued M. Ginory, in a paternal tone, "for +you to reduce to nothingness all these suppositions, and the smallest +expression in regard to the role which you played in your last interview +with Rovere would put everything right." + +"Ah! must we go back to that?" + +"Certainly, we must go back to that! The whole question lies there! You +come to an Examining Magistrate and tell him that there is a secret; you +speak of a third person, of recollections of youth, of moral debts--and +you are astonished that the Judge strives to wrest the truth from you?" + +"I have told it." + +"The whole truth?" + +"It has nothing to do with Rovere's murder, and it would injure some one +who knows nothing about it. I have told you so. I repeat it." + +"Yes," said M. Ginory, "you hold to your enigma! Oh, well, I, the +Magistrate, demand that you reveal the truth to me. I command you to +tell it." + +The registrar's pen ran over the paper and trembled as if it scented a +storm. The psychological moment approached. The registrar knew it +well--that moment--and the word which the Magistrate would soon +pronounce would be decisive. + +A sort of struggle began in Dantin's mind--one saw his face grow +haggard, his eyes change their expression. He looked at the papers upon +which M. Ginory laid his fat and hairy hands; those police notes _which +gossiped_, as peasants say, in speaking of papers or writing which they +cannot read and which denounce them. He asked himself what more would be +disclosed by those notes of the police agents of the scandals of the +club, of the neighbors, of the porters. He passed his hands over his +forehead as if to wipe off the perspiration or to ease away a headache. + +"Come, now, it is not very difficult, and I have the right to know," +said M. Ginory. After a moment Jacques Dantin said in a strong voice: "I +swear to you, Monsieur, that nothing Rovere said to me when I saw him +the last time could assist justice in any whatsoever, and I beg of you +not to question me further about it." + +"Will you answer?" + +"I cannot, Monsieur." + +"The more you hesitate the more reason you give me to think that the +communication would be grave." + +"Very grave, but it has nothing to do with your investigation." + +"It's not for you to outline the duties of my limits or my rights. Once +more, I order you to reply." + +"I cannot." + +"You will not." + +"I cannot," brusquely said the man run to earth, with accent of +violence. + +The duel was finished. + +M. Ginory began to laugh, or, rather, there was a nervous contraction of +his mouth, and his sanguine face wore a scoffing look, while a +mechanical movement of his massive jaws made him resemble a bulldog +about to bite. + +"Then," said he, "the situation is a very simple one and you force me to +come to the end of my task. You understand?" + +"Perfectly," said Jacques Dantin, with the impulsive anger of a man who +stumbles over an article which he has left there himself. + +"You still refuse to reply?" + +"I refuse. I came here as a witness. I have nothing to reproach myself +with, especially as I have nothing to fear. You must do whatever you +choose to do." + +"I can," said the Magistrate, "change a citation for appearance to a +citation for retention. I will ask you once more"---- + +"It is useless," interrupted Dantin. "An assassin. I! What folly! +Rovere's murderer! It seems as if I were dreaming! It is absurd, absurd, +absurd!" + +"Prove to me that it is absurd in truth. Do you not wish to reply?" + +"I have told you all I know." + +"But you have said nothing of what I have demanded of you." + +"It is not my secret." + +"Yes; there is your system. It is frequent, it is common. It is that of +all the accused." + +"Am I already accused?" asked Dantin, ironically. + +M. Ginory was silent a moment, then, slowly taking from the drawer of +his desk some paper upon which Dantin could discern no writing this +time, but some figures, engraved in black--he knew not what they +were--the Magistrate held them between his fingers so as to show them. +He swung them to and fro, and the papers rustled like dry leaves. He +seemed to attach great value to these papers, which the registrar looked +at from a corner of his eye, guessing that they were the photographic +proofs which had been taken. + +"I beg of you to examine these proofs," said the Magistrate to Dantin. +He held them out to him, and Dantin spread them on the table (there +were four of them), then he put on his eyeglasses in order to see +better. "What is that?" he asked. + +"Look carefully," replied the Magistrate. Dantin bent over the proofs, +examined them one by one, divined, rather than saw, in the picture which +was a little hazy, the portrait of a man; and upon close examination +began to see in the spectre a vague resemblance. + +"Do you not see that this picture bears a resemblance to you?" + +This time Dantin seemed the prey of some nightmare, and his eyes +searched M. Ginory's face with a sort of agony. The expression struck +Ginory. One would have said that a ghost had suddenly appeared to +Dantin. + +"You say that it resembles me?" + +"Yes. Look carefully! At first the portrait is vague; on closer +examination it comes out from the halo which surrounds it, and the +person who appears there bears your air, your features, your +characteristics"---- + +"It is possible," said Dantin. "It seems to resemble me; it seems as if +I were looking at myself in a pocket mirror. But what does that +signify?" + +"That signifies--Oh! I am going to astonish you. That signifies"--M. +Ginory turned toward his registrar: "You saw the other evening, Favarel, +the experiment in which Dr. Oudin showed us the heart and lungs +performing their functions in the thorax of a living man, made visible +by the Roentgen Rays. Well! This is not any more miraculous. These +photographs (he turned now toward Dantin) were taken of the retina of +the dead man's eye. They are the reflection, the reproduction of the +image implanted there, the picture of the last living being contemplated +in the agony; the last visual sensation which the unfortunate man +experienced. The retina has given to us--as a witness--the image of the +living person seen by the dead man for the last time!" + +A deep silence fell upon the three men in that little room, where one of +them alone, lost his foothold at this strange revelation. For the +Magistrate it was a decisive moment; when all had been said, when the +man having been questioned closely, jumps at the foregone conclusion. As +for the registrar, however blase he may have become by these daily +experiences, it was the decisive moment! the moment when, the line drawn +from the water, the fish is landed, writhing on the hook! + +Jacques Dantin, with an instinctive movement, had rejected, pushed back +on the table those photographs which burned his fingers like the cards +in which some fortune teller has deciphered the signs of death. + +"Well?" asked M. Ginory. + +"Well!" repeated Dantin in a strangled tone, either not comprehending or +comprehending too much, struggling as if under the oppression of a +nightmare. + +"How do you explain how your face, your shadow if you prefer, was found +reflected in Rovere's eyes, and that in his agony, this was probably +what he saw; yes, saw bending over him?" + +Dantin cast a frightened glance around the room, and asked himself if he +was not shut up in a maniac's cell; if the question was real; if the +voice he heard was not the voice of a dream! + +"How can I explain? but I cannot explain, I do not understand, I do not +know--it is madness, it is frightful, it is foolish!" + +"But yet," insisted M. Ginory, "this folly, as you call it, must have +some explanation." + +"What do you wish to have me say? I do not understand. I repeat, I do +not understand." + +"What if you do not, you cannot deny your presence in the house at the +moment of Rovere's death"---- + +"Why cannot I deny it?" Dantin interrupted. + +"Because the vision is there, hidden, hazy, in the retina; because this +photograph, in which you recognized yourself, denounces, points out, +your presence at the moment of the last agony." + +"I was not there! I swear that I was not there!" Dantin fervently +declared. + +"Then, explain," said the Magistrate. + +Dantin remained silent a moment, as if frightened. Then he stammered: "I +am dreaming!--I dreaming!" and M. Ginory replied in a calm tone: + +"Notice that I attribute no exaggerated importance to these proofs. It +is not on them alone that I base the accusation. But they constitute a +strange witness, very disquieting in its mute eloquence. They add to the +doubt which your desire for silence has awakened. You tell me that you +were not near Rovere when he died. These proofs, irrefutable as a fact, +seem to prove at once the contrary. Then, the day Rovere was +assassinated where were you?" + +"I do not know. At home, without doubt. I will have to think it over. At +what hour was Rovere killed?" + +M. Ginory made a gesture of ignorance and in a tone of raillery said: +"That! There are others who know it better than I." And Dantin, +irritated, looked at him. + +"Yes," went on the Magistrate, with mocking politeness, "the surgeons +who can tell the hour in which he was killed." He turned over his +papers. "The assassination was about an hour before midday. In Paris, in +broad daylight, at that hour, a murder was committed!" + +"At that hour," said Jacques Dantin, "I was just leaving home." + +"To go where?" + +"For a walk. I had a headache. I was going to walk in the Champs-Elysees +to cure it." + +"And did you, in your walk, meet any one whom you knew?" + +"No one." + +"Did you go into some shop?" + +"I did not." + +"In short, you have no _alibi_?" + +The word made Dantin again tremble. He felt the meshes of the net +closing around him. + +"An _alibi_! Ah that! Decidedly. Monsieur, you accuse me of +assassinating my friend," he violently said. + +"I do not accuse; I ask a question." And M. Ginory in a dry tone which +gradually became cutting and menacing said: "I question you, but I warn +you that the interview has taken a bad turn. You do not answer; you +pretend to keep secret I know not what information which concerns us. +You are not yet exactly accused. But--but--but--you are going to be"---- + +The Magistrate waited a moment as if to give the man time to reflect, +and he held his pen suspended, after dipping it in the ink, as an +auctioneer holds his ivory hammer before bringing it down to close a +sale. "I am going to drop the pen," it seemed to say. Dantin, very +angry, remained silent. His look of bravado seemed to say: "Do you +dare? If you dare, do it!" + +"You refuse to speak?" asked Ginory for the last time. + +"I refuse." + +"You have willed it! Do you persist in giving no explanation; do you +entrench yourself behind I know not what scruple or duty to honor; do +you keep to your systematic silence? For the last time, do you still +persist in this?" + +"I have nothing--nothing--nothing to tell you!" Dantin cried in a sort +of rage. + +"Oh, well! Jacques Dantin," and the Magistrate's voice was grave and +suddenly solemn. "You are from this moment arrested." The pen, uplifted +till this instant, fell upon the paper. It was an order for arrest. The +registrar looked at the man. Jacques Dantin did not move. His expression +seemed vague, the fixed expression of a person who dreams with wide-open +eyes. M. Ginory touched one of the electric buttons above his table and +pointed Dantin out to the guards, whose shakos suddenly darkened the +doorway. "Take away the prisoner," he said shortly and mechanically, +and, overcome, without revolt, Jacques Dantin allowed himself to be led +through the corridors of the Palais, saying nothing, comprehending +nothing, stumbling occasionally, like an intoxicated man or a +somnambulist. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + + +M. BERNARDET was triumphant. He went home to dinner in a jubilant mood. +His three little girls, dressed alike, clasped him round the neck, all +at the same time, while Mme. Bernardet, always fresh, smiling and gay, +held up her face with its soft, round, rosy cheeks to him. + +"My little ones," said the officer, "I believe that I have done well, +and that my chief will advance me or give me some acknowledgment. I will +buy you some bracelets, my dears, if that happens. But it is not the +idea of filthy lucre which has urged me on, and I believe that I have +certainly made a great stride in judiciary instruction, all owing to my +kodak. It would be too long an explanation and, perhaps, a perfectly +useless one. Let us go to dinner. I am as hungry as a wolf." + +He ate, truly, with a good appetite, scarcely stopped to tell how the +assassin was under lock and key. The man had been measured and had +become a number in the collection, always increasing, of accused persons +in the catalogue continued each day for the Museum of Crime. + +"Ah! He is not happy," said Bernardet between two spoonfuls of soup. +"Not happy, not happy at all! Not happy, and astonished--protesting, +moreover, his innocence, as they all do. It is customary." + +"But," sweetly asked good little Mme. Bernardet, "what if he is +innocent?" And the three little girls, raising their heads, looked at +their father, as if to repeat their mother's question. The eldest +murmured: "Yes, what if mamma is right?" + +Bernardet shrugged his shoulders. + +"To hear them, if one listened to them, one would believe them all +innocent, and the crimes would have to commit themselves. If this one is +innocent I shall be astonished, as if I should see snow fall in Paris in +June; he will have to prove that he is innocent. These things prove +themselves. Give me some more soup, Melanie." + +As Mme. Bernardet turned a ladleful of hot soup into her husband's plate +she softly asked: "Are there no innocent ones condemned? Do you never +deceive yourself?" Bernardet did not stop eating. "I cannot say--no one +is infallible, no one--the shrewdest deceive themselves; they are +sometimes duped. But it is rare, very rare. As well to say that it does +not happen--Lesurques, yes (and the three little girls opened wide their +large blue eyes as at a play), the Lesurques of the Courier de Lyon, who +has made you weep so many times at the theatre at Montmartre; one would +like to revise his trial to reinstate him, but no one has been able to +do it. I have studied his trial--by my faith, I swear, I would condemn +him still--ah! what good soup!" + +"But this one to-day?" asked Mme. Bernardet; "art thou certain? What is +his name?" + +"Dantin--Jacques Dantin. Oh! He is a gentleman. A very fine man, +elegant, indeed. Some Bohemian of the upper class, who evidently needed +money, and who--Rovere had some valuables in his safe. The occasion made +the thief--and there it is." + +"Papa," interrupted the eldest of the three little girls, "canst thou +take us to see the trial, when he shall be sworn?" + +"That depends! It is not easy! I will try--I will ask. If thou wilt work +hard--Oh, dame!" said Bernardet, "that will be a drama!" + +"I will work hard." + +At dessert, after he had taken his coffee, he allowed his three little +girls to dip lumps of sugar into his saucer. He threw himself into his +easy chair; he gave a sigh of satisfaction, like a man whose daily, +wearisome tasks are behind him, and who is catching a moment's repose. + +"Ah!" he said, opening a paper which his wife had placed on a table near +him, together with a little glass of cordial sent to them by some +cousins in Burgundy; "I am going to see what has happened and what those +good journalists have invented about the affair in the Boulevard de +Clichy. It is true, it is a steeplechase between the reporters and us. +Sometimes they win the race in the mornings. At other times, when they +know nothing--ah! Then they invent, they embroider their histories!" + +A petroleum lamp lighted the paper which Bernardet unfolded and began to +read. + +"Let us see what _Lutece_ says." + +He suddenly remembered what Paul Rodier had said to him. "Read my +journal!" This woman in black, found in the province, did she really +exist? Had the novelist written a romance in order to follow the example +of his friend? He looked over the paper to see if Paul Rodier had +collaborated, as his friend had. Bernardet skipped over the headlines +and glanced at the theatrical news. "Politics--they are all the same to +me--Ministerial crisis--nothing new about that. That could as well be +published in yesterday's paper as in to-day's! 'The Crime of the +Boulevard de Clichy'--ah! Good! Very good! We shall see." And he began +to read. Had Paul Rodier invented all the information to which he had +treated the public? What was certain was that the police officer frowned +and now gave strict attention to what he was reading, as if weighing the +reporter's words. + +Rodier had republished the biography of the ex-Consul. M. Rovere had +been mixed, in South America, in violent dramas. He was a romantic +person, about whom more than one adventure in Buenos Ayres was known. +The reporter had gained his information from an Argentine journal, the +_Prensa_, established in Paris, and whose editor, in South America, had +visited, intimately, the French Consul. The appearance of a woman in +black, those visits made on fixed dates, as on anniversaries, revealed +an intimacy, a relationship perhaps, of the murdered man with that +unknown woman. The woman was young, elegant and did not live in Paris. +Rodier had set himself to discover her retreat, her name; and perhaps, +thanks to her, to unravel the mystery which still enveloped the murder. + +"_Heuh!_ That is not very precise information," thought the police +officer. But it at least awoke Bernardet's curiosity and intelligence. +It solved no problem, but it put one. M. de Sartines's famous "_search +for the woman_" came naturally to Paul Rodier's pen. And he finished the +article with some details about Jacques Dantin, the intimate, the only +friend of Louis Pierre Rovere; and the reporter, when he had written +this, was still ignorant that Dantin was under arrest. + +"To-morrow," said Bernardet to himself, "he will give us Dantin's +biography. He tells me nothing new in his report. And yet"----He folded +up the paper and laid it on the table, and while sipping his cordial he +thought of that mysterious visitor--the woman in black--and told +himself that truly the trail must be there. He would see Moniche and his +wife again; he would question them; he would make a thorough search. + +"But what for? We have the guilty man. It is a hundred to one that the +assassin is behind bars. The woman might be an accomplice." + +Then Bernardet, filled with passion for his profession, rather than +vanity--this artist in a police sense; this lover of art for art's +sake--rubbed his hands and silently applauded himself because he had +insisted, and, as it were, compelled M. Ginory and the doctors to adopt +his idea. He, the humble, unknown sub-officer, standing back and simply +striving to do his duty, had influenced distinguished persons as +powerful as magistrates and members of the Academy. They had obeyed his +suggestion. The little Bernardet felt that he had done a glorious deed. +He had experienced a strong conviction, which would not be denied. He +had proved that what had been considered only a chimera was a reality. +He had accomplished a seeming impossibility. He had evoked the dead +man's secret even from the tomb. + +"And M. Ginory thinks that it will not help his candidature at the +Academy? He will wear the green robe, and he will owe it to me. There +are others who owe me something, too." + +With his faculty for believing in his dreams, of seeing his visions +appear, realized and living--a faculty which, in such a man, seemed like +the strange hallucination of a poet--Bernardet did not doubt for a +moment the reality of this phantom which had appeared in the retina of +the eye. It was nothing more, that eye removed by the surgeon's scalpel, +than an avenging mirror. It accused, it overwhelmed! Jacques Dantin was +found there in all the atrocity of his crime. + +"When I think, when I think that they did not wish to try the +experiment. It is made now!" thought Bernardet. + +M. Ginory had strongly recommended that all that part of the examination +should not be made public. Absolute silence was necessary. If the press +could have obtained the slightest information, every detail of the +experiment would have become public property, and the account would have +been embellished and made as fantastic as possible. This would have been +a deep mine for Edgar A. Poe, who would have worked that lode well and +made the Parisians shudder. How the ink would have been mixed with +Rovere's blood! It was well understood that if the suspected man would +in the end confess his guilt, the result of the singular scientifically +incredible experiment should be made known. But until then absolute +silence. Every thing which had been said and done around the dissecting +table at the Morgue, or in the Examining Magistrate's room, would +remain a secret. + +But would Dantin confess? + +The next day after M. Ginory had put him under arrest Bernardet had gone +to the Palais for news. He wished to consult his chief about the "Woman +in Black," to ask him what he thought of the article which had been +published in the paper by Paul Rodier. M. Leriche attached no great +importance to it. + +"A reporter's information. Very vague. There is always a woman, +_parbleu!_ in the life of every man. But did this one know Dantin? She +seems to me simply an old, abandoned friend, and who came occasionally +to ask aid of the old boy"---- + +"The woman noticed by Moniche is young," said Bernardet. + +"Abandoned friends are often young," M. Leriche replied, visibly +enchanted with his observation. + +As for Dantin, he still maintained his obstinate silence. He persisted +in finding iniquitous an arrest for which there was no motive, and he +kept the haughty, almost provoking attitude of those whom the Chief +called the greatest culprits. + +"Murderers in redingotes believe that they have sprung from Jupiter's +thigh, and will not admit that any one should be arrested except those +who wear smocks and peaked hats. They believe in an aristocracy and its +privileges, and threaten to have us removed--you know that very well, +Bernardet. Then, as time passes, they become, in a measure, calm and +meek as little lambs; then they whimper and confess. Dantin will do as +all the others have done. For the moment he howls about his innocence, +and will threaten us, you will see, with a summons from the Chamber. +That is of no importance." + +The Chief then gave the officer some instructions. He need not trouble +himself any more, just now, about the Dantin affair, but attend to +another matter of less importance--a trivial affair. After the murder +and his experiences at the Morgue this matter seemed a low one to +Bernardet. But each duty has its antithesis. The police officer put into +this petty affair of a theft the same zeal, the same sharp attention +with which he had investigated the crime of the Boulevard de Clichy. It +was his profession. + +Bernardet started out on his quest. It was near the Halles (markets) +that he had to work this time. The suspected man was probably one of the +rascals who prowl about day and night, living on adventures, and without +any home; sleeping under the bridges, or in one of the hovels on the +outskirts of the Rue de Venise, where vice, distress and crime +flourished. Bernardet first questioned the owner of the stolen property, +obtained all the information which he could about the suspected man, +and, with his keen scent for a criminal aroused, he glanced at +everything--men, things, objects that would have escaped a less +practised eye. He was walking slowly along toward the Permanence, +looking keenly at the passers-by, the articles in the shops, the various +movements in the streets, to see if he could get a hint upon which to +work. + +It was his habit to thus make use of his walks. In a promenade he had +more than once met a client, past or future. The boys fled before his +piercing eyes; before this fat, jolly little man with the mocking smile +which showed under his red mustache. This fright which he inspired made +him laugh inwardly. He knew that he was respected, that he was feared. +Among all these passers-by who jostled him, without knowing that he was +watching them, he was a power, an unknown but sovereign power. He walked +along with short, quick steps and watchful eyes, very much preoccupied +with this affair, thinking of the worthless person for whom he was +seeking, but he stopped occasionally to look at the wares spread out in +some bric-a-brac shop or in some book store window. This also was his +habit and his method. He ran his eye over the illustrated papers lying +in a row in front; over the Socialistic placards, the song books. He +kept himself _au courant_ with everything which was thought, seen, +proclaimed and sung. + +"When one governs," thought Bernardet, "one ought to have the habit of +going afoot in the street. One can learn nothing from the depths of a +coupe, driven by a coachman wearing a tri-colored cockade." He was going +to the Prefecture, the Permanence, when in the Rue des Bons-Enfants he +was instinctively attracted to a shop window where rusty old arms, +tattered uniforms, worn shakos, garments without value, smoky pictures, +yellowed engravings and chance ornaments, rare old copies of books, old +romances, ancient books, with eaten bindings, a mass of dissimilar +objects--lost keys, belt buckles, abolished medals, battered sous--were +mixed together in an oblong space as in a sort of trough. On either side +of this shop window hung some soiled uniforms, a Zouave's vest, an +Academician's old habit, lugubrious with its embroideries of green, a +soiled costume which had been worn by some Pierrot at the Carnival. It +was, in all its sad irony, the vulgar "hand-me-down that!" which makes +one think of that other Morgue where the clothing has been rejected by +the living or abandoned by the dead. + +Bernardet was neither of a melancholy temperament nor a dreamer, and he +did not give much time to the tearful side of the question, but he was +possessed of a ravenous curiosity, and the sight, however frequent, of +that shop window always attracted him. With, moreover, that sort of +magnetism which the searchers, great or small, intuitively feel--a +collector of knick-knacks, discoverers of unknown countries, book worms +bent over the volumes at four sous apiece, or chemists crouched over a +retort--Bernardet had been suddenly attracted by a portrait exposed as +an object rarer than the others, in the midst of this detritus of +abandoned luxury or of past military glory. + +Yes, among the tobacco boxes, the belt buckles, the Turkish poniards, +watches with broken cases, commonplace Japanese ornaments, a painting, +oval in form, lay there--a sort of large medallion without a frame, and +at first sight, by a singular attraction, it drew and held the attention +of the police officer. + +"Ah!" said Bernardet out loud, "but this is singular." + +He leaned forward until his nose touched the cold glass, and peered +fixedly at the picture. This painting, as large as one's hand, was the +portrait of a man, and Bernardet fully believed at the first look he +recognized the person whom the painter had reproduced. + +As his shadow fell across the window Bernardet could not distinctly see +the painting, for it was not directly in the front line of articles +displayed, and he stepped to one side to see if he could get a better +view. Assuredly, there could be no doubt, the oval painting was +certainly the portrait of Jacques Dantin, now accused of a crime. There +was the same high forehead, the pointed beard, of the same color; the +black redingote, tightly buttoned up and edged at the neck with the +narrow line of a white linen collar, giving, in resembling a doublet, to +this painting, the air of a trooper, of a swordsman, of a Guisard (a +partisan of the Duke of Guise), of the time of Clouet. + +Something of a connoisseur in painting, without doubt, in his quality of +amateur photographer, much accustomed to criticise a portrait if it was +not a perfect likeness, Bernardet found in this picture a startling +resemblance to Jacques Dantin; it was the very man himself! He appeared +there, his thin face standing out from its greenish-black sombre +background; the poise of the head displayed the same vigor as in the +original; the clear-cut features looked energetic, and the skin had the +same pallor which was characteristic of Dantin's complexion. This head, +admirably painted, displayed an astonishing lifelike intensity. It had +been done by a master hand, no doubt of that. And although in this +portrait Jacques Dantin looked somewhat younger--for instance, the hair +and pointed beard showed no silvery streaks in them--the resemblance was +so marvelous that Bernardet immediately exclaimed: "It is he!" + +And most certainly it was Jacques Dantin himself. The more the officer +examined it, the more convinced he became that this was a portrait of +the man whom he had accompanied to the cemetery and to prison. But how +could this picture have come into this bric-a-brac shop, and of whom +could the dealer have obtained it? A reply to this would probably not be +very difficult to obtain, and the police officer pushed back the door +and found himself in the presence of a very large woman, with a pale, +puffy face, which was surrounded by a lace cap. Her huge body was +enveloped in a knitted woollen shawl. She wore spectacles. + +Bernardet, without stopping to salute her, pointed out the portrait and +asked to see it. When he held it in his hands he found the resemblance +still more startling. It was certainly Jacques Dantin! The painting was +signed "P. B., Bordeaux, 1871." It was oval in shape; the frame was +gone; the edge was marked, scratched, marred, as if the frame had been +roughly torn from the picture. + +"Have you had this portrait a long time?" he asked of the shop woman. + +"I put it in the window to-day for the first time," the huge woman +answered. "Oh, it is a choice bit. It was painted by a wicked one." + +"Who brought it here?" + +"Some one who wished to sell it. A passer-by. If it would interest you +to know his name"---- + +"Yes, certainly, it would interest me to know it," Bernardet replied. + +The shop woman looked at Bernardet defiantly and asked this question: + +"Do you know the man whose portrait that is?" + +"No. I do not know him. But this resembles one of my relatives. It +pleases me. How much is it?" + +"A hundred francs," said the big woman. + +Bernardet suppressed at the same time a sudden start and a smile. + +"A hundred francs! _Diable!_ how fast you go. It is worth sous rather +than francs." + +"That!" cried the woman, very indignant. "That? But look at this +material, this background. It is famous, I tell you--I took it to an +expert. At the public sale it might, perhaps, bring a thousand francs. +My idea is that it is the picture of some renowned person. An actor or a +former Minister. In fact, some historic person." + +"But one must take one's chance," Bernardet replied in a jeering tone. +"But one hundred francs is one hundred francs. Too much for me. Who sold +you the painting?" + +The woman went around behind the counter and opened a drawer, from which +she took a note book, in which she kept a daily record of her sales. She +turned over the leaves. + +"November 12, a small oval painting bought"--She readjusted her +spectacles as if to better decipher the name. + +"I did not write the name myself; the man wrote it himself." She spelled +out: + +"Charles--Charles Breton--Rue de la Condamine, 16"---- + +"Charles Breton," Bernardet repeated; "who is this Charles Breton? I +would like to know if he painted this portrait, which seems like a +family portrait and has come to sell it"---- + +"You know," interrupted the woman, "that that often happens. It is +business. One buys or one sells all in good time." + +"And this Breton; how old was he?" + +"Oh, young. About thirty years old. Very good looking. Dark, with a full +beard." + +"Did anything about him especially strike you?" + +"Nothing!" The woman shortly replied; she had become tired of these +questions and looked at the little man with a troubled glance. + +Bernardet readily understood; and assuming a paternal, a beaming air, he +said with his sweet smile: + +"I will not _fence_ any more; I will tell you the truth. I am a Police +Inspector, and I find that this portrait strangely resembles a man whom +we have under lock and key. You understand that it is very important I +should know all that is to be ascertained about this picture." + +"But I have told you all I know, Monsieur," said the shopkeeper. +"Charles Breton, Rue de la Condamine, 16; that is the name and address. +I paid 20 francs for it. There is the receipt--read it, I beg. It is all +right. We keep a good shop. Never have we, my late husband and I, been +mixed with anything unlawful. Sometimes the bric-a-brac is soiled, but +our hands and consciences have always been clean. Ask any one along the +street about the Widow Colard. I owe no one and every one esteems +me"---- + +The Widow Colard would have gone on indefinitely if Bernardet had not +stopped her. She had, at first mention of the police, suddenly turned +pale, but now she was very red, and her anger displayed itself in a +torrent of words. He stemmed the flood of verbs. + +"I do not accuse you, Mme. Colard, and I have said only what I wished to +say. I passed by chance your shop; I saw in the window a portrait which +resembled some one I knew. I ask you the price and I question you about +its advent into your shop. There is nothing there which concerns you +personally. I do not suspect you of receiving stolen goods; I do not +doubt your good faith. I repeat my question. How much do you want for +this picture?" + +"Twenty francs, if you please. That is what it cost me. I do not wish to +have it draw me into anything troublesome. Take it for nothing, if that +pleases you." + +"Not at all! I intend to pay you. Of what are you thinking, Mme. +Colard?" + +The shopwoman had, like all people of a certain class, a horror of the +police. The presence of a police inspector in her house seemed at once a +dishonor and a menace. She felt herself vaguely under suspicion, and she +felt an impulse to shout aloud her innocence. + +Always smiling, the good man, with a gesture like that of a prelate +blessing his people, endeavored to reassure her, to calm her. But he +could do nothing with her. She would not be appeased. In the long run +this was perhaps as well, for she unconsciously, without any intention +of aiding justice, put some clews into Bernardet's hands which finally +aided him in tracing the man. + +Mme. Colard still rebelled. Did they think she was a spy, an informer? +She had never--no, never--played such a part. She did not know the young +man. She had bought the picture as she bought any number of things. + +"And what if they should cut off his head because he had confidence in +entering my shop--I should never forgive myself, never!" + +"It is not going to bring Charles Breton to the scaffold. Not at all, +not at all. It is only to find out who he is, and of whom he obtained +this portrait. Once more--did nothing in his face strike you?" + +"Nothing!" Mme. Colard responded. + +She reflected a moment. + +"Ah! yes; perhaps. The shape of his hat. A felt hat with wide brim, +something like those worn in South America or Kareros. You know, the +kind they call sombrero. The only thing I said to myself was, 'This is +probably some returned traveler,' and if I had not seen at the bottom of +the picture, Bordeaux, I should have thought that this might be the +portrait of some Spaniard, some Peruvian." + +Bernardet looked straight into Mme. Colard's spectacles and listened +intently, and he suddenly remembered what Moniche had said of the odd +appearance of the man who had, like the woman in black, called on M. +Rovere. + +"Some accomplice!" thought Bernardet. + +He again asked Mme. Colard the price of the picture. + +"Anything you please," said the woman, still frightened. Bernardet +smiled. + +"Come! come! What do you want for it? Fifty francs, eh? Fifty?" + +"Away with your fifty francs! I place it at your disposal for nothing, +if you need it." + +Bernardet paid the sum he had named. He had always exactly, as if by +principle, a fifty-franc note in his pocketbook. Very little money; a +few white pieces, but always this note in reserve. One could never tell +what might hinder him in his researches. He paid, then, this note, +adding that in all probability Mme. Colard would soon be cited before +the Examining Magistrate to tell him about this Charles Breton. + +"I cannot say anything else, for I do not know anything else," said the +huge widow, whose breast heaved with emotion. + +She wrapped up the picture in a piece of silk paper, then in a piece of +newspaper, which chanced to be the very one in which Paul Rodier had +published his famous article on "The Crime of the Boulevard de Clichy." +Bernardet left enchanted with his "find," and repeated over and over to +himself: "It is very precious! It is a tid-bit!" + +Should he keep on toward the Prefecture to show this "find" to his +Chief, or should he go at once to hunt up Charles Breton at the address +he had given? + +Bernardet hesitated a moment, then he said to himself that, in a case +like this, moments were precious; an hour lost was time wasted, and that +as the address which Breton had given was not far away, he would go +there first. "Rue de la Condamine, 16," that was only a short walk to +such a tramper as he was. He had good feet, a sharp eye and sturdy legs; +he would soon be at the Batignolles. He had taken some famous tramps in +his time, notably one night when he had scoured Paris in pursuit of a +malefactor. This, he admitted, had wearied him a little; but this walk +from the Avenue des Bons-Enfants to the Rue de la Condamine was but a +spurt. Would he find that a false name and a false address had been +given? This was but the infancy of art. If, however, he found that this +Charles Breton really did live at that address and that he had given his +true name, it would probably be a very simple matter to obtain all the +information he desired of Jacques Dantin. + +"What do I risk? A short walk," thought Bernardet, "a little +fatigue--that can be charged up to Profit and Loss." + +He hurried toward the street and number given. It was a large house, +several stories high. The concierge was sweeping the stairs, having left +a card bearing this inscription tacked on the front door. "The porter is +on the staircase." Bernardet hastened up the stairs, found the man and +questioned him. There was no Charles Breton in the house; there never +had been. The man who sold the portrait had given a false name and +address. Vainly did the police officer describe the individual who had +visited Mme. Colard's shop. The man insisted that he had never seen any +one who in the least resembled this toreador in the big felt hat. It was +useless to insist! Mme. Colard had been deceived. And now, how to find, +in this immense city of Paris, this bird of passage, who had chanced to +enter the bric-a-brac shop. The old adage of "the needle in the +haystack" came to Bernardet's mind and greatly irritated him. But, after +all, there had been others whom he looked for; there had been others +whom he had found, and probably he might still be able to find another +trail. He had a collaborator who seldom failed him--Chance! It was +destiny which often aided him. + +Bernardet took an omnibus in his haste to return to his Chief. He was +anxious to show his "find" to M. Leriche. When he reached the Prefecture +he was immediately received. He unwrapped the portrait and showed it to +M. Leriche. + +"But that is Dantin!" cried the Chief. + +"Is it not?" + +"Without doubt! Dantin when younger, but assuredly Dantin! And where did +you dig this up?" + +Bernardet related his conversation with Mme. Colard and his fruitless +visit to the Rue de la Condamine. + +"Oh, never mind," said M. Leriche. "This discovery is something. The man +who sold this picture and Dantin are accomplices. Bravo, Bernardet! We +must let M. Ginory know." + +The Examining Magistrate was, like the Chief and Bernardet, struck with +the resemblance of the portrait to Dantin. His first move would be to +question the prisoner about the picture. He would go at once to Mazas. +M. Leriche and Bernardet should accompany him. The presence of the +police spy might be useful, even necessary. + +The Magistrate and the Chief entered a fiacre, while Bernardet mounted +beside the driver. Bernardet said nothing, although the man tried to +obtain some information from him. After one or two monosyllabic answers, +the driver mockingly asked: + +"Are you going to the Souriciere (trap) to tease some fat rat?" + +M. Ginory and M. Leriche talked together of the _Walkyrie_, of Bayreuth; +and the Chief asked, through politeness, for news about his candidature +to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. + +"Do not let us talk of the Institute," the Magistrate replied. "It is +like the beginning of a hunt; to sigh for the prize that brings +unhappiness." + +The sombre pile, the Mazas, opened its doors to the three men. They +traversed the long corridors, with the heavy air which pervaded them in +spite of all efforts to the contrary, to a small room, sparsely +furnished (a table, a few chairs, a glass bookcase), which served as an +office for the Examining Magistrates when they had to hold any +interviews with the prisoners. + +The guardian-in-chief walked along with M. Ginory, M. Leriche followed +them, and Bernardet respectfully brought up the rear. + +"Bring in Jacques Dantin!" M. Ginory ordered. He seated himself at the +table. M. Leriche took a chair at one side, and Bernardet stood near the +little bookcase, next the only window in the room. + +Jacques Dantin soon appeared, led in by two guards in uniform. He was +very pale, but still retained his haughty air and his defiant attitude. +The Magistrate saluted him with a slight movement of the head, and +Dantin bowed, recognizing in Bernardet the man with whom he had walked +and conversed behind Rovere's funeral car. + +"Be seated, Dantin," M. Ginory said, "and explain to me, I beg, all you +know about this portrait. You ought to recognize it." + +He quickly held the picture before Dantin's eyes, wishing to scrutinize +his face to see what sudden emotion it would display. Seeing the +portrait, Dantin shivered and said in a short tone: "It is a picture +which I gave to Rovere." + +"Ah!" said M. Ginory, "you recognize it then?" + +"It is my portrait," Jacques Dantin declared. "It was made a long time +ago. Rovere kept it in his salon. How did it come here?" + +"Ah!" again said the Magistrate. "Explain that to me!" + +M. Ginory seemed to wish to be a little ironical. But Dantin roughly +said: + +"M. le Juge, I have nothing to explain to you. I understand nothing, I +know nothing. Or, rather, I know that in your error--an error which you +will bitterly regret some day or other, I am sure--you have arrested me, +shut me up in Mazas; but that which I can assure you of is, that I have +had nothing, do you hear, nothing whatever to do with the murder of my +friend, and I protest with all my powers against your processes." + +"I comprehend that!" M. Ginory coldly replied. "Oh! I understand all the +disagreeableness of being shut up within four walls. But then, it is +very simple! In order to go out, one has only to give to the one who has +a right to know the explanations which are asked. Do you still persist +in your system? Do you still insist on keeping, I know not what secret, +which you will not reveal to us?" + +"I shall keep it, Monsieur, I have reflected," said Dantin. "Yes, I have +reflected, and in the solitude to which you have forced me I have +examined my conscience." He spoke with firmness, less violently than at +the Palais de Justice, and Bernardet's penetrating little eyes never +left his face; neither did the Magistrate's, nor the Chief's. + +"I am persuaded," Dantin continued, "that this miserable mistake cannot +last long, and you will recognize the truth. I shall go out, at least +from here, without having abused a confidence which one has placed in +me and which I intend to preserve." + +"Yes," said M. Ginory, "perfectly, I know your system. You will hold to +it. It is well. Now, whose portrait is that?" + +"It is mine!" + +"By whom do you think it was possible that it could have been sold in +the bric-a-brac shop where it was found." + +"I know nothing about it. Probably by the one who found it or stole it +from M. Rovere's apartment, and who is probably, without the least +doubt, his assassin." + +"That seems very simple to you?" + +"It seems very logical." + +"Suppose that this should be the exact truth, that does not detract from +the presumption which implicates you, and from Mme. Moniche's +deposition, which charges you"---- + +"Yes, yes, I know. The open safe, the papers spread out, the tete-a-tete +with Rovere, when the concierge entered the room--that signifies +nothing!" + +"For you, perhaps! For Justice it has a tragic signification. But let us +return to the portrait. It was you, I suppose, who gave it to Rovere?" + +"Yes, it was I," Dantin responded. "Rovere was an amateur in art, +moreover, my intimate friend. I had no family, I had an old friend, a +companion of my youth, whom I thought would highly prize that painting. +It is a fine one--it is by Paul Baudry." + +"Ah!" said M. Ginory. "P. B. Those are Baudry's initials?" + +"Certainly. After the war--when I had done my duty like others, I say +this without any intention of defending myself--Paul Baudry was at +Bordeaux. He was painting some portraits on panels, after +Holbein--Edmond About's among others. He made mine. It is this one which +I gave Rovere--the one you hold in your hands." + +The Magistrate looked at the small oval painting and M. Leriche put on +his eyeglasses to examine the quality of the painting. A Baudry! + +"What are these scratches around the edge as if nails had been drawn +across the places?" M. Ginory asked. He held out the portrait to Dantin. + +"I do not know. Probably where the frame was taken off." + +"No, no! They are rough marks; I can see that. The picture has been +literally torn from the frame. You ought to know how this panel was +framed." + +"Very simply when I gave it to Rovere. A narrow gilt frame, nothing +more." + +"Had Rovere changed the frame?" + +"I do not know. I do not remember. When I was at his apartment the last +few times I do not remember to have seen the Baudry. I have thought of +it, but I have no recollection of it." + +"Then you cannot furnish any information about the man who sold this +portrait?" + +"None whatever!" + +"We might bring you face to face with that woman." + +"So be it! She certainly would not recognize me." + +"In any case, she will tell us about the man who brought the portrait to +her." + +"She might describe him to me accurately, and even paint him for me," +said Dantin quickly. "She can neither insinuate that I know him nor +prove to you that I am his accomplice. I do not know who he is nor from +where he comes. I was even ignorant of his existence myself a quarter of +an hour ago." + +"I have only to remand you to your cell," said the Magistrate. "We will +hunt for the other man." + +Dantin, in his turn, said in an ironical tone: "And you will do well!" + +M. Ginory made a sign. The guards led out their prisoner. Then, looking +at the Chief, while Bernardet still remained standing like a soldier +near the window, the Magistrate said: + +"Until there are new developments, Dantin will say nothing. We must look +for the man in the sombrero." + +"Necessarily!" said M. Leriche. + +"The needle! The needle! And the hay stack!" thought Bernardet. + +The Chief, smiling, turned toward him. "That belongs to you, Bernardet." + +"I know it well," said the little man, "but it is not easy. Oh! It is +not easy at all." + +"Bah! you have unearthed more difficult things than that. Do it up +brown! There is only one clew--the hat"---- + +"They are not uncommon, those hats, Monsieur Leriche--they are not very +bad hats. But yet it is a clew--if we live, we shall see." + +He stood motionless between the bookcase and the window, like a soldier +carrying arms, while M. Ginory, shaking his head, said to the chief: +"And this Dantin, what impression did he make on you?" + +"He is a little crack-brained!" replied the Chief. + +"Certainly! But guilty--you believe him guilty?" + +"Without doubt!" + +"Would you condemn him?" he quickly asked as he gazed searchingly at the +Chief. M. Leriche hesitated. + +"Would you condemn him?" M. Ginory repeated, insistently. + +The Chief still hesitated a moment, glanced toward the impassive +Bernardet without being able to read his face, and he said: + +"I do not know." + + + + + CHAPTER XIII. + + +"I DO not know," thought Bernardet as he returned home. "What one knows +very well indeed, what one cannot deny, oh, that would be impossible! is +that on the retina of the dead man's eye, reflected there at the supreme +moment of the agony, is found the image of this Dantin, his face, his +features; this man, in a word, denounced by this witness which is worth +all other witnesses in the world! This assassinated man cast a last look +upon his murderer as he called for aid; a last cry for 'Help!' in the +death rattle!--and this man says: 'I do not know!' But the dead man +knew; and the kodak knows, also. It has no passion, no anger, no hate, +because it registers what passes; fixes that which is fleeting!" + +Bernardet was obstinate in his conviction. He was perfectly rooted in +it. What if he had not persisted in believing that photography would +reveal the truth? What weighty reason, what even acceptable one was +there which obliged Dantin to retain silent in the presence of the +Examining Magistrate and his registrar--in the secret interview of an +examination--when in order to escape a prison, an accusation, he had +only to speak two words? But if Dantin said nothing, was it because he +had nothing to say? If he had given no explanation, was it because he +had none to give? An innocent man does not remain silent. If at the +instant when M. Ginory pressed the ivory button the other day, if the +man had been able to defend himself, would he not have done it? One knew +the secret reason of criminals for keeping silent. Their best reason is +their guilt. + +Only, it seemed now certain that Dantin, although guilty, had an +accomplice. Yes, without doubt, the man with the sombrero, the seller of +the portrait. Where could he now be in hiding? + +"Not easy," Bernardet repeated the words: "Not easy; no, not easy at all +to run him out of his rabbit hutch." + +The Woman in Black, the visitor, would be another important clue. On +this side the situation seemed a simple one. Or was this woman also an +accomplice, and would she remain silent, hidden in the Province? Or +would the death of Rovere draw her to Paris, where she might be +recognized and become a witness for Justice? + +But the days passed. What was called the mystery of the Boulevard de +Clichy continued to interest and excite the public. Violent and +perplexing Parliamentary discussions could not distract attention from a +crime committed in broad daylight, almost as one might say, in the +street, and which made one doubt the security of the city, the +efficiency of the police. The fall of a Ministry, predicted each morning +and anticipated in advance, could not thrust aside morbid interest in +this murder. The death of the ex-Consul was a grand actuality! + +Jacques Dantin thus became a dramatic personage; the reporters created +legends about him; some declared him guilty and brought up in support of +their conviction some anecdotes, some tales from the clubs, given as +proofs; others asked if the suppositions were sufficiently well based to +accuse a man in advance of trial, and these latter ardently took up his +defense. Paul Rodier had even, with much dexterity and eloquence, +diplomatically written two articles, one on either side of the question. + +"It is," he said to himself, "the sure way of having told the truth on +one side or the other." + +Bernardet did not renounce for an instant the hope of finding the man +who had sold the picture. It was not the first time that he had picked +the needle from a cartful of hay. Paris is large, but this human sea has +its particular currents, as the ocean has special tides, and the police +officer knew it well. Here or there, some day he would meet the man, +cast up by the torrent like a waif. + +First of all, the man was probably a stranger from some foreign land. +Wearing a hat like a Spaniard, he had not had time to change the style +of dress of the country from which he had come in search of adventures. +Bernardet haunted the hotels, searched the registers, made conversation +with the lodgers. He found poor persons who had come from foreign +countries, but whose motives for coming to Paris were all right. +Bernardet never stopped searching a moment; he went everywhere, curious +and prying--and it pleased him, when he found a leisure evening, to go +to some of the strange wine shops or ale houses (called cabarets) to +find subjects for observation. These cabarets are very numerous on the +outskirts of Montmartre, in the streets and boulevards at the foot of +the Butte. Bizarre inventions, original and disagreeable creations, +where the ingenuity of the enterprisers sometimes made them hideous in +order to attract; to cater to the idle, and to hold the loungers from +among the higher classes. Cabarets born of the need for novelty, which +might stimulate the blase; the demand for something eccentric almost to +morbid irony. A _Danse Macabre_ trod to the measures of an operetta; +pleasantries of the bunglers adopting the cure-alls of the saw-bones, +and juggling with their empty heads while dreaming the dreams of a +Hamlet. + +Cabaret du Squelette! + +The announcement of the droll promises--apparitions, visions, +phantoms--had often made him smile when he passed near there to go to +the Prefecture; this wineshop, the front of which was bordered with +black, like a letter announcing a death, and which bore, grating as it +swung at the end of an iron rod, a red lantern for a sign. + +His little girls, when he laughingly spoke of the cabaret where the +waiters were dressed like undertakers' assistants, turned pale, and +plump little Mme. Bernardet, ordinarily smiling, would say with a sigh: +"Is it possible that such sacrilegious things are permitted in the +quarter?" + +Bernardet good-naturedly replied: "Ah, my dear, where is the harm?" + +"I know what I am talking about," his good wife said; "they are the +pleasure of the unhealthy minded. They mock at death as they mock at +everything else. Where will it all end? We shall see it"---- + +"Or we shall not see it," interrupted her husband, laughingly. + +He went in there one evening, having a little time to himself, as he +would have gone into a theatre. He knew something about this Cabaret du +Squelette (meaning the wine shop of the skeleton). He found the place +very droll. + +A small hall which had a few months before been a common wine shop had +been transformed into a lugubrious place. The walls were painted a dead +black, and were hung with a large number of paintings--scenes from +masked balls, gondola parades, serenades with a balcony scene, some of +the lovers' rendezvous of Venice and an ideal view of Granada, with +couples gazing at each other and sighing in the gondolas on the lagoons, +or in the Andalusian courts--and in this strange place with its romantic +pictures, souvenirs of Musset or of Carlo Gozzi, the tables were made in +the form of coffins with lighted candles standing upon them, and the +waiters were dressed as undertakers' assistants, with shiny black hats +trimmed with crape, on their heads. + +"What poison will you drink before you die?" asked one of the creatures +of Bernardet. + +Bernardet sat and gazed about him. A few "high-flyers" from the other +side of Paris were there. Here and there a thief from that quarter sat +alone at a table. Some elegants in white cravats, who had come there in +correct evening dress, were going later, after the opera, to sup with +some premiere. The police officer understood very well why the blase +came there. They wished to jog their jaded appetites; they sought to +find some _piment_, a curry, spice to season the tameness of their daily +existence. The coffin-shaped tables upon which they leaned their elbows +amused them. Several of them had asked for a _bavaroise_, as they were +on milk diet. + +They pointed out to each other the gas flaming from the jets fashioned +in the form of a broken shin-bone. + +"A little patience, my friends," said a sort of manager, who was dressed +in deep mourning. "Before long we will adjourn to the Cave of Death!" + +The drinkers in white cravats shouted. Bernardet experienced, on the +contrary, what Mme. Bernardet would have called a "creepy" sensation. +Seasoned as he was to the bloody and villainous aspect of crime, he felt +the instinctive shrinking of a healthy and level-headed bourgeois +against these drolleries of the brain-diseased upper class and the +pleasantries of the blase decadents. + +At a certain moment, and after an explanation given by the manager, the +gas was turned off, and the lovers in the gondolas, the guitar players, +the singers of Spanish songs, the dancers infatuated with the Moulin +Rouge, changed suddenly in sinister fashion. In place of the blond heads +and rosy cheeks, skulls appeared; the smiles became grins which showed +the teeth in their fleshless gums. The bodies, clothed in doublets, in +velvets and satins, a moment ago, were made by some interior +illumination to change into hideous skeletons. In his mocking tones the +manager explained and commented on the metamorphosis, adding to the +funeral spectacle the pleasantry of a buffoon. + +"See! diseased Parisians, what you will be on Sunday!" + +The light went out suddenly; the skeletons disappeared; the sighing +lovers in the gondolas on the lagoons of Venice reappeared; the +Andalusian sweethearts again gazed into each other's eyes and sang their +love songs. Some of the women laughed, but the laughs sounded +constrained. + +"Droll! this city of Paris," Bernardet thought. He sat there, leaning +back against the wall, where verses about death were printed among the +white tears--as in those lodges of Free Masons where an outsider is shut +up in order to give him time to make his will--when the door opened and +Bernardet saw a tall young man of stalwart and resolute mien enter. A +black, curly beard surrounded his pale face. As he entered he cast a +quick glance around the hall, the air of which was rather thick with +cigar smoke. He seemed to be about thirty years of age, and had the air +of an artist, a sculptor, or a painter, together with something military +in his carriage. But what suddenly struck Bernardet was his hat, a large +gray, felt hat, with a very wide brim, like the sombreros which the bull +fighters wear. + +Possibly, a few people passing through Paris might be found wearing such +hats. But they would probably be rare, and in order to find the seller +of Jacques Dantin's portrait, Bernardet had only this one clew. + +"Oh! such a mean, little, weak, clew! But one must use it, just the +same!" Bernardet had said. + +What if this young man with the strange hat was, by chance, the unknown +for whom he was seeking? It was not at all probable. No, when one +thought of it--not at all probable. But truth is sometimes made up of +improbabilities, and Bernardet again experienced the same shock, the +instinctive feeling that he had struck the trail, which he felt when the +young man entered the wine shop. + +"That hat!" murmured Bernardet, sipping his wine and stealing glances +over the rim of his glass at the young man. The unknown seemed to play +directly into the police officer's hand. After standing by the door a +few moments, and looking about the place, he walked over to the +coffin-shaped table at which Bernardet was seated, bringing himself face +to face with the officer. One of the waiters in his mourning dress came +to take his order, and lighted another candle, which he placed where its +rays fell directly on the young man's face. Thus Bernardet was able to +study him at his ease. The pale face, with its expression, uneasy and +slightly intense, struck Bernardet at once. That white face, with its +black beard, with its gleaming eyes, was not to be passed by with a +casual glance. The waiter placed a glass of brandy before him; he placed +his elbows on the table and leaned his chin upon his hands. He was +evidently not a habitue of the place nor a resident of the quarter. +There was something foreign about his appearance. His glance was steady, +as that of one who searches the horizon, looks at running water, +contemplates the sea, asking for some "good luck" of the unknown. + +"It would be strange," thought Bernardet, "if a simple hat and no other +clew should put us upon the track of the man for whom we are searching." + +At once, with the ingenuity of a master of dramatic art, the agent began +to plot, and to put into action what lawyers, pleading and turning and +twisting a cause this way and that, call _an effect_. He waited until +the manager informed them that they were about to pass into the Cave of +Death, and gave them all an invitation into the adjoining hall; then, +profiting by the general movement, he approached the unknown, and, +almost shoulder to shoulder, he walked along beside him, through a +narrow, dark passage to a little room, where, on a small stage stood, +upright, an empty coffin. + +It was a doleful spectacle, which the Cabaret du Squelette (the wine +shop of the skeleton) offered to its clientele of idle loungers and +morbid curiosity seekers attracted to its halls by these exhibitions. +Bernardet knew it all very well, and he knew by just what play of +lights, what common chemical illuminations, they gave to the lookers on +the sinister illusion of the decomposition of a corpse in its narrow +home. This phantasmagoria, to which the people from the Boulevard came, +in order to be amused, he had seen many times in the little theatres in +the fairs at Neuilly. The proprietor of the cabaret had explained it to +him; he had been curious and very keen about it, and so he followed the +crowd into this little hall, to look once more at the image of a man in +the coffin. He knew well to what purpose he could put it. The place was +full. Men and women were standing about; the black walls made the narrow +place look still smaller. Occasional bizarre pleasantries were heard and +nervous laughs rang out. Why is it, that no matter how sceptical people +may be, the idea, the proximity, the appearance of death gives them an +impression of uneasiness, a singular sensation which is often displayed +in nervous laughs or sepulchral drolleries? + +Bernardet had not left the side of the young man with the gray felt hat. +He could see his face distinctly in the light of the little hall, and +could study it at his ease. In the shadows which lurked about them the +young man's face seemed like a white spot. The officer's sharp eyes +never left it for a moment. + +The manager now asked if some one would try the experiment. This was to +step into the open coffin--that box, as he said--"from which your +friends, your neighbors, can see you dematerialize and return to +nothingness." + +"Come, my friends," he continued, in his ironical tones, "this is a fine +thing; it will permit your best friends to see you deliquesce! Are there +any married people here? It is only a question of tasting, in advance, +the pleasures of a widowhood. Would you like to see your husband +disappear, my sister? My brother, do you wish to see your wife +decompose? Sacrifice yourselves, I beg of you! Come! Come up here! Death +awaits you!" + +They laughed, but here and there a laugh sounded strident or hysterical; +the laugh did not ring true, but had the sound of cracked crystal. No +one stirred. This parody of death affected even these hardened +spectators. + +"Oh, well, my friends, there is a cadaver belonging to the establishment +which we can use. It is a pity! You may readily understand that we do +not take the dead for companions." + +As no one among the spectators would enter the coffin, the manager, with +a gesture, ordered one of the supernumeraries of the cabaret to enter; +from an open door the figurant glided across the stage and entered the +coffin, standing upright. The manager wrapped him about with a shroud, +leaving only the pale face of the pretended dead man exposed above this +whiteness. The man smiled. + +"He laughs, Messieurs, he laughs still!" said the manager. "You will +soon see him pay for that laugh. '_Rome rit et mourut!_' as Bossuet +said." + +Some of the audience shouted applause to this quotation from a famous +author. Bernardet did not listen; he was studying from a corner of his +eye his neighbor's face. The man gazed with a sort of fascination at +this fantastic performance which was taking place before him. He +frowned, he bit his lips; his eyes were almost ferocious in expression. +The figurant in the coffin continued to laugh. + +"Look! look keenly!" went on the manager, "you will see your brother +dematerialize after becoming changed in color. The flesh will disappear +and you will see his skeleton. Think, think, my brothers, this is the +fate which awaits you, perhaps, soon, on going away from here; think of +the various illnesses and deaths by accidents which await you! +Contemplate the magic spectacle offered by the Cabaret du Squelette and +remember that you are dust and that to dust you must return! Make, +wisely, this reflection, which the intoxicated man made to another man +in like condition, but asleep. 'And that is how I shall be on Sunday!' +While waiting, my brothers and sisters, for nothingness, look at the +dematerialization of your contemporary if you please!" + +The play of lights, while the man was talking, began to throw a greenish +pallor and to make spots at first transparent upon the orbits of the +eyes, then, little by little, the spots seemed to grow stronger, to +blacken, to enlarge. The features, lightly picked out, appeared to +change gradually, to take on gray and confused tints, to slowly +disappear as under a veil, a damp vapor which covered, devoured that +face, now unrecognizable! It has been said that the manner in which this +phenomenon was managed was a remarkable thing; it is true, for this +human body seemed literally to dissolve before this curious crowd, now +become silent and frightened. The work of death was accomplished there +publicly, thanks to the illusion of lighting. The livid man who smiled a +few moments before was motionless, fixed, then passing through some +singular changes, the flesh seemed to fall from him in---- + +Suddenly the play of lights made him disappear from the eyes of the +spectators and they saw, thanks to reflections made by mirrors, only a +skeleton. It was the world of spectres and the secret of the tombs +revealed to the crowd by a kind of scientific magic lantern. + +Bernardet did not desire to wait longer to strike his blow--this was the +exact moment to do it--the psychological moment! + +The eager look of the man in the sombrero revealed a deep trouble. There +was in this look something more than the curiosity excited by a novel +spectacle. The muscles of his pale face twitched as with physical +suffering; in his eyes Bernardet read an internal agony. + +"Ah!" thought the police officer, "the living eye is a book which one +can read, as well as a dead man's eye." + +Upon the stage the lights were rendering even more sinister the figurant +who was giving to this morbidly curious crowd the comedy of death. One +would have now thought it was one of those atrocious paintings made in +the studios of certain Spanish painters in the _putridero_ of a Valles +Leal. The flesh, by a remarkable scientific combination of lights, was +made to seem as if falling off, and presented the horrible appearance of +a corpse in a state of decomposition. The lugubrious vision made a very +visible shudder pass over the audience. Then Bernardet, drawing himself +up to his full height so as to get a good view of the face of this man +so much taller, and approaching as near to him as possible, in fact, so +that his elbow and upper arm touched the young man's, he slowly, +deliberately dropped, one by one, these words: + +"That is about how M. Rovere ought to be now"---- + +And suddenly the young man's face expressed a sensation of fright, as +one sees in the face of a pedestrian who suddenly finds that he is about +to step upon a viper. + +"Or how he will be soon!" added the little man, with an amiable smile. +Bernardet dissimulated under this amiability an intense joy. Holding his +arm and elbow in an apparently careless manner close to his neighbor as +he pronounced Rovere's name, Bernardet felt his neighbor's whole body +tremble, and that he gave a very perceptible start. Why had he been so +quickly moved by an unknown name if it had not recalled to his mind some +frightful thought? The man might, of course, know, as the public did, +all the details of the crime, but, with his strong, energetic face, his +resolute look, he did not appear like a person who would be troubled by +the recital of a murder, the description of a bloody affray, or even by +the frightful scene which had just passed before his eyes in the hall. + +"A man of that stamp is not chicken-hearted," thought Bernardet. "No! +no!" Hearing those words evoked the image of the dead man, Rovere; the +man was not able to master his violent emotion, and he trembled, as if +under an electrical discharge. The shudder had been violent, of short +duration, however, as if he had mastered his emotion by his strong will. +In his involuntary movement he had displayed a tragic eloquence. +Bernardet had seen in the look, in the gesture, in the movement of the +man's head, something of trouble, of doubt, of terror, as in a flash of +lightning in the darkness of night one sees the bottom of a pool. + +Bernardet smilingly said to him: + +"This sight is not a gay one!" + +"No," the man answered, and he also attempted to smile. + +He looked back to the stage, where the sombre play went on. + +"That poor Rovere!" Bernardet said. + +The other man now looked at Bernardet as if to read his thoughts and to +learn what signification the repetition of the same name had. Bernardet +sustained, with a naive look, this mute interrogation. He allowed +nothing of his thoughts to be seen in the clear, childlike depths of his +eyes. He had the air of a good man, frightened by a terrible murder, and +who spoke of the late victim as if he feared for himself. He waited, +hoping that the man would speak. + +In some of Bernardet's readings he had come across the magic rule +applicable to love: "Never go! Wait for the other to come!"--"_Nec ire, +fac venire_"--applicable also to hate, to that duel of magnetism between +the hunted man and the police spy, and Bernardet waited for the other to +"come!" + +Brusquely, after a silence, while on the little stage the transformation +was still going on, the man asked in a dry tone: + +"Why do you speak to me of M. Rovere?" + +Bernardet affably replied: "I? Because every one talks of it. It is the +actuality of the moment. I live in that quarter. It was quite near there +that it happened, the affair"---- + +"I know!" interrupted the other. + +The unknown had not pronounced ten words in questioning and replying, +and yet Bernardet found two clues simply insignificant--terrible in +reality. "I know!" was the man's reply, in a short tone, as if he wished +to push aside, to thrust away, a troublesome thought. The tone, the +sound of the words, had struck Bernardet. But one word especially--the +word Monsieur before Rovere's name. "Monsieur Rovere? Why did he speak +to me of Monsieur Rovere?" Bernardet thought. + +It seemed, then, that he knew the dead man. + +All the people gathered in this little hall, if asked in regard to this +murder would have said: "Rovere!" "The Rovere affair!" "The Rovere +murder!" Not one who had not known the victim would have said: + +"Monsieur Rovere!" + +The man knew him then. This simple word, in the officer's opinion, meant +much. + +The manager now announced that, having become a skeleton, the dear +brother who had lent himself to this experiment would return to his +natural state, "fresher and rosier than before." He added, pleasantly, +"A thing which does not generally happen to ordinary skeletons!" + +This vulgar drollery caused a great laugh, which the audience heartily +indulged in. It made an outlet for their pent-up feelings, and they all +felt as if they had awakened from a nightmare. The man in the sombrero, +whose pale face was paler than before, was the only one who did not +smile. He even frowned fiercely (noted by Bernardet) when the manager +added: + +"You are not in the habit of seeing a dead man resuscitated the next +day. Between us, it would keep the world pretty full." + +"Evidently," thought Bernardet, "my young gentleman is ill at ease." + +His only thought was to find out his name, his personality, to establish +his identity and to learn where he had spent his life, and especially +his last days. But how? + +He did not hesitate long. He left the place, even before the man in the +coffin had reappeared, smiling at the audience. He glided through the +crowd, repeating, "Pardon!" "I beg pardon!" traversed rapidly the hall +where newcomers were conversing over their beverages, and stepped out +into the street, looked up and down. A light fog enveloped everything, +and the gaslights and lights in the shop windows showed ghostly through +it. The passers-by, the cabs, the tramways, bore a spectral look. + +What Bernardet was searching for was a policeman. He saw two chatting +together and walking slowly along under the leafless trees. In three +steps, at each step turning his head to watch the people coming out of +the cabaret, he reached the men. While speaking to them he did not take +his eyes from the door of that place where he had left the young man in +the gray felt hat. + +"Dagonin," he said, "you must follow me, if you please, and 'pull me +in!' I am going to pick a drunken quarrel with a particular person. +Interfere and arrest us both. Understand?" + +"Perfectly," Dagonin replied. + +He looked at his comrade, who carried his hand to his shako and saluted +Bernardet. + +The little man who had given his directions in a quick tone, was already +far away. He stood near the door of the cabaret gazing searchingly at +each person who came out. The looks he cast were neither direct, +menacing nor even familiar. He had pulled his hat down to his eyebrows, +and he cast side glances at the crowd pouring from the door of the wine +shop. + +He was astonished that the man in the sombrero had not yet appeared. +Possibly he had stopped, on his way out, in the front hall. Glancing +through the open door, Bernardet saw that he was right. The young man +was seated at one of those coffin-shaped oaken tables, with a glass of +greenish liquor before him. "He needs alcohol to brace him up," growled +the officer. + +The door was shut again. + +"I can wait till he has finished his absinthe," said Bernardet to +himself. + +He had not long to wait. After a small number of persons had left the +place, the door opened and the man in the gray felt hat appeared, +stopped on the threshold, and, as Bernardet had done, scanned the +horizon and the street. Bernardet turned his back and seemed to be +walking away from the wine shop, leaving the man free. With a keen +glance or two over his shoulder toward him, Bernardet crossed the street +and hurried along at a rapid pace, in order to gain on the young man, +and by this manoeuvre to find himself directly in front of the +unknown. The man seemed to hesitate, walked quickly down the Boulevard a +few steps toward the Place Pigalle, in the direction where Rovere's +apartments were, but suddenly stopped, turned on his heel, repassed the +Cabaret du Squelette, and went toward the Moulin Rouge, which at first, +Bernardet thought, he was about to enter. As he stood there the vanes of +the Moulin Rouge, turning about, lighted up the windows of the opposite +buildings and made them look as if they were on fire. At last, obeying +another impulse, he suddenly crossed the Boulevard, as if to return +into Paris, leaving Montmartre, the cabarets, and Rovere's house behind +him. He walked briskly along, and ran against a man--a little man--whom +he had not noticed, who seemed to suddenly detach himself from the wall, +and who fell against his breast, hiccoughing and cursing in vicious +tones. + +"Imbecile!" + +The young man wished to push away the intoxicated man who, with hat over +his eyes, clung to him and kept repeating: + +"The street--the street--is it not free--the street?" + +Yes, it was certainly a drunken man. Not a man in a smock, but a little +fellow, a bourgeois, with hat askew and thick voice. + +"I--I am not stopping you. The street is free--I tell you!" + +"Well, if it is free, I want it!" + +The voice was vigorous, but showed sudden anger, a strident tone, a +slight foreign accent, Spanish, perhaps. + +The drunken man probably thought him insolent for, still hiccoughing, he +answered: + +"Oh, you want it, do you? You want it? I want it! The king says 'we +wish!' don't you know?" + +With another movement, he lost his equilibrium and half fell, his head +hanging over, and he clutched the man he held in a sudden embrace. + +"It is mine also--the street--you know!" + +With sudden violence, the man disembarrassed himself of this caressing +creature; he thrust aside his clinging arms with a movement so quick and +strong that the intoxicated man, this time, fell, his hat rolled into +the gutter, and he lay on the sidewalk. + +But immediately, with a bound, he was on his feet, and as the man went +calmly on his way, he followed him, seized his coat and clutched him so +tightly that he could not proceed. + +"Pardon;" he said, "you cannot go away like that!" + +Then, as the light from a gas lamp fell on the little man's face, the +young man recognized his neighbor of the cabaret, who had said to him: + +"See, that is how Rovere must look!" + +At this moment, Dagonin and his comrade appeared on the scene and laid +vigorous hands on them both; the young man made a quick, instinctive +movement toward his right pocket, where, no doubt, he kept a revolver or +knife. Bernardet seized his wrist, he twisted it and said: + +"Do nothing rash!" + +The young man was very strong, but the huge Dagonin had Herculean biceps +and the other man did not lack muscles. Fright, moreover, seemed to +paralyze this tall, young gallant, who, as he saw that he was being +hustled toward a police station, demanded: + +"Have you arrested me, and why?" + +"First for having struck me," Bernardet replied, still bareheaded, and +to whom a gamin now handed his soiled hat, saying to him: + +"Is this yours, Monsieur Bernardet?" + +Bernardet recognized in his own quarter! That was glory! + +The man seemed to wish to defend himself and still struggled, but one +remark of Dagonin's seemed to pacify him: + +"No rebellion! There is nothing serious about your arrest. Do not make +it worse." + +The young man really believed that it was only a slight matter and he +would be liberated at once. The only thing that disquieted him was that +this intoxicated man, suddenly become sober, had spoken to him as he did +a few moments before in the cabaret. + +The four men walked quickly along in the shadow of the buildings, +through the almost deserted streets, where the shopkeepers were putting +out their lights and closing up their shops. Scarcely any one who met +them would have realized that three of these men were taking the fourth +to a police station. + +A tri-color flag floated over a door lighted by a red lantern; the four +men entered the place and found themselves in a narrow, warm hall, where +the agents of the police were either sleeping on benches or reading +around the stove by the light of the gas jets above their heads. + +Bernardet, looking dolefully at his broken and soiled hat, begged the +young man to give his name and address to the Chief of the Post. The +young man then quickly understood that his questioner of the Cabaret du +Squelette had caught him in a trap. He looked at him with an expression +of violent anger--of concentrated rage. + +Then he said: + +"My name? What do you want of that? I am an honest man. Why did you +arrest me? What does it mean?" + +"Your name?" repeated Bernardet. + +The man hesitated. + +"Oh, well! I am called Prades. Does that help you any?" + +The man wrote: "Prades. P-r-a-d-e-s with an accent. Prades. First name?" + +"Charles, if you wish!" + +"Oh!" said Bernardet, noticing the slight difference in the tone of his +answer. "We wish nothing. We wish only the truth." + +"I have told it." + +Charles Prades furnished some further information in regard to himself. +He was staying at a hotel in the Rue de Paradis-Poissonsiere, a small +hotel used by commercial travelers and merchants of the second class. He +had been in Paris only a month. + +Where was he from? He said that he came from Sydney, where he was +connected with a commercial house. Or rather he had given up the +situation to come to Paris to seek his fortune. But while speaking of +Sydney he had in his rather rambling answers let fall the name of Buenos +Ayres, and Bernardet remembered that Buenos Ayres was the place where M. +Rovere had been French Consul. The officer paid no attention to this at +the time. For what good? Prades's real examination would be conducted by +M. Ginory. He, Bernardet, was not an examining magistrate. He was the +ferret who hunted out criminals. + +This Prades was stupefied, then furious, when, the examination over, he +learned that he was not to be immediately set at liberty. + +What! An absurd quarrel, a collision without a wound, in a street in +Paris, was sufficient to hold a man and make him pass the night in the +station house, with all the vagabonds of both sexes collected there! + +"You may bemoan your fate to yourself to-morrow morning!" said +Bernardet. + +In the meantime they searched this man, who, very pale, making visibly +powerful efforts to control himself, biting his lips and his black +beard, while they examined his pocketbook, while they looked at a +Spanish knife with a short blade, which he had (Bernardet had divined it +at the time of his arrest) in his right pocket. + +The pocketbook revealed nothing. It contained some receipted weekly +bills of the hotel in the Rue de Paradis, some envelopes without +letters, without stamps and bearing the name, "Charles Prades, +Merchant," two bank bills of 100 francs--nothing more. + +Bernardet very simply asked Prades how it was that he had upon his +person addressed letters which he evidently had not received, as they +were not stamped. He replied: + +"They are not letters. They are addresses which I gave instead of +visiting cards, as I had not had time to procure cards." + +"Then the addresses are in your writing?" + +"Yes," Prades answered. + +The police officer looked at them again; then, saluting the brigadier +and his men, wished them good-night, and even added a little gesture, +rather mocking, in the direction of the arrested man. Prades made an +angry, almost menacing, movement toward Bernardet. The guards standing +about pulled him back, while the plump, smiling little man, caressing +his sandy mustache and humming a tune, went out into the street. + +As he reached the passage which led to his house this couplet came +merrily from his lips as walked quickly along: + + "Prends ton fusil, Gregoire, + Prends ta gourde pourboire, + Nos Messieurs sont partis + A la chasse aux perdrix." + +One would have taken M. Bernardet for a happy little bourgeois, going +home from some theatre through the deserted streets and repeating a +verse from some vaudeville, rather than a police spy who had just +secured a prize. He walked quickly, he walked gaily. He reached his +home, where Mme. Bernardet, always rosy and pleasant, awaited him, and +where his three little girls were sleeping. He felt that, like the Roman +emperor, he had not lost his day. + +He again hummed the quatrain, and, although not in a loud tone, still it +sounded like a far off fanfare of victory in the gray fog of this Paris +night. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV. + + +M. GINORY was not without uneasiness when he thought of the detention of +Jacques Dantin. Without doubt, all prisoners, all accused persons are +reticent; they try to hide their guilt under voluntary silence. They do +not speak, because they have sworn not to. They are bound, one knows not +by whom, by an oath which they cannot break. It is the ordinary system +of the guilty who cannot defend themselves. Mystery seems to them +safety. + +But Dantin, intimately acquainted with Rovere's life, might be +acquainted with some secret which he could not disclose and which did +not pertain to him at all. What secret? Had not an examining magistrate +a right to know everything? Had not an accused man a right to speak? +Either Dantin had nothing to reveal and he was playing a comedy and was +guilty, or, if by a few words, by a confidence made to the magistrate he +could escape an accusation, recover his liberty, without doubt he would +speak after having kept an inexplicable silence. How could one suppose +that an innocent man would hold, for a long time, to this mute system? + +The discovery of the portrait in Mme. Colard's shop ought, naturally, to +give to the affair a new turn. The arrest of Charles Prades brought an +important element to these researches. He would be examined by M. Ginory +the next morning, after having been questioned by the Commissary of +Police. + +Bernardet, spruce, freshly shaven, was there, and seemed in his +well-brushed redingote, like a little abbe come to assist at some +curious ceremony. + +On the contrary, Prades, after a sleepless night, a night of agony, +paler than the evening before, his face fierce and its muscles +contracted, had a haggard expression, and he blinked his eyes like a +night bird suddenly brought into glaring sunlight. He repeated before +the Examining Magistrate what he had said to the brigadier. But his +voice, vibrant a few hours before, had become heavy, almost raucous, as +the haughty expression of his face had become sullen and tragic. + +The Examining Magistrate had cited Mme. Colard, the shopkeeper, to +appear before him. She instantly recognized in this Prades the man who +had sold her the little panel by Paul Baudry. + +He denied it. He did not know of what they were talking. He had never +seen this woman. He knew nothing about any portrait. + +"It belonged to M. Rovere," the magistrate replied, "M. Rovere, the +murdered man; M. Rovere, who was consul at Buenos Ayres, and you spoke, +yesterday, of Buenos Ayres, in the examination at the station house in +the Rue de la Rochefoucauld." + +"M. Rovere? Buenos Ayres?" repeated the young man, rolling his sombrero +around his fingers. + +He repeated that he did not know the ex-Consul, that he had never been +in South America, that he had come from Sydney. + +Bernardet, at this moment, interrupted him by taking his hat from him +without saying a word, and Prades cast a very angry look at the little +man. + +M. Ginory understood Bernardet's move and approved with a smile. He +looked in the inside of the sombrero which Bernardet handed to him. + +The hat bore the address of Gordon, Smithson & Co., Berner Street, +London. + +"But, after all," thought the Magistrate, "Buenos Ayres is one of the +markets for English goods." + +"That is a hat bought at Sydney," Prades (who had understood) explained. + +Before the bold, decided, almost violent affirmations which Mme. Colard +made that this was certainly the seller of the portrait, the young man +lost countenance a little. He kept saying over and over: "You deceive +yourself. Madame, I have never spoken to you, I have never seen you." + +When M. Ginory asked her if she still persisted in saying that this was +the man who had sold her the picture, she said: + +"Do I still persist? With my neck under the guillotine I would persist," +and she kept repeating: "I am sure of it! I am sure of it!" + +This preliminary examination brought about no decisive result. It was +certain that, if this portrait had been in the possession of this young +man and been sold by him, that he, Charles Prades, was an accomplice of +Dantin's, if not the author of the crime. They ought, then, to be +brought face to face, and, possibly, this might bring about an immediate +result. And why not have this meeting take place at once, before Prades +was sent where Dantin was, at Mazas? + +M. Ginory, who had uttered this word "Mazas," noticed the expression of +terror which flashed across and suddenly transfigured the young man's +face. + +Prades stammered: + +"Then--you will hold me? Then--I am not free?" + +M. Ginory did not reply. He gave an order that this Prades should be +guarded until the arrival of Dantin from Mazas. + +In Mazas, in that walled prison, in the cell which had already made him +ill, Jacques Dantin sat. This man, with the trooper's air, seemed almost +to be in a state of collapse. When the guard came to his cell he drew +himself up and endeavored to collect all his energy; and when the door +was opened and he was called he appeared quite like himself. When he saw +the prison wagon which had brought him to Mazas and now awaited to take +him to the Palais de Justice he instinctively recoiled; then, recovering +himself, he entered the narrow vehicle. + +The idea, the sensation that he was so near all this life--yet so +far--that he was going through these streets, filled with carriages, +with men and women who were free, gave him a desperate, a nervous sense +of irritation. + +The air which they breathed, he breathed and felt fan his brow--but +through a grating. They arrived at the Palais and Jacques Dantin +recognized the staircases which he had previously mounted, that led to +the Examining Magistrate's room. He entered the narrow room where M. +Ginory awaited him. Dantin saluted the Magistrate with a gesture which, +though courteous, seemed to have a little bravado in it; as a salutation +with a sword before a duel. Then he glanced around, astonished to see, +between two guards, a man whom he did not recognize. + +M. Ginory studied them. If he knew this Prades, who also curiously +returned his look, Jacques Dantin was a great comedian, because no +indication, not the slightest involuntary shudder, not the faintest +trace of an expression of having seen him before, crossed his face. Even +M. Ginory's keen eyes could detect nothing. He had asked that Bernardet +be present at the meeting, and the little man's face, become serious, +almost severe, was turned, with eager interrogation in its expression, +toward Dantin. Bernardet also was unable to detect the faintest emotion +which could be construed into an acknowledgment of ever having seen this +young man before. Generally prisoners would, unconsciously, permit a +gesture, a glance, a something, to escape them when they were brusquely +confronted, unexpectedly, with some accomplice. This time not a muscle +of Dantin's face moved, not an eyelash quivered. + +M. Ginory motioned Jacques Dantin to a seat directly in front of him, +where the light would fall full upon his face. Pointing out Prades, he +asked: + +"Do you recognize this man?" + +Dantin, after a second or two, replied: + +"No; I have never seen him." + +"Never?" + +"I believe not; he is unknown to me!" + +"And you, Prades, have you ever seen Jacques Dantin?" + +"Never," said Prades, in his turn. His voice seemed hoarse, compared +with the brief, clear response made by Dantin. + +"He is, however, the original of the portrait which you sold to Mme. +Colard." + +"The portrait?" + +"Look sharply at Dantin. Look at him well," repeated M. Ginory. "You +must recognize that he is the original of the portrait in question." + +"Yes;" Prades replied. His eyes were fixed upon the prisoner. + +"Ah!" the Magistrate joyously exclaimed, asking: "And how, tell me, did +you so quickly recognize the original of the portrait which you saw only +an instant in my room?" + +"I do not know," stammered Prades, not comprehending the gravity of a +question put in an insinuating, almost amiable tone. + +"Oh, well!" continued M. Ginory, still in a conciliating tone, "I am +going to explain to you. It is certain that you recognize these +features, because you had a long time in which to contemplate them; +because you had it a long time in your hands when you were trying to +pull off the frame." + +"The frame? What frame?" asked the young man stupefied, not taking his +eyes from the Magistrate's face, which seemed to him endowed with some +occult power. M. Ginory went on: + +"The frame which you had trouble in removing, since the scratches show +in the wood. And what if, after taking the portrait to Mme. Colard's +shop, we should find the frame in question at another place, at some +other shop--that would not be very difficult," and M. Ginory smiled at +Bernardet. "What if we could add another new deposition to that of Mme. +Colard's? Yes; what if to that clear, decisive deposition we could add +another--what would you have to say?" + +Silence! Prades turned his head around, his eyes wandered about, as if +searching to find an outlet or a support; gasping like a man who has +been injured. + +Jacques Dantin looked at him at the same moment when the Magistrate, +with a glance keener, more piercing than ever, seemed to search his very +soul. The young man was now pallid and unmanned. + +At length Prades pronounced some words. What did he want of him? What +frame was he talking of? And who was this other dealer of whom the +Magistrate spoke and whom he had called a second time? Where was this +witness with "the new deposition?" + +"One is enough!" he said, casting a ferocious look at Mme. Colard, who, +on a sign from M. Ginory, had entered, pale and full of fear. + +He added in a menacing tone: + +"One is even too much!" + +The fingers of his right hand contracted, as if around a knife handle. +At this moment Bernardet, who was studying each gesture which the man +made, was convinced that the murderer of Rovere was there. He saw that +hand armed with the knife, the one which had been found in his pocket, +striking his victim, gashing the ex-Consul's throat. + +But then, "Dantin?" An accomplice, without doubt. The head, of which the +adventurer was the arm. Because, in the dead man's eye, Dantin's image +appeared, reflected as clear proof, like an accusation, showing the +person who was last seen in Rovere's supreme agony. Jacques Dantin was +there--the eye spoke. + +Mme. Colard's testimony no longer permitted M. Ginory to doubt. This +Charles Prades was certainly the man who sold the portrait. + +Nothing could be proved except that the two men had never met. No sign +of emotion showed that Dantin had ever seen the young man before. The +latter alone betrayed himself when he was going to Mazas with the +original of the portrait painted by Baudry. + +But, however, as the Magistrate underlined it with precision, the fact +alone of recognizing Dantin constituted against Prades a new charge. +Added to the testimony, to the formal affirmation of the shopkeeper, +this charge became grave. + +Coldly, M. Ginory said to his registrar: + +"An order!" + +Then, when Favarel had taken a paper engraved at the top, which Prades +tried to decipher, the Magistrate began to question him. And as M. +Ginory spoke slowly, Favarel filled in the blank places which made a +free man, a prisoner. + +"You are called?" demanded M. Ginory. + +"Prades." + +"Your first name?" + +"Henri." + +"You said Charles to the Commissary of Police." + +"Henri-Charles--Charles--Henri." + +The Magistrate did not even make a sign to Favarel, seated before the +table, and who wrote very quickly without M. Ginory dictating to him. + +"Your profession?" continued the Magistrate. + +"Commission merchant." + +"Your age?" + +"Twenty-eight." + +"Your residence?" + +"Sydney, Australia." + +And, upon this official paper, the replies were filled in, one by one, +in the blank places: + + COURT OF THE FIRST INSTANCE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE SEINE: + + Warrant of Commitment against Prades. + + * * * * * + + Note.--Write exactly the names, Christian names, professions, + age, residence and nature of charge. + + * * * * * + + Description Height metre centimetres + + Forehead Nose + + Eyes Mouth + + Chin Eyebrows + + Hair + + General Appearance + + We, Edme-Armand-Georges Ginory, Examining Magistrate of the + Court of the First Instance of the Department of the Seine, + command and enjoin all officers and guards of the Public Force + to conduct to the Prison of Detention, called the Mazas, in + conformity to the Law, Prades (Charles Henri), aged 28 years, + Commission Merchant from Sydney. Accused of complicity in the + murder of Louis-Pierre Rovere. We direct the Director of said + house of detention to receive and hold him till further orders. + We command every man in the Public to lend assistance in order + to execute the present order, in case such necessity arises, to + which we attach our name and seal. + + Made at the Palais de Justice, in Paris, the 12th of February, + 1896. + +And below, the seal was attached to the order by the registrar. M. +Ginory signed it, saying to Favarel: + +"The description must be left blank. They will fill it out after the +measurements are taken." + +Then, Prades, stupefied till now, not seeming to realize half that was +passing around him, gave a sudden, violent start. A cry burst from him. + +"Arrested! Have you arrested me?" + +M. Ginory leaned over the table. He was calm and held his pen with which +he had signed the order, suspended in the air. The young man rushed +forward wild with anger, and if the guards had not held him back, he +would have seized M. Ginory's fat neck with both hands. The guards held +Prades back, while the Examining Magistrate, carelessly pricking the +table with his pen, gently said, with a smile: + +"All the same, more than one malefactor has betrayed himself in a fit of +anger. I have often thought that it would take very little to get myself +assassinated, when I had before me an accused person whom I felt was +guilty and who would not confess. Take away the man!" + +While they were pushing Prades toward the corridor he shouted: +"_Canailles_." M. Ginory ordered that Dantin should be left alone with +him. "Alone," he said to Bernardet, whose look was a little uneasy. The +registrar half rose from his chair, picking up his papers and pushing +them into the pockets of his much worn paper case. + +"No; you may remain, Favarel." + +"Well," said the Magistrate in a familiar tone, when he found himself +face to face with Jacques Dantin. "Have you reflected?" + +Jacques Dantin, his lips pressed closely together, did not reply. + +"It is a counsellor--a counsellor of an especial kind--the cell. He who +invented it"---- + +"Yes;" Dantin brusquely interrupted. "The brain suffers between those +walls. I have not slept since I went there. Not slept at all. Insomnia +is killing me. It seems as if I should go crazy!" + +"Then?" asked M. Ginory. + +"Then"---- + +Jacques Dantin looked fiercely at the registrar, who sat waiting, his +pen over his ear, his elbows on the table, his chin on his hands. + +"Then, oh, well! Then, here it is, I wish to tell you all--all. But to +you--to you"---- + +"To me alone?" + +"Yes," said Dantin, with the same fierce expression. + +"My dear Favarel," the Magistrate began. + +The registrar had already risen. He slowly bowed and went out. + +"Now," said the Magistrate to Jacques Dantin, "you can speak." + +The man still hesitated. + +"Monsieur," he asked, "will any word said here be repeated, ought it or +must it be repeated in a courtroom, at the Assizes, I know not +where--anywhere before the public?" + +"That depends," said M. Ginory. "But what you know you owe to justice, +whether it be a revelation, an accusation or a confession, I ask it of +you." + +Still Dantin hesitated. Then the Magistrate spoke these words: "I demand +it!" + +With a violent effort the prisoner began. "So be it! But it is to a man +of honor, rather than to a Magistrate, to whom I address these words. If +I have hesitated to speak, if I have allowed myself to be suspected and +to be accused, it is because it seemed to me impossible, absolutely +impossible, that this same truth should not be revealed--I do not know +in what way--that it would become known to you without compelling me to +disclose a secret which was not mine." + +"To an Examining Magistrate one may tell everything," said M. Ginory. +"We have listened to confessions in our offices which are as inviolable +as those of the confessional made to a priest." + +And now, after having accused Dantin of lying, believing that he was +acting a comedy, after smiling disdainfully at that common invention--a +vow which one could not break--the perception of a possibility entered +the Magistrate's mind that this man might be sincere. Hitherto he had +closed his heart against sympathy for this man; they had met in the +mutual hostility. + +The manner in which Jacques Dantin approached the question, the +resolution with which he spoke, no longer resembled the obstinate +attitude which he had before assumed in this same room. + +Reflection, the prison--the cell, without doubt--a frightful and +stifling cell--had done its work. The man who had been excited to the +point of not speaking now wished to tell all. + +"Yes," he said, "since nothing has happened to convince you that I am +not lying." + +"I am listening to you," said the Magistrate. + +Then, in a long, close conference, Jacques Dantin told M. Ginory his +story. He related how, from early youth, he and Rovere had been close +friends; of the warm affection which had always existed between them; of +the shams and deceptions of which he had been guilty; of the bitterness +of his ruined life; of an existence which ought to have been beautiful, +and which, so useless, the life of a _viveur_, had almost made +him--why?--how?--through need of money and a lack of moral sense--almost +descend to crime. + +This Rovere, whom he was accused of killing, he loved, and, to tell the +truth, in that strange and troublous existence which he had lived, +Rovere had been the only true friend whom he had known. Rovere, a sort +of pessimistic philosopher, a recluse, lycanthropic, after a life spent +in feasting, having surfeited himself with pleasure, recognized also in +his last years that disinterested affection is rare in this world, and +his savage misanthropy softened before Jacques Dantin's warm +friendship. + +"I continued to search for, in what is called pleasure and what as one's +hair whitens becomes vice; in play; in the uproar of Paris, +forgetfulness of life, of the dull life of a man growing old, alone, +without home or family, an old, stupid fellow, whom the young people +look at with hate and say to each other: 'Why is he still here?' Rovere, +more and more, felt the need of withdrawing into solitude, thinking over +his adventurous life, as bad and as ruined as mine, and he wished to see +no one. A wolf, a wild boar in his lair! Can you understand this +friendship between two old fellows, one of whom tried in every way to +direct his thoughts from himself, and the other, waiting death in a +corner of his fireside, solitary, unsociable?" + +"Perfectly! Go on!" + +And the magistrate, with eyes riveted upon Jacques Dantin, saw this man, +excited, making light of this recital of the past; evoking remembrances +of forgotten events, of this lost affection; lost, as all his life was. + +"This is not a conference; is it not so? You no longer believe that it +is a comedy? I loved Rovere. Life had often separated us. He searched +for fortune at the other end of the world. I made a mess of mine and ate +it in Paris. But we always kept up our relations, and when he returned +to France we were happy in again seeing each other. The grayer turned +the hair, the more tender the heart became. I had always found him +morose--from his twentieth year he always dragged after him a sinister +companion--ennui. He had chosen a Consular career, to live far away, and +in a fashion not at all like ours. I have often laughingly said to him +that he probably had met with unrequited love; that he had experienced +some unhappy passion. He said, no! I feigned to believe it. One is not +sombre and melancholy like that without some secret grief. After all, +there are others who do not feel any gayer with a smile on the lips. +Sadness is no sign. Neither is gayety!" + +His face took on a weary, melancholy expression, which at first +astonished the Magistrate; then he experienced a feeling of pity; he +listened, silent and grave. + +"I will pass over all the details of our life, shall I not? My monologue +would be too long. The years of youth passed with a rapidity truly +astonishing; we come to the time when we found ourselves--he weary of +life, established in his chosen apartments in the Boulevard de Clichy, +with his paintings and books; sitting in front of his fire and awaiting +death--I continuing to spur myself on like a foundered horse. Rovere +moralized to me; I jeered at his sermons, and I went to sit by his +fireside and talk over the past. One of his joys had been this portrait +of me, painted by Paul Baudry. He had hung it up in his salon, at the +corner of the chimney piece, at the left, and he often said to me: + +"'Dost thou know that when thou art not here I talk to it?' + +"I was not there very often. Parisian life draws us by its thousand +attractions. The days which seem interminable when one is twenty rush by +as if on wings when one is fifty. One has not even time to stop to see +the friends one loves. At the last moment, if one is right, one ought to +say, 'How I have cast to the winds everything precious which life has +given me. How foolish I have been--how stupid.' Pay no attention to my +philosophisms--the cell! Mazas forces one to think! + +"One day--it was one morning--on returning from the club where I had +passed the night stupidly losing sums which would have given joy to +hundreds of families, I found on my desk a message from Rovere. If one +would look through my papers one would find it there--I kept it. Rovere +begged me to come to him immediately. I shivered--a sharp presentiment +of death struck me. The writing was trembling, unlike his own. I struck +my forehead in anger. This message had been waiting for me since the +night before, while I was spending the hours in gambling. If, when I +hurried toward the Boulevard de Clichy, I had found Rovere dead on my +arrival, I could not, believe me, have experienced greater despair. His +assassination seemed to me atrocious; but I was at least able to assure +him that his friendship was returned. I hastily read the telegram, threw +myself into a fiacre, and hastened to his apartments. The woman who +acted as housekeeper for him, Mme. Moniche, the portress, raising her +arms as she opened the door for me, said: + +"'Ah! Monsieur, but Monsieur has waited for you. He has repeated your +name all night. He nearly died, but he is better now.' + +"Rovere, sitting the night before by his fire, had been stricken by +lateral paralysis, and as soon as he could hold a pen, in spite of the +orders of the physician who had been quickly called, had written and +sent the message to me some hours before. + +"As soon as he saw me he--the strong man, the mad misanthrope, silent +and sombre--held me in his arms and burst into tears. His embrace was +that of a man who concentrates in one being all that remains of hope. + +"'Thou! thou art here!' he said in a low tone. 'If thou knewest!' + +"I was moved to the depths of my heart. That manly face, usually so +energetic, wore an expression of terror which was in some way almost +childish, a timorous fright. The tears rose in his eyes. + +"'Oh! how I have waited for thee! how I have longed for thee!' + +"He repeated this phrase with anxious obstinacy. Then he seemed to be +suffocating. Emotion! The sight of me recalled to him the long agony of +that night when he thought that he was about to die without parting with +me for the last time. + +"'For what I have to tell thee'---- + +"He shook his head. + +"'It is the secret of my life!' + +"He was lying on a sort of sick chair or lounge, in the library where he +passed his last days with his books. He made me sit down beside him. He +took my hand and said: + +"'I am going to die. I believed that the end had come last night. I +called thee. Oh, well, if I had died there is one being in the world who +would not have had the fortune which--I have'---- + +"He lowered his voice as if he thought we were spied upon, as if some +one could hear. + +"'I have a daughter. Yes, even from thee I have hidden this secret, +which tortures me. A daughter who loves me and who has not the right to +confess this tenderness, no more than I have the right to give her my +name. Ah! our youth, sad youth! I might have had a home to-day, a +fireside of my own, a dear one near me, and instead of that, an +affection of which I am ashamed and which I have hidden even from thee, +Jacques, from thee, dost thou comprehend?' + +"I remember each of Rovere's words as if I was hearing them now. This +conversation with my poor friend is among the most poignant yet most +precious of my remembrances. With much emotion, which distressed me, the +poor man revealed to me the secret which he had believed it his duty to +hide from me so many years, and I vowed to him--I swore to him on my +honor, and that is why I hesitated to speak, or rather refused to speak, +not wishing to compromise any one, neither the dead nor living--I swore +to him, Monsieur le Juge, to repeat nothing of what he told me to any +one, to any one but to her"---- + +"Her?" interrogated M. Ginory. + +"His daughter," Dantin replied. + +The Examining Magistrate recalled that visitor in black, who had been +seen occasionally at Rovere's apartments, and the little romance of +which Paul Rodier had written in his paper--the romance of the Woman in +Black! + +"And this daughter?" + +"She bears," said Dantin, with a discouraged gesture, "the name of the +father which the law gives her, and this name is a great name, an +illustrious name, that of a retired general officer, living in one of +the provinces, a widower, and who adores the girl who is another man's +child. The mother is dead. The father has never known. When dying, the +mother revealed the secret to her daughter. She came, by command of the +dead, to see Rovere, but as a Sister of Charity, faithful to the name +which she bears. She does not wish to marry; she will never leave the +crippled old soldier who calls her his daughter, and who adores her." + +"Oh!" said M. Ginory, remaining mute a moment before this very simple +drama, and in which, in that moment of reflection, he comprehended, he +analyzed, nearly all of the hidden griefs, the secret tears, the stifled +sobs, the stolen kisses. "And that is why you kept silent?" he asked. + +"Yes, Monsieur. Oh! but I could not endure the torture any longer, and +not seeing the expected release any nearer, I would have spoken, I would +have spoken to escape that cell, that sense of suffocation, I endured +there. It seemed to me, however, that I owed it to my dead friend not to +reveal his secret to any one, not even to you. I shall never forget +Rovere's joy, when relieved of the burden, by the confidence which he +had reposed in me, he said to me, that now that she who was his +daughter, and was poor, living at Blois only on the pension of a retired +officer to whom she had appointed herself nurse, knowing that she was +not his daughter, this innocent child, who was paying with a life of +devotion for the sins of two guilty ones, would at least have happiness +at last. + +"She is young, and the one for whom she cares cannot live always. My +fortune will give her a dowry. And then!" + +"It was to me to whom he confided this fortune. He had very little money +with his notary. Erratic and distrustful, Rovere kept his valuables in +his safe, as he kept his books in his library. It seemed that he was a +collector, picking up all kinds of things. Avaricious? No; but he wished +to have about him, under his hand, everything which belonged to him. He +possibly may have wished to give what he had directly to the one to whom +it seemed good to him to give it, and confide it to me in trust. + +"I regret not having asked him directly that day what he counted on +doing with his fortune and how he intended enriching his child, whom he +had not the right to recognize. I dared, or, rather, I did not think of +it. I experienced a strong emotion when I saw my friend enfeebled and +almost dying. I had known him so different, so handsome. Oh! those poor, +sad, restless eyes, that lowered voice, as if he feared an enemy was +listening! Illness had quickly, brutally changed that vigorous man, +suddenly old and timorous. + +"I went away from that first interview much distressed, carrying a +secret which seemed to me a heavy and cruel one; and which made me think +of the uselessness, the wickedness, the vain loves of a ruined life. But +I felt that Rovere owed truly his fortune to that girl who, the next +day after the death of the one whom she had piously attended, found +herself poor and isolated in a little house in a steep street, near the +Chateau, above Blois. I felt that, whatever this unknown father left, +ought not to go to distant relatives, who cared nothing for him; did not +even know him; were ignorant of his sufferings and perhaps even of his +existence, and who by law would inherit. + +"A dying man, yes! There could be no question about it, and Dr. +Vilandry, whom I begged to accompany me to see my friend, did not hide +it from me. Rovere was dying of a kidney difficulty, which had made +rapid progress. + +"It was necessary, then, since he was not alone in the world, that he +should think of the one of whom he had spoken and whom he loved. + +"'For I love her, that child whom I have no right to name. I love her! +She is good, tender, admirable. If I did not see that she resembled +me--for she does resemble me--I should tell thee that she was beautiful. +I would be proud to cry aloud: "This is my daughter!" To promenade with +her on my arm--and I must hide this secret from all the world. That is +my torture! And it is the chastisement of all that has not been right in +my life. Ah! sad, unhappy loves!' That same malediction for the past +came to his lips as it had come to his thoughts. The old workman, +burdened with labor throughout the week, who could promenade on the +Boulevard de Clichy on Sunday, with his daughter on his arm, was happier +than Rovere. And--a strange thing, sentiment of shame and +remorse--feeling himself traveling fast to his last resting-place in the +cemetery, he expressed no wish to see that child, to send for her to +come from Blois under some pretext or other, easy enough to find. + +"No, he experienced a fierce desire for solitude, he shrunk from an +interview, in which he feared all his grief would rush to his lips in a +torrent of words. He feared for himself, for his weakness, for the +strange feeling he experienced in his head. + +"'It seems as if it oscillated upon my shoulders,' he said. 'If Marthe +came (and he repeated the name as a child would have pronounced it who +was just learning to name the letters of a word) I would give her but +the sad spectacle of a broken-down man, and leave on her mind only the +impression of a human ruin. And then--and then--not to see her! not to +have the right to see her! that is all right--it is my chastisement!' + +"Let it be so! I understood. I feared that an interview would be mortal. +He had been so terribly agitated when he had sent for me that other +time. + +"But I, at least, wished to recall to him his former wish which he had +expressed of providing for the girl's future. I desired that he should +make up for the past, since money is one of the forms of reparation. But +I dared not speak to him again in regard to it, or of that trust of +which he had spoken. + +"He said to me, this strong man whom Death had never frightened, and +whom he had braved many times, he said to me now, weakened by this +illness which was killing him hour by hour: + +"If I knew that my end was near I would decide--but I have time." + +"Time! Each day brought him a little nearer to that life about which I +feared to say to him: 'The time has come!' The fear, in urging him to a +last resolution, of seeming like an executioner whose presence seemed to +say: 'To-day is the day!' prevented me. You understand, Monsieur? And +why not? I ought to wait no longer. Rovere's confidence had made of me a +second Rovere who possessed the strength and force of will which the +first one now lacked. I felt that I held in my hands, so to speak, +Marthe's fate. I did not know her, but I looked upon her as a martyr in +her vocation of nurse to the old paralytic to whom she was paying, in +love, the debt of the dead wife. I said to myself: 'It is to me, to me +alone, that Rovere must give instructions of what he wishes to leave to +his daughter, and it is for me to urge him to do this, it is for me to +brace his weakened will! I was resolved! It was a duty! Each day the +unhappy man's strength failed. I saw it--this human ruin! One morning, +when I went to his apartments, I found him in a singular state of +terror. He related me a story, I knew not what, of a thief, whose victim +he was; the lock of his door had been forced, his safe opened. Then, +suddenly, interrupting himself, he began to laugh, a feeble laugh, which +made me ill. + +"'I am a fool,' he said. 'I am dreaming, awake--I continue in the +daytime the nightmares of the night--a thief here! No one has come--Mme. +Moniche has watched--but my head is so weak, so weak! I have known so +many rascals in my life! Rascals always return, _hein!_' + +"He made a sad attempt at a laugh. + +"It was delirium! A delirium which soon passed away, but which +frightened me. It returned with increased force each day, and at shorter +intervals. + +"Well, I said to myself, during a lucid interview, 'he must do what he +has resolved to do, what he had willed to do--what he wishes to do!' And +I decided--it was the night before the assassination--to bring him to +the point, to aid his hesitation. I found him calmer that day. He was +lying on his lounge, enveloped in his dressing gown, with a traveling +rug thrown across his thin legs. With his black skull-cap and his +grayish beard he looked like a dying Doge. + +"He held out his bony hand to me, giving me a sad smile, and said that +he felt better. A period of remission in his disease, a feeling of +comfort pervading his general condition. + +"'What if I should recover?' he said, looking me full in the face. + +"I comprehended by that ardent look, which was of singular vitality, +that this man, who had never feared death, still clung to life. It was +instinct. + +"I replied that certainly he might, and I even said that he would surely +recover, but--with what grievous repugnance did I approach the +subject--I asked him if, experiencing the general feeling of ease and +comfort which pervaded his being, whether he would not be even more +comfortable and happy if he thought of what he ought to do for that +child of whom he had spoken, and for whose future he wished to provide. + +"'And since thou art feeling better, my dear Rovere, it is perhaps the +opportunity to put everything in order in that life which thou art about +to recover, and which will be a new life.' + +"He looked fixedly at me with his beautiful eyes. It was a profound +regard, and I saw that he divined my thought. + +"'Thou art right!' he said firmly; 'no weakness.' + +"Then, gathering all his forces, he arose, stood upright, refusing even +the arm which I held out to him, and in his dressing gown, which hung +about him, he seemed to me taller, thinner, even handsomer. He took two +or three steps, at first a little unsteady, then, straightening up, he +walked directly to his safe, turned the letters, and opened it, after +having smiled, and said: + +"'I had forgotten the word--four letters; it is, however, a little +thing. My head is empty.' + +"Then, the safe opened, he took out papers--of value, without +doubt--papers which he took back to his lounge, spread out on a table +near at hand, and said: + +"'Let us see! This which I am going to give thee is for her----A will, +yes, I could make a will----but it would create talk----it would be +asked what I had done----it would be searched out, dug out of the past, +it would open a tomb----I cannot!----What I have shall be hers, thou +wilt give it to her--thou'---- + +"And his large, haggard eyes searched through the papers. + +"'Ah! here!' he said; 'here are some bonds! Egyptian--of a certain value +to the holder, at 3 per cent. I hid that--where did I put it?' + +"He picked up the papers, turned them over and over, became alarmed, +turned pale. + +"'But,' I said to him, 'is it not among those papers?' + +"He shrugged his shoulders, displayed with an ironical smile the +engraved papers. + +"'Some certificates of decorations! The bric-a-brac of a Consular life.' + +"Then with renewed energy he again went to the safe, opened the till, +pulled it out, and searched again and again. + +"Overcome with fright, he exclaimed: 'It is not there!' + +"'Why is it not there?' + +"And he gave me another look--haggard! terrible! His face was fearfully +contracted. He clasped his head with both hands, and stammered, as if +coming out of a dream. + +"'It is true, I remember--I have hidden it! Yes, I hid it! I do not know +where--in some book! In which one?' + +"He looked around him with wild eyes. The cerebral anaemia which had made +him fear robbery again seized him, and poor Rovere, my old friend, +plainly showed that he was enduring the agony of a man who is drowning, +and who does not know where to cling in order to save himself. + +"He was still standing, but as he turned around, he staggered. + +"He repeated in a hoarse, frightened voice: 'Where, where have I hidden +that? Fool! The safe did not seem to me secure enough! Where, where +have I put it?' + +"It was then, Monsieur, yes, at that moment, that the concierge entered +and saw us standing face to face before those papers of which she had +spoken. I must have looked greatly embarrassed, very pale, showing the +violent emotion which seized me by the throat. Rovere said to her rather +roughly: 'What are you here for?' and sent her away with a gesture. Mme. +Moniche had had time to see the open safe and the papers spread out, +which she supposed were valuable. I understand how she deceived herself, +and when I think of it, I accuse myself. There was something tragic +taking place between Rovere and me. This woman could not know what it +was, but she felt it. + +"And it was more terrible, a hundred times more terrible, when she had +disappeared. There seemed to be a battle raging in Rovere's brain, as +between his will and his weakness. Standing upright, striving not to +give way, struggling to concentrate all his brain power in his effort to +remember, to find some trace of the hidden place where he had foolishly +put his fortune, between the leaves of some huge book. Rovere called +violently, ardently to his aid his last remnant of strength to combat +against this anaemia which took away the memory of what he had done. He +rolled his eyes desperately, found nothing, remembered nothing. + +"It was awful--this combat against memory, which disappeared, fled; this +aspect of a panting beast, a hunted boar which seemed to seize this +man--and I shivered when, with a rage, I shall never forget, the dying +man rushed, in two steps, to the table, bent over the papers, snatched +them up with his thin hands, crumpled them up, tore them in two and +threw them under his feet, with an almost maniacal laugh, saying in +strident tones: + +"'Ah! Decorations! Brevets, baubles! Childish foolishness! What good are +they? Would they give her a living?' + +"And he kept on laughing. He excited himself over the papers, which he +stamped under his feet until he had completely exhausted himself. He +gasped, 'I stifle!' and he half fell over the lounge, upon which I laid +him. I fully believed that he was dying. I experienced a horrible +sensation, which was agonizing. He revived, however. But how, after that +swoon and that crisis, could I speak to him again of his daughter, of +that which he wished to leave her, to give, in trust, to me? He became +preoccupied with childish things, returning to the dreams of a rich man; +he spoke of going out the next day. We would go together in the Bois. We +would dine at the Pavilion. He would like to travel. And thus he rambled +on. + +"I said to myself, 'Wait! Let us wait! To-morrow, after a good night's +sleep, he will perhaps remember. I surely have some days before me. To +speak to him to-day would be to provoke a new crisis.' + +"And I helped him to put back in the safe the crushed, torn papers, +without his asking me, or even himself questioning how they had come +there, who had thrown them on the floor, or who had opened the safe. His +face wore a slight smile, his gestures were automatic. Very weary, he at +last said: + +"'I am very tired. I would like to sleep.' I left him. He had stretched +himself out and covered himself up. He closed his eyes and said: + +"'It is so good to sleep!' + +"I would see him to-morrow. I would try to again to-morrow awaken in him +the desire which now seemed dulled. To-morrow his memory would have +returned, and in some of his books where he had (like the Arabs who put +their harvests in silos) placed his treasure he would find the fortune +intended for his daughter. + +"To-morrow! It is the word one repeats most often, and which one has the +least right to use. + +"I saw Rovere only after he was dead, with his throat cut--assassinated +by whom? The man whom you have arrested has traveled much; he comes from +a distance. Rovere was Consul at Buenos Ayres, and you know that he said +to me the last day I saw him: 'I have known many rascals in my life!' +Which seemed very simple when one thinks of the way he had lived. + +"This is the truth, Monsieur. I ought to have told you sooner. I repeat +that I had the weakness of wishing to keep the vow given to my dead +friend. I had the name of a woman to betray, the name of a man, too; +innocent of Rovere's fault. And then, again, it seemed to me that this +truth ought to become known of itself. When I was arrested, a sort of +foolish bravado urged me to see how far the absurdity of the charge +could accumulate against me seeming proofs. I am a gambler. That was a +part I played against you, or rather against the foolishness of destiny. +I did not take a second thought that the error could be a lasting one. I +had, moreover, only a word to say, but this word, I repeat, I hesitated +to speak, and I willingly supported the consequence of this hesitation, +even because this word was a name." + +"That name," said M. Ginory, "I have not asked you." + +"I refused it to the Magistrate," said Jacques Dantin, "but I confide it +to the man of honor!" + +"There is only a Magistrate here," M. Ginory replied, "but the legal +inquiry has its secrets, as life has." + +And Jacques Dantin gave the name which the one whom Louis-Pierre Rovere +called, Marthe, bore as her rightful name. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI. + + +M. GINORY, M. Leriche, the chief; Bernardet, and, in fact, all the +judiciary, believed that Charles Prades was guilty of the murder of +Rovere. Bernardet, who had been an actor in this drama, had now become a +spectator. + +Paul Rodier, a good reporter, had learned before his confreres of the +arrest of the young man, and, abandoning what he had called his trail of +the Woman in Black, he abruptly whirled about and quickly invented a +sensational biography of the newcomer. Charles-Henri Prades, or rather +Carlos Prades, as he called himself, had been a _gaucho_, a buffalo +tamer, a cowboy, using, turn by turn, the American revolver against the +Redskins and the Mexican lasso against the Yankees. + +The journalist had obtained a signature, picked up by the lodging-house +keeper where the guilty man had been hunted down, and published in his +paper the autographic characters; he had deduced from them some dramatic +observations. Cooper, of former times; Gustave Aymard, of yesterday; +Rudyard Kipling or Bret Harte, of to-day, had never met a personage more +dreadful, and at the same time more heroic. Carlos Prades used the +navaja (Spanish knife) with the terrible rapidity of a Catalan. He had +felt since the days of Buenos Ayres a fierce hate for the ex-Consul, and +this crime, which some of his brother reporters, habitually +indifferently informed (it was Paul Rodier who spoke), now attributed +alone to the avarice of this Cambrioleur from over the sea; he, Rodier, +gave this note as the cause of vengeance, and built thereupon a romance +which made his readers shiver. Or, rather, he said nothing outright. He +permitted one a glimpse into, he outlined, one knows not what, dark +history. Soon he made this Carlos Prades the instrument and the arm of +an association of vengeance. He could even believe that there was +anarchy in the affair. Then he had the young man mixed in some love +affair, a drama of passion, with Argentine Republic for the theatre. + +As a result he had succeeded in making interesting the man whom +Bernardet had pushed a few nights before into the station house. + +And, what was a singular thing, the reporter had divined part of the +truth. It was still another episode in his past that Rovere expiated +when he found himself one day, in his salon in the Boulevard de Clichy, +face to face with the man who was to be his murderer. At Buenos Ayres, +the ex-Consul had been associated in a large agricultural enterprise +with a man whose hazardous speculations, play and various adventures had +completely ruined him, and who had left two children--a young girl whom +Rovere thought for a moment of marrying, and a son, younger--poor beings +of whom the Consul, paying his partner's debts, seemed the natural +protector. Jean Prades, in committing suicide--he had killed himself, +frightened at the magnitude of his debts--had commended his children to +Rovere's care. + +If Carlotta had lived, without doubt Rovere would have made her his +wife. He loved her with a deep and respectful tenderness. The poor girl +died very suddenly, and there remained to Rovere only his dream. One of +those remembrances of a fireside, one of those spectres which brush the +forehead with their wings or the folds of their winding sheets, when in +the solitude in which he has voluntarily buried himself the searcher +after adventures recalls the past. The past of yesterday. Illusions, +disillusions, old loves, miseries! + +Rovere gave to this brother of the dead girl the affection which he had +felt for her. He remembered, also, the father's request. Prades's son, +passionate, eager to live, tempted in all his appetites, accepted as his +due Rovere's truly paternal devotion, worked on the sympathy of this +man, who, through pity and duty, too, gave to Charles a little of the +affection which he had felt for the sister, almost his fiancee, and for +the father, dead by his own hand. + +But, little by little, the solicitations, the unreasonable demands of +Prades, who, believing that he had a just claim on his father's old +partner, found it very natural that Rovere should devote himself to +him--these continual and pressing demands became for the Consul +irritating obsessions. Rovere seemed to this young man, who was a +spendthrift and a gambler--a gambler possessed with atavistic frenzy--a +sort of living savings bank, from which he could draw without counting. +His importunities at last seemed fatiguing and excessive, and Prades was +advised one beautiful day that he no longer need count from that moment +on the generosity of his benefactor. All this happened at Buenos Ayres, +and about the time of the Consul's departure for France. Rovere added to +this very curt declaration a last benefit. He gave to the brother of the +dead girl, to the son of Prades, of the firm of Rovere and Prades, a sum +sufficient to enable him to live while waiting for better things, and he +told the young man in proper terms that, as he had now no one to depend +upon, that he had better take himself elsewhere to be hung. The word +could not be, with the appetites and habits of Charles Prades, taken in +a figurative sense, and the young man continued his life of adventures, +as tragic in their reality and as improbable as the reporters' +melodramatic inventions. + +Then, at the end of his resources, after having searched for fortune +among miners, weary of tramping about in America, he embarked one +morning for Havre, with the idea that the best gold mine was still that +living placer which he had exploited in Buenos Ayres, and which was +called Pierre Rovere. + +At Paris, where he knew the Consul had retired, Prades soon found trace +of him, and learned where was the retreat of his brother-in-law. His +brother-in-law! He pronounced the word with a wicked sneer, as if it had +for him a something understood about the sweet and maiden remembrance of +the dead girl. There, in gay Paris, with some resources which allowed +him to pay for his board and lodging in a third-rate hotel, he searched, +asked, discovered, at last, the address of the ex-Consul, and presented +himself to Rovere, who felt, at sight of this spectre, his anger return. + +The first time that Charles Prades had asked at the lodge if M. Rovere +was at home, the Moniches had permitted him to go upstairs, and perhaps +Mme. Moniche would have suspected the man in the sombrero if she had not +surprised Jacques Dantin before the open safe and the papers. + +Prades, moreover, had appeared only three times at Rovere's house, and +on the day of the murder he had entered at the moment when Mme. Moniche +was sweeping the upper floors, and Moniche was working in his shop in +the rear of the lodge, and the staircase was empty. He rang, and +Rovere, with dragging steps, came to open the door. Rovere was ill and +was a little ennuied, and he believed, or instinctively hoped, that it +was the woman in black--his daughter! + +Everything served Prades's projects. He had come not to kill, but by +some means to gain entrance to Rovere's apartments, and, when once +there, to find some resource--a loan, more or less freely given, more or +less forced--and he would leave with it. + +Rovere, already worn out, weary of his former supplications, felt +tempted to shut the door in his face, but Prades pushed it back, +entered, closed it, and said: + +"A last interview! You will never see me again! But listen to me!" + +Then, Rovere allowed him to enter the salon, and despite the terrible +weakness which he experienced wished to make this a final, decisive +interview; to disembarrass himself once for all of this everlasting +beggar, sometimes whining, sometimes threatening. + +"Will you not let me die in peace?" he said. "Have I not paid my debt?" + +But Prades had seated himself in a fauteuil, crossed his legs and hung +over his knee his sombrero, on which he drummed a minstrel march. + +"My dear Monsieur Rovere, it is a last appeal for funds. I believe that +America is better than Paris. And in order to return there or to do +what I ought here, I must have what I have not--money!" + +"I am tired of giving you money!" Rovere quickly replied. + +And between these two men, bound by the remembrance of the dead girl--a +bond burdensome to the one, imposed upon by the other--a storm of bitter +words and harsh sentiments arose and kindled fierce anger in both. + +"I tried to let you remain in peace, my dear Consul. But hunger has +driven the wolf out of the woods. I am very hungry. And here I am!" + +"I have nothing with which to feed your appetites. You are nothing but a +burden to me." + +"Oh! Ingratitude!" and Prades, with his Argentine accent, spoke his +sister's name. + +"My father died and Carlotta herself entrusted me to your care, my dear +brother-in-law!" + +It seemed to the sick man, irritated as he was, that this name--which he +had buried deep in his heart with chaste tenderness--was a supreme +insult. + +"I forbid you to evoke that memory! You do not see, then, that the +memory of that dear and saintly creature is one of the griefs of my +life!" + +"And it is one of my heritages! Brother-in-law of a consul, _Senor mia_, +but it is a title, and I hold it!" + +Rovere experienced a strong desire to call, to ring, to give an order to +have this troublesome visitor put out. But energetic and fearless as he +had been but a short time before, now weakened by illness, he trembled +before a possible scandal. Then he, unaided, attempted to push the young +man out of the salon. Prades resisted, and, at the first touch, gave a +bound, and all that was evil in him suddenly awoke. + +A struggle ensued, without a word being pronounced by either; a quick, +brutal struggle. Rovere counted on his past strength, taking by the +collar this Prades who threatened him, and Prades, while clutching the +ex-Consul with his left hand, searched in his pocket for a weapon--the +one which Bernardet had taken from him. + +This was a sinister moment! Prades pushed Rovere back; he staggered and +fell against a piece of furniture, while the young man disengaging +himself, stepped back, quickly opened his Spanish knife, then, with a +bound, caught Rovere, shook him, and holding the knife uplifted, said: + +"Thou hast willed it!" + +It was at this instant that Rovere, whose hands were contracted, dug his +nails into the assassin's neck--the nails which the Commissary Desbriere +and M. Jacquelin Audrays had found still red with blood. + +Prades, who had come there either to supplicate or threaten, now had +only one thought, hideous and ferocious--to kill! He did not reason. It +was no more than an unchained instinct. The noise of the organs upon the +Boulevard, which accompanied with their musical, dragging notes this +savage scene, like a tremulo undertone to a melodrama at the theatre, he +did not hear. The whole intensity of his life seemed to be concentrated +in his fury, in his hand armed with the knife. He threw himself on +Rovere; he struck the flesh, opening the throat, as across the water +among the Gauchos he had been accustomed to kill sheep or cut the throat +of an ox. + +Rovere staggered, wavered, freed from the hand which held him, and +Prades stepping back, looked at him. + +Livid, the dying man seemed to live only in his eyes. He had cast upon +the murderer a last meaning look--now, in a sort of supreme agony, he +looked around, his eyes searched for a support, for aid, yes, they +called, while from that throat horrible sounds issued. + +Prades saw with a kind of fright, Rovere, with a superhuman tragic +effort, step back, staggering like a drunken man, pull with his poor +contracted hands from above the chimney piece an object which the +murderer had not noticed and upon which, with an ardent, prayerful +expression he fixed his eyes, stammering some quick inarticulate words +which Prades could not hear or understand. + +It seemed to Prades that between his victim and himself there was a +witness, and whether he thought of the value of the stones imbedded in +the frame or whether he wished to take from Rovere this last support in +his distress, he went to him and attempted to tear the portrait from his +hands. But an extraordinary strength seemed to come to the dying man and +Rovere resisted, fastening his eyes upon the portrait, casting upon it a +living flame, like the last flare of a dying lamp, and with this last, +despairing, agonizing look the ex-Consul breathed his last. He fell. +Prades tore the portrait from the fingers which clutched it. That frame, +he could sell it. He picked up here and there some pieces which seemed +to him of value, as if on a pillaging tour on the prairies. He was about +to enter the library where the safe was, when the noise of the opening +of the entrance door awakened his trapper's instinct. Some one was +coming. Who it could be was of little importance. To remain was to +expose himself, to be at once arrested. The corpse once seen, the person +would cry aloud, rush out, close the door and send for the police. + +Hesitating between a desire to pillage and the necessity for fright, +Prades did not wait long to decide. Should he hide? Impossible! Then, +stepping back to the salon door, he flattened himself as much as +possible against the wall and waited until the door should be opened +when he would be completely hidden behind it. As Mme. Moniche stepped +into the room and cried out as she saw Rovere lying on the floor, Prades +slipped into the ante-chamber, found himself on the landing, closed the +door, rapidly descended the stairs and stepped out upon the Boulevard de +Clichy among the passers-by, even before Mme. Moniche, terrified, had +called for help. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII. + + +ALL the details of that murder, M. Ginory had drawn, one by one, from +Prades in his examination. The murderer denied at first; hesitated; +discussed; then at last, like a cask with the bung out, from which pours +not wine, but blood, the prisoner told all; confessed; recounted; +loosened his tongue; abandoned himself weakened and conquered, weary of +his misery. + +"I was so foolish, so stupid," he violently said, "as to keep the +portrait. I believed that the frame was worth a fortune. Fool! I sold it +for a hundred sous!" + +He gave the merchant's address, it was on the Quai Saint Michel. +Bernardet found the frame as he had found the painted panel, and this +time, no great credit was due him. + +"Now," said he, "the affair is ended, _classe_. My children (he was +relating his adventures to his little girls), we must pass to another. +And why"-- + +"Why, what?" asked Mme. Bernardet. + +"Eh! there it is! Why--it lacks the elucidation of a problem. I will +see! I will know!" + +He still remembered the young Danish doctor, whom he had seen with M. +Morin at the autopsy. With his knowledge of men, with the sharp, keen +eye of the police officer, Bernardet had recognized a man of superior +mind; a mind dreamy and mysterious. He knew where Dr. Erwin lived during +his sojourn in Paris, and he went to his apartment one beautiful morning +and rang the bell at the door of a hotel in the Boulevard Saint Martin, +where students and strangers lodge. He might have asked advice of M. +Morin, of the master of French Science, but he, the Inspector of Surete, +approach these high personages, to question them. He dared not as long +as there was a Danish doctor. + +Bernardet's brain whirled. He felt almost certain that Dr. Erwin would +give the same explanation which he, himself, suspected, in regard to the +observed phenomenon. + +"The dead man's eye has spoken and can speak," said Bernardet to +himself. "Yes, surely. I am not deceived." + +Dr. Erwin met Bernardet cordially and listened to him with profound +attention. The police officer repeated word for word the confession +drawn from Prades. Then he asked the Danish physician if he really +believed that Jacques Dantin's image had been transfixed on the retina +of the dying man's eye, during the time when he had held and gazed at +the portrait. + +"For the proofs which I obtained were very confused," said the officer, +"it is possible, and I say it is quite easy to recognize Jacques +Dantin's features. We have seen it, and, according to your opinion even +the painting was able to be--how shall I express myself--stored up, +retained in the retina." + +"You found the proof there," said Dr. Erwin. + +"So, according to your opinion, I have not deceived myself?" + +"No!" + +"I have truly found in the retina of the dead man's eye the last vision +he saw when living?" + +"Yes!" + +"But the vision of a painting. A painting, Doctor." + +"Why not!" Dr. Erwin responded in a sharp tone. "Do you know what +happened? Knowing that he was dying the unhappy man went, urged by a +tragic impulse, to that portrait which represented to him all that was +left, concentrating in one image alone, all his life." + +"Then it is possible? It is possible?" Bernardet repeated. + +"I believe it," said the Dane. "The man is dying. He has only one +thought--to go directly to the one who, surviving him, guarded his +secrets and his life. He seized his portrait; he tore it from its hook +with all his strength; he devoured it with his eyes; he drank it in with +a look, if I may be allowed the expression. To this picture of the being +whom he loved he spoke; he cried to him; telling him his last wishes; +dictating to him his thoughts of vengeance. At this supreme moment his +energy was increased a hundredfold, I know not what intensity of life +was concentrated on this image, and gathering all his failing forces in +a last look the man who wished to live; the man weakened by illness, +dying, assassinated, put into that last regard the electric force, the +fire which fixed the image (confused, no doubt, but recognizable since +you have traced the resemblance) upon the retina. A phantom, if you +wish, which is reflected in the dead man's eye." + +"And," repeated Bernardet, who wished to be perfectly assured in regard +to the question, "it is not only the image of a living being, it is, to +use your words, the phantom even of a painting which was retained on the +retina?" + +"I do not reply to you: 'That is possible!' It is you who say to me: 'I +have seen it!' And you have seen it, in truth, and the form, vague +though it may be, the painted figure permits you to find in a passer-by +the man whose picture the retina had already shown you!" + +"Oh! well! Doctor," said the little Bernardet, "I shall tell that, but +they will deny it. They will say that it is impossible!" + +Dr. Erwin smiled. He seemed to be looking, with his deep blue eyes, at +some invisible perspective, not bounded by the rooms of little room. + +"One has said," he began, "that the word _impossible_ is not French. It +would be more exact to affirm that it was not _human_! We attain a +knowledge of the unknowable. The mysterious is approachable. One must +deny nothing _a priori_; one must believe all things possible and not +only a dream. Search for the truth, the _harsh_ truth, as your Stendhal +said. Well! the word is wrong. One ought to say justly, the _exquisite_ +truth, for it is a joy for those who search, that daily life where each +movement marks a step advanced, where the heart beats at the thought of +a rendezvous in the laboratory as at a rendezvous of love. Ah! he is +happy who has given his life to science. He lives in a dream. It is the +poetry, in our times of prose. The dream," continued the young doctor as +in an ecstasy, while Bernardet listened, ravished, "the dream is +everywhere. It is impossible to make it tangible. Thought, human +thought, can sometime be deciphered like an open book. An American +physician asked to be permitted to try an experiment upon the cranium of +a condemned man, still living. Through the cranium he studied the man's +brain. Has not Edison undertaken to give sight to the blind! But, in +order to accomplish all these things, it is necessary, as in primitive +times, to believe, to believe always. The twentieth century will see +many others." + +"Ah! Doctor! Doctor!" cried poor little Bernardet, much moved. "I do not +wish to be the ignoramus that I am, the father of a family, who has +mouths to feed, and I beg of you to take me as a sweeper in your +laboratory." + +He departed, enthused by the interview. Henceforth he could say that, +he, the ignorant one, had, by his seemingly foolish conviction, proved +the leader of an experiment which had been abandoned for some years; and +the humble police officer had reopened the nearly closed door to +criminal instruction. + +A scruple, moreover, came to him; a doubt, an agony, and he wished to +share it with M. Ginory. + +All the same, with the admirable invention, he had caused an innocent +man to be arrested. This thought made him very uneasy. He had produced a +power which, instead of striking the guilty, had overthrown an unhappy +man, and it was this famous discovery of Dr. Bourion's, persisted in by +him, which had resulted in this mistake. + +"It must be," he thought, "that man may be fallible even in the most +marvelous discoveries. It is frightful! It is perhaps done to make us +more prudent. Prudent and modest!" + +Doubt now seized him. Must he stop there in these famous experiments +which ended in this lie? Ought he abandon all research on a road which +ended in a cul-de-sac? And he confided that unhappy scruple to the +Examining Magistrate, with whom the chances of the service had put him +in sympathy. M. Ginory not only was interested in strange discoveries, +but he was always indulgent toward the original, little Bernardet. + +"Finally, M. le Juge," said the police officer, shaking his head, "I +have thought and thought about the discovery, our discovery--that of Dr. +Bourion. It is subject to errors, our discovery. It would have led us to +put in prison--Jacques Dantin, and Jacques Dantin was not guilty." + +"Oh, yes! M. Bernardet," said the Magistrate, who seemed thoughtful, his +heavy chin resting on his hand. "It ought to make us modest. It is the +fate of all human discoveries. To err--to err, is human!" + +"It is not the less true," responded Bernardet, "that all which has +passed opens to us the astonishing horizon of the unknown"---- + +"The unknowable!" murmured the Magistrate. + +"A physician who sometimes asks me to his experiments invited me to his +house the other evening and I saw--yes saw, or what one calls seeing, in +a mirror placed before me, by the light of the X-rays--greenish rays +which traversed the body--yes, Monsieur, I saw my heart beat, and my +lungs perform their functions, and I am fat, and a thin person could +better see himself living and breathing. Is it not fantastic, Monsieur +Ginory? Would not a man have been shut up as a lunatic thirty years ago +who would have pretended that he had discovered that? We shall see--we +shall see many others!" + +"And will it add to the happiness of man? and will it diminish grief, +wickedness and crime?" + +The Magistrate spoke as if to himself, thoughtfully, sadly. Something +Bernardet said brought a smile to his lips. + +"This is, Monsieur le Juge, a fine ending of the chapter for the second +part of your work, 'The Duty of a Magistrate Toward Scientific +Discoveries.' And if the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences does +not add"---- + +M. Ginory suddenly turned red and interrupted Bernardet with a word and +a gesture. + +"Monsieur Bernardet!" + +"I can only repeat, Monsieur, what public opinion thinks and says," said +Bernardet, bowing low. "There was an illusion to this affair written up. +An amiable fellow--that Paul Rodier." + +"Ah! Monsieur Bernardet, Monsieur Bernardet!" laughingly said the +Magistrate, "you have a weakness for reporters. Do you want me to tell +you something? You will finish by becoming a journalist." + +"And you will certainly finish in the habit of a member of the Academy, +Monsieur Ginory," said the little Bernardet, with his air of a mocking +abbe. + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII. + + +VERY often, after his release from prison, Jacques Dantin went to the +corner of the cemetery at Montmartre, where his friend lay. And he +always carried flowers. It had become to him, since the terrible strain +of his detention, a necessity, a habit. The dead are living! They wait, +they understand, they listen! + +It seemed to Dantin that he had but one aim. Alas! What had been the +wish, the last dream of the dead man would never be realized. That +fortune which Rovere had intended for the child whom he had no right to +call his own would go, was going to some far-off cousins of whose +existence the ex-Consul was not even aware perhaps, and whom he +certainly had never known--to some indifferent persons, chance +relatives, strangers. + +"I ought not to have waited for him to tell me what his intentions were +regarding his daughter," Dantin often thought. What would become of her, +the poor girl, who knew the secret of her birth and who remained silent, +piously devoting herself to the old soldier whose name she bore? + +One day in February a sad, gray day, Jacques Dantin, thinking of the +past Winter so unhappy of the sad secret grave and heavy, strolled +along toward that granite tomb near which Rovere slept. He recalled the +curious crowd which had accompanied his dead friend to its last resting +place: the flowers; the under current of excitement; the cortege. +Silence now filled the place! Dark shadows could be seen here and there +between the tombs at the end of paths. It was not a visiting day nor an +hour usual for funerals. This solitude pleased Jacques. He felt near to +him whom he loved. + +Louis-Pierre Rovere. That name, which Moniche had had engraved, evoked +many remembrances for this man who had for a time been suspected of +assassinating him. All his childhood, all his youth, all the past! How +quickly the years had fled, such ruined years. So much of fever, of +agitation--so many ambitions, deceptions, in order to end here. + +"He is at rest at least," thought Dantin, remembering his own life, +without aim, without happiness. And he also would rest soon, having not +even a friend in this great city of Paris whom he could depend upon to +pay him a last visit. A ruined, wicked, useless life! + +He again bade Rovere good-bye speaking to him, calling him thee and thou +as of old. Then he went slowly away. But at the end of a walk he turned +around to look once more at the place where his friend lay. He saw, +coming that way, between the tombs, as if by some cross alley, a woman +in black, who was walking directly toward the place he had left. He +stopped, waiting--yes, it was to Rovere's tomb that she was going. Tall, +svelte, and as far as Jacques Dantin could see, she was young. He said +to himself: + +"It is his daughter!" + +The memory of their last interview came to him. He saw his unhappy +friend, haggard, standing in front of his open safe, searching through +his papers for those which represented his child's fortune. If this was +his friend's daughter, it was to him that Rovere had looked to assure +her future. + +He walked slowly back to the tomb. The woman in black was now kneeling +near the gray stone. Bent over, arranging a bouquet of chrysanthemums +which she had brought. Dantin could see only her kneeling form and black +draperies. + +She was praying now! + +Dantin stood looking at her, and when at last she arose he saw that she +was tall and elegant in her mourning robes. He advanced toward her. The +noise of his footsteps on the gravel caused her to turn her head, and +Dantin saw a beautiful face, young and sad. She had blonde hair and +large eyes, which opened wide in surprise. He saw the same expression of +the eyes which Rovere's had borne. + +The young woman instinctively made a movement as if to go away, to give +place to the newcomer. But Dantin stopped her with a gesture. + +"Do not go away, Mademoiselle. I am the best friend of the one who +sleeps here." + +She stopped, pale and timid. + +"I know very well that you loved him," he added. + +She unconsciously let a frightened cry escape her and looked helplessly +around. + +"He told me all," Dantin slowly said. "I am Jacques Dantin. He has +spoken to you of me, I think"---- + +"Yes," the young woman answered. + +Dantin involuntarily shivered. Her voice had the same _timbre_ as +Rovere's. + +In the silence of the cemetery, near the tomb, before that name, +Louis-Pierre Rovere, which seemed almost like the presence of his dead +friend, Dantin felt the temptation to reveal to this girl what her +father had wished her to know. + +They knew each other without ever having met. One word was enough, one +name was sufficient, in order that the secret which united them should +bring them nearer each other. What Dantin was to Rovere, Rovere had told +Marthe again and again. + +Then, as if from the depths of the tomb, Rovere had ordered him to +speak. Jacques Dantin, in the solemn silence of that City of the Dead, +confided to the young girl what her father had tried to tell him. He +spoke rapidly, the words, "A legacy--in trust--a fortune" fell from his +lips. But the young girl quickly interrupted him with a grand gesture. + +"I do not wish to know what any one has told you of me. I am the +daughter of a man who awaits me at Blois, who is old, who loves only me, +who needs only me, and I need nothing!" + +There was in her tone an accent of command, of resolution, which Dantin +recognized as one of Rovere's most remarkable characteristics. + +Had Dantin known nothing, this sound in the voice, this ardent look on +the pale face, would have given him a hint or a suspicion, and have +obliged him to think of Rovere. Rovere lived again in this woman in +black whom Jacques Dantin saw for the first time. + +"Then?" asked this friend of the dead man, as if awaiting an order. + +"Then," said the young girl in her deep voice, "when you meet me near +this tomb do not speak to me of anything. If you should meet me outside +this cemetery, do not recognize me. The secret which was confided to you +by the one who sleeps there, is the secret of a dead one whom I +adored--_my mother_; and of a living person whom I reverence--_my +father!_" + +She accented the words with a sort of tender, passionate piety, and +Jacques Dantin saw that her eyes were filled with tears. + +"Now, adieu!" she said. + +Jacques still wished to speak of that last confidence of the dying man, +but she said again: + +"Adieu!" + +With her hand, gloved in black, she made the sign of the Cross, smiled +sadly as she looked at the tomb where the chrysanthemums lay, then +lowering her veil she went away, and Dantin, standing near the gray +tomb, saw her disappear at the end of an alley. + +The martyr, expiating near the old crippled man, a fault of which she +was innocent, went back to him who was without suspicion; to him who +adored her and to whom she was, in their poor apartment in Blois, his +saint and his daughter. + +She would watch, she would lose her youth, near that old soldier whose +robust constitution would endure many, many long years. She would pay +her dead mother's debt; she would pay it by devoting every hour of her +life to this man whose name she bore--an illustrious name, a name +belonging to the victories, to the struggles, to the history of +yesterday--she would be the hostage, the expiatory victim. + +With all her life would she redeem the fault of that other! + +"And who knows, my poor Rovere," said Jacques Dantin, "thy daughter, +proud of her sacrifice, is perhaps happier in doing this!" + +In his turn he left the tomb, he went out of the cemetery, he wished to +walk to his lodging in the Rue Richelieu. He had only taken a few steps +along the Boulevard, where--it seemed but yesterday--he had followed +(talking with Bernardet) behind Rovere's funeral carriage, when he +nearly ran into a little man who was hurrying along the pavement. The +police officer saluted him, with a shaking of the head, which had in it +regret, a little confusion, some excuses. + +"Ah! Monsieur Dantin, what a grudge you must have against me!" + +"Not at all," said Dantin. "You thought that you were doing your duty, +and it did not displease me to have you try to so quickly avenge my poor +Rovere." + +"Avenge him! Yes, he will be! I would not give four sous for Charles +Prades's head to-morrow, when he is tried. We shall see each other in +court. _Au revoir_, Monsieur Dantin, and all my excuses!" + +"_Au revoir_, Monsieur Bernardet, and all my compliments!" + +The two men separated. Bernardet was on his way home to breakfast. He +was late. Mme. Bernardet would be waiting, and a little red and +breathless he hurried along. He stopped on hearing a newsboy announce +the last number of _Lutece_. + +"Ask for the account of the trial to-morrow: The inquest by Paul Rodier +on the crime of the Boulevard de Clichy!" + +The newsboy saluted Bernardet whom he knew very well. + +"Give me a paper!" said the police officer. The boy pulled out a paper +from the package he was carrying, and waved it over his head like a +flag. + +"Ah! I understand, that interests you, Monsieur Bernardet!" + +And while the little man looked for the heading _Lutece_ in capital +letters--the title which Paul Rodier had given to a series of interviews +with celebrated physicians, the newsboy, giving Bernardet his change, +said: + +"To-morrow is the trial. But there is no doubt, is there, Monsieur +Bernardet? Prades is condemned in advance!" + +"He has confessed, it is an accomplished fact," Bernardet replied, +pocketing his change. + +"_Au revoir_ and thanks, Monsieur Bernardet." + +And the newsboy, going on his way, cried out: + +"Ask for _Lutece_--The Rovere trial! The affair to-morrow! Paul Rodier's +inquest on the eye of the dead man!" His voice was at last drowned in +the noise of tramways and cabs. + +M. Bernardet hurried on. The little ones would have become impatient, +yes, yes, waiting for him, and asking for him around the table at home. +He looked at the paper which he had bought. Paul Rodier, in regard to +the question which he, Bernardet, had raised, had interviewed savants +physiologists, psychologists, and in good journalistic style had +published, the evening before the trial, the result of his inquest. + +M. Bernardet read as he hastened along the long titles in capitals in +large head lines. + +"A Scientific Problem Apropos of the Rovere Affair!" + +"Questions of Medical Jurisprudence!" + +"The Eye of the Dead Man!" + +"Interviews and Opinions of MM. Les Docteurs Brouardel, Roux, Duclaux, +Pean, Robin, Pozzi, Blum, Widal, Gilles de la Tourette"---- + +Bernardet turned the leaves. The interviews filled two pages at least in +solid columns. + +"So much the better! So much the better!" said the police officer +enchanted. And hastening along even faster, he said to himself: + +"I am going to read all that to the children; yes, all that--it will +amuse them--life is a romance like any other! More incredible than any +other! And these questions; the unknown, the invisible, all these +problems--how interesting they are! And the mystery--so amusing!" + +JULES CLARETIE of the French Academy; Mrs. Carlton A. Kingsbury, +Translator. + + + + + Transcriber's Notes: + +For reasons unknown, the chapter headings show no Chapter XII and no +Chapter XV. The chapter headings were left unchanged. I am told that +both a copy of the physical book and the copy at The Interne Archive +have the same Chapter numbering sequence. + +Passages in italics are indicated by _underscores_. + +Small caps have been replaced with ALL CAPS text. + +On page 15, a quotation mark was placed before "But since you". + +On page 15, a quotation mark was placed before "But I am nothing". + +On page 35, "in so unforseen" was replaced with "in so unforeseen". + +On page 38, "the wordly magistrate" was replaced with "the worldly +magistrate". + +On page 40, the quotation mark after "which he wished to" was removed. + +On page 40, "the study of M. Rovero" was replaced with "the study of M. +Rovere". + +On page 42, "to be exact, thirty-six" was replaced with "to be exact, +twenty-six years". + +On page 43, "14th of June, 1848" was replaced with "14th of June, 1868". + +On page 46, "devination" was replaced with "divination". + +On page 49, "reentered the salon" was replaced with "reentered the +salon". + +On page 50, "des Aubrays" was replaced with "des Audrays". + +On page 61, "tatooings" was replaced with "tattooings". + +On page 64, a single quotation mark before "Art thou satisfied" was +replaced with a double quotation mark. + +On page 82, "acqueous" was replaced with "aqueous". + +On page 85, "sixteerth" was replaced with "sixteenth". + +On page 91, "Mme. Monchie" was replaced with "Mme. Moniche". + +On page 99, "chosen by Mr. Rovere" was replaced with "chosen by M. +Rovere". + +On page 101, "mein" was replaced with "mien". + +On page 110, the [oe] ligature was replaced with "oe". + +On page 111, the period after "he replied" was replaced with a comma. + +On page 111, a paragraph marker was placed after "Why?". + +On page 121, the quotation mark was removed after "Rovere's murder?". + +On page 122, a period was placed after "of your biography". + +On page 129, the quotation mark was removed after "of death." + +On page 140, "Rovere's" was replaced with "Rovere's". + +On page 146, "charcteristic" was replaced with "characteristic". + +On page 150, "portait which resembled" was replaced with "portrait which +resembled". + +On page 153, "Bernadet left enchanted" was replaced with "Bernardet left +enchanted". + +On page 164, "retain silent" was replaced with "remain silent". + +On page 171, "grey" was replaced with "gray". + +On page 184, the [oe] ligature was replaced with "oe". + +On page 224, "had came there" was replaced with "had come there". + +On page 230, "one mornnig" was replaced with "one morning". + +On page 230, "Prades, moreover" was replaced with "Prades, moreover". + +On page 232, "my dear brother-in law" was replaced with "my dear +brother-in-law". + +On page 235, "necessity for fright" was replaced with "necessity for +flight." + +On page 241, "in the labratory" was replaced with "in the laboratory". + +On page 250, "chysanthemums" was replaced with "chrysanthemums". + +On page 251, "hurring" was replaced with "hurrying". + +On page 251, "Prades's" was replaced with "Prades's". + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Crime of the Boulevard, by Jules Claretie + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRIME OF THE BOULEVARD *** + +***** This file should be named 34058.txt or 34058.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/0/5/34058/ + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Ernest Schaal, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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