Emile Gaboriau

“ I thought myself sure of the character of these assassins: but now—" He paused; the wrinkles on his face, the contraction of his mouth, betrayed his mental effort.
"But now?" asked M. Plantat.
M. Lecoq, at this question, seemed like a man just roused from sleep.
"I beg your pardon," said he. "I forgot myself. I've a bad habit of reflecting aloud. That's why I almost always insist on working alone. My uncertainty, hesitation, the vacillation of my suspicions, lose me the credit of being an astute detective—of being an agent for whom there's no such thing as a mystery." ”

“ Ah, Sauvresy had saved him when he was dying! Sauvresy, after saving him, had welcomed him, opened to him his heart, purse, house; at this very moment he was making untiring efforts to restore his fortunes. Men like Tremorel can only receive such services as outrages. Had not his sojourn at Valfeuillu been a continual suffering? Was not his self-conceit tortured from morning till night? He might count the days by their humiliations. What! Must he always submit to—if he was not grateful for—the superiority of a man whom he had always been wont to treat as his inferior? ”

“ The memory of poor Sauvresy was a bond of happiness between them; if they liked me so well, it was because I often talked of him. Never a cloud, never a cross word. Hector—I called him so, familiarly, this poor, dear count—gave his wife the tender attentions of a lover; those delicate cares, which I fear most married people soon dispense with."
"And the countess?" asked M. Plantat, in a tone too marked not to be ironical.
"Bertha?" replied the worthy mayor—"she permitted me to call her thus, paternally—I have cited her many and many a time as an example and model, to Madame Courtois. ”

“ The judge of instruction looked at him attentively, to reassure himself, but his visage expressed nothing but a profound serenity. He told the story as he would any other, no matter what.
"Please go on, Monsieur," resumed M. Domini.
"Alas!" said M. Plantat, "nothing here below is eternal, not even grief. I know it better than anybody. Soon, to the tears of the first days, to violent despair, there succeeded, in the count and Madame Bertha, a reasonable sadness, then a soft melancholy. And in one year after Sauvresy's death Monsieur de Tremorel espoused his widow." ”

“ A chain stronger and harder than that of the galley-slave bound them together; a chain of infamies and crimes, of which the first link was a kiss, and the last a murder by poison. Now Sauvresy might die; his vengeance was on their heads, casting a cloud upon their sun. Free in appearance, they would go through life crushed by the burden of the past, more slaves than the blacks in the American rice-fields. Separated by mutual hate and contempt, they saw themselves riveted together by the common terror of punishment, condemned to an eternal embrace.
Bertha at this moment admired her husband. ”

“ He had gone to Paris and tried the sort of life which his friend Tremorel led. He had enough of it in six months, and hastily returned to Valfeuillu, to rest after such laborious pleasures. The experience cost him a hundred thousand francs, but he said he did not regret purchasing it at this price.
Bertha was wearied with the constancy and adoration of her husband. She had only to express a desire to be at once obeyed, and this blind submission to all her wishes appeared to her servile in a man. A man is born, she thought, to command, and not to obey; to be master, and not slave. ”

“ When he had done, she said:
"It's really so, then; you only care for the million of dowry?"
"I've sworn it to you a hundred times."
"Truly now, don't you love Laurence?"
"I have never loved her, and never shall." He thought that he would thus secure his peace until the wedding-day; once married, he cared not what would happen. What cared he for Sauvresy? Life is only a succession of broken friendships. What is a friend, after all? One who can and ought to serve you. Ability consists in breaking with people, when they cease to be useful to you.
Bertha reflected. ”

“ M. Lecoq was a stoic on principle, and by profession. But the desolate words of the poor father overcame him. Forgetting that his emotion would be seen, he came out from the shadow where he had stood, and spoke to M. Courtois:
"I, Monsieur Lecoq, of the detectives, give you my honor that I will find Mademoiselle Laurence's body."
The poor mayor grasped desperately at this promise, as a drowning man to a straw.
"Oh, yes, we will find her, won't we? You will help me. They say that to the police nothing is impossible—that they see and know everything. We will see what has become of my child." ”

“ He said to himself that Bertha could not be thinking of marrying him the day after her husband's death. Months, a whole year must pass, and thus he would gain time; then some day he would declare his will. What would she have to say? Would she divulge the crime, and try to hold him as her accomplice? Who would believe her? How could she prove that he, who loved and had married another woman, had any interest in Sauvresy's death? People don't kill their friends for the mere pleasure of it. Would she provoke the law to exhume her husband? ”

“ I had reached an age at which a man's career is, as they say, finished, when I suddenly lost my wife and my two sons, my whole joy, my whole hope in this world. I found myself alone in life, more lost than the shipwrecked man in the midst of the sea, without a plank to sustain me. I was a soulless body, when chance brought me to settle down at Orcival. There I saw Laurence; she was just fifteen, and never lived there a creature who united in herself so much intelligence, grace, innocence, and beauty. Courtois became my friend, and soon Laurence was like a daughter to me. ”

“ Speak!"
"It was I, a wretch, who have killed you. I will not survive you."
An inexpressible anguish distorted Sauvresy's features. She kill herself! If so, his vengeance was vain; his own death would then appear only ridiculous and absurd. And he knew that Bertha would not be wanting in courage at the critical moment.
She waited, while he reflected.
"You are free," said he, at last, "this would merely be a sacrifice to Hector. If you died, he would marry Laurence Courtois, and in a year would forget even our name."
Bertha sprang to her feet; she pictured Hector to herself married and happy. ”

“ Can I live now?"
"Yes, you can live," responded M. Lecoq. "And more, you ought to live."
"I am a lost woman—"
"No, you are a poor child lured away by a wretch. You say you are very guilty; perhaps so; live to repent of it. Great sorrows like yours have their missions in this world, one of devotion and charity. Live, and the good you do will attach you once more to life. You have yielded to the deceitful promises of a villain. Remember, when you are rich, that there are poor innocent girls forced to lead a life of miserable shame for a morsel of bread. ”

“ Sauvresy had overtasked his strength. He fell panting upon the bed, his mouth open, his eyes filmy, and his features so distorted that he seemed to be on the point of death. But neither Bertha nor Tremorel thought of trying to relieve him. They remained opposite each other with dilated eyes, stupefied, as if their thoughts were bent upon the torments of that future which the implacable vengeance of the man whom they had outraged imposed upon them. They were indissolubly united, confounded in a common destiny; nothing could separate them but death. ”

“ He is dead. He has fallen under the blows of assassins, less vile than himself."
The doctor and M. Plantat strove to comfort the unhappy man; but he went on, excited more and more by the sound of his own voice.
"Oh, Laurence, my beloved, why did you not confide in me? You feared my anger, as if a father would ever cease to love his child. Lost, degraded, fallen to the ranks of the vilest, I would still love thee. Were you not my own? Alas! you knew not a father's heart. A father does not pardon; he forgets. ”

“ What did you expect from this wretch for whom you had the frightful courage to kill me, with a kiss upon your lips, slowly, hour by hour? You thought you loved him, but disgust ought to have come at last. Look at him, and judge between us. See which is the—man—I, extended on this bed where I shall soon die, or he shivering there in a corner. You have the energy of crime, but he has only the baseness of it. Ah, if my name was Hector de Tremorel, and a man had spoken as I have just done, that man should live no longer, even if he had ten revolvers like this I am holding to defend himself with! ”

“ It was M. Courtois.
They had decided that Philippe should speak.
"Monsieur Mayor," he said, "we have come to announce to you a great misfortune. A crime has been committed at Monsieur de Tremorel's."
M. Courtois was a friend of the count's; he became whiter than his shirt at this sudden news.
"My God!" stammered he, unable to control his emotion, "what do you say—a crime!"
"Yes; we have just discovered a body; and as sure as you are here, I believe it to be that of the countess."
The worthy man raised his arms heavenward, with a wandering air. ”

“ Every two or three days he went to Paris, and he attended the sales of the property in Burgundy and Orleans. The count at last detested and hated him; Sauvresy's happy, cheerful air annoyed him; jealousy stung him. One thought—that a wretched one—consoled him a little. "Sauvresy's happiness," said he to himself, "is owing to his imbecility. He thinks his wife dead in love with him, whereas she can't bear him."
Bertha had, indeed, permitted Hector to perceive her aversion to her husband. She no longer studied the emotions of her heart; she loved Tremorel, and confessed it to herself. ”

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

“ Jenny made a gesture which Tremorel did not see; her face had a malicious expression; her lips parted to utter some sarcastic response; but she recovered herself almost immediately.
"I am going, Hector," said she, after a moment's reflection; "If you are really leaving me to get married, you shall never hear of me again."
"Why, Jenny, I hope I shall still remain your friend."
"Well, only if you abandon me for another reason, remember what I tell you; you will be a dead man, and she, a lost woman." ”

“ That would be absurd.
"To me, then, this piece of cloth, this smeared vest, indicate at once
Guespin's innocence and the count's guilt."
"But," objected Dr. Gendron, "if Guespin is innocent, why don't he talk?
Why don't he prove an alibi? How was it he had his purse full of money?"
"Observe," resumed the detective, "that I don't say he is innocent; we are still among the probabilities. Can't you suppose that the count, perfidious enough to set a trap for his servant, was shrewd enough to deprive him of every means of proving an alibi?"
"But you yourself deny the count's shrewdness." ”

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