Within an Inch of His Life by Emile Gaboriau (good summer reads .TXT) 📖

your betrothed must have wondered at your absence?

A.—No: I had written to her.’”

“Do you hear, Jacques?” cried M. Magloire. “Notice that M. Galpin takes care not to insist. He does not wish to rouse your suspicions. He has got you to confess, and that is enough for him.”

But, in the meantime, M. Folgat had found another paper.

“In your sixth examination,” he went on, “I have noticed this,—

“‘Q.—You left your house with your gun on your shoulder, without any definite aim?

A.—I shall explain that when I have consulted with counsel.

Q.—You need no consultation to tell the truth.

A.—I shall not change my resolution.

Q.—Then you will not tell me where you were between eight and midnight?

A.—I shall answer that question at the same time with the other.

Q.—You must have had very strong reasons to keep you out, as you were expected by your betrothed, Miss Chandore?

A.—I had written to her not to expect me.’”

“Ah! M. Galpin is a clever fellow,” growled M. Magloire.

“Finally,” said M. Folgat, “here is a passage from your last but one examination,—

“‘Q.—When you wanted to send anybody to Sauveterre, whom did you usually employ?

A.—The son of one of my tenants, Michael.

Q.—It was he, I suppose, who, on the evening of the crime, carried the letter to Miss Chandore, in which you told her not to expect you?

A.—Yes.

Q.—You pretended you would be kept by some important business?

A.—That is the usual pretext.

Q.—But in your case it was no pretext. Where had you to go? and where did you go?

A.—As long as I have not seen counsel I shall say nothing.

Q.—Have a care: the system of negation and concealment is dangerous.

A.—I know it, and I accept the consequences.’”

Jacques was dumfounded. And necessarily every accused person is equally surprised when he hears what he has stated in the examination. There is not one who does not exclaim,—

“What, I said that? Never!”

He has said it, and there is no denying it; for there it is written, and signed by himself. How could he ever say so?

Ah! that is the point. However clever a man may be, he cannot for many months keep all his faculties on the stretch, and all his energy up to its full power. He has his hours of prostration and his hours of hope, his attacks of despair and his moments of courage; and the impassive magistrate takes advantage of them all. Innocent or guilty, no prisoner can cope with him. However powerful his memory may be, how can he recall an answer which he may have given weeks and weeks before? The magistrate, however, remembers it; and twenty times, if need be, he brings it up again. And as the small snowflake may become an irresistible avalanche, so an insignificant word, uttered at haphazard, forgotten, then recalled, commented upon, and enlarged may become crushing evidence.

Jacques now experienced this. These questions had been put to him so skilfully, and at such long intervals of time, that he had totally forgotten them; and yet now, when he recalled his answers, he had to acknowledge that he had confessed his purpose to devote that evening to some business of great importance.

“That is fearful!” he cried.

And, overcome by the terrible reality of M. Folgat’s apprehension, he added,—

“How can we get out of that?”

“I told you,” replied M. Folgat, “we must find some plausible explanation.”

“I am sure I am incapable of that.”

The young lawyer seemed to reflect a moment, and then he said,—

“You have been a prisoner while I have been free. For a month now I have thought this matter over.”

“Ah!”

“Where was your wedding to be?”

“At my house at Boiscoran.”

“Where was the religious ceremony to take place?”

“At the church at Brechy.”

“Have you ever spoken of that to the priest?”

“Several times. One day especially, when we discussed it in a pleasant way, he said jestingly to me, ‘I shall have you, after all in my confessional.’”

M. Folgat almost trembled with satisfaction, and Jacques saw it.

“Then the priest at Brechy was your friend?”

“An intimate friend. He sometimes came to dine with me quite unceremoniously, and I never passed him without shaking hands with him.”

The young lawyer’s joy was growing perceptibly.

“Well,” he said, “my explanation is becoming quite plausible. Just hear what I have positively ascertained to be the fact. In the time from nine to eleven o’clock, on the night of the crime, there was not a soul at the parsonage in Brechy. The priest was dining with M. Besson, at his house; and his servant had gone out to meet him with a lantern.”

“I understand,” said M. Magloire.

“Why should you not have gone to see the priest at Brechy, my dear client? In the first place, you had to arrange the details of the ceremony with him; then, as he is your friend, and a man of experience, and a priest, you wanted to ask him for his advice before taking so grave a step, and, finally, you intended to fulfil that religious duty of which he spoke, and which you were rather reluctant to comply with.”

“Well said!” approved the eminent lawyer of Sauveterre,—“very well said!”

“So, you see, my dear client, it was for the purpose of consulting the priest at Brechy that you deprived yourself of the pleasure of spending the evening with your betrothed. Now let us see how that answers the allegations of the prosecution. They ask you why you took to the marshes. Why? Because it was the shortest way, and you were afraid of finding the priest in bed. Nothing more natural; for it is well known that the excellent man is in the habit of going to bed at nine o’clock. Still you had put yourself out in vain; for, when you knocked at the door of the parsonage, nobody came to open.”

Here M. Magloire interrupted his colleague, saying,—

“So far, all is very well. But now there comes a very