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

the result of my labors. Everybody, no doubt, said, ‘Oh! M. Galpin has the case in hand; he knows all about it: no need to look after the matter when such a man has taken hold of it.’ And here I am. Oh! I might kill myself.”

“It is all the more fortunate,” replied M. Daubigeon, “that yesterday the case was hanging on a thread.”

The magistrate gnashed his teeth, and replied,—

“Yes, on a thread, thanks to M. Domini! whose weakness I cannot comprehend, and who did not know at all, or who was not willing to know, how to make the most of the evidence. But it was M. Gransiere’s fault quite as much. What had he to do with politics to drag them into the affair? And whom did he want to hit? No one else but M. Magloire, the man whom everybody respects in the whole district, and who had three warm personal friends among the jurymen. I foresaw it, and I told him where he would get into trouble. But there are people who will not listen. M. Gransiere wants to be elected himself. It is a fancy, a monomania of our day: everybody wants to be a deputy. I wish Heaven would confound all ambitious men!”

For the first time in his life, and no doubt for the last time also, the commonwealth attorney rejoiced at the misfortune of others. Taking savage pleasure in turning the dagger in his poor friend’s wounds, he said,—

“No doubt M. Folgat’s speech had something to do with it.”

“Nothing at all.”

“He was brilliantly successful.”

“He took them by surprise. It was nothing but a big voice, and grand, rolling sentences.”

“But still”—

“And what did he say, after all? That the prosecution did not know the real secret of the case. That is absurd!”

“The new judges may not think so, however.”

“We shall see.”

“This time M. de Boiscoran’s defence will be very different. He will spare nobody. He is down now, and cannot fall any lower.”

“That may be. But he also risks having a less indulgent jury, and not getting off with twenty years.”

“What do his counsel say?”

“I do not know. But I have just sent my clerk to find out; and, if you choose to wait”—

M. Daubigeon did wait, and he did well; for M. Mechinet came in very soon after, with a long face for the world, but inwardly delighted.

“Well?” asked M. Galpin eagerly.

He shook his head, and said in a melancholy tone of voice,—

“I have never seen any thing like this. How fickle public opinion is, after all! Day before yesterday M. de Boiscoran could not have passed through the town without being mobbed. If he should show himself to-day, they would carry him in triumph. He has been condemned, and now he is a martyr. It is known already that the sentence is void, and they are delighted. My sisters have just told me that the ladies in good society propose to give to the Marchioness de Boiscoran and to Miss Chandore some public evidence of their sympathy. The members of the bar will give M. Folgat a public dinner.”

“Why that is monstrous!” cried M. Galpin.

“Well,” said M. Daubigeon, “‘the opinions of men are more fickle and changeable than the waves of the sea.’”

But, interrupting the quotation, M. Galpin asked his clerk,—

“Well, what else?”

“I went to hand M. Gransiere the letter which you gave me for him”—

“What did he say?”

“I found him in consultation with the president, M. Domini. He took the letter, glanced at it rapidly, and told me in his most icy tone, ‘Very well!’ To tell the truth, I thought, that, in spite of his stiff and grand air, he was in reality furious.”

The magistrate looked utterly in despair.

“I can’t stand it,” he said sighing. “These men whose veins have no blood in them, but poison, never forgive.”

“Day before yesterday you thought very highly of him.”

“Day before yesterday he did not look upon me as the cause of a great misfortune for him.”

M. Mechinet went on quite eagerly,—

“After leaving M. Gransiere, I went to the court-house, and there I head the great piece of news which has set all the town agog. Count Claudieuse is dead.”

M. Daubigeon and M. Galpin looked at each other, and exclaimed in the same breath,—

“Great God! Is that so?”

“He breathed his last this morning, at two or three minutes before six o’clock. I saw his body in the private room of the attorney-general. The priest from Brechy was there, and two other priests from his parish. They were waiting for a bier to have him carried to his house.”

“Poor man!” murmured M. Daubigeon.

“But I heard a great deal more,” Mechinet said, “from the watchman who was on guard last night. He told me that when the trial was over, and it became known that Count Claudieuse was likely to die, the priest from Brechy came there, and asked to be allowed to offer him the last consolations of his church. The countess refused to let him come to the bedside of her husband. The watchman was amazed at this; and just then Miss Chandore suddenly appeared, and sent word to the countess that she wanted to speak to her.”

“Is it possible?”

“Quite certain. They remained together for more than a quarter of an hour. What did they say? The watchman told me he was dying with curiosity to know; but he could hear nothing, because there was the priest from Brechy, all the while, kneeling before the door, and praying. When they parted, they looked terribly excited. Then the countess immediately called in the priest, and he stayed with the count till he died.”

M. Daubigeon and M. Galpin had not yet recovered from their amazement at this account, when somebody knocked timidly at the door.

“Come in!” cried Mechinet.

The door opened, and the sergeant of gendarmes appeared.

“I have been sent here by the attorney-general,” he said; “and the servant told me you were up here. We have just caught Trumence.”

“That man who had escaped from jail?”

“Yes. We were about to carry him back there, when he told us that he had a secret to reveal, a very important, urgent secret, concerning the condemned prisoner, Boiscoran.”