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

prove that his obstinacy in not replying to any questions arises from his fear that his answers might convict him of perjury?”

The doctor would hear nothing more. He said rather uncourteously,—

“Lawyer’s quibbles! I know only one thing; and that is truth.”

“It will not always do to tell it,” murmured the lawyer.

“Yes, sir, always,” replied the physician,—“always, and at all hazards, and whatever may happen. I am M. de Boiscoran’s friend; but I am still more the friend of truth. If Cocoleu is a wretched impostor, as I am firmly convinced, our duty is to unmask him.”

Dr. Seignebos did not say—and he probably did not confess it to himself—that it was a personal matter between Cocoleu and himself. He thought Cocoleu had taken him in, and been the cause of a host of small witticisms, under which he had suffered cruelly, though he had allowed no one to see it. To unmask Cocoleu would have given him his revenge, and return upon his enemies the ridicule with which they had overwhelmed him.

“I have made up my mind,” he said, “and, whatever you may resolve, I mean to go to work at once, and try to obtain the appointment of a commission.”

“It might be prudent,” M. Folgat said, “to consider before doing any thing, to consult with M. Magloire.”

“I do not want to consult with Magloire when duty calls.”

“You will grant us twenty-four hours, I hope.”

Dr. Seignebos frowned till he looked formidable.

“Not an hour,” he replied; “and I go from here to M. Daubigeon, the commonwealth attorney.”

Thereupon, taking his hat and cane, he bowed and left, as dissatisfied as possible, without stopping even to answer M. de Chandore, who asked him how Count Claudieuse was, who was, according to reports in town, getting worse and worse.

“Hang the old original!” cried M. de Chandore before the doctor had left the passage.

Then turning to M. Folgat, he added,—

“I must, however, confess that you received the great news which he brought rather coldly.”

“The very fact of the news being so very grave,” replied the advocate, “made me wish for time to consider. If Cocoleu pretends to be imbecile, or, at least, exaggerates his incapacity, then we have a confirmation of what M. de Boiscoran last night told Miss Dionysia. It would be the proof of an odious trap of a long-premeditated vengeance. Here is the turning-point of the affair evidently.”

M. de Chandore was bitterly undeceived.

“What!” he said, “you think so, and you refuse to support Dr. Seignebos, who is certainly an honest man?”

The young lawyer shook his head.

“I wanted to have twenty-four hours’ delay, because we must absolutely consult M. de Boiscoran. Could I tell the doctor so? Had I a right to take him into Miss Dionysia’s secret?”

“You are right,” murmured M. de Chandore, “you are right.”

But, in order to write to M. de Boiscoran, Dionysia’s assistance was necessary; and she did not reappear till the afternoon, looking very pale, but evidently armed with new courage.

M. Folgat dictated to her certain questions to ask the prisoner.

She hastened to write them in cipher; and about four o’clock the letter was sent to Mechinet, the clerk.

The next evening the answer came.

“Dr. Seignebos is no doubt right, my dear friends,” wrote Jacques. “I have but too good reasons to be sure that Cocoleu’s imbecility is partly assumed, and that his evidence has been prompted by others. Still I must beg you will take no steps that would lead to another medical investigation. The slightest imprudence may ruin me. For Heaven’s sake wait till the end of the preliminary investigation, which is now near at hand, from what M. Galpin tells me.”

The letter was read in the family circle; and the poor mother uttered a cry of despair as she heard those words of resignation.

“Are we going to obey him,” she said, “when we all know that he is ruining himself by his obstinacy?”

Dionysia rose, and said,—

“Jacques alone can judge his situation, and he alone, therefore, has the right to command. Our duty is to obey. I appeal to M. Folgat.”

The young advocate nodded his head.

“Every thing has been done that could be done,” he said. “Now we can only wait.”

XII.

The famous night of the fire at Valpinson had been a godsend to the good people of Sauveterre. They had henceforth an inexhaustible topic of discussion, ever new and ever rich in unexpected conjectures,—the Boiscoran case. When people met in the streets, they simply asked,—

“What are they doing now?”

Whenever, therefore, M. Galpin went from the court-house to the prison, or came striding up National Street with his stiff, slow step, twenty good housewives peeped from behind their curtains to read in his face some of the secrets of the trial. They saw, however, nothing there but traces of intense anxiety, and a pallor which became daily more marked. They said to each other,—

“You will see poor M. Galpin will catch the jaundice from it.”

The expression was commonplace; but it conveyed exactly the feelings of the ambitious lawyer. This Boiscoran case had become like a festering wound to him, which irritated him incessantly and intolerably.

“I have lost my sleep by it,” he told the commonwealth attorney. Excellent M. Daubigeon, who had great trouble in moderating his zeal, did not pity him particularly. He would say in reply,—

“Whose fault is it? But you want to rise in the world; and increasing fortune is always followed by increasing care.

“Ah!” said the magistrate. “I have only done my duty, and, if I had to begin again, I would do just the same.”

Still every day he saw more clearly that he was in a false position. Public opinion, strongly arrayed against M. de Boiscoran, was not, on that account, very favorable to him. Everybody believed Jacques guilty, and wanted him to be punished with all the rigor of the law; but, on the other hand, everybody was astonished that M. Galpin should choose to act as magistrate in such a case. There was a touch of treachery in this proceeding against a former friend, in looking everywhere for evidence against him, in driving him into court, that is to say, towards the galleys or the scaffold; and this revolted people’s consciences.

The very way in which people returned his greeting, or avoided him altogether, made the magistrate aware of the feelings they entertained for him. This only increased his wrath against Jacques, and, with it his trouble.