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

“M. de Chandore ought not to say any thing,” said M. Magloire decisively. “It is too much already, to have to intrust the marchioness with the secret; for you must not forget, gentlemen, that the slightest indiscretion would certainly ruin all of M. Folgat’s delicate plans.”

Thereupon all went out; and M. de Chandore, left alone, said to himself,—

“Yes, they are right; but what am I to say?”

He was thinking it over almost painfully, when a maid came in, and told him that Miss Dionysia wanted to see him.

“I am coming,” he said.

And he followed her with heavy steps, and trying to compose his features so as to efface all traces of the terrible emotions through which he had passed. The two aunts had taken Dionysia and the marchioness to the parlor in the upper story. Here M. de Chandore found them all assembled,—the marchioness, pale and overcome, extended in an easy-chair; but Dionysia, walking up and down with burning cheeks and blazing eyes. As soon as he entered, she asked him in a sharp, sad voice,—

“Well? There is no hope, I suppose.”

“More hope than ever, on the contrary,” he replied, trying to smile.

“Then why did M. De Magloire send us all out?”

The old gentleman had had time to prepare a fib.

“Because M. Magloire had to tell us a piece of bad news. There is no chance of no true bill being found. Jacques will have to appear in court.”

The marchioness jumped up like a piece of mechanism, and cried,—

“What! Jacques before the assizes? My son? A Boiscoran?” And she fell back into her chair. Not a muscle in Dionysia’s face had moved. She said in a strange tone of voice,—

“I was prepared for something worse. One may avoid the court.”

With these words she left the room, shutting the door so violently, that both the Misses Lavarande hastened after her. Now M. de Chandore thought he might speak freely. He stood up before the marchioness, and gave vent to that fearful wrath which had been rising within him for a long time.

“Your son,” he cried, “your Jacques, I wish he were dead a thousand times! The wretch who is killing my child, for you see he is killing her.”

And, without pity, he told her the whole story of Jacques and the Countess Claudieuse. The marchioness was overcome. She had even ceased to sob, and had not strength enough left to ask him to have pity on her. And, when he had ended, she whispered to herself with an expression of unspeakable suffering,—

“Adultery! Oh, my God! what punishment!”

XVI.

M. Folgat and M. Magloire went to the courthouse; and, as they descended the steep street from M. de Chandore’s house, the Paris lawyer said,—

“M. Galpin must fancy himself wonderfully safe in his position, that he should grant the defence permission to see all the papers of the prosecution.”

Ordinarily such leave is given only after the court has begun proceedings against the accused, and the presiding judge has questioned him. This looks like crying injustice to the prisoner; and hence arrangements can be made by which the rigor of the law is somewhat mitigated. With the consent of the commonwealth attorney, and upon his responsibility, the magistrate who had carried on the preliminary investigation may inform the accused, or his counsel, by word of mouth, or by a copy of all or of part, of what has happened during the first inquiry. That is what M. Galpin had done.

And on the part of a man who was ever ready to interpret the law in its strictest meaning, and who no more dared proceed without authority for every step than a blind man without his staff,—or on the part of such a man, an enemy, too, of M. de Boiscoran, this permission granted to the defence was full of meaning. But did it really mean what M. Folgat thought it did?

“I am almost sure you are mistaken,” said M. Magloire. “I know the good man, having practiced with him for many years. If he were sure of himself, he would be pitiless. If he is kind, he is afraid. This concession is a door which he keeps open, in case of defeat.”

The eminent counsel was right. However well convinced M. Galpin might be of Jacques’s guilt, he was still very much troubled about his means of defence. Twenty examinations had elicited nothing from his prisoner but protestations of innocence. When he was driven to the wall, he would reply,—

“I shall explain when I have seen my counsel.”

This is often the reply of the most stupid scamp, who only wants to gain time. But M. Galpin knew his former friend, and had too high an opinion of his mind, not to fear that there was something serious beneath his obstinate silence.

What was it? A clever falsehood? a cunningly-devised alibi? Or witnesses bribed long beforehand?

M. Galpin would have given much to know. And it was for the purpose of finding it out sooner, that he had given the permission. Before he granted it, however, he had conferred with the commonwealth attorney. Excellent M. Daubigeon, whom he found, as usual, admiring the beautiful gilt edging of his beloved books, had treated him badly.

“Do you come for any more signatures?” he had exclaimed. “You shall have them. If you want any thing else, your servant.

“‘When the blunder is made, It is too late, I tell thee, to come for advice.’”

However discouraging such a welcome might be, M. Galpin did not give up his purpose. He said in his bitterest tone,—

“You still insist that it is a blunder to do one’s duty. Has not a crime been committed? Is it not my duty to find out the author, and to have him punished? Well? Is it my fault if the author of this crime is an old friend of mine, and if I was once upon a time on the point of marrying a relation of his? There is no one in court who doubts M. de Boiscoran’s guilt; there is no one who dares blame me: and yet they are all as cold as ice towards me.”

“Such is the world,” said M. Daubigeon with a face full of irony. “They praise virtue; but they hate it.”

“Well, yes! that is so,” cried M. Galpin in his turn. “Yes, they blame people who have done what they had not the courage to do. The attorney general has congratulated me, because he judges things from on high and impartially. Here cliques are all-powerful. Even those who ought to encourage and support me, cry out against me. My natural ally, the commonwealth attorney, forsakes me and laughs at me. The president of the court, my immediate superior, said to me this morning with intolerable irony, ‘I hardly know any magistrate who would be able as you are to sacrifice his relations and his friends to the interests of truth and justice. You are one of the ancients: you will