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

case is changed. But, then, how can M. Galpin prove the guilt?”

Oh! in the simplest possible manner. He started from the fact that Count Claudieuse was able to give the precise hour at which the crime was committed. Thence he passed on immediately to the deposition of young Ribot, who had met M. de Boiscoran on his way to Valpinson, crossing the marshes, before the crime, and to that of Gaudry, who had seen him come back from Valpinson through the woods, after the crime. Three other witnesses who had turned up during the investigation confirmed this evidence; and by these means alone, and by comparing the hours, M. Galpin succeeded in proving, almost beyond doubt, that the accused had gone to Valpinson, and nowhere else, and that he had been there at the time the crime was committed.

What was he doing there?

To this question the prosecution replied by the evidence taken on the first day of the inquiry, by the water in which Jacques had washed his hands, the cartridge-case found near the house, and the identity of the shot extracted from the count’s wounds with those seized with the gun at Boiscoran.

Every thing was plain, precise, and formidable, admitting of no discussion, no doubt, no suggestion. It looked like a mathematical deduction.

“Whether he be innocent or guilty,” said M. Magloire to his young colleague, “Jacques is lost, if we cannot get hold of some evidence against the Countess Claudieuse. And even in that case, even if it should be established that she is guilty, Jacques will always be looked upon as her accomplice.”

Nevertheless, they spent a part of the night in going over all the papers carefully, and in studying every point made by the prosecution.

Next morning, about nine o’clock, having had only a few hours’ sleep, they went together to the prison.

XVII.

The night before, the jailer of Sauveterre had said to his wife, at supper,—

“I am tired of the life I am leading here. They have paid me for my place, have not they? Well, I mean to go.”

“You are a fool!” his wife had replied. “As long as M. de Boiscoran is a prisoner there is a chance of profit. You don’t know how rich those Chandores are. You ought to stay.”

Like many other husbands, Blangin fancied he was master in his own house.

He remonstrated. He swore to make the ceiling fall down upon him. He demonstrated by the strength of his arm that he was master. But—

But, notwithstanding all this, Mrs. Blangin having decided that he should stay, he did stay. Sitting in front of his jail, and given up to the most dismal presentiments, he was smoking his pipe, when M. Magloire and M. Folgat appeared at the prison, and handed him M. Galpin’s permit. He rose as they came in. He was afraid of them, not knowing whether they were in Miss Dionysia’s secret or not. He therefore politely doffed his worsted cap, took his pipe from his mouth, and said,—

“Ah! You come to see M. de Boiscoran, gentlemen? I will show you in: just give me time to go for my keys.”

M. Magloire held him back.

“First of all,” he said, “how is M. de Boiscoran?”

“Only so-so,” replied the jailer.

“What is the matter?”

“Why, what is the matter with all prisoners when they see that things are likely to turn out badly for them?”

The two lawyers looked at each other sadly.

It was clear that Blangin thought Jacques guilty, and that was a bad omen. The persons who stand guard over prisoners have generally a very keen scent; and not unfrequently lawyers consult them, very much as an author consults the actors of the theatre on which his piece is to appear.

“Has he told you any thing?” asked M. Folgat.

“Me personally, nothing,” replied the jailer.

And shaking his head, he added,—

“But you know we have our experience. When a prisoner has been with his counsel, I almost always go up to see him, and to offer him something,—a little trifle to set him up again. So yesterday, after M. Magloire had been here, I climbed up”—

“And you found M. de Boiscoran sick?”

“I found him in a pitiful condition, gentlemen. He lay on his stomach on his bed, his head in the pillow, and stiff as a corpse. I was some time in his cell before he heard me. I shook my keys, I stamped, I coughed. No use. I became frightened. I went up to him, and took him by the shoulder. ‘Eh, sir!’ Great God! he leaped up as if shot and, sitting up, he said, ‘What to you want?’ Of course, I tried to console him, to explain to him that he ought to speak out; that it is rather unpleasant to appear in court, but that people don’t die of it; that they even come out of it as white as snow, if they have a good advocate. I might just as well have been singing, ‘O sensible woman.’ The more I said, the fiercer he looked; and at last he cried, without letting me finish, ‘Get out from here! Leave me!’”

He paused a moment to take a whiff at his pipe; but it had gone out: he put it in his pocket, and went on,—

“I might have told him that I had a right to come into the cells whenever I liked, and to stay there as long as it pleases me. But prisoners are like children: you must not worry them. But I opened the wicket, and I remained there, watching him. Ah, gentlemen, I have been here twenty years, and I have seen many desperate men; but I never saw any despair like this young man’s. He had jumped up as soon as I turned my back, and he was walking up and down, sobbing aloud. He looked as pale as death; and the big tears were running down his cheeks in torrents.”

M. Magloire felt each one of these details like a stab at his heart. His opinion had not materially changed since the day before; but he had had time to reflect, and to reproach himself for his harshness.

“I was at my post for an hour at least,” continued the jailer, “when all of a sudden M. de Boiscoran throws himself upon the door, and begins to knock at it with his feet, and to call as loud as he can. I keep him waiting a little while, so he should not know I was so near by, and then I open, pretending to have hurried up ever so fast. As soon as I show myself he says, ‘I have the right to receive visitors, have I not? And nobody has been to see me?’—‘No one.’—‘Are you sure?’—‘Quite sure.’ I thought I had killed him. He put his hands to his forehead this way; and then he said, ‘No one!—no mother, no betrothed, no friend! Well, it is all over. I am no longer in existence. I am forgotten, abandoned, disowned.’ He said this in a voice that would have drawn tears from