Monsieur Lecoq Émile Gaboriau (popular books of all time .txt) 📖

the will, energy, and strength that the poison had left her, she straightened herself in her armchair, her features contracted by mortal anguish.

“Blanche!” she said, with an energy of which one would have supposed her incapable. “Blanche, listen to me. It is the secret of my life which I am about to disclose; no one suspects it. I have a son by Maurice. Alas! many months have elapsed since my husband disappeared. If he is dead, what will become of my child? Blanche, you, who have killed me, must swear to me that you will be a mother to my child!”

Blanche was utterly overcome.

“I swear!” she sobbed, “I swear!”

“On that condition, but on that condition alone, I pardon you. But take care! Do not forget your oath! Blanche, God sometimes permits the dead to avenge themselves! You have sworn, remember. My spirit will allow you no rest if you do not fulfil your vow.”

“I will remember,” sobbed Blanche; “I will remember. But the child⁠—”

“Ah! I was afraid⁠—cowardly creature that I was! I dreaded the shame⁠—then Maurice insisted⁠—I sent my child away⁠—your jealousy and my death are my punishment. Poor child! I abandoned him to strangers. Wretched woman that I am! Ah! this suffering is too horrible. Blanche, remember⁠—”

She spoke again, but her words were indistinct, inaudible.

Blanche frantically seized the dying woman’s arm, and endeavored to arouse her.

“To whom have you confided your child?” she repeated; “to whom? Marie-Anne⁠—a word more⁠—a single word⁠—a name, Marie-Anne!”

The unfortunate woman’s lips moved, but the death-rattle sounded in her throat; a terrible convulsion shook her form; she slid down from the chair, and fell full length upon the floor.

Marie-Anne was dead⁠—dead, and she had not disclosed the name of the old physician at Vigano to whom she had entrusted her child. She was dead, and the terrified murderess stood in the middle of the room, as rigid and motionless as a statue. It seemed to her that madness⁠—a madness like that which had stricken her father⁠—was developing itself in her brain.

She forgot everything; she forgot that a guest was expected at midnight, that time was flying, and that she would surely be discovered if she did not flee.

But the man who had entered when she cried for aid was watching over her. When he saw that Marie-Anne had breathed her last, he made a slight noise at the door, and thrust his leering face into the room.

“Chupin!” faltered Mme. Blanche.

“In the flesh,” he responded. “This was a grand chance for you. Ah, ha! The business riled your stomach a little, but nonsense! that will soon pass off. But we must not dawdle here; someone may come in. Let us make haste.”

Mechanically the murderess advanced; but Marie-Anne’s dead body lay between her and the door, barring the passage. To leave the room it was necessary to step over the lifeless form of her victim. She had not courage to do this, and recoiled with a shudder.

But Chupin was troubled by no such scruples. He sprang across the body, lifted Blanche as if she had been a child and carried her out of the house.

He was drunk with joy. Fears for the future no longer disquieted him, now that Mme. Blanche was bound to him by the strongest of chains⁠—complicity in crime.

He saw himself on the threshold of a life of ease and continual feasting. Remorse for Lacheneur’s betrayal had ceased to trouble him. He saw himself sumptuously fed, lodged and clothed; above all, effectually guarded by an army of servants.

Blanche, who had experienced a feeling of deadly faintness, was revived by the cool night air.

“I wish to walk,” said she.

Chupin placed her on the ground about twenty paces from the house.

“And Aunt Medea!” she exclaimed.

Her relative was beside her; like one of those dogs who are left at the door when their master enters a house, she had, instinctively followed her niece on seeing her borne from the cottage by the old poacher.

“We must not stop to talk,” said Chupin. “Come, I will lead the way.”

And taking Blanche by the arm, he hastened toward the grove.

“Ah! so Marie-Anne had a child,” he said, as they hurried on. “She was pretending to be such a saint! But where the devil has she put it?”

“I shall find it.”

“Hum! That is easier said than done.”

A shrill laugh, resounding in the darkness, interrupted him. He released his hold on the arm of Blanche and assumed an attitude of defence.

Vain precaution! A man concealed behind a tree bounded upon him, and, plunging his knife four times into the old poacher’s writhing body, cried:

“Holy Virgin! now is my vow fulfilled! I shall no longer be obliged to eat with my fingers!”

“The innkeeper!” groaned the wounded man, sinking to the earth.

For once in her life, Aunt Medea manifested some energy.

“Come!” she shrieked, wild with fear, dragging her niece away. “Come⁠—he is dead!”

Not quite. The traitor had strength to crawl home and knock at the door.

His wife and youngest son were sleeping soundly. His eldest son, who had just returned home, opened the door.

Seeing his father prostrate on the ground, he thought he was intoxicated, and tried to lift him and carry him into the house, but the old poacher begged him to desist.

“Do not touch me,” said he. “It is all over with me; but listen; Lacheneur’s daughter has just been poisoned by Madame Blanche. It was to tell you this that I dragged myself here. This knowledge is worth a fortune, my boy, if you are not a fool!”

And he died, without being able to tell his family where he had concealed the price of Lacheneur’s blood.

XLVII

Of all the persons who witnessed Baron d’Escorval’s terrible fall, the abbé was the only one who did not despair.

What a learned doctor would not have dared to do, he did.

He was a priest; he had faith. He remembered the sublime saying of Ambroise Paré: “I dress the wound: God heals it.”

After a six months’ sojourn in Father Poignot’s secluded farmhouse, M. d’Escorval was