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

have resolved, on playing some part or other, which they begin to act as soon as they cross the threshold of the room where the magistrate awaits them.

The moment they enter his presence, the magistrate needs to bring all his powers of penetration into play; for such a culprit’s first attitude as surely betrays his plan of defense as an index reveals a book’s contents. In this case, however, M. Segmuller did not think that appearances were deceitful. It seemed evident to him that the prisoner was not feigning, but that the excited frenzy which marked his entrance was as real as his after stupor.

At all events, there seemed no fear of the danger the governor of the Depot had spoken of, and accordingly M. Segmuller seated himself at his desk. Here he felt stronger and more at ease for his back being turned to the window, his face was half hidden in shadow; and in case of need, he could, by bending over his papers, conceal any sign of surprise or discomfiture.

The prisoner, on the contrary, stood in the full light, and not a movement of his features, not the fluttering of an eyelid could escape the magistrate’s attention. He seemed to have completely recovered from his indisposition; and his features assumed an expression which indicated either careless indifference, or complete resignation.

“Do you feel better?” asked M. Segmuller.

“I feel very well.”

“I hope,” continued the magistrate, paternally, “that in future you will know how to moderate your excitement. Yesterday you tried to destroy yourself. It would have been another great crime added to many others⁠—a crime which⁠—”

With a hasty movement of the hand, the prisoner interrupted him. “I have committed no crime,” said he, in a rough, but no longer threatening voice. “I was attacked, and I defended myself. Anyone has a right to do that. There were three men against me. It was a great misfortune; and I would give my right hand to repair it; but my conscience does not reproach me⁠—that much!”

The prisoner’s “that much,” was a contemptuous snap of his finger and thumb.

“And yet I’ve been arrested and treated like an assassin,” he continued. “When I saw myself interred in that living tomb which you call a secret cell, I grew afraid; I lost my senses. I said to myself: ‘My boy, they’ve buried you alive; and it is better to die⁠—to die quickly, if you don’t wish to suffer.’ So I tried to strangle myself. My death wouldn’t have caused the slightest sorrow to anyone. I have neither wife nor child depending upon me for support. However, my attempt was frustrated. I was bled; and then placed in a strait-waistcoat, as if I were a madman. Mad! I really believed I should become so. All night long the jailors sat around me, like children amusing themselves by tormenting a chained animal. They watched me, talked about me, and passed the candle to and fro before my eyes.”

The prisoner talked forcibly, but without any attempt at oratorical display; there was bitterness but not anger in his tone; in short, he spoke with all the seeming sincerity of a man giving expression to some deep emotion or conviction. As the magistrate and the detective heard him speak, they were seized with the same idea. “This man,” they thought, “is very clever; it won’t be easy to get the better of him.”

Then, after a moment’s reflection, M. Segmuller added aloud: “This explains your first act of despair; but later on, for instance, even this morning, you refused to eat the food that was offered you.”

As the prisoner heard this remark, his lowering face suddenly brightened, he gave a comical wink, and finally burst into a hearty laugh, gay, frank, and sonorous.

“That,” said he, “is quite another matter. Certainly, I refused all they offered me, and now I will tell you why. As I had my hands confined in the strait-waistcoat, the jailor tried to feed me just as a nurse tries to feed a baby with pap. Now I wasn’t going to submit to that, so I closed my lips as tightly as I could. Then he tried to force my mouth open and push the spoon in, just as one might force a sick dog’s jaws apart and pour some medicine down its throat. The deuce take his impertinence! I tried to bite him: that’s the truth, and if I had succeeded in getting his finger between my teeth, it would have stayed there. However, because I wouldn’t be fed like a baby, all the prison officials raised their hands to heaven in holy horror, and pointed at me, saying: ‘What a terrible man! What an awful rascal!’ ”

The prisoner seemed to thoroughly enjoy the recollection of the scene he had described, for he now burst into another hearty laugh, to the great amazement of Lecoq, and the scandal of Goguet, the smiling clerk.

M. Segmuller also found it difficult to conceal his surprise. “You are too reasonable, I hope,” he said, at last, “to attach any blame to these men, who, in confining you in a strait-waistcoat, were merely obeying the orders of their superior officers with the view of protecting you from your own violent passions.”

“Hum!” responded the prisoner, suddenly growing serious. “I do blame them, however, and if I had one of them in a corner⁠—But, never mind, I shall get over it. If I know myself aright, I have no more spite in my composition than a chicken.”

“Your treatment depends on your own conduct,” rejoined M. Segmuller, “If you will only remain calm, you shan’t be put in a strait-waistcoat again. But you must promise me that you will be quiet and conduct yourself properly.”

The murderer sadly shook his head. “I shall be very prudent hereafter,” said he, “but it is terribly hard to stay in prison with nothing to do. If I had some comrades with me, we could laugh and chat, and the time would slip by; but it is positively horrible to