File No. 113 Émile Gaboriau (the best books of all time TXT) 📖

wretched. He would have given all he had to recover the anonymous letter.

And he had cause for regret.

At that very hour M. Verduret was taking his seat in the cars at Tarascon, meditating upon the most advantageous plan to be adopted in pursuance of his discoveries.

For he had discovered everything, and now must bring matters to a crisis.

Adding to what he already knew, the story of an old nurse of Mlle. de la Verberie, the affidavit of an old servant who had always lived in the Clameran family, and the depositions of the Vésinet husband and wife who attended M. Lagors at his country house, the latter having been sent to him by Dubois (Fanferlot), with a good deal of information obtained from the prefecture of police, he had worked up a complete case, and could now act upon a chain of evidence without a missing link.

As he had predicted, he had been compelled to search into the distant past for the first causes of the crime of which Prosper had been the victim.

The following is the drama, as he wrote it out for the benefit of the judge of instruction, knowing that it would contain grounds for an indictment against the malefactors.

XII The Drama

About two leagues from Tarascon, on the left bank of the Rhone, not far from the wonderful gardens of M. Audibert, stood the château of Clameran, a weather-stained, neglected, but massive structure.

Here lived, in 1841, the old Marquis de Clameran and his two sons, Gaston and Louis.

The marquis was an eccentric old man. He belonged to the race of nobles, now almost extinct, whose watches stopped in 1789, and who kept time with the past century.

More attached to his illusions than to his life, the old marquis insisted upon considering all the stirring events which had happened since the first revolution as a series of deplorable practical jokes.

Emigrating with the Count d’Artois, he did not return to France until 1815, with the allies.

He should have been thankful to Heaven for the recovery of a portion of his immense family estates; a comparatively small portion, to be sure, but full enough to support him comfortably: he said, however, that he did not think the few paltry acres were worth thanking God for.

At first, he tried every means to obtain an appointment at court; but seeing all his efforts fail, he resolved to retire to his château, which he did, after cursing and pitying his king, whom he had worshipped.

He soon became accustomed to the free and indolent life of a country gentleman.

Possessing fifteen thousand francs a year, he spent twenty-five or thirty thousand, borrowing from every source, saying that a genuine restoration would soon take place, and that then he would regain possession of all his properties.

Following his example, his younger son lived extravagantly. Louis was always in pursuit of adventure, and idled away his time in drinking and gambling. The elder son, Gaston, anxious to participate in the stirring events of the time, prepared himself for action by quietly working, studying, and reading certain papers and pamphlets surreptitiously received, the very mention of which was considered a hanging matter by his father.

Altogether the old marquis was the happiest of mortals, living well, drinking high, hunting much, tolerated by the peasants, and execrated by the gentlemen of the neighborhood, who regarded him with contempt and raillery.

Time never hung heavy on his hands, except in midsummer, when the valley of the Rhone was intensely hot; and even then he had infallible means of amusement, always new, though ever the same.

He detested, above all, his neighbor the Countess de la Verberie.

The Countess de la Verberie, the “bête noire” of the marquis, as he ungallantly termed her, was a tall, dry woman, angular in appearance and character, cold and arrogant toward her equals, and domineering over her inferiors.

Like her noble neighbor, she too had emigrated; and her husband was afterward killed at Lutzen, but unfortunately not in the French ranks.

In 1815, the countess came back to France. But while the Marquis de Clameran returned to comparative ease, she could obtain nothing from royal munificence, but the small estate and château of La Verberie.

It is true that the château of La Verberie would have contented most people; but the countess never ceased to complain of her unmerited poverty, as she called it.

The pretty château was more modest in appearance than the manor of the Clamerans; but it was equally comfortable, and much better regulated by its proud mistress.

It was built in the middle of a beautiful park, one of the wonders of that part of the country. It reached from the Beaucaire road to the riverbank, a marvel of beauty, with its superb old oaks, yoke-elms, and lovely groves, its meadow, and clear stream of water winding in among the trees.

The countess had but one child⁠—a lovely girl of eighteen, named Valentine; fair, slender, and graceful, with large, soft eyes, beautiful enough to make the stone saints of the village church thrill in their niches, when she knelt piously at their feet.

The renown of her great beauty, carried on the rapid waters of the Rhone, was spread far and wide.

Often the bargemen and the robust wagoners, driving their powerful horses along the road, would stop to gaze with admiration upon Valentine seated under some grand old tree on the banks of the river, absorbed in her book.

At a distance her white dress and flowing tresses made her seem a mysterious spirit from another world, these honest people said; they thought it a good omen when they caught a glimpse of her as they passed up the river. All along between Arles and Valence she was spoken of as the “lovely fairy” of La Verberie.

If M. de Clameran detested the countess, Mme. de la Verberie execrated the marquis. If he nicknamed her “the witch,” she never called him anything but “the old gander.”

And yet they should have agreed, for at heart they cherished the same opinions, with different ways of viewing them.

He