Within an Inch of His Life

E >> Emile Gaboriau >> Within an Inch of His Life


"This is horrible!" she said.

The same idea crossed, like a sharp arrow, the minds of M. de Chandore
and M. Folgat. Had Jacques confessed?

"Look, read yourself!" said Dionysia, handing them the translation.

Jacques wrote,--

"Thanks for your letter, my darling. A presentiment had warned me, and I
had asked for a copy of Cooper.

"I understand but too well how grieved you must be at seeing me kept
in prison without my making an effort to establish my innocence. I
kept silence, because I hoped the proof of my innocence would come from
outside. I see that it would be madness to hope so any longer, and that
I must speak. I shall speak. But what I have to say is so very serious,
that I shall keep silence until I shall have had an opportunity of
consulting with some one in whom I can feel perfect confidence. Prudence
alone is not enough now: skill also is required. Until now I felt
secure, relying on my innocence. But the last examination has opened my
eyes, and I now see the danger to which I am exposed.

"I shall suffer terribly until the day when I can see a lawyer. Thank
my mother for having brought one. I hope he will pardon me, if I address
myself first to another man. I want a man who knows the country and its
customs.

"That is why I have chosen M. Magloire; and I beg you will tell him
to hold himself ready for the day on which, the examination being
completed, I shall be relieved from close confinement.

"Until then, nothing can be done, nothing, unless you can obtain that
the case be taken out of M. G-----'s hands, and be given to some one
else. That man acts infamously. He wants me to be guilty. He would
himself commit a crime in order to charge me with it, and there is no
kind of trap he does not lay for me. I have the greatest difficulty in
controlling myself every time I see this man enter my cell, who was my
friend, and now is my accuser.

"Ah, my dear ones! I pay a heavy price for a fault of which I have been,
until now, almost unconscious.

"And you, my only friend, will you ever be able to forgive me the
terrible anxiety I cause you?

"I should like to say much more; but the prisoner who has handed me your
note says I must be quick, and it takes so much time to pick out the
words!

"J."

When the letter had been read, M. Folgat and M. de Chandore sadly turned
their heads aside, fearing lest Dionysia should read in their eyes the
secret of their thoughts. But she felt only too well what it meant.

"You cannot doubt Jacques, grandpapa!" she cried.

"No," murmured the old gentleman feebly, "no."

"And you, M. Folgat--are you so much hurt by Jacques's desire to consult
another lawyer?"

"I should have been the first, madam, to advise him to consult a
native."

Dionysia had to summon all her energy to check her tears.

"Yes," she said, "this letter is terrible; but how can it be otherwise?
Don't you see that Jacques is in despair, that his mind wanders after
all these fearful shocks?"

Somebody knocked gently at the door.

"It is I," said the marchioness.

Grandpapa Chandore, M. Folgat, and Dionysia looked at each other for a
moment; and then the advocate said,--

"The situation is too serious: we must consult the marchioness." He rose
to open the door. Since the three friends had been holding the council
in the baron's study, a servant had come five times in succession to
knock at the door, and tell them that the soup was on the table.

"Very well," they had replied each time.

At last, as they did not come down yet, Jacques's mother had come to the
conclusion that something extraordinary had occurred.

"Now, what could this be, that they should keep it from her?" she
thought. If it were something good, they would not have concealed it
from her. She had come up stairs, therefore, with the firm resolution to
force them to let her come in. When M. Folgat opened the door, she said
instantly,--

"I mean to know all!"

Dionysia replied to her,--

"Whatever you may hear, my dear mother, pray remember, that if you allow
a single word to be torn from you, by joy or by sorrow, you cause the
ruin of an honest man, who has put us all under such obligations as can
never be fully discharged. I have been fortunate enough to establish a
correspondence between Jacques and us."

"O Dionysia!"

"I have written to him, and I have received his answer. Here it is."

The marchioness was almost beside herself, and eagerly snatched at the
letter. But, as she read on, it was fearful to see how the blood receded
from her face, how her eyes grew dim, her lips turned pale, and at last
her breath failed to come. The letter slipped from her trembling hands;
she sank into a chair, and said, stammering,--

"It is no use to struggle any longer: we are lost!"

There was something grand in Dionysia's gesture and the admirable accent
of her voice, as she said,--

"Why don't you say at once, my mother, that Jacques is an incendiary and
an assassin?"

Raising her head with an air of dauntless energy, with trembling lips,
and fierce glances full of wrath and disdain, she added,--

"And do I really remain the only one to defend him,--him, who, in his
days of prosperity, had so many friends? Well, so be it!"

Naturally, M. Folgat had been less deeply moved than either the
marchioness or M. de Chandore; and hence he was also the first to
recover his calmness.

"We shall be two, madam, at all events," he said; "for I should never
forgive myself, if I allowed myself to be influenced by that letter.
It would be inexcusable, since I know by experience what your heart
has told you instinctively. Imprisonment has horrors which affect the
strongest and stoutest of minds. The days in prison are interminable,
and the nights have nameless terrors. The innocent man in his lonely
cell feels as if he were becoming guilty, as the man of soundest
intellect would begin to doubt himself in a madhouse"--

Dionysia did not let him conclude. She cried,--

"That is exactly what I felt, sir; but I could not express it as clearly
as you do."

Ashamed at their lack of courage, M. de Chandore and the marchioness
made an effort to recover from the doubts which, for a moment, had
well-nigh overcome them.

"But what is to be done?" asked the old lady.

"Your son tells us, madam, we have only to wait for the end of the
preliminary examination."

"I beg your pardon," said M. de Chandore, "we have to try to get the
case handed over to another magistrate."

M. Folgat shook his head.

"Unfortunately, that is not to be dreamt of. A magistrate acting in his
official capacity cannot be rejected like a simple juryman."

"However"--

"Article 542 of the Criminal Code is positive on the subject."

"Ah! What does it say?" asked Dionysia.

"It says, in substance, madam, that a demand for a change of magistrate,
on the score of well-founded suspicion, can only be entertained by a
court of appeals, because the magistrate, within his legitimate sphere,
is a court in himself. I do not know if I express myself clearly?"

"Oh, very clearly!" said M. de Chandore. "Only, since Jacques wishes
it"--

"To be sure; but M. de Boiscoran does not know"--

"I beg your pardon. He knows that the magistrate is his mortal enemy."

"Be it so. But how would that help us? Do you think that a demand for
a change of venue would prevent M. Galpin from carrying on the
proceedings? Not at all. He would go on until the decision comes from
the Court of Appeals. He could, it is true, issue no final order; but
that is the very thing M. de Boiscoran ought to desire, since such an
order would make an end to his close confinement, and enable him to see
an advocate."

"That is atrocious!" murmured M. de Chandore.

"It is atrocious, indeed; but such are the laws of France."

In the meantime Dionysia had been meditating; and now she said to the
young advocate,--

"I have understood you perfectly, and to-morrow your objections shall be
known to M. de Boiscoran."

"Above all," said the lawyer, "explain to him clearly that any such
steps as he proposes to take will turn to his disadvantage. M. Galpin
is our enemy; but we can make no specific charge against him. They would
always reply, 'If M. de Boiscoran is innocent, why does he not speak?'"

This is what Grandpapa Chandore would not admit.

"Still," he said, "if we could bring influential men to help us?"

"Can you?"

"Certainly. Boiscoran has old friends, who, no doubt, are all-powerful
still under the present government. He was, in former years, very
intimate with M. de Margeril."

M. Folgat's expression was very encouraging.

"Ah!" he said, "if M. de Margeril could give us a lift! But he is not
easily approached."

"We might send Boiscoran to see him, at least. Since he remained
in Paris for the purpose of assisting us there, now he will have an
opportunity. I will write to him to-night."

Since the name of Margeril had been mentioned, the marchioness had
become, if possible, paler than ever. At the old gentleman's last words
she rose, and said anxiously,--

"Do not write, sir: it would be useless. I do not wish it."

Her embarrassment was so evident, that the others were quite surprised.

"Have Boiscoran and M. de Margeril had any difficulty?" asked M. de
Chandore.

"Yes."

"But," cried Dionysia, "it is a matter of life and death for Jacques."

Alas! The poor woman could not speak of the suspicions which had
darkened the whole life of the Marquis de Boiscoran, nor of the
cruel penalty which the wife was now called upon to pay for a slight
imprudence.

"If it is absolutely necessary," she said with a half-stifled voice,
"if that is our very last hope, then I will go and see M. de Margeril
myself."

M. Folgat was the only one who suspected what painful antecedents there
might be in the life of the marchioness, and how she was harassed by
their memory now. He interposed, therefore, saying,--

"At all events, my advice is to await the end of the preliminary
investigation. I may be mistaken, however, and, before any answer is
sent to M. Jacques, I desire that the lawyer to whom he alludes should
be consulted."

"That is certainly the wisest plan," said M. de Chandore. And, ringing
for a servant, he sent him at once to M. Magloire, to ask him to call
after dinner. Jacques de Boiscoran had chosen wisely. M. Magloire was
looked upon in Sauveterre as the most eloquent and most skilful lawyer,
not only of the district, but of the whole province. And what is rarer
still, and far more glorious, he had, besides, the reputation of being
unsurpassed in integrity and a high sense of honor. It was well known
that he would never had consented to plead a doubtful cause; and they
told of him a number of heroic stories, in which he had thrown clients
out of the window, who had been so ill-advised to come to him, money in
hand, to ask him to undertake an unclean case. He was naturally not
a rich man, and preserved, at fifty-four or five, all the habits of a
frugal and thrifty young man.

After having married quite young, M. Magloire had lost his wife after a
few months, and had never recovered from the loss. Although thirty years
old, the wound had never healed; and regularly, on certain days, he was
seen wending his way to the cemetery, to place flowers on a modest grave
there. Any other man would have been laughed at for such a thing at
Sauveterre; but with him they dared not do so, for they all respected
him highly. Young and old knew and reverenced the tall man with the
calm, serene face, the clear, bright eyes, and the eloquent lips, which,
in their well-cut, delicate lines, by turns glowed with scorn, with
tenderness, or with disdain.

Like Dr. Seignebos, M. Magloire also was a Republican; and, at the last
Imperial elections, the Bonapartists had had the greatest trouble, aided
though they were by the whole influence of the government, and shrinking
from no unfair means, to keep him out of the Chamber. Nor would
they have been successful after all, but for the influence of Count
Claudieuse, who had prevailed upon a number of electors to abstain from
voting.

This was the man, who, towards nine o'clock, presented himself, upon
the invitation of M. de Chandore, at his house, where he was anxiously
expected by all the inmates. His greeting was affectionate, but at the
same time so sad, that it touched Dionysia's heart most painfully. She
thought she saw that M. Magloire was not far from believing Jacques
guilty.

And she was not mistaken; for M. Magloire let them see it clearly, in
the most delicate manner, to be sure, but still so as to leave no doubt.
He had spent the day in court, and there had heard the opinions of the
members of the court, which was by no means favorable to the accused.
Under such circumstances, it would have evidently been a grave blunder
to yield to Jacques's wishes, and to apply for a change of venue from M.
Galpin to some other magistrate.

"The investigation will last a year," cried Dionysia, "since M. Galpin
is determined to obtain from Jacques the confession of a crime which he
has not committed."

M. Magloire shook his head, and replied,--

"I believe, on the contrary, madam, that the investigation will be very
soon concluded."

"But if Jacques keeps silent?"

"Neither the silence of an accused, nor any other caprice or obstinacy
of his, can interfere with the regular process. Called upon to produce
his justification, if he refuses to do so, the law proceeds without
him."

"Still, sir, if an accused person has reasons"--

"There are no reasons which can force a man to let himself be accused
unjustly. But even that case has been foreseen. The accused is at
liberty not to answer a question which may inculpate him. _Nemo tenetur
prodere se ipsum_. But you must admit that such a refusal to answer
justifies a judge in believing that the charges are true which the
accused does not refute."

The great calmness of the distinguished lawyer of Sauveterre terrified
his listeners more and more, except M. Folgat. When they heard him use
all those technical terms, they felt chilled through and through like
the friends of a wounded man who hear the grating noise of the surgeon's
knife.

"My son's situation appears to you very serious, sir?" asked the
marchioness in a feeble voice.

"I said it was dangerous, madam."

"You think, as M. Folgat does, that every day adds to the danger to
which he is exposed?"

"I am but too sure of that. And if M. de Boiscoran is really innocent"--

"Ah, M. Magloire!" broke in Dionysia, "how can you, who are a friend of
Jacques's, say so?"

M. Magloire looked at the young girl with an air of deep and sincere
pity, and then said,--

"It is precisely because I am his friend, madam, that I am bound to
tell you the truth. Yes, I know and I appreciate all the noble qualities
which distinguish M. de Boiscoran. I have loved him, and I love him
still. But this is a matter which we have to look at with the mind,
and not with the heart. Jacques is a man; and he will be judged by men.
There is clear, public, and absolute evidence of his guilt on hand. What
evidence has he to offer of his innocence? Moral evidence only."

"O God!" murmured Dionysia.

"I think, therefore, with my honorable brother"--

And M. Magloire bowed to M. Folgat.

"I think, that, if M. de Boiscoran is innocent, he has adopted an
unfortunate system. Ah! if luckily there should be an _alibi_. He ought
to make haste, great haste, to establish it. He ought not to allow
matters to go on till he is sent up into court. Once there, an accused
is three-fourths condemned already."

For once it looked as if the crimson in M. de Chandore's cheeks was
growing pale.

"And yet," he exclaimed, "Jacques will not change his system: any one
who knows his mulish obstinacy might be quite sure of that."

"And unfortunately he has made up his mind," said Dionysia, "as M.
Magloire, who knows him so well, will see from this letter of his."

Until now nothing had been said to let the Sauveterre lawyer suspect
that communications had been opened with the prisoner. Now that the
letter had been alluded to, it became necessary to take him into
confidence. At first he was astonished, then he looked displeased; and,
when he had been told every thing, he said,--

"This is great imprudence! This is too daring!"

Then looking at M. Folgat, he added,--

"Our profession has certain rules which cannot be broken without causing
trouble. To bribe a clerk, to profit by his weakness and his sympathy"--

The Paris lawyer had blushed imperceptibly. He said,--

"I should never have advised such imprudence; but, when it was once
committed, I did not feel bound to insist upon its being abandoned: and
even if I should be blamed for it, or more, I mean to profit by it."

M. Magloire did not rely; but, after having read Jacques's letter, he
said,--

"I am at M. de Boiscoran's disposal; and I shall go to him as soon as he
is no longer in close confinement. I think, as Miss Dionysia does, that
he will insist upon saying nothing. However, as we have the means of
reaching him by letter,--well, here I am myself ready to profit by the
imprudence that has been committed!--beseech him, in the name of his own
interest, in the name of all that is dear to him, to speak, to explain,
to prove his innocence."

Thereupon M. Magloire bowed, and withdrew suddenly, leaving his audience
in consternation, so very evident was it, that he left so suddenly
in order to conceal the painful impression which Jacques's letter had
produced upon him.

"Certainly," said M. de Chandore, "we will write to him; but we might
just as well whistle. He will wait for the end of the investigation."

"Who knows?" murmured Dionysia.

And, after a moment's reflection, she added,--

"We can try, however."

And, without vouchsafing any further explanation, she left the room, and
hastened to her chamber to write the following letter:--

"I must speak to you. There is a little gate in our garden which opens
upon Charity Lane, I will wait for you there. However late it may be
when you get these lines, come!

"DIONYSIA."

Then having put the note into an envelope, she called the old nurse,
who had brought her up, and, with all the recommendations which extreme
prudence could suggest, she said to her,--

"You must see to it that M. Mechinet the clerk gets this note to-night.
Go! make haste!"



IX.

During the last twenty-four hours, Mechinet had changed so much, that
his sisters recognized him no longer. Immediately after Dionysia's
departure, they had come to him, hoping to hear at last what was meant
by that mysterious interview; but at the first word he had cried out
with a tone of voice which frightened his sisters to death,--

"That is none of your business! That is nobody's business!" and he had
remained alone, quite overcome by his adventure, and dreaming of the
means to make good his promise without ruining himself. That was no easy
matter.

When the decisive moment arrived, he discovered that he would never be
able to get the note into M. de Boiscoran's hands, without being caught
by that lynx-eyed M. Galpin: as the letter was burning in his pocket, he
saw himself compelled, after long hesitation, to appeal for help to the
man who waited on Jacques,--to Trumence, in fine. The latter was, after
all, a good enough fellow; his only besetting sin being unconquerable
laziness, and his only crime in the eyes of the law perpetual vagrancy.
He was attached to Mechinet, who upon former occasions, when he was in
jail, had given him some tobacco, or a little money to buy a glass of
wine. He made therefore no objection, when the clerk asked him to give
a letter to M. de Boiscoran, and to bring back an answer. He acquitted
himself, moreover, faithfully and honestly of his commission. But,
because every thing had gone well once, it did not follow that Mechinet
felt quite at peace. Besides being tormented by the thought that he
had betrayed his duty, he felt wretched in being at the mercy of an
accomplice. How easily might he not be betrayed! A slight indiscretion,
an awkward blunder, an unlucky accident, might do it. What would become
of him then?

He would lose his place and all his other employments, one by one.
He would lose confidence and consideration. Farewell to all ambitious
dreams, all hopes of wealth, all dreams of an advantageous marriage.
And still, by an odd contradiction, Mechinet did not repent what he had
done, and felt quite ready to do it over again. He was in this state of
mind when the old nurse brought him Dionysia's letter.

"What, again?" he exclaimed.

And when he had read the few lines, he replied,--

"Tell your mistress I will be there!" But in his heart he thought some
untoward event must have happened.

The little garden-gate was half-open: he had only to push it to enter.
There was no moon; but the night was clear, and at a short distance from
him, under the trees, he recognized Dionysia, and went towards her.

"Pardon me, sir," she said, "for having dared to send for you."

Mechinet's anxiety vanished instantly. He thought no longer of his
strange position. His vanity was flattered by the confidence which this
young lady put in him, whom he knew very well as the noblest, the most
beautiful, and the richest heiress in the whole country.

"You were quite right to send for me, madam," he replied, "if I can be
of any service to you."

In a few words she had told him all; and, when she asked his advice, he
replied,--

"I am entirely of M. Folgat's opinion, and think that grief and
isolation begin to have their effect upon M. de Boiscoran's mind."

"Oh, that thought is maddening!" murmured the poor girl.

"I think, as M. Magloire does, that M. de Boiscoran, by his silence,
only makes his situation much worse. I have a proof of that. M. Galpin,
who, at first, was all doubt and anxiety, is now quite reassured. The
attorney-general has written him a letter, in which he compliments his
energy."

"And then."

"Then we must induce M. de Boiscoran to speak. I know very well that he
is firmly resolved not to speak; but if you were to write to him, since
you can write to him"--

"A letter would be useless."

"But"--

"Useless, I tell you. But I know a means."

"You must use it promptly, madam: don't lose a moment. There is no
time."

The night was clear, but not clear enough for the clerk to see how very
pale Dionysia was.

"Well, then, I must see M. de Boiscoran: I must speak to him."

She expected the clerk to start, to cry out, to protest. Far from it: he
said in the quietest tone,--

"To be sure; but how?"

"Blangin the keeper, and his wife, keep their places only because
they give them a support. Why might I not offer them, in return for
an interview with M. de Boiscoran, the means to go and live in the
country?"

"Why not?" said the clerk.

And in a lower voice, replying to the voice of his conscience, he went
on,--

"The jail in Sauveterre is not at all like the police-stations and
prisons of larger towns. The prisoners are few in number; they are
hardly guarded. When the doors are shut, Blangin is master within."

"I will go and see him to-morrow," declared Dionysia.

There are certain slopes on which you must glide down. Having once
yielded to Dionysia's suggestions, Mechinet had, unconsciously, bound
himself to her forever.

"No: do not go there, madam," he said. "You could not make Blangin
believe that he runs no danger; nor could you sufficiently arouse his
cupidity. I will speak to him myself."

"O sir!" exclaimed Dionysia, "how can I ever?"--

"How much may I offer him?" asked the clerk.

"Whatever you think proper--any thing."

"Then, madam, I will bring you an answer to-morrow, here, and at the
same hour."

And he went away, leaving Dionysia so buoyed up by hope, that all the
evening, and the next day, the two aunts and the marchioness, neither of
whom was in the secret, asked each other incessantly,--

"What is the matter with the child?"

She was thinking, that, if the answer was favorable, ere twenty-four
hours had gone by, she would see Jacques; and she kept saying to
herself,--

"If only Mechinet is punctual!"

He was so. At ten o'clock precisely, he pushed open the little gate,
just as the night before, and said at once,--

"It is all right!"

Dionysia was so terribly excited, that she had to lean against a tree.

"Blangin agrees," the clerk went on. "I promised him sixteen thousand
francs. Perhaps that is rather much?"

"It is very little."

"He insists upon having them in gold."

"He shall have it."

"Finally, he makes certain conditions with regard to the interview,
which will appear rather hard to you."

The young girl had quite recovered by this time.

"What are they?"

"Blangin is taking all possible precautions against detection, although
he is quite prepared for the worst. He has arranged it this way:
To-morrow evening, at six o'clock, you will pass by the jail. The door
will stand open, and Blangin's wife, whom you know very well, as she has
formerly been in your service, will be standing in the door. If she does
not speak to you, you keep on: something has happened. If she does speak
to you, go up to her, you, quite alone, and she will show you into a
small room which adjoins her own. There you will stay till Blangin,
perhaps at a late hour, thinks he can safely take you to M. de
Boiscoran's cell. When the interview is over, you come back into the
little room, where a bed will be ready for you, and you spend the night
there; for this is the hardest part of it: you cannot leave the prison
till next day."