Within an Inch of His Life

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


"And when he cannot, when he cannot, establish his innocence?"

She drew back, pale unto death, tottering so that she had to lean
against the wall, and cast upon Jacques de Boiscoran glances in which
the whole horror of her soul was clearly expressed.

"What do you say?" she stammered. "O God!"

He laughed, the wretched man! with that laugh which is the last
utterance of despair. And then he replied,--

"I say that there are circumstances which upset our reason; unheard-of
circumstances, which could make one doubt of one's self. I say that
every thing accuses me, that every thing overwhelms me, that every thing
turns against me. I say, that if I were in M. Galpin's place, and if he
were in mine, I should act just as he does."

"That is insanity!" cried Dionysia.

But Jacques de Boiscoran did not hear her. All the bitterness of the
last days rose within him: he turned red, and became excited. At last,
with gasping vice, he broke forth,--

"Establish my innocence! Ah! that is easily said. But how? No, I am not
guilty: but a crime has been committed; and for this crime justice will
have a culprit. If it is not I who fired at Count Claudieuse, and set
Valpinson on fire, who is it? 'Where were you,' they ask me, 'at the
time of the murder?' Where was I? Can I tell it? To clear myself is to
accuse others. And if I should be mistaken? Or if, not being mistaken,
I should be unable to prove the truthfulness of my accusation? The
murderer and the incendiary, of course, took all possible precautions to
escape detection, and to let the punishment fall upon me. I was warned
beforehand. Ah, if we could always foresee, could know beforehand! How
can I defend myself? On the first day I said, 'Such a charge cannot
reach me: it is a cloud that a breath will scatter.' Madman that I was!
The cloud has become an avalanche, and I may be crushed. I am neither a
child nor a coward; and I have always met phantoms face to face. I have
measured the danger, and I know it is fearful."

Dionysia shuddered. She cried,--

"What will become of us?"

This time M. de Boiscoran heard her, and was ashamed of his weakness.
But, before he could master his feelings, the young girl went on,
saying,--

"But never mind. These are idle thoughts. Truth soars invincible,
unchangeable, high above all the ablest calculations and the most
skilful combinations. Jacques, you must tell the truth, the whole truth,
without subterfuge or concealment."

"I can do so no longer," murmured he.

"Is it such a terrible secret?"

"It is improbable."

Dionysia looked at him almost with fear. She did not recognize his old
face, nor his eye, nor the tone of his voice. She drew nearer to him,
and taking his hand between her own small white hands, she said,--

"But you can tell it to me, your friend, your"--

He trembled, and, drawing back, he said,--

"To you less than anybody else."

And, feeling how mortifying such an answer must be, he added,--

"Your mind is too pure for such wretched intrigues. I do not want your
wedding-dress to be stained by a speck of that mud into which they have
thrown me."

Was she deceived? No; but she had the courage to seem to be deceived.
She went on quietly,--

"Very well, then. But the truth will have to be told sooner or later."

"Yes, to M. Magloire."

"Well, then, Jacques, write down at once what you mean to tell him. Here
are pen and ink: I will carry it to him faithfully."

"There are things, Dionysia, which cannot be written."

She felt she was beaten; she understood that nothing would ever bend
that iron will, and yet she said once more,--

"But if I were to beseech you, Jacques, by our past and our future, by
that great and eternal love which you have sworn?"

"Do you really wish to make my prison hours a thousand times harder than
they are? Do you want to deprive me of my last remnant of strength and
of courage? Have you really no confidence in me any longer? Could you
not believe me a few days more?"

He paused. Somebody knocked at the door; and almost at the same time
Blangin the jailer called out through the wicket,--

"Time is passing. I want to be down stairs when they relieve guard. I am
running a great risk. I am a father of a family."

"Go home now, Dionysia," said Jacques eagerly, "go home. I cannot think
of your being seen here."

Dionysia had paid dear enough to know that she was quite safe; still she
did not object. She offered her brow to Jacques, who touched it with
his lips; and half dead, holding on to the walls, she went back to the
jailer's little room. They had made up a bed for her, and she threw
herself on it, dressed as she was, and remained there, immovable, as if
she had been dead, overcome by a kind of stupor which deprived her even
of the faculty of suffering.

It was bright daylight, it was eight o'clock, when she felt somebody
pulling her sleeve. The jailer's wife said to her,--

"My dear young lady, this would be a good time for you to slip away.
Perhaps they will wonder to see you alone in the street; but they will
think you are coming home from seven o'clock mass."

Without saying a word, Dionysia jumped down, and in a moment she had
arranged her hair and her dress. Then Blangin came, rather troubled at
not seeing her leave the house; and she said to him, giving him one of
the thousand-franc rolls that were still in her bag,--

"This is for you: I want you to remember me, if I should need you
again."

And, dropping her veil over her face, she went away.



XI.

Baron Chandore had had one terrible night in his life, every minute of
which he had counted by the ebbing pulse of his only son.

The evening before, the physicians had said,--

"If he lives this night, he may be saved."

At daybreak he had expired.

Well, the old gentleman had hardly suffered more during that fatal night
than he did this night, during which Dionysia was away from the house.
He knew very well that Blangin and his wife were honest people, in
spite of their avarice and their covetousness; he knew that Jacques de
Boiscoran was an honourable man.

But still, during the whole night, his old servant heard him walk up and
down his room; and at seven o'clock in the morning he was at the door,
looking anxiously up and down the street. Towards half-past seven, M.
Folgat came up; but he hardly wished him good-morning, and he certainly
did not hear a word of what the lawyer told him to reassure him. At
last, however, the old man cried,--

"Ah, there she is!"

He was not mistaken. Dionysia was coming round the corner. She came up
to the house in feverish haste, as if she had known that her strength
was at an end, and would barely suffice to carry her to the door.

Grandpapa Chandore met her with a kind of fierce joy, pressed her in his
arms, and said over and over again,--

"O Dionysia! Oh, my darling child, how I have suffered! How long you
have been! But it is all over now. Come, come, come!"

And he almost carried her into the parlor, and put her down tenderly
into a large easy-chair. He knelt down by her, smiling with happiness;
but, when he had taken her hands in his, he said,--

"Your hands are burning. You have a fever!"

He looked at her: she had raised her veil.

"You are pale as death!" he went on. "Your eyes are red and swollen!"

"I have cried, dear papa," she replied gently.

"Cried! Why?"

"Alas, I have failed!"

As if moved by a sudden shock, M. de Chandore started up, and cried,--

"By God's holy name the like has not been heard since the world was
made! What! you went, you Dionysia de Chandore, to him in his prison;
you begged him"--

"And he remained inflexible. Yes, dear papa. He will say nothing till
after the preliminary investigation is over."

"We were mistaken in the man: he has no courage and no feeling."

Dionysia had risen painfully, and said feebly,--

"Ah, dear papa! Do not blame him, do not accuse him! he is so unhappy!"

"But what reasons does he give?"

"He says the facts are so very improbable that he should certainly not
be believed; and that he should ruin himself if he were to speak as long
as he is kept in close confinement, and has no advocate. He says his
position is the result of a wicked conspiracy. He says he thinks he
knows the guilty one, and that he will denounce the person, since he is
forced to do so in self-defence."

M. Folgat, who had until now remained a silent witness of the scene,
came up, and asked,--

"Are you quite sure, madam, that that was what M. de Boiscoran said?"

"Oh, quite sure, sir! And, if I lived a thousand years, I should never
forget the look of his eyes, or the tone of his voice."

M. de Chandore did not allow her to be interrupted again.

"But surely, my dear child, Jacques told you--you--something more
precise?"

"No."

"You did not ask him even what those improbable facts were?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Well?"

"He said that I was the very last person who could be told."

"That man ought to be burnt over a slow fire," said M. de Chandore to
himself. Then he added in a louder voice,--

"And you do not think all this very strange, very extraordinary?"

"It seems to me horrible!"

"I understand. But what do you think of Jacques?"

"I think, dear papa, that he cannot act otherwise, or he would not do
it. Jacques is too intelligent and too courageous to deceive himself
easily. As he alone knows every thing, he alone can judge. I, of course,
am bound to respect his will more than anybody else."

But the old gentleman did not think himself bound to respect it; and,
exasperated as he was by this resignation of his grandchild, he was
on the point of telling her his mind fully, when she got up with some
effort, and said, in an almost inaudible voice,--

"I am broken to pieces! Excuse me, grandpapa, if I go to my room." She
left the parlor. M. de Chandore accompanied her to the door, remained
there till he had seen her get up stairs, where her maid was waiting for
her, and then came back to M. Folgat.

"They are going to kill me, sir!" he cried, with an explosion of wrath
and despair which was almost frightful in a man of his age. "She had in
her eyes the same look that her mother had when she told me, after her
husband's death, 'I shall not survive him.' And she did not survive my
poor son. And then I, old man, was left alone with that child; and who
knows but she may have in her the germ of the same disease which killed
her mother? Alone! And for these twenty years I have held my breath to
listen if she is still breathing as naturally and regularly"--

"You are needlessly alarmed," began the advocate.

But Grandpapa Chandore shook his head, and said,--

"No, no. I fear my child has been hurt in her heart's heart. Did you not
see how white she looked, and how faint her voice was? Great God! wilt
thou leave me all alone here upon earth? O God! for which of my sins
dost thou punish me in my children? For mercy's sake, call me home
before she also leaves me, who is the joy of my life. And I can do
nothing to turn aside this fatality--stupid inane old man that I am! And
this Jacques de Boiscoran--if he were guilty, after all? Ah the wretch!
I would hang him with my own hands!"

Deeply moved, M. Folgat had watched the old gentleman's grief. Now he
said,--

"Do not blame M. de Boiscoran, sir, now that every thing is against him!
Of all of us, he suffers, after all, most; for he is innocent."

"Do you still think so?"

"More than ever. Little as he has said, he has told Miss Dionysia enough
to confirm me in my conjecture, and to prove to me that I have guessed
right."

"When?"

"The day we went to Boiscoran."

The baron tried to remember.

"I do not recollect," he said.

"Don't you remember," said the lawyer, "that you left us, so as to
permit Anthony to answer my questions more freely?"

"To be sure!" cried M. de Chandore, "to be sure! And then you thought"--

"I thought I had guessed right, yes, sir; but I am not going to do any
thing now. M. de Boiscoran tells us that the facts are improbable. I
should, therefore, in all probability, soon be astray; but, since we
are now bound to be passive till the investigation is completed, I shall
employ the time in examining the country people, who will, probably,
tell me more than Anthony did. You have, no doubt, among your friends,
some who must be well informed,--M. Seneschal, Dr. Seignebos."

The latter did not keep M. Folgat waiting long; for his name had hardly
been mentioned, when he himself repeated it in the passage, telling a
servant,--

"Say it is I, Dr. Seignebos, Dr. Seignebos."

He fell like a bombshell into the room. It was four days now since he
had last presented himself there; for he had not come himself for his
report and the shot he had left in M. Folgat's hands. He had sent for
them, excusing himself on the score of his many engagements. The fact
was, however, that he had spent nearly the whole of these four days at
the hospital, in company with one of his brother-practitioners, who had
been sent for by the court to proceed, "jointly with Dr. Seignebos," to
an examination of Cocoleu's mental condition.

"And this is what brings me here," he cried, still in the door; "for
this opinion, if it is not put into proper order, will deprive M. de
Boiscoran of his best and surest chance of escape."

After what Dionysia had told them, neither M. de Chandore nor M. Folgat
attached much importance to the state of Cocoleu's mind: still this word
"escape" attracted their attention. There is nothing unimportant in a
criminal trial.

"Is there any thing new?" asked the advocate.

The doctor first went to close the doors carefully, and then, putting
his cane and broad-brimmed hat upon the table, he said,--

"No, there is nothing new. They still insist, as before, upon ruining M.
de Boiscoran; and, in order to do that, they shrink from nothing."

"They! Who are they?" asked M. de Chandore.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

"Are you really in doubt, sir?" he replied. "And yet the facts speak
clearly enough. In this department, there is a certain number of
physicians who are not very keenly alive to the honor of their
profession, and who are, to tell the truth, consummate apes."

Grave as the situation was, M. Folgat could hardly suppress a smile, the
doctor's manner was so very extraordinary.

"But there is one of these apes," he went on, "who, in length of ears
and thickness of skin, surpasses all the others. Well, he is the very
one whom the court has chosen and associated with me."

Upon this subject it was desirable to put a check upon the doctor. M. de
Chandore therefore interrupted him, saying,--

"In fine"--

"In fine, my learned brother is fully persuaded that his mission as a
physician employed by a court of justice is to say 'Amen' to all the
stories of the prosecution. 'Cocoleu is an idiot,' says M. Galpin
peremptorily. 'He is an idiot, or ought to be one,' reechoes my learned
brother. 'He spoke on the occasion of the crime by an inspiration from
on high,' the magistrate goes on to say. 'Evidently,' adds the brother,
'there was an inspiration from on high.' For this is the conclusion at
which my learned brother arrives in his report: 'Cocoleu is an idiot who
had been providentially inspired by a flash of reason.' He does not say
it in these words; but it amounts to the same thing."

He had taken off his spectacles, and was wiping them industriously.

"But what do you think, doctor?" asked M. Folgat.

Dr. Seignebos solemnly put on again his spectacles, and replied
coldly,--

"My opinion, which I have fully developed in my report, is, that Cocoleu
is not idiotic at all."

M. Chandore started: the proposition seemed to him monstrous. He
knew Cocoleu very well; he had seen him wander through the streets of
Sauveterre during the eighteen months which the poor creature had spent
under the doctor's treatment.

"What! Cocoleu not idiotic?" he repeated.

"No!" Dr. Seignebos declared peremptorily; "and you have only to look at
him to be convinced. Has he a large flat face, disproportionate mouth,
a yellow, tanned complexion, thick lips, defective teeth, and squinting
eyes? Does his deformed head sway from side to side, being too heavy to
be supported by his neck? Is his body deformed, and his spine crooked?
Do you find that his stomach is big and pendent, that his hands drop
upon his thighs, that his legs are awkward, and the joints unusually
large? These are the symptoms of idiocy, gentleman, and you do not find
them in Cocoleu. I, for my part, see in him a scamp, who has an iron
constitution, who uses his hands very cleverly, climbs trees like a
monkey, and leaps ditches ten feet wide. To be sure, I do not pretend
that his intellect is normal; but I maintain that he is one of those
imbeciles who have certain faculties very fully developed, while others,
more essential, are missing."

While M. Folgat listened with the most intense interest, M. de Chandore
became impatient, and said,--

"The difference between an idiot and an imbecile"--

"There is a world between them," cried the doctor.

And at once he went on with overwhelming volubility,--

"The imbecile preserves some fragments of intelligence. He can speak,
make known his wants, and express his feelings. He associates ideas,
compares impressions, remembers things, and acquires experience. He is
capable of cunning and dissimulation. He hates and likes and fears.
If he is not always sociable, he is susceptible of being influenced
by others. You can easily obtain perfect control over him. His
inconsistency is remarkable; and still he shows, at times, invincible
obstinacy. Finally, imbeciles are, on account of this semi-lucidity,
often very dangerous. You find among them almost all those monomaniacs
whom society is compelled to shut up in asylums, because they cannot
master their instincts."

"Very well said," repeated M. Folgat, who found here some elements of a
plea,--"very well said."

The doctor bowed.

"Such a creature is Cocoleu. Does it follow that I hold him responsible
for his actions? By no means! But it follows that I look upon him as a
false witness brought forth to ruin an honest man."

It was evident that such views did not please M. de Chandore.

"Formerly," he said, "you did not think so."

"No, I even said the contrary," replied Dr. Seignebos, not without
dignity. "I had not studied Cocoleu sufficiently, and I was taken in by
him: I confess it openly. But this avowal of mine is an evidence of the
cunning and the astute obstinacy of these wretched creatures, and of
their capacity to carry out a design. After a year's experience, I sent
Cocoleu away, declaring, and certainly believing, that he was incurable.
The fact is, he did not want to be cured. The country-people, who
observe carefully and shrewdly, were not taken in; they will tell you,
almost to a man, that Cocoleu is bad, but not an idiot. That is the
truth. He has found out, that, by exaggerating his imbecility, he could
live without work; and he has done it. When he was taken in by Count
Claudieuse, he was clever enough to show just so much intelligence as
was necessary to make him endurable, without being compelled to do any
work."

"In a word," said M. de Chandore incredulously, "Cocoleu is a great
actor."

"Great enough to have deceived me," replied the doctor: "yes, sir."

Then turning to M. Folgat, he went on,--

"All this I had told my learned brother, before taking him to the
hospital. There we found Cocoleu more obstinate than ever in his
silence, which even M. Galpin had not induced him to break. All our
efforts to obtain a word from him were fruitless, although it was very
evident to me that he understood very well. I proposed to resort to
quite legitimate means, which are employed to discover feigned defects
and diseases; but my learned brother refused and was encouraged in his
resistance by M. Galpin: I do not know upon what ground. Then I asked
that the Countess Claudieuse should be sent for, as she has a talent of
making him talk. M. Galpin would not permit it--and there we are."

It happens almost daily, that two physicians employed as experts differ
in their opinions. The courts would have a great deal to do, if they
had to force them to agree. They appoint simply a third expert, whose
opinion is decisive. This was necessarily to be done in Cocoleu's case.

"And as necessarily," continued Dr. Seignebos, "the court, having
appointed a first ass, will associate with me a second ass. They will
agree with each other, and I shall be accused and convicted of ignorance
and presumption."

He came, therefore, as he now said, to ask M. de Chandore to render him
a little service. He wanted the two families, Chandore and Boiscoran,
to employ all their influence to obtain that a commission of physicians
from outside--if possible, from Paris--should be appointed to examine
Cocoleu, and to report on his mental condition.

"I undertake," he said, "to prove to really enlightened men, that
this poor creature is partly pretending to be imbecile, and that his
obstinate speechlessness is only adopted in order to avoid answers which
would compromise him."

At first, however, neither M. de Chandore nor M. Folgat gave any answer.
They were considering the question.

"Mind," said the doctor again, shocked at their silence, "mind, I pray,
that if my view is adopted, as I have every reason to hope, a new turn
will be given to the whole case."

Why yes! The ground of the accusation might be taken from under the
prosecution; and that was what kept M. Folgat thinking.

"And that is exactly," he commenced at last, "what makes me ask myself
whether the discovery of Cocoleu's rascality would not be rather
injurious than beneficial to M. de Boiscoran."

The doctor was furious. He cried,--

"I should like to know"--

"Nothing can be more simple," replied the advocate. "Cocoleu's idiocy
is, perhaps the most serious difficulty in the way of the prosecution,
and the most powerful argument for the defence. What can M. Galpin say,
if M. de Boiscoran charges him with basing a capital charge upon the
incoherent words of a creature void of intelligence, and, consequently,
irresponsible."

"Ah! permit me," said Dr. Seignebos.

But M. de Chandore heard every syllable.

"Permit yourself, doctor," he said. "This argument of Cocoleu's
imbecility is one which you have pleaded from the beginning, and which
appeared to you, you said, so conclusive, that there was no need of
looking for any other."

Before the doctor could find an answer, M. Folgat went on,--

"Let it be, on the contrary, established that Cocoleu really knows what
he says, and all is changed. The prosecution is justified, by an opinion
of the faculty, in saying to M. de Boiscoran, 'You need not deny any
longer. You have been seen; here is a witness.'"

These arguments must have struck Dr. Seignebos very forcibly; for
he remained silent for at least ten long seconds, wiping his gold
spectacles with a pensive air. Had he really done harm to Jacques de
Boiscoran, while he meant to help him? But he was not the man to be long
in doubt. He replied in a dry tone,--

"I will not discuss that, gentlemen. I will ask you, only one question:
'Yes or no, do you believe in M. de Boiscoran's innocence?'"

"We believe in it fully," replied the two men.

"Then, gentlemen, it seems to me we are running no risk in trying to
unmask an impostor."

That was not the young lawyer's opinion.

"To prove that Cocoleu knows what he says," he replied, "would be fatal,
unless we can prove at the same time that he has told a falsehood, and
that his evidence has been prompted by others. Can we prove that?
Have we any means to prove that his obstinacy in not replying to any
questions arises from his fear that his answers might convict him of
perjury?"

The doctor would hear nothing more. He said rather uncourteously,--

"Lawyer's quibbles! I know only one thing; and that is truth."

"It will not always do to tell it," murmured the lawyer.

"Yes, sir, always," replied the physician,--"always, and at all hazards,
and whatever may happen. I am M. de Boiscoran's friend; but I am still
more the friend of truth. If Cocoleu is a wretched impostor, as I am
firmly convinced, our duty is to unmask him."

Dr. Seignebos did not say--and he probably did not confess it to
himself--that it was a personal matter between Cocoleu and himself. He
thought Cocoleu had taken him in, and been the cause of a host of small
witticisms, under which he had suffered cruelly, though he had allowed
no one to see it. To unmask Cocoleu would have given him his revenge,
and return upon his enemies the ridicule with which they had overwhelmed
him.

"I have made up my mind," he said, "and, whatever you may resolve,
I mean to go to work at once, and try to obtain the appointment of a
commission."

"It might be prudent," M. Folgat said, "to consider before doing any
thing, to consult with M. Magloire."

"I do not want to consult with Magloire when duty calls."

"You will grant us twenty-four hours, I hope."

Dr. Seignebos frowned till he looked formidable.