Within an Inch of His Life

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


"Not an hour," he replied; "and I go from here to M. Daubigeon, the
commonwealth attorney."

Thereupon, taking his hat and cane, he bowed and left, as dissatisfied
as possible, without stopping even to answer M. de Chandore, who asked
him how Count Claudieuse was, who was, according to reports in town,
getting worse and worse.

"Hang the old original!" cried M. de Chandore before the doctor had left
the passage.

Then turning to M. Folgat, he added,--

"I must, however, confess that you received the great news which he
brought rather coldly."

"The very fact of the news being so very grave," replied the advocate,
"made me wish for time to consider. If Cocoleu pretends to be imbecile,
or, at least, exaggerates his incapacity, then we have a confirmation
of what M. de Boiscoran last night told Miss Dionysia. It would be the
proof of an odious trap of a long-premeditated vengeance. Here is the
turning-point of the affair evidently."

M. de Chandore was bitterly undeceived.

"What!" he said, "you think so, and you refuse to support Dr. Seignebos,
who is certainly an honest man?"

The young lawyer shook his head.

"I wanted to have twenty-four hours' delay, because we must absolutely
consult M. de Boiscoran. Could I tell the doctor so? Had I a right to
take him into Miss Dionysia's secret?"

"You are right," murmured M. de Chandore, "you are right."

But, in order to write to M. de Boiscoran, Dionysia's assistance was
necessary; and she did not reappear till the afternoon, looking very
pale, but evidently armed with new courage.

M. Folgat dictated to her certain questions to ask the prisoner.

She hastened to write them in cipher; and about four o'clock the letter
was sent to Mechinet, the clerk.

The next evening the answer came.

"Dr. Seignebos is no doubt right, my dear friends," wrote Jacques. "I
have but too good reasons to be sure that Cocoleu's imbecility is partly
assumed, and that his evidence has been prompted by others. Still I
must beg you will take no steps that would lead to another medical
investigation. The slightest imprudence may ruin me. For Heaven's sake
wait till the end of the preliminary investigation, which is now near at
hand, from what M. Galpin tells me."

The letter was read in the family circle; and the poor mother uttered a
cry of despair as she heard those words of resignation.

"Are we going to obey him," she said, "when we all know that he is
ruining himself by his obstinacy?"

Dionysia rose, and said,--

"Jacques alone can judge his situation, and he alone, therefore, has the
right to command. Our duty is to obey. I appeal to M. Folgat."

The young advocate nodded his head.

"Every thing has been done that could be done," he said. "Now we can
only wait."



XII.

The famous night of the fire at Valpinson had been a godsend to the
good people of Sauveterre. They had henceforth an inexhaustible topic
of discussion, ever new and ever rich in unexpected conjectures,--the
Boiscoran case. When people met in the streets, they simply asked,--

"What are they doing now?"

Whenever, therefore, M. Galpin went from the court-house to the prison,
or came striding up National Street with his stiff, slow step, twenty
good housewives peeped from behind their curtains to read in his face
some of the secrets of the trial. They saw, however, nothing there but
traces of intense anxiety, and a pallor which became daily more marked.
They said to each other,--

"You will see poor M. Galpin will catch the jaundice from it."

The expression was commonplace; but it conveyed exactly the feelings of
the ambitious lawyer. This Boiscoran case had become like a festering
wound to him, which irritated him incessantly and intolerably.

"I have lost my sleep by it," he told the commonwealth attorney.
Excellent M. Daubigeon, who had great trouble in moderating his zeal,
did not pity him particularly. He would say in reply,--

"Whose fault is it? But you want to rise in the world; and increasing
fortune is always followed by increasing care.

"Ah!" said the magistrate. "I have only done my duty, and, if I had to
begin again, I would do just the same."

Still every day he saw more clearly that he was in a false position.
Public opinion, strongly arrayed against M. de Boiscoran, was not, on
that account, very favorable to him. Everybody believed Jacques guilty,
and wanted him to be punished with all the rigor of the law; but, on the
other hand, everybody was astonished that M. Galpin should choose to
act as magistrate in such a case. There was a touch of treachery in this
proceeding against a former friend, in looking everywhere for evidence
against him, in driving him into court, that is to say, towards the
galleys or the scaffold; and this revolted people's consciences.

The very way in which people returned his greeting, or avoided him
altogether, made the magistrate aware of the feelings they entertained
for him. This only increased his wrath against Jacques, and, with it his
trouble. He had been congratulated, it is true, by the attorney-general;
but there is no certainty in a trial, as long as the accused refuses to
confess. The charges against Jacques, to be sure, were so overwhelming,
that his being sent before the court was out of question. But by the
side of the court there is still the jury.

"And in fine, my dear," said the commonwealth attorney, "you have not
a single eye-witness. And from time immemorial an eye-witness has been
looked upon as worth a hundred hearsays."

"I have Cocoleu," said M. Galpin, who was rather impatient of all these
objections.

"Have the doctors decided that he is not an idiot?"

"No: Dr. Seignebos alone maintains that doctrine."

"Well, at least Cocoleu is willing to repeat his evidence?"

"No."

"Why, then you have virtually no witness!"

Yes, M. Galpin understood it but too well, and hence his anxiety. The
more he studied _his_ accused, the more he found him in an enigmatic and
threatening position, which was ominous of evil.

"Can he have an _alibi_?" he thought. "Or does he hold in reserve one of
those unforeseen revelations, which at the last moment destroy the whole
edifice of the prosecution, and cover the prosecuting attorney with
ridicule?"

Whenever these thoughts occurred to him, they made big drops of
perspiration run down his temples; and then he treated his poor clerk
Mechinet like a slave. And that was not all. Although he lived more
retired than ever, since this case had begun, many a report reached him
from the Chandore family.

To be sure, he was a thousand miles from imagining that they had
actually opened communications with the prisoner, and, what is more,
that this intercourse was carried on by Mechinet, his own clerk. He
would have laughed if one had come and told him that Dionysia had spent
a night in prison, and paid Jacques a visit. But he heard continually
of the hopes and the plans of the friends and relations of his prisoner;
and he remembered, not without secret fear and trembling that they were
rich and powerful, supported by relations in high places, beloved and
esteemed by everybody. He knew that Dionysia was surrounded by devoted
and intelligent men, by M. de Chandore, M. Seneschal, Dr. Seignebos, M.
Magloire, and, finally, that advocate whom the Marchioness de Boiscoran
had brought down with her from Paris, M. Folgat.

"And Heaven knows what they would not try," he thought, "to rescue the
guilty man from the hands of justice!"

It may well be said, therefore, that never was prosecution carried on
with as much passionate zeal or as much minute assiduity. Every one of
the points upon which the prosecution relied became, for M. Galpin,
a subject of special study. In less than a fortnight he examined
sixty-seven witnesses in his office. He summoned the fourth part of the
population of Brechy. He would have summoned the whole country, if he
had dared.

But all his efforts were fruitless. After weeks of furious
investigations, the inquiry was still at the same point, the mystery was
still impenetrable. The prisoner had not refuted any of the charges
made against him; but the magistrate had, also, not obtained a single
additional piece of evidence after those he had secured on the first
day.

There must be an end of this, however.

One warm afternoon in July, the good ladies in National Street thought
they noticed that M. Galpin looked even more anxious than usual. They
were right. After a long conference with the commonwealth attorney
and the presiding judge, the magistrate had made up his mind. When he
reached the prison, he went to Jacques's cell and there, concealing his
embarrassment under the greatest stiffness, he said,--

"My painful duty draws to an end, sir: the inquiry with which I have
been charged will be closed. To-morrow the papers, with a list of the
objects to be used as evidence, will be sent to the attorney-general, to
be submitted to the court."

Jacques de Boiscoran did not move.

"Well," he said simply.

"Have you nothing to add, sir?" asked M. Galpin.

"Nothing, except that I am innocent."

M. Galpin found it difficult to repress his impatience. He said,--

"Well, then, prove it. Refute the charges which have been brought
against you, which overwhelm you, which induce me, the court, and
everybody else, to consider you guilty. Speak, and explain your
conduct."

Jacques kept obstinately silent.

"Your resolution is fixed," said the magistrate once more, "you refuse
to say any thing?"

"I am innocent."

M. Galpin saw clearly that it was useless to insist any longer.

"From this moment," he said, "you are no longer in close confinement.
You can receive the visits of your family in the prison parlor. The
advocate whom you will choose will be admitted to your cell to consult
with you."

"At last!" exclaimed Jacques with explosive delight; and then he
added,--

"Am I at liberty to write to M. de Chandore?"

"Yes," replied M. Galpin, "and, if you choose to write at once, my clerk
will be happy to carry your letter this evening to its destination."

Jacques de Boiscoran availed himself on the spot of this permission;
and he had done very soon, for the note which he wrote, and handed to M.
Mechinet, contained only the few words,--

"I shall expect M. Magloire to-morrow morning at nine.

"J."

Ever since the day on which they had come to the conclusion that a false
step might have the most fatal consequences, Jacques de Boiscoran's
friends had abstained from doing anything. Besides, what would have been
the use of any efforts? Dr. Seignebos's request, though unsupported, had
been at least partially granted; and the court had summoned a physician
from Paris, a great authority on insanity, to determine Cocoleu's mental
condition. It was on a Saturday that Dr. Seignebos came triumphantly
to announce the good news. It was the following Tuesday that he had to
report his discomfiture. In a furious passion he said,--

"There are asses in Paris as well as elsewhere! Or, rather, in these
days of trembling egotism and eager servility, an independent man is
as difficult to find in Paris as in the provinces. I was looking for
a _savant_ who would be inaccessible to petty considerations; and they
send me a trifling fellow, who does not dare to be disagreeable to the
gentlemen of the bar. Ah, it was a cruel disappointment!"

And all the time worrying his spectacles, he went on,--

"I had been informed of the arrival of my learned brother; and I went
to receive him myself at the railway station. The train comes in; and
at once I make out my man in the crowd: a fine head, well set in grizzly
hair, a noble eye, eloquent lips. 'There he is!' I say to myself. 'Hm!'
He looked rather dandyish, to be sure, a lot of decorations in his
buttonhole, whiskers trimmed as carefully as the box in my garden,
and, instead of honest spectacles, a pair of eye-glasses. But no man is
perfect. I go up to him, I give him my name, we shake hands, I ask him
to breakfast, he accepts; and here we are at table, he doing justice to
my Bordeaux, and I explaining to him the case systematically. When we
have done, he wishes to see Cocoleu. We go to the hospital; and there,
after merely glancing at the creature, he says, 'That man is simply the
most complete idiot I have ever seen in my life!' I was a little taken
aback, and tried to explain the matter to him; but he refuses to listen
to me. I beseech him to see Cocoleu once more: he laughs at me. I feel
hurt, and ask him how he explains the evidence which this idiot gave
on the night of the fire. He laughs again, and replies that he does
not explain it. I begin to discuss the question; and he marches off to
court. And do you know where he dined that day? At the hotel with my
other learned brother of the commission; and there they drew up a report
which makes of Cocoleu the most perfect imbecile that was ever dreamed
of."

He was walking up and down in the room with long strides, and, unwilling
to listen, he went on,--

"But Master Galpin need not think of crowing over us yet. The end is not
yet; they will not get rid of Dr. Seignebos so easily. I have said that
Cocoleu was a wretched cheat, a miserable impostor, a false witness, and
I shall prove it. Boiscoran can count upon me."

He broke off here, and, placing himself before M. Folgat, he added,--

"And I say M. de Boiscoran may count upon me, because I have my reasons.
I have formed very singular suspicions, sir,--very singular."

M. Folgat, Dionysia, and the marchioness urged him to explain; but he
declared that the moment had not come yet, that he was not perfectly
sure yet.

And he left again, vowing that he was overworked, that he had forsaken
his patients for forty-eight hours, and that the Countess Claudieuse was
waiting for him, as her husband was getting worse and worse.

"What can the old man suspect?" Grandpapa Chandore asked again, an hour
after the doctor had left.

M. Folgat might have replied that these probable suspicions were no
doubt his own suspicions, only better founded, and more fully developed.
But why should he say so, since all inquiry was prohibited, and a single
imprudent word might ruin every thing? Why, also, should he excite new
hopes, when they must needs wait patiently till it should seem good to
M. Galpin to make an end to this melancholy suspense?

They heard very little nowadays of Jacques de Boiscoran. The
examinations took place only at long intervals; and it was sometimes
four or five days before Mechinet brought another letter.

"This is intolerable agony," repeated the marchioness over and over
again.

The end was, however, approaching.

Dionysia was alone one afternoon in the sitting-room, when she thought
she heard the clerk's voice in the hall. She went out at once and found
him there.

"Ah!" she cried, "the investigation is ended!" For she knew very well
that nothing less would have emboldened Mechinet to show himself openly
at their house.

"Yes, indeed, madam!" replied the good man; "and upon M. Galpin's own
order I bring you this letter from M. de Boiscoran."

She took it, read it at a single glance, and forgetting every thing,
half delirious with joy, she ran to her grandfather and M. Folgat,
calling upon a servant at the same time to run and fetch M. Magloire.

In less than an hour, the eminent advocate of Sauveterre arrived;
and when Jacques's letter had been handed to him, he said with some
embarrassment,--

"I have promised M. de Boiscoran my assistance, and he shall certainly
have it. I shall be at the prison to-morrow morning as soon as the doors
open, and I will tell you the result of our interview."

He would say nothing more. It was very evident that he did not believe
in the innocence of his client, and, as soon as he had left, M. de
Chandore exclaimed,--

"Jacques is mad to intrust his defence to a man who doubts him."

"M. Magloire is an honorable man, papa," said Dionysia; "and, if he
thought he could compromise Jacques, he would resign."

Yes, indeed, M. Magloire was an honorable man, and quite accessible
to tender sentiments; for he felt very reluctant to go and see the
prisoner, charged as he was with an odious crime, and, as he thought,
justly charged,--a man who had been his friend, and whom, in spite of
all, he could not help loving still.

He could not sleep for it that night; and noticed his anxious air as
he crossed the street next morning on his way to the jail. Blangin the
keeper was on the lookout for him, and cried,--

"Ah, come quick, sir! The accused is devoured with impatience."

Slowly, and his heart beating furiously, the famous advocate went up the
narrow stairs. He crossed the long passage; Blangin opened a door; he
was in Jacques de Boiscoran's cell.

"At last you are coming," exclaimed the unhappy young man, throwing
himself on the lawyer's neck. "At last I see an honest face, and hold
a trusty hand. Ah! I have suffered cruelly, so cruelly, that I am
surprised my mind has not given way. But now you are here, you are by my
side, I am safe."

The lawyer could not speak. He was terrified by the havoc which grief
had made of the noble and intelligent face of his friend. He was shocked
at the distortion of his features, the unnatural brilliancy of his eyes,
and the convulsive laugh on his lips.

"Poor man!" he murmured at last.

Jacques misunderstood him: he stepped back, as white as the walls of his
cell.

"You do not think me guilty?" he exclaimed.

An inexpressibly sad expression convulsed his features.

"To be sure," he went on with his terrible convulsive laughter, "the
charges must be overwhelming indeed, if they have convinced my best
friends. Alas! why did I refuse to speak that first day? My honor!--what
a phantom! And still, victimized as I am by an infamous conspiracy, I
should still refuse to speak, if my life alone were at stake. But my
honor is at stake. Dionysia's honor, the honor of the Boiscorans. I
shall speak. You, M. Magloire, shall know the truth, you shall see my
innocence in a word."

And, seizing M. Magloire's hand, he pressed it almost painfully, as he
added in a hoarse voice,--

"One word will explain the whole thing to you: I was the lover of the
Countess Claudieuse!"



XIII.

If he had been less distressed, Jacques de Boiscoran would have seen how
wisely had had acted in choosing for his defender the great advocate of
Sauveterre. A stranger, M. Folgat, for instance, would have heard him
silently, and would have seen in the revelation nothing but the fact
without giving it a personal value. In M. Magloire, on the contrary, he
saw what the whole country would feel. And M. Magloire, when he heard
him declare that the Countess Claudieuse had been his mistress, looked
indignant, and exclaimed,--

"That is impossible."

At least Jacques was not surprised. He had been the first to say
that they would refuse to believe him when he should speak; and this
conviction had largely influenced him in keeping silence so long.

"It is impossible, I know," he said; "and still it is so."

"Give me proofs!" said M. Magloire.

"I have no proofs."

The melancholy and sympathizing expression of the great lawyer changed
instantly. He sternly glanced at the prisoner, and his eye spoke of
amazement and indignation.

"There are things," he said, "which it is rash to affirm when one is not
able to support them with proof. Consider"--

"My situation forces me to tell all."

"Why, then, did you wait so long?"

"I hoped I should be spared such a fearful extremity."

"By whom?"

"By the countess."

M. Magloire's face became darker and darker.

"I am not often accused of partiality," he said. "Count Claudieuse is,
perhaps, the only enemy I have in this country; but he is a bitter,
fierce enemy. To keep me out of the chamber, and to prevent my obtaining
many votes, he stooped to acts unworthy of a gentleman. I do not like
him. But in justice I must say that I look upon the countess as the
loftiest, the purest, and noblest type of the woman, the wife, and the
mother."

A bitter smile played on Jacques's lips.

"And still I have been her lover," he said.

"When? How? The countess lived at Valpinson: you lived in Paris."

"Yes; but every year the countess came and spent the month of September
in Paris; and I came occasionally to Boiscoran."

"It is very singular that such an intrigue should never have been
suspected even."

"We managed to take our precautions."

"And no one ever suspected any thing?"

"No one."

But Jacques was at last becoming impatient at the attitude assumed by M.
Magloire. He forgot that he had foreseen all the suspicions to which he
found now he was exposed.

"Why do you ask all these questions?" he said. "You do not believe me.
Well, be it so! Let me at least try to convince you. Will you listen to
me?"

M. Magloire drew up a chair, and sitting down, not as usually, but
across the chair, and resting his arms on the back, he said,--

"I listen."

Jacques de Boiscoran, who had been almost livid, became crimson with
anger. His eyes flashed wrath. That he, he should be treated thus! Never
had all the haughtiness of M. Galpin offended him half as much as this
cool, disdainful condescension on the part of M. Magloire. It occurred
to him to order him out of his room. But what then? He was condemned
to drain the bitter cup to the very dregs: for he must save himself; he
must get out of this abyss.

"You are cruel, Magloire," he said in a voice of ill-suppressed
indignation, "and you make me feel all the horrors of my situation to
the full. Ah, do not apologize! It does not matter. Let me speak."

He walked up and down a few times in his cell, passing his hand
repeatedly over his brow, as if to recall his memory. Then he began, in
a calmer tone of voice,--

"It was in the first days of the month of August, in 1866, and at
Boiscoran, where I was on a visit to my uncle, that I saw the Countess
Claudieuse for the first time. Count Claudieuse and my uncle were, at
that time, on very bad terms with each other, thanks to that unlucky
little stream which crosses our estates; and a common friend, M. de
Besson, had undertaken to reconcile them at a dinner to which he had
invited both. My uncle had taken me with him. The countess had come with
her husband. I was just twenty years old; she was twenty-six. When I saw
her, I was overcome. It seemed to me that I had never in all my life met
a woman so perfectly beautiful and graceful; that I had never seen so
charming a face, such beautiful eyes, and such a sweet smile.

"She did not seem to notice me. I did not speak to her; and still I felt
within me a kind of presentiment that this woman would play a great, a
fatal part in my life.

"This impression was so strong, that, as we left the house, I could not
keep from mentioning it to my uncle. He only laughed, and said that
I was a fool, and that, if my existence should ever be troubled by a
woman, it would certainly not be by the Countess Claudieuse.

"He was apparently right. It was hard to imagine that any thing should
ever again bring me in contact with the countess. M. de Besson's attempt
at reconciliation had utterly failed; the countess lived at Valpinson;
and I went back to Paris.

"Still I was unable to shake off the impression; and the memory of the
dinner at M. de Besson's house was still in my mind, when a month
later, at a party at my mother's brother's, M. de Chalusse, I thought
I recognized the Countess Claudieuse. It was she. I bowed, and, seeing
that she recognized me, I went up to her, trembling, and she allowed me
to sit down by her.

"She told me then that she had come up to Paris for a month, as she did
every year, and that she was staying at her father's, the Marquis de
Tassar. She had come to this party much against her inclination, as she
disliked going out. She did not dance; and thus I talked to her till the
moment when she left.

"I was madly in love when we parted; and still I made no effort to see
her again. It was mere chance again which brought us together.

"One day I had business at Melun, and, reaching the station rather late,
I had but just time to jump into the nearest car. In the compartment
was the countess. She told me--and that is all I ever recollected of the
conversation--that she was on her way to Fontainebleau to see a friend,
with whom she spent every Tuesday and Saturday. Usually she took the
nine o'clock train.

"This was on a Tuesday; and during the next three days a great struggle
went on in my heart. I was desperately in love with the countess, and
still I was afraid of her. But my evil star conquered; and the next
Saturday, at nine o'clock, I was at the station again.

"The countess has since confessed to me that she expected me. When she
saw me, she made a sign; and, when they opened the doors, I managed to
find a place by her side."

M. Magloire had for some minutes given signs of great impatience; now he
broke forth,--

"This is too improbable!"

At first Jacques de Boiscoran made no reply. It was no easy task for
a man, tried as he had been of late, to stir up thus the ashes of the
past; and it made him shudder. He was amazed at seeing on his lips this
secret which he had so long buried in his innermost heart. Besides, he
had loved, loved in good earnest; and his love had been returned. And
there are certain sensations which come to us only once in life, and
which can never again be effaced. He was moved to tears. But as the
eminent advocate of Sauveterre repeated his words, and even added,--