Within an Inch of His Life

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


His friend could not listen any further. He said,--

"Let us break off there: we shall never understand each other. Is
Jacques de Boiscoran innocent, or guilty? I do not know. But I do know
that he was the pleasantest man in the world, an admirable host, a good
talker, a scholar, and that he owned the finest editions of Horace and
Juvenal that I have ever seen. I liked him. I like him still; and it
distresses me to think of him in prison. I know that we had the most
pleasant relations with each other, and that now they are broken off.
And you, you complain! Am I the ambitious man? Do I want to have my
name connected with a world-famous trial? M. de Boiscoran will in all
probability be condemned. You ought to be delighted. And still you
complain? Why, one cannot have everything. Who ever undertook a great
enterprise, and never repented of it?"

After that there was nothing left for M. Galpin but to go away. He did
go in a fury, but at the same time determined to profit by the rude
truths which M. Daubigeon had told him; for he knew very well that his
friend represented in his views nearly the whole community. He was
fully prepared to carry out his plan. Immediately after his return, he
communicated the papers of the prosecution to the defence, and directed
his clerk to show himself as obliging as he could. M. Mechinet was not
a little surprised at these orders. He knew his master thoroughly,--this
magistrate, whose shadow he had been now for so many years.

"You are afraid, dear sir," he had said to himself.

And as M. Galpin repeated the injunction, adding that the honor of
justice required the utmost courtesy when rigor was not to be employed,
the old clerk replied very gravely,--

"Oh! be reassured, sir. I shall not be wanting in courtesy."

But, as soon as the magistrate turned his back, Mechinet laughed aloud.

"He would not recommend me to be obliging," he thought, "if he suspected
the truth, and knew how far I am devoted to the defence. What a fury
he would be in, if he should ever find out that I have betrayed all the
secrets of the investigation, that I have carried letters to and from
the prisoner, that I have made of Trumence an accomplice, and of Blangin
the jailer an agent, that I have helped Miss Dionysia to visit her
betrothed in jail!"

For he had done all this four times more than enough to be dismissed
from his place, and even to become, at least for some months, one of
Blangin's boarders. He shivered all down his back when he thought of
this; and he had been furiously angry, when, one evening, his sisters,
the devout seamstresses, had taken it into their heads to say to him,--

"Certainly, Mechinet, you are a different man ever since that visit of
Miss Chandore."

"Abominable talkers!" he had exclaimed, in a tone of voice which
frightened them out of their wits. "Do you want to see me hanged?"

But, if he had these attacks of rage, he felt not a moment's remorse.
Miss Dionysia had completely bewitched him; and he judged M. Galpin's
conduct as severely as she did.

To be sure, M. Galpin had done nothing contrary to law; but he had
violated the spirit of the law. Having once summoned courage to
begin proceedings against his friend, he had not been able to remain
impartial. Afraid of being charged with timidity, he had exaggerated his
severity. And, above all, he had carried on the inquiry solely in the
interests of a conviction, as if the crime had been proved, and the
prisoner had not protested his innocence.

Now, Mechinet firmly believed in this innocence; and he was fully
persuaded that the day on which Jacques de Boiscoran saw his counsel
would be the day of his justification. This will show with what
eagerness he went to the court-house to wait for M. Magloire.

But at noon the great lawyer had not yet come. He was still consulting
with M. de Chandore.

"Could any thing amiss have happened?" thought the clerk.

And his restlessness was so great, that, instead of going home to
breakfast with his sisters, he sent an office-boy for a roll and a glass
of water. At last, as three o'clock struck, M. Magloire and M. Folgat
arrived; and Mechinet saw at once in their faces, that he had been
mistaken, and that Jacques had not explained. Still, before M. Magloire,
he did not dare inquire.

"Here are the papers," he said simply, putting upon the table an immense
box.

Then, drawing M. Folgat aside, he asked,--

"What is the matter, pray?"

The clerk had certainly acted so well, that they could have no secret
from him; and he so was fully committed, that there was no danger in
relying upon his discretion. Still M. Folgat did not dare to mention the
name of the Countess Claudieuse; and he replied evasively,--

"This is the matter: M. de Boiscoran explains fully; but he had no
proofs for his statement, and we are busy collecting proofs."

Then he went and sat down by M. Magloire, who was already deep in the
papers. With the help of those documents, it was easy to follow step by
step M. Galpin's work, to see the efforts he had made, and to comprehend
his strategy.

First of all, the two lawyers looked for the papers concerning Cocoleu.
They found none. Of the statement of the idiot on the night of the
fire, of the efforts made since to obtain from him a repetition of this
evidence, of the report of the experts,--of all this there was not a
trace to be found.

M. Galpin dropped Cocoleu. He had a right to do so. The prosecution, of
course, only keeps those witnesses which it thinks useful, and drops all
the others.

"Ah, the scamp is clever!" growled M. Magloire in his disappointment.

It was really very well done. M. Galpin deprived by this step the
defence of one of their surest means, of one of those incidents in a
trial which are apt to affect the mind of the jury so powerfully.

"We can, however, summon him at any time," said M. Magloire.

They might do so, it is true; but what a difference it would make! If
Cocoleu appeared for M. Galpin, he was a witness for the prosecution,
and the defence could exclaim with indignation,--

"What! You suspect the prisoner upon the evidence of such a creature?"

But, if he had to be summoned by the defence, he became prisoner's
evidence, that is to say, one of those witnesses whom the jury always
suspect; and then the prosecution would exclaim,--

"What do you hope for from a poor idiot, whose mental condition is such,
that we refused his evidence when it might have been most useful to us?"

"If we have to go into court," murmured M. Folgat, "here is certainly a
considerable chance of which we are deprived. The whole character of the
case is changed. But, then, how can M. Galpin prove the guilt?"

Oh! in the simplest possible manner. He started from the fact that Count
Claudieuse was able to give the precise hour at which the crime was
committed. Thence he passed on immediately to the deposition of young
Ribot, who had met M. de Boiscoran on his way to Valpinson, crossing the
marshes, before the crime, and to that of Gaudry, who had seen him come
back from Valpinson through the woods, after the crime. Three other
witnesses who had turned up during the investigation confirmed this
evidence; and by these means alone, and by comparing the hours, M.
Galpin succeeded in proving, almost beyond doubt, that the accused had
gone to Valpinson, and nowhere else, and that he had been there at the
time the crime was committed.

What was he doing there?

To this question the prosecution replied by the evidence taken on the
first day of the inquiry, by the water in which Jacques had washed his
hands, the cartridge-case found near the house, and the identity of the
shot extracted from the count's wounds with those seized with the gun at
Boiscoran.

Every thing was plain, precise, and formidable, admitting of no
discussion, no doubt, no suggestion. It looked like a mathematical
deduction.

"Whether he be innocent or guilty," said M. Magloire to his young
colleague, "Jacques is lost, if we cannot get hold of some evidence
against the Countess Claudieuse. And even in that case, even if it
should be established that she is guilty, Jacques will always be looked
upon as her accomplice."

Nevertheless, they spent a part of the night in going over all the
papers carefully, and in studying every point made by the prosecution.

Next morning, about nine o'clock, having had only a few hours' sleep,
they went together to the prison.



XVII.

The night before, the jailer of Sauveterre had said to his wife, at
supper,--

"I am tired of the life I am leading here. They have paid me for my
place, have not they? Well, I mean to go."

"You are a fool!" his wife had replied. "As long as M. de Boiscoran is
a prisoner there is a chance of profit. You don't know how rich those
Chandores are. You ought to stay."

Like many other husbands, Blangin fancied he was master in his own
house.

He remonstrated. He swore to make the ceiling fall down upon him. He
demonstrated by the strength of his arm that he was master. But--

But, notwithstanding all this, Mrs. Blangin having decided that he
should stay, he did stay. Sitting in front of his jail, and given up to
the most dismal presentiments, he was smoking his pipe, when M. Magloire
and M. Folgat appeared at the prison, and handed him M. Galpin's permit.
He rose as they came in. He was afraid of them, not knowing whether they
were in Miss Dionysia's secret or not. He therefore politely doffed his
worsted cap, took his pipe from his mouth, and said,--

"Ah! You come to see M. de Boiscoran, gentlemen? I will show you in:
just give me time to go for my keys."

M. Magloire held him back.

"First of all," he said, "how is M. de Boiscoran?"

"Only so-so," replied the jailer.

"What is the matter?"

"Why, what is the matter with all prisoners when they see that things
are likely to turn out badly for them?"

The two lawyers looked at each other sadly.

It was clear that Blangin thought Jacques guilty, and that was a bad
omen. The persons who stand guard over prisoners have generally a very
keen scent; and not unfrequently lawyers consult them, very much as
an author consults the actors of the theatre on which his piece is to
appear.

"Has he told you any thing?" asked M. Folgat.

"Me personally, nothing," replied the jailer.

And shaking his head, he added,--

"But you know we have our experience. When a prisoner has been with
his counsel, I almost always go up to see him, and to offer him
something,--a little trifle to set him up again. So yesterday, after M.
Magloire had been here, I climbed up"--

"And you found M. de Boiscoran sick?"

"I found him in a pitiful condition, gentlemen. He lay on his stomach on
his bed, his head in the pillow, and stiff as a corpse. I was some time
in his cell before he heard me. I shook my keys, I stamped, I coughed.
No use. I became frightened. I went up to him, and took him by the
shoulder. 'Eh, sir!' Great God! he leaped up as if shot and, sitting
up, he said, 'What to you want?' Of course, I tried to console him, to
explain to him that he ought to speak out; that it is rather unpleasant
to appear in court, but that people don't die of it; that they even come
out of it as white as snow, if they have a good advocate. I might just
as well have been singing, 'O sensible woman.' The more I said, the
fiercer he looked; and at last he cried, without letting me finish, 'Get
out from here! Leave me!'"

He paused a moment to take a whiff at his pipe; but it had gone out: he
put it in his pocket, and went on,--

"I might have told him that I had a right to come into the cells
whenever I liked, and to stay there as long as it pleases me. But
prisoners are like children: you must not worry them. But I opened the
wicket, and I remained there, watching him. Ah, gentlemen, I have been
here twenty years, and I have seen many desperate men; but I never saw
any despair like this young man's. He had jumped up as soon as I turned
my back, and he was walking up and down, sobbing aloud. He looked
as pale as death; and the big tears were running down his cheeks in
torrents."

M. Magloire felt each one of these details like a stab at his heart. His
opinion had not materially changed since the day before; but he had had
time to reflect, and to reproach himself for his harshness.

"I was at my post for an hour at least," continued the jailer, "when all
of a sudden M. de Boiscoran throws himself upon the door, and begins
to knock at it with his feet, and to call as loud as he can. I keep him
waiting a little while, so he should not know I was so near by, and then
I open, pretending to have hurried up ever so fast. As soon as I show
myself he says, 'I have the right to receive visitors, have I not? And
nobody has been to see me?'--'No one.'--'Are you sure?'--'Quite sure.' I
thought I had killed him. He put his hands to his forehead this way; and
then he said, 'No one!--no mother, no betrothed, no friend! Well, it
is all over. I am no longer in existence. I am forgotten, abandoned,
disowned.' He said this in a voice that would have drawn tears from
stones; and I, I suggested to him to write a letter, which I would send
to M. de Chandore. But he became furious at once, and cried, 'No, never!
Leave me. There is nothing left for me but death.'"

M. Folgat had not uttered a word; but his pallor betrayed his emotions.

"You will understand, gentlemen," Blangin went on, "that I did not
feel quite reassured. It is a bad cell that in which M. de Boiscoran is
staying. Since I have been at Sauveterre, one man has killed himself
in it, and one man has tried to commit suicide. So I called Trumence, a
poor vagrant who assists me in the jail; and we arranged it that one of
us would always be on guard, never losing the prisoner out of sight for
a moment. But it was a useless precaution. At night, when they carried
M. de Boiscoran his supper, he was perfectly calm; and he even said he
would try to eat something to keep his strength. Poor man! If he has no
other strength than what his meal would give him, he won't go far. He
had not swallowed four mouthfuls, when he was almost smothered; and
Trumence and I at one time thought he would die on our hands: I almost
thought it might be fortunate. However, about nine o'clock he was a
little better; and he remained all night long at his window."

M. Magloire could stand it no longer.

"Let us go up," he said to his colleague.

They went up. But, as they entered the passage, they noticed Trumence,
who was making signs to them to step lightly.

"What is the matter?" they asked in an undertone.

"I believe he is asleep," replied the prisoner. "Poor man! Who knows but
he dreams he is free, and in his beautiful chateau?"

M. Folgat went on tiptoe to the wicket. But Jacques had waked up. He
had heard steps and voices, and he had just risen. Blangin, therefore,
opened the door; and at once M. Magloire said the prisoner,--

"I bring you reenforcements,--M. Folgat, my colleague, who has come down
from Paris, with your mother."

Coolly, and without saying a word, M. de Boiscoran bowed.

"I see you are angry with me," continued M. Magloire. "I was too quick
yesterday, much too quick."

Jacques shook his head, and said in an icy tone,--

"I was angry; but I have reflected since, and now I thank you for your
candor. At least, I know my fate. Innocent though I be, if I go into
court, I shall be condemned as an incendiary and a murderer. I shall
prefer not going into court at all."

"Poor man! But all hope is not lost."

"Yes. Who would believe me, if you, my friend, cannot believe me?"

"I would," said M. Folgat promptly, "I, who, without knowing you, from
the beginning believed in your innocence,--I who, now that I have seen
you, adhere to my conviction."

Quicker than thought, M. de Boiscoran had seized the young advocate's
hand, and, pressing it convulsively, said,--

"Thanks, oh, thanks for that word alone! I bless you, sir, for the faith
you have in me!"

This was the first time that the unfortunate man, since his arrest, felt
a ray of hope. Alas! it passed in a second. His eye became dim again;
his brow clouded over; and he said in a hoarse voice,--

"Unfortunately, nothing can be done for me now. No doubt M. Magloire has
told you my sad history and my statement. I have no proof; or at least,
to furnish proof, I would have to enter into details which the court
would refuse to admit; or if by a miracle they were admitted, I should
be ruined forever by them. They are confidences which cannot be spoken
of, secrets which are never betrayed, veils which must not be lifted.
It is better to be condemned innocent than to be acquitted infamous and
dishonored. Gentlemen, I decline being defended."

What was his desperate purpose that he should have come to such a
decision?

His counsel trembled as they thought they guessed it.

"You have no right," said M. Folgat, "to give yourself up thus."

"Why not?"

"Because you are not alone in your trouble, sir. Because you have
relations, friends, and"--

A bitter, ironical smile appeared on the lips of Jacques de Boiscoran as
he broke in,--

"What do I owe to them, if they have not even the courage to wait for
the sentence to be pronounced before they condemn me? Their merciless
verdict has actually anticipated that of the jury. It was to an unknown
person, to you, M. Folgat, that I had to be indebted for the first
expression of sympathy."

"Ah, that is not so," exclaimed M. Magloire, "you know very well."

Jacques did not seem to hear him. He went on,--

"Friends? Oh, yes! I had friends in my days of prosperity. There was M.
Galpin and M. Daubigeon: they were my friends. One has become my
judge, the most cruel and pitiless of judges; and the other, who
is commonwealth attorney, has not even made an effort to come to my
assistance. M. Magloire also used to be a friend of mine, and told me a
hundred times, that I could count upon him as I count upon myself, and
that was my reason to choose him as my counsel; and, when I endeavored
to convince him of my innocence, he told me I lied."

Once more the eminent advocate of Sauveterre tried to protest; but it
was in vain.

"Relations!" continued Jacques with a voice trembling with
indignation--"oh, yes! I have relations, a father and a mother.
Where are they when their son, victimized by unheard-of fatality, is
struggling in the meshes of a most odious and infamous plot?

"My father stays quietly in Paris, devoted to his pursuits and usual
pleasures. My mother has come down to Sauveterre. She is here now; and
she has been told that I am at liberty to receive visitors: but in vain.
I was hoping for her yesterday; but the wretch who is accused of a crime
is no longer her son! She never came. No one came. Henceforth I stand
alone in the world; and now you see why I have a right to dispose of
myself."

M. Folgat did not think for a moment of discussing the point. It would
have been useless. Despair never reasons. He only said,--

"You forget Miss Chandore, sir."

Jacques turned crimson all over, and he murmured, trembling in all his
limbs,--

"Dionysia!"

"Yes, Dionysia," said the young advocate. "You forget her courage, her
devotion, and all she has done for you. Can you say that she abandons
and denies you,--she who set aside all her reserve and her timidity
for your sake, and came and spent a whole night in this prison? She was
risking nothing less than her maidenly honor; for she might have been
discovered or betrayed. She knew that very well, nevertheless she did
not hesitate."

"Ah! you are cruel, sir," broke in Jacques.

And pressing the lawyer's arm hard, he went on,--

"And do you not understand that her memory kills me, and that my misery
is all the greater as I know but too well what bliss I am losing? Do you
not see that I love Dionysia as woman never was loved before? Ah, if my
life alone was at stake! I, at least, I have to make amends for a great
wrong; but she--Great God, why did I ever come across her path?"

He remained for a moment buried in thought; then he added,--

"And yet she, also, did not come yesterday. Why? Oh! no doubt they have
told her all. They have told her how I came to be at Valpinson the night
of the crime."

"You are mistaken, Jacques," said M. Magloire. "Miss Chandore knows
nothing."

"Is it possible?"

"M. Magloire did not speak in her presence," added M. Folgat; "and we
have bound over M. de Chandore to secrecy. I insisted upon it that you
alone had the right to tell the truth to Miss Dionysia."

"Then how does she explain it to herself that I am not set free?"

"She cannot explain it."

"Great God! she does not also think I am guilty?"

"If you were to tell her so yourself, she would not believe you."

"And still she never came here yesterday."

"She could not. Although they told her nothing, your mother had to be
told. The marchioness was literally thunderstruck. She remained for more
than an hour unconscious in Miss Dionysia's arms. When she recovered her
consciousness, her first words were for you; but it was then too late to
be admitted here."

When M. Folgat mentioned Miss Dionysia's name, he had found the surest,
and perhaps the only means to break Jacques's purpose.

"How can I ever sufficiently thank you, sir?" asked the latter.

"By promising me that you will forever abandon that fatal resolve which
you had formed," replied the young advocate. "If you were guilty, I
should be the first to say, 'Be it so!' and I would furnish you with the
means. Suicide would be an expiation. But, as you are innocent, you have
no right to kill yourself: suicide would be a confession."

"What am I to do?"

"Defend yourself. Fight."

"Without hope?"

"Yes, even without hope. When you faced the Prussians, did you ever
think of blowing out your brains? No! and yet you knew that they were
superior in numbers, and would conquer, in all probability. Well, you
are once more in face of the enemy; and even if you were certain of
being conquered, that is to say, of being condemned, and it was the
day before you should have to mount the scaffold, I should still say,
'Fight. You must live on; for up to that hour something may happen which
will enable us to discover the guilty one.' And, if no such event
should happen, I should repeat, nevertheless, 'You must wait for the
executioner in order to protest from the scaffold against the judicial
murder, and once more to affirm your innocence.'"

As M. Folgat uttered these words, Jacques had gradually recovered his
bearing; and now he said,--

"Upon my honor, sir, I promise you I will hold out to the bitter end."

"Well!" said M. Magloire,--"very well!"

"First of all," replied M. Folgat, "I mean to recommence, for our
benefit the investigation which M. Galpin has left incomplete. To-night
your mother and I will leave for Paris. I have come to ask you for the
necessary information, and for the means to explore your house in Vine
Street, to discover the friend whose name you assumed, and the servant
who waited upon you."

The bolts were drawn as he said this; and at the open wicket appeared
Blangin's rubicund face.

"The Marchioness de Boiscoran," he said, "is in the parlor, and begs you
will come down as soon as you have done with these gentlemen."

Jacques turned very pale.

"My mother," he murmured. Then he added, speaking to the jailer,--

"Do not go yet. We have nearly done."

His agitation was too great: he could not master it. He said to the two
lawyers,--

"We must stop here for to-day. I cannot think now."

But M. Folgat had declared he would leave for Paris that very night; and
he was determined to do so. He said, therefore,--

"Our success depends on the rapidity of our movements. I beg you will
let me insist upon your giving me at once the few items of information
which I need for my purposes."

Jacques shook his head sadly. He began,--

"The task is out of your power, sir."

"Nevertheless, do what my colleague asks you," urged M. Magloire.
Without any further opposition, and, who knows? Perhaps with a secret
hope which he would not confess to himself, Jacques informed the young
advocate of the most minute details about his relations to the Countess
Claudieuse. He told him at what hour she used to come to the house, what
roads she took, and how she was most commonly dressed. The keys of the
house were at Boiscoran, in a drawer which Jacques described. He had
only to ask Anthony for them. Then he mentioned how they might find
out what had become of that Englishman whose name he had borrowed.
Sir Francis Burnett had a brother in London. Jacques did not know his
precise address; but he knew he had important business-relations with
India, and had, once upon a time, been cashier in the great house of
Gilmour and Benson.

As to the English servant-girl who had for three years attended to
his house in Vine Street, Jacques had taken her blindly, upon the
recommendation of an agency in the suburbs; and he had had nothing to
do with her, except to pay her her wages, and, occasionally, some little
gratuity besides. All he could say, and even that he had learned by mere
chance, was, that the girl's name was Suky Wood; that she was a native
of Folkstone, where her parents kept a sailor's tavern; and that,
before coming to France, she had been a chambermaid at the Adelphi in
Liverpool.