Within an Inch of His Life

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


"You confess, then, that last night, between ten and eleven you were at
Valpinson?"

"No, sir, I do not."

"But this cartridge-case which I have just shown you was picked up at
Valpinson, close by the ruins of the old castle."

"Well, sir, have I not told you before that I have seen a hundred times
children pick up these cases to play with? Besides, if I had really been
at Valpinson, why should I deny it?"

M. Galpin rose to his full height, and said in the most solemn manner,--

"I am going to tell you why! Last night, between ten and eleven,
Valpinson was set on fire; and it has been burnt to the ground."

"Oh!"

"Last night Count Claudieuse was fired at twice."

"Great God!"

"And it is thought, in fact there are strong reasons to think, that you,
Jacques de Boiscoran, are the incendiary and the assassin."



IX.

M. de Boiscoran looked around him like a man who has suddenly been
seized with vertigo, pale, as if all his blood had rushed to his heart.

He saw nothing but mournful, dismayed faces.

Anthony, his old trusted servant, was leaning against the doorpost, as
if he feared to fall. The clerk was mending his pen in the air, overcome
with amazement. M. Daubigeon hung his head.

"This is horrible!" he murmured: "this is horrible!"

He fell heavily into a chair, pressing his hands on his heart, as if to
keep down the sobs that threatened to rise. M. Galpin alone seemed to
remain perfectly cool. The law, which he imagined he was representing in
all its dignity, knows nothing of emotions. His thin lips even trembled
a little, as if a slight smile was about to burst forth: it was the cold
smile of the ambitious man, who thinks he has played his little part
well.

Did not every thing tend to prove that Jacques de Boiscoran was the
guilty man, and that, in the alternative between a friend, and an
opportunity of gaining high distinction, he had chosen well? After the
silence of a minute, which seemed to be a century, he went and stood,
with arms crossed on his chest, before the accused, and asked him,--

"Do you confess?"

M. de Boiscoran sprang up as if moved by a spring, and said,--

"What? What do you want me to confess?"

"That you have committed the crime at Valpinson."

The young man pressed his hands convulsively on his brow, and cried
out,--

"But I am mad! I should have committed such a fearful, cowardly crime?
Is that possible? Is that likely? I might confess, and you would not
believe me. No! I am sure you would not believe my own words."

He would have moved the marble on his mantelpiece sooner than M. Galpin.
The latter replied in icy tones,--

"I am not part of the question here. Why will you refer to relations
which must be forgotten? It is no longer the friend who speaks to you,
not even the man, but simply the magistrate. You were seen"--

"Who is the wretch?"

"Cocoleu!"

M. de Boiscoran seemed to be overwhelmed. He stammered,--

"Cocoleu? That poor epileptic idiot whom the Countess Claudieuse has
picked up?"

"The same."

"And upon the strength of the senseless words of a poor imbecile I am
charged with incendiarism, with murder?"

Never had the magistrate made such efforts to assume an air of impassive
dignity and icy solemnity, as when he replied,--

"For an hour, at least, poor Cocoleu has been in the full enjoyment of
his faculties. The ways of Providence are inscrutable."

"But sir"--

"And what does Cocoleu depose? He says he saw you kindle the fire with
your own hands, then conceal yourself behind a pile of wood, and fire
twice at Count Claudieuse."

"And all that appears quite natural to you?"

"No! At first it shocked me as it shocked everybody. You seem to be
far above all suspicion. But a moment afterwards they pick up the
cartridge-case, which can only have belonged to you. Then, upon my
arrival here, I surprise you in bed, and find the water in which you
have washed your hands black with coal, and little pieces of charred
paper swimming on top of it."

"Yes," said M. de Boiscoran in an undertone: "it is fate."

"And that is not all," continued the magistrate, raising his voice, "I
examine you, and you admit having been out from eight o'clock till after
midnight. I ask what you have been doing, and you refuse to tell me. I
insist, and you tell a falsehood. In order to overwhelm you, I am forced
to quote the evidence of young Ribot, of Gaudry, and Mrs. Courtois,
who have seen you at the very places where you deny having been. That
circumstance alone condemns you. Why should you not be willing to tell
me what you have been doing during those four hours? You claim to be
innocent. Help me, then, to establish your innocence. Speak, tell me
what you were doing between eight and midnight."

M. de Boiscoran had no time to answer.

For some time already, half-suppressed cries, and the sound of a large
crowd, had come up from the courtyard. A gendarme came in quite excited;
and, turning to the magistrate and the commonwealth attorney, he said,--

"Gentlemen, there are several hundred peasants, men and women, in the
yard, who clamor for M. de Boiscoran. They threaten to drag him down to
the river. Some of the men are armed with pitchforks; but the women are
the maddest. My comrade and I have done our best to keep them quiet."

And just then, as if to confirm what he said, the cries came nearer,
growing louder and louder; and one could distinctly hear,--

"Drown Boiscoran! Let us drown the incendiary!"

The attorney rose, and told the gendarme,--

"Go down and tell these people that the authorities are this moment
examining the accused; that they interrupt us; and that, if they keep
on, they will have to do with me."

The gendarme obeyed his orders. M. de Boiscoran had turned deadly pale.
He said to himself,--

"These unfortunate people believe my guilt!"

"Yes," said M. Galpin, who had overheard the words; "and you would
comprehend their rage, for which there is good reason, if you knew all
that has happened."

"What else?"

"Two Sauveterre firemen, one the father of five children, have perished
in the flames. Two other men, a farmer from Brechy, and a gendarme who
tried to rescue them, have been so seriously burned that their lives are
in danger."

M. de Boiscoran said nothing.

"And it is you," continued the magistrate, "who is charged with all
these calamities. You see how important it is for you to exculpate
yourself."

"Ah! how can I?"

"If you are innocent, nothing is easier. Tell us how you employed
yourself last night."

"I have told you all I can say."

The magistrate seemed to reflect for a full minute; then he said,--

"Take care, M. de Boiscoran: I shall have to have you arrested."

"Do so."

"I shall be obliged to order your arrest at once, and to send you to
jail in Sauveterre."

"Very well."

"Then you confess?"

"I confess that I am the victim of an unheard-of combination of
circumstances; I confess that you are right, and that certain fatalities
can only be explained by the belief in Providence: but I swear by all
that is holy in the world, I am innocent."

"Prove it."

"Ah! would I not do it if I could?"

"Be good enough, then, to dress, sir, and to follow the gendarmes."

Without a word, M. de Boiscoran went into his dressing-room, followed
by his servant, who carried him his clothes. M. Galpin was so busy
dictating to the clerk the latter part of the examination, that he
seemed to forget his prisoner. Old Anthony availed himself of this
opportunity.

"Sir," he whispered into his master's ear while helping him to put on
his clothes.

"What?"

"Hush! Don't speak so loud! The other window is open. It is only about
twenty feet to the ground: the ground is soft. Close by is one of the
cellar openings; and in there, you know, there is the old hiding-place.
It is only five miles to the coast, and I will have a good horse ready
for you to-night, at the park-gate."

A bitter smile rose on M. de Boiscoran's lips, as he said,--

"And you too, my old friend: you think I am guilty?"

"I conjure you," said Anthony, "I answer for any thing. It is barely
twenty feet. In your mother's name"--

But, instead of answering him, M. de Boiscoran turned round, and called
M. Galpin. When he had come in, he said to him, "Look at that window,
sir! I have money, fast horses; and the sea is only five miles off. A
guilty man would have escaped. I stay here; for I am innocent."

In one point, at least, M. de Boiscoran had been right. Nothing would
have been easier for him than to escape, to get into the garden, and to
reach the hiding-place which his servant had suggested to him. But after
that? He had, to be sure, with old Anthony's assistance, some chance of
escaping altogether. But, after all, he might have been found out in his
hiding-place, or he might have been overtaken in his ride to the coast.
Even if he had succeeded, what would have become of him? His flight
would necessarily have been looked upon as a confession of his guilt.

Under such circumstances, to resist the temptation to escape, and to
make this resistance well known, was in fact not so much an evidence
of innocence as a proof of great cleverness. M. Galpin, at all events,
looked upon it in that light; for he judged others by himself. Carefully
and cunningly calculating every step he took in life, he did not believe
in sudden inspirations. He said, therefore, with an ironical smile,
which was to show that he was not so easily taken in,--

"Very well, sir. This circumstance shall be mentioned, as well as the
others, at the trial."

Very differently thought the commonwealth attorney and the clerk. If
the magistrate had been too much engaged in his dictation to notice any
thing, they had been perfectly able to notice the great excitement under
which the accused had naturally labored. Perfectly amazed at first, and
thinking, for a moment, that the whole was a joke, he had next become
furiously angry; then fear and utter dejection had followed one another.
But in precise proportion as the charges had accumulated, and the
evidence had become overwhelming, he had, so far from becoming
demoralized, seemed to recover his assurance.

"There is something curious about it," growled Mechinet. M. Daubigeon,
on the other hand, said nothing; but when M. de Boiscoran came out of
his dressing-room, fully dressed and ready, he said,--

"One more question, sir."

The poor man bowed. He was pale, but calm and self-possessed.

"I am ready to reply," he said.

"I'll be brief. You seemed to be surprised and indignant at any one's
daring to accuse you. That was weakness. Justice is but the work of man,
and must needs judge by appearances. If you reflect, you will see that
the appearances are all against you."

"I see it but too clearly."

"If you were on a jury, you would not hesitate to pronounce a man guilty
upon such evidence."

"No, sir, no!"

The commonwealth attorney bounded from his chair. He said,--

"You are not sincere!"

M. de Boiscoran sadly shook his head, and replied,--

"I speak to you without the slightest hope of convincing you, but in all
sincerity. No, I should not condemn a man, as you say, if he asserted
his innocence, and if I did not see any reason for his crime. For, after
all, unless a man is mad, he does not commit a crime for nothing. Now I
ask you, how could I, upon whom fortune has always smiled; I who am on
the eve of marrying one whom I love passionately,--how could I have set
Valpinson on fire, and tried to murder Count Claudieuse?"

M. Galpin had scarcely been able to disguise his impatience, when he
saw the attorney take part in the affair. Seizing, therefore, the
opportunity to interfere, he said,--

"Your reason, sir, was hatred. You hated the count and the countess
mortally. Do not protest: it is of no use. Everybody knows it; and you
yourself have told me so."

M. de Boiscoran looked as if he were growing still more pale, and then
replied in a tone of crushing disdain,--

"Even if that were so, I do not see what right you have to abuse the
confidence of a friend, after having declared, upon your arrival here,
that all friendship between us had ceased. But that is not so. I never
told you any such thing. As my feelings have never changed, I can
repeat literally what I have said. I have told you that the count was
a troublesome neighbor, a stickler for his rights, and almost absurdly
attached to his preserves. I have also told you, that, if he declared
my public opinions to be abominable, I looked upon his as ridiculous and
dangerous. As for the countess, I have simply said, half in jest, that
so perfect a person was not to my taste; and that I should be very
unhappy if my wife were a Madonna, who hardly ever deigned to put her
foot upon the ground."

"And that was the only reason why you once pointed your gun at Count
Claudieuse? A little more blood rushing to your head would have made you
a murderer on that day."

A terrible spasm betrayed M. de Boiscoran's fury; but he checked
himself, and said,--

"My passion was less fiery than it may have looked. I have the most
profound respect for the count's character. It is an additional grief to
me that he should have accused me."

"But he has not accused you!" broke in M. Daubigeon. "On the contrary,
he was the first and the most eager to defend you."

And, in spite of the signs which M. Galpin made, he continued,--

"Unfortunately that has nothing to do with the force of the evidence
against you. If you persist in keeping silence, you must look for a
criminal trial for the galleys. If you are innocent, why not explain the
matter? What do you wait for? What do you hope?"

"Nothing."

Mechinet had, in the meantime, completed the official report.

"We must go," said M. Galpin

"Am I at liberty," asked M. de Boiscoran, "to write a few lines to my
father and my mother? They are old: such an event may kill them."

"Impossible!" said the magistrate.

Then, turning to Anthony, he said,--

"I am going to put the seals on this room, and I shall leave it in the
meanwhile in your keeping. You know your duty, and the penalties to
which you would be subject, if, at the proper time, every thing is not
found in the same condition in which it is left now. Now, how shall we
get back to Sauveterre?"

After mature deliberation it was decided that M. de Boiscoran should
go in one of his own carriages, accompanied by one of the gendarmes.
M. Daubigeon, the magistrate, and the clerk would return in the
mayor's carriage, driven by Ribot, who was furious at being kept under
surveillance.

"Let us be off," said the magistrate, when the last formalities had been
fulfilled.

M. de Boiscoran came down slowly. He knew the court was full of furious
peasants; and he expected to be received with hootings. It was not so.
The gendarme whom the attorney had sent down had done his duty so
well, that not a cry was heard. But when he had taken his seat in the
carriage, and the horse went off at a trot, fierce curses arose, and a
shower of stones fell, one of which wounded a gendarme.

"Upon my word, you bring ill luck, prisoner," said the man, a friend of
the other gendarme who had been so much injured at the fire.

M. de Boiscoran made no reply. He sank back into the corner, and seemed
to fall into a kind of stupor, from which he did not rouse himself till
the carriage drove into the yard of the prison at Sauveterre. On the
threshold stood Master Blangin, the jailer, smiling with delight at the
idea of receiving so distinguished a prisoner.

"I am going to give you my best room," he said, "but first I have to
give a receipt to the gendarme, and to enter you in my book." Thereupon
he took down his huge, greasy register, and wrote the name of Jacques
de Boiscoran beneath that of Trumence Cheminot, a vagabond who had just
been arrested for having broken into a garden.

It was all over. Jacques de Boiscoran was a prisoner, to be kept in
close confinement.




SECOND PART--THE BOISCORAN TRIAL



I.

The Paris house of the Boiscoran family, No. 216 University Street, is
a house of modest appearance. The yard in front is small; and the few
square yards of damp soil in the rear hardly deserve the name of a
garden. But appearances are deceptive. The inside is marvellously
comfortable; careful and painstaking hands have made every provision for
ease; and the rooms display that solid splendor for which our age has
lost the taste. The vestibule contains a superb mosaic, brought home
from Venice, in 1798, by one of the Boiscorans, who had degenerated, and
followed the fortunes of Napoleon. The balusters of the great staircase
are a masterpiece of iron work; and the wainscoting in the dining-room
has no rival in Paris.

All this, however, is a mere nothing in comparison with the marquis's
cabinet of curiosities. It fills the whole depth, and half the width, of
the upper story; is lighted from above like a huge _atelier_; and would
fill the heart of an artist with delight. Immense glass cases,
which stand all around against the walls, hold the treasures of the
marquis,--priceless collections of enamels, ivories, bronzes, unique
manuscripts, matchless porcelains, and, above all, his _faiences_, his
dear _faiences_, the pride and the torment of his old age.

The owner was well worthy of such a setting.

Though sixty-one years old at that time, the marquis was as straight
as ever, and most aristocratically lean. He had a perfectly magnificent
nose, which absorbed immense quantities of snuff; his mouth was large,
but well furnished; and his brilliant eyes shone with that restless
cunning which betrayed the amateur, who has continually to deal with
sharp and eager dealers in curiosities and second-hand articles of
_vertu_.

In the year 1845 he had reached the summit of his renown by a great
speech on the question of public meetings; but at that hour his watch
seemed to have stopped. All his ideas were those of an Orleanist. His
appearance, his costume, his high cravat, his whiskers, and the way he
brushed his hair, all betrayed the admirer and friend of the citizen
king. But for all that, he did not trouble himself about politics; in
fact, he troubled himself about nothing at all. With the only condition
that his inoffensive passion should be respected, the marchioness was
allowed to rule supreme in the house, administering her large fortune,
ruling her only son, and deciding all questions without the right of
appeal. It was perfectly useless to ask the marquis any thing: his
answer was invariably,--

"Ask my wife."

The good man had, the evening before, purchased a little at haphazard,
a large lot of _faiences_, representing scenes of the Revolution; and
at about three o'clock, he was busy, magnifying-glass in hand, examining
his dishes and plates, when the door was suddenly opened.

The marchioness came in, holding a blue paper in her hand. Six or seven
years younger than her husband, she was the very companion for such an
idle, indolent man. In her walk, in her manner, and in her voice,
she showed at once the woman who stands at the wheel, and means to be
obeyed. Her once celebrated beauty had left remarkable traces enough
to justify her pretensions. She denied having any claims to being
considered handsome, since it was impossible to deny or conceal the
ravages of time, and hence by far her best policy was to accept old age
with good grace. Still, if the marchioness did not grow younger, she
pretended to be older than she really was. She had her gray hair puffed
out with considerable affectation, so as to contrast all the more
forcibly with her ruddy, blooming cheeks, which a girl might have envied
and she often thought of powdering her hair.

She was so painfully excited, and almost undone, when she came into her
husband's cabinet, that even he, who for many a year had made it a rule
of his life to show no emotion, was seriously troubled. Laying aside the
dish which he was examining, he said with an anxious voice,--

"What is the matter? What has happened?"

"A terrible misfortune."

"Is Jacques dead?" cried the old collector.

The marchioness shook her head.

"No! It is something worse, perhaps"--

The old man, who has risen at the sight of his wife, sank slowly back
into his chair.

"Tell me," he stammered out,--"tell me. I have courage."

She handed him the blue paper which she had brought in, and said
slowly,--

"Here. A telegram which I have just received from old Anthony, our son's
valet."

With trembling hands the old marquis unfolded the paper, and read,--

"Terrible misfortune! Master Jacques accused of having set the chateau
at Valpinson on fire, and murdered Count Claudieuse. Terrible evidence
against him. When examined, hardly any defence. Just arrested and
carried to jail. In despair. What must I do?"

The marchioness had feared lest the marquis should have been crushed
by this despatch, which in its laconic terms betrayed Anthony's abject
terror. But it was not so. He put it back on the table in the calmest
manner, and said, shrugging his shoulders,--

"It is absurd!"

His wife did not understand it. She began again,--

"You have not read it carefully, my friend"--

"I understand," he broke in, "that our son is accused of a crime which
he has not and can not have committed. You surely do not doubt his
innocence? What a mother you would be! On my part, I assure you I am
perfectly tranquil. Jacques an incendiary! Jacques a murderer! That is
nonsense!"

"Ah! you did not read the telegram," exclaimed the marchioness.

"I beg your pardon."

"You did not see that there was evidence against him."

"If there had been none, he could not have been arrested. Of course, the
thing is disagreeable: it is painful."

"But he did not defend himself."

"Upon my word! Do you think that if to-morrow somebody accused me of
having robbed the till of some shopkeeper, I would take the trouble to
defend myself?"

"But do you not see that Anthony evidently thinks our son is guilty?"

"Anthony is an old fool!" declared the marquis.

Then pulling out his snuffbox, and stuffing his nose full of snuff, he
said,--

"Besides, let us consider. Did you not tell me that Jacques is in love
with that little Dionysia Chandore?"

"Desperately. Like a real child."

"And she?"

"She adores Jacques."

"Well. And did you not also tell me that the wedding-day was fixed?"

"Yes, three days ago."

"Has Jacques written to you about the matter?"

"An excellent letter."

"In which he tells you he is coming up?"

"Yes: he wanted to purchase the wedding-presents himself." With a
gesture of magnificent indifference the marquis tapped the top of his
snuffbox, and said,--

"And you think a boy like our Jacques, a Boiscoran, in love, and
beloved, who is about to be married, and has his head full of
wedding-presents, could have committed such a horrible crime? Such
things are not worth discussing, and, with your leave, I shall return to
my occupation."

If doubt is contagious, confidence is still more so. Gradually the
marchioness felt reassured by the perfect assurance of her husband. The
blood came back to her cheeks; and smiles reappeared on pale lips. She
said in a stronger voice,--

"In fact, I may have been too easily frightened."

The marquis assented by a gesture.

"Yes, much too easily, my dear. And, between us, I would not say much
about it. How could the officers help accusing our Jacques if his own
mother suspects him?"

The marchioness had taken up the telegram, and was reading it over once
more.

"And yet," she said, answering her own objections, "who in my place
would not have been frightened? This name of Claudieuse especially"--

"Why? It is the name of an excellent and most honorable gentleman,--the
best man in the world, in spite of his sea-dog manners."

"Jacques hates him, my dear."

"Jacques does not mind him any more than that."

"They have repeatedly quarrelled."

"Of course. Claudieuse is a furious legitimist; and as such he always
talks with the utmost contempt of all of us who have been attached to
the Orleans family."

"Jacques has been at law with him."

"And he has done right, only he ought to have carried the matter
through. Claudieuse has claims on the Magpie, which divides our
lands,--absurd claims. He wants at all seasons, and according as he may
desire, to direct the waters of the little stream into his own channels,
and thus drown the meadows at Boiscoran, which are lower than his own.
Even my brother, who was an angel in patience and gentleness, had his
troubles with this tyrant."

But the marchioness was not convinced yet.

"There was another trouble," she said.

"What?"

"Ah! I should like to know myself."

"Has Jacques hinted at any thing?"

"No. I only know this. Last year, at the Duchess of Champdoce's, I met
by chance the Countess Claudieuse and her children. The young woman is
perfectly charming; and, as we were going to give a ball the week after,
it occurred to me to invite her at once. She refused, and did so in such
an icy, formal manner, that I did not insist."

"She probably does not like dancing," growled the marquis.

"That same evening I mentioned the matter to Jacques. He seemed to be
very angry, and told me, in a manner that was hardly compatible with
respect, that I had been very wrong, and that he had his reasons for not
desiring to come in contact with those people."