The Clique of Gold, Emile Gaboriau [if you liked this book .txt] 📗

The old surgeon was too candid to make even an attempt at concealing his astonishment.

“What!” he said, “you have more evidence still?”

The magistrate gravely shook his head, and said,—

“The biography which I have just read establishes nothing. We do not succeed by probabilities and presumptions; however strong they are in convincing a jury. They want and require proof, positive proof, before they condemn. Well, such proof I have.”

“Oh!”

From the same box from which he had taken the papers concerning Crochard he now drew a letter, which he shook in the air with a threatening gesture. “Here is something,” he said, “which was sent to the state attorney twelve days after the last attempt had been made on M. Champcey’s life. Listen!” And he read thus,—

“Sir,—A sailor, who has come over to Boen-Hoa, where I live with my wife, has told us that a certain Crochard, surnamed Bagnolet, has shot, and perhaps mortally wounded, Lieut. Champcey of the ship ‘Conquest.’

“In connection with this misfortune, my wife thinks, and I also consider it a matter of conscience, that we should make known to you a very serious matter.

“One day I happened to be on a yardarm, side by side with Crochard, helping the sailors to furl a sail, when I saw him drop a huge block, which fell upon Lieut. Champcey, and knocked him down.

“No one else had noticed it; and Crochard instantly pulled up the block again. I was just considering whether I ought to report him, when he fell at my feet, and implored me to keep it secret; for he had been very unfortunate in life, and if I spoke he would be ruined.

“Thinking that he had been simply awkward, I allowed myself to be moved, and swore to Crochard that the matter should remain between us. But what has happened since proves very clearly, as my wife says, that I was wrong to keep silence; and I am ready now to tell all, whatever may be the consequences.

“Still, sir, I beg you will protect me, in case Crochard should think of avenging himself on me or on my family,—a thing which might very easily happen, as he is a very bad man, capable of any thing.

“As I cannot write, my wife sends you this letter. And we are, with the most profound respect, &c.”

The doctor rubbed his hands violently.

“And you have seen this blacksmith?” he asked.

“Certainly! He has been here, he and his wife. Ah! if the man had been left to his own counsels, he would have kept it all secret, so terribly is he afraid of this Crochard; but, fortunately, his wife had more courage.”

“Decidedly,” growled the surgeon. “The women are, after all, the better part of creation.”

The magistrate carefully replaced the letter in the box, and then went on in his usual calm voice,—

“Thus the first attempt at murder is duly and fully proven. As for the second,—the one made on the river,—we are not quite so far advanced. Still I have hopes. I have found out, for instance, that Crochard is a first-rate swimmer. Only about three months ago he made a bet with one of the waiters at the hotel where he is engaged, that he would swim across the Dong-Nai twice, at a place where the current is strongest; and he did it.”

“But that is evidence; is it not?”

“No; it is only a probability in favor of the prosecution. But I have another string to my bow. The register on board ship proves that Crochard went on shore the very evening after the arrival of the vessel. Where, and with whom, did he spend the evening? Not one of my hundred and odd witnesses has seen him that night. And that is not all. No one has noticed, the next day, that his clothes were wet. Therefore he must have changed his clothes; and, in order to do that, he must have bought some; for he had taken nothing with him out of the ship but what he had on. Where did he buy these clothes? I mean to find that out as soon as I shall no longer be forced to carry on the investigation secretly, as I have done so far. For I never forget one thing, that the real criminals are in France, and that they will surely escape us, if they hear that their wretched accomplice here is in trouble.”

Once more the surgeon drew Henrietta’s letter from his pocket, and handed it to the lawyer, saying,—

“I know who they are, the really guilty ones. I know Daniel’s enemies,—Sarah Brandon, Maxime de Brevan, and the others.”

But the magistrate waved back the letter, and replied,—

“It is not enough for us to know them, doctor; we want evidence against them,—clear, positive, irrefutable evidence. This evidence we will get from Crochard. Oh, I know the ways of these rascals! As soon as they see they are overwhelmed by the evidence against them, and feel they are in real danger, they hasten to denounce their accomplices, and to aid justice, with all their perversity to discover them. The accused will do the same. When I shall have established the fact that he was hired to murder M. Champcey, he will tell me by whom he was hired; and he will have to confess that he was thus hired, when I show him how much of the money he received for the purpose is now left.”

The old surgeon once more jumped up from his chair.

“What!” he said, “you have found Crochard’s treasure?”

“No,” replied the lawyer, “not yet; but”—

He could hardly keep from smiling grimly; but he added at once,—

“But I know where it is, I think. Ah! I can safely say it was not on the first day exactly that I saw where the truth probably was hid. I have had a good deal of perplexity and trouble. Morally sure as I was, after the first examination of the accused, that he had a relatively large sum hidden somewhere, I first gave all my attention to his chamber. Assisted by a clever police-agent, I examined that room for a whole fortnight, till I was furious. The furniture was taken to pieces, and examined, the lining taken out of the chairs, and even the paper stripped from the walls. All in vain. I was in despair, when a thought struck me,—one of those simple thoughts which make you wonder why it did not occur to you at once. I said to myself, ‘I have found it!’ And, anxious to ascertain if I was right, I immediately sent for the man with whom Crochard had made the bet about swimming across the Dong-Nai. He came; and—But I prefer reading you his deposition.”

He took from the large bundle of papers a single sheet, and, assuming an air of great modesty, read the affidavit.

“Magistrate.—At what point of the river did Crochard swim across?

“Witness.—A little below the town.