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

And that would have been equivalent to a confession; and he would have had nothing to answer the magistrate, if the latter had asked at once,—

“How do you know that the darkness was so great on the banks of the Dong-Nai? It seems you were there, eh?”

Quite pallid with fright, the accused simply said,—

“The officer must be mistaken.”

“I think not,” replied the magistrate.

Turning to Daniel, he asked him,—

“Do you persist in your declaration, lieutenant?”

“More than ever, sir; I declare upon honor that I recognize the man’s voice. When he offered me a boat, he spoke a kind of almost unintelligible jargon, a mixture of English and Spanish words; but he did not think of changing his intonation and his accent.”

Affecting an assurance which he was far from really feeling, Crochard, surnamed Bagnolet, shrugged his shoulders carelessly, and said,—

“Do I know any English? Do I know any Spanish?”

“No, very likely not; but like all Frenchmen who live in this colony, and like all the marines, you no doubt know a certain number of words of these two languages.”

To the great surprise of the doctor and of Daniel, the prisoner did not deny it; it looked as if he felt that he was on dangerous ground.

“Never mind!” he exclaimed in the most arrogant manner. “It is anyhow pretty hard to accuse an honest man of a crime, because his voice resembles the voice of a rascal.”

The magistrate gently shook his head. He said,—

“Do you pretend being an honest man?”

“What! I pretend? Let them send for my employers.”

“That is not necessary. I know your antecedents, from the first petty theft that procured you four months’ imprisonment, to the aggravated robbery for which you were sent to the penitentiary, when you were in the army.”

Profound stupor lengthened all of Crochard’s features; but he was not the man to give up a game in which his head was at stake, without fighting for it.

“Well, there you are mistaken,” he said very coolly. “I have been condemned to ten years, that is true, when I was a soldier; but it was for having struck an officer who had punished me unjustly.”

“You lie. A former soldier of your regiment, who is now in garrison here in Saigon, will prove it.”

For the first time the accused seemed to be really troubled. He saw all of a sudden his past rising before him, which until now he had thought unknown or forgotten; and he knew full well the weight which antecedents like his would have in the scales of justice. So he changed his tactics; and, assuming an abject humility, he said,—

“One may have committed a fault, and still be incapable of murdering a man.”

“That is not your case.”

“Oh! how can you say such a thing?—I who would not harm a fly. Unlucky gun! Must I needs have such a mishap?”

The magistrate had for some time been looking at the accused with an air of the most profound disgust. He interrupted him rudely now, and said,—

“Look here, my man! Spare us those useless denials. Justice knows everything it wants to know. That shot was the third attempt you made to murder a man.”

Crochard drew back. He looked livid. But he had still the strength to say in a half-strangled voice,—

“That is false!”

But the magistrate had too great an abundance of evidence to allow the examination to continue. He said simply,—

“Who, then, threw, during the voyage, an enormous block at M. Champcey’s head? Come, don’t deny it. The emigrant who was near you, who saw you, and who promised he would not report you at that time, has spoken. Do you want to see him?”

Once more Crochard opened his lips to protest his innocence; but he could not utter a sound. He was crushed, annihilated; he trembled in all his limbs; and his teeth rattled in his mouth. In less than no time, his features had sunk in, as it were, till he looked like a man at the foot of the scaffold. It may be, that, feeling he was irretrievably lost, he had had a vision of the fatal instrument.

“Believe me,” continued the lawyer, “do not insist upon the impossible; you had better tell the truth.”

For another minute yet, the miserable man hesitated. Then, seeing no other chance of safety, except the mercy of the judges, he fell heavily on his knees, and stammered out,—

“I am a wretched man.”

At the same instant a cry of astonishment burst from the doctor, from Daniel, and the worthy Lefloch. But the man of law was not surprised. He knew in advance that the first victory would be easily won, and that the real difficulty would be to induce the prisoner to confess the name of his principal. Without giving him, therefore time to recover, he said,—

“Now, what reasons had you for persecuting M. Champcey in this way?”

The accused rose again; and, making an effort, he said slowly,—

“I hated him. Once during the voyage he had threatened to have me put in irons.”

“The man lies!” said Daniel.

“Do you hear?” asked the lawyer. “So you will not tell the truth? Well, I will tell it for you. They had hired you to kill Lieut. Champcey, and you wanted to earn your money. You got a certain sum of money in advance; and you were to receive a larger sum after his death.”

“I swear”—

“Don’t swear! The sum in your possession, which you cannot account for, is positive proof of what I say.”

“Alas! I possess nothing. You may inquire. You may order a search.”

Under the impassive mask of the lawyer, a certain degree of excitement could at this moment be easily discerned. The time had come to strike a decisive blow, and to judge of the value of his system of induction. Instead, therefore, of replying to the prisoner, he turned to the gendarmes who were present and said to them,—

“Take the prisoner into the next room. Strip him, and examine all his clothes carefully: see to it that there is nothing hid in the lining.”

The gendarmes advanced to seize the prisoner, when he suddenly jumped up, and said in a tone of ill-constrained rage,—

“No need for that! I have three one thousand-franc-notes sewn into the lining of my trousers.”