The Mystery of Orcival, Emile Gaboriau [people reading books TXT] 📗

cause him to resort at once to the police."

Yes, he had foreseen all, and Tremorel, who had already thought of flight, was overwhelmed.

"I have so arranged, besides, that the idea of flight shall not tempt you too much. It is true I have left all my fortune to Bertha, but I only give her the use of it; the property itself will not be hers until the day after your marriage."

Bertha made a gesture of repugnance which her husband misinterpreted.

"You are thinking of the copy of my will which is in your possession. It is a useless one, and I only added to it some valueless words because I wanted to put your suspicions to sleep. My true will is in the notary's hands, and bears a date two days later. I can read you the rough draft of it."

He took a sheet of paper from a portfolio which was concealed; like the revolver, under the bolster, and read:

"Being stricken with a fatal malady, I here set down freely, and in the fulness of my faculties, my last wishes:

"My dearest wish is that my well-beloved widow, Bertha, should espouse, as soon as the delay enjoined by law has expired, my dear friend, the Count Hector de Tremorel. Having appreciated the grandeur of soul and nobleness of sentiment which belong to my wife and friend, I know that they are worthy of each other, and that each will be happy in the other. I die the more peacefully, as I leave my Bertha to a protector whose—"

It was impossible for Bertha to hear more.

"For pity's sake," cried she, "enough."

"Enough? Well, let it be so," responded Sauvresy. "I have read this paper to you to show you that while I have arranged everything to insure the execution of my will; I have also done all that can preserve to you the world's respect. Yes, I wish that you should be esteemed and honored, for it is you alone upon whom I rely for my vengeance. I have knit around you a net-work which you can never burst asunder. You triumph; my tombstone shall be, as you hoped, the altar of your nuptials, or else—the galleys."

Tremorel's pride at last revolted against so many humiliations, so many whip-strokes lashing his face.

"You have only forgotten one thing, Sauvresy; that a man can die."

"Pardon me," replied the sick man, coldly. "I have foreseen that also, and was just going to tell you so. Should one of you die suddenly before the marriage, the police will be called in."

"You misunderstood me; I meant that a man can kill himself."

"You kill yourself? Humph! Jenny, who disdains you almost as much as I do, has told me about your threats to kill yourself. You! See here; here is my revolver; shoot yourself, and I will forgive my wife!"

Hector made a gesture of anger, but did not take the pistol.

"You see," said Sauvresy, "I knew it well. You are afraid." Turning to
Bertha, he added, "This is your lover."

Extraordinary situations like this are so unwonted and strange that the actors in them almost always remain composed and natural, as if stupefied. Bertha, Hector, and Sauvresy accepted, without taking note of it, the strange position in which they found themselves; and they talked naturally, as if of matters of every-day life, and not of terrible events. But the hours flew, and Sauvresy perceived his life to be ebbing from him.

"There only remains one more act to play," said he. "Hector, go and call the servants, have those who have gone to bed aroused, I want to see them before dying."

Tremorel hesitated.

"Come, go along; or shall I ring, or fire a pistol to bring them here?"

Hector went out; Bertha remained alone with her husband—alone! She had a hope that perhaps she might succeed in making him change his purpose, and that she might obtain his forgiveness. She knelt beside the bed. Never had she been so beautiful, so seductive, so irresistible. The keen emotions of the evening had brought her whole soul into her face, and her lovely eyes supplicated, her breast heaved, her mouth was held out as if for a kiss, and her new-born passion for Sauvresy burst out into delirium.

"Clement," she stammered, in a voice full of tenderness, "my husband,
Clement!"

He directed toward her a glance of hatred.

"What do you wish?"

She did not know how to begin—she hesitated, trembled and sobbed.

"Hector would not kill himself," said she, "but I—"

"Well, what do you wish to say? Speak!"

"It was I, a wretch, who have killed you. I will not survive you."

An inexpressible anguish distorted Sauvresy's features. She kill herself! If so, his vengeance was vain; his own death would then appear only ridiculous and absurd. And he knew that Bertha would not be wanting in courage at the critical moment.

She waited, while he reflected.

"You are free," said he, at last, "this would merely be a sacrifice to Hector. If you died, he would marry Laurence Courtois, and in a year would forget even our name."

Bertha sprang to her feet; she pictured Hector to herself married and happy. A triumphant smile, like a sun's ray, brightened Sauvresy's pale face. He had touched the right chord. He might sleep in peace as to his vengeance. Bertha would live. He knew how hateful to each other were these enemies whom he left linked together.

The servants came in one by one; nearly all of them had been long in Sauvresy's service, and they loved him as a good master. They wept and groaned to see him lying there so pale and haggard, with the stamp of death already on his forehead. Sauvresy spoke to them in a feeble voice, which was occasionally interrupted by distressing hiccoughs. He thanked them, he said, for their attachment and fidelity, and wished to apprise them that he had left each of them a goodly sum in his will. Then turning to Bertha and Hector, he resumed:

"You have witnessed, my people, the care and solicitude with which my bedside has been surrounded by this incomparable friend and my adored Bertha. You have seen their devotion. Alas, I know how keen their sorrow will be! But if they wish to soothe my last moments and give me a happy death, they will assent to the prayer which I earnestly make, to them, and will swear to espouse each other after I am gone. Oh, my beloved friends, this seems cruel to you now; but you know not how all human pain is dulled in me. You are young, life has yet much happiness in store for you. I conjure you yield to a dying man's entreaties!"

They approached the bed, and Sauvresy put Bertha's hand into Hector's.

"Do you swear to obey me?" asked he.

They shuddered to hold each other's hands, and seemed near fainting; but they answered, and were heard to murmur:

"We swear it."

The servants retired, grieved at this distressing scene, and Bertha muttered:

"Oh, 'tis infamous, 'tis horrible!"

"Infamous—yes," returned Sauvresy, "but not more so than your caresses, Bertha, or than your hand-pressures, Hector; not more horrible than your plans, than your hopes—"

His voice sank into a rattle. Soon the agony commenced. Horrible convulsions distorted his limbs; twice or thrice he cried out:

"I am cold; I am cold!"

His body was indeed stiff, and nothing could warm it.

Despair filled the house, for a death so sudden was not looked for. The domestics came and went, whispering to each other, "He is going, poor monsieur; poor madame!"

Soon the convulsions ceased. He lay extended on his back, breathing so feebly that twice they thought his breath had ceased forever. At last, a little before ten o'clock, his cheeks suddenly colored and he shuddered. He rose up in bed, his eye staring, his arm stretched out toward the window, and he cried:

"There—behind the curtain—I see them—I see them!"

A last convulsion stretched him again on his pillow.

Clement Sauvresy was dead!

XXI

The old justice of the peace ceased reading his voluminous record. His hearers, the detective and the doctor remained silent under the influence of this distressing narrative. M. Plantat had read it impressively, throwing himself into the recital as if he had been personally an actor in the scenes described.

M. Lecoq was the first to recover himself.

"A strange man, Sauvresy," said he.

It was Sauvresy's extraordinary idea of vengeance which struck him in the story. He admired his "good playing" in a drama in which he knew he was going to yield up his life.

"I don't know many people," pursued the detective, "capable of so fearful a firmness. To let himself be poisoned so slowly and gently by his wife! Brrr! It makes a man shiver all over!"

"He knew how to avenge himself," muttered the doctor.

"Yes," answered M. Plantat, "yes, Doctor; he knew how to avenge himself, and more terribly than he supposed, or than you can imagine."

The detective rose from his seat. He had remained motionless, glued to his chair for more than three hours, and his legs were benumbed.

"For my part," said he, "I can very well conceive what an infernal existence the murderers began to suffer the day after their victim's death. You have depicted them, Monsieur Plantat, with the hand of a master. I know them as well after your description as if I had studied them face to face for ten years."

He spoke deliberately, and watched for the effect of what he said in M.
Plantat's countenance.

"Where on earth did this old fellow get all these details?" he asked himself. "Did he write this narrative, and if not, who did? How was it, if he had all this information, that he has said nothing?"

M. Plantat appeared to be unconscious of the detective's searching look.

"I know that Sauvresy's body was not cold," said he, "before his murderers began to threaten each other with death."

"Unhappily for them," observed Dr. Gendron, "Sauvresy had foreseen the probability of his widow's using up the rest of the vial of poison."

"Ah, he was shrewd," said M. Lecoq, in a tone of conviction, "very shrewd."

"Bertha could not pardon Hector," continued M. Plantat, "for refusing to take the revolver and blow his brains out; Sauvresy, you see, had foreseen that. Bertha thought that if her lover were dead, her husband would have forgotten all; and it is impossible to tell whether she was mistaken or not."

"And nobody knew anything of this horrible struggle that was going on in the house?"

"No one ever suspected anything."

"It's marvellous!"

"Say, Monsieur Lecoq, that is scarcely credible. Never was dissimulation so crafty, and above all, so wonderfully sustained. If you should question the first person you met in Orcival, he would tell you, as our worthy Courtois this morning told Monsieur Domini, that the count and countess were a model pair and adored each other. Why I, who knew—or suspected, I should say—what had passed, was deceived myself."

Promptly as M. Plantat had corrected himself, his slip of the tongue did not escape M. Lecoq.

"Was it really a slip, or not?" he asked himself.

"These wretches have been terribly punished," pursued M. Plantat, "and it is impossible to pity them; all would have gone rightly if Sauvresy, intoxicated by his hatred, had not committed a blunder which was almost a crime."

"A crime!" exclaimed the doctor.

M. Lecoq smiled and muttered in a low tone:

"Laurence."

But low as he had spoken, M. Plantat heard him.

"Yes, Monsieur Lecoq," said he severely. "Yes, Laurence. Sauvresy did a detestable thing when he thought of making this poor girl the accomplice, or I should say, the instrument of his wrath. He piteously threw her between these two wretches, without asking himself whether she would be broken. It was by using Laurence's name that he persuaded Bertha not to kill herself. Yet he knew of Tremorel's passion for her, he knew her love for him, and he knew that his friend was capable of anything. He, who had so well foreseen all that could serve his vengeance, did not deign to foresee that Laurence might be dishonored; and yet he left her disarmed before this most cowardly and infamous of men!"

The detective reflected.

"There is one thing," said he, "that I can't explain. Why was it that these two, who execrated each other, and whom the implacable will of their victim chained together despite themselves, did not separate of one accord the