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

were retiring, in a low tone, but not so low as to prevent the detective from hearing her:

"Be sure, we will not try to escape."

She let the door-curtain drop; it was time. Hector entered. He was paler than death, and his eyes had a fearful, wandering expression.

"We are lost!" said he, "they are pursuing us. See, this letter which I received just now is not from the man whose signature it professes to bear; he told me so himself. Come, let us go, let us leave this house—"

Laurence overwhelmed him with a look full of hate and contempt, and said:

"It is too late."

Her countenance and voice were so strange that Tremorel, despite his distress, was struck by it, and asked:

"What is the matter?"

"Everything is known; it is known that you killed your wife."

"It's false!"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, then, it is true," he added, "for I loved you so—"

"Really! And it was for love of me that you poisoned Sauvresy?"

He saw that he was discovered, that he had been caught in a trap, that they had come, in his absence, and told Laurence all. He did not attempt to deny anything.

"What shall I do?" cried he, "what shall I do?"

Laurence drew him to her, and muttered in a shuddering voice:

"Save the name of Tremorel; there are pistols here."

He recoiled, as if he had seen death itself.

"No," said he. "I can yet fly and conceal myself; I will go alone, and you can rejoin me afterward."

"I have already told you that it is too late. The police have surrounded the house. And—you know—it is the galleys, or—the scaffold!"

"I can get away by the courtyard."

"It is guarded; look."

He ran to the window, saw M. Lecoq's men, and returned half mad and hideous with terror.

"I can at least try," said he, "by disguising myself—"

"Fool! A detective is in there, and it was he who left that warrant to arrest you on the table."

He saw that he was lost beyond hope.

"Must I die, then?" he muttered.

"Yes, you must; but before you die write a confession of your crimes, for the innocent may be suspected—"

He sat down mechanically, took the pen which Laurence held out to him, and wrote:

"Being about to appear before God, I declare that I alone, and without accomplices, poisoned Sauvresy and murdered the Countess de Tremorel, my wife."

When he had signed and dated this, Laurence opened a bureau drawer; Hector seized one of the brace of pistols which were lying in it, and she took the other. But Tremorel, as before at the hotel, and then in the dying Sauvresy's chamber, felt his heart fail him as he placed the pistol against his forehead. He was livid, his teeth chattered, and he trembled so violently that he let the pistol drop.

"Laurence, my love," he stammered, "what will—become of you?"

"Me! I have sworn that I will follow you always and everywhere. Do you understand?"

"Ah, 'tis horrible!" said he. "It was not I who poisoned Sauvresy—it was she—there are proofs of it; perhaps, with a good advocate—"

M. Lecoq did not lose a word or a gesture of this tragical scene. Either purposely or by accident, he pushed the door-curtain, which made a slight noise.

Laurence thought the door was being opened, that the detective was returning, and that Hector would fall alive into their hands.

"Miserable coward!" she cried, pointing her pistol at him, "shoot, or else—"

He hesitated; there was another rustle at the door; she fired.

Tremorel fell dead.

Laurence, with a rapid movement, took up the other pistol, and was turning it against herself, when M. Lecoq sprung upon her and tore the weapon from her grasp.

"Unhappy girl!" cried he, "what would you do?"

"Die. Can I live now?"

"Yes, you can live," responded M. Lecoq. "And more, you ought to live."

"I am a lost woman—"

"No, you are a poor child lured away by a wretch. You say you are very guilty; perhaps so; live to repent of it. Great sorrows like yours have their missions in this world, one of devotion and charity. Live, and the good you do will attach you once more to life. You have yielded to the deceitful promises of a villain. Remember, when you are rich, that there are poor innocent girls forced to lead a life of miserable shame for a morsel of bread. Go to these unhappy creatures, rescue them from debauchery, and their honor will be yours."

M. Lecoq narrowly watched Laurence as he spoke, and perceived that he had touched her. Still, her eyes were dry, and were lit up with a strange light.

"Besides, your life is not your own—you know."

"Ah," she returned, "I must die now, even for my child, if I would not die of shame when he asks for his father—"

"You will reply, Madame, by showing him an honest man and an old friend, who is ready to give him his name—Monsieur Plantat."

The old justice was broken with grief; yet he had the strength to say:

"Laurence, my beloved child, I beg you accept me—"

These simple words, pronounced with infinite gentleness and sweetness, at last melted the unhappy young girl, and determined her. She burst into tears.

She was saved.

M. Lecoq hastened to throw a shawl which he saw on a chair about her shoulders, and passed her arm through M. Plantat's, saying to the latter:

"Go, lead her away; my men have orders to let you pass, and Palot will lend you his carriage."

"But where shall we go?"

"To Orcival; Monsieur Courtois has been informed by a letter from me that his daughter is living, and he is expecting her. Come, lose no time."

M. Lecoq, when he was left alone, listened to the departure of the carriage which took M. Plantat and Laurence away; then he returned to Tremorel's body.

"There," said he to himself, "lies a wretch whom I have killed instead of arresting and delivering him up to justice. Have I done my duty? No; but my conscience will not reproach me, because I have acted rightly."

And running to the staircase, he called his men.

XXVIII

The day after Tremorel's death, old Bertaud and Guespin were set at liberty, and received, the former four thousand francs to buy a boat and new tackle, and the latter ten thousand francs, with a promise of a like sum at the end of the year, if he would go and live in his own province. Fifteen days later, to the great surprise of the Orcival gossips, who had never learned the details of these events, M. Plantat wedded Mlle. Laurence Courtois; and the groom and bride departed that very evening for Italy, where it was announced they would linger at least a year.

As for Papa Courtois, he has offered his beautiful domain at Orcival for sale; he proposes to settle in the middle of France, and is on the lookout for a commune in need of a good mayor.

M. Lecoq, like everybody else, would, doubtless, have forgotten the Valfeuillu affair, had it not been that a notary called on him personally the other morning with a very gracious letter from Laurence, and an enormous sheet of stamped paper. This was no other than a title deed to M. Plantat's pretty estate at Orcival, "with furniture, stable, carriage-house, garden, and other dependencies and appurtenances thereunto belonging," and some neighboring acres of pleasant fields.

"Prodigious!" cried M. Lecoq. "I didn't help ingrates, after all! I am willing to become a landed proprietor, just for the rarity of the thing."

End of Project Gutenberg's The Mystery of Orcival, by Emile Gaboriau