The Mystery of Orcival, Émile Gaboriau [fiction novels to read TXT] 📗

“The countess,” remarked Plantat, “was dressed; but the count might have gone to bed first.”

“No,” answered M. Lecoq, “I’ll prove to the contrary. The proof is easy, indeed, and a child of ten, having heard it, wouldn’t think of being deceived by this intentional disorder of the bedclothes.”

M. Lecoq’s auditors drew up to him. He put the coverings back upon the middle of the bed, and went on:

“Both of the pillows are much rumpled, are they not? But look under the bolster⁠—it is all smooth, and you find none of those wrinkles which are made by the weight of the head and the moving about of the arms. That’s not all; look at the bed from the middle to the foot. The sheets being laid carefully, the upper and under lie close together everywhere. Slip your hand underneath⁠—there⁠—you see there is a resistance to your hand which would not occur if the legs had been stretched in that place. Now Monsieur de Trémorel was tall enough to extend the full length of the bed.”

This demonstration was so clear, its proof so palpable, that it could not be gainsaid.

“This is nothing,” continued M. Lecoq. “Let us examine the second mattress. When a person purposely disarranges a bed, he does not think of the second mattress.”

He lifted up the upper mattress, and observed that the covering of the under one was perfectly even.

“H’m, the second mattress,” muttered M. Lecoq, as if some memory crossed his mind.

“It appears to be proved,” observed the judge, “that Monsieur de Trémorel had not gone to bed.”

“Besides,” added the doctor, “if he had been murdered in his bed, his clothes would be lying here somewhere.”

“Without considering,” suggested M. Lecoq, “that some blood must have been found on the sheets. Decidedly, these criminals were not shrewd.”

“What seems to me surprising,” M. Plantat observed to the judge, “is that anybody would succeed in killing, except in his sleep, a young man so vigorous as Count Hector.”

“And in a house full of weapons,” added Dr. Gendron; “for the count’s cabinet is full of guns, swords and hunting knives; it’s a perfect arsenal.”

“Alas!” sighed M. Courtois, “we know of worse catastrophes. There is not a week that the papers don’t⁠—”

He stopped, chagrined, for nobody was listening to him. Plantat claimed the general attention, and continued:

“The confusion in the house seems to you surprising; well now, I’m surprised that it is not worse than it is. I am, so to speak, an old man; I haven’t the energy of a young man of thirty-five; yet it seems to me that if assassins should get into my house, when I was there, and up, it would go hard with them. I don’t know what I would do; probably I should be killed; but surely I would give the alarm. I would defend myself, and cry out, and open the windows, and set the house afire.”

“Let us add,” insisted the doctor, “that it is not easy to surprise a man who is awake. There is always an unexpected noise which puts one on his guard. Perhaps it is a creaking door, or a cracking stair. However cautious the murderer, he does not surprise his victim.”

“They may have used firearms;” struck in the worthy mayor, “that has been done. You are quietly sitting in your chamber; it is summer, and your windows are open; you are chatting with your wife, and sipping a cup of tea; outside, the assassins are supplied with a short ladder; one ascends to a level with the window, sights you at his ease, presses the trigger, the bullet speeds⁠—”

“And,” continued the doctor, “the whole neighborhood, aroused by it, hastens to the spot.”

“Permit me, pardon, permit me,” said M. Courtois, testily, “that would be so in a populous town. Here, in the midst of a vast park, no. Think, doctor, of the isolation of this house. The nearest neighbor is a long way off, and between there are many large trees, intercepting the sound. Let us test it by experience. I will fire a pistol in this room, and I’ll wager that you will not hear the echo in the road.”

“In the daytime, perhaps, but not in the night.”

“Well,” said M. Domini, who had been reflecting while M. Courtois was talking, “if against all hope, Guespin does not decide to speak tonight, or tomorrow, the count’s body will afford us a key to the mystery.”

During this discussion, M. Lecoq had continued his investigations, lifting the furniture, studying the fractures, examining the smallest pieces, as if they might betray the truth. Now and then, he took out an instrument-case, from which he produced a shank, which he introduced and turned in the locks. He found several keys on the carpet, and on a rack, a towel, which he carefully put one side, as if he deemed it important. He came and went from the bedroom to the count’s cabinet, without losing a word that was said; noting in his memory, not so much the phrases uttered, as the diverse accents and intonations with which they were spoken. In an inquest such as that of the crime of Orcival, when several officials find themselves face to face, they hold a certain reserve toward each other. They know each other to have nearly equal experience, to be shrewd, clearheaded, equally interested in discovering the truth, not disposed to confide in appearances, difficult to surprise. Each one, likely enough, gives a different interpretation to the facts revealed; each may have a different theory of the deed; but a superficial observer would not note these differences. Each, while dissimulating his real thoughts, tries to penetrate those of his neighbor, and if they are opposed to his own, to convert him to his opinion. The great importance of a single word justifies this caution. Men who hold the liberty and lives of others in their hands, a scratch of whose pen condemns to death, are apt to feel heavily the burden of their responsibility. It is an ineffable solace, to feel that this burden is shared by others.