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

I collected my briars of the Cape⁠—”

He was talking on so wide of his subject that M. Lecoq could not repress a roguish smile. The old man was about to proceed when he heard a noise in the hall, and looking up he observed Robelot for the first time. His face at once betrayed his great annoyance.

“You were there, were you?” he said.

The bonesetter smiled obsequiously.

“Yes, Monsieur, quite at your service.”

“You have been listening, eh?”

“Oh, as to that, I was waiting to see if Madame Courtois had any commands for me.”

A sudden reflection occurred to M. Plantat; the expression of his eye changed. He winked at M. Lecoq to call his attention, and addressing the bonesetter in a milder tone, said: “Come here, Master Robelot.”

M. Lecoq had read the man at a glance. Robelot was a small, insignificant-looking man, but really of herculean strength. His hair, cut short behind, fell over his large, intelligent forehead. His eyes shone with the fire of covetousness, and expressed, when he forgot to guard them, a cynical boldness. A sly smile was always playing about his thin lips, beneath which there was no beard. A little way off, with his slight figure and his beardless face, he looked like a Paris gamin⁠—one of those little wretches who are the essence of all corruption, whose imagination is more soiled than the gutters where they search for lost pennies.

Robelot advanced several steps, smiling and bowing. “Perhaps,” said he, “Monsieur has, by chance, need of me?”

“None whatever, Master Robelot, I only wish to congratulate you on happening in so apropos, to bleed Monsieur Courtois. Your lancet has, doubtless, saved his life.”

“It’s quite possible.”

“Monsieur Courtois is generous⁠—he will amply recompense this great service.”

“Oh, I shall ask him nothing. Thank God, I want nobody’s help. If I am paid my due, I am content.”

“I know that well enough; you are prosperous⁠—you ought to be satisfied.”

M. Plantat’s tone was friendly, almost paternal. He was deeply interested, evidently, in Robelot’s prosperity.

“Satisfied!” resumed the bonesetter. “Not so much as you might think. Life is very dear for poor people.”

“But, haven’t you just purchased an estate near d’Evry?”

“Yes.”

“And a nice place, too, though a trifle damp. Happily you have stone to fill it in with, on the land that you bought of the widow Frapesle.”

Robelot had never seen the old justice of the peace so talkative, so familiar; he seemed a little surprised.

“Three wretched pieces of land!” said he.

“Not so bad as you talk about. Then you’ve also bought something in the way of mines, at auction, haven’t you?”

“Just a bunch of nothing at all.”

“True, but it pays well. It isn’t so bad, you see, to be a doctor without a diploma.”

Robelot had been several times prosecuted for illegal practicing; so he thought he ought to protest against this.

“If I cure people,” said he, “I’m not paid for it.”

“Then your trade in herbs isn’t what has enriched you.”

The conversation was becoming a cross-examination. The bonesetter was beginning to be restless.

“Oh, I make something out of the herbs,” he answered.

“And as you are thrifty, you buy land.”

“I’ve also got some cattle and horses, which bring in something. I raise horses, cows, and sheep.”

“Also without diploma?”

Robelot waxed disdainful.

“A piece of parchment does not make science. I don’t fear the men of the schools. I study animals in the fields and the stable, without bragging. I haven’t my equal for raising them, nor for knowing their diseases.”

M. Plantat’s tone became more and more winning.

“I know that you are a bright fellow, full of experience. Doctor Gendron, with whom you served, was praising your cleverness a moment ago.”

The bonesetter shuddered, not so imperceptibly as to escape Plantat, who continued: “Yes, the good doctor said he never had so intelligent an assistant. ‘Robelot,’ said he, ‘has such an aptitude for chemistry, and so much taste for it besides, that he understands as well as I many of the most delicate operations.’ ”

“Parbleu! I did my best, for I was well paid, and I was always fond of learning.”

“And you were an apt scholar at Doctor Gendron’s, Master Robelot; he makes some very curious studies. His work and experience on poisons are above all remarkable.”

Robelot’s uneasiness became apparent; his look wavered.

“Yes;” returned he, “I have seen some strange experiments.”

“Well, you see, you may think yourself lucky⁠—for the doctor is going to have a splendid chance to study this sort of thing, and he will undoubtedly want you to assist him.”

But Robelot was too shrewd not to have already guessed that this cross-examination had a purpose. What was M. Plantat after? he asked himself, not without a vague terror. And, going over in his mind the questions which had been asked, and the answers he had given, and to what these questions led, he trembled. He thought to escape further questioning by saying:

“I am always at my old master’s orders when he needs me.”

“He’ll need you, be assured,” said M. Plantat, who added, in a careless tone, which his rapid glance at Robelot belied, “The interest attaching to this case will be intense, and the task difficult. Monsieur Sauvresy’s body is to be disinterred.”

Robelot was certainly prepared for something strange, and he was armed with all his audacity. But the name of Sauvresy fell upon his head like the stroke of a club, and he stammered, in a choked voice:

“Sauvresy!”

M. Plantat had already turned his head, and continued in an indifferent tone:

“Yes, Sauvresy is to be exhumed. It is suspected that his death was not wholly a natural one. You see, justice always has its suspicions.”

Robelot leaned against the wall so as not to fall. M. Plantat proceeded:

“So Doctor Gendron has been applied to. He has, as you know, found reactive drugs which betray the presence of an alkaloid, whatever it may be, in the substances submitted to him for analysis. He has spoken to me of a certain sensitive paper⁠—”

Appealing to all his energy, Robelot forced himself to stand up and resume a calm countenance.

“I know Doctor Gendron’s process,” said he, “but I don’t see who could be