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

the crime had been committed, the murderer, distressed, frightened at his danger, lost his coolness and only half executed his project. But there are other suppositions. It might be asked whether, while Madame de Trémorel was being murdered, Guespin might not have been committing some other crime elsewhere.”

This conjecture seemed so improbable to the doctor that he could not avoid objecting to it. “Oh!” muttered he.

“Don’t forget,” replied Lecoq, “that the field of conjectures has no bounds. Imagine whatever complication of events you may, I am ready to maintain that such a complication has occurred or will present itself. Lieuben, a German lunatic, bet that he would succeed in turning up a pack of cards in the order stated in the written agreement. He turned and turned ten hours per day for twenty years. He had repeated the operation 4,246,028 times, when he succeeded.”

M. Lecoq was about to proceed with another illustration, when M. Plantat interrupted him by a gesture.

“I admit your hypotheses; I think they are more than probable⁠—they are true.”

M. Lecoq, as he spoke, paced up and down between the window and the bookshelves, stopping at emphatic words, like a general who dictates to his aides the plan of the morrow’s battle. To his auditors, he seemed a new man, with serious features, an eye bright with intelligence, his sentences clear and concise⁠—the Lecoq, in short, which the magistrates who have employed his talents, would recognize.

“Now,” he resumed, “hear me. It is ten o’clock at night. No noise without, the road deserted, the village lights extinguished, the château servants away at Paris. The count and countess are alone at Valfeuillu.

“They have gone to their bedroom.

“The countess has seated herself at the table where tea has been served. The count, as he talks with her, paces up and down the chamber.”

“Madame de Trémorel has no ill presentiment; her husband, the past few days, has been more amiable, more attentive than ever. She mistrusts nothing, and so the count can approach her from behind, without her thinking of turning her head.

“When she hears him coming up softly, she imagines that he is going to surprise her with a kiss. He, meanwhile, armed with a long dagger, stands beside his wife. He knows where to strike that the wound may be mortal. He chooses the place at a glance; takes aim; strikes a terrible blow⁠—so terrible that the handle of the dagger imprints itself on both sides of the wound. The countess falls without a sound, bruising her forehead on the edge of the table, which is overturned. Is not the position of the terrible wound below the left shoulder thus explained⁠—a wound almost vertical, its direction being from right to left?”

The doctor made a motion of assent.

“And who, besides a woman’s lover or her husband is admitted to her chamber, or can approach her when she is seated without her turning round?”

“That’s clear,” muttered M. Plantat.

“The countess is now dead,” pursued M. Lecoq. “The assassin’s first emotion is one of triumph. He is at last rid of her who was his wife, whom he hated enough to murder her, and to change his happy, splendid, envied existence for a frightful life, henceforth without country, friend, or refuge, proscribed by all nations, tracked by all the police, punishable by the laws of all the world! His second thought is of this letter or paper, this object of small size which he knows to be in his wife’s keeping, which he has demanded a hundred times, which she would not give up to him, and which he must have.”

“Add,” interrupted M. Plantat, “that this paper was one of the motives of the crime.”

“The count thinks he knows where it is. He imagines that he can put his hand on it at once. He is mistaken. He looks into all the drawers and bureaus used by his wife⁠—and finds nothing. He searches every corner, he lifts up the shelves, overturns everything in the chamber⁠—nothing. An idea strikes him. Is this letter under the mantel-shelf? By a turn of the arm he lifts it⁠—down the clock tumbles and stops. It is not yet half-past ten.”

“Yes,” murmured the doctor, “the clock betrays that.”

“The count finds nothing under the mantel-shelf except the dust, which has retained traces of his fingers. Then he begins to be anxious. Where can this paper be, for which he has risked his life? He grows angry. How search the locked drawers? The keys are on the carpet⁠—I found them among the debris of the tea service⁠—but he does not see them. He must have some implement with which to break open everything. He goes downstairs for a hatchet. The drunkenness of blood and vengeance is dissipated on the staircase; his terrors begin. All the dark corners are peopled, now, with those spectres which form the cortege of assassins; he is frightened, and hurries on. He soon goes up again, armed with a large hatchet⁠—that found on the second story⁠—and makes the pieces of wood fly about him. He goes about like a maniac, rips up the furniture at hazard; but he pursues a desperate search, the traces of which I have followed, among the debris. Nothing, always nothing! Everything in the room is topsy-turvy; he goes into his cabinet and continues the destruction; the hatchet rises and falls without rest. He breaks his own bureau, since he may find something concealed there of which he is ignorant. This bureau belonged to the first husband⁠—to Sauvresy. He takes out all the books in the library, one by one, shakes them furiously, and throws them about the floor. The infernal paper is undiscoverable. His distress is now too great for him to pursue the search with the least method. His wandering reason no longer guides him. He staggers, without calculation, from one thing to another, fumbling a dozen times in the same drawer, while he completely forgets others just by him. Then he thinks that this paper may have been hid in the stuffing of a chair. He seizes