Monsieur Lecoq, Émile Gaboriau [best non fiction books to read .txt] 📗

have to remain alone, entirely alone, in that cold, damp cell, where not a sound can be heard.”

The magistrate bent over his desk to make a note. The word “comrades” had attracted his attention, and he proposed to ask the prisoner to explain it at a later stage of the inquiry.

“If you are innocent,” he remarked, “you will soon be released: but it is necessary to prove your innocence.”

“What must I do to prove it?”

“Tell the truth, the whole truth: answer my questions honestly without reserve.”

“As for that, you may depend upon me.” As he spoke the prisoner lifted his hand, as if to call upon God to witness his sincerity.

But M. Segmuller immediately intervened: “Prisoners do not take the oath,” said he.

“Indeed!” ejaculated the man with an astonished air, “that’s strange!”

Although the magistrate had apparently paid but little attention to the prisoner, he had in point of fact carefully noted his attitude, his tone of voice, his looks and gestures. M. Segmuller had, moreover, done his utmost to set the culprit’s mind at ease, to quiet all possible suspicion of a trap, and his inspection of the prisoner’s person led him to believe that this result had been attained.

“Now,” said he, “you will give me your attention; and do not forget that your liberty depends upon your frankness. What is your name?”

“May.”

“What is your Christian name?”

“I have none.”

“That is impossible.”

“I have been told that already three times since yesterday,” rejoined the prisoner impatiently. “And yet it’s the truth. If I were a liar, I could easily tell you that my name was Peter, James, or John. But lying is not in my line. Really, I have no Christian name. If it were a question of surnames, it would be quite another thing. I have had plenty of them.”

“What were they?”

“Let me see⁠—to commence with, when I was with Father Fougasse, I was called Affiloir, because you see⁠—”

“Who was this Father Fougasse?”

“The great wild beast tamer, sir. Ah! he could boast of a menagerie and no mistake! Lions, tigers, and bears, serpents as big round as your thigh, parrakeets of every color under the sun. Ah! it was a wonderful collection. But unfortunately⁠—”

Was the man jesting, or was he in earnest? It was so hard to decide, that M. Segmuller and Lecoq were equally in doubt. As for Goguet, the smiling clerk, he chuckled to himself as his pen ran over the paper.

“Enough,” interrupted the magistrate. “How old are you?”

“Forty-four or forty-five years of age.”

“Where were you born?”

“In Brittany, probably.”

M. Segmuller thought he could detect a hidden vein of irony in this reply.

“I warn you,” said he, severely, “that if you go on in this way your chances of recovering your liberty will be greatly compromised. Each of your answers is a breach of propriety.”

As the supposed murderer heard these words, an expression of mingled distress and anxiety was apparent in his face. “Ah! I meant no offense, sir,” he sighed. “You questioned me, and I replied. You will see that I have spoken the truth, if you will allow me to recount the history of the whole affair.”

“When the prisoner speaks, the prosecution is enlightened,” so runs an old proverb frequently quoted at the Palais de Justice. It does, indeed, seem almost impossible for a culprit to say more than a few words in an investigating magistrate’s presence, without betraying his intentions or his thoughts; without, in short, revealing more or less of the secret he is endeavoring to conceal. All criminals, even the most simple-minded, understand this, and those who are shrewd prove remarkably reticent. Confining themselves to the few facts upon which they have founded their defense, they are careful not to travel any further unless absolutely compelled to do so, and even then they only speak with the utmost caution. When questioned, they reply, of course, but always briefly; and they are very sparing of details.

In the present instance, however, the prisoner was prodigal of words. He did not seem to think that there was any danger of his being the medium of accomplishing his own decapitation. He did not hesitate like those who are afraid of misplacing a word of the romance they are substituting for the truth. Under other circumstances, this fact would have been a strong argument in his favor.

“You may tell your own story, then,” said M. Segmuller in answer to the prisoner’s indirect request.

The presumed murderer did not try to hide the satisfaction he experienced at thus being allowed to plead his own cause, in his own way. His eyes sparkled and his nostrils dilated as if with pleasure. He sat himself dawn, threw his head back, passed his tongue over his lips as if to moisten them, and said: “Am I to understand that you wish to hear my history?”

“Yes.”

“Then you must know that one day about forty-five years ago, Father Tringlot, the manager of a traveling acrobatic company, was going from Guingamp to Saint Brieuc, in Brittany. He had with him two large vehicles containing his wife, the necessary theatrical paraphernalia, and the members of the company. Well, soon after passing Chatelaudren, he perceived something white lying by the roadside, near the edge of a ditch. ‘I must go and see what that is,’ he said to his wife. He stopped the horses, alighted from the vehicle he was in, went to the ditch, picked up the object he had noticed, and uttered a cry of surprise. You will ask me what he had found? Ah! good heavens! A mere trifle. He had found your humble servant, then about six months old.”

With these last words, the prisoner made a low bow to his audience.

“Naturally, Father Tringlot carried me to his wife. She was a kindhearted woman. She took me, examined me, fed me, and said: ‘He’s a strong, healthy child; and we’ll keep him since his mother has been so wicked as to abandon him by the roadside. I will teach him; and in five or six years he