The Lerouge Case, Émile Gaboriau [old books to read TXT] 📗

obtained with a few tears! No one knew so well as he how to touch those old chords which vibrate still even in the most corrupt hearts: honour, love, and family ties.

With Albert, he became kind and friendly, and full of the liveliest compassion. Unfortunate man! how greatly he must suffer, he whose whole life had been like one long enchantment. How at a single blow everything about him had fallen in ruins. Who could have foreseen all this at the time when he was the one hope of a wealthy and illustrious house! Recalling the past, the magistrate pictured to him the most touching reminiscences of his early youth, and stirred up the ashes of all his extinct affections. Taking advantage of all that he knew of the prisoner’s life, he tortured him by the most mournful allusions to Claire. Why did he persist in bearing alone his great misfortune? Had he no one in the world who would deem it happiness to share his sufferings? Why this morose silence? Should he not rather hasten to reassure her whose very life depended upon his? What was necessary for that? A single word. Then he would be, if not free, at least returned to the world. His prison would become a habitable abode, no more solitary confinement; his friends would visit him, he might receive whomsoever he wished to see.

It was no longer the magistrate who spoke; it was a father, who, no matter what happens, always keeps in the recesses of his heart, the greatest indulgence for his child.

M. Daburon did even more. For a moment he imagined himself in Albert’s position. What would he have done after the terrible revelation? He scarcely dared ask himself. He understood the motive which prompted the murder of Widow Lerouge; he could explain it to himself; he could almost excuse it. (Another trap.) It was certainly a great crime, but in no way revolting to conscience or to reason. It was one of those crimes which society might, if not forget, at least forgive up to a certain point, because the motive was not a shameful one. What tribunal would fail to find extenuating circumstances for a moment of frenzy so excusable. Besides was not the Count de Commarin the more guilty of the two? Was it not his folly that prepared the way for this terrible event? His son was the victim of fatality, and was in the highest degree to be pitied.

M. Daburon spoke for a long time upon this text, seeking those things most suitable in his opinion to soften the hardened heart of an assassin. And he arrived always at the same conclusion⁠—the wisdom of confessing. But he wasted his eloquence precisely as M. Tabaret had wasted his. Albert appeared in no way affected. His answers were of the shortest. He began and ended as on the first occasion, by protesting his innocence.

One test, which has often given the desired result, still remained to be tried.

On this same day, Saturday, Albert was confronted with the corpse of Widow Lerouge. He appeared impressed by the sad sight, but no more than anyone would be, if forced to look at the victim of an assassination four days after the crime. One of the bystanders having exclaimed: “Ah, if she could but speak!” he replied: “That would be very fortunate for me.”

Since morning, M. Daburon had not gained the least advantage. He had had to acknowledge the failure of his manoeuvres; and now this last attempt had not succeeded either. The prisoner’s continued calmness filled to overflowing the exasperation of this man so sure of his guilt. His spite was evident to all, when, suddenly ceasing his wheedling, he harshly gave the order to re-conduct the prisoner to his cell.

“I will compel him to confess!” he muttered between his teeth.

Perhaps he regretted those gentle instruments of investigation of the middle ages, which compelled the prisoner to say whatever one wished to hear. Never, thought he, did anyone ever meet a culprit like this. What could he reasonably hope for from his system of persistent denial? This obstinacy, absurd in the presence of such absolute proofs, drove the magistrate into a rage. Had Albert confessed his guilt, he would have found M. Daburon disposed to pity him; but as he denied it, he opposed himself to an implacable enemy.

It was the very falseness of the situation which misled and blinded this magistrate, naturally so kind and generous. Having previously wished Albert innocent, he now absolutely longed to prove him guilty, and that for a hundred reasons which he was unable to analyze. He remembered, too well, his having had the Viscount de Commarin for a rival, and his having nearly assassinated him. Had he not repented even to remorse his having signed the warrant of arrest, and his having accepted the duty of investigating the case. Old Tabaret’s incomprehensible change of opinion troubled him, too.

All these feelings combined, inspired M. Daburon with a feverish hatred, and urged him on in the path which he had chosen. It was now less the proofs of Albert’s guilt which he sought for than the justification of his own conduct as magistrate. The investigation became embittered like a personal matter.

In fact, were the prisoner innocent, he would become inexcusable in his own eyes; and, in proportion as he reproached himself the more severely, and as the knowledge of his own failings grew, he felt the more disposed to try everything to conquer his former rival, even to abusing his own power. The logic of events urged him on. It seemed as though his honour itself was at stake; and he displayed a passionate activity, such as he had never before been known to show in any investigation.

M. Daburon passed all Sunday in listening to the reports of the detectives he had sent to Bougival.

They had spared no trouble, they stated, but they could report nothing new.

They had heard many people speak of a woman, who pretended, they said, to have seen the assassin