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

Hector began to protest, but he insisted in such a manner as to compel assent, praying and adjuring them, and declaring that their refusal would embitter his last moments. This idea of the marriage between his widow and his friend seems, besides, to have singularly possessed his thoughts toward the close of his life. In the preamble of his will, dictated the night before his death, to M. Bury, notary of Orcival, he says formally that their union is his dearest wish, certain as he is of their happiness, and knowing well that his memory will be piously kept.”

“Had Monsieur and Madame Sauvresy no children?” asked the judge of instruction.

“No,” answered the mayor.

M. Plantat continued:

“The grief of the count and the young widow was intense. M. de Trémorel, especially, seemed absolutely desperate, and acted like a madman. The countess shut herself up, forbidding even those whom she loved best from entering her chamber⁠—even Madame Courtois. When the count and Madame Bertha reappeared, they were scarcely to be recognized, so much had both changed. Monsieur Hector seemed to have grown twenty years older. Would they keep the oath made at the deathbed of Sauvresy, of which everyone was apprised? This was asked with all the more curiosity, because their profound sorrow for a man who well merited it, was admired.”

The judge of instruction stopped M. Plantat with a motion of his hand.

“Do you know,” asked he, “whether the rendezvous at the Hotel Belle Image had ceased?”

“I suppose so, sir; I think so.”

“I am almost sure of it,” said Dr. Gendron. “I have often heard it said⁠—they know everything at Corbeil⁠—that there was a heated explanation between M. de Trémorel and the pretty Parisian lady. After this quarrel, they were no longer seen at the Belle Image.”

The old justice of the peace smiled.

“Melun is not at the end of the world,” said he, “and there are hotels at Melun. With a good horse, one is soon at Fontainebleau, at Versailles, even at Paris. Madame de Trémorel might have been jealous; her husband had some first-rate trotters in his stables.”

Did M. Plantat give an absolutely disinterested opinion, or did he make an insinuation? The judge of instruction looked at him attentively, to reassure himself, but his visage expressed nothing but a profound serenity. He told the story as he would any other, no matter what.

“Please go on, Monsieur,” resumed M. Domini.

“Alas!” said M. Plantat, “nothing here below is eternal, not even grief. I know it better than anybody. Soon, to the tears of the first days, to violent despair, there succeeded, in the count and Madame Bertha, a reasonable sadness, then a soft melancholy. And in one year after Sauvresy’s death Monsieur de Trémorel espoused his widow.”

During this long narrative the mayor had several times exhibited marks of impatience. At the end, being able to hold in no longer, he exclaimed:

“There, those are surely exact details; but I question whether they have advanced us a step in this grave matter which occupies us all⁠—to find the murderers of the count and countess.”

M. Plantat, at these words, bent on the judge of instruction his clear and deep look, as if to search his conscience to the bottom.

“These details were indispensable,” returned M. Domini, “and they are very clear. Those rendezvous at the hotel struck me; one knows not to what extremities jealousy might lead a woman⁠—”

He stopped abruptly, seeking, no doubt, some connection between the pretty Parisian and the murderers; then resumed:

“Now that I know the Trémorels as if I had lived with them intimately, let us proceed to the actual facts.”

The brilliant eye of M. Plantat immediately grew dim; he opened his lips as if to speak; but kept his peace. The doctor alone, who had not ceased to study the old justice of the peace, remarked the sudden change of his features.

“It only remains,” said M. Domini, “to know how the new couple lived.”

M. Courtois thought it due to his dignity to anticipate M. Plantat.

“You ask how the new couple lived,” said he hastily; “they lived in perfect concord; nobody knows better about it than I, who was most intimate with them. The memory of poor Sauvresy was a bond of happiness between them; if they liked me so well, it was because I often talked of him. Never a cloud, never a cross word. Hector⁠—I called him so, familiarly, this poor, dear count⁠—gave his wife the tender attentions of a lover; those delicate cares, which I fear most married people soon dispense with.”

“And the countess?” asked M. Plantat, in a tone too marked not to be ironical.

“Bertha?” replied the worthy mayor⁠—“she permitted me to call her thus, paternally⁠—I have cited her many and many a time as an example and model, to Madame Courtois. She was worthy of Hector and of Sauvresy, the two most worthy men I have ever met!”

Then, perceiving that his enthusiasm somewhat surprised his hearers, he added, more softly:

“I have my reasons for expressing myself thus; and I do not hesitate to do so before men whose profession and character will justify my discretion. Sauvresy, when living, did me a great service⁠—when I was forced to take the mayoralty. As for Hector, I knew well that he had departed⁠—from the dissipations of his youth, and thought I discerned that he was not indifferent to my eldest daughter, Laurence; and I dreamed of a marriage all the more proper, as, if the Count Hector had a great name, I would give to my daughter a dowry large enough to gild any escutcheon. Only events modified my projects.”

The mayor would have gone on singing the praises of the Trémorels, and his own family, if the judge of instruction had not interposed.

“Here I am fixed,” he commenced, “now, it seems to me⁠—”

He was interrupted by a loud noise in the vestibule. It seemed like a struggle, and cries and shouts reached the drawing-room. Everybody rose.

“I know what it is,” said the mayor, “only too well. They have just found the body of the Count de Trémorel.”

IV

The mayor was mistaken. The