Fantômas, Pierre Souvestre [suggested reading .TXT] 📗

various points of the indictment, and you may protest as much as you please." The unfeeling rudeness provoked no comment from the defendant, and the President proceeded. "Well, you have heard the indictment. It charges you first with having aided and abetted the escape of your son, whom an enquiry held in another place had implicated in the murder of the Marquise de Langrune; and it charges you secondly with having killed your son, whose body has been recovered from the Dordogne, in order that you might escape the penalty of public obloquy."

At this brutal statement of the case Etienne Rambert made a proud gesture of indignation.

"Sir," he exclaimed, "there are different ways of putting things. I do not deny the purport of the indictment, but I object to the summary of it that you present. No one has ever dared to contend that I killed my son in order to escape public obloquy, as you have just insinuated. I am entirely indifferent to the worlds opinion. What the indictment is intended to allege, the only thing it can allege, is that I wrought justice upon a criminal who ought to have filled me with horror but whom, nevertheless, I ought not to have handed over to the public executioner."

This time it was the judge's turn to be astonished. He was so accustomed to the cheap triumphs that judges look to win in court that he had expected to make mincemeat of this poor, broken old man whom the law had delivered to his tender mercy. But he discovered that the old man had fine courage and replied with spirit to his malevolent remarks.

"We will discuss your right to take the law into your own hands presently," he said, "but that is not the question now: there are other points which it would be well for you to explain to the jury. Why, in the first place, did you obstinately decline to speak to the examining magistrate?"

"I had no answer to make to the examining magistrate," Etienne Rambert answered slowly, as if he were weighing his words, "because in my opinion he had no questions to put to me! I do not admit that I am charged with anything contrary to the Code, or that any such charge can be formulated against me. The indictment charges me with having killed my son because I believed him to be guilty of the murder of Mme. de Langrune and would not hand him over to the gallows. I have never confessed to that murder, sir, and nothing will ever make me do so. And that is why I would not reply to the examining magistrate, because I would not admit that there was anything before the court concerning myself: because, since the dreadful tragedy in my private life was exposed to public opinion, I desired that I should be judged by public opinion, which, sir, is not represented by you who are a professional judge, but by the jury here who will shortly say whether I am really a criminal wretch: by the jury, many of whom are fathers themselves and, when they think of their own sons, will wonder what appalling visions must have passed through my mind when I was forced to believe that my boy, my own son, had committed a cowardly murder! What sort of tragedy will they think that must have been for a man like me, with sixty years of honour and of honourable life behind him?"

The outburst ended on a sob, and the whole court was moved with sympathy, women wiping their eyes, men coughing, and even the jury striving hard to conceal the emotion that stirred them.

The judge glared round the court, and after a pause addressed the defendant again with sarcastic phrases.

"So that is why you stood mute during the enquiry, was it, sir? Odd! very odd! I admire the interpretation you place upon your duty as an honourable man. It is—quaint!"

Etienne Rambert interrupted the sneering speech.

"I am quite sure, sir, that there are plenty of people here who will understand and endorse what I did."

The declaration was so pointedly personal that the judge took it up.

"And I am quite sure that people of principle will understand me when I have shown them your conduct as it really was. You have a predilection for heroics; it will not be without interest to bring things to the point. Your attitude throughout this affair has been this:—it is not for me to anticipate the issue of the enquiry which will be held some day into the murder of Mme. de Langrune, but I must recall the fact that the moment you believed your son was the murderer, the moment you discovered the blood-stained towel which furnished the circumstantial evidence of his guilt, you—the man of honour, mind you,—never thought of handing over the culprit to the police who were actually in the precincts of the château, but only thought of securing his escape, and helping him to get away! You even accompanied him in his flight, and so became in a sense his accomplice. I suppose you do not deny that?"

Etienne Rambert shook with emotion and answered in ringing tones.

"If you are of opinion, sir, that that was an act of complicity on my part, I will not only not deny it, I will proclaim it from the housetops! I became the accomplice of a murderer by inducing him to run away, did I? You forget, sir, that at the moment when I first believed my son was the culprit—I was not his accomplice then, I suppose?—there was a bond between him and me already that I could not possibly break: he was my son! Sir, the duty of a father—and I attach the very loftiest meaning to the word 'duty'—can never entail his giving up his son!"

A fresh murmur of sympathy through the court annoyed the judge, who shrugged his shoulders.

"Let us leave empty rhetoric alone," he said. "You have plenty of fine phrases with which to defend your action; that, indeed, is your concern, as the jury will doubtless appreciate; but I think it will be more advantageous to clear up the facts a little—not more advantageous to you, perhaps, but that is what I am here to do. So will you please tell me whether your son confessed to having murdered Mme. de Langrune, either during that night when you persuaded him to run away, or afterwards? Yes or no, please."

"I can't answer, sir. My son was mad! I will not believe my son was a criminal! There was absolutely no motive to prompt him to the deed, and his mother is in an asylum! That is the whole explanation of the crime! If he committed murder, it was in a fit of temporary insanity! He is dead; I refuse to cover his memory with the stain of infamy!"

"In other words, according to you Charles Rambert did confess, but you don't want to say so."

"I do not say he did confess."

"You leave it to be inferred."

Etienne Rambert made no reply, and the judge passed on to another point.

"What exactly did you do after you left the château?"

"What anyone does, I suppose, when he runs away. We wandered miserably about, going through fields and woods, I accusing him and he defending himself. We avoided the villages, scarcely venturing even in the early morning to go and buy food, and walked quickly, wishing to get as far away as possible. We spent the most frightful time it is possible to conceive."

"How long was all this?"

"I was with my son for four days, sir."

"So it was on the fourth day that you killed him?"

"Have pity, sir! I did not kill my son. It was a murderer that I had with me, a murderer for whom the police were hunting and for whom the guillotine was waiting!"

"A murderer, if you prefer it so," said the judge, entirely heedless of the unhappy man's protests. "But you had no right to assume the functions of executioner. Come, you admit you did kill him?"

"I do not admit it."

"Do you deny that you killed him?"

"I did what my duty told me to do!"

"Still the same story!" said the judge, angrily drumming his fingers on the desk. "You refuse to answer. But even in your own interests you must have the courage to adopt some definite theory. Well, would you have been glad if your son had taken his own life?"

"May I entreat you to remember that my son is dead!" Etienne Rambert said once more. "I can only remember the one fact that he was my son. I can't say that I desired his death. I don't even know now if he was guilty. Whatever horror I may feel for a crime, I can only remember now that Charles was not in his right mind, and that he was the son of my loins!"

Again a tremor of emotion passed through the court, and again the judge made an angry gesture ordering silence.

"So you decline to answer any of the principal points of the indictment? The jury will no doubt appreciate the reason. Well, can you let us know any of the advice you gave your son? If you did not desire him to take his own life, and if you had no intention of killing him, what did you want?"

"Oblivion," said Etienne Rambert, more calmly this time. "It was not for me to give my son up, and I could only desire for him oblivion, and if that was impossible, then death. I implored him to think of the life that was before him, and the future of shame, and I urged him to disappear for ever."

"Ah, you admit you did recommend him to commit suicide?"

"I mean I wanted him to go abroad."

The president feigned to be occupied with his notes, purposely giving time for the importance of the last admission he had wrung from Etienne Rambert to sink into the minds of the jury. Then, without raising his head, he asked abruptly:

"You were very surprised to hear of his death?"

"No," said Rambert dully.

"How did you part from each other?"

"The last night we slept out of doors, under a stack; we were both worn out and heart-sick; I prayed God of His mercy to have pity on us. It was by the bank of the Dordogne. Next morning when I woke up I was alone. He—my son—had disappeared. I know no more."

The judge quelled the emotion in the court by a threatening glance, and sprang a question on the defendant which was like a trap to catch him lying.

"If at that time you knew no more, how was it that a few days later you called on Inspector Juve and asked him at once what was known about the dead body of your son? The body had only been recovered within the previous hour or two, and had not been absolutely identified; the newspapers, at any rate, only suggested the identity, with the utmost reserve. But you, sir, had no doubt on the subject! You knew that the corpse was that of your son! Why? How?"

It was one of the strongest points that could be made in support of the theory that Etienne Rambert had murdered his son, and the defendant immediately saw the difficulty he would have in giving an adequate answer without compromising himself. He turned to the jury, as though he had more hope in them than in the court.

"Gentlemen," he cried, "this is torture! I can bear no more! I cannot answer any more. You know quite enough to form your judgment of me! Form it now! Say if I failed in my duty as a man of honour and a father! I, at least, can answer no more questions!" and he sank back in his place like a beaten man, crushed by the distress evoked by all these painful memories.

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