"What an appalling wound!" he muttered. "The medical evidence will
explain what weapon it was made with; but no doctor is required to point
out the violence of the blow or the fury of the murderer." He turned to
the old steward who, at sight of his mistress, could hardly restrain his
tears. "Nothing has been moved in the room, eh?"
"Nothing, sir."
The magistrate pointed to the escritoire with its open drawers.
"That has not been touched?"
"No, sir."
"I suppose that is where Mme. de Langrune kept her valuables?"
The steward shook his head.
"The Marquise could not have had any large sum of money in the house: a
few hundred francs perhaps for daily expenses, but certainly no more."
"So you do not think robbery was the motive of the crime?"
The steward shrugged his shoulders.
"The murderer may have thought that Mme. de Langrune had money here,
sir. But anyhow he must have been disturbed, because he did not take
away the rings the Marquise had laid upon the dressing-table before she
got into bed."
The magistrate walked slowly round the room.
"This window was open?" he asked.
"The Marquise always left it like that; she liked all the fresh air she
could get."
"Might not the murderer have got in that way?"
The steward shook his head.
"It is most unlikely, sir. See: the windows are fitted outside with a
kind of grating pointing outwards and downwards, and I think that would
prevent anyone from climbing in."
M. de Presles saw that this was so. Continuing his investigation, he
satisfied himself that there was nothing about the furniture in that
room, or in the dressing-room, to show that the murderer had been
through them, except the disorder on and about the little escritoire. At
last he came to the door which opened on to the corridor.
"Ah!" he exclaimed: "this is interesting!" and with a finger he pointed
to the inner bolt on the door, the screws of which were wrenched half
out, showing that an attempt had been made to force the door. "Did Mme.
de Langrune bolt her door every night?" he asked.
"Yes, always," Dollon answered. "She was very nervous, and if I was the
first to come to bid her good morning I always heard her unfasten that
bolt when I knocked."
M. de Presles made no reply. He made one more tour of the room, minutely
considering the situation of each single article.
"M. Dollon, will you kindly take me where I can have the use of a table
and inkstand, and anything else I may need to get on with my preliminary
enquiry?"
"Your clerk is waiting for you in the library, sir," the steward
replied. "He has everything ready for you there."
"Very well. If it is convenient to you we will join him now."
* * * * *
M. de Presles followed Dollon down to the library on the ground floor,
where his enterprising clerk had already established himself. The
magistrate took his seat behind a large table and called to the police
sergeant.
"I shall ask you to be present during my enquiry, sergeant. The first
investigations will devolve upon you, so it will be well for you to hear
all the details the witnesses can furnish me with. I suppose you have
taken no steps as yet?"
"Beg pardon, sir: I have sent my men out in all directions, with orders
to interrogate all tramps and to detain any who do not give a
satisfactory account of their time last night."
"Good! By the way, while I think of it, have you sent off the telegram I
gave you when I arrived--the telegram to the police head-quarters in
Paris, asking for a detective to be sent down?"
"I took it to the telegraph office myself, sir."
His mind made easy on this score, the young magistrate turned to Dollon.
"Will you please take a seat, sir?" he said and, disregarding the
disapproving looks of his clerk, who had a particular predilection for
all the long circumlocutions and red tape of the law, he pretermitted
the usual questions as to name and age and occupation of the witnesses,
and began his enquiry by questioning the old steward. "What is the exact
plan of the château?" was his first enquiry.
"You know it now, sir, almost as well as I do. The passage from the
front door leads to the main staircase, which we went up just now, to
the first floor where the bedroom of the Marquise is situated. The first
floor contains a series of rooms separated by a corridor. On the right
is Mlle. Thérèse's room, and then come guest-chambers which are not
occupied now. On the left is the bedroom of the Marquise, followed by
her dressing-room on the same side, and after that there is another
dressing-room and then the bedroom occupied by M. Charles Rambert."
"Good. And the floor above: how is that arranged?"
"The second floor is exactly like the first floor, sir, except that
there are only servants' rooms there. They are smaller, and there are
more of them."
"What servants sleep in the house?"
"As a general rule, sir, the two maid-servants, Marie the housemaid and
Louise the cook, and also Hervé the butler; but Hervé did not sleep in
the château last night. He had asked the mistress's permission to go
into the village, and she had given it to him on condition that he did
not come back that night."
"What do you mean?" enquired the magistrate, rather surprised.
"The Marquise was rather nervous, sir, and did not like the idea of
anyone being able to get into the house at night; so she was always
careful to double-lock the front door and the kitchen door herself every
night. She went round all the rooms too every night, and made sure that
all the iron shutters were properly fastened, and that it was impossible
for anyone to get into the house. When Hervé goes out in the evenings he
either sleeps in the village and does not return till the following
morning, which is what he did to-day, or else he asks the coachman to
leave the yard door unlocked, and sleeps in a room above the stables
which as a rule is not occupied."
"That is where the other servants sleep, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir. The gardeners, the coachman, and the keepers all live in the
out-buildings. With regard to myself, I have a small cottage a little
farther away in the park."
M. de Presles sat silent for a few moments, thinking deeply. The only
sound in the room was the irritating squeak of the clerk's quill pen, as
he industriously wrote down all the steward's replies. At last M. de
Presles looked up.
"So, on the night of the crime the only persons sleeping in the château
were Mme. de Langrune, her granddaughter Mlle. Thérèse, M. Charles
Rambert and the two maids. Is that so?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then it does not seem likely that the crime was committed by anyone
living in the château?"
"That is so, sir:--and yet I do not believe that anybody got into the
château; only two people had a key of the front door--the Marquise and
myself. When I got to the house this morning I found the door open,
because Mlle. Thérèse went out early with M. Charles Rambert to meet M.
Rambert, senior, at the station, and she opened the door with the keys
that the Marquise had given into her care the night before; but she
told me herself that when she started to meet the train at five o'clock
the door was shut. Mlle. Thérèse had put her keys under her pillow, and
my bunch had never left my possession."
"Is it not possible," the magistrate suggested, "that someone may have
got in during the day, hidden himself, and have committed the crime when
night came? Remember, M. Dollon, the bolt inside Mme. de Langrune's
bedroom door has been wrenched away: that means that the murderer made
his entrance by that door, and made it by force."
But the steward shook his head.
"No, sir, nobody could have secreted himself in the château during the
day; people are always coming to the kitchen, so the back door is under
constant supervision; and all yesterday afternoon there were gardeners
at work on the lawn in front of the main entrance; if any stranger had
presented himself there he would certainly have been seen; and finally,
Mme. de Langrune had given orders, which I always attended to myself, to
keep the door locked through which one gets down to the cellars. So the
murderer could not have hidden in the basement, and where else could he
have hidden? Not in the rooms on the ground floor: there was company to
dinner last night, and all the rooms were used more or less; the
Marquise, or some one of the guests, would certainly have discovered
him. So he would have had to be upstairs, either on the first or second
floor: that is most unlikely: it would have been very risky; besides,
the big house-dog is fastened up at the foot of the staircase during the
day, and he would not have let any stranger pass him: either the dog
must have known the man, or at all events some meat must have been
thrown to him; but there are no traces to show that anything of the sort
was done."
The magistrate was much perplexed.
"Then the crime is inexplicable, M. Dollon. You have just told me
yourself that there was no one in the château but Mme. de Langrune, the
two young people Thérèse and Charles, and the two maids: it certainly is
not any one of those who can be the guilty person, for the way in which
the crime was committed, and the force of the blows dealt, show that
the criminal was a man--a professional murderer in fact. Consequently
the guilty person must have got in from outside. Come now, have you no
suspicions at all?"
The steward raised his arms and let them fall in utter dejection.
"No," he replied at last, "I do not suspect anybody! I cannot suspect
anybody! But, sir, as far as I am concerned, I feel certain that
although the murderer was not one of those who occupied the château last
night he nevertheless did not come in from outside. It was not possible!
The doors were locked and the shutters were fastened."
"Nevertheless," M. de Presles remarked, "inasmuch as someone has
committed a murder, it must necessarily be the fact, either that that
someone was hidden inside the château when Mme. de Langrune herself
locked the front door, or else that he got in during the night. Do you
not see yourself, M. Dollon, that one or other of these two hypotheses
must be correct?"
The steward hesitated.
"It is a mystery, sir," he declared at last. "I swear to you, sir, that
nobody could have got in, and yet it is perfectly clear also that
neither M. Charles nor Mlle. Thérèse, nor yet either of the two maids,
Marie and Louise, is the murderer."
M. de Presles sat wrapped in thought for a few minutes and then desired
the old steward to fetch the two women servants.
"Come back, yourself," he added, as the old man went away; "I may
require further particulars from you."
Dollon left the room, and Gigou, the clerk, leant forward towards the
magistrate: tact was not the most shining of M. Gigou's qualities.
"When your enquiry is finished, sir--presently--we shall have to pay a
visit to the Mayor of Saint-Jaury. That is in accordance with the usual
procedure. And then he cannot do less than invite us to stay to
dinner!"