M. BERNARDET was triumphant. He went home to dinner in a jubilant mood.
His three little girls, dressed alike, clasped him round the neck, all
at the same time, while Mme. Bernardet, always fresh, smiling and gay,
held up her face with its soft, round, rosy cheeks to him.
"My little ones," said the officer, "I believe that I have done well,
and that my chief will advance me or give me some acknowledgment. I will
buy you some bracelets, my dears, if that happens. But it is not the
idea of filthy lucre which has urged me on, and I believe that I have
certainly made a great stride in judiciary instruction, all owing to my
kodak. It would be too long an explanation and, perhaps, a perfectly
useless one. Let us go to dinner. I am as hungry as a wolf."
He ate, truly, with a good appetite, scarcely stopped to tell how the
assassin was under lock and key. The man had been measured and had
become a number in the collection, always increasing, of accused persons
in the catalogue continued each day for the Museum of Crime.
"Ah! He is not happy," said Bernardet between two spoonfuls of soup.
"Not happy, not happy at all! Not happy, and astonished--protesting,
moreover, his innocence, as they all do. It is customary."
"But," sweetly asked good little Mme. Bernardet, "what if he is
innocent?" And the three little girls, raising their heads, looked at
their father, as if to repeat their mother's question. The eldest
murmured: "Yes, what if mamma is right?"
Bernardet shrugged his shoulders.
"To hear them, if one listened to them, one would believe them all
innocent, and the crimes would have to commit themselves. If this one is
innocent I shall be astonished, as if I should see snow fall in Paris in
June; he will have to prove that he is innocent. These things prove
themselves. Give me some more soup, Melanie."
As Mme. Bernardet turned a ladleful of hot soup into her husband's plate
she softly asked: "Are there no innocent ones condemned? Do you never
deceive yourself?" Bernardet did not stop eating. "I cannot say--no one
is infallible, no one--the shrewdest deceive themselves; they are
sometimes duped. But it is rare, very rare. As well to say that it does
not happen--Lesurques, yes (and the three little girls opened wide their
large blue eyes as at a play), the Lesurques of the Courier de Lyon, who
has made you weep so many times at the theatre at Montmartre; one would
like to revise his trial to reinstate him, but no one has been able to
do it. I have studied his trial--by my faith, I swear, I would condemn
him still--ah! what good soup!"
"But this one to-day?" asked Mme. Bernardet; "art thou certain? What is
his name?"
"Dantin--Jacques Dantin. Oh! He is a gentleman. A very fine man,
elegant, indeed. Some Bohemian of the upper class, who evidently needed
money, and who--Rovere had some valuables in his safe. The occasion made
the thief--and there it is."
"Papa," interrupted the eldest of the three little girls, "canst thou
take us to see the trial, when he shall be sworn?"
"That depends! It is not easy! I will try--I will ask. If thou wilt work
hard--Oh, dame!" said Bernardet, "that will be a drama!"
"I will work hard."
At dessert, after he had taken his coffee, he allowed his three little
girls to dip lumps of sugar into his saucer. He threw himself into his
easy chair; he gave a sigh of satisfaction, like a man whose daily,
wearisome tasks are behind him, and who is catching a moment's repose.
"Ah!" he said, opening a paper which his wife had placed on a table near
him, together with a little glass of cordial sent to them by some
cousins in Burgundy; "I am going to see what has happened and what those
good journalists have invented about the affair in the Boulevard de
Clichy. It is true, it is a steeplechase between the reporters and us.
Sometimes they win the race in the mornings. At other times, when they
know nothing--ah! Then they invent, they embroider their histories!"
A petroleum lamp lighted the paper which Bernardet unfolded and began to
read.
"Let us see what _Lutece_ says."
He suddenly remembered what Paul Rodier had said to him. "Read my
journal!" This woman in black, found in the province, did she really
exist? Had the novelist written a romance in order to follow the example
of his friend? He looked over the paper to see if Paul Rodier had
collaborated, as his friend had. Bernardet skipped over the headlines
and glanced at the theatrical news. "Politics--they are all the same to
me--Ministerial crisis--nothing new about that. That could as well be
published in yesterday's paper as in to-day's! 'The Crime of the
Boulevard de Clichy'--ah! Good! Very good! We shall see." And he began
to read. Had Paul Rodier invented all the information to which he had
treated the public? What was certain was that the police officer frowned
and now gave strict attention to what he was reading, as if weighing the
reporter's words.
Rodier had republished the biography of the ex-Consul. M. Rovere had
been mixed, in South America, in violent dramas. He was a romantic
person, about whom more than one adventure in Buenos Ayres was known.
The reporter had gained his information from an Argentine journal, the
_Prensa_, established in Paris, and whose editor, in South America, had
visited, intimately, the French Consul. The appearance of a woman in
black, those visits made on fixed dates, as on anniversaries, revealed
an intimacy, a relationship perhaps, of the murdered man with that
unknown woman. The woman was young, elegant and did not live in Paris.
Rodier had set himself to discover her retreat, her name; and perhaps,
thanks to her, to unravel the mystery which still enveloped the murder.
"_Heuh!_ That is not very precise information," thought the police
officer. But it at least awoke Bernardet's curiosity and intelligence.
It solved no problem, but it put one. M. de Sartines's famous "_search
for the woman_" came naturally to Paul Rodier's pen. And he finished the
article with some details about Jacques Dantin, the intimate, the only
friend of Louis Pierre Rovere; and the reporter, when he had written
this, was still ignorant that Dantin was under arrest.
"To-morrow," said Bernardet to himself, "he will give us Dantin's
biography. He tells me nothing new in his report. And yet"----He folded
up the paper and laid it on the table, and while sipping his cordial he
thought of that mysterious visitor--the woman in black--and told
himself that truly the trail must be there. He would see Moniche and his
wife again; he would question them; he would make a thorough search.
"But what for? We have the guilty man. It is a hundred to one that the
assassin is behind bars. The woman might be an accomplice."
Then Bernardet, filled with passion for his profession, rather than
vanity--this artist in a police sense; this lover of art for art's
sake--rubbed his hands and silently applauded himself because he had
insisted, and, as it were, compelled M. Ginory and the doctors to adopt
his idea. He, the humble, unknown sub-officer, standing back and simply
striving to do his duty, had influenced distinguished persons as
powerful as magistrates and members of the Academy. They had obeyed his
suggestion. The little Bernardet felt that he had done a glorious deed.
He had experienced a strong conviction, which would not be denied. He
had proved that what had been considered only a chimera was a reality.
He had accomplished a seeming impossibility. He had evoked the dead
man's secret even from the tomb.
"And M. Ginory thinks that it will not help his candidature at the
Academy? He will wear the green robe, and he will owe it to me. There
are others who owe me something, too."
With his faculty for believing in his dreams, of seeing his visions
appear, realized and living--a faculty which, in such a man, seemed like
the strange hallucination of a poet--Bernardet did not doubt for a
moment the reality of this phantom which had appeared in the retina of
the eye. It was nothing more, that eye removed by the surgeon's scalpel,
than an avenging mirror. It accused, it overwhelmed! Jacques Dantin was
found there in all the atrocity of his crime.
"When I think, when I think that they did not wish to try the
experiment. It is made now!" thought Bernardet.
M. Ginory had strongly recommended that all that part of the examination
should not be made public. Absolute silence was necessary. If the press
could have obtained the slightest information, every detail of the
experiment would have become public property, and the account would have
been embellished and made as fantastic as possible. This would have been
a deep mine for Edgar A. Poe, who would have worked that lode well and
made the Parisians shudder. How the ink would have been mixed with
Rovere's blood! It was well understood that if the suspected man would
in the end confess his guilt, the result of the singular scientifically
incredible experiment should be made known. But until then absolute
silence. Every thing which had been said and done around the dissecting
table at the Morgue, or in the Examining Magistrate's room, would
remain a secret.
But would Dantin confess?
The next day after M. Ginory had put him under arrest Bernardet had gone
to the Palais for news. He wished to consult his chief about the "Woman
in Black," to ask him what he thought of the article which had been
published in the paper by Paul Rodier. M. Leriche attached no great
importance to it.
"A reporter's information. Very vague. There is always a woman,
_parbleu!_ in the life of every man. But did this one know Dantin? She
seems to me simply an old, abandoned friend, and who came occasionally
to ask aid of the old boy"----
"The woman noticed by Moniche is young," said Bernardet.
"Abandoned friends are often young," M. Leriche replied, visibly
enchanted with his observation.
As for Dantin, he still maintained his obstinate silence. He persisted
in finding iniquitous an arrest for which there was no motive, and he
kept the haughty, almost provoking attitude of those whom the Chief
called the greatest culprits.
"Murderers in redingotes believe that they have sprung from Jupiter's
thigh, and will not admit that any one should be arrested except those
who wear smocks and peaked hats. They believe in an aristocracy and its
privileges, and threaten to have us removed--you know that very well,
Bernardet. Then, as time passes, they become, in a measure, calm and
meek as little lambs; then they whimper and confess. Dantin will do as
all the others have done. For the moment he howls about his innocence,
and will threaten us, you will see, with a summons from the Chamber.
That is of no importance."
The Chief then gave the officer some instructions. He need not trouble
himself any more, just now, about the Dantin affair, but attend to
another matter of less importance--a trivial affair. After the murder
and his experiences at the Morgue this matter seemed a low one to
Bernardet. But each duty has its antithesis. The police officer put into
this petty affair of a theft the same zeal, the same sharp attention
with which he had investigated the crime of the Boulevard de Clichy. It
was his profession.
Bernardet started out on his quest. It was near the Halles (markets)
that he had to work this time. The suspected man was probably one of the
rascals who prowl about day and night, living on adventures, and without
any home; sleeping under the bridges, or in one of the hovels on the
outskirts of the Rue de Venise, where vice, distress and crime
flourished. Bernardet first questioned the owner of the stolen property,
obtained all the information which he could about the suspected man,
and, with his keen scent for a criminal aroused, he glanced at
everything--men, things, objects that would have escaped a less
practised eye. He was walking slowly along toward the Permanence,
looking keenly at the passers-by, the articles in the shops, the various
movements in the streets, to see if he could get a hint upon which to
work.
It was his habit to thus make use of his walks. In a promenade he had
more than once met a client, past or future. The boys fled before his
piercing eyes; before this fat, jolly little man with the mocking smile
which showed under his red mustache. This fright which he inspired made
him laugh inwardly. He knew that he was respected, that he was feared.
Among all these passers-by who jostled him, without knowing that he was
watching them, he was a power, an unknown but sovereign power. He walked
along with short, quick steps and watchful eyes, very much preoccupied
with this affair, thinking of the worthless person for whom he was
seeking, but he stopped occasionally to look at the wares spread out in
some bric-a-brac shop or in some book store window. This also was his
habit and his method. He ran his eye over the illustrated papers lying
in a row in front; over the Socialistic placards, the song books. He
kept himself _au courant_ with everything which was thought, seen,
proclaimed and sung.
"When one governs," thought Bernardet, "one ought to have the habit of
going afoot in the street. One can learn nothing from the depths of a
coupe, driven by a coachman wearing a tri-colored cockade." He was going
to the Prefecture, the Permanence, when in the Rue des Bons-Enfants he
was instinctively attracted to a shop window where rusty old arms,
tattered uniforms, worn shakos, garments without value, smoky pictures,
yellowed engravings and chance ornaments, rare old copies of books, old
romances, ancient books, with eaten bindings, a mass of dissimilar
objects--lost keys, belt buckles, abolished medals, battered sous--were
mixed together in an oblong space as in a sort of trough. On either side
of this shop window hung some soiled uniforms, a Zouave's vest, an
Academician's old habit, lugubrious with its embroideries of green, a
soiled costume which had been worn by some Pierrot at the Carnival. It
was, in all its sad irony, the vulgar "hand-me-down that!" which makes
one think of that other Morgue where the clothing has been rejected by
the living or abandoned by the dead.
Bernardet was neither of a melancholy temperament nor a dreamer, and he
did not give much time to the tearful side of the question, but he was
possessed of a ravenous curiosity, and the sight, however frequent, of
that shop window always attracted him. With, moreover, that sort of
magnetism which the searchers, great or small, intuitively feel--a
collector of knick-knacks, discoverers of unknown countries, book worms
bent over the volumes at four sous apiece, or chemists crouched over a
retort--Bernardet had been suddenly attracted by a portrait exposed as
an object rarer than the others, in the midst of this detritus of
abandoned luxury or of past military glory.
Yes, among the tobacco boxes, the belt buckles, the Turkish poniards,
watches with broken cases, commonplace Japanese ornaments, a painting,
oval in form, lay there--a sort of large medallion without a frame, and
at first sight, by a singular attraction, it drew and held the attention
of the police officer.
"Ah!" said Bernardet out loud, "but this is singular."
He leaned forward until his nose touched the cold glass, and peered
fixedly at the picture. This painting, as large as one's hand, was the
portrait of a man, and Bernardet fully believed at the first look he
recognized the person whom the painter had reproduced.
As his shadow fell across the window Bernardet could not distinctly see
the painting, for it was not directly in the front line of articles
displayed, and he stepped to one side to see if he could get a better
view. Assuredly, there could be no doubt, the oval painting was
certainly the portrait of Jacques Dantin, now accused of a crime. There
was the same high forehead, the pointed beard, of the same color; the
black redingote, tightly buttoned up and edged at the neck with the
narrow line of a white linen collar, giving, in resembling a doublet, to
this painting, the air of a trooper, of a swordsman, of a Guisard (a
partisan of the Duke of Guise), of the time of Clouet.
Something of a connoisseur in painting, without doubt, in his quality of
amateur photographer, much accustomed to criticise a portrait if it was
not a perfect likeness, Bernardet found in this picture a startling
resemblance to Jacques Dantin; it was the very man himself! He appeared
there, his thin face standing out from its greenish-black sombre
background; the poise of the head displayed the same vigor as in the
original; the clear-cut features looked energetic, and the skin had the
same pallor which was characteristic of Dantin's complexion. This head,
admirably painted, displayed an astonishing lifelike intensity. It had
been done by a master hand, no doubt of that. And although in this
portrait Jacques Dantin looked somewhat younger--for instance, the hair
and pointed beard showed no silvery streaks in them--the resemblance was
so marvelous that Bernardet immediately exclaimed: "It is he!"
And most certainly it was Jacques Dantin himself. The more the officer
examined it, the more convinced he became that this was a portrait of
the man whom he had accompanied to the cemetery and to prison. But how
could this picture have come into this bric-a-brac shop, and of whom
could the dealer have obtained it? A reply to this would probably not be
very difficult to obtain, and the police officer pushed back the door
and found himself in the presence of a very large woman, with a pale,
puffy face, which was surrounded by a lace cap. Her huge body was
enveloped in a knitted woollen shawl. She wore spectacles.
Bernardet, without stopping to salute her, pointed out the portrait and
asked to see it. When he held it in his hands he found the resemblance
still more startling. It was certainly Jacques Dantin! The painting was
signed "P. B., Bordeaux, 1871." It was oval in shape; the frame was
gone; the edge was marked, scratched, marred, as if the frame had been
roughly torn from the picture.
"Have you had this portrait a long time?" he asked of the shop woman.
"I put it in the window to-day for the first time," the huge woman
answered. "Oh, it is a choice bit. It was painted by a wicked one."
"Who brought it here?"
"Some one who wished to sell it. A passer-by. If it would interest you
to know his name"----
"Yes, certainly, it would interest me to know it," Bernardet replied.
The shop woman looked at Bernardet defiantly and asked this question:
"Do you know the man whose portrait that is?"
"No. I do not know him. But this resembles one of my relatives. It
pleases me. How much is it?"
"A hundred francs," said the big woman.
Bernardet suppressed at the same time a sudden start and a smile.
"A hundred francs! _Diable!_ how fast you go. It is worth sous rather
than francs."
"That!" cried the woman, very indignant. "That? But look at this
material, this background. It is famous, I tell you--I took it to an
expert. At the public sale it might, perhaps, bring a thousand francs.
My idea is that it is the picture of some renowned person. An actor or a
former Minister. In fact, some historic person."
"But one must take one's chance," Bernardet replied in a jeering tone.
"But one hundred francs is one hundred francs. Too much for me. Who sold
you the painting?"
The woman went around behind the counter and opened a drawer, from which
she took a note book, in which she kept a daily record of her sales. She
turned over the leaves.
"November 12, a small oval painting bought"--She readjusted her
spectacles as if to better decipher the name.
"I did not write the name myself; the man wrote it himself." She spelled
out:
"Charles--Charles Breton--Rue de la Condamine, 16"----
"Charles Breton," Bernardet repeated; "who is this Charles Breton? I
would like to know if he painted this portrait, which seems like a
family portrait and has come to sell it"----
"You know," interrupted the woman, "that that often happens. It is
business. One buys or one sells all in good time."
"And this Breton; how old was he?"
"Oh, young. About thirty years old. Very good looking. Dark, with a full
beard."
"Did anything about him especially strike you?"
"Nothing!" The woman shortly replied; she had become tired of these
questions and looked at the little man with a troubled glance.
Bernardet readily understood; and assuming a paternal, a beaming air, he
said with his sweet smile:
"I will not _fence_ any more; I will tell you the truth. I am a Police
Inspector, and I find that this portrait strangely resembles a man whom
we have under lock and key. You understand that it is very important I
should know all that is to be ascertained about this picture."
"But I have told you all I know, Monsieur," said the shopkeeper.
"Charles Breton, Rue de la Condamine, 16; that is the name and address.
I paid 20 francs for it. There is the receipt--read it, I beg. It is all
right. We keep a good shop. Never have we, my late husband and I, been
mixed with anything unlawful. Sometimes the bric-a-brac is soiled, but
our hands and consciences have always been clean. Ask any one along the
street about the Widow Colard. I owe no one and every one esteems
me"----
The Widow Colard would have gone on indefinitely if Bernardet had not
stopped her. She had, at first mention of the police, suddenly turned
pale, but now she was very red, and her anger displayed itself in a
torrent of words. He stemmed the flood of verbs.
"I do not accuse you, Mme. Colard, and I have said only what I wished to
say. I passed by chance your shop; I saw in the window a portrait which
resembled some one I knew. I ask you the price and I question you about
its advent into your shop. There is nothing there which concerns you
personally. I do not suspect you of receiving stolen goods; I do not
doubt your good faith. I repeat my question. How much do you want for
this picture?"
"Twenty francs, if you please. That is what it cost me. I do not wish to
have it draw me into anything troublesome. Take it for nothing, if that
pleases you."
"Not at all! I intend to pay you. Of what are you thinking, Mme.
Colard?"
The shopwoman had, like all people of a certain class, a horror of the
police. The presence of a police inspector in her house seemed at once a
dishonor and a menace. She felt herself vaguely under suspicion, and she
felt an impulse to shout aloud her innocence.
Always smiling, the good man, with a gesture like that of a prelate
blessing his people, endeavored to reassure her, to calm her. But he
could do nothing with her. She would not be appeased. In the long run
this was perhaps as well, for she unconsciously, without any intention
of aiding justice, put some clews into Bernardet's hands which finally
aided him in tracing the man.
Mme. Colard still rebelled. Did they think she was a spy, an informer?
She had never--no, never--played such a part. She did not know the young
man. She had bought the picture as she bought any number of things.
"And what if they should cut off his head because he had confidence in
entering my shop--I should never forgive myself, never!"
"It is not going to bring Charles Breton to the scaffold. Not at all,
not at all. It is only to find out who he is, and of whom he obtained
this portrait. Once more--did nothing in his face strike you?"
"Nothing!" Mme. Colard responded.
She reflected a moment.
"Ah! yes; perhaps. The shape of his hat. A felt hat with wide brim,
something like those worn in South America or Kareros. You know, the
kind they call sombrero. The only thing I said to myself was, 'This is
probably some returned traveler,' and if I had not seen at the bottom of
the picture, Bordeaux, I should have thought that this might be the
portrait of some Spaniard, some Peruvian."
Bernardet looked straight into Mme. Colard's spectacles and listened
intently, and he suddenly remembered what Moniche had said of the odd
appearance of the man who had, like the woman in black, called on M.
Rovere.
"Some accomplice!" thought Bernardet.
He again asked Mme. Colard the price of the picture.
"Anything you please," said the woman, still frightened. Bernardet
smiled.
"Come! come! What do you want for it? Fifty francs, eh? Fifty?"
"Away with your fifty francs! I place it at your disposal for nothing,
if you need it."
Bernardet paid the sum he had named. He had always exactly, as if by
principle, a fifty-franc note in his pocketbook. Very little money; a
few white pieces, but always this note in reserve. One could never tell
what might hinder him in his researches. He paid, then, this note,
adding that in all probability Mme. Colard would soon be cited before
the Examining Magistrate to tell him about this Charles Breton.
"I cannot say anything else, for I do not know anything else," said the
huge widow, whose breast heaved with emotion.
She wrapped up the picture in a piece of silk paper, then in a piece of
newspaper, which chanced to be the very one in which Paul Rodier had
published his famous article on "The Crime of the Boulevard de Clichy."
Bernardet left enchanted with his "find," and repeated over and over to
himself: "It is very precious! It is a tid-bit!"
Should he keep on toward the Prefecture to show this "find" to his
Chief, or should he go at once to hunt up Charles Breton at the address
he had given?
Bernardet hesitated a moment, then he said to himself that, in a case
like this, moments were precious; an hour lost was time wasted, and that
as the address which Breton had given was not far away, he would go
there first. "Rue de la Condamine, 16," that was only a short walk to
such a tramper as he was. He had good feet, a sharp eye and sturdy legs;
he would soon be at the Batignolles. He had taken some famous tramps in
his time, notably one night when he had scoured Paris in pursuit of a
malefactor. This, he admitted, had wearied him a little; but this walk
from the Avenue des Bons-Enfants to the Rue de la Condamine was but a
spurt. Would he find that a false name and a false address had been
given? This was but the infancy of art. If, however, he found that this
Charles Breton really did live at that address and that he had given his
true name, it would probably be a very simple matter to obtain all the
information he desired of Jacques Dantin.
"What do I risk? A short walk," thought Bernardet, "a little
fatigue--that can be charged up to Profit and Loss."
He hurried toward the street and number given. It was a large house,
several stories high. The concierge was sweeping the stairs, having left
a card bearing this inscription tacked on the front door. "The porter is
on the staircase." Bernardet hastened up the stairs, found the man and
questioned him. There was no Charles Breton in the house; there never
had been. The man who sold the portrait had given a false name and
address. Vainly did the police officer describe the individual who had
visited Mme. Colard's shop. The man insisted that he had never seen any
one who in the least resembled this toreador in the big felt hat. It was
useless to insist! Mme. Colard had been deceived. And now, how to find,
in this immense city of Paris, this bird of passage, who had chanced to
enter the bric-a-brac shop. The old adage of "the needle in the
haystack" came to Bernardet's mind and greatly irritated him. But, after
all, there had been others whom he looked for; there had been others
whom he had found, and probably he might still be able to find another
trail. He had a collaborator who seldom failed him--Chance! It was
destiny which often aided him.
Bernardet took an omnibus in his haste to return to his Chief. He was
anxious to show his "find" to M. Leriche. When he reached the Prefecture
he was immediately received. He unwrapped the portrait and showed it to
M. Leriche.
"But that is Dantin!" cried the Chief.
"Is it not?"
"Without doubt! Dantin when younger, but assuredly Dantin! And where did
you dig this up?"
Bernardet related his conversation with Mme. Colard and his fruitless
visit to the Rue de la Condamine.
"Oh, never mind," said M. Leriche. "This discovery is something. The man
who sold this picture and Dantin are accomplices. Bravo, Bernardet! We
must let M. Ginory know."
The Examining Magistrate was, like the Chief and Bernardet, struck with
the resemblance of the portrait to Dantin. His first move would be to
question the prisoner about the picture. He would go at once to Mazas.
M. Leriche and Bernardet should accompany him. The presence of the
police spy might be useful, even necessary.
The Magistrate and the Chief entered a fiacre, while Bernardet mounted
beside the driver. Bernardet said nothing, although the man tried to
obtain some information from him. After one or two monosyllabic answers,
the driver mockingly asked:
"Are you going to the Souriciere (trap) to tease some fat rat?"
M. Ginory and M. Leriche talked together of the _Walkyrie_, of Bayreuth;
and the Chief asked, through politeness, for news about his candidature
to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.
"Do not let us talk of the Institute," the Magistrate replied. "It is
like the beginning of a hunt; to sigh for the prize that brings
unhappiness."
The sombre pile, the Mazas, opened its doors to the three men. They
traversed the long corridors, with the heavy air which pervaded them in
spite of all efforts to the contrary, to a small room, sparsely
furnished (a table, a few chairs, a glass bookcase), which served as an
office for the Examining Magistrates when they had to hold any
interviews with the prisoners.
The guardian-in-chief walked along with M. Ginory, M. Leriche followed
them, and Bernardet respectfully brought up the rear.
"Bring in Jacques Dantin!" M. Ginory ordered. He seated himself at the
table. M. Leriche took a chair at one side, and Bernardet stood near the
little bookcase, next the only window in the room.
Jacques Dantin soon appeared, led in by two guards in uniform. He was
very pale, but still retained his haughty air and his defiant attitude.
The Magistrate saluted him with a slight movement of the head, and
Dantin bowed, recognizing in Bernardet the man with whom he had walked
and conversed behind Rovere's funeral car.
"Be seated, Dantin," M. Ginory said, "and explain to me, I beg, all you
know about this portrait. You ought to recognize it."
He quickly held the picture before Dantin's eyes, wishing to scrutinize
his face to see what sudden emotion it would display. Seeing the
portrait, Dantin shivered and said in a short tone: "It is a picture
which I gave to Rovere."
"Ah!" said M. Ginory, "you recognize it then?"
"It is my portrait," Jacques Dantin declared. "It was made a long time
ago. Rovere kept it in his salon. How did it come here?"
"Ah!" again said the Magistrate. "Explain that to me!"
M. Ginory seemed to wish to be a little ironical. But Dantin roughly
said:
"M. le Juge, I have nothing to explain to you. I understand nothing, I
know nothing. Or, rather, I know that in your error--an error which you
will bitterly regret some day or other, I am sure--you have arrested me,
shut me up in Mazas; but that which I can assure you of is, that I have
had nothing, do you hear, nothing whatever to do with the murder of my
friend, and I protest with all my powers against your processes."
"I comprehend that!" M. Ginory coldly replied. "Oh! I understand all the
disagreeableness of being shut up within four walls. But then, it is
very simple! In order to go out, one has only to give to the one who has
a right to know the explanations which are asked. Do you still persist
in your system? Do you still insist on keeping, I know not what secret,
which you will not reveal to us?"
"I shall keep it, Monsieur, I have reflected," said Dantin. "Yes, I have
reflected, and in the solitude to which you have forced me I have
examined my conscience." He spoke with firmness, less violently than at
the Palais de Justice, and Bernardet's penetrating little eyes never
left his face; neither did the Magistrate's, nor the Chief's.
"I am persuaded," Dantin continued, "that this miserable mistake cannot
last long, and you will recognize the truth. I shall go out, at least
from here, without having abused a confidence which one has placed in
me and which I intend to preserve."
"Yes," said M. Ginory, "perfectly, I know your system. You will hold to
it. It is well. Now, whose portrait is that?"
"It is mine!"
"By whom do you think it was possible that it could have been sold in
the bric-a-brac shop where it was found."
"I know nothing about it. Probably by the one who found it or stole it
from M. Rovere's apartment, and who is probably, without the least
doubt, his assassin."
"That seems very simple to you?"
"It seems very logical."
"Suppose that this should be the exact truth, that does not detract from
the presumption which implicates you, and from Mme. Moniche's
deposition, which charges you"----
"Yes, yes, I know. The open safe, the papers spread out, the tete-a-tete
with Rovere, when the concierge entered the room--that signifies
nothing!"
"For you, perhaps! For Justice it has a tragic signification. But let us
return to the portrait. It was you, I suppose, who gave it to Rovere?"
"Yes, it was I," Dantin responded. "Rovere was an amateur in art,
moreover, my intimate friend. I had no family, I had an old friend, a
companion of my youth, whom I thought would highly prize that painting.
It is a fine one--it is by Paul Baudry."
"Ah!" said M. Ginory. "P. B. Those are Baudry's initials?"
"Certainly. After the war--when I had done my duty like others, I say
this without any intention of defending myself--Paul Baudry was at
Bordeaux. He was painting some portraits on panels, after
Holbein--Edmond About's among others. He made mine. It is this one which
I gave Rovere--the one you hold in your hands."
The Magistrate looked at the small oval painting and M. Leriche put on
his eyeglasses to examine the quality of the painting. A Baudry!
"What are these scratches around the edge as if nails had been drawn
across the places?" M. Ginory asked. He held out the portrait to Dantin.
"I do not know. Probably where the frame was taken off."
"No, no! They are rough marks; I can see that. The picture has been
literally torn from the frame. You ought to know how this panel was
framed."
"Very simply when I gave it to Rovere. A narrow gilt frame, nothing
more."
"Had Rovere changed the frame?"
"I do not know. I do not remember. When I was at his apartment the last
few times I do not remember to have seen the Baudry. I have thought of
it, but I have no recollection of it."
"Then you cannot furnish any information about the man who sold this
portrait?"
"None whatever!"
"We might bring you face to face with that woman."
"So be it! She certainly would not recognize me."
"In any case, she will tell us about the man who brought the portrait to
her."
"She might describe him to me accurately, and even paint him for me,"
said Dantin quickly. "She can neither insinuate that I know him nor
prove to you that I am his accomplice. I do not know who he is nor from
where he comes. I was even ignorant of his existence myself a quarter of
an hour ago."
"I have only to remand you to your cell," said the Magistrate. "We will
hunt for the other man."
Dantin, in his turn, said in an ironical tone: "And you will do well!"
M. Ginory made a sign. The guards led out their prisoner. Then, looking
at the Chief, while Bernardet still remained standing like a soldier
near the window, the Magistrate said:
"Until there are new developments, Dantin will say nothing. We must look
for the man in the sombrero."
"Necessarily!" said M. Leriche.
"The needle! The needle! And the hay stack!" thought Bernardet.
The Chief, smiling, turned toward him. "That belongs to you, Bernardet."
"I know it well," said the little man, "but it is not easy. Oh! It is
not easy at all."
"Bah! you have unearthed more difficult things than that. Do it up
brown! There is only one clew--the hat"----
"They are not uncommon, those hats, Monsieur Leriche--they are not very
bad hats. But yet it is a clew--if we live, we shall see."
He stood motionless between the bookcase and the window, like a soldier
carrying arms, while M. Ginory, shaking his head, said to the chief:
"And this Dantin, what impression did he make on you?"
"He is a little crack-brained!" replied the Chief.
"Certainly! But guilty--you believe him guilty?"
"Without doubt!"
"Would you condemn him?" he quickly asked as he gazed searchingly at the
Chief. M. Leriche hesitated.
"Would you condemn him?" M. Ginory repeated, insistently.
The Chief still hesitated a moment, glanced toward the impassive
Bernardet without being able to read his face, and he said:
"I do not know."