M. GINORY was not without uneasiness when he thought of the detention of
Jacques Dantin. Without doubt, all prisoners, all accused persons are
reticent; they try to hide their guilt under voluntary silence. They do
not speak, because they have sworn not to. They are bound, one knows not
by whom, by an oath which they cannot break. It is the ordinary system
of the guilty who cannot defend themselves. Mystery seems to them
safety.
But Dantin, intimately acquainted with Rovere's life, might be
acquainted with some secret which he could not disclose and which did
not pertain to him at all. What secret? Had not an examining magistrate
a right to know everything? Had not an accused man a right to speak?
Either Dantin had nothing to reveal and he was playing a comedy and was
guilty, or, if by a few words, by a confidence made to the magistrate he
could escape an accusation, recover his liberty, without doubt he would
speak after having kept an inexplicable silence. How could one suppose
that an innocent man would hold, for a long time, to this mute system?
The discovery of the portrait in Mme. Colard's shop ought, naturally, to
give to the affair a new turn. The arrest of Charles Prades brought an
important element to these researches. He would be examined by M. Ginory
the next morning, after having been questioned by the Commissary of
Police.
Bernardet, spruce, freshly shaven, was there, and seemed in his
well-brushed redingote, like a little abbe come to assist at some
curious ceremony.
On the contrary, Prades, after a sleepless night, a night of agony,
paler than the evening before, his face fierce and its muscles
contracted, had a haggard expression, and he blinked his eyes like a
night bird suddenly brought into glaring sunlight. He repeated before
the Examining Magistrate what he had said to the brigadier. But his
voice, vibrant a few hours before, had become heavy, almost raucous, as
the haughty expression of his face had become sullen and tragic.
The Examining Magistrate had cited Mme. Colard, the shopkeeper, to
appear before him. She instantly recognized in this Prades the man who
had sold her the little panel by Paul Baudry.
He denied it. He did not know of what they were talking. He had never
seen this woman. He knew nothing about any portrait.
"It belonged to M. Rovere," the magistrate replied, "M. Rovere, the
murdered man; M. Rovere, who was consul at Buenos Ayres, and you spoke,
yesterday, of Buenos Ayres, in the examination at the station house in
the Rue de la Rochefoucauld."
"M. Rovere? Buenos Ayres?" repeated the young man, rolling his sombrero
around his fingers.
He repeated that he did not know the ex-Consul, that he had never been
in South America, that he had come from Sydney.
Bernardet, at this moment, interrupted him by taking his hat from him
without saying a word, and Prades cast a very angry look at the little
man.
M. Ginory understood Bernardet's move and approved with a smile. He
looked in the inside of the sombrero which Bernardet handed to him.
The hat bore the address of Gordon, Smithson & Co., Berner Street,
London.
"But, after all," thought the Magistrate, "Buenos Ayres is one of the
markets for English goods."
"That is a hat bought at Sydney," Prades (who had understood) explained.
Before the bold, decided, almost violent affirmations which Mme. Colard
made that this was certainly the seller of the portrait, the young man
lost countenance a little. He kept saying over and over: "You deceive
yourself. Madame, I have never spoken to you, I have never seen you."
When M. Ginory asked her if she still persisted in saying that this was
the man who had sold her the picture, she said:
"Do I still persist? With my neck under the guillotine I would persist,"
and she kept repeating: "I am sure of it! I am sure of it!"
This preliminary examination brought about no decisive result. It was
certain that, if this portrait had been in the possession of this young
man and been sold by him, that he, Charles Prades, was an accomplice of
Dantin's, if not the author of the crime. They ought, then, to be
brought face to face, and, possibly, this might bring about an immediate
result. And why not have this meeting take place at once, before Prades
was sent where Dantin was, at Mazas?
M. Ginory, who had uttered this word "Mazas," noticed the expression of
terror which flashed across and suddenly transfigured the young man's
face.
Prades stammered:
"Then--you will hold me? Then--I am not free?"
M. Ginory did not reply. He gave an order that this Prades should be
guarded until the arrival of Dantin from Mazas.
In Mazas, in that walled prison, in the cell which had already made him
ill, Jacques Dantin sat. This man, with the trooper's air, seemed almost
to be in a state of collapse. When the guard came to his cell he drew
himself up and endeavored to collect all his energy; and when the door
was opened and he was called he appeared quite like himself. When he saw
the prison wagon which had brought him to Mazas and now awaited to take
him to the Palais de Justice he instinctively recoiled; then, recovering
himself, he entered the narrow vehicle.
The idea, the sensation that he was so near all this life--yet so
far--that he was going through these streets, filled with carriages,
with men and women who were free, gave him a desperate, a nervous sense
of irritation.
The air which they breathed, he breathed and felt fan his brow--but
through a grating. They arrived at the Palais and Jacques Dantin
recognized the staircases which he had previously mounted, that led to
the Examining Magistrate's room. He entered the narrow room where M.
Ginory awaited him. Dantin saluted the Magistrate with a gesture which,
though courteous, seemed to have a little bravado in it; as a salutation
with a sword before a duel. Then he glanced around, astonished to see,
between two guards, a man whom he did not recognize.
M. Ginory studied them. If he knew this Prades, who also curiously
returned his look, Jacques Dantin was a great comedian, because no
indication, not the slightest involuntary shudder, not the faintest
trace of an expression of having seen him before, crossed his face. Even
M. Ginory's keen eyes could detect nothing. He had asked that Bernardet
be present at the meeting, and the little man's face, become serious,
almost severe, was turned, with eager interrogation in its expression,
toward Dantin. Bernardet also was unable to detect the faintest emotion
which could be construed into an acknowledgment of ever having seen this
young man before. Generally prisoners would, unconsciously, permit a
gesture, a glance, a something, to escape them when they were brusquely
confronted, unexpectedly, with some accomplice. This time not a muscle
of Dantin's face moved, not an eyelash quivered.
M. Ginory motioned Jacques Dantin to a seat directly in front of him,
where the light would fall full upon his face. Pointing out Prades, he
asked:
"Do you recognize this man?"
Dantin, after a second or two, replied:
"No; I have never seen him."
"Never?"
"I believe not; he is unknown to me!"
"And you, Prades, have you ever seen Jacques Dantin?"
"Never," said Prades, in his turn. His voice seemed hoarse, compared
with the brief, clear response made by Dantin.
"He is, however, the original of the portrait which you sold to Mme.
Colard."
"The portrait?"
"Look sharply at Dantin. Look at him well," repeated M. Ginory. "You
must recognize that he is the original of the portrait in question."
"Yes;" Prades replied. His eyes were fixed upon the prisoner.
"Ah!" the Magistrate joyously exclaimed, asking: "And how, tell me, did
you so quickly recognize the original of the portrait which you saw only
an instant in my room?"
"I do not know," stammered Prades, not comprehending the gravity of a
question put in an insinuating, almost amiable tone.
"Oh, well!" continued M. Ginory, still in a conciliating tone, "I am
going to explain to you. It is certain that you recognize these
features, because you had a long time in which to contemplate them;
because you had it a long time in your hands when you were trying to
pull off the frame."
"The frame? What frame?" asked the young man stupefied, not taking his
eyes from the Magistrate's face, which seemed to him endowed with some
occult power. M. Ginory went on:
"The frame which you had trouble in removing, since the scratches show
in the wood. And what if, after taking the portrait to Mme. Colard's
shop, we should find the frame in question at another place, at some
other shop--that would not be very difficult," and M. Ginory smiled at
Bernardet. "What if we could add another new deposition to that of Mme.
Colard's? Yes; what if to that clear, decisive deposition we could add
another--what would you have to say?"
Silence! Prades turned his head around, his eyes wandered about, as if
searching to find an outlet or a support; gasping like a man who has
been injured.
Jacques Dantin looked at him at the same moment when the Magistrate,
with a glance keener, more piercing than ever, seemed to search his very
soul. The young man was now pallid and unmanned.
At length Prades pronounced some words. What did he want of him? What
frame was he talking of? And who was this other dealer of whom the
Magistrate spoke and whom he had called a second time? Where was this
witness with "the new deposition?"
"One is enough!" he said, casting a ferocious look at Mme. Colard, who,
on a sign from M. Ginory, had entered, pale and full of fear.
He added in a menacing tone:
"One is even too much!"
The fingers of his right hand contracted, as if around a knife handle.
At this moment Bernardet, who was studying each gesture which the man
made, was convinced that the murderer of Rovere was there. He saw that
hand armed with the knife, the one which had been found in his pocket,
striking his victim, gashing the ex-Consul's throat.
But then, "Dantin?" An accomplice, without doubt. The head, of which the
adventurer was the arm. Because, in the dead man's eye, Dantin's image
appeared, reflected as clear proof, like an accusation, showing the
person who was last seen in Rovere's supreme agony. Jacques Dantin was
there--the eye spoke.
Mme. Colard's testimony no longer permitted M. Ginory to doubt. This
Charles Prades was certainly the man who sold the portrait.
Nothing could be proved except that the two men had never met. No sign
of emotion showed that Dantin had ever seen the young man before. The
latter alone betrayed himself when he was going to Mazas with the
original of the portrait painted by Baudry.
But, however, as the Magistrate underlined it with precision, the fact
alone of recognizing Dantin constituted against Prades a new charge.
Added to the testimony, to the formal affirmation of the shopkeeper,
this charge became grave.
Coldly, M. Ginory said to his registrar:
"An order!"
Then, when Favarel had taken a paper engraved at the top, which Prades
tried to decipher, the Magistrate began to question him. And as M.
Ginory spoke slowly, Favarel filled in the blank places which made a
free man, a prisoner.
"You are called?" demanded M. Ginory.
"Prades."
"Your first name?"
"Henri."
"You said Charles to the Commissary of Police."
"Henri-Charles--Charles--Henri."
The Magistrate did not even make a sign to Favarel, seated before the
table, and who wrote very quickly without M. Ginory dictating to him.
"Your profession?" continued the Magistrate.
"Commission merchant."
"Your age?"
"Twenty-eight."
"Your residence?"
"Sydney, Australia."
And, upon this official paper, the replies were filled in, one by one,
in the blank places:
COURT OF THE FIRST INSTANCE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE SEINE:
Warrant of Commitment against Prades.
* * * * *
Note.--Write exactly the names, Christian names, professions,
age, residence and nature of charge.
* * * * *
Description Height metre centimetres
Forehead Nose
Eyes Mouth
Chin Eyebrows
Hair
General Appearance
We, Edme-Armand-Georges Ginory, Examining Magistrate of the
Court of the First Instance of the Department of the Seine,
command and enjoin all officers and guards of the Public Force
to conduct to the Prison of Detention, called the Mazas, in
conformity to the Law, Prades (Charles Henri), aged 28 years,
Commission Merchant from Sydney. Accused of complicity in the
murder of Louis-Pierre Rovere. We direct the Director of said
house of detention to receive and hold him till further orders.
We command every man in the Public to lend assistance in order
to execute the present order, in case such necessity arises, to
which we attach our name and seal.
Made at the Palais de Justice, in Paris, the 12th of February,
1896.
And below, the seal was attached to the order by the registrar. M.
Ginory signed it, saying to Favarel:
"The description must be left blank. They will fill it out after the
measurements are taken."
Then, Prades, stupefied till now, not seeming to realize half that was
passing around him, gave a sudden, violent start. A cry burst from him.
"Arrested! Have you arrested me?"
M. Ginory leaned over the table. He was calm and held his pen with which
he had signed the order, suspended in the air. The young man rushed
forward wild with anger, and if the guards had not held him back, he
would have seized M. Ginory's fat neck with both hands. The guards held
Prades back, while the Examining Magistrate, carelessly pricking the
table with his pen, gently said, with a smile:
"All the same, more than one malefactor has betrayed himself in a fit of
anger. I have often thought that it would take very little to get myself
assassinated, when I had before me an accused person whom I felt was
guilty and who would not confess. Take away the man!"
While they were pushing Prades toward the corridor he shouted:
"_Canailles_." M. Ginory ordered that Dantin should be left alone with
him. "Alone," he said to Bernardet, whose look was a little uneasy. The
registrar half rose from his chair, picking up his papers and pushing
them into the pockets of his much worn paper case.
"No; you may remain, Favarel."
"Well," said the Magistrate in a familiar tone, when he found himself
face to face with Jacques Dantin. "Have you reflected?"
Jacques Dantin, his lips pressed closely together, did not reply.
"It is a counsellor--a counsellor of an especial kind--the cell. He who
invented it"----
"Yes;" Dantin brusquely interrupted. "The brain suffers between those
walls. I have not slept since I went there. Not slept at all. Insomnia
is killing me. It seems as if I should go crazy!"
"Then?" asked M. Ginory.
"Then"----
Jacques Dantin looked fiercely at the registrar, who sat waiting, his
pen over his ear, his elbows on the table, his chin on his hands.
"Then, oh, well! Then, here it is, I wish to tell you all--all. But to
you--to you"----
"To me alone?"
"Yes," said Dantin, with the same fierce expression.
"My dear Favarel," the Magistrate began.
The registrar had already risen. He slowly bowed and went out.
"Now," said the Magistrate to Jacques Dantin, "you can speak."
The man still hesitated.
"Monsieur," he asked, "will any word said here be repeated, ought it or
must it be repeated in a courtroom, at the Assizes, I know not
where--anywhere before the public?"
"That depends," said M. Ginory. "But what you know you owe to justice,
whether it be a revelation, an accusation or a confession, I ask it of
you."
Still Dantin hesitated. Then the Magistrate spoke these words: "I demand
it!"
With a violent effort the prisoner began. "So be it! But it is to a man
of honor, rather than to a Magistrate, to whom I address these words. If
I have hesitated to speak, if I have allowed myself to be suspected and
to be accused, it is because it seemed to me impossible, absolutely
impossible, that this same truth should not be revealed--I do not know
in what way--that it would become known to you without compelling me to
disclose a secret which was not mine."
"To an Examining Magistrate one may tell everything," said M. Ginory.
"We have listened to confessions in our offices which are as inviolable
as those of the confessional made to a priest."
And now, after having accused Dantin of lying, believing that he was
acting a comedy, after smiling disdainfully at that common invention--a
vow which one could not break--the perception of a possibility entered
the Magistrate's mind that this man might be sincere. Hitherto he had
closed his heart against sympathy for this man; they had met in the
mutual hostility.
The manner in which Jacques Dantin approached the question, the
resolution with which he spoke, no longer resembled the obstinate
attitude which he had before assumed in this same room.
Reflection, the prison--the cell, without doubt--a frightful and
stifling cell--had done its work. The man who had been excited to the
point of not speaking now wished to tell all.
"Yes," he said, "since nothing has happened to convince you that I am
not lying."
"I am listening to you," said the Magistrate.
Then, in a long, close conference, Jacques Dantin told M. Ginory his
story. He related how, from early youth, he and Rovere had been close
friends; of the warm affection which had always existed between them; of
the shams and deceptions of which he had been guilty; of the bitterness
of his ruined life; of an existence which ought to have been beautiful,
and which, so useless, the life of a _viveur_, had almost made
him--why?--how?--through need of money and a lack of moral sense--almost
descend to crime.
This Rovere, whom he was accused of killing, he loved, and, to tell the
truth, in that strange and troublous existence which he had lived,
Rovere had been the only true friend whom he had known. Rovere, a sort
of pessimistic philosopher, a recluse, lycanthropic, after a life spent
in feasting, having surfeited himself with pleasure, recognized also in
his last years that disinterested affection is rare in this world, and
his savage misanthropy softened before Jacques Dantin's warm
friendship.
"I continued to search for, in what is called pleasure and what as one's
hair whitens becomes vice; in play; in the uproar of Paris,
forgetfulness of life, of the dull life of a man growing old, alone,
without home or family, an old, stupid fellow, whom the young people
look at with hate and say to each other: 'Why is he still here?' Rovere,
more and more, felt the need of withdrawing into solitude, thinking over
his adventurous life, as bad and as ruined as mine, and he wished to see
no one. A wolf, a wild boar in his lair! Can you understand this
friendship between two old fellows, one of whom tried in every way to
direct his thoughts from himself, and the other, waiting death in a
corner of his fireside, solitary, unsociable?"
"Perfectly! Go on!"
And the magistrate, with eyes riveted upon Jacques Dantin, saw this man,
excited, making light of this recital of the past; evoking remembrances
of forgotten events, of this lost affection; lost, as all his life was.
"This is not a conference; is it not so? You no longer believe that it
is a comedy? I loved Rovere. Life had often separated us. He searched
for fortune at the other end of the world. I made a mess of mine and ate
it in Paris. But we always kept up our relations, and when he returned
to France we were happy in again seeing each other. The grayer turned
the hair, the more tender the heart became. I had always found him
morose--from his twentieth year he always dragged after him a sinister
companion--ennui. He had chosen a Consular career, to live far away, and
in a fashion not at all like ours. I have often laughingly said to him
that he probably had met with unrequited love; that he had experienced
some unhappy passion. He said, no! I feigned to believe it. One is not
sombre and melancholy like that without some secret grief. After all,
there are others who do not feel any gayer with a smile on the lips.
Sadness is no sign. Neither is gayety!"
His face took on a weary, melancholy expression, which at first
astonished the Magistrate; then he experienced a feeling of pity; he
listened, silent and grave.
"I will pass over all the details of our life, shall I not? My monologue
would be too long. The years of youth passed with a rapidity truly
astonishing; we come to the time when we found ourselves--he weary of
life, established in his chosen apartments in the Boulevard de Clichy,
with his paintings and books; sitting in front of his fire and awaiting
death--I continuing to spur myself on like a foundered horse. Rovere
moralized to me; I jeered at his sermons, and I went to sit by his
fireside and talk over the past. One of his joys had been this portrait
of me, painted by Paul Baudry. He had hung it up in his salon, at the
corner of the chimney piece, at the left, and he often said to me:
"'Dost thou know that when thou art not here I talk to it?'
"I was not there very often. Parisian life draws us by its thousand
attractions. The days which seem interminable when one is twenty rush by
as if on wings when one is fifty. One has not even time to stop to see
the friends one loves. At the last moment, if one is right, one ought to
say, 'How I have cast to the winds everything precious which life has
given me. How foolish I have been--how stupid.' Pay no attention to my
philosophisms--the cell! Mazas forces one to think!
"One day--it was one morning--on returning from the club where I had
passed the night stupidly losing sums which would have given joy to
hundreds of families, I found on my desk a message from Rovere. If one
would look through my papers one would find it there--I kept it. Rovere
begged me to come to him immediately. I shivered--a sharp presentiment
of death struck me. The writing was trembling, unlike his own. I struck
my forehead in anger. This message had been waiting for me since the
night before, while I was spending the hours in gambling. If, when I
hurried toward the Boulevard de Clichy, I had found Rovere dead on my
arrival, I could not, believe me, have experienced greater despair. His
assassination seemed to me atrocious; but I was at least able to assure
him that his friendship was returned. I hastily read the telegram, threw
myself into a fiacre, and hastened to his apartments. The woman who
acted as housekeeper for him, Mme. Moniche, the portress, raising her
arms as she opened the door for me, said:
"'Ah! Monsieur, but Monsieur has waited for you. He has repeated your
name all night. He nearly died, but he is better now.'
"Rovere, sitting the night before by his fire, had been stricken by
lateral paralysis, and as soon as he could hold a pen, in spite of the
orders of the physician who had been quickly called, had written and
sent the message to me some hours before.
"As soon as he saw me he--the strong man, the mad misanthrope, silent
and sombre--held me in his arms and burst into tears. His embrace was
that of a man who concentrates in one being all that remains of hope.
"'Thou! thou art here!' he said in a low tone. 'If thou knewest!'
"I was moved to the depths of my heart. That manly face, usually so
energetic, wore an expression of terror which was in some way almost
childish, a timorous fright. The tears rose in his eyes.
"'Oh! how I have waited for thee! how I have longed for thee!'
"He repeated this phrase with anxious obstinacy. Then he seemed to be
suffocating. Emotion! The sight of me recalled to him the long agony of
that night when he thought that he was about to die without parting with
me for the last time.
"'For what I have to tell thee'----
"He shook his head.
"'It is the secret of my life!'
"He was lying on a sort of sick chair or lounge, in the library where he
passed his last days with his books. He made me sit down beside him. He
took my hand and said:
"'I am going to die. I believed that the end had come last night. I
called thee. Oh, well, if I had died there is one being in the world who
would not have had the fortune which--I have'----
"He lowered his voice as if he thought we were spied upon, as if some
one could hear.
"'I have a daughter. Yes, even from thee I have hidden this secret,
which tortures me. A daughter who loves me and who has not the right to
confess this tenderness, no more than I have the right to give her my
name. Ah! our youth, sad youth! I might have had a home to-day, a
fireside of my own, a dear one near me, and instead of that, an
affection of which I am ashamed and which I have hidden even from thee,
Jacques, from thee, dost thou comprehend?'
"I remember each of Rovere's words as if I was hearing them now. This
conversation with my poor friend is among the most poignant yet most
precious of my remembrances. With much emotion, which distressed me, the
poor man revealed to me the secret which he had believed it his duty to
hide from me so many years, and I vowed to him--I swore to him on my
honor, and that is why I hesitated to speak, or rather refused to speak,
not wishing to compromise any one, neither the dead nor living--I swore
to him, Monsieur le Juge, to repeat nothing of what he told me to any
one, to any one but to her"----
"Her?" interrogated M. Ginory.
"His daughter," Dantin replied.
The Examining Magistrate recalled that visitor in black, who had been
seen occasionally at Rovere's apartments, and the little romance of
which Paul Rodier had written in his paper--the romance of the Woman in
Black!
"And this daughter?"
"She bears," said Dantin, with a discouraged gesture, "the name of the
father which the law gives her, and this name is a great name, an
illustrious name, that of a retired general officer, living in one of
the provinces, a widower, and who adores the girl who is another man's
child. The mother is dead. The father has never known. When dying, the
mother revealed the secret to her daughter. She came, by command of the
dead, to see Rovere, but as a Sister of Charity, faithful to the name
which she bears. She does not wish to marry; she will never leave the
crippled old soldier who calls her his daughter, and who adores her."
"Oh!" said M. Ginory, remaining mute a moment before this very simple
drama, and in which, in that moment of reflection, he comprehended, he
analyzed, nearly all of the hidden griefs, the secret tears, the stifled
sobs, the stolen kisses. "And that is why you kept silent?" he asked.
"Yes, Monsieur. Oh! but I could not endure the torture any longer, and
not seeing the expected release any nearer, I would have spoken, I would
have spoken to escape that cell, that sense of suffocation, I endured
there. It seemed to me, however, that I owed it to my dead friend not to
reveal his secret to any one, not even to you. I shall never forget
Rovere's joy, when relieved of the burden, by the confidence which he
had reposed in me, he said to me, that now that she who was his
daughter, and was poor, living at Blois only on the pension of a retired
officer to whom she had appointed herself nurse, knowing that she was
not his daughter, this innocent child, who was paying with a life of
devotion for the sins of two guilty ones, would at least have happiness
at last.
"She is young, and the one for whom she cares cannot live always. My
fortune will give her a dowry. And then!"
"It was to me to whom he confided this fortune. He had very little money
with his notary. Erratic and distrustful, Rovere kept his valuables in
his safe, as he kept his books in his library. It seemed that he was a
collector, picking up all kinds of things. Avaricious? No; but he wished
to have about him, under his hand, everything which belonged to him. He
possibly may have wished to give what he had directly to the one to whom
it seemed good to him to give it, and confide it to me in trust.
"I regret not having asked him directly that day what he counted on
doing with his fortune and how he intended enriching his child, whom he
had not the right to recognize. I dared, or, rather, I did not think of
it. I experienced a strong emotion when I saw my friend enfeebled and
almost dying. I had known him so different, so handsome. Oh! those poor,
sad, restless eyes, that lowered voice, as if he feared an enemy was
listening! Illness had quickly, brutally changed that vigorous man,
suddenly old and timorous.
"I went away from that first interview much distressed, carrying a
secret which seemed to me a heavy and cruel one; and which made me think
of the uselessness, the wickedness, the vain loves of a ruined life. But
I felt that Rovere owed truly his fortune to that girl who, the next
day after the death of the one whom she had piously attended, found
herself poor and isolated in a little house in a steep street, near the
Chateau, above Blois. I felt that, whatever this unknown father left,
ought not to go to distant relatives, who cared nothing for him; did not
even know him; were ignorant of his sufferings and perhaps even of his
existence, and who by law would inherit.
"A dying man, yes! There could be no question about it, and Dr.
Vilandry, whom I begged to accompany me to see my friend, did not hide
it from me. Rovere was dying of a kidney difficulty, which had made
rapid progress.
"It was necessary, then, since he was not alone in the world, that he
should think of the one of whom he had spoken and whom he loved.
"'For I love her, that child whom I have no right to name. I love her!
She is good, tender, admirable. If I did not see that she resembled
me--for she does resemble me--I should tell thee that she was beautiful.
I would be proud to cry aloud: "This is my daughter!" To promenade with
her on my arm--and I must hide this secret from all the world. That is
my torture! And it is the chastisement of all that has not been right in
my life. Ah! sad, unhappy loves!' That same malediction for the past
came to his lips as it had come to his thoughts. The old workman,
burdened with labor throughout the week, who could promenade on the
Boulevard de Clichy on Sunday, with his daughter on his arm, was happier
than Rovere. And--a strange thing, sentiment of shame and
remorse--feeling himself traveling fast to his last resting-place in the
cemetery, he expressed no wish to see that child, to send for her to
come from Blois under some pretext or other, easy enough to find.
"No, he experienced a fierce desire for solitude, he shrunk from an
interview, in which he feared all his grief would rush to his lips in a
torrent of words. He feared for himself, for his weakness, for the
strange feeling he experienced in his head.
"'It seems as if it oscillated upon my shoulders,' he said. 'If Marthe
came (and he repeated the name as a child would have pronounced it who
was just learning to name the letters of a word) I would give her but
the sad spectacle of a broken-down man, and leave on her mind only the
impression of a human ruin. And then--and then--not to see her! not to
have the right to see her! that is all right--it is my chastisement!'
"Let it be so! I understood. I feared that an interview would be mortal.
He had been so terribly agitated when he had sent for me that other
time.
"But I, at least, wished to recall to him his former wish which he had
expressed of providing for the girl's future. I desired that he should
make up for the past, since money is one of the forms of reparation. But
I dared not speak to him again in regard to it, or of that trust of
which he had spoken.
"He said to me, this strong man whom Death had never frightened, and
whom he had braved many times, he said to me now, weakened by this
illness which was killing him hour by hour:
"If I knew that my end was near I would decide--but I have time."
"Time! Each day brought him a little nearer to that life about which I
feared to say to him: 'The time has come!' The fear, in urging him to a
last resolution, of seeming like an executioner whose presence seemed to
say: 'To-day is the day!' prevented me. You understand, Monsieur? And
why not? I ought to wait no longer. Rovere's confidence had made of me a
second Rovere who possessed the strength and force of will which the
first one now lacked. I felt that I held in my hands, so to speak,
Marthe's fate. I did not know her, but I looked upon her as a martyr in
her vocation of nurse to the old paralytic to whom she was paying, in
love, the debt of the dead wife. I said to myself: 'It is to me, to me
alone, that Rovere must give instructions of what he wishes to leave to
his daughter, and it is for me to urge him to do this, it is for me to
brace his weakened will! I was resolved! It was a duty! Each day the
unhappy man's strength failed. I saw it--this human ruin! One morning,
when I went to his apartments, I found him in a singular state of
terror. He related me a story, I knew not what, of a thief, whose victim
he was; the lock of his door had been forced, his safe opened. Then,
suddenly, interrupting himself, he began to laugh, a feeble laugh, which
made me ill.
"'I am a fool,' he said. 'I am dreaming, awake--I continue in the
daytime the nightmares of the night--a thief here! No one has come--Mme.
Moniche has watched--but my head is so weak, so weak! I have known so
many rascals in my life! Rascals always return, _hein!_'
"He made a sad attempt at a laugh.
"It was delirium! A delirium which soon passed away, but which
frightened me. It returned with increased force each day, and at shorter
intervals.
"Well, I said to myself, during a lucid interview, 'he must do what he
has resolved to do, what he had willed to do--what he wishes to do!' And
I decided--it was the night before the assassination--to bring him to
the point, to aid his hesitation. I found him calmer that day. He was
lying on his lounge, enveloped in his dressing gown, with a traveling
rug thrown across his thin legs. With his black skull-cap and his
grayish beard he looked like a dying Doge.
"He held out his bony hand to me, giving me a sad smile, and said that
he felt better. A period of remission in his disease, a feeling of
comfort pervading his general condition.
"'What if I should recover?' he said, looking me full in the face.
"I comprehended by that ardent look, which was of singular vitality,
that this man, who had never feared death, still clung to life. It was
instinct.
"I replied that certainly he might, and I even said that he would surely
recover, but--with what grievous repugnance did I approach the
subject--I asked him if, experiencing the general feeling of ease and
comfort which pervaded his being, whether he would not be even more
comfortable and happy if he thought of what he ought to do for that
child of whom he had spoken, and for whose future he wished to provide.
"'And since thou art feeling better, my dear Rovere, it is perhaps the
opportunity to put everything in order in that life which thou art about
to recover, and which will be a new life.'
"He looked fixedly at me with his beautiful eyes. It was a profound
regard, and I saw that he divined my thought.
"'Thou art right!' he said firmly; 'no weakness.'
"Then, gathering all his forces, he arose, stood upright, refusing even
the arm which I held out to him, and in his dressing gown, which hung
about him, he seemed to me taller, thinner, even handsomer. He took two
or three steps, at first a little unsteady, then, straightening up, he
walked directly to his safe, turned the letters, and opened it, after
having smiled, and said:
"'I had forgotten the word--four letters; it is, however, a little
thing. My head is empty.'
"Then, the safe opened, he took out papers--of value, without
doubt--papers which he took back to his lounge, spread out on a table
near at hand, and said:
"'Let us see! This which I am going to give thee is for her----A will,
yes, I could make a will----but it would create talk----it would be
asked what I had done----it would be searched out, dug out of the past,
it would open a tomb----I cannot!----What I have shall be hers, thou
wilt give it to her--thou'----
"And his large, haggard eyes searched through the papers.
"'Ah! here!' he said; 'here are some bonds! Egyptian--of a certain value
to the holder, at 3 per cent. I hid that--where did I put it?'
"He picked up the papers, turned them over and over, became alarmed,
turned pale.
"'But,' I said to him, 'is it not among those papers?'
"He shrugged his shoulders, displayed with an ironical smile the
engraved papers.
"'Some certificates of decorations! The bric-a-brac of a Consular life.'
"Then with renewed energy he again went to the safe, opened the till,
pulled it out, and searched again and again.
"Overcome with fright, he exclaimed: 'It is not there!'
"'Why is it not there?'
"And he gave me another look--haggard! terrible! His face was fearfully
contracted. He clasped his head with both hands, and stammered, as if
coming out of a dream.
"'It is true, I remember--I have hidden it! Yes, I hid it! I do not know
where--in some book! In which one?'
"He looked around him with wild eyes. The cerebral anaemia which had made
him fear robbery again seized him, and poor Rovere, my old friend,
plainly showed that he was enduring the agony of a man who is drowning,
and who does not know where to cling in order to save himself.
"He was still standing, but as he turned around, he staggered.
"He repeated in a hoarse, frightened voice: 'Where, where have I hidden
that? Fool! The safe did not seem to me secure enough! Where, where
have I put it?'
"It was then, Monsieur, yes, at that moment, that the concierge entered
and saw us standing face to face before those papers of which she had
spoken. I must have looked greatly embarrassed, very pale, showing the
violent emotion which seized me by the throat. Rovere said to her rather
roughly: 'What are you here for?' and sent her away with a gesture. Mme.
Moniche had had time to see the open safe and the papers spread out,
which she supposed were valuable. I understand how she deceived herself,
and when I think of it, I accuse myself. There was something tragic
taking place between Rovere and me. This woman could not know what it
was, but she felt it.
"And it was more terrible, a hundred times more terrible, when she had
disappeared. There seemed to be a battle raging in Rovere's brain, as
between his will and his weakness. Standing upright, striving not to
give way, struggling to concentrate all his brain power in his effort to
remember, to find some trace of the hidden place where he had foolishly
put his fortune, between the leaves of some huge book. Rovere called
violently, ardently to his aid his last remnant of strength to combat
against this anaemia which took away the memory of what he had done. He
rolled his eyes desperately, found nothing, remembered nothing.
"It was awful--this combat against memory, which disappeared, fled; this
aspect of a panting beast, a hunted boar which seemed to seize this
man--and I shivered when, with a rage, I shall never forget, the dying
man rushed, in two steps, to the table, bent over the papers, snatched
them up with his thin hands, crumpled them up, tore them in two and
threw them under his feet, with an almost maniacal laugh, saying in
strident tones:
"'Ah! Decorations! Brevets, baubles! Childish foolishness! What good are
they? Would they give her a living?'
"And he kept on laughing. He excited himself over the papers, which he
stamped under his feet until he had completely exhausted himself. He
gasped, 'I stifle!' and he half fell over the lounge, upon which I laid
him. I fully believed that he was dying. I experienced a horrible
sensation, which was agonizing. He revived, however. But how, after that
swoon and that crisis, could I speak to him again of his daughter, of
that which he wished to leave her, to give, in trust, to me? He became
preoccupied with childish things, returning to the dreams of a rich man;
he spoke of going out the next day. We would go together in the Bois. We
would dine at the Pavilion. He would like to travel. And thus he rambled
on.
"I said to myself, 'Wait! Let us wait! To-morrow, after a good night's
sleep, he will perhaps remember. I surely have some days before me. To
speak to him to-day would be to provoke a new crisis.'
"And I helped him to put back in the safe the crushed, torn papers,
without his asking me, or even himself questioning how they had come
there, who had thrown them on the floor, or who had opened the safe. His
face wore a slight smile, his gestures were automatic. Very weary, he at
last said:
"'I am very tired. I would like to sleep.' I left him. He had stretched
himself out and covered himself up. He closed his eyes and said:
"'It is so good to sleep!'
"I would see him to-morrow. I would try to again to-morrow awaken in him
the desire which now seemed dulled. To-morrow his memory would have
returned, and in some of his books where he had (like the Arabs who put
their harvests in silos) placed his treasure he would find the fortune
intended for his daughter.
"To-morrow! It is the word one repeats most often, and which one has the
least right to use.
"I saw Rovere only after he was dead, with his throat cut--assassinated
by whom? The man whom you have arrested has traveled much; he comes from
a distance. Rovere was Consul at Buenos Ayres, and you know that he said
to me the last day I saw him: 'I have known many rascals in my life!'
Which seemed very simple when one thinks of the way he had lived.
"This is the truth, Monsieur. I ought to have told you sooner. I repeat
that I had the weakness of wishing to keep the vow given to my dead
friend. I had the name of a woman to betray, the name of a man, too;
innocent of Rovere's fault. And then, again, it seemed to me that this
truth ought to become known of itself. When I was arrested, a sort of
foolish bravado urged me to see how far the absurdity of the charge
could accumulate against me seeming proofs. I am a gambler. That was a
part I played against you, or rather against the foolishness of destiny.
I did not take a second thought that the error could be a lasting one. I
had, moreover, only a word to say, but this word, I repeat, I hesitated
to speak, and I willingly supported the consequence of this hesitation,
even because this word was a name."
"That name," said M. Ginory, "I have not asked you."
"I refused it to the Magistrate," said Jacques Dantin, "but I confide it
to the man of honor!"
"There is only a Magistrate here," M. Ginory replied, "but the legal
inquiry has its secrets, as life has."
And Jacques Dantin gave the name which the one whom Louis-Pierre Rovere
called, Marthe, bore as her rightful name.