A WOMAN OF MYSTERY
It is a well-known fact that a sudden and powerful shock will have a
remarkable counter-effect on a mind under the influence of alcohol and
other stimulants. The shock is immediately succeeded by a numbness
which in a few moments gives way to an astonishing clarity of thought.
Jacqueline went down the stairs of the Three Crowns and out into the
street on the arm of a sergeant of police. She was in a trance, but
before she had been taken a hundred steps from the door she had come
to a full realization of her position. The officer who arrested her
was a veteran, and knew full well that in the two or three minutes
immediately after the commission of a great crime the criminal is more
than likely to make startling admissions or give hints that lead to
the discovery of the real motive. This does not, of course, apply to
habitual criminals who seldom utter a syllable until their defense is
totally prepared and tested.
On the way down the stairs Sergeant Fontaine asked the woman,
point-blank, why she had killed her companion. In the voice of a
somnambulist she replied that she had done it to prevent him from
committing an "abominable act that would bring grief and shame on
someone she loved." And after that she could not be induced to open her
mouth.
They were followed to the police station by a curious and excited
throng of men and women, the latter reviling the prisoner and
threatening her with the extremity of punishment while the sergeant had
to stop several times and threaten to draw his saber to keep some of
the men from laying violent hands on her.
"The law's delay," upon which the high priests of jurisprudence have
opened the floodgates of their wrath, generally proves a blessing in
criminal cases. For, by a singular contradiction of a natural law, the
laws of a civilized community rise above their source--a majority of
the individuals. The commune is less cruel than its component parts.
Let an ultra-civilized, hyper-refined man stand between the slayer and
his victim and watch the life blood's fitful spurts from a wrecked
artery, and all his Veneer of refinement and civilization is burned
up in a blast of horror and rage. He does not know--does not care
to know--whether there was justification for the deed. In a breath
he is hurled back thousands of years, and he demands the instant and
primitive justice of his tribal forefathers.
Fortunately, it is not then that laws are either made or executed. Men
who have grown gray and wise in the analysis of the human brute sit
far removed from scenes of violence and frame the laws, and they are
executed when natural passions have cooled.
Of this latter type of man was Henri Valmorin, the public prosecutor of
Bordeaux. He was remarkably able and ambitious, but his ambition did
not take the form of worldly advancement. He had a comfortable income
beyond his salary and enough reserve to give his daughter a handsome
_dot_, so he did not feel the need of a higher position for the sake of
money.
His office as public prosecutor appealed to him and he filled it
so ably that he would have been advanced a dozen times had it not
been known that he preferred this work to any other. He had a true
and broad conception of his functions. His work was to protect the
community and punish its enemies, but he never erred by falling into
the habit of regarding every individual accused of a crime as a
presumptive criminal. He was rather counsel for the defense until the
police and examining magistrate placed in his hands the weapons of
attack. Then he became the shrewd, skilful, uncompromising prosecutor.
M. Valmorin was in the office of his friend, M. Feverel, Examining
Magistrate, when the woman of the Three Crowns was brought before him.
He remained in the background and paid but little attention to the
proceedings--for as much as a minute. Then his interest was keyed up to
the highest pitch.
M. Feverel began with the usual questions as to name, age, place of
birth, etc., which are to examiner and examined a mutual test of
strength, as two pugilists dance around each other for the first
round of a fight without striking a blow. To the surprise of both men
the woman maintained an absolute and indifferent silence. There was
nothing about her suggestive of sullen stubbornness. She looked over
M. Feverel's head through an open window with an expression which
indicated that she had not even heard the questions. M. Valmorin
studied her face closely. Through the ravages of vice and the mask
of despair his experienced eyes could see the wreck of a departed
beauty and refinement of features that must have been once remarkable.
M. Feverel, though less experienced, perceived also that there was
apparently some deep and tragic purpose back of the silence that he had
at first attributed to the sullen brutishness of her class. But how to
break it down?
"Madame," he said, courteously, dropping his brusque professional
manner, "you must see that your present course cannot but be
prejudicial to your case. The authorities will have no difficulty in
ultimately establishing your identity but you can readily save us much
inconvenience by replying to these simple questions----Is your name
Laroque? Was this man your husband?"
The woman gave no sign that she had heard. M. Feverel bit his lip. He
had purposely used the most polished French and he was sure that she
understood him. But he was apparently no nearer to making her speak.
"What did you mean by saying that you killed this man to prevent him
from bringing grief and shame on someone you love?" he demanded
suddenly.
The lips moved almost imperceptibly, and for a fraction of a second the
eyes wavered and met the magistrate's sharp gaze. But she did not make
a sound and the next moment her face was as impassive as before.
M. Valmorin, narrowly watching her, waited for the magistrate's next
move. The latter had, at command, a voice as soft and persuasive as a
woman's and many an evildoer had felt its spell and had been lured to
confession.
"Do not think, madame," he began, his tone at once, respectful,
inclusive and inviting, "that I would try to draw you into saying
anything that can injure your cause! Do not consider me an enemy. I
know that you shot this man Laroque in the Hotel of the Three Crowns
and I am more than willing to believe that you had some good reason
for this terrible act. Your words to the policeman who arrested you
are an indication of that. It is not my duty to try to convict you of
crime which was probably justifiable. The man that you killed was an
ex-convict and society is well-rid of him. You have probably simply
saved the State the expense of putting him in prison once more and
keeping him there. I am more than willing to believe that your reasons
for killing him were excusable, even in the eyes of the law.
"Look upon me as a friend!" he continued persuasively. "In my office
there is no criminal, no judge. You are simply accused of a homicide
which you undoubtedly committed. But the law holds that many forms of
homicide are justifiable. Convince me that you had even a fairly good
reason for shooting this man--and I won't be hard to convince--and
it is likely that you may never even come to trial--that your story
may be buried with the few who must know it. My stenographer and my
friend, the prosecutor, will leave us here together and you can explain
everything to me and to me, alone."
Valmorin rose with a bow and passed slowly out followed by M. Feverel's
stenographer. Jacqueline's eyes met his as the door closed and he began
to speak again.
"Now we are alone!" and the tone was even more inviting and
confidential. "You can talk to me now without fear. I do not care to
pry into the secrets of your past. You need not mention any names. But
just to tell me as simply as you can the reason you killed this prison
rat!"
The voice put them on the same level--made them allies against the
dead. In its soft, gentle rise and fall, in the dark sympathetic eyes
and clean, aquiline face there was something approaching hypnotic
power, as several ladies of Bordeaux knew. She began to feel a strange
sensation of rest and comfort and vaguely wished that he would go on.
M. Feverel's trained eye caught the all but imperceptible relaxation of
the rigid figure. A thrill of triumph ran through him. He was winning!
But there was no sign of elation or impatience in his voice or words
when he continued.
He begged her not to think that the machinery of the law was directed
against her. Justice was not blind. She was clear-sighted. She was
not sternly even-handed, but more frequently merciful. She had long
since forgotten the bitter law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth. She could make allowances for the frailty of humanity. She
could understand that there might be many circumstances under which an
assassination might be justifiable. Nay, more--when it became a duty to
kill!
Twice when he paused, Jacqueline's lips trembled and her eyes looked
into his with yearning. She seemed about to speak, but her lips closed
firmly and her glance sought the window, without a word uttered.
Suddenly he rang a bell and a policeman appeared at the door.
"Remove the prisoner!" he commanded in a harsh, curt tone that fell on
the woman like the blow of a whip. She hesitated and half-extended her
hand as if to stop him and once more the magistrate thought that he
had triumphed. But the impulse was conquered and she passed out of his
office without having uttered a word.
M. Valmorin returned and in reply to his questioning look, the
magistrate shook his head.
"She would not speak," he said, wearily. M. Valmorin's interest as
an expert was aroused, and with the magistrate he went over the
examination in detail. M. Feverel told him the impression that he had
made once or twice and expressed the fear that she would never be
forced to tell her story.
"You can see, my friend," he said, "that she is addicted to the use of
drugs. She has now been without anything of the sort for forty-eight
hours. That means that her nerves must be in a bad shape, and it also
means that she has an iron will to conceal the fact so determinedly and
foil the examination."
M. Feverel's prophecy proved true.
In the first few hours of her arrest Jacqueline's instinct told, her
she would be helpless in a verbal duel with these trained men of the
law. An apparently aimless question and a careless answer might be
the combination to open the locked gates of her past and then she
would have killed Laroque in vain. So, as the days passed and the
examinations followed each other with nerve-wracking persistency, she
wept, shrieked, and groaned for hours in her cell, begging for ether or
morphine, but not a word of her story could be forced from her.
She refused counsel and when the court appointed an advocate she would
not see him. At last, M. Feverel abandoned hope.
"You will have to try the case as a plain homicide," he told M.
Valmorin. "The testimony of the servants and the policeman is ample for
conviction but--what is back of it all?"
"And you could not even find out her name!" mused the prosecutor.
"Call her Madame X!" snapped the exasperated magistrate. "She is about
as thoroughly and stubbornly mysterious and elusive as any quantify in
the algebra of my youth!"
M. Valmorin laughed a little and told the story in the courts that
day. The mysterious woman had already attracted some attention among
the journalists who frequent the halls of justice, and when brilliant
M. Feverel called her "Madame X," as an acknowledgement of defeat,
her case in the three days became a _cause célèbre_ in Bordeaux. In
the cafés, in the courts, in the homes, nothing else was talked about
for weeks. In spite of the elaborate passport system and registry,
here was a woman who absolutely defied the authorities to find a clue
to her identity. The police of Buenos Ayres could not help them, and
beyond that city her past was a blank. Who was she? Where had she come
from? Why had she killed her companion? Was he her husband? These and
a hundred other questions were asked every hour of the day. Scores of
rumors were set afloat. She was the daughter of a noble house who had
run away from a convent. She was the wife of a marquis, had left him
and married an adventurer. She was the queen of a band of kidnappers.
She was the leader of a secret society of murder.
She had served a sentence for counterfeiting in an American
penitentiary. She was a nihilist, escaped from Siberia. And so on.
Dozens were turned away from the prison gate every day. Morbid women
and curious men pleaded with the police for a chance to look at her,
assuring the chief that they would be able to identify her. A number of
hysterical women started! a fund for her defense, but this was firmly
suppressed.
Advocates of established reputation, who had smilingly congratulated
Maître Raymond Floriot on his first brief and expressed the hope
that it would lead to something worth while, now regretted that they
had not been appointed by the court to defend her, though it was an
unprofitable and hopeless case.
But M. Valmorin was unaffectedly pleased. He was glad that young
Floriot had stumbled into a position to attract so much attention, and
was almost sorry that the young man had no chance to win his case.
The reason is not far to seek. For several years M. Valmorin and M.
Floriot, père, had seen that M. Raymond was in love with blue-eyed,
sweet-faced Helene Valmorin. There was nothing remarkable about this,
as numbers of young men in Bordeaux were in precisely the same state
of mind. But what was important was that it was equally plain that
Mademoiselle Helene was passionately in love with the dark-eyed,
curly-haired young advocate. The fathers knew that it was only a
question of a very short time when they would be formally requested
to sanction the marriage. Hence M. Valmorin's desire to see his
prospective son-in-law rise as rapidly as possible.
That the young man would rise, he was certain. He had inherited, as
has been mentioned, his father's faultlessly logical mind and love
of his profession and his mother's quickly sympathetic and emotional
temperament. His mind was quick to grasp a situation or an unexpected
point and equally quick to give it its true value. Coupled with these
gifts he had a marked facility of expression and a smooth, vibrant
voice. As Mademoiselle Helene said, he made love beautifully.
M. Valmorin was prepared to do what he could financially, and he
knew that Raymond's father would strain himself to establish the
young people properly, but the young man must look to success in his
profession to raise a family.
M. Floriot had written that he would come over from Toulouse to watch
his son handle his first case, and M. Valmorin planned to talk things
over with him then.
It was to be a great day for Raymond and all who were dear to him had
promised to be in court when he appeared for the first time on the
firing-line. Rose had promised to take charge of Helene. His father,
by request of the President of the Court of Bordeaux, would sit on the
bench with the judges. "Uncle" Noel and Dr. Chennel were coming from
Paris.
The young man worked hard all day on his case and told Helene about it
in the evening, and then worked far into the night. He read parts of
his speech to her, while her father pretended to be eavesdropping in
the hall "to learn the secrets of the defense." He did not have any
false notions about the strength of his battle-line. He knew that he
had a bad case but he was determined to do as well as could be done. As
he remarked, "it is hard work defending a homicide whose conduct is the
best evidence for the prosecution."
As the day approached he was nervous, anxious, restless--but ready.