“Ah! If the gentleman is a lawyer. Welcome, sir. Now I can say all that
weighs on my heart. No, most assuredly I do not think Master Jacques
guilty. It is impossible he should be so: it is absurd to think of it.
But what I believe, what I am sure of, is this,--there is a plot to
charge him with all the horrors of Valpinson.”
“A plot?” broke in M. Folgat, “whose? how? and what for?”
“Ah! that is more than I know. But I am not mistaken; and you would
think so too, if you had been present at the examination, as I was. It
was fearful, gentlemen, it was unbearable, so that even I was stupefied
for a moment, and thought my master was guilty, and advised him to flee.
The like has never been heard of before, I am sure. Every thing went
against him. Every answer he made sounded like a confession. A crime
had been committed at Valpinson; he had been seen going there and coming
back by side paths. A fire had been kindled; his hands bore traces of
charcoal. Shots had been fired; they found one of his cartridge-cases
close to the spot where Count Claudieuse had been wounded. There it
was I saw the plot. How could all these circumstances have agreed so
precisely if they had not been pre-arranged, and calculated beforehand?
Our poor M. Daubigeon had tears in his eyes; and even that meddlesome
fellow, Mechinet, the clerk, was quite overcome. M. Galpin was the only
one who looked pleased; but then he was the magistrate, and he put the
questions. He, my master’s friend!--a man who was constantly coming
here, who ate our bread, slept in our beds, and shot our game. Then it
was, ‘My dear Jacques,’ and ‘My dear Boiscoran’ always, and no end of
compliments and caresses; so that I often thought one of these days I
should find him blackening my master’s boots. Ah! he took his revenge
yesterday; and you ought to have seen with what an air he said to
master, ‘We are friends no longer.’ The rascal! No, we are friends no
longer; and, if God was just, you ought to have all the shot in your
body that has wounded Count Claudieuse.”
M. de Chandore was growing more and more impatient. As soon, therefore,
as Anthony’s breath gave out a moment, he said,--
“Why did you not come and tell me all that immediately?”