“Let us tell the marquis and Miss Dionysia what is going on before we
leave the house.”
“No,” said the doctor, “no! Let us wait till every thing is quite safe.
Let us go quick; let us go at once.”
They were right to make haste. The magistrate and the commonwealth
attorney were waiting for them with the greatest impatience. As soon
as they came into the small room of the clerk’s office, M. Daubigeon
cried,--
“Well, I suppose Mechinet has told you all?”
“Yes,” replied M. Folgat; “but we have some information of which you
have heard as yet nothing.”
Then he told them that Suky Wood had arrived, and what she had given in
as evidence.
M. Galpin had sunk into a chair, completely crushed by the weight of
so many proofs of his misapprehension of the case. There he sat without
saying a word, without moving a muscle. But M. Daubigeon was radiant.
“Most assuredly,” he cried, “Jacques must be innocent!”
“Most assuredly he is innocent!” said Dr. Seignebos; “and the proof of
it is, that I know who is guilty.”
“Oh!”
“And you will know too, if you will take the trouble of following me,
with M. Galpin, to the hospital.”
It was just striking one; and not one of them all had eaten any thing
that morning. But they had no time to think of breakfast.
Without a shadow of hesitation, M. Daubigeon turned to M. Galpin, and
said,--
“Will you come, Galpin?”
The poor magistrate rose mechanically, after the manner of an automaton,
and they went out, creating no small sensation among the good people of
Sauveterre, when they appeared thus all in a group.
M. Daubigeon spoke first to the lady superior of the hospital; and,
when he had explained to her what their purpose was in coming there, she
raised her eyes heavenward, and said with a sigh of resignation,--
“Well, gentlemen, do as you like, and I hope you will be successful;
for it is a sore trial for us poor sisters to have these continual
visitations in the name of the law.”
“Please follow me, then, to the Insane Ward, gentlemen,” said the
doctor.
They call the Insane Ward at the Sauveterre hospital a small, low
building, with a sanded court in front, and a tall wall around the
whole. The building is divided into six cells, each of which has two
doors,--one opening into the court, and the other an outside door for
the assistants and servants.
It was to one of these latter doors that Dr. Seignebos led his friends.
And after having recommended to them the most perfect silence, so as not
to rouse Cocoleu’s suspicions, he invited them into one of the cells,
in which the door leading into the court had been closed. There was,
however, a little grated window in the upper part of the door, so that
they could, without being seen, both see and hear all that was said and
done in the court reserved for the use of the insane.
Not two yards from the little window, Goudar and Cocoleu were sitting on
a wooden bench in the bright sunlight.
By long study and a great effort of will, Goudar had succeeded in giving
to his face a most perfect expression of stupidity: even the people
belonging to the hospital thought he was more idiotic than the other.
He held in his hand his violin, which the doctor had ordered to be left
to him; and he accompanied himself with a few notes, as he repeated the
same familiar song which he had sung on the New-Market Square when he
first accosted M. Folgat.
Cocoleu, a large piece of bread-and-butter in one hand, and a big
clasp-knife in the other, was finishing his meal.
But this music delighted him so intensely, that he actually forgot to
eat, and, with hanging lip and half-closed eyes, rocked himself to and
fro, keeping time with the measure.
“They look hideous!” M. Folgat could not keep from whispering. In the
meantime Goudar, warned by the preconcerted signal, had finished his
song. He bent over, and drew from under the bench an enormous bottle,
from which he seemed to draw a considerable quantity of something
pleasant.
Then he passed it to Cocoleu, who likewise began to pull, eagerly and
long, and with an expression of idiotic beatitude. Then patting his
stomach with his hands, he said,--
“That’s--that’s--that’s--good!”