Complete Works of Emile Zola (1046 page)

Although the Croix-de-Maufras legacy had given them great joy, it had revived their fears; for the family of the President, particularly his daughter, indignant at the number of strange donations which amounted to half the entire fortune, spoke of contesting the will; and Madame de Lachesnaye, influenced by her husband, showed herself particularly harsh for her old friend Séverine, whom she loaded with the gravest suspicions. On the other hand, the idea that there existed a proof, which Roubaud at first had not thought of, haunted him with constant dread: the letter which he had compelled his wife to write, so as to cause Grandmorin to leave, would be found, unless the latter had destroyed it, and the writing recognised. Fortunately, time passed and nothing happened; the letter must have been torn up. Nevertheless, every fresh summons to the presence of the examining-magistrate, gave them a cold perspiration in their correct attitude of heirs and witnesses.

Two o’clock struck. Jacques in his turn appeared. He came from Paris. Roubaud at once advanced, with his hand extended in a very expansive manner.

“Ah! So they’ve brought you here as well What a nuisance this sad business is. It seems to have no end!”

Jacques, perceiving Séverine, still seated, motionless, had stopped short. For the past three weeks, every two days, at each of his journeys to Havre, the assistant station-master had shown him great affability. On one occasion even, he had to accept an invitation to lunch; and seated beside the young woman, he felt himself agitated with his old shivers, and quite upset. Could it be possible that he would want to slay this one also? His heart throbbed, his hands burnt at the mere sight of the white muslin at her neck, bordering the rounded bodice of her gown. And he determined, henceforth, to keep away from her.

“And what do they say about the case at Paris?” resumed Roubaud. “Nothing new, eh? Look here, they know nothing; they’ll never know anything. Come and say how do you do to my wife.”

He dragged him forward, so that Jacques approached and bowed to Séverine, who, looking a little confused, smiled with her air of a timid child. He did his best to chat about commonplace matters, with the eyes of the husband and wife fixed on him, as if they sought to read even beyond his own thoughts, in the vague reflections to which he hesitated to lend his mind. Why was he so cold? Why did he seem to do his best to avoid them? Was his memory returning? Could it be for the purpose of confronting them with him, that they had been sent for again? They sought to bring over this single witness, whom they feared, to their side, to attach him to them by such firm bonds of fraternity that he would not have the courage to speak against them.

It was the assistant station-master, tortured by uncertainty, who brought up the case again.

“So you have no idea as to why they have summoned us? Perhaps there is something new?”

Jacques gave a shrug of indifference.

“A rumour was abroad just now at the station, when I arrived, that there had been an arrest,” said he.

The Roubauds were astounded, becoming quite agitated and perplexed. What! An arrest? No one had breathed a word to them on the subject! An arrest that had been already made, or an arrest about to take place? They bombarded him with questions, but he knew nothing further.

At that moment, a sound of footsteps, in the corridor, attracted the attention of Séverine.

“Here come Berthe and her husband,” she murmured.

The Lachesnayes passed very stiffly before the Roubauds. The young woman did not even give her former comrade a look. An usher at once showed them into the room of the examining-magistrate.

“Oh! dear me! We must have patience,” said Roubaud.
“
We shall be here for at least two hours. Sit you down.”

He had just placed himself on the left of Séverine, and, with a motion of the hand, invited Jacques to take a seat near her, on the other side. The driver remained standing a moment longer. Then, as she looked at him in her gentle, timid manner, he sank down on the bench. She appeared very frail between the two men. He felt she possessed a submissive, tender character, and the slight warmth emanating from this woman, slowly torpified him from tip to toe.

In M. Denizet’s room the interrogatories were about to commence. The inquiry had already supplied matter for an enormous volume of papers, enclosed in blue wrappers. Every effort had been made to follow the victim from the time he left Paris. M. Vandorpe, the station-master, had given evidence as to the departure of the 6.30 express. How the coach No. 293 had been added on at the last moment; how he had exchanged a few words with Roubaud, who had got into his compartment a little before the arrival of President Grandmorin; finally, how the latter had taken possession of his coupé, where he was certainly alone.

Then, the guard, Henri Dauvergne, questioned as to what had occurred at Rouen during the ten minutes the train waited, was unable to give any positive information. He had seen the Roubauds talking in front of the coupé, and he felt sure they had returned to their compartment, the door of which had been shut by an inspector; but his recollection was vague, owing to the confusion caused by the crowd, and the obscurity in the station. As to giving an opinion whether a man, the famous murderer who could not be found, would have been able to jump into the coupé as the train started, he thought such a thing very unlikely, whilst admitting it was possible; for, to his own knowledge, something similar had already occurred twice.

Other members of the company’s staff at Rouen, on being examined on the same points, instead of throwing light on the matter, only entangled it by their contradictory answers. Nevertheless, one thing proved was the shake of the hand given by Roubaud from inside his compartment to the station-master at Barentin, who had got on the step. This station-master, M. Bessière, had formally acknowledged the incident as exact, and had added that his colleague was alone with his wife, who was half lying down, and appeared to be tranquilly sleeping.

Moreover, the authorities had gone so far as to search for the passengers who had quitted Paris in the same compartment as the Roubauds. The stout lady and gentleman who arrived late, almost at the last minute, middle-class people from Petit-Couronne, had stated that having immediately dozed off to sleep, they were unable to say anything; and, as to the woman in black, who remained silent in her corner, she had melted away like a shadow. It had been absolutely impossible to trace her.

Then, there were other witnesses, the small fry who had served to identify the passengers who left the train that night at Barentin, the theory being that the murderer must have got out there. The tickets had been counted, and they had succeeded in recognising all the travellers except one, and he precisely was a great big fellow, with his head wrapped up in a blue handkerchief. Some said he wore a coat, and others a short smock. About this man alone, who had disappeared, vanished like a dream, there existed three hundred and ten documents, forming a confused medley, in which the evidence of one person was contradicted by that of another.

And the record was further complicated by the written evidence of the legal authorities: the account drawn up by the registrar, whom the Imperial Procurator and the examining-magistrate had taken to the scene of the crime, comprising quite a bulky description of the spot, on the metal way, where the victim was lying; the position of the body, the attire, the things found in the pockets establishing his identity; then, the report of the doctor, also conducted there, a document in which the wound in the throat was described at length in scientific terms; the only wound, a frightful gash, made with a sharp instrument, probably a knife.

And there were other reports and documents about the removal of the body to the hospital at Rouen, the length of time it had remained there before being delivered to the family. But in this mass of papers appeared but one or two important points. First of all, nothing had been found in the pockets, neither the watch, nor a small pocket-book, which should have contained ten banknotes of a thousand francs each, a sum due to the sister of President Grandmorin, Madame Bonnehon, and which she was expecting.

It therefore would have seemed that the motive of the crime was robbery, had not a ring, set with a large brilliant, remained on the finger of the victim. This circumstance gave rise to quite a series of conjectures. Unfortunately the numbers of the banknotes were missing; but the watch was known. It was a very heavy, keyless watch, with the monogram of the President on the back, and the number, 2516, of the manufacturer, inside. Finally, the weapon, the knife the murderer had used, had occasioned diligent search along the line, among the bushes in the vicinity, where he might have thrown it; but with no result. The murderer must have concealed the knife in the same place as the watch and banknotes. Nothing had been found but the travelling-rug of the victim, which had been picked up at a hundred yards or so from Barentin station, where it had been abandoned as a dangerous article; and it figured among other objects that might assist to convict the culprit.

When the Lachesnayes entered, M. Denizet, erect before his writing-table, was perusing the examination of one of the first witnesses, which his registrar had just routed out from among the other papers. He was a short and rather robust man, clean-shaven, and already turning grey. His full cheeks, square chin, and big nose, had a sort of pallid immobility, which was increased by the heavy eyelids half closing his great light eyes. But all the sagacity, all the adroitness he believed he possessed, was centred in his mouth — one of those mouths of an actor that express the feelings of the owner off the stage. This mouth was extremely active, and at moments, when he became very sharp, the lips grew thin. It was his sharpness that frequently led him astray. He was too perspicacious, too cunning with simple, honest truth. According to the ideal he had formed of his position, the man occupying it should be an anatomist in morals, endowed with second sight, extremely witty; and, indeed, he was by no means a fool, He at once showed himself amiable towards Madame de Lachesnaye, for he was still a magistrate full of urbanity, frequenting society in Rouen and its neighbourhood “Pray be seated, madam,” said he.

And he offered a chair to the young woman, a sickly blonde, disagreeable in manner, and ugly in her mourning.

But he was simply polite, and even a trifle arrogant, in look, towards M. de Lachesnaye, who was also fair, with a delicate skin; for this little man — judge at the Court of Appeal from the age of thirty-six; decorated, thanks to the influence of his father-in-law, and to the services his father, also on the bench, had formerly rendered on the High Commissions, at the time of the Coup d’Etat — represented in his eyes, the judicial functionary by favour, by wealth, the man of moderate gifts who had installed himself, certain of making rapid progress through his relatives and fortune; whereas he, poor, deprived of protective influence, found himself ever reduced to make way for others. And so he was not sorry to make this gentleman feel all his power in this room — the absolute power that he possessed over the liberty of everyone, to such a point that, by one word, he could transform a witness into an accused, and immediately have him arrested if it pleased him to do so.

“Madam,” he continued, “you will pardon me, if I am again obliged to torture you with this painful business. I know that you wish, as ardently as we do, to see the matter cleared up, and the culprit expiate his crime.”

By a sign he attracted the attention of the registrar, a big, bilious-looking fellow with a bony face, and the examination commenced.

But M. de Lachesnaye — who, seeing he was not asked to sit down, had taken a seat of his own accord — at the first questions addressed to his wife, did his best to put himself in her place. He proceeded to complain bitterly of the  will of his father-in-law. Who had ever heard of such a thing? So many, and such important legacies, that they absorbed almost half the fortune, which amounted to 3,700,000 frcs. — about £148,000! And legacies to persons who for the most part they did not know, to women of all classes! Among them figured even a little violet-seller, who sat in a doorway in the Rue du Rocher. It was inacceptable, and he was only waiting for the inquiry into the crime to be completed, to see if he could not upset this immoral will.

Whilst he complained in this manner, between his set teeth, showing what a stupid he was, an obstinate provincial, up to his neck in avarice, M. Denizet watched him with his great light eyes half closed, and his artful lips assumed an expression of jealous disdain for this nonentity, who was not satisfied with two millions, and whom, no doubt, he would one day, see in the supreme purple of a President, thanks to all this money.

“I think, sir,” said he at last, “that you would do wrong. The will could only be attacked if the total amount of the legacies exceeded half the fortune, and such is not the case.”

Then, turning to his registrar, he remarked:

“I say, Laurent, you are not writing down all this, I hope.”

With the suspicion of a smile, the latter set his mind at ease, like a man who knew his business.

“But, anyhow,” resumed M. de Lachesnaye more bitterly, “no one imagines, I suppose, that I am going to leave La Croix-de-Maufras to those Roubauds. A present like that to the slaughter of a domestic! And why? for what reason? Besides, if it is proved that they were connected with the crime —

M. Denizet returned to the murder.

“Do you really think so?” he inquired.

“Well, if they knew what was in the will, their interest in the death of our poor father is manifest. Observe, moreover, that they were the last to speak to him. All this looks very suspicious.” —

The magistrate, out of patience, disturbed in his new hypothesis, turned to Berthe.

“And you, madam? Do you think your old comrade capable of such a crime?”

Before answering, she looked at her husband. During their few months of married life, they had communicated to one another their ill-humour and want of feeling, which, moreover, had increased. They were becoming vitiated together. It was he who had set her on to Séverine; and, to such a point, that to get back the house, she would have had her old playmate arrested on the spot “Well, sir,” she ended by saying, “the person you speak about, displayed very bad tendencies as a child.”