Detective Lecoq - Complete Murder Mysteries. Emile Gaboriau
details, and by the mere scrutiny of the scene of the crime, by the sole force of reasoning, have found the criminal: more, you have proved to us that the criminal could be no other than he whom you have named.”
M. Lecoq bowed modestly. These praises evidently pleased him greatly.
“Still,” he answered, “I am not yet quite satisfied. The guilt of the Count de Tremorel is of course abundantly clear to me. But what motives urged him? How was he led to this terrible impulse to kill his wife, and make it appear that he, too, had been murdered?”
“Might we not conclude,” remarked the doctor, “that, disgusted with Madame de Tremorel, he has got rid of her to rejoin another woman, adored by him to madness?”
M. Lecoq shook his head.
“People don’t kill their wives for the sole reason that they are tired of them and love others. They quit their wives, live with the new loves—that’s all. That happens every day, and neither the law nor public opinion condemns such people with great severity.”
“But it was the wife who had the fortune.”
“That wasn’t the case here. I have been posting myself up. M. de Tremorel had a hundred thousand crowns, the remains of a colossal fortune saved by his friend Sauvresy; and his wife by the marriage contract made over a half million to him. A man can live in ease anywhere on eight hundred thousand francs. Besides, the count was master of all the funds of the estate. He could sell, buy, realize, borrow, deposit, and draw funds at will.”
The doctor had nothing to reply. M. Lecoq went on, speaking with a certain hesitation, while his eyes interrogated M. Plantat.
“We must find the reasons of this murder, and the motives of the assassin’s terrible resolution—in the past. Some crime so indissolubly linked the count and countess, that only the death of one of them could free the other. I suspected this crime the first thing this morning, and have seen it all the way through; and the man that we have just shut up in there—Robelot—who wanted to murder Monsieur Plantat, was either the agent or the accomplice of this crime.”
The doctor had not been present at the various episodes which, during the day at Valfeuillu and in the evening at the mayor’s, had established a tacit understanding between Plantat and Lecoq. He needed all the shrewdness he possessed to fill up the gaps and understand the hidden meanings of the conversation to which he had been listening for two hours. M. Lecoq’s last words shed a ray of light upon it all, and the doctor cried, “Sauvresy!”
“Yes—Sauvresy,” answered M. Lecoq. “And the paper which the murderer hunted for so eagerly, for which he neglected his safety and risked his life, must contain the certain proof of the crime.”
M. Plantat, despite the most significant looks and the direct provocation to make an explanation, was silent. He seemed a hundred leagues off in his thoughts, and his eyes, wandering in space, seemed to follow forgotten episodes in the mists of the past. M. Lecoq, after a brief pause, decided to strike a bold blow.
“What a past that must have been,” exclaimed he, “which could drive a young, rich, happy man like Hector de Tremorel to plan in cool blood such a crime, to resign himself to disappear after it, to cease to exist, as it were to lose all at once his personality, his position, his honor and his name! What a past must be that which drives a young girl of twenty to suicide!”
M. Plantat started up, pale, more moved than he had yet appeared.
“Ah,” cried he, in an altered voice, “you don’t believe what you say! Laurence never knew about it, never!”
The doctor, who was narrowly watching the detective, thought he saw a faint smile light up his mobile features. The old justice of the peace went on, now calmly and with dignity, in a somewhat haughty tone:
“You didn’t need tricks or subterfuge, Monsieur Lecoq, to induce me to tell what I know. I have evinced enough esteem and confidence in you to deprive you of the right to arm yourself against me with the sad secret which you have surprised.”
M. Lecoq, despite his cool-headedness, was disconcerted.
“Yes,” pursued M. Plantat, “your astonishing genius for penetrating dramas like this has led you to the truth. But you do not know all, and even now I would hold my tongue, had not the reasons which compelled me to be silent ceased to exist.”
He opened a secret drawer in an old oaken desk near the fireplace and took out a large paper package, which he laid on the table.
“For four years,” he resumed, “I have followed, day by day—I might say, hour by hour—the various phases of the dreadful drama which ended in blood last night at Valfeuillu. At first, the curiosity of an old retired attorney prompted me. Later, I hoped to save the life and honor of one very dear to me. Why did I say nothing of my discoveries? That, my friends, is the secret of my conscience—it does not reproach me. Besides, I shut my eyes to the evidence even up to yesterday; I needed the brutal testimony of this deed!”
Day had come. The frightened blackbirds flew whistling by. The pavement resounded with the wooden shoes of the workmen going fieldward. No noise troubled the sad stillness of the library, unless it were the rustling of the leaves which M. Plantat was turning over, or now and then a groan from Robelot.
“Before commencing,” said the old man, “I ought to consider your weariness; we have been up twenty-four hours—”
But the others protested that they did not need repose. The fever of curiosity had chased away their exhaustion. They were at last to know the key of the mystery.
Chapter XII
The Count Hector de Tremorel, at twenty-six, was the model and ideal of the polished man of the world, proper to our age; a man useless alike to himself and to others, harmful even, seeming to have been placed on earth expressly to play at the expense of all. Young, noble, elegant, rich by millions, endowed with vigorous health, this last descendant of a great family squandered most foolishly and ignobly both his youth and his patrimony. He acquired by excesses of all kinds a wide and unenviable celebrity. People talked of his stables, his carriages, his servants, his furniture, his dogs, his favorite loves. His cast-off horses still took prizes, and a jade distinguished by his notice was eagerly sought by the young bloods of the town. Do not think, however, that he was naturally vicious; he had a warm heart, and even generous emotions at twenty. Six years of unhealthy pleasures had spoiled him to the marrow. Foolishly vain, he was ready to do anything to maintain his notoriety. He had the bold and determined egotism of one who has never had to think of anyone but himself, and has never suffered. Intoxicated by the flatteries of the so-called friends who drew his money from him, he admired himself, mistaking his brutal cynicism for wit, and his lofty disdain of all morality and his idiotic scepticism, for character. He was also feeble; he had caprices, but never a will; feeble as a child, a woman, a girl. His biography was to be found in the petty journals of the day, which retailed his sayings—or what he might have said; his least actions and gestures were reported.
One night when he was supping at the Cafe de Paris, he threw all the plates out the window. It cost him twenty thousand francs. Bravo! One morning gossiping Paris learned with stupefaction that he had eloped to Italy with the wife of X——, the banker, a lady nineteen years married. He fought a duel, and killed his man. The week after, he was wounded in another. He was a hero! On one occasion he went to Baden, where he broke the bank. Another time, after playing sixty hours, he managed to lose one hundred and twenty thousand francs—won by a Russian prince.
He was one of those men whom success intoxicates, who long for applause, but who care not for what they are applauded. Count Hector was more than ravished by the noise he made in the world. It seemed to him the acme of honor and glory to have his name or initials constantly in the columns of the Parisian World. He did not betray this, however, but said, with charming modesty, after each new adventure:
“When