Detective Lecoq - Complete Murder Mysteries. Emile Gaboriau
he took refuge in work, as in a sanctuary; condemned himself to the most incessant labour, and forbade himself to think of Claire, as the consumptive forbids himself to meditate upon his malady.
His eagerness, his feverish activity, earned him the reputation of an ambitious man, who would go far; but he cared for nothing in the world.
At length, he found, not rest, but that painless benumbing which commonly follows a great catastrophe. The convalescence of oblivion was commencing.
These were the events, recalled to M. Daburon’s mind when old Tabaret pronounced the name of Commarin. He believed them buried under the ashes of time; and behold they reappeared, just the same as those characters traced in sympathetic ink when held before a fire. In an instant they unrolled themselves before his memory, with the instantaneousness of a dream annihilating time and space.
During some minutes, he assisted at the representation of his own life. At once actor and spectator, he was there seated in his arm-chair, and at the same time he appeared on the stage. He acted, and he judged himself.
His first thought, it must be confessed, was one of hate, followed by a detestable feeling of satisfaction. Chance had, so to say, delivered into his hands this man preferred by Claire, this man, now no longer a haughty nobleman, illustrious by his fortune and his ancestors, but the illegitimate offspring of a courtesan. To retain a stolen name, he had committed a most cowardly assassination. And he, the magistrate, was about to experience the infinite gratification of striking his enemy with the sword of justice.
But this was only a passing thought. The man’s upright conscience revolted against it, and made its powerful voice heard.
“Is anything,” it cried, “more monstrous than the association of these two ideas — hatred and justice? Can a magistrate, without despising himself more than he despises the vile beings he condemns, recollect that a criminal, whose fate is in his hands, has been his enemy? Has an investigating magistrate the right to make use of his exceptional powers in dealing with a prisoner; so long as he harbours the least resentment against him?”
M. Daburon repeated to himself what he had so frequently thought during the year, when commencing a fresh investigation: “And I also, I almost stained myself with a vile murder!”
And now it was his duty to cause to be arrested, to interrogate, and hand over to the assizes the man he had once resolved to kill.
All the world, it is true, ignored this crime of thought and intention; but could he himself forget it? Was not this, of all others, a case in which he should decline to be mixed up? Ought he not to withdraw, and wash his hands of the blood that had been shed, leaving to another the task of avenging him in the name of society?
“No,” said he, “it would be a cowardice unworthy of me.”
A project of mad generosity occurred to the bewildered man. “If I save him,” murmured he, “if for Claire’s sake I leave him his honour and his life. But how can I save him? To do so I shall be obliged to suppress old Tabaret’s discoveries, and make an accomplice of him by ensuring his silence. We shall have to follow a wrong track, join Gevrol in running after some imaginary murderer. Is this practicable? Besides, to spare Albert is to defame Noel; it is to assure impunity to the most odious of crimes. In short, it is still sacrificing justice to my feelings.”
The magistrate suffered greatly. How choose a path in the midst of so many perplexities! Impelled by different interests, he wavered, undecided between the most opposite decisions, his mind oscillating from one extreme to the other.
What could he do? His reason after this new and unforeseen shock vainly sought to regain its equilibrium.
“Resign?” said he to himself. “Where, then, would be my courage? Ought I not rather to remain the representative of the law, incapable of emotion, insensible to prejudice? am I so weak that, in assuming my office, I am unable to divest myself of my personality? Can I not, for the present, make abstraction of the past? My duty is to pursue this investigation. Claire herself would desire me to act thus. Would she wed a man suspected of a crime? Never. If he is innocent, he will be saved; if guilty, let him perish!”
This was very sound reasoning; but, at the bottom of his heart, a thousand disquietudes darted their thorns. He wanted to reassure himself.
“Do I still hate this young man?” he continued. “No, certainly. If Claire has preferred him to me, it is to Claire and not to him I owe my suffering. My rage was no more than a passing fit of delirium. I will prove it, by letting him find me as much a counsellor as a magistrate. If he is not guilty, he shall make use of all the means in my power to establish his innocence. Yes, I am worthy to be his judge. Heaven, who reads all my thoughts, sees that I love Claire enough to desire with all my heart the innocence of her lover.”
Only then did M. Daburon seem to be vaguely aware of the lapse of time. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning.
“Goodness!” cried he; “why, old Tabaret is waiting for me. I shall probably find him asleep.”
But M. Tabaret was not asleep. He had noticed the passage of time no more than the magistrate.
Ten minutes had sufficed him to take an inventory of the contents of M. Daburon’s study, which was large, and handsomely furnished in accordance with his position and fortune. Taking up a lamp, he first admired six very valuable pictures, which ornamented the walls; he then examined with considerable curiosity some rare bronzes placed about the room, and bestowed on the bookcase the glance of a connoisseur.
After which, taking an evening paper from the table, he approached the hearth, and seated himself in a vast armchair.
He had not read a third of the leading article, which, like all leading articles of the time, was exclusively occupied with the Roman question, when, letting the paper drop from his hands, he became absorbed in meditation. The fixed idea, stronger than one’s will, and more interesting to him than politics, brought him forcibly back to La Jonchere, where lay the murdered Widow Lerouge. Like the child who again and again builds up and demolishes his house of cards, he arranged and entangled alternately his chain of inductions and arguments.
In his own mind there was certainly no longer a doubt as regards this sad affair, and it seemed to him that M. Daburon shared his opinions. But yet, what difficulties there still remained to encounter!
There exists between the investigating magistrate and the accused a supreme tribunal, an admirable institution which is a guarantee for all, a powerful moderator, the jury.
And the jury, thank heaven! do not content themselves with a moral conviction. The strongest probabilities cannot induce them to give an affirmative verdict.
Placed upon a neutral ground, between the prosecution and the defence, it demands material and tangible proofs. Where the magistrate would condemn twenty times for one, in all security of conscience, the jury acquit for lack of satisfying evidence.
The deplorable execution of Lesurques has certainly assured impunity to many criminals; but, it is necessary to say it justifies hesitation in receiving circumstantial evidence in capital crimes.
In short, save where a criminal is taken in the very act, or confesses his guilt, it is not certain that the minister of justice can secure a conviction. Sometimes the judge of inquiry is as anxious as the accused himself. Nearly all crimes are in some particular point mysterious, perhaps impenetrable to justice and the police; and the duty of the advocate is, to discover this weak point, and thereon establish his client’s defence. By pointing out this doubt to the jury, he insinuates in their minds a distrust of the entire evidence; and frequently the detection of a distorted induction, cleverly exposed, can change the face of a prosecution, and make a strong case appear to the jury a weak one. This uncertainty explains the character of passion which is so often perceptible in criminal trials.
And, in proportion to the march of civilisation, juries in important trials will become more timid and hesitating. The weight of responsibility oppresses the man of conscientious scruple. Already numbers recoil from the idea of capital punishment; and, whenever a jury can find