The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crime of the Boulevard, by Jules Claretie This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Crime of the Boulevard Author: Jules Claretie Translator: Mrs. Carlton A. Kingsbury Release Date: October 11, 2010 [EBook #34058] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRIME OF THE BOULEVARD *** Produced by Darleen Dove, Ernest Schaal, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net The Crime of The Boulevard By JULES CLARETIE Member of the French Academy Translated by MRS. CARLTON A. KINGSBURY R. F. FENNO & COMPANY Eighteen East Seventeenth Street:: NEW YORK Copyright, 1897 by R. F. FENNO & COMPANY The Crime of the Boulevard [Pg 3] THE CRIME OF THE BOULEVARD. CHAPTER I. "Where does Bernardet live?" "At the passage to the right—Yes, that house which you see with the grating and the garden behind it." The man to whom a passer-by had given this information hurried away in the direction pointed out; although gasping for breath, he tried to run, in order to more quickly reach the little house at the end of the passage of the Elysée des Beaux Arts. This passage, a sort of cul-de-sac, on either side of which were black buildings, strange old houses, and dilapidated storehouses, opened upon a boulevard filled with life and movement; with people promenading; with the noise of tramways; with gaiety and light. The man wore the dress and had the bearing of a workman. He was very short, very fat, and his bald head was bared to the warm October rain. He was a workman, in truth, who labored in his concierge lodge, making over and mending garments for his neighbors, while his wife looked after the house, swept the staircases, and complained of her lot. Mme. Moniche found life hard and disagreeable, and regretted that it had not given her what it promised when, at eighteen, and very pretty, she had expected something better than to watch beside a tailor bent over his work in a concierge's lodge. Into her life a tragedy had suddenly precipitated itself, and Mme. Moniche found, that day, something to brighten up her afternoon. Entering a moment before, the apartment occupied by M. Rovère, she had found her lodger lying on his back, his eyes fixed, his arms flung out, with a gash across his throat! M. Rovère had lived alone in the house for many years, receiving a few mysterious persons. Mme. Moniche looked after his apartment, entering by using her own key whenever it was necessary; and her lodger had given her permission to come there at any time to read the daily papers. Mme. Moniche hurried down the stairs. "M. Rovère is dead! M. Rovère has been murdered! His throat has been cut! He has been assassinated!" And, pushing her husband out of the door, she exclaimed: "The police! Go for the police!" This word "police" awakened in the tailor's mind, not the thought of the neighboring Commissary, but the thought of the man to whom he felt that he ought to appeal, whom he ought to consult. This man was the good little M. Bernardet, who passed for a man of genius of his kind, at the Sureté, and for whom Moniche had often repaired coats and rehemmed trousers. From the mansion in the Boulevard de Clichy, where Moniche lived, to M. Bernardet's house, was but a short distance, and the concierge knew the way very well, as he had often been there. But the poor man was so stupefied, so overwhelmed, by the sudden appearance of his wife in his room, by the brutal revelation which came to him as the blow of a fist, by the horrible manner of M. Rovère's death, that he lost his head. Horrified, breathless, he asked the first passer-by where Bernardet lived, and he ran as fast as he could in the direction pointed out. Arrived at the grating, the worthy man, a little confused, stopped short. He was very strongly moved. It seemed to him that he had been cast into the agony of a horrible nightmare. An assassination in the house! A murder in the Boulevard de Clichy in broad daylight, just over his head, while he was quietly repairing a vest! He stood looking at the house without ringing. M. Bernardet was, no doubt, breakfasting with his family, for it was Sunday, and the police officer, meeting Moniche the evening before, had said to him: "To-morrow is my birthday." Moniche hesitated a moment, then he rang the bell. He was not kept waiting; the sudden opening of the grating startled him; he pushed back the door and entered. He crossed a little court, at the end of which was a pavilion; he mounted the three steps and was met on the threshold by a little woman, as rosy and fresh as an apple, who, napkin in hand, gayly saluted him. "Eh, Monsieur Moniche!" It was Mme. Bernardet, a Burgundian woman, about thirty-five years of age, trim and coquettish, who stepped back so that the tailor could enter. "What is the matter, M. Moniche?" Poor Moniche rolled his frightened eyes around and gasped out: "I must speak to M. Bernardet." "Nothing easier," said the little woman. "M. Bernardet is in the garden. Yes, he is taking advantage of the beautiful day; he is taking a group"—— "What group?" [Pg 3] [Pg 4] [Pg 5] [Pg 6] "You know very well, photography is his passion. Come with me." And Mme. Bernardet pointed to the end of the corridor, where an open door gave a glimpse of the garden at the rear of the house. M. Bernardet, the Inspector, had posed his three daughters with their mother about a small table, on which coffee had been served. "I had just gone in to get my napkin, when I heard you ring," Mme. Bernardet said. Bernardet made a sign to Moniche not to advance. He was as plump and as gay as his wife. His moustache was red, his double chin smooth-shaven and rosy, his eyes had a sharp, cunning look, his head was round and closely cropped. The three daughters, clothed alike in Scotch plaid, were posing in front of a photographic apparatus which stood on a tripod. The eldest was about twelve years of age; the youngest a child of five. They were all three strangely alike. M. Bernardet, in honor of his birthday, was taking a picture of his daughters. The ferret who, from morning till night, tracked robbers and malefactors into their hiding places, was taking his recreation in his damp garden. The sweet idyl of this hidden life repaid him for his unceasing investigations, for his trouble and fatiguing man-hunts through Paris. "There!" he said, clapping the cap over the lens. "That is all! Go and play now, my dears. I am at your service, Moniche." He shut up his photographic apparatus, pulling out the tripod from the deep soil in which it was imbedded, while his daughters joyously ran to their mother. The young girls stood gazing at Moniche with their great blue eyes, piercing and clear. Bernardet turned to look at him, and at once divined that something had happened. "You are as white as your handkerchief, Moniche," he said. "Ah! Monsieur Bernardet! It is enough to terrify one! There has been a murder in the house." "A murder?" His face, which had been so gay and careless, suddenly took on a strange expression, at once tense and serious; the large blue eyes shone as with an inward fire. "A murder, yes, Monsieur Bernardet. M. Rovère—you did not know him?" "No." "He was an original—a recluse. And now he has been assassinated. My wife went to his room to read the papers"—— Bernardet interrupted him brusquely: "When did it happen?" "Ah! Dame! Monsieur, I do not know. All I know is my wife found the body still warm. She was not afraid; she touched it." "Still warm!" These words struck Bernardet. He reflected a moment, then he said: "Come; let us go to your house." Then, struck with a sudden idea, he added: "Yes, I will take it." He unfastened his camera from the tripod. "I have three plates left which I can use," he said. Mme. Bernardet, who was standing at a little distance, with the children clinging to her skirts, perceived that the concierge had brought important news. Bernardet's smiling face had suddenly changed; the expression became serious, his glance fixed and keen. "Art thou going with him?" Mme. Bernardet asked, as she saw her husband buckle on a leather bandolier. "Yes!" he answered. "Ah! Mon Dieu! my poor Sunday, and this evening—can we not go to the little theatre at Montmartre this evening?" "I do not know," he replied. "You promised! The poor children! You promised to take them to see Closerie des Genets!" "I cannot tell; I do not know—I will see," the little man said. "My dear Moniche, to-day is my fortieth birthday. I promised to take them to the theatre—but I must go with you." Turning to his wife, he added: "But I will come back as soon as I can. Come, Moniche, let us hasten to your M. Rovère." He kissed his wife on the forehead, and each little girl on both cheeks, and, strapping the camera in the bandolier, he [Pg 7] [Pg 8] [Pg 9] went out, followed by the tailor. As they walked quickly along Moniche kept repeating: "Still warm; yes, Monsieur Bernardet, still warm!" CHAPTER II. Bernardet was quite an original character. Among the agents, some of whom were very odd, and among the devoted subalterns, this little man, with his singular mind, with his insatiable curiosity, reading anything he could lay his hands on, passed for a literary person. His chief sometimes laughingly said to him: "Bernardet, take care! You have literary ambitions. You will begin to dream of writing for the papers." "Oh, no, Monsieur Morel—but what would you?—I am simply amusing myself." This was true. Bernardet was a born hunter. With a superior education, he might have become a savant, a frequenter of libraries, passing his life in working on documents and in deciphering manuscripts. The son of a dairyman; brought up in a Lancastrian school; reading with avidity all the daily papers; attracted by everything mysterious which happened in Paris; having accomplished his military duty, he applied for admission to the Police Bureau, as he would have embarked for the New World, for Mexico, or for Tonquin, in order to travel in a new country. Then he married, so that he might have, in his checkered existence, which was dangerous and wearying,—a haven of rest, a fireside of peaceful joy. So he lived a double life—tracking malefactors like a bloodhound, and cultivating his little garden. There he devoured old books, for which he had paid a few sous at some book stall; he read and pasted in old, odd leaves, re-bound them himself, and cut clippings from papers. He filled his round, bald head with a mass of facts which he investigated, classified, put into their proper place, to be brought forth as occasion demanded. He was an inquisitive person, a very inquisitive person, indeed. Curiosity filled his life. He performed with pleasure the most fatiguing and repulsive tasks that fall to a police officer's lot. They satisfied the original need of his nature, and permitted him to see everything, to hear everything, to penetrate into the most curious mysteries. To-day, in a dress suit with white tie, carelessly glancing over the crowds at the opera, to discover the thieves who took opera glasses, which they sent to accomplices in Germany to be sold; to-morrow, going in ragged clothes to arrest a murderer in some cutthroat den in the Glacière. M. Bernardet had taken possession of the office of the most powerful bankers, seized their books and made them go away with him in a cab. He had followed, by order, the intrigues of more than one fine lady, who owed to him her salvation. What if M. Bernardet had thought fit to speak? But he never spoke, and reporters came out worsted from any attempt at an interview with him. "An interview is silver, but silence is gold," he was wont to say, for he was not a fool. He had assisted at spiritual séances and attended secret meetings of Anarchists. He had occupied himself with occult matters, consulting the magicians of chance, and he had at his tongue's end the list of conspirators. He knew the true names of the famous Greeks who shuffled cards as one scouts about under an assumed name. The gambling hells were all familiar to him; he knew the churches in whose dark corners associates assembled to talk of affairs, who did not wish to be seen in beer shops nor spied upon in cabarets. Of the millions in Paris, he knew the secrets of this whirlpool of humanity. Oh! if he had ever become prefect of police, he would have studied his Paris, not at a distance, looking up statistics in books, or from the windows of a police bureau, but in the streets, in wretched lodgings, in hovels, in the asylums of misery and of crime. But Bernardet was not ambitious. Life suited him very well as he found it. His good wife had brought to him a small dower, and Bernardet, content with this poor little fortune, found that he had all the power he wanted—the power, when occasion demanded, of putting his hand on the shoulder of a former Minister and of taking a murderer by the throat. One day a financier, threatened with imprisonment in Mazas, pleased him very much. Bernardet entered his office to arrest him. He did not wish to have a row in the bank. The police officer and banker found themselves alone, face to face, in a very small room, a private office, with heavy curtains and a thick carpet, which stifled all noise. "Fifty thousand francs if you will let me escape," said the banker. "Monsieur le Comte jests"—— "A hundred thousand!" "The pleasantry is very great, but it is a pleasantry." Then the Count, very pale, said: "And what if I crack your head?" "My brother officers are waiting for me," Bernardet simply replied. "They know that our interview does not promise to be a long one, and this last proposition, which I wish to forget like the others, would only aggravate, I believe, if it [Pg 10] [Pg 11] [Pg 12] [Pg 13] became known, M. le Comte's case." Two minutes afterward the banker went out, preceding Bernardet, who followed him with bared head. The banker said to his employés, in an easy tone: "Good-by for the moment, Messieurs, I will return soon." It was also Bernardet who, visiting the Bank Hauts-Plateaux, said to his chief: "Monsieur Morel, something very serious is taking place there." "What is it, Bernardet?" "I do not know, but there is a meeting of the bank directors, and to-day, I saw two servants carry a man in there in an invalid's chair. It was the Baron de Cheylard." "Well?" "Baron Cheylard, in his quality of ex-Senator of the Second Empire, of ex-President of the Council, an ex- Commissioner of Industrial Expositions, is Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. Grand Cross—that is to say, that he cannot be pursued only after a decision of the Council of the Order. And then, you understand—if the Bank of Hauts- Plateaux demands the presence of its Vice-president, the Baron of Cheylard, paralyzed, half dead"—— "It means that it has need of a thunderbolt?" "The Grand Cross, Monsieur. They would hesitate to deliver up to us the Grand Cross." "You are right, Bernardet. The bank must be in a bad fix. And you are a very keen observer. The mind of a literary man, Bernardet." "Oh, rather a photographic eye, Monsieur Morel. The habit of using a kodak." Thus Bernardet passed his life in Paris. Capable of amassing a fortune in some Tricoche Agency if he had wished to exploit, for his own benefit, his keen observing powers, he thought only of doing his duty, bringing up his little girls and loving his wife. Mme. Bernardet was amazed at the astonishing stories which her husband often related to her, and very proud that he was such an able man. M. Bernardet hurried toward M. Rovère's lodgings and Moniche trotted along beside him. As they neared the house they saw that a crowd had begun to collect. "It is known already," Moniche said. "Since I left they have begun"—— "If I enter there," interrupted the officer, "it is all right. You have a right to call any one you choose to your aid. But I am not a Magistrate. You must go for a Commissary of Police." "Oh, M. Bernardet," Moniche exclaimed. "You are worth more than all the Commissaries put together." "That does not make it so. A Commissary is a Commissary. Go and hunt for one." "But since you are here"—— "But I am nothing. We must have a magistrate." "You are not a magistrate, then?" "I am simply a police spy." Then he crossed the street. The neighbors had gathered about the door like a swarm of flies around a honey-comb. A rumor had spread about which brought together a crowd animated by the morbid curiosity which is aroused in some minds of the hint of a mystery, and attracted by that strange magnetism which that sinister thing, "a crime," arouses. The women talked in shrill tones, inventing strange stories and incredible theories. Some of the common people hurried up to learn the news. At the moment Bernardet came up, followed by the concierge, a coupé stopped at the door and a tall man got out, asking: "Where is M. Morel? I wish to see M. Morel." The Chief had not yet been advised, and he was not there. But the tall young man suddenly recognized Bernardet, and laid hold of him, pulling him after him through the half-open door, which Moniche hastened to shut against the crowd. "We must call some officers," Bernardet said to the concierge, "or the crowd will push in." Mme. Moniche was standing at the foot of the staircase, surrounded by the lodgers, men and women, to whom she was recounting, for the twentieth time, the story of how she had found M. Rovère with his throat cut. "I was going in to read the paper—the story—it is very interesting, that story. The moment had come when the [Pg 14] [Pg 15] [Pg 16] [Pg 17] Baron had insulted the American colonel. M. Rovère said to me only yesterday, poor man: 'I am anxious to find out which one will be killed—the colonel or the baron.' He will never know! And it is he"—— "Mme. Moniche," interrupted Bernardet, "have you any one whom you can send for a Commissary?" "Any one?" "Yes," added Moniche. "M. Bernardet needs a magistrate. It is not difficult to understand." "A Commissary?" repeated Mme. Moniche. "That is so. A Commissary; and what if I go for the Commissary myself, M. Bernardet?" "All right, provided you do not let the crowd take the house by assault when you open the door." "Fear nothing," the woman said, happy in having something important to do, in relating the horrible news to the Commissary how, when she was about to enter the room for the purpose of reading, the—— While she was going toward the door Bernardet slowly mounted the two flights of stairs, followed by Moniche and the tall young man who had arrived in his coupé at a gallop, in order to get the first news of the murder and make a "scoop" for his paper. The news had traveled fast, and his paper had sent him in haste to get all the details of the affair which could be obtained. The three men reached M. Rovère's door. Moniche unlocked it and stepped back, Bernardet, with the reporter at his heels, note book in hand, entered the room. CHAPTER III. Nothing in the ante-chamber indicated that a tragedy had taken place there. There were pictures on the walls, pieces of faïence, some arms of rare kinds, Japanese swords and a Malay creese. Bernardet glanced at them as he passed by. "He is in the salon," said the concierge, in a low tone. One of the folding doors stood open, and, stopping on the threshold, in order to take in the entire aspect of the place, Bernardet saw in the centre of the room, lying on the floor in a pool of blood, the body of M. Rovère, clothed in a long, blue dressing gown, bound at the waist with a heavy cord, which lay in coils on the floor, like a serpent. The corpse was extended between the two windows, which opened on the Boulevard de Clichy, and Bernardet's first thought was that it was a miracle that the victim could have met his death in such a horrible manner, two steps from the passers-by on the street. "Whoever struck the blow did it quickly," thought the police officer. He advanced softly toward the body, casting his eye upon the inert mass and taking in at a glance the smallest objects near it and the most minute details. He bent over and studied it thoroughly. M. Rovère seemed living in his tragic pose. The pale face, with its pointed and well-trimmed gray beard, expressed in its fierce immobility a sort of menacing anger. This man of about fifty years had evidently died cursing some one in his supreme agony. The frightful wound seemed like a large red cravat, which harmonized strangely with the half-whitened beard, the end of which was wet with blood. But what struck Bernardet above everything else, arrested his attention, and glued him to the spot, was the look, the extraordinary expression in the eyes. The mouth was open, as if to cry out, the eyes seemed to menace some one, and the lips about to speak. They were frightful. Those tragic eyes were wide open, as if transfixed by fear or fury. They seemed fathomless, staring, ready to start from their sockets. The eyebrows above them were black and bristling. They seemed living eyes in that dead face. They told of a final struggle, of some atrocious duel of looks and of words. They appeared, in their ferocious immobility, as when they gazed upon the murderer, eye to eye, face to face. Bernardet looked at the hands. They were contracted and seemed, in some obstinate resistance, to have clung to the neck or the clothing of the assassin. "There ought to be blood under the nails, since he made a struggle," said Bernardet, thinking aloud. And Paul Rodier, the reporter, hurriedly wrote, "There was blood under the nails." Bernardet returned again and again to the eyes—those wide-open eyes, frightful, terrible eyes, which, in their fierce depths, retained without doubt the image or phantom of some nightmare of death. [Pg 18] [Pg 19] [Pg 20] [Pg 21] He touched the dead man's hand. The flesh had become cold and rigor mortis was beginning to set in. The reporter saw the little man take from his pocket a sort of rusty silver ribbon and unroll it, and heard him ask Moniche to take hold of one end of it; this ribbon or thread looked to Paul Rodier like brass wire. Bernardet prepared his kodak. "Above everything else," murmured Bernardet, "let us preserve the expression of those eyes." "Close the shutters. The darkness will be more complete." The reporter assisted Moniche in order to hasten the work. The shutters closed, the room was quite dark, and Bernardet began his task. Counting off a few steps, he selected the best place from which to take the picture. "Be kind enough to light the end of the magnesium wire," he said to the concierge. "Have you any matches?" "No, M. Bernardet." The police office indicated by a sign of the head, a match safe which he had noticed on entering the room. "There are some there." Bernardet had with one sweeping glance of the eye taken in everything in the room; the fauteuils, scarcely moved from their places; the pictures hanging on the walls; the mirrors; the bookcases; the cabinets, etc. Moniche went to the mantelpiece and took a match from the box. It was M. Rovère himself who furnished the light by which a picture of his own body was taken. "We could obtain no picture in this room without the magnesium wire," said the agent, as calm while taking a photograph of the murdered man, as he had been a short time ago in his garden. "The light is insufficient. When I say: 'Go!' Moniche you must light the wire, and I will take three or four negatives. Do you understand? Stand there to my left. Now! Attention!" Bernardet took his position and the porter stood ready, match and wire in hand, like a gunner who awaits the order to fire. "Go!" said the agent. A rapid, clear flame shot up; and suddenly lighted the room. The pale face seemed livid, the various objects in the room took on a fantastic appearance, in this sort of tempestuous apotheosis, and Paul Rodier hastily inscribed on his writing pad: "Picturesque—bizarre—marvelous—devilish—suggestive." "Let us try it again," said M. Bernardet. For the third time in this weird light the visage of the dead man appeared, whiter, more sinister, frightful; the wound deeper, the gash redder; and the eyes, those wide-open, fixed, tragic, menacing, speaking eyes—eyes filled with scorn, with hate, with terror, with the ferocious resistance of a last struggle for life; immovable, eloquent—seemed under the fantastic light to glitter, to be alive, to menace some one. "That is all," said Bernardet, very softly. "If with these three negatives"—— He stopped to look around toward the door, which was closed. Someone was raining ringing blows on the door, loud and imperative. "It is the Commissary; open the door, Moniche." The reporter was busy taking notes, describing the salon, sketching it, drawing a plan for his journal. It was, in fact, the Commissary, who was followed by Mme. Moniche and a number of curious persons who had forced their way in when the front door was opened. The Commissary, before entering, took a comprehensive survey of the room, and said in a short tone: "Every one must go out. Madame, make all these people go out. No one must enter." There arose an uproar—each one tried to explain his right to be there. They were all possessed with an irresistible desire to assist at this sinister investigation. "But we belong to the press!" "The reporters may enter when they have showed their cards," the Commissary replied. "The others—no!" There was a murmur from the crowd. "The others—no!" repeated the Commissary. He made a sign to two officers who accompanied him, and they demanded the reporters' cards of identification. The concourse of curious ones rebelled, protested, growled and declaimed against the representatives of the press, who took precedence everywhere. "The Fourth Power!" shouted an old man from the foot of the staircase. He lived in the house and passed for a [Pg 22] [Pg 23] [Pg 24] correspondent of the Institute. He shouted furiously: "When a crime is committed under my very roof, I am not even allowed to write an account of it, and strangers, because they are reporters, can have the exclusive privilege of writing it up!" The Commissary did not listen to him, but those who were his fellow-sufferers applauded him to the echo. The Commissary shrugged his shoulders at the hand-clappings. "It is but right," he said to the reporter, "that the agents of the press should be admitted in preference to any one else. Do you think that it is easy to discover a criminal? I have been a journalist, too. Yes, at times. In the Quartier, occasionally. I have even written a piece for the theatre. But we will not talk of that. Enter! Enter, I beg of you—and we shall see"—and elegant, amiable, polished, smiling, he looked toward M. Bernardet, and his eyes asked the question: "Where is it?" "Here! M. le Commissaire." Bernardet stood respectfully in front of his superior officer, as a soldier carrying arms, and the Commissary, in his turn, approached the body, while the curious ones, quietly kept back by Moniche, formed a half circle around the pale and bloody corpse. The Commissary, like Bernardet, was struck by the haughty expression of that livid face. "Poor man!" he said, shaking his head. "He is superb! superb! He reminds me of the dead Duke de Guise, in Paul Delaroche's picture. I have seen it also at Chantilly, in Gérôme's celebrated picture of Le Duel de Pierrot." Possibly in speaking aloud his thoughts, the Commissary was talking so that the reporters might hear him. They stood, notebooks in hand, taking notes, and Paul Rodier, catching the names, wrote rapidly in his book: "M. Desbrière, the learned Commissary, so artistic, so well disposed toward the press, was at one time a journalist. He noticed that the victim's pale face, with its strong personal characteristics, resembled the dead Duke de Guise, in Gérôme's celebrated picture, which hangs in the galleries at Chantilly." CHAPTER IV. M. Desbrière now began the investigation. He questioned the porter and portress, while he studied the salon in detail. Bernardet roamed about, examining at very close range each and every object in the room, as a dog sniffs and scents about for a trail. "What kind of a man was your lodger?" was the first question. Moniche replied in a tone which showed that he felt that his tenant had been accused of something. "Oh! Monsieur le Commissaire, a very worthy man, I swear it!" "The best man in the world," added his wife, wiping her eyes. "I am not inquiring about his moral qualities," M. Desbrière said. "What I want to know is, how did he live and whom did he receive?" "Few people. Very few," the porter answered. "The poor man liked solitude. He lived here eight years. He received a few friends, but, I repeat, a very small number." M. Rovère had rented the apartment in 1888, he installed himself in his rooms, with his pictures and books. The porter was much astonished at the number of pictures and volumes which the new lodger brought. It took a long time to settle, as M. Rovère was very fastidious and personally superintended the hanging of his canvases and the placing of his books. He thought that he must have been an artist, although he said that he was a retired merchant. He had heard him say one day that he had been Consul to some foreign country—Spain or South America. He lived quite simply, although they thought that he must be rich. Was he a miser? Not at all. Very generous, on the contrary. But, plainly, he shunned the world. He had chosen their apartment because it was in a retired spot, far from the Parisian boulevards. Four or five years before a woman, clothed in black, had come there. A woman who seemed still young—he had not seen her face, which was covered with a heavy black veil—she had visited M. Rovère quite often. He always accompanied her respectfully to the door when she went away. Once or twice he had gone out with her in a carriage. No, he did not know her name. M. Rovère's life was regulated with military precision. He usually held himself upright—of late sickness had bowed him somewhat; he went out whenever he was able, going as far as the Bois and back. Then, after breakfasting, he shut himself up in his library and read and wrote. He passed nearly all of his evenings at home. "He never made us wait up for him, as he never went to the theatre," said Moniche. The malady from which he suffered, and which puzzled the physicians, had seized him on his return from a Summer sojourn at Aix-les-Bains for his health. The neighbors had at once noticed the effect produced by the cure. When he went away he had been somewhat troubled with rheumatism, but when he returned he was a confirmed sufferer. Since [Pg 25] [Pg 26] [Pg 27] [Pg 28] [Pg 29] the beginning of September he had not been out, receiving no visits, except from his doctor, and spending whole days in his easy chair or upon his lounge, while Mme. Moniche read the daily papers to him. "When I say that he saw no one," said the porter, "I make a mistake. There was that gentleman"—— And he looked at his wife. "What gentleman?" Mme. Moniche shook her head, as if he ought not to answer. "Of whom do you speak?" repeated the Commissary, looking at both of them. At this moment, Bernardet, standing on the threshold of the library adjoining the salon, looked searchingly about the room in which M. Rovère ordinarily spent his time, and which he had probably left to meet his fate. His ear was as quick to hear as his eye to see, and as he heard the question he softly approached and listened for the answer. "What gentleman? and what did he do?" asked the Commissary, a little brusquely, for he noticed a hesitation to reply in both Moniche and his wife. "Well, and what does this mean?" "Oh, well, Monsieur le Commissaire, it is this—perhaps it means nothing," and the concierge went on to tell how, one evening, a very fine gentleman, and very polished, moreover, had come to the house and asked to see M. Rovère; he had gone to his apartment, and had remained a long time. It was, he thought, about the middle of October, and Mme. Moniche, who had gone upstairs to light the gas, met the man as he was coming out of M. Rovère's rooms, and had noticed at the first glance the troubled air of the individual. (Moniche already called the gentleman the 'individual,') who was very pale and whose eyes were red. Then, at some time or other, the individual had made another visit to M. Rovère. More than once the portress had tried to learn his name. Up to this moment she had not succeeded. One day she asked M. Rovère who it was, and he very shortly asked her what business it was of hers. She did not insist, but she watched the individual with a vague doubt. "Instinct. Monsieur; my instinct told me"—— "Enough," interrupted M. Desbrière; "if we had only instinct to guide us we should make some famous blunders." "Oh, it was not only by instinct, Monsieur." "Ah! ah! let us hear it"—— Bernardet, with his eyes fastened upon Mme. Moniche, did not lose a syllable of her story, which her husband occasionally interrupted to correct her or to complete a statement, or to add some detail. The corpse, with mouth open and fiery, ferocious eyes, seemed also to listen. Mme. Moniche, as we already know, entered M. Rovère's apartment whenever she wished. She was his landlady, his reader, his friend. Rovère was brusque, but he was good. So it was nothing strange when the woman, urged by curiosity, suddenly appeared in his rooms, for him to say: "Ah, you here? Is that you? I did not call you." An electric bell connected the rooms with the concierge lodge. Usually she would reply: "I thought I heard the bell." And she would profit by the occasion to fix up the fire, which M. Rovère, busy with his reading or writing, had forgotten to attend to. She was much attached to him. She did not wish to have him suffer from the cold, and recently had entered as often as possible, under one pretext or another, knowing that he was ill, and desiring to be at hand in case of need. When, one evening, about eight days before, she had entered the room while the visitor, whom Moniche called the individual, was there, the portress had been astonished to see the two men standing before Rovère's iron safe, the door wide open and both looking at some papers spread out on the desk. Rovère, with his sallow, thin face, was holding some papers in his hand, and the other was bent over, looking with eager eyes at—Mme. Moniche had seen them well—some rent rolls, bills and deeds. Perceiving Mme. Moniche, who stood hesitating on the threshold, M. Rovère frowned, mechanically made a move as if to gather up the scattered papers. But the portress said, "Pardon!" and quickly withdrew. Only—ah! only—she had time to see, to see plainly the iron safe, the heavy doors standing open, the keys hanging from the lock, and M. Rovère in his dressing gown; the official papers, yellow and blue, others bearing seals and a ribbon, lying there before him. He seemed in a bad humor, but said nothing. Not a word. "And the other one?" The other man was as pale as M. Rovère. He resembled him, moreover. It was, perhaps, a relative. Mme. Moniche had noticed the expression with which he contemplated those papers and the fierce glance which he cast at her when she pushed open the door without knowing what sight awaited her. She had gone downstairs, but she did not at once tell her husband about what she had seen. It was some time afterward. The individual had come again. He remained closeted with M. Rovère for some hours. The sick man was lying on the lounge. The portress had heard them through the door talking in low tones. She did not know what they said. She could hear only a murmur. And she had very good [Pg 30] [Pg 31] [Pg 32] [Pg 33] ears, too. But she heard only confused sounds, not one plain word. When, however, the visitor was going away she heard Rovère say to him: "I ought to have told all earlier." Did the dead man possess a secret which weighed heavily upon him, and which he shared with that other? And the other? Who was he? Perhaps an accomplice. Everything she had said belonged to the Commissary of Police and to the press. She had told her story with omissions, with timorous looks, with sighs of doubts and useless gestures. Bernardet listened, noting each word, the purposes of this portress, the melodramatic gossip in certain information in which he verified the precision—all this was engraven on his brain, as earlier in the day the expression of the dead man's eyes had been reflected in the kodak. He tried to distinguish, as best he could, the undeniable facts in this first deposition, when a woman of the people, garrulous, indiscreet, gossiping and zealous, has the joy of playing a rôle. He mentally examined her story, with the interruptions which her husband made when she accused the individual. He stopped her with a look, placing his hand on her arm and said: "One must wait! One does not know. He had the appearance of a worthy man." The woman, pointing out with a grand gesture, the body lying upon the floor, said: "Oh, well! And did not M. Rovère have the appearance of a worthy man also? And did it hinder him from coming to that?" Over Bernardet's face a mocking little smile passed. "He always had the appearance of a worthy man," he said, looking at the dead man, "and he even seemed like a worthy man who looked at rascals with courage. I am certain," slowly added the officer, "that if one could know the last thought in that brain which thinks no more, could see in those unseeing eyes the last image upon which they looked, one would learn all that need be known about that individual of whom you speak and the manner of his death." "Possibly he killed himself," said the Commissary. But the hypothesis of suicide was not possible, as Bernardet remarked to him, much to the great contempt of the reporters who were covering their notebooks with a running handwriting and with hieroglyphics. The wound was too deep to have been made by the man's own hand. And, besides, they would find the weapon with which that horrible gash had been made, near at hand. There was no weapon of any kind near the body. The murderer had either carried it away with him in his flight or he had thrown it away in some other part of the apartment. They would soon know. They need not even wait for an autopsy to determine that it was an assassination. "That is evident," interrupted the Commissary; "the autopsy will be made, however." And, with an insistence which surprised the Commissary a little, Bernardet, in courteous tones, evidently haunted by one particular idea, begged and almost supplicated M. Desbrière to send for the Attorney for the Republic, so that the corpse could be taken as soon as possible to the Morgue. "Poor man!" exclaimed Mme. Moniche. "To the Morgue! To the Morgue!" Bernardet calmed her with a word. "It is necessary. It is the law. Oh, Monsieur le Commissaire, let us do it quickly, quickly. I will tell you why. Time will be gained—I mean to say, saved—and the criminal found." Then, while M. Desbrière sent an officer to the telephone office to ask for the Attorney for the Republic to come as quickly as possible to the Boulevard de Clichy, Mme. Moniche freed her mind to the reporters in regard to some philosophical considerations upon human destiny, which condemned in so unforeseen, so odiously brutal a manner, a good lodger, as respectable as M. Rovère, to be laid upon a slab at the Morgue, like a thief or a vagabond—he who went out but seldom, and who "loved his home so much." "The everlasting antithesis of life!" replied Paul Rodier, who made a note of his reflection. CHAPTER V. Some time passed before the arrival of the Attorney, and through the closed Venetian blinds the murmurs of the crowd collected below could be heard. The Commissary wrote his report on the corner of a table, by the light of a single candle, and now and then asked for some detail of Bernardet, who seemed very impatient. A heavy silence had fallen on the room; those who a short time before had exchanged observations in loud tones, since the Commissary had finished with Mme. Moniche had dropped their voices and spoke in hushed tones, as if they were in a sick room. Suddenly a bell rang, sending shrill notes through the silent room. Bernardet remarked that no doubt, the Attorney had arrived. He looked at his watch, a simple, silver Geneva watch, but which he prized highly—a present from his wife— and murmured: "There is yet time." It was, in fact, the Attorney for the Republic, who came in, accompanied by the Examining Magistrate, M. Ginory, whom criminals called "the vise," because he pressed them so hard when he got hold of them. M. Ginory was in the Attorney's office when the officer had telephoned to M. Jacquelin des Audrays, and the latter had asked him to accompany him to the scene of the murder. Bernardet knew them both well. He had more than once been associated with M. Audrays. He also knew M. Ginory as a very just, a very good man, although he was much feared, [Pg 34] [Pg 35] [Pg 36] [Pg 37] [Pg 38] for, while searching for the truth of a matter he reserved judgment of those whom he had fastened in his vise. M. Audrays was still a young man, slender and correct, tightly buttoned up in his redingote, smooth-shaven, wearing eyeglasses. The red ribbon in his buttonhole seemed a little too large, like a rosette worn there through coquetry. M. Ginory, on the contrary, wore clothes too large for him; his necktie was tied as if it was a black cord; his hat was half brushed; he was short, stout and sanguine, with his little snub nose and his mouth, with its heavy jaws. He seemed, beside the worldly magistrate, like a sort of professor, or savant, or collector, who, with a leather bag stuffed with books, seemed more fitted to pore over some brochures or precious old volumes than to spend his time over musty law documents. Robust and active, with his fifty-five years, he entered that house of crime as an expert topographist makes a map, and who scarcely needs a guide, even in an unknown country. He went straight to the body, which, as we have said, lay between the two front windows, and both he and M. Audrays stood a moment looking at it, taking in, as had the others, all the details which might serve to guide them in their researches. The Attorney for the Republic asked the Commissary if he had made his report, and the latter handed it to him. He read it with satisfied nods of his head; during this time Bernardet had approached M. Ginory, saluted him and asked for a private interview with a glance of his eye; the Examining Magistrate understood what he meant. "Ah! Is it you, Bernardet? You wish to speak to me?" "Yes, Monsieur Ginory. I beg of you to get the body to the dissecting room for the autopsy as soon as possible." He had quietly and almost imperceptibly drawn the Magistrate away toward a window, away from the reporters, who wished to hear every word that was uttered, where he had him quite by himself, in a corner of the room near the library door. "There is an experiment which must be tried, Monsieur, and it ought to tempt a man like you," he said. Bernardet knew very well that, painstaking even to a fault, taken with any new scientific discoveries, with a receptive mind, eager to study and to learn, M. Ginory would not refuse him any help which would aid justice. Had not the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences crowned, the year before, M. Ginory's book on "The Duties of a Magistrate to the Discoveries of Science?" The word "experiment" was not said in order to frighten M. Ginory. "What do you mean by that, Bernardet?" the Magistrate asked. Bernardet shook his head as if to intimate that the explanation was too long to give him there. They were not alone. Some one might hear them. And if a journal should publish the strange proposition which he wished to—— "Ah! Ah!" exclaimed the Examining Magistrate, "then it is something strange, your experiment?" "Any Magistrate but you would think it wild, unreasonable, or ridiculous, which is worse. But you—oh! I do not say it to flatter you, Monsieur," quickly added the police officer, seeing that the praise troubled this man, who always shrank from it. "I speak thus because it is the very truth, and any one else would treat me as crack-brained. But you—no!" M. Ginory looked curiously at the little man, whose attitude was humble and even supplicating, and seemed to seek a favorable response, and whose eyes sparkled and indicated that his idea was no common one. "What is that room there?" asked M. Ginory, pointing to the half-open library door. "It is the study of M. Rovère—the victim"— — "Let us go in there," said M. Ginory. In this room no one could hear them; they could speak freely. On entering, the Examining Magistrate mechanically cast his eye over the books, stopping at such and such a title of a rare work, and, seating himself in a low, easy chair, covered with Caramanie, he made a sign to the police officer to speak. Bernardet stood, hat in hand, in front of him. "M. le Juge," Bernardet began, "I beg your pardon for asking you to grant me an interview. But, allowing for the difference in our positions, which is very great, I am, like you, a scholar; very curious. I shall never belong to the Institute, and you will"—— "Go on, Bernardet." "And you will belong to it, M. Ginory, but I strive also, in my lower sphere, to keep myself au courant with all that is said and with all that is written. I was in the service of the Academy when your beautiful work was crowned, and when the perpetual secretary spoke of those Magistrates who knew how to unite the love of letters with a study of justice; I thought that lower down, much lower down on the ladder, M. le Juge, he might have also searched for and found some men who studied to learn and to do their best in doing their duty." "Ah! I know you, Bernardet. Your chief has often spoken of you." "I know that M. Leriche is very good to me. But it is not for me to boast of that. I wish only to inspire confidence in you, because what I wish to say to you is so strange—so very strange"—— [Pg 39] [Pg 40] [Pg 41] [Pg 42] Bernardet suddenly stopped. "I know," he began, "that if I were to say to a physician what I am about to say to you he would think I ought to be shut up in Sainte-Anne. And yet I am not crazy, I beg of you to believe. No! but I have searched and searched. It seems to me that there is a mass of inventions, of discoveries, which we police officers ought to make use of. And, although I am a sub-Inspector"—— "Go on! Go on!" said the Magistrate, quickly, with a movement of the head toward the open door of the salon, where the Attorney for the Republic was conducting the investigation, and his nod seemed to say: "They are at work in there—let us make haste." "I will be as brief as possible," said Bernardet, who understood what he meant. "Monsieur," (and his tone became rapid, precise, running up and down like a ball), "thirty years, or, rather, to be exact, twenty-six years ago, some American journals, not political, but scientific, published the fact that the daguerrotype—we have made long strides since then in photography—had permitted them to find in the retina of a murdered man's eye the image of the one who struck him." "Yes, I know," said M. Ginory. "In 1860, I was too young, and I had no desire to prove the truth of this discovery. I adore photography as I adore my profession. I pass my leisure hours in taking instantaneous pictures, in developing them, printing, and finishing them. The idea of what I am about to propose to you came to me by chance. I bought upon one of the quays a volume of the Societé de Medicine Legale of 1869, in which Dr. Vernois gives an account of a communication sent to the society by a physician, who also sent photographic proofs, thus indorsed: 'Photographs taken of the retina of a woman assassinated the 14th of June, 1868.'" "Yes," again said M. Ginory. "It was a communication from Dr. Bourion, of Darnez." "Precisely." "And the proof sent by the Doctor showed the instant when, after striking the mother, the assassin killed the child, while the dog sprang toward the little carriage in which the little one lay." "Yes, Monsieur Ginory." "Oh, well, but my poor Bernardet, Dr. Vernois, since you have read his report"—— "By chance, Monsieur, I found it on a book stall and it has kept running in my head ever since, over and over and over again." "Dr. Vernois, my poor fellow, made many experiments. At first the proof sent was so confused, so hazy, that no one who had not seen what Bourion had written could have told what it was. If Vernois, who was a very scientific man, could find nothing—nothing, I repeat—which justified Dr. Bourion's declarations, what do you expect that any one else could make of those researches? Do not talk any more or even think any more about it." "I beg your pardon, Monsieur Ginory; one can and ought to think about it. In any case, I am thinking about it." A smile of doubt crossed M. Ginory's lips. Bernardet quickly added: "Photography of the invisible has been proven. Are not the Roentgen Rays, the famous X Rays, as incredible as that photography can find the image of a murderer on the retina of a dea...