It is easy to sum-up Christine’s state of mind when she arrived at the front door of the house. The sinister aspect of the landscape she had just crossed; the vision of the cadaver that the bubbling waters had dropped at her feet like a diabolical offering from this deathly place; the flames escaping from the roof; the boy who fled, screaming in terror: all of these things contributed to propel her to where she now lay, panting, on the doorstep. Her only hope now lay in Benedict Masson! Her fists barely had the strength to knock, but a shrill cry escaped from her lips:
“Benedict! Benedict!”
In answer, from behind the door, there came another terrible cry.
A cry? Better to call it a howl which was, at the same time, a monstrous blasphemy and a terrifying uproar which, proceeding in delirious curses, struck Christine through the heart. And the door did not open.
Christine was expiring, as she leaned against the door, in an agony of horror caused by this cry that was more awful than anything she had ever heard before she had set foot on this cursed earth. Her mouth was still moaning “Benedict, Benedict!” But now it sounded like she was begging for mercy from an executioner...
At last, the door swung open... there before her was an infernal vision of a monster – feeding a young girl into the fires of his private Hell.
Then the door closed again; while, up on the roof, the plume of flames rose with a renewed fury, whirling, devouring... spreading its funeral cinders and slag over the wilting willow trees... shrouding them in the stench of death...
At the same time, little Philippe had reached the village and raised the alarm. Philippe was the saddler’s son, but he did not run directly to his father’s shop.
Instinctively, he sprinted to the inn where, at this time of the apéritif, he knew he would meet all of the men who constituted the defensive force of this part of the country: the village warden, the town drummer, the policeman, and two or three lads who plied their trade as poachers in the marshes, like a family of thieves, who always kept their powder dry, and who had long accepted the domineering protection of old Violette, that good master of the fields, whom the landowner had left alone to take care of his own business, as long as he did not attempt to bargain away the tributes or taxes he was owed. They were united in their hatred of this intruder, this savage, that they nicknamed the ‘Redskin,’ who seemed to have come here only to taunt them, to interfere with their business, and to despise them because he cared neither for the fishing nor the hunting for which they all lived.
So when the young lad had finished telling them, in sentences broken by terror, that the body of old Violette was floating under the bridge near the pond, they stood up and cried, in unanimity:
“It’s the Redskin!”
Moreover, as far as they were concerned, this was not his first crime! For a long time, he had been regarded as a murderer in the countryside. From the Green Tree Inn to Corbillères no-one would have been able to ignore the animosity that existed between the two men... nor the fact that, lately, old Violette had not been the only person to ask what had become of little Annie...
A matter of five minutes later, a party of twenty men from the village had assembled, all armed with rifles, sticks and pitchforks, to start out on a campaign against the Redskin.
The town drummer had gone to fetch his drum and they had all the trouble in the world in trying to prevent him from beating a march on it... It took no less a figure than the leader of the expedition, who took a stick in each of his hands, to decide that, in any case, an heroic charge by his small troop would fail at the moment they attacked.
Little Philippe trotted along at his side...
From one man to the next, word was passed to keep silent and, on account of the narrowness of the path, they moved in single file, up to the posts that held the bridge in place, to where old Violette was waiting for them, like a papier maché doll, pulped in death by humidity, chewed by the teeth of fish, with the black hole of his open mouth appearing to be screaming for revenge! A muffled exclamation ran all along the length of the Indian file. Two of the fellows went down into the lapping water, lit by the sinister bonfire that burned stronger than ever above the brigand’s lair. They dragged the corpse out onto the bank, saying:
“He’s been drinking more than he needs for the last twenty four hours, that’s for sure.”
They held a brief discussion. The inexplicable violence of the fire that came howling out of the damned house had made them afraid.
“Maybe he’s trying to burn himself... or maybe he’s just set fire to his shack before running for it!”
Finally, they decided to surround the house and to storm it after an agreed signal.
“I’ll give the signal!” puffed the drummer...
The door was forced without any resistance...
The first man through the door stopped, as if turned to stone.
Without noticing any of them, Benedict Masson, on his knees, was splashing water into the marble-white visage of Christine, who had fallen in a swoon... Close by, in a basket, a formless pile of human debris waited to be fed into the stove, from which there escaped a dreadful odour of burning fat, the last remains of Annie, which were being consumed, piece-by-piece, in a flame agitated by petrol.
Calmly, Benedict Masson was trying to revive one of the two ladies at the same time as he cremated the other!
XXI
“I Am Innocent!”
Benedict was all but beaten to death. It was only when he had stopped moving that the lads from Corbillères had ceased thrashing him with their sticks and pitchforks. That was when the saddler, the father of little Phillippe, proposed to cut him up into little pieces, as he had done with little Annie, and throw him into the oven.
Without the timely arrival of the police, this is most likely what would have happened: the fury of the villagers was extreme and, all things considered, quite defensible.
“Save him for the guillotine!” said a police sergeant, “let him breathe until then.”
Then they left Benedict in order to take care of Christine, who had not yet opened her eyes.
“There’s someone who’s had a lucky escape,” the town drummer affirmed.
Each of them was of the same opinion.
It was not until she was carried outside, into the cool, fresh air that Christine displayed any signs of life. The villagers fetched a cart, and the two of them were hoisted into it. When they reached Corbillères, Christine was put up in a room at the Inn. She was delirious with a high fever.
As for Benedict, they threw him down on a bed of straw in the stables; and the policemen kept him under guard, not so much concerned that he might escape as afraid that he might not survive the night. At about two o’clock in the morning, he let out a deep sigh, sat up on his haunches and wiped his hand across his forehead, that had been pummelled by the blows of the village lads and, by the light of the lantern that hung on the wall, seemed to be looking for someone. When finally he noticed the two policemen, who were sitting on their rucksacks by the door, he said, quite distinctly and with no apparent emotion:
“I am innocent!”
The representatives of the constabulary did not say anything to contradict him. Then he asked them for water.
“I feel like I could drink a whole tank!” he said.
One of the gendarmes brought him the pail that was used to water the horses. He drank until his great thirst was quenched, then he stripped to the waist and began to wash his wounds.
“These Corbillères lads certainly know how to throw a punch!” he declared.
Then he started laughing.
The policemen felt a chill run down their spines. They have said since then that they had never heard a laugh like it... it was all they could do to restrain themselves from shooting this monster down on the spot with their revolvers, just so they would not have to listen to it. It was a different matter altogether when he began to gloat...
“I hope they have taken care of my beautiful visitor,
” he said, “she’s a young girl from a nice family, and she’s not accustomed to life in the marshes... she’ll catch cold!... but the other one: she was too hot!”
They threw themselves upon him, and handcuffed him. They would have gagged him, if they could. He let them do it, he offered them no resistance, although he appeared to have recovered all his strength. He simply nodded his head, as if in approval.
“Take care! You never know! I understand that I don’t have your sympathy!”
They laid the body of old Violette in the barn, after the cart returned from a second trip. The sergeant had asked that the corpse be left on the path where it had been dragged, so that the police would be able to examine it; but his friends from Corbillères refused to allow him to be left for another night in the rain and brought him back, wrapped in a sheet of tarpaulin. From time to time they would leave the public bar in order to look at him and swear to avenge him.
The sub-prefecture had been notified, and the police authorities were awaited with a tremor of anticipation. Ah, what an affair this had turned out to be, everyone agreed! It was a case that would be discussed, for a long time, in all four corners of the world. A sacred trial! After all, no-one really knew how many had been murdered by this Redskin!
They only knew about seven victims, seven poor little women, who he had cut up into pieces and burned in the fire of his stove... but there were surely more!
By morning, they were so excitable that they had to be restrained from setting fire to the stables and burning the satyr alive.
Fortunately for him, the police authorities arrived. It was about time!
Threatened amid all this tumult, and the calls for his death, Benedict retained a formidable calmness that impressed his guards, who were asking themselves if they would be strong enough to save him from the lynch mob for a second time.
“Open the door for them!” he said, “and if they want to cut me up, you shouldn’t stop them!”
He gave them Christine’s address, so that her father could be informed.
“Poor girl, that must have hit her hard! Of course, she didn’t expect to see what she saw! But why did she come here? I have told her many times never to set foot in this part of the country!”
Everything he said seemed to be an admission of guilt, all his words led to a single conclusion: there could be no reasonable doubt about his guilt.
However, he often spoke these words, which returned like a leitmotiv: “Well, yes... but none of this prevents me from being innocent!” [17]
Was he mocking others? Was he mocking himself? The manner in which he said this was not dissimilar to that of someone telling a joke! Was he trying to pass for a madman?
At the first questions, or rather at his first set of responses, the examining magistrate declared:
“Here, we are faced with one of the cynical type.” Cynical, that’s what he was! He seemed to take a sadistic pleasure in the horror he inspired; and he did all he could to intensify it tenfold!
During the night, the constable and the town drummer had been left at the house, where they had watched over the fire, without touching it, until it had burned out. The magistrates found everything in its place: the remains of Annie in the basket, her little bones charred in the stove... They discovered further remains in the cellar... It was down there that he had done all the cutting-up. They found many other things there, trunks and suitcases – in fact, all of the baggage of the seven women who had disappeared!
“So, what does that prove?” he replied when they confronted him with this evidence, more eloquent than words... “that I am a man who likes order, and when they all return they will be happy to find their belongings exactly as they left them!”
“We will be able to find their ashes,” the judge bellowed, “and maybe when we do, we will be able to have done with this attitude that makes you one of the worst monsters that ever dishonoured the name of mankind!”
“I understand your indignation, Your Honour, and the fever it inspires in you! But, believe me, it is not certain that you will find all these young ladies in a pile of ashes. The fact that I have burned one is no reason to believe that I also burned the others”
“So, you’re confessing to this one?”
“I’m confessing to what? I confess to nothing at all! I have always been too much of a friend of the truth to please you by confessing to a crime I did not commit! Just because I cut a woman into pieces and burned her in the stove does not mean that I am the one who killed her!”
“Very well, then, prove to us that you did not kill her!”
“That, Your Honour, is none of my business! I am not a magistrate! I am not paid by the government to carry out investigations that are meant to establish the innocence or guilt of any of our citizens! I would not encroach on your prerogatives for anything in the world... do your job properly!”
Thus spoke Benedict Masson...
We will not go into any further detail about an investigation that has, indeed, held the attention of the entire world and is, at the moment, still present in everyone’s memories... The more the evidence and facts seemed to prove his guilt, the more Benedict seemed to revel in a ferocious joy. Never had his mask been more powerful nor, naturally, more odious.
In his defence regarding old Violette, he admitted all of the threatening remarks attributed to him; he even paid homage to old Mother Muche’s memory when she recounted, in great detail, the visit of the Redskin to the Green Tree, and his conversation with the late gamekeeper.
Mother Muche had foreseen the event that was about to take place all-too-clearly, and felt a justified pride in this: “If old Violette had listened to me, he would still be baiting his fishing lines and setting his traps.”
The postmortem examination of old Violette’s corpse established the fact that he had been caught with a lasso, strangled with a cord, then thrown into the pond with a stone tied around his ankles; but the stone that had been chosen must have been too heavy because it had broken the rope that attached it to the victim.
“Evidently,” offered Benedict Masson when he was presented with the results of the autopsy, “evidently, a redskin would know how to throw a lasso! I have told you before... I don’t know how to throw a lasso, even though I don’t seem to be able to convince you of this fact, Your Honour! All the same, I am still expecting that you’ll be able to deposit this damned lasso on the table next to the other exhibits; next to my little basket, that I use to transport remains, and my stove!”
They went to question Christine in her own home, on the advice of her doctors who had requested, for the moment, that they spare her from a painful confrontation with the accused.
Anyway, her attendance would have been unnecessary: the accused did not in any way contest the details of Mademoiselle Norbert’s testimony.
She offered a mea culpa. Her greatest mistake was to have shown pity to a being so singularly disgraced by nature who had once, on account of this same misfortune, seemed interesting to her. The misanthropy of the bookbinder by trade of the lsle de Saint-Louis, his primitive nature, his extravagant behaviour, the dark poetry of his lucubrations, his language that was sometimes enthusiastic to the point of a disordered lyricism, and sometimes as brutal as that of a stevedore: she laid the blame for all of this on the ugliness that had isolated Benedict Masson from the rest of humanity.
She had lowered herself to comfort him in his sorrow, but unwittingly had run into an executioner!
When the door of his house in Corbillères had opened, she had found herself face to face with a madman, covered in blood like a butcher in an abbatoir, who was busy stuffing the last remains of a mutilated human body into the flames of an oven. After that, she remembered nothing. She only asked how it could be that she had not died after beholding this execrable vision!
“Granted,” sighed Benedict Masson when they related the terms of this deposition to him, “the poor lass took it hard. She didn’t deserve to see that!”
“You w
retched liar,” the judge could not resist the retort, “you had already foreseen that she might surprise you, in the middle of your atrocities, when you forbade her to come and see you in Corbillères-les-Eaux!”
“No, Your Honour, I did not ‘foresee’ my ‘atrocities,’ to speak as you do – using words that, by the way, the nobility these days only ever use in classical tragedies! If I didn’t invite Mademoiselle Norbert to come for a little tour of Corbillères-les-Eaux, it’s only because the landscape around there is not at all pretty!”
XXII
Final News From The Marchioness
All this cynicism, truculence, and such obvious determination to intensify, in all present, the horror inspired by the series of crimes of which Benedict Masson only declared his innocence in words, and a tone, that seemed to undermine, in advance, any value one might place in the idea that he took his statements seriously, inspired thoughts in the mind of Jacques Cotentin. These were reflections that could only be nurtured in a mind as scientific as his: it was so open to logical argument, and so thoroughly conditioned by a rigorous method, that it could not be influenced by mere contingencies.
The Bloody Doll Page 18
