The next morning, there was a further descent of law officers upon the theater of César Christiani’s murder, in the presence of the Leboulard family, Napoléon and Henriette, dressed in mourning. The former corsair’s ward was interrogated scrupulously, but benevolently. The marble table-top served as a desk for the examining magistrate and his clerk. The roll-top desk, emptied of all its papers, was sealed. Policemen examined the room from top to bottom. They were rolling up the bloody carpet in order to take it away as an item of evidence when a man presented himself; he was still young, artistic in appearance, and carried painting equipment under his arm. There was not difficult in recognizing Eugène Lami, and it was understood that he was asking for authorization to make a sketch of the study as it was. He obtained permission and, while the actors in the judiciary scene continued their work by searching the room containing the monkeys, Eugène Lami installed himself in the corner between the two doors and set up a slender flexible easel—and his blue eyes took possession of the “interior” whose appearance he was about to record for posterity.
XV. Two Singular Auxiliaries
The studio in the Rue de Tournon had been subjected to a few modifications. A black curtain, sliding along a long rod, was able to mask the bay window and plunge the huge room into darkness. Against one wall, a blank screen stood in front of a cinematographic projector.
Positives had been made of the films taken during the great session. Several images of the murderer had been enlarged. Charles wasted no time in reproducing the rapid and violent event on the screen, nor in comparing the portraits of Fabius to the photographs of the man who had killed his thrice-great-grandfather.
That was disappointing. The resemblances were not sufficiently accentuated to convince anyone that Fabius was the murderer, but the dissimilarities were not sufficiently striking to prove the contrary. If the judges of 1835 had had the films in their possession, they would have been able to make a definite decision, having the ability to summon the flesh-and-blood Fabius Ortofieri into their presence, but today, the accused now being only represented by imperfect and diverse effigies, no conclusion could be reached either way. And the question arose of what the policeman Cartoux would have said, if one could have put him in the presence of such precise photographs of the murderer, even admitting that the murderer really was the man he had seen prowling on the boulevard—the man that he had, after all, only glimpsed. Confronted with the precision of the photographs, would Cartoux have persisted in maintaining that Fabius and that person were the same?
Only one person had formed a firm conviction: Luc de Certeuil. He persevered in his initial opinion. According to him—but was he sincere?—the evidence was incontestable. Fabius and the murderer were one and the same. He was persuaded, however, to be less affirmative. Charles consulted specialists in anthropometry. They refused to commit themselves, because of the considerable variations between the different portraits of Fabius. The report of these experts shook Luc’s faith—or, rather, confronted by so qualified an opinion, he dared not sustain with such stubbornness that one could not hesitate in recognizing Fabius Ortofieri in the sturdy, tall and swarthy individual with the July medal, who now killed the unfortunate César Christiani 20 times a day on the cinema screen, stepped over his inert body, ran to the window, remained bewildered for a few seconds on seeing the effect of the infernal machine, manipulated the telescope stupidly, and fled at top speed.
There was, in that terrible brief drama, one very particular moment that intrigued Charles and all those interested in the enigma of the detective film. That was—as you will already have guessed—the moment when the murderer, standing in front of his defenseless adversary, had addressed a few words to him in an abrupt, imperious manner.
What had he said? What insult, what challenge, what inflexible sentence had he pronounced?
Without any doubt, the words had emerged clearly from his mouth, forcefully articulated. The absence of a moustache permitted an admirable view of the movement of the lips—but alas, all that could be affirmed was that the man had spoken, and nothing more. Luminite had not been created to record sounds as it slowed down images. Mute had been the marvelous retrovision of July 28, mute remained the film of it that five cameras had preserved.
And yet, those words might be the key to the mystery! What a man says as he is about to commit murder cannot be banal. They were surely words heavy with meaning. If they did not explain everything, at least they would be of a nature to put a witness on the track of important discoveries.
Charles Christiani then had a rather good idea, which a professional detective might have envied him. He said nothing to anyone, but one afternoon, as he was chatting with Colomba and watching the plate of luminite—which no longer showed them anything but an overly tidy locked room with its shutters closed, deprived of its carpet, wearing the well-known mourning-dress of all dead men’s rooms—a domestic presented him with a visiting card.
“That’s good,” he said. “Show them in.”
“I’ll leave,” said Colomba.
“On the contrary, stay!”
“But who is it?”
“Someone I’ve asked to come and for whom I’ve been waiting.”
“You seem very satisfied. Is it a surprise?”
The domestic came back in, introducing a young boy, and then another, both dressed in the uniform of an institution. Behind them, a simple and correctly-dressed man came forward. He took the lead, and as he overtook his two companions his hands executed a series of movements that it was impossible to mistake—it was the language of deaf-mutes.
The visitor bowed to Colomba and Charles. “Here, Monsieur,” he said, “are the young people whose assistance you asked for. I just spoke to them in sign-language, but they can pronounce a few words, thanks to the education that we now provide in our institutions, and they are first-rate lip-readers.”
Colomba and Charles shook the hands of the two deaf-mute adolescents.
“If you would care to say something to them, Mademoiselle, you’ll see how easily they can understand you.”
Slightly anxious, Colomba smiled and said: “Good day, gentlemen, and be welcome.”
Instead of speaking in gestures, the professor set himself before his pupils, who never ceased looking, with a sort of sharp vigilance, at the lips of the persons present. “Repeat what Mademoiselle has just said. You first, Emmanuel, then you, Martial.” He expressed himself unhurriedly, without vocal force, in a low voice but emphasizing the movement of his mouth slightly, by virtue of professional habit.
Colomba had by no means done that; nevertheless, young Emmanuel, mute though he was,27 started speaking in his turn—in a painfully hoarse and metallic voice, it is true, reminiscent of the voice of an automaton. The spaced-out syllables buzzed inhumanly, without any intonation.
“Mademoiselle said: Good-day, gen-tle-men, and be wel-come.”
And Martial, in an identical voice, repeated the same sentence.
“That’s marvelous,” said Colomba.
This emission of purely mechanical sounds seemed to cost the two disabled individuals a certain effort and to tire them. They were more accustomed to using the silent language of hands and fingers with their master.
Charles had closed the curtain over the bay window. The exploration of the past was about to continue by a new means.
The screen brightened. The workings of the cinematographic projector were set in motion, clicking away like a little factory. César’s study appeared. The old corsair, leaning on the window-sill, looked at Colonel Rieussec, who, saluting with his sword, had just placed himself to the right of King Lois-Philippe.
In order to obtain the maximum clarity, Charles was showing the monochrome film obtained by the central camera, representing the scene stored by the luminite from head-on. The reel was perfect, the Sun not having struck the north-facing study window directly. When the murderer made his impressive entrance, he set himself in the light as completely as one might de
sire. As soon as he had spoken, at the very moment when he raised his weapon to fire, Charles stopped the projection and restored daylight to the studio.
The two mutes immediately agitated their hands.
“Well?” Charles asked the professor.
“They both agree,” the latter declared. “The man with the pistol pronounced the following sentence…”
The brother and sister were listening with an extraordinary excitement, gripped by a sort of bizarre fear, at the idea that they were about to attain, thanks to an admirably circumstantial assistance, the echo of words extinct for almost a century, and which, perhaps, might solve the most fascinating and teasing of mysteries.
The professor continued: “…‘You recognize me, don’t you. Captain?’”
“Is that all?” said Charles, disillusioned once more.
Colomba took on a sad expression. “No luck! That’s nothing…”
“We’re further forward than before,” Charles recognized. “Fabius Ortofieri might well have hurled those words at César in presenting himself before him. It could well have been a long time since they had met.”
“Can your pupils tell us anything about the accent in which that sentence was pronounced, Monsieur?” Colomba asked.
“That would be asking too much of them, Mademoiselle. “The grasp the form of words, but that’s all. They would have to be considerable deformed to reveal an accent.”
The boy called Martial made gestures. He had followed what the professor had just said with his eyes.
“Martial confirms that it is impossible for him to tell us more. He noticed nothing in particular. All that he can certify is that the elocution was precise and that there was no stammer blurring it. The man was speaking normally, without rolling his rs or lisping.”
Charles explained: “My sister asked that question because, if the murderer had had a southern accent, the fact would have given us a precious clue. Certain people presume that the crime was committed by a Corsican—do you see?”
The professor expressed his helplessness with a gesture.
They were reduced, purely and simply, to deploring the fact that the murderer had been so laconic, and also that César had had his back turned throughout the very brief interval when the two enemies had been face to face—for it was probably that César too had spoken. Not only did that seem probable, given the circumstances of the event, but the old man’s gestures—the movements of his head and his shoulders—clearly indicated that he had made some reply to that brusque interrogation: “You recognize me, don’t you, Captain?” Admittedly César’s last words might only have been an exclamation, and it was possible that they would not have thrown any light on the tenebrous matter of his death. A mirror reflecting the corsair’s face might only have revealed a cry or a phrase as useless as the murderer’s “you recognize me…”
They regretted, however, that no mirror had ornamented the mantelpiece, and searched the reels of film nevertheless, doggedly, in case some polished surface—the glass of a picture, the pane of an open window, or even the polished wood of an item of furniture, might have dimly reflected the face, and consequently the words, of the man who was about to die…
Nothing. They found nothing. Neither the eyes of Charles and Colomba, excited by their hearts’ desire, nor those of the deaf-mutes, reinforced by a law of nature, could discover the shadow of a reflection.
Thinking at César’s face must surely been reflected in the very pupils of his murderer, Charles employed a simple maneuver to enlarge the image of those wild eyes, which were staring into César’s. As soon as the magnification attained the amplitude that would have permitted the tiny face of the old man in the round mirror of the pupil, however, the projection became confused, cloudy and pale; the magnification was effaced of its own accord, and Charles immediately had to renounce a hope that had not been lacking in a certain audacious and singular beauty.
Battle-weary, they abandoned the film of the murder and the operator showed some other reels: those that had been taken previous to July 28, 1835, including, among others, the dramatic scenes that had take place between César, Henriette and the man with the cane, whose name was Tripe.
By this means they reconstituted the entire dialogue of these altercations, which then appeared to be slightly different to the idea of them that they had originally been able to form. It emerged that César had never let slip a single word that might have revealed his profound sentiments in relation to Henriette. He opposed Tripe’s assiduities, he said, because he was “a person of no account,” without a penny to his name, who could “only make up silly rhymes”—but his amorous affection was never expressed; he had reserved its sufferings for his solitude and had always remained, in the young woman’s eyes, a tyrannical guardian, violent but above reproach.
“I approve of that,” said Charles, looking at his sister. “César was a worthy fellow, and I like him.”
“And Tripe was a poet!” said Colomba. “Bertrand will be happy!”
“A nobility worth as much as many others!”
The deaf-mutes continued their work, not leaving unknown the least of the words visible in the films.
“And that’s it!” Charles exclaimed. “Result: zero. ‘You recognize me, don’t you, Captain?’ Who did César recognize? There are thousands of people who would have been in a position to say that. Thousands! Among them, certainly, Fabius Ortofieri, whose portraits, in sum, might be those of the criminal, strictly speaking.”
Colomba remained silent.
“I had higher hopes of today,” her brother went on. “‘You recognize me…’ What do we do with that?”
“Set it alongside the other acquisitions we’ve made, with all that we’ve learned since the discovery of the luminite. And then…wait.”
“Wait for what? What can the luminite tell us now? The hour of revelations is past, regarding this matter. Wait! I know who won’t wait. The relatives of Rita and Luc de Certeuil, you may be sure, have no reason to delay…that we know of. Come on, it’s finished!”
“You’ve said that before, Charles, and yet everything has begun again—don’t you know that nothing is ever finished?”
XVI. The Approach of a Disastrous Denouement
The marriage of Colomba Christiani and Bertrand Valois had been fixed for Thursday, December 12. The preparations for that august ceremony did not hinder the researches in progress regarding the enigma of the Boulevard du Temple. On the contrary, they were conducted in a particularly active fashion during that period. Charles had recovered his courage with a new and determined ardor, like all those who, having perceived despair, escape with a sudden start. He felt, in any case, the increasing necessity of multiplying his efforts, for the imminent departure of the newlyweds would deprive him of his most valuable collaborators, and every morning he feared, more cruelly than the one before, that he might hear about the official engagement of Rita and Luc. He knew full well that Rita, pressed from every direction, would not be able to defer the hour of his conclusive renunciation indefinitely.
Bertrand, enraged by prejudices that he considered as fossils and were, he said, 200 years behind the times, worked no less wholeheartedly on the solution of the criminal mystery. “Since there’s no other way of getting out of it,” he said to Charles, “let’s go! Let’s search! Let’s get to work! Word of honor, though, with your great principles and fine traditions, you break my heart!” He raised his mast-like nose and added: “Admittedly, a descendant of Monsieur Tripe has nothing to say on the matter. Silence, peasants! And to work!”
They worked. They proceeded scrupulously to make all the observations and all the cross-checks that the close study of the films suggested to them, in combination with the material in the dossiers, the vast heaps of various documents and even a relief-map found in the display-cases of the Musée Carnavalet, which reproduced the appearance of the Boulevard du Temple at the time of Fieschi’s assassination attempt.
Why had the murder chosen the momen
t when the King was passing by to commit his crime? The evidence in the Ortofieri case offered an explanation of that. Everyone knew then that the passing of the sovereign before his troops was always accompanied by a great racket of military drums and bands, reinforced by a tempest of acclamations. The din offered a unique opportunity—and Bertrand had furnished the proof that the noise had indeed been considerable, since a crystal glass on the roll-top desk had vibrated. It was undeniable, on the one hand, that the noise could, in large measure, muffle a loud bang inside a room, all the more so if—a particularity of which Charles had not thought at first—the detonation might have been that of a pistol charged with very little powder, since it was designed to fire at point-blank range. It was no less evident, on the other hand, that the massed crowd on the boulevard offered a fugitive every opportunity to disappear promptly—was it not known that Fieschi had reasoned in the same fashion?
From these deductions, unfortunately, nothing resulted with respect to the identity of the criminal. Fabius Ortofieri, just like everyone else, had the right to be cunning in his premeditation.
They searched the case-files to see whether the pistol presumed to be “the weapon of the crime” in the investigation of 1835 was similar to the one that the luminite had shown in the hand of the gunman, and which the cameras had photographed. It was a waste of time; the searches carried out after July 30, 1835 at Fabius’s home having only yielded an inconclusive result: that of several pistols of different forms, all well-cleaned, any one of which might have been fired recently without anything indicating that any of them had, in fact, been fired. Furthermore, none of these weapons was described in the reports.
These examples demonstrate how logically and how attentively the research was conducted. Many others might be accumulated, but that would have no other result than making our story longer.
The Master of Light Page 24
