VIII. A DREADFUL CONFESSION
While Juve was devoting his marvellous skill and incomparable daring tothe elucidation of the new case with which the Criminal InvestigationDepartment had entrusted him in Paris, things were marching at Beaulieu,where the whole machinery of the law was being set in motion for thediscovery and arrest of Charles Rambert.
* * * * *
With a mighty clatter and racket Bouzille came down the slope andstopped before old mother Chiquard's cottage. He arrived in his ownequipage, and an extraordinary one it was!
Bouzille was mounted upon a tricycle of prehistoric design, with twolarge wheels behind and a small steering wheel in front, and a rustyhandle-bar from which all the plating was worn off. The solid rubbertyres which once had adorned the machine had worn out long ago, and werenow replaced by twine twisted round the felloes of the wheels; this wasfor ever fraying away and the wheels were fringed with a veritablelace-work of string. Bouzille must have picked up this impossiblemachine for an old song at some local market, unless perhaps somecharitable person gave it to him simply to get rid of it. He styled thistricycle his "engine," and it was by no means the whole of his equipage.Attached to the tricycle by a stout rope was a kind of wickerperambulator on four wheels, which he called his "sleeping-car," becausehe stored away in it all the bits of rag he picked up on his journeys,and also his very primitive bedding and the little piece of waterproofcanvas under which he often slept in the open air. Behind thesleeping-car was a third vehicle, the restaurant-car, consisting of anold soap box mounted on four solid wooden wheels, which were fastened tothe axles by huge conical bolts; in this he kept his provisions; lumpsof bread and fat, bottles and vegetables, all mixed up in agreeableconfusion. Bouzille made quite long journeys in this train of his, andwas well known throughout the south-west of France. Often did theastonished population see him bent over his tricycle, with his pack onhis back, pedalling with extraordinary rapidity down the hills, whilethe carriages behind him bumped and jumped over the inequalities in thesurface of the road until it seemed impossible that they could retaintheir equilibrium.
Old mother Chiquard had recognised the cause of the racket. The healthylife of the country had kept the old woman strong and active in spite ofthe eighty-three years that had passed over her head, and now she cameto her door, armed with a broom, and hailed the tramp in angry,threatening tones.
"So it's you, is it, you thief, you robber of the poor! It's shocking,the way you spend your time in evil doing! What do you want now, pray?"
Slowly and sheepishly and with head bowed, Bouzille approached motherChiquard, nervously looking out for a whack over the head with the broomthe old lady held.
"Don't be cross," he pleaded when he could get in a word; "I want tocome to an arrangement with you, mother Chiquard, if it can be done."
"That's all according," said the old woman, eyeing the tramp with greatmistrust; "I haven't much faith in arrangements with you: rascals likeyou always manage to do honest folk."
Mother Chiquard turned back into her cottage; it was no weather for herto stop out of doors, for a strong north wind was blowing, and that wasbad for her rheumatism. Bouzille deliberately followed her inside andclosed the door carefully behind him. Without ceremony he walked up tothe hearth, where a scanty wood fire was burning, and put down his packso as to be able to rub his hands more freely.
"Miserable weather, mother Chiquard!"
The obstinate old lady stuck to her one idea.
"If it isn't miserable to steal my rabbit, this is the finest weatherthat ever I saw!"
"You make a lot of fuss about a trifle," the tramp protested,"especially since you will be a lot the better by the arrangement I'mgoing to suggest."
The notion calmed mother Chiquard a little, and she sat down on a form,while Bouzille took a seat upon the table.
"What do you mean?" the old woman enquired.
"Well," said Bouzille, "I suppose your rabbit would have fetched acouple of shillings in the market; I've brought you two fowls that areworth quite eighteen-pence each, and if you will give me some dinner attwelve o'clock I will put in a good morning's work for you."
Mother Chiquard looked at the clock upon the wall; it was eight o'clock.The tramp's proposal represented four hours' work, which was not to bedespised; but before striking the bargain she insisted on seeing thefowls. These were extracted from the pack; tied together by the feet,and half suffocated, the unfortunate creatures were not much to look at,but they would be cheap, which was worth considering.
"Where did you get these fowls?" mother Chiquard asked, more as a matterof form than anything else, for she was pretty sure they had not beenhonestly come by.
Bouzille put his finger to his lip.
"Hush!" he murmured gently; "that's a secret between me and the poultry.Well, is it a go?" and he held out his hand to the old lady.
She hesitated a moment and then made up her mind.
"It's a go," she said, putting her horny fingers into the man's hardpalm. "You shall chop me some wood first, and then go down to the riverfor the rushes I have put in to soak; they must be well swollen by thistime."
Bouzille was glad to have made it up with mother Chiquard, and pleasedat the prospect of a good dinner at midday; he opened the cottage door,and leisurely arranged a few logs within range of the axe with which hewas going to split them; mother Chiquard began to throw down some grainto the skinny and famished fowls that fluttered round her.
"I thought you were in prison, Bouzille," she said, "over stealing myrabbit, and also over that affair at the chateau of Beaulieu."
"Oh, those are two quite different stories," Bouzille replied. "Youmustn't mix them up together on any account. As for the chateau job,every tramp in the district has been run in: I was copped by M'sieuMorand the morning after the murder; he took me into the kitchen of thechateau and Mme. Louise gave me something to eat. There was another chapthere with me, a man named Francois Paul who doesn't belong to theseparts; between you and me, I thought he was an evil-looking customer whomight easily have been the murderer, but it doesn't do to say that sortof thing, and I'm glad I held my tongue because they let him go. I heardno more about it, and five days later I went back to Brives to attendthe funeral of the Marquise de Langrune. That was a ceremony if youlike! The church all lighted up, and all the nobility from theneighbourhood present. I didn't lose my time, for I knew all thegentlemen and ladies and took the best part of sixteen shillings, andthe blind beggar who sits on the steps of the church called me all thenames he could put his tongue to!"
The tramp's story interested mother Chiquard mightily, but her formeridea still dominated her mind.
"So they didn't punish you for stealing my rabbit?"
"Well, they did and they didn't," said Bouzille, scratching his head."M'sieu Morand, who is an old friend of mine, took me to the lock-up atSaint-Jaury, and I was to have gone next morning to the court at Brives,where I know the sentence for stealing domestic animals is three weeks.That would have suited me all right just now, for the prison at Brivesis quite new and very comfortable, but that same night Sergeant Doucetshoved another man into the clink with, me at Saint-Jaury, a ravinglunatic who started smashing everything up, and tried to tear my eyesout. Naturally, I gave him as good as I got, and the infernal row wemade brought in the sergeant. I told him the chap wanted to throttleme, and he was nonplussed, for he couldn't do anything with the man, whowas fairly mad, and couldn't leave me alone there with him. So at lastthe sergeant took me to one side and told me to hook it and not let himsee me again. So there it is."
While he was chattering like this Bouzille had finished the job set himby mother Chiquard, who meanwhile had peeled some potatoes and pouredthe soup on the bread. He wiped his brow, and seeing the brimming pot,gave a meaning wink and licked his tongue.
"I'll make the fire up, mother Chiquard; I'm getting jolly hungry."
"So you ought to be, at half-past eleven," the old woman replied.
"Yes,we'll have dinner, and you can get the rushes out afterwards."
Mother Chiquard was the proud free-holder of a little cottage that wasseparated from the bank of the Dordogne by the high road between Marteland Montvalent. Round the cottage she had a small orchard, and opposite,through a gap in the trees, was a view of the yellow waters of theDordogne and the chain of hills that stood up on the far side of theriver. Living here summer and winter, with her rabbits and her fowls,mother Chiquard earned a little money by making baskets; but she wascrippled with rheumatism, and was miserable every time she had to godown to the river to pull out the bundles of rushes that she put thereto soak; the work meant not merely an hour's paddling in mud up to theknees, but also a fortnight's acute agony and at least a shilling formedicine. So whoever wanted to make a friend of the old woman only hadto volunteer to get the rushes out for her.
As he ate, Bouzille told mother Chiquard of his plans for the comingspring.
"Yes," he said, "since I'm not doing any time this winter I'm going toundertake a long journey." He stopped munching for a second and pausedfor greater effect. "I am going to Paris, mother Chiquard!" Then, seeingthat the old lady was utterly dumbfounded by the announcement, he leanthis elbows on the table and looked at her over his empty plate. "I'vealways had one great desire--to see the Eiffel Tower: that idea hasbeen running in my head for the last fifteen years. Well, now I'm goingto gratify the wish. I hear you can get a room in Paris fortwopence-halfpenny a night, and I can manage that."
"How long will it take you to get there?" enquired the old woman,immensely impressed by Bouzille's venturesome plan.
"That depends," said the tramp. "I must allow quite three months with mytrain. Of course if I got run in on the way for stealing, or as a rogueand vagabond, I couldn't say how long it would take."
The meal was over, and the old woman was quietly washing up her fewplates and dishes, when Bouzille, who had gone down to the river tofetch the rushes, suddenly called shrilly to mother Chiquard.
"Mother Chiquard! Mother Chiquard! Come and look! Just fancy, I'veearned twenty-five francs!"
The summons was so urgent, and the news so amazing, that the old ladyleft her house and hurried across the road to the river bank. She sawthe tramp up to his waist in the water, trying, with a long stick, todrag out of the current a large object which was not identifiable at afirst glance. To all her enquiries Bouzille answered with the samedelighted cry, "I have earned twenty-five francs," too intent onbringing his fishing job to a successful issue even to turn round. A fewminutes later he emerged dripping from the water, towing a large bundleto the safety of the bank. Mother Chiquard drew nearer, greatlyinterested, and then recoiled with a shriek of horror.
Bouzille had fished out a corpse!
It was a ghastly sight: the body of a very young man, almost a boy, withlong, slender limbs; the face was so horribly swollen and torn as to beshapeless. One leg was almost entirely torn from the trunk. Throughrents in the clothing strips of flesh were trailing, blue anddiscoloured by their long immersion in the water. On the shoulders andback of the neck were bruises and stains of blood. Bouzille, who wasquite unaffected by the ghastliness of the object and still kept up hisgay chant "I have fished up a body, I've earned twenty-five francs,"observed that there were large splinters of wood, rotten from longimmersion, sticking in some of the wounds. He stood up and addressedmother Chiquard who, white as a sheet, was watching him in silence.
"I see what it is: he must have got caught in some mill wheel: that'swhat has cut him up like that."
Mother Chiquard shook her head uneasily.
"Suppose it was a murder! That would be an ugly business!"
"It's no good my looking at him any more," said Bouzille. "I don'trecognise him; he's not from the country."
"That's sure," the old woman agreed. "He's dressed like a gentleman."
The two looked at each other in silence. Bouzille was not nearly socomplacent as he had been a few minutes before. The reward oftwenty-five francs prompted him to go at once to inform the police; theidea of a crime, suggested by the worthy woman, disturbed him greatly,and all the more because he thought it was well founded. Another murderin the neighbourhood would certainly vex the authorities, and put thepolice in a bad temper. Bouzille knew from experience that the firstthing people do after a tragedy is to arrest all the tramps, and that ifthe police are at all crotchety they always contrive to get the trampssentenced for something else. He had had a momentary inclination toestablish his winter quarters in prison, but since then he had formedthe plan of going to Paris, and liberty appealed to him more. He reacheda sudden decision.
"I'll punt him back into the water!"
But mother Chiquard stayed him, just as he was putting his idea intoexecution.
"You mustn't: suppose somebody has seen us already? It would land us inno end of trouble!"
Half an hour later, convinced that it was his melancholy duty, Bouzilleleft two-thirds of his train in mother Chiquard's custody, got astridehis prehistoric tricycle and slowly pedalled off towards Saint-Jaury.
* * * * *
New Year's Day is a melancholy and a tedious one for everybody whosepublic or private relations do not make it an exceptionally interestingone. There is the alteration in the date, for one thing, which isprovocative of thought, and there is the enforced idleness for another,coming upon energetic folk like a temporary paralysis and leaving themnothing but meditation wherewith to employ themselves.
Juve, comfortably installed in his own private study, was realising thisjust as evening was falling on this first of January. He was a confirmedbachelor, and for several years had lived in a little flat on the fifthfloor of an old house in the rue Bonaparte. He had not gone out to-day,but though he was resting he was not idle. For a whole month past he hadbeen wholly engrossed in his attempt to solve the mystery surroundingthe two cases on which he was engaged, the Beltham case, and theLangrune case, and his mind was leisurely revolving round them now as hesat in his warm room before a blazing wood fire, and watched the bluesmoke curl up in rings towards the ceiling. The two cases were verydissimilar, and yet his detective instinct persuaded him that althoughthey differed in details their conception and execution emanated notonly from one single brain but also from one hand. He was convinced thathe was dealing with a mysterious and dangerous individual, and thatwhile he himself was out in the open he was fighting a concealed andinvisible adversary; he strove to give form and substance to theadversary, and the name of Fantomas came into his mind. Fantomas! Whatmight Fantomas be doing now, and, if he had a real existence, as thedetective most firmly believed, how was he spending New Year's Day?
A sharp ring at the bell startled him from his chair, and not giving hisman-servant time to answer it, he went himself to the door and took froma messenger a telegram which he hastily tore open and read:
"Have found in the Dordogne drowned body of young man, faceunrecognisable, from description possibly Charles Rambert. Pleaseconsider situation and wire course you will take."
The telegram had been handed in at Brives and was signed by M. dePresles.
"Something fresh at last," the detective muttered. "Drowned in theDordogne, and face unrecognisable! I wonder if it really is CharlesRambert?"
Since M. Etienne Rambert and his son had disappeared so unaccountably,the detective naturally had formulated mentally several hypotheses, buthe had arrived at no conclusion which really satisfied his judgment. Butthough their flight had not surprised him greatly, he had been rathersurprised that the police had not been able to find any trace of them,for rightly or wrongly Juve credited them with a good deal of clevernessand power. So it was by no means unreasonable to accept the death of thefugitives as explanation of the failure of the police to find them.However, this was a fresh development of the case, and he was about todraft a reply to M. de Presles when once more the bell rang sharply.
This time Juve did not move, but listened while his man spoke to thevisitor
. It was an absolute rule of Juve's never to receive visitors athis flat. If anyone wanted to see him on business, he was to be foundalmost every day in his office at head-quarters about eleven in themorning; to a few people he was willing to give appointments at a quietand discreet little cafe in the boulevard Saint-Michel; but he invitedno one to his own rooms except one or two of his own relations from thecountry, and even they had to be provided with a password before theycould obtain admission. So now, to all the entreaties of the caller,Juve's servant stolidly replied with the assurance that his master wouldsee no one; yet the visitor's insistence was so great that at last theservant was prevailed upon to bring in his card, albeit with some fearas to the consequences for himself. But to his extreme relief andsurprise, Juve, when he had read the name engraved upon the card, saidsharply:
"Bring him in here at once!"
And in another couple of seconds M. Etienne Rambert was in the room!
The old gentleman who had fled so mysteriously a few days before, takingwith him the son over whom so dread a charge was hanging, boweddeferentially to the detective, with the pitiful mien of one who iscrushed beneath the burden of misfortune. His features were drawn, hisface bore the stamp of deepest grief, and in his hand he held an eveningpaper, which in his agitation he had crumpled almost into a ball.
"Tell me, sir, if it is true," he said in low trembling tones. "I havejust read that."
Juve pointed to a chair, took the paper mechanically, and smoothing itout, read, below a large head-line, "Is this a sequel to the BeaulieuCrime?" a story similar to that he had just gathered from M. de Presles'telegram.
Juve contemplated M. Etienne Rambert in silence for a few minutes, andthen, without replying directly to his visitor's first question, askedhim a question in that quiet voice of his, the wonderful indifferenttonelessness of which concealed the least clue to his inmost thoughts.
"Why do you come to me, sir?"
"To find out, sir," the old man answered.
"To find out what?"
"If that poor drowned corpse is--my son's: is my poor Charles!"
"It is rather you who can tell me, sir," said Juve, impassive as ever.
There was a pause. Despite his emotion, M. Rambert seemed to be thinkingdeeply. Suddenly he appeared to make an important decision, and raisinghis eyes to the detective he spoke very slowly:
"Have pity, sir, on a broken-hearted father. Listen to me: I have adreadful confession to make!"
Juve drew his chair close to M. Etienne Rambert.
"I am listening," he said gently, and M. Etienne Rambert began his"dreadful confession."
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