The Double Alibi

by Noel Vindry

  And yet—and this was the worst part—it wasn’t completely unoccupied. On certain nights, it was said, a glimmer of light could be seen through the slits of the shutters.

  Pure imagination, said the sceptics; or the reflection of the moon on the windows.

  But Father Grégoire knew it to be true. He’d seen the lights from time to time, as he’d gone to take care of his pigs on very dark nights. He readily accepted the views of those whom others ridiculed: the spirits of the dead did return sometimes.

  So it was that the trip from the farmhouse to the pigsty became unbearable, particularly on those dark occasions. Which was the case on that night of May 9th to10th.

  He’d gone out at around one o’clock, without a lantern because he knew the route by heart. It was at that same moment that, three hundred kilometres away, near Lyon, the three old women were huddled together in Dorothée’s room.

  Father Grégoire shot anxious looks in the direction of the “Black House,” whose silhouette was dimly visible at the top of a hill hundreds of metres away.

  Suddenly he shivered. There was a light behind one of the shutters. There was no doubt about it. Although it wasn’t strong, it wasn’t an optical illusion. The “spirits” had returned.

  He crossed himself and started back on his route, but stopped, completely paralysed with fright: a blood-curling scream had come from the “Black House”—the scream of a man being murdered.

  It was followed by total silence.

  Father Grégoire dropped limply to the ground, where he stayed motionless, his heart pounding. But his fear intensified when he heard someone walking in his direction: someone coming down the hill.

  With a sudden burst of energy, he dragged himself to a nearby bush to hide himself. A man walking rapidly passed by three metres away and Father Grégoire could see him perfectly. He felt slightly reassured: it wasn’t a ghost.

  Nevertheless, he stayed there for another half an hour, motionless. Then, not having heard any suspicious noises, he stood up and, after a brief hesitation, looked in the direction of the “Black House.” He could make out its sinister silhouette; there were no lights on.

  Father Grégoire proceeded to his pigsty.

  When he got back to bed, he couldn’t sleep. As soon as it was dawn, he went to alert the gendarmerie.

  ***

  The sergeant was a Parisian and not very receptive to peasant legends. Since his arrival in the region three months ago, he’d heard talk of the “Black House,” but hadn’t paid it much attention.

  His questions to Father Grégoire went straight to the point.

  ‘So, as I understand it, the building was uninhabited?’

  ‘There was no living person in there,’ replied the farmer, carefully.

  ‘Yes, I know. They say that sometimes there’s a light in there.’

  ‘I’ve seen it often with my own eyes.’

  ‘We’re going to look into all that.’

  He left with one of his men; Father Grégoire walked along with them but dropped back when they got closer to the house.

  The gendarmes arrived at the front door. It was only on the latch, so they went in.

  The first two rooms were completely empty. It did seem as though the building was unoccupied.

  But, as soon as they reached the threshold of the third room, they could see the outline of something lying on the floor. They opened the shutters: it was indeed a dead body lying there.

  At the same time, they noted that there were several pieces of furniture in the room: three chairs, a bench and a table, on which stood an oil lamp.

  They approached the corpse. It was that of a forty-year-old man, formally attired. There was a bloodstain on his jacket.

  They unbuttoned the waistcoat and shirt and saw the wound, right in the heart; a stab wound, no doubt. But they couldn’t find the actual murder weapon.

  They looked at the contorted face.

  ‘Do you know this individual?’ asked the sergeant.

  The gendarme, who’d lived in Aubagne for several years, swore he’d never seen the man before.

  They sent for Father Grégoire, who had stopped fifty metres away, and with great difficulty persuaded him to enter the house.

  ‘That’s not someone from around here,’ he declared.

  They were ready to believe him, for he’d been born in Aubagne sixty years ago and had never left the town.

  ‘Let’s look in his pockets,’ said the sergeant.

  He pulled out several objects, notably a revolver and a wallet.

  The latter contained a small amount of money and some papers: several letters—some very old and some quite recent—addressed to “M. Gustave Allevaire” and signed “Your devoted Aunt Dorothée.” The address on all the envelopes was the same: “Poste Restante, Bordeaux.”

  Several other documents: bills, etc., confirmed that the deceased was indeed Gustave Allevaire.

  ‘I seem to remember hearing the name,’ said the sergeant.

  But his memory was vague and he didn’t pursue the matter.

  ‘We should notify his family and the public prosecutor,’ he added.

  ‘Whose family?’ asked the gendarme.

  ‘The aunt’s, for heaven’s sake! The letters are stamped Limonest: from the handwriting, she seems to be an old woman. There can’t be all that many old women in Limonest with the Christian name Dorothée.’

  After having taken down Father Grégoire’s deposition and notified the Marseille public prosecutor by telephone, he went to the nearby post office to send a telegram to his colleague in Limonest:

  ‘Notify old woman, first name Dorothée, that her nephew Gustave Allevaire was murdered tonight at Aubagne, near Marseille. Ask her to come urgently to identify the body.’

  ***

  That was the telegram the gendarme was holding when he entered the Levalois residence.

  The inspector snatched it from his hand and read it three times to make sure.

  ‘It’s not possible,’ he growled eventually.

  He turned to Dorothée, who was crying in a corner.

  ‘Don’t worry, granny, it must be a mistake,’ he said. ‘Your nephew wasn’t in Marseille last night.’

  There was no reply.

  ‘You have to go,’ he continued. ‘They need you to identify the body.’

  This time the old woman looked up.

  ‘Leave for Marseille…,’ she murmured, horrified.

  ‘There must be someone who could accompany you.’

  ‘We could go…,’ murmured Hortense.

  ‘Oh! Such a long way…,’ moaned her sister.

  ‘A long way?’ exclaimed the inspector. ‘It’s barely three hundred kilometres.’

  ‘It’s fifty years since we took a train, Inspector.’

  Just at that moment, a thin old man with erect bearing entered the room.

  ‘Ah, maître,’ implored Gertrude, ‘please help us.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ asked Epicevieille in his solemn voice.

  ‘They want us to go to Marseille. Our cousin was just murdered there last night!’

  ‘And it was he who stole Aunt Dorothée’s silver,’ added Hortense.

  ‘That seems to be a contradiction,’ observed Epicevieille, solemnly.

  ‘It does, doesn’t it?’ said the inspector sarcastically. ‘Now you understand why the family’s presence is required there.’

  ‘Yes, I understand. You have to go there, ladies.’

  ‘Please come with us,’ begged Gertrude.

  ‘Willingly, but it’s at very short notice.’

  ‘There’s a train at twelve o’clock,’ intervened the inspector. ‘And it’s already eleven.’

  ‘So it’s quite urgent,’ continued Epicevieille, ‘and I wasn’t prepared. I’ll have to arrange a telegraphic transfer—.’

  ‘We’ll pay for everything!’ exclaimed Hortense. ‘It’s already very kind on your part to accompany us.’

  ‘In that case, I accept.’
>
  The inspector turned to the gendarme:

  ‘Find a car to transport four people to the Perrache train station.’

  He thought for a moment, then added:

  ‘In fact, I’ll come with you as well. I need to discuss the case with my Marseille colleagues… It’s looking very strange.’

  One hour later, Dorothée, her two nieces, Epicevieille and the inspector were on their way to Marseille.

  They arrived in the late afternoon. A taxi took them to the Aubagne gendarmerie.

  ‘The magistrates are up in the house,’ explained one of the gendarmes. ‘I’ll drive you as far as the car can go. You’ll have to climb the remaining five hundred metres on foot.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ declared Dorothée firmly.

  Chapter IV

  A STUNNING TURN OF EVENTS

  There were indeed two magistrates already at the “Black House”: a deputy public prosecutor from Marseille and an examining magistrate.

  The latter, judging from the respect accorded him by the gendarmes, had to be someone of importance. There was something more than deference in their attitude: it seemed more like admiration, which was surprising in view of the modest demeanour of the person in question.

  The magistrate was M. Allou, whose perspicacity and courage provoked, at the same time, extraordinary esteem from his subordinates and suspicion amongst high-ranking court officials for his independent character, so unlike the typically neutral civil servant.

  The gendarme sergeant asked him a question, in the manner of someone who expected M. Allou to be able to solve any problem at first sight.

  ‘In your opinion, monsieur le juge, what was the victim doing here and who killed him?’

  ‘I have absolutely no idea. We don’t even know who owns the house!’

  It had been impossible to find out. There had been no recorded changes in the land registry for over a hundred years; the government had neglected to take possession of the worthless property; and no peasant would have dared to move in.

  M. Allou had not been able to make any observations beyond the obvious. A meticulous search of the building had revealed nothing. The only furniture was in the room where the crime had been committed, where three chairs, a bench and a half-empty oil lamp had been found.

  The room must have been visited several times: there were ashes in the hearth and several cigarette butts of different vintages had been found on the floor.

  It was quite understandable that the mysterious visitors had never been seen. The building itself was perched atop an arid hill bereft of human activity. Father Grégoire’s farm was the only other building in the vicinity.

  Hence no discovery had been made concerning the circumstances of the crime. The medical examiner confirmed what the peasant had said: the murder had taken place between midnight and two o’clock in the morning. The man had succumbed almost immediately to the wound, and he must have been caught by surprise, because there were no traces of resistance to the struggle on the victim’s body.

  One could also assume that robbery had not been the motive of the crime, because several hundred francs had been found in the wallet.

  ‘Yes,’ said M. Allou, ‘it bears all the marks of an act of vengeance. In any case, the man must have been taken by surprise, because you found his revolver in a buttoned-down trouser pocket.’

  ‘That’s correct, monsieur le juge.’

  ‘We don’t know anything more for the moment. We have to wait for the family to brief us about the kind of life this individual led and his relationships. But it could well be that the murder was so simple there’s nothing to base an investigation on.’

  ‘Oh, monsieur le juge, you’ve solved many complex cases in the past.’

  ‘But that’s much easier, sergeant. You know my method: formulate a hypothesis which accounts for all the details and then verify it by experiment. But when there aren’t any strange facts, one can postulate a thousand plausible theories which are impossible to prove. I can contribute little to a banal crime such as this. I would much prefer it to be rife with contradictions!’

  M. Allou was about to get his wish granted beyond his wildest dreams.

  Just as he had left the building and was filling his pipe, he saw half a dozen people coming up the hill.

  At the front was a gendarme. Two elderly women of identical appearance followed him, and between them was a tall, thin individual wearing a frock coat. Finally, a hundred metres behind, a very old woman struggled painfully to advance with the aid of two canes; a man was by her side ready to help her: the inspector from Lyon.

  ‘The family,’ announced the gendarme as he arrived.

  M. Allou greeted the Misses Levalois, and Epicevieille bowed, bending his tall form almost in half.

  ‘Are you close relatives of the victim?’ asked the magistrate.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Hortense. ‘This gentleman, who is a lawyer, wished to accompany us, even though he’s a stranger.’ Epicevieille bowed again. ‘We were first cousins.’

  ‘Did you know your relative well?’

  ‘Oh, yes! He came to see us almost every year.’

  ‘Well, then, come in and see if you recognise him. It’s a painful sight, but I’m obliged to inflict it on you.’

  He preceded them into the room.

  At the sight of the body, Gertrude let out a cry and, supporting herself with the door frame, closed her eyes. Hortense, less sensitive, advanced determinedly and looked at the body.

  Then she turned towards M. Allou with a surprised look:

  ‘But that’s not Gustave!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Certain. It looks like him, but it isn’t.’

  Hearing those words, Gertrude approached. An unknown dead man frightened her less.

  ‘No, that’s not Gustave,’ she agreed.

  ‘That’s not M. Allevaire,’ added Epicevieille in his cavernous voice.

  ‘Did you know him?’ asked M. Allou.

  ‘Far less than these ladies, but I did see him two or three times. Besides, their statements don’t surprise me. Late yesterday afternoon their cousin was in the vicinity of Limonest. At least, I thought I recognised him, and I’d be surprised to be wrong.’

  The door of the room opened again. M. Allou turned to see the old woman he’d noticed at the rear of the group, and whom he’d forgotten. She approached, and her two canes added a mechanical note to her walk.

  ‘Are you also a relative?’ asked the magistrate.

  ‘The aunt,’ explained Epicevieille.

  When Dorothée reached the corpse she let out a short moan and collapsed. She was caught in time and given a chair.

  Hands before her face, she murmured:

  ‘The poor little boy! To end like that! The poor little boy!’

  ‘Do you recognise him?’ asked M. Allou.

  ‘Oh, yes!’

  ‘Is it your nephew?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Gustave Allevaire?’

  ‘I haven’t any others.’

  ‘My aunt!’ the Misses Levalois cried out in unison.

  And the rebukes started to fly:

  ‘You didn’t look properly… It’s not Gustave… I can assure you….’

  Dorothée uncovered her eyes, stared at the corpse, and covered her face again.

  ‘It’s definitely him. There’s no possible doubt.’

  M. Allou, as can be imagined, was quite embarrassed. He felt that the ex-lawyer offered a better guarantee than the flustered females, so he asked:

  ‘And you, sir, are you confident of your assertion?’

  ‘Well, that’s to say… I only saw M. Allevaire two or three times… There was certainly a resemblance… I can’t be absolutely sure….’

  ‘But you’re certain you saw him yesterday near Limonest?’

  ‘It was quite far away, I might have been wrong.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ exclaimed M. Allou. ‘These contradictions have to be resolved!’


  ‘I can assure you, monsieur le juge, that’s not Gustave Allevaire,’ ventured the inspector from Lyon.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He was in Limonest at the time of the crime.’ And he proceeded to recount his discoveries of the night before.

  ‘If the anthropometric file is in the hands of the Lyon Sûreté, you must have seen his photograph?’

  ‘No, there wasn’t time. I was informed by telephone.’

  ‘No matter. They must have it in Marseille. It’ll be easy to verify.’

  So saying, M. Allou, after bowing to the old women, who had resumed their discussion, left the building accompanied by the deputy public prosecutor.

  Shortly thereafter, they arrived at the Sûreté and asked to see the Allevaire file.

  It didn’t require a lengthy examination. Although the victim bore a resemblance to the photograph in front of them, it clearly wasn’t the same person.

  Furthermore, a comparison of fingerprints confirmed it.

  That evening, the Misses Levalois were shown the photograph.

  ‘Ah! This time it’s really him,’ they exclaimed in perfect unison.

  That was also Epicevieille’s opinion.

  As for the aunt, it proved impossible to get a word out of her.

  ***

  The following day, in his chambers, M. Allou discussed the affair with the deputy public prosecutor.

  ‘At the end of the day,’ declared the latter, ‘it’s pretty simple.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ murmured M. Allou.

  ‘But of course. Someone must have broken into the registry office, removed Allevaire’s papers, and was walking around with them. And it just so happened that he was murdered during the same night that the real Allevaire committed the theft. Aren’t you convinced, dear colleague?’

  M. Allou was shaking his head in doubt.

  ‘Is there something you don’t agree with in my explanation?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re talking about chance… and I don’t like that.’

  ‘Nevertheless—.’

  ‘It’s too simple.’

  ‘Well, do you have a theory of your own?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s pure speculation.’

  ‘Can you share it with me?’