The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries

by The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries (retail) (epub)

  M. Mechinet was the first to recover.

  Rapidly he raised his fingers from the snuff-box to his nose five or six times, and advancing toward the officer, said:

  “Either you are mistaken, or you are deceiving us; one or the other.”

  “I’ll take an oath, M. Mechinet.”

  “Hold your tongue. You either misunderstood what Monistrol said or got intoxicated by the hope of astonishing us with the announcement that the affair was settled.”

  The officer, up to then humble and respectful, now became refractory.

  “Excuse me,” he interrupted, “I am neither an idiot nor a liar, and I know what I am talking about.”

  The discussion came so near being a quarrel that the investigating judge thought best to interfere.

  “Calm yourself, Monsieur Mechinet,” he said, “and before expressing an opinion, wait to be informed.”

  Then turning toward the officer, he continued:

  “And you, my friend, tell us what you know, and give us reasons for your assurance.”

  Thus sustained, the officer crushed M. Mechinet with an ironical glance, and with a very marked trace of conceit he began:

  “Well, this is what happened: Monsieur the Judge and Monsieur the Commissary, both here present, instructed us—Inspector Goulard, my colleague Poltin, and myself—to arrest Monistrol, dealer in imitation jewelry, living at 75 Rue Vivienne, the said Monistrol being accused of the murder of his uncle.”

  “Exactly so,” approved the commissary in a low voice.

  “Thereupon,” continued the officer, “we took a cab and had him drive us to the address given. We arrived and found M. Monistrol in the back of his shop, about to sit down to dinner with his wife, a woman of twenty-five or thirty years, and very beautiful.

  “Seeing the three of us stand like a string of onions, our man got up. ‘What do you want?’ he asked us. Sergeant Goulard drew from his pocket the warrant and answered: ‘In the name of the law, I arrest you!’ ”

  Here M. Mechinet behaved as if he were on a gridiron.

  “Could you not hurry up?” he said to the officer.

  But the latter, as if he had not heard, continued in the same calm tone:

  “I have arrested many people during my life. Well! I never saw any of them go to pieces like this one.

  “ ‘You are joking,’ he said to us, ‘or you are making a mistake.’

  “ ‘No, we are not mistaken!’

  “ ‘But, after all, what do you arrest me for?’

  “Goulard shrugged his shoulders.

  “ ‘Don’t act like a child,’ he said, ‘what about your uncle? The body has been found, and we have overwhelming proofs against you.’

  “Oh! that rascal, what a disagreeable shock! He tottered and finally dropped on a chair, sobbing and stammering I can not tell what answer.

  “Goulard, seeing him thus, shook him by the coat collar and said:

  “ ‘Believe me, the shortest way is to confess everything.’

  “The man looked at us stupidly and murmured:

  “ ‘Well, yes, I confess everything.’ ”

  “Well maneuvred, Goulard,” said the commissary approvingly.

  The officer looked triumphant.

  “It was now a matter of cutting short our stay in the shop,” he continued. “We had been instructed to avoid all commotion, and some idlers were already crowding around. Goulard seized the prisoner by the arm, shouting to him: ‘Come on, let us start; they are waiting for us at headquarters.’ Monistrol managed to get on his shaking legs, and in the voice of a man taking his courage in both hands, said: ‘Let us go.’

  “We were thinking that the worst was over; we did not count on the wife.

  “Up to that moment she had remained in an armchair, as in a faint, without breathing a word, without seeming even to understand what was going on.

  “But when she saw that we were taking away her husband, she sprang up like a lioness, and throwing herself in front of the door, shouted: ‘You shall not pass.’

  “On my word of honor she was superb; but Goulard, who had seen others before, said to her: ‘Come, come, little woman, don’t let us get angry; your husband will be brought back.’

  “However, far from giving way to us, she clung more firmly to the door-frame, swearing that her husband was innocent; declaring that if he was taken to prison she would follow him, at times threatening us and crushing us with invectives, and then again entreating in her sweetest voice.

  “When she understood that nothing would prevent us from doing our duty, she let go the door, and, throwing herself on her husband’s neck, groaned: ‘Oh, dearest beloved, is it possible that you are accused of a crime? You—you! Please tell them, these men, that you are innocent.’

  “In truth, we were all affected, except the man, who pushed his poor wife back so brutally that she fell in a heap in a corner of the back shop.

  “Fortunately that was the end.

  “The woman had fainted; we took advantage of it to stow the husband away in the cab that had brought us.

  “To stow away is the right word, because he had become like an inanimate thing; he could no longer stand up; he had to be carried. To omit nothing, I should add that his dog, a kind of black cur, wanted actually to jump into the carriage with us, and that we had the greatest trouble to get rid of it.

  “On the way, as by right, Goulard tried to entertain our prisoner and to make him blab. But it was impossible to draw one word from him. It was only when we arrived at police headquarters that he seemed to come to his senses. When he was duly installed in one of the ‘close confinement’ cells, he threw himself headlong on the bed, repeating: ‘What have I done to you, my God! What have I done to you!’

  “At this moment Goulard approached him, and for the second time asked: ‘Well, do you confess your guilt?’ Monistrol motioned with his head: ‘Yes, yes.’ Then in a hoarse voice said: ‘I beg you, leave me alone.’

  “That is what we did, taking care, however, to place a keeper on watch at the window of the cell, in case the fellow should attempt suicide.

  “Goulard and Poltin remained down there, and I, here I am.”

  “That is precise,” grumbled the commissary; “It could not be more precise.”

  That was also the judge’s opinion, for he murmured:

  “How can we, after all this, doubt Monistrol’s guilt?”

  As for me, though I was confounded, my convictions were still firm. I was just about to open my mouth to venture an objection, when M. Mechinet forestalled me.

  “All that is well and good,” exclaimed he. “Only if we admit that Monistrol is the murderer, we are forced also to admit that it was he who wrote his name there on the floor—and—well, that’s a hard nut.”

  “Bosh!” interrupted the commissary, “since the accused confessed, what is the use of bothering about a circumstance which will be explained at the trial?”

  But my neighbor’s remark had again roused perplexities in the mind of the judge, and without committing himself, he said:

  “I am going to the Prefecture. I want to examine Monistrol this very evening.”

  And after telling the commissary to be sure and fulfil all formalities and to await the arrival of the physicians called for the autopsy of the body, he left, followed by his clerk and by the officer who had come to inform us of the successful arrest.

  “Provided these devils of doctors do not keep me waiting too long,” growled the commissary, who was thinking of his dinner.

  Neither M. Mechinet nor I answered him. We remained standing, facing one another, evidently beset by the same thought.

  “After all,” murmured my neighbor, “perhaps it was the old man who wrote—”—“With the left hand, then? I
s that possible? Without considering that this poor fellow must have died instantly.”—“Are you certain of it?”—“Judging by his wound I would take an oath on it. Besides, the physicians will come; they will tell you whether I am right or wrong.”

  With veritable frenzy M. Mechinet pretended to take snuff.

  “Perhaps there is some mystery beneath this,” said he; “that remains to be seen.”

  “It is an examination to be gone over again.”—“Be it so, let us do it over; and to begin, let us examine the concierge.”

  Running to the staircase, M. Mechinet leaned over the balustrade, calling: “Concierge! Hey! Concierge! Come up, please.”

  V

  While waiting for the concierge to come up, M. Mechinet proceeded with a rapid and able examination of the scene of the crime.

  It was principally the lock of the main door to the apartment which attracted his attention; it was intact, and the key turned without difficulty. This circumstance absolutely discarded the thought that an evil-doer, a stranger, had entered during the night by means of false keys.

  For my part, I had involuntarily, or rather inspired by the astonishing instinct which had revealed itself in me, picked up the cork, partly covered with green wax, which I had noticed on the floor.

  It had been used, and on the side where the wax was showed traces of the corkscrew; but on the other end could be seen a kind of deepish notch, evidently produced by some sharp and pointed instrument.

  Suspecting the importance of my discovery, I communicated it to M. Mechinet, and he could not avoid an exclamation of joy.

  “At last,” he exclaimed, “at last we have a clue! This cork, it’s the murderer who dropped it here; he stuck in it the brittle point of the weapon he used. The conclusion is that the instrument of the murder is a dagger with a fixed handle and not one of those knives which shut up. With this cork, I am certain to reach the guilty one, no matter who he is!”

  The police commissary was just finishing his task in the room, M. Mechinet and I had remained in the parlor, when we were interrupted by the noise of heavy breathing.

  Almost immediately appeared the powerful woman I had noticed holding forth in the hall in the midst of the tenants.

  It was the concierge, if possible redder than at the time of our arrival.

  “In what way can I serve you, monsieur?” she asked of M. Mechinet.

  “Take a seat, madame,” he answered.

  “But, monsieur, I have people downstairs.”

  “They will wait for you. I tell you to sit down.”

  Nonplused by M. Mechinet’s tone, she obeyed.

  Then looking straight at her with his terrible, small, gray eyes, he began:

  “I need certain information, and I’m going to question you. In your interest, I advise you to answer straightforwardly. Now, first of all, what is the name of this poor fellow who was murdered?”

  “His name was Pigoreau, kind sir, but he was mostly known by the name of Antenor, which he had formerly taken as more suitable to his business.”

  “Did he live in this house a long time?”

  “The last eight years.”

  “Where did he reside before?”

  “Rue Richelieu, where he had his store; he had been a hairdresser, and it was in that business that he made his money.”

  “He was then considered rich?”

  “I heard him say to his niece that he would not let his throat be cut for a million.”

  As to this, it must have been known to the investigating magistrate, as the papers of the poor old man had been included in the inventory made.

  “Now,” M. Mechinet continued, “what kind of a man was this M. Pigoreau, called Antenor?”

  “Oh! the cream of men, my dear, kind sir,” answered the concierge. “It is true he was cantankerous, queer, as miserly as possible, but he was not proud. And so funny with all that. One could have spent whole nights listening to him, when he was in the right mood. And the number of stories he knew! Just think, a former hairdresser, who, as he said, had dressed the hair of the most beautiful women in Paris!”

  “How did he live?”

  “As everybody else; as people do who have an income, you know, and who yet cling to their money.”

  “Can you give me some particulars?”

  “Oh! As to that, I think so, since it was I who looked after his rooms, and that was no trouble at all for me, because he did almost everything himself—swept, dusted, and polished. Yes, it was his hobby. Well, every day at noon, I brought him up a cup of chocolate. He drank it; on top of that he took a large glass of water; that was his breakfast. Then he dressed and that took him until two o’clock, for he was a dandy, and careful of his person, more so than a newly married woman. As soon as he was dressed, he went out to take a walk through Paris. At six o’clock he went to dinner in a private boarding-house, the Mademoiselles Gomet, in the Rue de las Paix. After dinner he used to go to the Cafe Guerbois for his demitasse and to play his usual game, and at eleven he came home to go to bed. On the whole, the poor fellow had only one fault; he was fond of the other sex. I even told him often: ‘At your age, are you not ashamed of yourself?’ But no one is perfect, and after all it could be easily understood of a former perfumer, who in his life had had a great many good fortunes.”

  An obsequious smile strayed over the lips of the powerful concierge, but nothing could cheer up M. Mechinet.

  “Did M. Pigoreau receive many calls?” he asked.

  “Very few. I have hardly seen anybody call on him except his nephew, M. Monistrol, whom he invited every Sunday to dinner at Lathuile’s.”

  “And how did they get along together, the uncle and the nephew?”

  “Like two fingers of the same hand.”

  “Did they ever have any disputes?”

  “Never, except that they were always wrangling about Madame Clara.”

  “Who is that Madame Clara?”

  “Well, M. Monistrol’s wife, a superb creature. The deceased, old Antenor, could not bear her. He said that his nephew loved that woman too much; that she was leading him by the end of his nose, and that she was fooling him in every way. He claimed that she did not love her husband; that she was too high and mighty for her position, and that finally she would do something foolish. Madame Clara and her uncle even had a falling out at the end of last year. She wanted the good fellow to lend a hundred thousand francs to M. Monistrol, to enable him to buy out a jeweler’s stock at the Palais Royal. But he refused, saying that after his death they could do with his money whatever they wanted, but that until then, since he had earned it, he intended to keep and enjoy it.”

  I thought that M. Mechinet would dwell on this circumstance, which seemed to me very important. But no, in vain did I increase my signals; he continued:

  “It remains now to be told by whom the crime was first discovered.”

  “By me, my kind monsieur, by me,” moaned the concierge. “Oh! it is frightful! Just imagine, this morning, exactly at twelve, I brought up to old Antenor his chocolate, as usual. As I do the cleaning, I have a key to the apartment. I opened, I entered, and what did I see? Oh! my God!”

  And she began to scream loudly.

  “This grief proves that you have a good heart, madame,” gravely said M. Mechinet. “Only, as I am in a great hurry, please try to overcome it. What did you think, seeing your tenant murdered?”

  “I said to any one who wanted to hear: ‘It is his nephew, the scoundrel, who has done it to inherit.’ ”

  “What makes you so positive? Because after all to accuse a man of so great a crime, is to drive him to the scaffold.”

  “But, monsieur, who else would it be? M. Monistrol came to see his uncle last evening, and when he left it was nearly midnight. Besides, he nearly always speaks to me, but
never said a word to me that night, neither when he came, nor when he left. And from that moment up to the time I discovered everything, I am sure nobody went up to M. Antenor’s apartment.”

  I admit this evidence confused me. I would not have thought of continuing the examination. Fortunately, M. Mechinet’s experience was great, and he was thoroughly master of the difficult art of drawing the whole truth from witnesses.

  “Then, madame,” he insisted, “you are certain that Monistrol came yesterday evening?”

  “I am certain.”

  “Did you surely see him and recognize him?”

  “Ah! wait. I did not look him in the face. He passed quickly, trying to hide himself, like the scoundrel he is, and the hallway is badly illuminated.”

  At this reply, of such incalculable importance, I jumped up and, approaching the concierge, exclaimed:

  “If it is so, how dare you affirm that you recognized M. Monistrol?”

  She looked me over from head to foot, and answered with an ironical smile:

  “If I did not see the master’s face, I did see the dog’s nose. As I always pet him, he came into my lodge, and I was just going to give him a bone from a leg of mutton when his master whistled for him.”

  I looked at M. Mechinet, anxious to know what he thought of this, but his face faithfully kept the secret of his impressions.

  He only added:

  “Of what breed is M. Monistrol’s dog?”

  “It is a loulou, such as the drovers used formerly, all black, with a white spot over the ear; they call him ‘Pluton.’ ”

  M. Mechinet rose.

  “You may retire,” he said to the concierge; “I know all I want.”

  And when she had left, he remarked:

  “It seems to me impossible that the nephew is not the guilty one.”

  During the time this long examination was taking place, the physicians had come. When they finished the autopsy they reached the following conclusion:

  “M. Pigoreau’s death had certainly been instantaneous.” So it was not he who had lined out the five letters, Monis, which we saw on the floor near the body.