The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries

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

  So I was not mistaken.

  “But if it was not he,” exclaimed M. Mechinet, “who was it then? Monistrol—that is what nobody will ever succeed in putting into my brain.”

  And the commissary, happy at being free to go to dinner at last, made fun of M. Mechinet’s perplexities—ridiculous perplexities, once Monistrol had confessed. But M. Mechinet said:

  “Perhaps I am really nothing but an idiot; the future will tell. In the mean time, come, my dear Monsieur Godeuil, come with me to police Headquarters.”

  VI

  In like manner, as in going to Batignolles, we took a cab also to go to police Headquarters.

  M. Mechinet’s preoccupation was great. His fingers continually traveled from the empty snuff-box to his nose, and I heard him grumbling between his teeth:

  “I shall assure myself of the truth of this! I must find out the truth of this.”

  Then he took from his pocket the cork which I had given him, and turned it over and over like a monkey picking a nut, and murmured:

  “This is evidence, however; there must be something gained by this green wax.”

  Buried in my corner, I did not breathe. My position was certainly one of the strangest, but I did not give it a thought. Whatever intelligence I had was absorbed in this affair; in my mind I went over its various and contradictory elements, and exhausted myself in trying to penetrate the secret of the tragedy, a secret of which I had presentiment.

  When our carriage stopped, it was night—dark.

  The Quai des Orfevres was deserted and quiet; not a sound, not passer-by. The stores in the neighborhood, few and far between, were closed. All the life of the district had hidden itself in the little restaurant which almost forms the corner of the Rue de Jerusalem, behind the red curtains, on which were outlined the shadows of the patrons.

  “Will they let you see the accused?” I asked M. Mechinet.

  “Certainly,” he answered. “Am I not charged with the following up of this affair? Is it not necessary, in view of unforeseen requirements at the inquest, that I be allowed to examine the prisoner at any hour of the day or night?”

  And with a quick step he entered under the arch, saying to me:

  “Come, come, we have no time to lose.”

  I did not require any encouragement from him. I followed, agitated by indescribable emotions and trembling with vague curiosity.

  It was the first time I had ever crossed the threshold of the Police Headquarters, and God knows what my prejudices were then.

  There, I said to myself, not without a certain terror, there is the secret of Paris!

  I was so lost in thought, that, forgetting to look where I was going, I almost fell.

  The shock brought me back to a sense of the situation.

  We were going along an immense passageway, with damp walls and an uneven pavement. Soon my companion entered a small room where two men were playing cards, while three or four others, stretched on cots, were smoking pipes. M. Mechinet exchanged a few words with them—I could not hear, for I had remained outside. Then he came out again, and we continued our walk.

  After crossing a court and entering another passageway, we soon came before an iron gate with heavy bolts and a formidable lock.

  At a word from M. Mechinet, a watchman opened this gate for us; at the right we passed a spacious room, where it seemed to me I saw policemen and Paris guards; finally we climbed up a very steep stairway.

  At the top of the stairs, at the entrance to a narrow passage with a number of small doors, was seated a stout man with a jovial face, that certainly had nothing of the classical jailer about it.

  As soon as he noticed my companion, he exclaimed:

  “Eh! it is M. Mechinet. Upon my word, I was expecting you. I bet you came for the murderer of the little old man of Batignolles.”

  “Precisely. Is there anything new?”

  “No.”

  “But the investigating judge must have come.”

  “He has just gone.”

  “Well?”

  “He did not stay more than three minutes with the accused, and when he left he seemed very much satisfied. At the bottom of the stairs he met the governor, and said to him: “This is a settled case; the murderer has not even attempted to deny.”

  M. Mechinet jumped about three feet; but the jailer did not notice it, and continued:

  “But then, that did not surprise me. At a mere glance at the individual as they brought him I said: ‘Here is one who will not know how to hold out.’ ”

  “And what is he doing now?”

  “He moans. I have been instructed to watch him, for fear he should commit suicide, and as is my duty, I do watch him, but it is mere waste of time. He is another one of those fellows who care more for their own skin than for that of others.”

  “Let us go and see him,” interrupted M. Mechinet; “and above all, no noise.”

  At once all three advanced on tiptoe till we reached a solid oak door, through which had been cut a little barred window about a man’s height from the ground.

  Through this little window could be seen everything that occurred in the cell, which was illuminated by a paltry gasburner.

  The jailer glanced in first, M. Mechinet then looked, and at last my turn came.

  On a narrow iron couch, covered with a gray woolen blanket with yellow stripes, I perceived a man lying flat, his head hidden between his partly folded arms.

  He was crying; the smothered sound of his sobs reached me, and from time to time a convulsive trembling shook him from head to foot.

  “Open now,” ordered M. Mechinet of the watchman.

  He obeyed, and we entered.

  At the sound of the grating key, the prisoner had raised himself and, sitting on his pallet, his legs and arms hanging, his head inclined on his chest, he looked at us stupidly.

  He was a man of thirty-five or thirty-eight years of age; his build a little above the average, but robust, with an apoplectic neck sunk between two broad shoulders. He was ugly; smallpox had disfigured him, and his long, straight nose and receding forehead gave him somewhat the stupid look of a sheep. However his blue eyes were very beautiful, and his teeth were of remarkable whiteness.

  “Well! M. Monistrol,” began M. Mechinet, “we are grieving, are we?”

  As the unfortunate man did not answer, he continued:

  “I admit that the situation is not enlivening. Nevertheless, if I were in your place, I would prove that I am a man. I would have common sense, and try to prove my innocence.”

  “I am not innocent.”

  This time there could not be any mistake, nor could the intelligence of the officer be doubted; it was from the very mouth of the accused that we gathered the terrible confession.

  “What!” exclaimed M. Mechinet, “it was you who—”

  The man stood up, staggering on his legs, his eyes bloodshot, his mouth foaming, prey to a veritable attack of rage.

  “Yes, it was I,” he interrupted; “I alone. How many times will I have to repeat it? Already, a while ago, a judge came; I confessed everything and signed my confession. What more do you ask? Go on, I know what awaits me, and I am not afraid. I killed, I must be killed! Well, cut my head off, the sooner the better.”

  Somewhat stunned at first, M. Mechinet soon recovered.

  “One moment. You know,” he said, “they do not cut people’s heads off like that. First they must prove that they are guilty; after that the courts admit certain errors, certain fatalities, if you will, and it is for this very reason that they recognize ‘extenuating circumstances.’ ”

  An inarticulate moan was Monistrol’s only answer. M. Mechinet continued:

  “Did you have a terrible grudge against your uncle?”

  “Oh, no.�
�

  “Then why?”

  “To inherit; my affairs were in bad shape—you may make inquiry. I needed money; my uncle, who was very rich, refused me some.”

  “I understand; you hoped to escape from justice?”

  “I was hoping to.”

  Until then I had been surprised at the way M. Mechinet was conducting this rapid examination, but now it became clear to me. I guessed rightly what followed; I saw what trap he was laying for the accused.

  “Another thing,” he continued suddenly, “where did you buy the revolver you used in committing the murder?”

  No surprise appeared on Monistrol’s face.

  “I had it in my possession for a long time,” he answered.

  “What did you do with it after the crime?”

  “I threw it outside on the boulevard.”

  “All right,” spoke M. Mechinet gravely, “we will make search and will surely find it.”

  After a moment of silence he added:

  “What I can not explain to myself is, why is it that you had your dog follow you?”

  “What! How! My dog?”

  “Yes, Pluton. The concierge recognized him.”

  Monistrol’s fists moved convulsively; he opened his mouth as if to answer, but a sudden idea crossing his mind, he threw himself back on his bed, and said in a tone of firm determination:

  “You have tortured me enough; you shall not draw another word from me.”

  It was clear that to insist would be taking trouble for nothing.

  We then withdrew.

  Once outside on the quay, grasping M. Mechinet’s arm, I said:

  “You heard it, that unfortunate man does not even know how his uncle died. Is it possible to still doubt his innocence?”

  But he was a terrible skeptic, that old detective.

  “Who knows?” he answered. “I have seen some famous actors in my life. But we have had enough of it for to-day. This evening I will take you to eat soup with me. To-morrow it will be daylight, and we shall see.”

  VII

  It was not far from ten o’clock when M. Mechinet, whom I was still accompanying, rang at the door of his apartment.

  “I never carry any latch-key,” he told me. “In our blessed business you can never know what may happen. There are many rascals who have a grudge against me, and even if I am not always careful for myself, I must be so for my wife.”

  My worthy neighbor’s explanation was superfluous. I had understood. I even observed that he rang in a peculiar way, which must have been an agreed signal between his wife and himself.

  It was the amiable Madame Mechinet who opened the door.

  With a quick movement, as graceful as a kitten, she threw herself on her husband’s neck, exclaiming:

  “Here you are at last! I do not know why, but I was almost worried.”

  But she stopped suddenly; she had just noticed me. Her joyous expression darkened, and she drew back. Addressing both me and her husband:

  “What!” she continued, “you come from the cafe at this hour? That is not common sense!”

  M. Mechinet’s lips wore the indulgent smile of the man who is sure of being loved, who knows how to appease by a word the quarrel picked with him.

  “Do not scold us, Caroline,” he answered; by this “us” associating me with his case. “We do not come from the cafe, and neither have we lost our time. They sent for me for an affair; for a murder committed at Batignolles.”

  With a suspicious look the young woman examined us—first her husband and then me; when she had persuaded herself that she was not being deceived, she said only:

  “Ah!”

  But it would take a whole page to give an inventory of all that was contained in that brief exclamation.

  It was addressed to M. Mechinet, and clearly signified:

  “What? you confided in this young man! You have revealed to him your position; you have initiated him into our secrets?”

  Thus I interpreted that eloquent “Ah!” My worthy neighbor, too, must have interpreted it as I did, for he answered:

  “Well, yes. Where is the wrong of it? I may have to dread the vengeance of wretches whom I give up to justice, but what have I to fear from honest people? Do you imagine perhaps that I hide myself; that I am ashamed of my trade?”

  “You misunderstood me, my friend,” objected the young woman.

  M. Mechinet did not even hear her.

  He had just mounted—I learned this detail later—on a favorite hobby that always carried the day.

  “Upon my word,” he continued, “you have some peculiar ideas, madame, my wife. What! I one of the sentinels of civilization! I, who assure society’s safety at the price of my rest and at the risk of my life, and should I blush for it? That would be far too amusing. You will tell me that against us of the police there exist a number of absurd prejudices left behind by the past. What do I care? Yes, I know that there are some sensitive gentlemen who look down on us. But sacrebleau! How I should like to see their faces if to-morrow my colleagues and I should go on a strike, leaving the streets free to the army of rascals whom we hold in check.”

  Accustomed without doubt to explosions of this kind, Madame Mechinet did not say a word; she was right in doing so, for my good neighbor, meeting with no contradiction, calmed himself as if by magic.

  “But enough of this,” he said to his wife. “There is now a matter of far greater importance. We have not had any dinner yet; we are dying of hunger; have you anything to give us for supper?”

  What happened that night must have happened too often for Madame Mechinet to be caught unprepared.

  “In five minutes you gentlemen will be served,” she answered with the most amiable smile.

  In fact, a moment afterward we sat down at table before a fine cut of cold beef, served by Madame Mechinet, who did not stop filling our glasses with excellent Macon wine.

  And while my worthy neighbor was conscientiously plying his fork I, looking at that peaceable home, which was his, that pretty, attentive little wife, which was his, kept asking myself whether I really saw before me one of those “savage” police agents who have been the heroes of so many absurd stories.

  However, hunger soon satisfied, M. Mechinet started to tell his wife about our expedition. And he did not tell her about it lightly, but with the most minute details. She had taken a seat beside him, and by the way she listened and looked understandingly, asking for explanations when she had not well understood, one could recognize in her a plain “Egeria,” accustomed to be consulted, and having a deliberative vote.

  When M. Mechinet had finished, she said to him:

  “You have made a great mistake, an irreparable mistake.”

  “Where?”

  “It is not to Police Headquarters you should have gone, abandoning Batignolles.”

  “But Monistrol?”

  “Yes, you wanted to examine him. What advantage did you get from that?”

  “It was of use to me, my dear friend.”

  “For nothing. It was to the Rue Vivienne that you should have hurried, to the wife. You would have surprised her in a natural agitation caused by her husband’s arrest, and if she is his accomplice, as we must suppose, with a little skill you would have made her confess.”

  At these words I jumped from my chair.

  “What! madame,” I exclaimed, “do you believe Monistrol guilty?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she answered:

  “Yes.”

  Then she added very vivaciously:

  “But I am sure, do you hear, absolutely sure, that the murder was conceived by the woman. Of twenty crimes committed by men, fifteen have been conceived, planned, and inspired by woman. Ask Mechinet. The concierge’s deposition ough
t to have enlightened you. Who is that Madame Monistrol? They told you a remarkably beautiful person, coquettish, ambitious, affected with covetousness, and who was leading her husband by the end of his nose. Now what was her position? Wretched, tight, precarious. She suffered from it, and the proof of it is that she asked her uncle to loan her husband a hundred thousand francs. He refused them to her, thus shattering her hopes. Do you not think she had a deadly grudge against him? And when she kept seeing him in good health and sturdy as an oak, she must have said to herself fatally: ‘He will live a hundred years; by the time he leaves us his inheritance we won’t have any teeth left to munch it, and who knows even whether he will not bury us!’ Is it so very far from this point to the conception of a crime? And the resolution once taken in her mind, she must have prepared her husband a long time before, she must have accustomed him to the thought of murder, she must have put, so to say, the knife in his hand. And he, one day, threatened with bankruptcy, crazed by his wife’s lamentations, delivered the blow.”

  “All that is logical,” approved M. Mechinet, “very logical, without a doubt, but what becomes of the circumstances brought to light by us?”

  “Then, madame,” I said, “you believe Monistrol stupid enough to denounce himself by writing down his name?”

  She slightly shrugged her shoulders and answered:

  “Is that stupidity? As for me, I maintain that it is not. Is not that point your strongest argument in favor of his innocence?”

  This reasoning was so specious that for a moment I remained perplexed. Then recovering, I said, insisting:

  “But he confesses his guilt, madame?”

  “An excellent method of his for getting the authorities to prove him innocent.”

  “Oh!”

  “You yourself are proof of its efficacy, dear M. Godeuil.”

  “Eh! madame, the unfortunate does not even know how his uncle was killed!”

  “I beg your pardon; he seemed not to know it, which is not the same thing.”

  The discussion was becoming animated, and would have lasted much longer, had not M. Mechinet put an end to it.

  “Come, come,” he simply said to his wife, “you are too romantic this evening.”