Human Beast: The Emile Zola Society Edition

by Emile Zola

  A friend of his, it should be said, had advised caution the moment the inquiry began, urging him to speak with someone at the Ministry of Justice6 in Paris. Denizet had gone to Paris and had had a long conversation with the Secretary-General, Monsieur Camy-Lamotte, a person of considerable influence, responsible for all legal appointments and in close touch with the Tuileries. Monsieur Camy-Lamotte was a man of distinctive appearance. Like Denizet, he had started his career as a deputy prosecutor, but thanks to family connections and the influence of his wife, he had become a Member of Parliament and had been awarded the title of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour. The Grandmorin affair had landed on his desk because the Rouen prosecutor, unwilling to take on a sordid affair involving a former colleague who had been murdered, had taken the precaution of referring the matter to the Minister of Justice. He in turn had passed it on to his Secretary-General. By a strange coincidence, Monsieur Camy-Lamotte and President Grandmorin had been students together. Camy-Lamotte was a few years younger than Grandmorin, but had remained one of his closest friends. There was little that he didn’t know about him, including his insatiable sexual appetite. He assured Denizet that the tragic death of his friend had been a great sadness to him and impressed upon him how passionately he desired to see the guilty party brought to justice. At the same time he made it clear that the Tuileries regretted the current spate of exaggerated rumour and suggested to Denizet, without of course wishing to appear presumptuous, that what was needed above all in this investigation was tact. In short, Denizet was led to understand that he should not try to rush things through too quickly and that he should take no decision without prior consultation. He returned to Rouen convinced that the Secretary-General had set up a separate inquiry into the affair. The truth needed to be ascertained in order, if necessary, to conceal it.

  The days went by. Monsieur Denizet, although doing his best to remain patient, was becoming increasingly irritated by the jokes in the press. The detective in him was itching to get the investigation under way. Like a hound with its nose to the wind, he wanted to track down the villain and have the honour of being the first to solve the mystery, even if he was subsequently told to abandon his endeavours. He waited expectantly for a letter from the ministry, for a word of advice or some indication to proceed. But none came. So he had decided to resume his investigation. He had already made a number of arrests but had not had sufficient evidence to take matters further. Now, however, as he read through the details of President Grandmorin’s will, he recalled something he had vaguely suspected at the very beginning of his inquiries - the possibility that the murder had been committed by the Roubauds. The will was a quagmire of strange bequests, but among them was one stipulating that Séverine should inherit a house at La Croix-de-Maufras. Instantly a motive for the murder, which he had hitherto sought in vain, suggested itself; the Roubauds, knowing the contents of the will, could have murdered their benefactor in order to get their hands on the property as soon as possible. The thought had played on his mind increasingly ever since Monsieur Camy-Lamotte had mentioned Madame Roubaud as someone he had met some time ago at the President’s château, when she was a girl. But the whole thing seemed implausible, and from both a practical and moral point of view the case was fraught with difficulties. The more he tried to pursue this line of investigation, the more he came up against things that simply did not fit into the classic pattern of a murder inquiry. It didn’t make sense; there was no underlying motive, no prime cause that made it all fall into place.

  There was, of course, another line of inquiry which he had not yet discounted, namely the possibility, suggested by Roubaud himself, that, in the rush for seats just before the train left Rouen, someone had managed to get into the coupé - the mythical killer that the police had failed to track down and whom the opposition newspapers were constantly joking about. His initial inquiry had sought to identify the appearance of this individual, at Rouen where he had boarded the train, and at Barentin where he must have got out, but nothing definite had emerged; some witnesses insisted that no one could possibly have forced their way into the reserved coupé, and others had given the most contradictory accounts. It was beginning to appear that this line of inquiry too would lead nowhere. But then, as he was questioning Misard, the crossing keeper, Denizet quite by chance came to hear of the tragic story of Cabuche and Louisette, the girl who had been assaulted by the President, who had run away to her lover’s cottage and who had apparently died there. For Denizet this had come as a flash of light in the dark; he could now establish a clear-cut case against the murderer. All the necessary ingredients were there - death threats made against the victim by Cabuche, a previous record of violence, and an unconvincing alibi that could not be proved. The day before, in a sudden moment of inspiration, Denizet had had Cabuche secretly arrested in his shack in the woods. A pair of bloodstained trousers had been found there. Denizet was careful not to let himself get too carried away with the new idea that was beginning to take shape in his mind, and he had certainly not abandoned his Roubaud hypothesis, but he was none the less delighted to think that he alone had been canny enough to put his finger on the real killer. It was in order to establish firm evidence for his suspicions that he had that morning recalled a number of witnesses who had already given evidence on the day following the crime.

  The entrance to the magistrate’s office was from the Rue Jeanne d‘Arc. It was in an old building which had seen better days, tacked incongruously on to one side of what had once been the palace of the Dukes of Normandy and now served as the law courts. It was a large, gloomy room on the ground floor, with so little natural light that in winter a lamp had to be lit as early as three o’clock in the afternoon. The walls were hung with faded green wallpaper, and the furniture consisted simply of two armchairs, four other chairs, the magistrate’s desk and a smaller desk for the clerk. On the mantelpiece above the empty fireplace stood two bronze urns on either side of a black marble clock. Behind the magistrate’s desk was a door leading to a second room, which was used to accommodate anyone he wished to retain for further questioning. The main door opened directly on to a wide corridor lined with benches, where the witnesses sat while waiting their turn to be called.

  The Roubauds had arrived as early as half past one, even though their appointment was not until two o’clock. They had come directly from Le Havre, stopping only to snatch some lunch in a little restaurant in the Grande-Rue. They were both dressed in black, he in a frock-coat and she in a long, elegant silk dress, and both displayed the air of subdued solemnity that betokens the loss of a close relative. Severine had sat down to wait on one of the benches, saying nothing and not moving. Roubaud paced slowly up and down in front of her with his hands behind his back. Each time he walked past her, their eyes met, and, although they did not speak, their anxiety drifted like a dark shadow across their faces. They had been delighted to receive the legacy of La Croix-de-Maufras, but it had also revived their fears. The President’s family, and his daughter in particular, had been incensed by the large number of strange bequests contained in the will, amounting to virtually half of the entire estate, and they were now talking of contesting it. Madame de Lachesnaye, prompted by her husband, had been especially critical of her former friend Séverine, about whom she harboured the most serious misgivings. Added to this was the thought that the investigation might reveal some piece of incriminating evidence. Initially, the possibility had never occurred to him, but for Roubaud it had now become a constant nagging fear. There was the letter that he had made his wife write to Grandmorin to persuade him to take the 6.30 express from Paris. If Grandmorin hadn’t destroyed it, it would eventually be found, and the handwriting might be recognized. Fortunately, the days had gone by, and nothing had happened; the letter must have been torn up. None the less, the new summons to appear before the examining magistrate had brought the Roubauds out into a cold sweat, even though the ostensible reason for their presence was as beneficiaries of the will and as witnesses
in the eventual trial.

  A clock struck two. The next person to arrive was Jacques Lantier. He had come from Paris. Immediately, Roubaud went up to him, extending his hand in a gesture of friendly greeting.

  ‘So you’ve been roped in too!’ he said. ‘What a wretched business this is! Will there be no end to it? It seems to be dragging on for ever!’

  Jacques caught sight of Séverine, sitting motionless on the bench in front of him, and stopped short. During the last three weeks, on the days when Lantier had been driving the train to Le Havre, Roubaud had gone out of his way to be friendly to him. On one occasion he had even insisted that he come and have lunch. In the presence of a young woman like Séverine, Jacques had immediately felt the stirrings of his old malady and a growing sense of panic. Was this yet another woman he would be driven to desire? He had only to glimpse the circle of lighter skin above the opening of her dress, and his heart had begun to beat, his hands had begun to tingle. He had resolved that in future he must keep away from her.

  ‘What are people saying about this in Paris?’ continued Roubaud. ‘Nothing new, I suppose. No one knows anything, of course. No one ever will. Come and say hello to my wife.’

  He took him by the arm. Jacques had no alternative; he went up to Séverine and greeted her, while she sat there, feeling embarrassed and smiling at him like a frightened child. Jacques endeavoured to make polite conversation. Roubaud and Séverine looked at him intently, not taking their eyes off him for a minute, as if they were trying to read beyond his thoughts and probe those corners of the mind that he himself preferred to ignore. Why was he so distant? Why did he seem to want to avoid them? Were there things that he remembered? Had they all been summoned together, in order to bring them face to face?7 Lantier was the one witness they dreaded. They wished they could make him their friend so that he wouldn’t have the heart to testify against them.

  Tormented by thoughts such as these, Roubaud brought the conversation back to the investigation.

  ‘So you’ve no idea why we’ve been summoned again?’ he asked. ‘Is there some new evidence?’

  Jacques shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘There’s talk of an arrest,’ he said. ‘That’s what I heard at the station just now, when I arrived.’

  The Roubauds were simultaneously amazed, curious and very disturbed. An arrest! No one had said anything to them about an arrest. Had the arrest already been made or had it yet to happen? They plied him with questions. But he could tell them nothing more.

  Just then Séverine heard footsteps coming along the corridor.

  ‘It’s Berthe and her husband,’ she whispered.

  It was indeed Monsieur and Madame Lachesnaye. They walked stiffly past the Roubauds, Madame Lachesnaye not even deigning to look at her old school friend, and were immediately shown into the examining magistrate’s office by an usher.

  ‘Well,’ said Roubaud. ‘We shall have to be patient. This will take at least two hours. Come and sit down.’

  Roubaud had seated himself on Severine’s left and beckoned to Jacques to take the other seat beside her. For a moment he hesitated. But Severine looked at him so sweetly and timidly that he overcame his qualms and came to sit next to her. She seemed so fragile, sitting there between them, so gentle and submissive. As they waited, Jacques felt the warmth from her body gradually relaxing him.

  Inside Monsieur Denizet’s office the questioning was about to begin. The inquiry had already amassed a substantial dossier of information filling several files of documents, all bound in blue folders. The investigation had sought to trace the victim’s movements from the moment he left Paris. Monsieur Vandorpe, the stationmaster, had testified that the 6.30 express had left on time, that carriage number 293 had been attached to the train at the last minute, that he had chatted briefly with Roubaud, who had got into his compartment shortly before President Grandmorin arrived at the station, that the latter had been safely conducted to his coupé and that there was definitely no one else in the compartment. The guard, Henri Dauvergne, had been questioned about what happened at Rouen during the train’s ten-minute stop there. He was unable to offer any clear statement. He had seen Monsieur and Madame Roubaud chatting on the platform outside the coupé and was fairly sure that they had returned to their own compartment and that one of the inspectors had closed the carriage door behind them. He couldn’t be absolutely sure because there were so many people milling about on the platform, and the station was poorly lit. As to whether some person or other - namely the mystery killer, whom the police had so far failed to find - could have jumped into the coupé as the train was leaving the station, he said he thought it highly unlikely albeit not impossible, as similar occurrences had to his knowledge happened twice before. Other station employees at Rouen had been asked the same questions, but far from shedding any light on the matter, they had merely succeeded in confusing things further, by making statements that completely contradicted each other. One fact that appeared to be established beyond doubt was that Roubaud, standing on the inside of a carriage, shook hands with the stationmaster at Barentin, who was standing on the carriage footboard. The stationmaster in question, Monsieur Bessière, had formally testified that this was the case. He also added that his colleague had been alone in the compartment with his wife, who was lying on one of the seats apparently fast asleep. The inquiry had been extended further - to the other passengers who had travelled from Paris in the same compartment as the Roubauds. The fat lady and her fat spouse, who had arrived late and got into the train at the last minute, turned out to be a perfectly respectable couple who lived at Petit-Couronne;8 they stated that they had both gone straight to sleep and hadn’t seen a thing. As for the woman dressed in black sitting silently in the corner of the compartment, she had vanished into thin air like a ghost; it had proved absolutely impossible to trace her. All sorts of other people had been asked to give evidence, in an attempt to identify passengers who had left the train that evening at Barentin, since that was where the murderer must have alighted. All the tickets had been checked and all the passengers were accounted for except one - a tall man with a blue handkerchief tied across his face. Some said he was wearing an overcoat and others said he was wearing working clothes. On this one man alone, who had disappeared like someone in a dream, the dossier contained three hundred and ten separate statements, all of them so vague that each was contradicted by another.

  To make things yet more complicated, the dossier contained a number of legal documents. There was the official report drawn up by the clerk of the court, who had accompanied the public prosecutor and the examining magistrate to the scene of the crime, a voluminous description of the exact point on the railway line at which the body had been found, including the position it was lying in, the clothes it was wearing, and the items found in the pockets, whereby the identity of the victim had been established. Then there was the report of the doctor, who had likewise visited the scene, a long description in highly technical language of the wound to the victim’s throat, a single deep incision made with some sort of cutting implement, presumably a knife. There were other reports and documents concerning the removal of the body to the hospital in Rouen, and the length of time it had been kept there before its unexpectedly swift decomposition had obliged the authorities to return it to the family. Out of this huge mountain of paperwork, however, there emerged only two or three points of any real significance. Firstly, among the contents of Grandmorin’s pockets, they had found neither his watch nor a little wallet, which should have contained ten one-thousand-franc notes, money which the President owed his sister, Madame Bonnehon, and which she was expecting. This might have suggested robbery as the motive for the killing, had not a ring with a large inset diamond been left on the victim’s finger, which prompted a string of other hypotheses. Unfortunately, the numbers of the banknotes were not known. There was, however, information about the watch; it was a large pocket-watch with a winder, the case was engraved with the President’s two initials intert
wined, and inside was the maker’s number - 2.516. Finally, the murder weapon, the knife used by the killer, had been the object of extensive searches along the railway line, in the adjoining undergrowth and anywhere else it might possibly have been thrown, but without success. The murderer must have hidden the knife in the same place as the banknotes and the watch. The only thing that had been found, one hundred metres down the line from the station at Barentin, was the victim’s travelling rug, which had been thrown from the train to prevent it being used as evidence. The rug was included amongst the exhibits.

  As Monsieur and Madame Lachesnaye walked into the magistrate’s office, Monsieur Denizet was standing in front of his desk rereading a transcript of one of the earlier interviews, which his clerk had just found for him in the file. The magistrate was a man of short stature, quite well built, clean-shaven and with hair that was prematurely grey. His heavy jowls, square jaw and broad nose bore the waxed fixity of a mask, an impression further accentuated by his drooping eyelids, which half covered his big, bright eyes. The store of wisdom and expertise on which he prided himself found expression in his mouth; it was the mouth of an actor who has been trained to perform feelings on a public stage, a mouth that was never still, except at times when he wished to make a particularly subtle distinction, when it became compressed into a thin line. Subtlety was often his failing; he examined things too closely, and liked to complicate something that was perfectly plain and simple, out of a sense of professionalism, casting himself as an arbiter of public morality, gifted with foresight and very sharp-witted. However, he was certainly no fool.