in low tones, and with a long and tender look of pity at the defendant.
"Will you please tell us anything you know that has any bearing upon the charge brought against the defendant, the charge of having killed his son?"
Thérèse made a visible effort to restrain her distress.
"I can only say one thing, sir: that M. Rambert was talking to his son in tones of such terrible distress that I knew his heart was broken by the tragedy. I have heard so much from my dear grandmother about M. Etienne Rambert that I can only remember that she always declared him to be a man of the very highest principle, and I can only tell him here how dreadfully sorry I am for him, and that everybody pities him as much as I do."
The judge had expected that Thérèse would be a witness hostile to the defendant, whereas anything she was going to say would obviously be much to his advantage. He cut her short.
"That is enough, mademoiselle. Thank you," and while Thérèse was going back to her seat, wiping away the tears that would come to her eyes despite her bravest efforts to keep her self-control in the presence of so many strangers, the judge announced that there were no other witnesses to be heard, and called upon the Public Prosecutor to address the court.
That personage rose at once and made a harangue that was eloquent enough, no doubt, but introduced no new features into the case. He relied upon his law rather than his facts: rapidly recapitulated the defendant's contradictions and pitifully weak arguments, if arguments they could be called: claimed that the facts had been proved despite the defendant's steady refusal to answer questions: and insisted on the point that the defendant had no right whatever to take the law into his own hands, and either kill his son or aid and abet in his flight. He concluded by asking for a verdict of guilty, and a sentence of penal servitude for life.
To him succeeded counsel for the defendant, whose speech was brevity itself. He declined to make any appeal ad misericordiam, but simply asked the jury to decide whether the defendant had not acted as any high-principled father would act when he discovered that his son had committed a crime during a fit of insanity. He asked only for an impartial decision on the facts, from men of high principle, and he sat down conscious of having focussed the issue on the proper point and secured the sympathy of the public.
The judges withdrew to their room, the jury retired to consider their verdict, and Etienne Rambert was removed between two warders. Juve had not stirred during the whole trial, or displayed the least sign of approval or disapproval at any of the questions and answers exchanged. He sat now unobtrusively listening to the conversation that passed near him, relative to the issue of the case.
President Bonnet opined that Etienne Rambert had blundered in refusing to put up any defence: he had shown contempt of court, which was always unwise, and the court would show him no mercy. Dollon was of another opinion: according to him Etienne Rambert was a sport of fate, deserving pity rather than severity, and the court would be very lenient. Another man declared that Etienne Rambert had been in an impasse: however fondly he loved his son he could not but hope that he might commit suicide: if a friend committed an offence against the laws of honour, the only thing to do was to put a pistol into his hand. And so on: the only point on which all were unanimous was their sympathy with the defendant.
But a bell rang sharply; grave and impassive, the jury returned, the judges filed once more into their seats, Etienne Rambert was led back into court by the warders. In tense silence the foreman of the jury spoke:
"In the presence of God and of man, and upon my honour and my conscience I declare that the answer of the jury is 'no' to all the questions put, and that is the answer of them all."
It was acquittal!
There was no applause, but yet it seemed as if the words that set the defendant free had relieved every bosom of an overwhelming dread; the air seemed easier to breathe; and there was no one there but seemed physically better and also happier, for hearing a verdict which gave sanction for the general pity they had felt for the unhappy defendant, a man of honour and a most unhappy father!
By their verdict the jury had implicitly applauded and commiserated Etienne Rambert; but he still sat in the dock, broken and prostrated by terrible distress, sobbing unreservedly and making no effort to restrain his immeasurable grief.
X
Princess Sonia's Bath
Four months had passed since Etienne Rambert had been acquitted at the Cahors Assizes, and the world was beginning to forget the Beaulieu tragedy as it had already almost forgotten the mysterious murder of Lord Beltham. Juve alone did not allow his daily occupation to put the two cases out of his mind. True, he had ceased to make any direct enquiries, and gave no sign that he still had any interest in those crimes; but the detective knew very well that in both of them he had to contend with no ordinary murderer and he was content to remain in the shadow, waiting and watching, in seeming inactivity, for some slip which should betray the person or persons who had perpetrated two of the most puzzling murders that he had ever had to deal with.
It was the end of June, and Paris was beginning to empty. But the spring had been late and cold that year, and although it was within a couple of days of July society had lingered on in the capital; luxuriously appointed carriages still swept along the Champs Elysées when the audiences poured out of theatres and concert rooms, and fashionably attired people still thronged the broad pavements and gathered before the brilliantly lighted cafés on the Rond-Point; even at that late hour the Champs Elysées were as animated as in the busiest hours of the day.
At the Royal Palace Hotel the greatest animation prevailed. The entire staff was hurrying about the vast entrance halls and the palatial rooms on the ground floor; for it was the hour when the guests of the Royal Palace Hotel were returning from their evening's amusements, and the spacious vestibules of the immense hotel were crowded with men in evening dress, young fellows in dinner jackets, and women in low-cut gowns.
A young and fashionable woman got out of a perfectly appointed victoria, and M. Louis, the manager of the staff, came forward and bowed low, as he only did to clients of the very highest distinction. The lady responded with a gracious smile, and the manager called a servant.
"The lift for Mme. la Princesse Sonia Danidoff," and the next moment the beautiful vision, who had created quite a sensation merely in passing through the hall, had disappeared within the lift and was borne up to her apartments.
Princess Sonia was one of the most important clients that the Royal Palace Hotel possessed. She belonged to one of the greatest families in the world, being, by her marriage with Prince Danidoff, cousin to the Emperor of Russia and, so, connected with many royal personages. Still barely thirty years of age, she was not pretty but remarkably lovely, with wonderful blue eyes which formed a strange and most bewitching contrast to the heavy masses of black hair that framed her face. A woman of immense wealth, and typically a woman of the world, the Princess spent six months of the year in Paris, where she was a well-known and much-liked figure in the most exclusive circles; she was clever and cultivated, a first-rate musician, and her reputation was spotless, although it was very seldom that she was accompanied by her husband, whose duties as Grand Chamberlain to the Tsar kept him almost continuously in Russia. When in Paris she occupied a suite of four rooms on the third floor of the Royal Palace Hotel, a suite identical in plan and in luxury with that reserved for sovereigns who came there incognito.
The Princess passed through her drawing-room, a vast, round room, with a superb view over the Arc de Triomphe, and went into her bedroom where
