the old justice of the peace did not seem to be listening, and appeared to be plunged in the deepest meditation. Night was falling; a light fog hung like smoke over the Seine.
“We must go in,” said M. Plantat, abruptly, “and see how the doctor has got on with his autopsy.”
They slowly approached the house. The judge of instruction awaited them on the steps. He appeared to have a satisfied air.
“I am going to leave you in charge,” said he to M. Plantat, “for if I am to see the procureur, I must go at once. When you sent for him this morning, he was absent.”
M. Plantat bowed.
“I shall be much obliged if you will watch this affair to the end. The doctor will have finished in a few minutes, he says, and will report to-morrow morning. I count on your co-operation to put seals wherever they are necessary, and to select the guard over the chateau. I shall send an architect to draw up an exact plan of the house and garden. Well, sir,” asked M. Domini, turning to the detective, “have you made any fresh discoveries?”
“I have found some important facts; but I cannot speak decisively till I have seen everything by daylight. If you will permit me, I will postpone making my report till to-morrow afternoon. I think I may say, however, that complicated as this affair is—”
M. Domini did not let him finish.
“I see nothing complicated in the affair at all; everything strikes me as very simple.”
“But,” objected M. Lecoq, “I thought—”
“I sincerely regret,” continued the judge, “that you were so hastily called, when there was really no serious reason for it. The evidences against the arrested men are very conclusive.”
Plantat and Lecoq exchanged a long look, betraying their great surprise.
“What!” exclaimed the former, “have, you discovered any new indications?”
“More than indications, I believe,” responded M. Domini. “Old Bertaud, whom I have again questioned, begins to be uneasy. He has quite lost his arrogant manner. I succeeded in making him contradict himself several times, and he finished by confessing that he saw the assassins.”
“The assassins!” exclaimed M. Plantat. “Did he say assassins?”
“He saw at least one of them. He persists in declaring that he did not recognize him. That’s where we are. But prison walls have salutary terrors. To-morrow after a sleepless night, the fellow will be more explicit, if I mistake not.”
“But Guespin,” anxiously asked the old man, “have you questioned him?”
“Oh, as for him, everything is clear.”
“Has he confessed?” asked M. Lecoq, stupefied.
The judge half turned toward the detective, as if he were displeased that M. Lecoq should dare to question him.
“Guespin has not confessed,” he answered, “but his case is none the better for that. Our searchers have returned. They haven’t yet found the count’s body, and I think it has been carried down by the current. But they found at the end of the park, the count’s other slipper, among the roses; and under the bridge, in the middle of the river, they discovered a thick vest which still bears the marks of blood.”
“And that vest is Guespin’s?”
“Exactly so. It was recognized by all the domestics, and Guespin himself did not hesitate to admit that it belonged to him. But that is not all—”
M. Domini stopped as if to take breath, but really to keep Plantat in suspense. As they differed in their theories, he thought Plantat betrayed a stupid opposition to him; and he was not sorry to have a chance for a little triumph.
“That is not all,” he went on; “this vest had, in the right pocket, a large rent, and a piece of it had been torn off. Do you know what became of that piece of Guespin’s vest?”
“Ah,” muttered M. Plantat, “it was that which we found in the countess’s hand.”
“You are right, Monsieur. And what think you of this proof, pray, of the prisoner’s guilt?”
M. Plantat seemed amazed; his arms fell at his side. As for M. Lecoq, who, in presence of the judge, had resumed his haberdasher manner, he was so much surprised that he nearly strangled himself with a lozenge.
“A thousand devils!” exclaimed he. “That’s tough, that is!” He smiled sillily, and added in a low tone, meant only for Plantat’s ear.
“Mighty tough! Though quite foreseen in our calculations. The countess held a piece of cloth tightly in her hand; therefore it was put there, intentionally, by the murderers.”
M. Domini did not hear this remark. He shook hands with M. Plantat and made an appointment to meet him on the morrow, at the court-house. Then he went away with his clerk.
Guespin and old Bertaud, handcuffed, had a few minutes before being led off to the prison of Corbeil, under the guard of the Orcival gendarmes.
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