placed on the ground, being able thus to move the countess without effacing the imprints necessary for the legal examination. Alas! it was indeed she who had been the beautiful, the charming Countess de Tremorel! Here were her smiling face, her lovely, speaking eyes, her fine, sensitive mouth.
There remained nothing of her former self. The face was unrecognizable, so soiled and wounded was it. Her clothes were in tatters. Surely a furious frenzy had moved the monsters who had slain the poor lady! She had received more than twenty knife-wounds, and must have been struck with a stick, or rather with a hammer; she had been dragged by her feet and by her hair!
In her left hand she grasped a strip of common cloth, torn, doubtless, from the clothes of one of the assassins. The mayor, in viewing the spectacle, felt his legs fail him, and supported himself on the arm of the impassible Plantat.
“Let us carry her to the house,” said the justice, “and then we will search for the count.”
The valet and brigadier (who had now returned) called on the domestics for assistance. The women rushed into the garden. There was then a terrible concert of cries, lamentations, and imprecations.
“The wretches! So noble a mistress! So good a lady!”
M. and Mme. de Tremorel, one could see, were adored by their people.
The countess had just been laid upon the billiard-table, on the ground-floor, when the judge of instruction and a physician were announced.
“At last!” sighed the worthy mayor; and in a lower tone he added, “the finest medals have their reverse.”
Chapter III
The judge of instruction of the tribunal at Corbeil, was M. Antoine Domini, a remarkable man, since called to higher functions. He was forty years of age, of a prepossessing person, and endowed with a very expressive, but too grave physiognomy. In him seemed typified the somewhat stiff solemnity of the magistracy. Penetrated with the dignity of his office, he sacrificed his life to it, rejecting the most simple distractions, and the most innocent pleasures.
He lived alone, seldom showing himself abroad; rarely received his friends, not wishing, as he said, that the weaknesses of the man should derogate from the sacred character of the judge. This latter reason had deterred him from marrying, though he felt the need of a domestic sphere.
Always and everywhere he was the magistrate—that is, the representative, even to fanaticism, of what he thought the most august institution on the earth. Naturally gay, he would double-lock himself in when he wished to laugh. He was witty; but if a bright sally escaped him, you may be sure he repented of it. Body and soul he gave to his vocation; and no one could bring more conscientiousness to the discharge of what he thought to be his duty. He was also inflexible. It was monstrous, in his eyes, to discuss an article of the code. The law spoke; it was enough; he shut his eyes, covered his ears, and obeyed.
From the day when a legal investigation commenced, he did not sleep, and he employed every means to discover the truth. Yet he was not regarded as a good judge of instruction; to contend by tricks with a prisoner was repugnant to him; to lay a snare for a rogue he thought debasing; in short, he was obstinate—obstinate to foolishness, sometimes to absurdity; even to denying the existence of the sun at mid-day.
The mayor and Papa Plantat hastened to meet M. Domini. He bowed to them gravely, as if he had not known them, and presenting to them a man of some sixty years who accompanied him:
“Messieurs,” said he, “this is Doctor Gendron.”
Papa Plantat shook hands with the doctor; the mayor smiled graciously at him, for Dr. Gendron was well-known in those parts; he was even celebrated, despite the nearness of Paris. Loving his art and exercising it with a passionate energy, he yet owed his renown less to his science than his manners. People said: “He is an original;” they admired his affectation of independence, of scepticism, and rudeness. He made his visits from five to nine in the morning—all the worse for those for whom these hours were inconvenient. After nine o’clock the doctor was not to be had. The doctor was working for himself, the doctor was in his laboratory, the doctor was inspecting his cellar. It was rumored that he sought for secrets of practical chemistry, to augment still more his twenty thousand livres of income. And he did not deny it; for in truth he was engaged on poisons, and was perfecting an invention by which could be discovered traces of all the alkaloids which up to that time had escaped analysis. If his friends reproached him, even jokingly, on sending away sick people in the afternoon, he grew red with rage.
“Parbleu!” he answered, “I find you superb! I am a doctor four hours in the day. I am paid by hardly a quarter of my patients —that’s three hours I give daily to humanity, which I despise. Let each of you do as much, and we shall see.”
The mayor conducted the new-comers into the drawing-room, where he installed himself to write down the results of his examination.
“What a misfortune for my town, this crime!” said he to M. Domini. “What shame! Orcival has lost its reputation.”
“I know nothing of the affair,” returned the judge. “The gendarme who went for me knew little about it.”
M. Courtois recounted at length what his investigation had discovered, not forgetting the minutest detail, dwelling especially on the excellent precautions which he had had the sagacity to take. He told how the conduct of the Bertauds had at first awakened his suspicions; how he had detected them, at least in a pointblank lie; how, finally, he had determined to arrest them. He spoke standing, his head thrown back, with wordy emphasis. The pleasure of speaking partially rewarded him for his recent distress.
“And now,” he concluded, “I have just ordered the most exact search, so that doubtless we shall find the count’s body. Five men, detailed by me, and all the people of the house, are searching the park. If their efforts are not crowned with success, I have here some fishermen who will drag the river.”
M. Domini held his tongue, only nodding his head from time to time, as a sign of approbation. He was studying, weighing the details told him, building up in his mind a plan of proceeding.
“You have acted wisely,” said he, at last. “The misfortune is a great one, but I agree with you that we are on the track of the criminals. These poachers, or the gardener who has disappeared, have something, perhaps, to do with this abominable crime.”
Already, for some minutes, M. Plantat had rather awkwardly concealed some signs of impatience.
“The misfortune is,” said he, “that if Guespin is guilty, he will not be such a fool as to show himself here.”
“Oh, we’ll find him,” returned M. Domini. “Before leaving Corbeil, I sent a despatch to the prefecture of police at Paris, to ask for a police agent, who will doubtless be here shortly.”
“While waiting,” proposed the mayor, “perhaps you would like to see the scene of the crime?”
M. Domini made a motion as if to rise; then sat down again.
“In fact, no,” said he; “we will see nothing till the agent arrives. But I must have some information concerning the Count and Countess de Tremorel.”
The worthy mayor again triumphed.
