more so than your caresses, Bertha, or than your hand-pressures, Hector; not more horrible than your plans, than your hopes—”
His voice sank into a rattle. Soon the agony commenced. Horrible convulsions distorted his limbs; twice or thrice he cried out:
“I am cold; I am cold!”
His body was indeed stiff, and nothing could warm it.
Despair filled the house, for a death so sudden was not looked for. The domestics came and went, whispering to each other, “He is going, poor monsieur; poor madame!”
Soon the convulsions ceased. He lay extended on his back, breathing so feebly that twice they thought his breath had ceased forever. At last, a little before ten o’clock, his cheeks suddenly colored and he shuddered. He rose up in bed, his eye staring, his arm stretched out toward the window, and he cried:
“There—behind the curtain—I see them—I see them!”
A last convulsion stretched him again on his pillow.
Chapter XXI
The old justice of the peace ceased reading his voluminous record. His hearers, the detective and the doctor remained silent under the influence of this distressing narrative. M. Plantat had read it impressively, throwing himself into the recital as if he had been personally an actor in the scenes described.
M. Lecoq was the first to recover himself.
“A strange man, Sauvresy,” said he.
It was Sauvresy’s extraordinary idea of vengeance which struck him in the story. He admired his “good playing” in a drama in which he knew he was going to yield up his life.
“I don’t know many people,” pursued the detective, “capable of so fearful a firmness. To let himself be poisoned so slowly and gently by his wife! Brrr! It makes a man shiver all over!”
“He knew how to avenge himself,” muttered the doctor.
“Yes,” answered M. Plantat, “yes, Doctor; he knew how to avenge himself, and more terribly than he supposed, or than you can imagine.”
The detective rose from his seat. He had remained motionless, glued to his chair for more than three hours, and his legs were benumbed.
“For my part,” said he, “I can very well conceive what an infernal existence the murderers began to suffer the day after their victim’s death. You have depicted them, Monsieur Plantat, with the hand of a master. I know them as well after your description as if I had studied them face to face for ten years.”
He spoke deliberately, and watched for the effect of what he said in M. Plantat’s countenance.
“Where on earth did this old fellow get all these details?” he asked himself. “Did he write this narrative, and if not, who did? How was it, if he had all this information, that he has said nothing?”
M. Plantat appeared to be unconscious of the detective’s searching look.
“I know that Sauvresy’s body was not cold,” said he, “before his murderers began to threaten each other with death.”
“Unhappily for them,” observed Dr. Gendron, “Sauvresy had foreseen the probability of his widow’s using up the rest of the vial of poison.”
“Ah, he was shrewd,” said M. Lecoq, in a tone of conviction, “very shrewd.”
“Bertha could not pardon Hector,” continued M. Plantat, “for refusing to take the revolver and blow his brains out; Sauvresy, you see, had foreseen that. Bertha thought that if her lover were dead, her husband would have forgotten all; and it is impossible to tell whether she was mistaken or not.”
“And nobody knew anything of this horrible struggle that was going on in the house?”
“No one ever suspected anything.”
“It’s marvellous!”
“Say, Monsieur Lecoq, that is scarcely credible. Never was dissimulation so crafty, and above all, so wonderfully sustained. If you should question the first person you met in Orcival, he would tell you, as our worthy Courtois this morning told Monsieur Domini, that the count and countess were a model pair and adored each other. Why I, who knew—or suspected, I should say—what had passed, was deceived myself.”
Promptly as M. Plantat had corrected himself, his slip of the tongue did not escape M. Lecoq.
“Was it really a slip, or not?” he asked himself.
“These wretches have been terribly punished,” pursued M. Plantat, “and it is impossible to pity them; all would have gone rightly if Sauvresy, intoxicated by his hatred, had not committed a blunder which was almost a crime.”
“A crime!” exclaimed the doctor.
M. Lecoq smiled and muttered in a low tone:
“Laurence.”
But low as he had spoken, M. Plantat heard him.
“Yes, Monsieur Lecoq,” said he severely. “Yes, Laurence. Sauvresy did a detestable thing when he thought of making this poor girl the accomplice, or I should say, the instrument of his wrath. He piteously threw her between these two wretches, without asking himself whether she would be broken. It was by using Laurence’s name that he persuaded Bertha not to kill herself. Yet he knew of Tremorel’s passion for her, he knew her love for him, and he knew that his friend was capable of anything. He, who had so well foreseen all that could serve his vengeance, did not deign to foresee that Laurence might be dishonored; and yet he left her disarmed before this most cowardly and infamous of men!”
The detective reflected.
“There is one thing,” said he, “that I can’t explain. Why was it that these two, who execrated each other, and whom the implacable will of their victim chained together despite themselves, did not separate of one accord the day after their marriage, when they had fulfilled the condition which had established their crime?”
The old justice of the peace shook his head.
“I see,” he answered, “that I have not yet made you understand Bertha’s resolute character. Hector would have been delighted with a separation; his wife could not consent to it. Ah, Sauvresy knew her well! She saw her life ruined, a horrible remorse lacerated her; she must have a victim upon whom to expiate her errors and crimes; this victim was Hector. Ravenous for her prey, she would not let him go for anything in the world.”
“I’ faith,” observed Dr. Gendron, “your Tremorel was a chicken-hearted wretch. What had he to fear when Sauvresy’s manuscript was once destroyed?”
“Who told you it had been destroyed?” interrupted M. Plantat.
M. Lecoq at this stopped promenading up and down the room, and sat down opposite M. Plantat.
“The
