responded a chambermaid—“that is to say, no. One left us on reaching the Lyons station at Paris; it was Guespin.”
“Yes, sir; he went away, saying that he would rejoin us at Wepler’s, in the Batignolles, where the wedding took place.” The mayor nudged the justice with his elbow, as if to attract his attention, and continued to question the chambermaid.
“And this Guespin, as you call him—did you see him again?”
“No, sir. I asked several times during the evening in vain, what had become of him; his absence seemed to me suspicious.” Evidently the chambermaid tried to show superior perspicacity. A little more, and she would have talked of presentiments.
“Has this Guespin been long in the house?”
“Since spring.”
“What were his duties?”
“He was sent from Paris by the house of the ‘Skilful Gardener,’ to take care of the rare flowers in Madame’s conservatory.”
“And did he know of this money?”
The domestics again exchanged significant glances.
“Yes,” they answered in chorus, “we had talked a great deal about it among ourselves.”
The chambermaid added: “He even said to me, ’To think that Monsieur the Count has enough money in his cabinet to make all our fortunes.’”
“What kind of a man is this?”
This question absolutely extinguished the talkativeness of the servants. No one dared to speak, perceiving that the least word might serve as the basis of a terrible accusation. But the groom of the house opposite, who burned to mix himself up in the affair, had none of these scruples. “Guespin,” answered he, “is a good fellow. Lord, what jolly things he knows! He knows everything you can imagine. It appears he has been rich in times past, and if he wished—But dame! he loves to have his work all finished, and go off on sprees. He’s a crack billiard-player, I can tell you.”
Papa Plantat, while listening in an apparently absent-minded way to these depositions, or rather these scandals, carefully examined the wall and the gate. He now turned, and interrupting the groom:
“Enough of this,” said he, to the great scandal of M. Courtois. “Before pursuing this interrogatory, let us ascertain the crime, if crime there is; for it is not proved. Let whoever has the key, open the gate.”
The valet de chambre had the key; he opened the gate, and all entered the little court. The gendarmes had just arrived. The mayor told the brigadier to follow him, and placed two men at the gate, ordering them not to permit anyone to enter or go out, unless by his orders. Then the valet de chambre opened the door of the house.
Chapter II
If there had been no crime, at least something extraordinary had taken place at the chateau; the impassible justice might have been convinced of it, as soon as he had stepped into the vestibule. The glass door leading to the garden was wide open, and three of the panes were shattered into a thousand pieces. The carpeting of waxed canvas between the doors had been torn up, and on the white marble slabs large drops of blood were visible. At the foot of the staircase was a stain larger than the rest, and upon the lowest step a splash hideous to behold.
Unfitted for such spectacles, or for the mission he had now to perform, M. Courtois became faint. Luckily, he borrowed from the idea of his official importance, an energy foreign to his character. The more difficult the preliminary examination of this affair seemed, the more determined he was to carry it on with dignity.
“Conduct us to the place where you saw the body,” said he to Bertaud. But Papa Plantat intervened.
“It would be wiser, I think,” he objected, “and more methodical, to begin by going through the house.”
“Perhaps—yes—true, that’s my own view,” said the mayor, grasping at the other’s counsel, as a drowning man clings to a plank. And he made all retire excepting the brigadier and the valet de chambre, the latter remaining to serve as guide. “Gendarmes,” cried he to the men guarding the gate, “see to it that no one goes out; prevent anybody from entering the house, and above all, let no one go into the garden.”
Then they ascended the staircase. Drops of blood were sprinkled all along the stairs. There was also blood on the baluster, and M. Courtois perceived, with horror, that his hands were stained.
When they had reached the first landing-stage, the mayor said to the valet de chambre:
“Tell me, my friend, did your master and mistress occupy the same chamber?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And where is their chamber?”
“There, sir.”
As he spoke, the valet de chambre staggered back terrified, and pointed to a door, the upper panel of which betrayed the imprint of a bloody hand. Drops of perspiration overspread the poor mayor’s forehead. He too was terrified, and could hardly keep on his feet. Alas, authority brings with it terrible obligations! The brigadier, an old soldier of the Crimea, visibly moved, hesitated.
M. Plantat alone, as tranquil as if he were in his garden, retained his coolness, and looked around upon the others.
“We must decide,” said he.
He entered the room; the rest followed.
There was nothing unusual in the apartment; it was a boudoir hung in blue satin, furnished with a couch and four arm-chairs, covered also with blue satin. One of the chairs was overturned.
They passed on to the bed-chamber.
A frightful disorder appeared in this room. There was not an article of furniture, not an ornament, which did not betray that a terrible, enraged and merciless struggle had taken place between the assassins and their victims. In the middle of the chamber a small table was overturned, and all about it were scattered lumps of sugar, vermilion cups, and pieces of porcelain.
“Ah!” said the valet de chambre, “Monsieur and Madame were taking tea when the wretches came in!”
The mantel ornaments had been thrown upon the floor; the clock, in falling, had stopped at twenty minutes past three. Near the clock were the lamps; the globes were in pieces, the oil had been spilled.
The canopy of the bed had been torn down, and covered the bed. Someone must have clutched desperately at the draperies. All the furniture was overturned. The coverings of the chairs had been hacked by strokes of a knife, and in places the stuffing protruded. The secretary had been broken open; the writing-slide, dislocated, hung by its hinges; the drawers were open and empty, and everywhere, blood—blood upon the carpet, the furniture, the curtains—above all, upon the bed-curtains.
“Poor wretches!” stammered the mayor. “They were murdered here.”
Every one for a moment was appalled. But meanwhile,
