A Secret Inheritance. Volume 2 of 3

I went straight to the office of the magistrate, a small building of four rooms on the ground floor, the two in front being used as the magistrate's private room and court, the two in the rear as cells, not at all uncomfortable, for aggressors of the law. It was but rarely that they were occupied. At the door of the court I encountered Father Daniel. He was pale, and much shaken. During his lifetime no such crime had been perpetrated in the village, and his only comfort was that the actors in it were strangers. But that did not lessen his horror of the deed, and his large heart overflowed with pity both for the guilty man and the victim.

"So sudden a death!" he said, in a voice broken by tears. "No time for repentance! Thrust before the Eternal Presence weighed down by sin! I have been praying by his side for mercy, and for mercy upon his murderer. Poor sinners! poor sinners!"

I could not sympathise with his sentiments, and I told him so sternly. He made no attempt to convert me to his views, but simply said, "All men should pray that they may never be tempted."

And so he left me, and turned in the direction of his little chapel to offer up prayers for the dead and the living sinners.

Doctor Louis was with the magistrate; they had been discussing theories, and had heard from the landlord of the Three Black Crows my own ideas of the movements of the strangers on the previous night.

"In certain respects you may be right in your speculations," the magistrate said; "but on one important point you are in error."

"I have already discovered," I said, "that my theory is wrong, and not in accordance with fact; but we will speak of that presently. What is the point you refer to?"

"As to the weapon with which the murder was done," replied the magistrate, a shrewd man, whose judicial perceptions fitted him for a larger sphere of duties than he was called upon to perform in Nerac. "No knife was used."

"What, then, was the weapon?" I asked.

"A club of some sort," said the magistrate, "with which the dead man was suddenly attacked from behind."

"Has it been found?"

"No, but a search is being made for it and also for the murderer."

"On that point we are agreed. There is no shadow of doubt that the missing man is guilty."

"There can be none," said the magistrate.

"And yet," urged Doctor Louis, in a gentle tone, "to condemn a man unheard is repugnant to justice."

"There are circumstances," said the magistrate, "which point so surely to guilt that it would be inimical to justice to dispute them. By the way," he continued, addressing me, "did not the landlord of the Three Black Crows mention something to the effect that you were at his inn last night after you left Dr. Louis's house, and that you and he had a conversation respecting the strangers, who were at that time in the same room as yourselves?"

"If he did," I said, "he stated what is correct. I was there, and saw the strangers, of whom the landlord entertained suspicions which have been proved to be well founded."

"Then you will be able to identify the body, already," added the magistrate, "identified by the landlord. Confirmatory evidence strengthens a case."

"I shall be able to identify it," I said.

We went to the inner room, and I saw at a glance that it was one of the strangers who had spent the evening at the Three Black Crows, and whom I had afterwards watched and followed.

"The man who has escaped," I observed, "was hump backed."

"That tallies with the landlord's statement," said the magistrate.

"I have something to relate," I said, upon our return to the court, "of my own movements last night after I quitted the inn."

I then gave the magistrate and Doctor Louis a circumstantial account of my movements, without, however, entering into a description of my thoughts, only in so far as they affected my determination to protect the doctor and his family from evil designs.

They listened with great interest, and Doctor Louis pressed my hand. He understood and approved of the solicitude I had experienced for the safety of his household; it was a guarantee that I would watch over his daughter with love and firmness and protect her from harm.

"But you ran a great risk, Gabriel," he said affectionately.

"I did not consider that," I said.

The magistrate looked on and smiled; a father himself, he divined the undivulged ties by which I and Doctor Louis were bound.

"At what time," he asked, "do you say you left the rogues asleep in the woods?"

"It was twenty minutes to eleven," I replied, "and at eleven o'clock I reached my house, and was received by Martin Hartog's daughter. Hartog was absent, on business his daughter said, and while we were talking, and I was taking the keys from her hands, Hartog came home, and accompanied me to my bedroom."

"Were you at all disturbed in your mind for the safety of your friends in consequence of what had passed?"

"Not in the least. The men I left slumbering in the woods appeared to me to be but ordinary tramps, without any special evil intent, and I was satisfied and relieved. I could not have slept else; it is seldom that I have enjoyed a better night."

"Cunning rascals! May not their slumbers have been feigned?"

"I think not. They were in a profound sleep; I made sure of that. No, I could not have been mistaken."

"It is strange," mused Doctor Louis, "how guilt can sleep, and can forget the present and the future!"

I then entered into an account of the inspection I had made of the path from the gate to the window; it was the magistrate's opinion, from the position in which the body was found, that there had been no struggle between the two men, and here he and I were in agreement. What I now narrated materially weakened his opinion, as it had materially weakened mine, and he was greatly perplexed. He was annoyed also that the signs I had discovered, which confirmed the notion that a struggle must have taken place, had escaped the attention of his assistants. He himself had made but a cursory examination of the grounds, his presence being necessary in the court to take the evidence of witnesses, to receive reports, and to issue instructions.

"There are so many things to be considered," said Doctor Louis, "in a case like this, resting as it does at present entirely upon circumstantial evidence, that it is scarcely possible some should not be lost sight of. Often those that are omitted are of greater weight than those which are argued out laboriously and with infinite patience. Justice is blind, but the law must be Argus-eyed. You believe, Gabriel, that there must have been a struggle in my garden?"

"Such is now my belief," I replied.

"Such signs as you have brought before our notice," continued the doctor, "are to you an indication that the man who escaped must have met with severe treatment?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Therefore, that the struggle was a violent one?"

"Yes."

"And prolonged?"

"That is the feasible conclusion."

"Such a struggle could not have taken place without considerable disarrangement about the spot in which it occurred. On an even pavement you would not look for any displacement of the stones; the utmost you could hope to discover would be the scratches made by iron heels. But the path from the gate of my house to the back garden, and all the walking spaces in the garden itself, are formed of loose stones and gravel. No such struggle could take place there without conspicuous displacement of the materials of which the ground is composed. If it took place amongst the flowers, the beds would bear evidence. I observed no disorder in the flower beds. Did you?"

"No."

"Then did you observe such a disarrangement of the stones and gravel as I consider would be necessary evidence of the struggle in which you suppose these men to have been engaged?"

I was compelled to admit-but I admitted it grudgingly and reluctantly-that such a disarrangement had not come within my observation.

"That is partially destructive of your theory," pursued the doctor. "There is still something further of moment which I consider it my duty to say. You are a sound sleeper ordinarily, and last night you slept more soundly than usual. I, unfortunately, am a light sleeper, and it is really a fact that last night I slept more lightly than usual. I think, Gabriel, you were to some extent the cause of this. I am affected by changes in my domestic arrangements; during many pleasant weeks you have resided in our house, and last night was the first, for a long time past, that you slept away from us. It had an influence upon me; then, apart from your absence, I was thinking a great deal of you." (Here I observed the magistrate smile again, a fatherly benignant smile.) "As a rule I am awakened by the least noise-the dripping of water, the fall of an inconsiderable object, the mewing of a cat, the barking of a dog. Now, last night I was not disturbed, unusually wakeful as I was. The wonder is that I was not aroused by the boring of the hole in the shutter; the unfortunate wretch must have used his gimlet very softly and warily, and under any circumstances the sound produced by such a tool is of a light nature. But had any desperate struggle taken place in the garden it would have aroused me to a certainty, and I should have hastened down to ascertain the cause. Gabriel, no such struggle occurred."

"Then," said the magistrate, "how do you account for the injuries the man who escaped must have undoubtedly received?"

The words were barely uttered when we all started to our feet. There was a great scuffling outside, and cries and loud voices. The door was pushed open and half-a-dozen men rushed into the room, guarding one whose arms were bound by ropes. He was in a dreadful condition, and so weak that, without support, he could not have kept his feet. I recognised him instantly; he was the hump backed man I had seen in the Three Black Crows.

He lifted his eyes and they fell on the magistrate; from him they wandered to Doctor Louis; from him they wandered to me. I was gazing steadfastly and sternly upon him, and as his eyes met mine his head drooped to his breast and hung there, while a strong shuddering ran through him.

CHAPTER XXI

The examination of the prisoner by the magistrate lasted but a very short time, for the reason that no replies of any kind could be obtained to the questions put to him. He maintained a dogged silence, and although the magistrate impressed upon him that this silence was in itself a strong proof of his guilt, and that if he had anything to say in his defence it would be to his advantage to say it at once, not a word could be extracted from him, and he was taken to his cell, instructions being given that he should not be unbound and that a strict watch should be kept over him. While the unsuccessful examination was proceeding I observed the man two or three times raise his eyes furtively to mine, or rather endeavour to raise them, for he could not, for the hundredth part of a second, meet my stern gaze, and each time he made the attempt it ended in his drooping his head with a shudder. On other occasions I observed his eyes wandering round the room in a wild, disordered way, and these proceedings, which to my mind were the result of a low, premeditated cunning, led me to the conclusion that he wished to convey the impression that he was not in his right senses, and therefore not entirely responsible for his crime. When the monster was taken away I spoke of this, and the magistrate fell in with my views, and said that the assumption of pretended insanity was not an uncommon trick on the part of criminals. I then asked him and Doctor Louis whether they would accompany me in a search for the weapon with which the dreadful deed was committed (for none had been found on the prisoner), and in a further examination of the ground the man had traversed after he had killed his comrade in guilt. Doctor Louis expressed his willingness, but the magistrate said he had certain duties to attend to which would occupy him half an hour or so, and that he would join us later on. So Doctor Louis and I departed alone to continue the investigation I had already commenced.

We began at the window at the back of the doctor's house, and I again propounded to Doctor Louis my theory of the course of events, to which he listened attentively, but was no more convinced than he had been before that a struggle had taken place.

"But," he said, "whether a struggle for life did or did not take place there is not the slightest doubt of the man's guilt, I have always viewed circumstantial evidence with the greatest suspicion, but in this instance I should have no hesitation, were I the monster's judge, to mete out to him the punishment for his crime."

Shortly afterwards we were joined by the magistrate who had news to communicate to us.

"I have had," he said, "another interview with the prisoner, and have succeeded in unlocking his tongue. I went to his cell, unaccompanied, and again questioned him. To my surprise he asked me if I was alone. I moved back a pace or two, having the idea that he had managed to loosen the ropes by which he was bound, and that he wished to know if I was alone for the purpose of attacking me. In a moment, however, the fear was dispelled, for I saw that his arms were tightly and closely bound to his side, and that it was out of his power to injure me. He repeated his question, and I answered that I was quite alone, and that his question was a foolish one, for he had the evidence of his senses to convince him. He shook his head at this, and said in a strange voice that the evidence of his senses was sufficient in the case of men and women, but not in the case of spirits and demons. I smiled inwardly at this-for it does not do for a magistrate to allow a prisoner from whom he wishes to extract evidence to detect any signs of levity in his judge-and I thought of the view you had presented to me that the man wished to convey an impression that he was a madman, in order to escape to some extent the consequences of the crime he had committed. 'Put spirits and demons,' I said to him, 'out of the question. If you have anything to say or confess, speak at once; and if you wish to convince yourself that there are no witnesses either in this cell-though that is plainly evident-or outside, here is the proof.' I threw open the door, and showed him that no one was listening to our speech. 'I cannot put spirits or demons out of the question,' he said, 'because I am haunted by one, who has brought me to this.' He looked down at his ropes and imprisoned limbs. 'Are you guilty or not guilty?' I asked. 'I am not guilty,' he replied; 'I did not kill him.' 'But he is murdered,' I said. 'Yes,' he replied, 'he is murdered.' 'If you did not kill him,' I continued, 'who did?' What do you think he answered? 'A demon killed him,' he said, 'and would have killed me, if I had not fled and played him a trick.' I gazed at him in thought, wondering whether he had the slightest hope that he was imposing upon me by his lame attempt at being out of his senses. 'A demon?' I said questioningly. 'Yes, a demon,' he replied. 'But,' I said, and I admit that my tone was somewhat bantering, 'demons are more powerful than mortals.' 'That is where it is,' he said; 'that is why I am here.' 'You are a clumsy scoundrel,' I said, 'and I will prove it to you; then you may be induced to speak the truth-in which,' I added, 'lies your only hope of a mitigation of punishment. Not that I hold out to you any such hope; but if you can establish, when you are ready to confess, that what you did was done in self-defence, it will be a point in your favour.' 'I cannot confess,' he said, 'to a crime which I did not commit. I am a clumsy scoundrel perhaps, but not in the way you mean. Prove it to me if you can.' 'You say,' I began, 'that a demon killed your comrade.' 'He did,' persisted the prisoner. 'And,' I continued, 'that he would have killed you if you had not fled from him.' 'He would,' said the prisoner. 'But,' I said, 'demons are more powerful than men. Of what avail would have been your flight? Men can only walk or run; demons can fly. The demon you have invented could have easily overtaken you and finished you as you say he finished the man you murdered.' He was a little staggered at this, and I saw him pondering over it. 'It isn't for me,' he said presently, 'to pretend to know why he did not suspect the trick I played him; he could have killed me if he wanted. I have spoken the truth. I heard him pursuing me.' 'There again,' I said, wondering that there should be in the world men with such a low order of intelligence, 'you heard him pursuing you. Demons glide noiselessly along. It is impossible you could have heard this one. You will have to invent another story.' 'I have invented none,' he persisted doggedly, and repeated, 'I have spoken the truth.' As I could get nothing further out of him than a determined adherence to his ridiculous defence, I left him."

"Do you think," asked Doctor Louis, "that he has any, even the remotest belief in the story? Men sometimes delude themselves."

"I cannot believe it," replied the magistrate, "and yet I confess to being slightly puzzled. There was an air of sincerity about him which might be to his advantage had he to deal with judges who were ignorant of the cunning of criminals."

"Which means," said Doctor Louis, "that it is really not impossible that the man's mind is diseased."

"No," said the magistrate, in a positive tone, "I cannot for a moment admit it. A tale in which a spirit or a demon is the principal actor! In this age it is too absurd!"

At that moment I made a discovery; I drew from the midst of a bush a stick, one end of which was stained with blood. From its position it seemed as if it had been thrown hastily away; there had certainly been no attempt at concealment.

"Here is the weapon," I cried, "with which the deed was done!"

The magistrate took it immediately from my hand, and examined it.

"Here," I said, pointing downwards, "is the direct line of flight taken by the prisoner, and he must have flung the stick away in terror as he ran."

"It is an improvised weapon," said the magistrate, "cut but lately from a tree, and fashioned so as to fit the hand and be used with effect."

I, in my turn, then examined the weapon, and was struck by its resemblance to the branch I had myself cut the previous night during the watch I kept upon the ruffians. I spoke of the resemblance, and said that it looked to me as if it were the self-same stick I had shaped with my knife.

"Do you remember," asked the magistrate, "what you did with it after your suspicions were allayed?"

"No," I replied, "I have not the slightest remembrance what I did with it. I could not have carried it home with me, or I should have seen it this morning before I left my house. I have no doubt that, after my mind was at ease as to the intentions of the ruffians, I flung it aside into the woods, having no further use for it. When the men set out to perpetrate the robbery they must have stumbled upon the branch, and, appreciating the pains I had bestowed upon it, took it with them. There appears to be no other solution to their possession of it."

"It is the only solution," said the magistrate.

"So that," I said with a sudden thrill of horror, "I am indirectly responsible for the direction of the tragedy, and should have been responsible had they used the weapon against those I love! It is terrible to think of."

Doctor Louis pressed my hand. "We have all happily been spared, Gabriel," he said. "It is only the guilty who have suffered."

We continued our search for some time, without meeting with any further evidence, and I spent the evening with Doctor Louis's family, and was deeply grateful that Providence had frustrated the villainous schemes of the wretches who had conspired against them. On this evening Lauretta and I seemed to be drawn closer to each other, and once, when I held her hand in mine for a moment or two (it was done unconsciously), and her father's eyes were upon us, I was satisfied that he did not deem it a breach of the obligation into which we had entered with respect to my love for his daughter. Indeed it was not possible that all manifestations of a love so profound and absorbing as mine should be successfully kept out of sight; it would have been contrary to nature.

I slept that night in Doctor Louis's house, and the next morning Lauretta and Lauretta's mother said that they had experienced a feeling of security because of my presence.

At noon I was on my way to the magistrate's office.

CHAPTER XXII

My purpose was to obtain, by the magistrate's permission, an interview with the prisoner. His account of the man's sincere or pretended belief in spirits and demons had deeply interested me, and I wished to have some conversation with him respecting this particular adventure which had ended in murder. I obtained without difficulty the permission I sought. I asked if the prisoner had made any further admissions or confession, and the magistrate answered no, and that the man persisted in a sullen adherence to the tale he had invented in his own defence.

"I saw him this morning," the magistrate said, "and interrogated him with severity, to no effect. He continues to declare himself to be innocent, and reiterates his fable of the demon."

"Have you asked him," I inquired, "to give you an account of all that transpired within his knowledge from the moment he entered Nerac until the moment he was arrested?"

"No," said the magistrate, "it did not occur to me to demand of him so close a description of his movements; and I doubt whether I should have been able to drag it from him. The truth he will not tell, and his invention is not strong enough to go into minute details. He is conscious of this, conscious that I should trip him up again and again on minor points which would be fatal to him, and his cunning nature warns him not to thrust his head into the trap. He belongs to the lowest order of criminals."

My idea was to obtain from the prisoner just such a circumstantial account of his movements as I thought it likely the magistrate would have extracted from him; and I felt that I had the power to succeed where the magistrate had failed. This power I determined to use.

I was taken into the man's cell, and left there without a word. He was still bound; his brute face was even more brute and haggard than before, his hair was matted, his eyes had a look in them of mingled terror and ferocity. He spoke no word, but he raised his head and lowered it again when the door of the cell was closed behind me.

"What is your name?" I asked. But I had to repeat the question twice before he answered me.

"Pierre," he said.

"Why did you not reply to me at once?" But to this question, although I repeated it also twice, he made no response.

"It is useless," I said sternly, "to attempt evasion with me, or to think that I will be content with silence. I have come here to obtain a confession from you-a true confession, Pierre-and I will force it from you, if you do not give it willingly. Do you understand me? I will force it from you."

"I understand you," he said, keeping his face averted from me, "but I will not speak."

"Why?" I demanded.

"Because you know all; because you are only playing with me; because you have a design against me."

His words astonished me, and made me more determined to carry out my intention. He had made it clear to me that there was something hidden in his mind, and I was resolved to get at it.

"What design can I have against you," I said, "of which you need be afraid? You are in sufficient peril already, and there is no hope for you. Your life is forfeit. What worse danger can befall you? Soon you will be as dead as the man you murdered."

"I did not murder him," was the strange reply, "and you know it."

"Fool!" I exclaimed. "You are playing the same trick upon me that you played upon your judge. It was unsuccessful with him; it will be as unsuccessful with me. Answer me. What further danger can threaten you than the danger, the certain, positive danger, in which you now stand? You are doomed, Pierre."

"My body is, perhaps," he muttered, "but not my soul."

"Oh," I said, in a tone of contempt, "you believe in a soul."

"Yes," he replied, "do not you?"

"I? Yes. With reason, with intelligence. Not out of my fears, but out of my hopes."