The Lerouge Case by Émile Gaboriau (best classic books TXT) 📕

“And I have finished,” replied the commissary. “Our prisoner does not appear to know exactly how to act. You heard what he said. He gave in at once. I suppose you will call it lack of experience.”

“In the middle of the day,” replied the amateur detective in a whisper, “he would not have been quite so crestfallen. But early in the morning, suddenly awakened, you know⁠—Always arrest a person early in the morning, when he’s hungry, and only half awake.”

“I have questioned some of the servants. Their evidence is rather peculiar.”

“Very well; we shall see. But I must hurry off and find the investigating magistrate, who is impatiently expecting me.”

Albert was beginning to recover a little from the stupor into which he had been plunged by the entrance of the commissary of police.

“Sir,” he asked, “will you permit me to say a few words in your presence to the Count de Commarin? I am the victim of some mistake, which will be very soon discovered.”

“It’s always a mistake,” muttered old Tabaret.

“What you ask is impossible,” replied the commissary. “I have special orders of the strictest sort. You must not henceforth communicate with a living soul. A cab is in waiting below. Have the goodness to accompany me to it.”

In crossing the vestibule, Albert noticed a great stir among the servants; they all seemed to have lost their senses. M. Denis gave some orders in a sharp, imperative tone. Then he thought he heard that the Count de Commarin had been struck down with apoplexy. After that, he remembered nothing. They almost carried him to the cab which drove off as fast as the two little horses could go. M. Tabaret had just hastened away in a more rapid vehicle.

The visitor who risks himself in the labyrinth of galleries and stairways in the Palais de Justice, and mounts to the third story in the left wing, will find himself in a long, low-studded gallery, badly lighted by narrow windows, and pierced at short intervals by little doors, like a hall at the ministry or at a lodging-house.

It is a place difficult to view calmly, the imagination makes it appear so dark and dismal.

It needs a Dante to compose an inscription to place above the doors which lead from it. From morning to night, the flagstones resound under the heavy tread of the gendarmes, who accompany the prisoners. You can scarcely recall anything but sad figures there. There are the parents or friends of the accused, the witnesses, the detectives. In this gallery, far from the sight of men, the judicial curriculum is gone through with.

Each one of the little doors, which has its number painted over it in black, opens into the office of a judge of inquiry. All the rooms are just alike: if you see one, you have seen them all. They have nothing terrible nor sad in themselves; and yet it is difficult to enter one of them without a shudder. They are cold. The walls all seem moist with the tears which have been shed there. You shudder, at thinking of the avowals wrested from the criminals, of the confessions broken with sobs murmured there.

In the office of the judge of inquiry, Justice clothes herself in none of that apparel which she afterwards dons in order to strike fear into the masses. She is still simple, and almost disposed to kindness. She says to the prisoner⁠—

“I have strong reasons for thinking you guilty; but prove to me your innocence, and I will release you.”

On entering one of these rooms, a stranger would imagine that he got into a cheap shop by mistake. The furniture is of the most primitive sort, as is the case in all places where important matters are transacted. Of what consequence are surroundings to the judge hunting down the author of a crime, or to the accused who is defending his life?

A desk full of documents for the judge, a table for the clerk, an armchair, and one or two chairs besides comprise the entire furniture of the antechamber of the court of assize. The walls are hung with green paper; the curtains are green, and the floors are carpeted in the same color. Monsieur Daburon’s office bore the number fifteen.

M. Daburon had arrived at his office in the Palais de Justice at nine o’clock in the morning, and was waiting. His course resolved upon, he had not lost an instant, understanding as well as old Tabaret the necessity for rapid action. He had already had an interview with the public prosecutor, and had arranged everything with the police.

Besides issuing the warrant against Albert, he had summoned the Count de Commarin, Madame Gerdy, Noel, and some of Albert’s servants, to appear before him with as little delay as possible.

He thought it essential to question all these persons before examining the prisoner. Several detectives had started off to execute his orders, and he himself sat in his office, like a general commanding an army, who sends off his aide-de-camp to begin the battle, and who hopes that victory will crown his combinations.

Often, at this same hour, he had sat in this office, under circumstances almost identical. A crime had been committed, and, believing he had discovered the criminal, he had given orders for his arrest. Was not that his duty? But he had never before experienced the anxiety of mind which disturbed him now. Many a time had he issued warrants of arrest, without possessing even half the proofs which guided him in the present case. He kept repeating this to himself; and yet he could not quiet his dreadful anxiety, which would not allow him a moment’s rest.

He wondered why his people were so long in making their appearance. He walked up and down the room, counting the minutes, drawing out his watch three times within a quarter of an hour, to compare it with the clock. Every time he heard a step in the passage, almost deserted at that