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

prove this. I would tell you to go to Hamburg and risk your entire fortune on one chance at rouge et noir. You could relate to me, afterwards, what your feelings were while the ball was rolling. It is, my boy, as though your brain was being torn with pincers, as though molten lead was being poured into your bones, in place of marrow. This anxiety is so strong, that one feels relieved, one breathes again, even when one has lost. It is ruin; but then the anxiety is over.”

“Really, M. Balan, one would think that you yourself had had just such an experience.”

“Alas!” sighed the old detective, “it is to my love for the queen of spades, my unhappy love, that you owe the honour of looking through this peephole in my company. But this fellow will sleep for a couple of hours, do not lose sight of him; I am going to smoke a cigarette in the courtyard.”

Albert slept four hours. On awaking his head seemed clearer than it had been ever since his interview with Noel. It was a terrible moment for him, when, for the first time he became fully aware of his situation.

“Now, indeed,” said he, “I require all my courage.”

He longed to see someone, to speak, to be questioned, to explain. He felt a desire to call out.

“But what good would that be?” he asked himself. “Someone will be coming soon.” He looked for his watch, to see what time it was, and found that they had taken it away. He felt this deeply; they were treating him like the most abandoned of villains. He felt in his pockets: they had all been carefully emptied. He thought now of his personal appearance; and, getting up, he repaired as much as possible the disorder of his toilet. He put his clothes in order, and dusted them; he straightened his collar, and retied his cravat. Then pouring a little water on his handkerchief, he passed it over his face, bathing his eyes which were greatly inflamed. Then he endeavoured to smooth his beard and hair. He had no idea that four lynx eyes were fixed upon him all the while.

“Good!” murmured the young detective: “see how our cock sticks up his comb, and smooths his feathers!”

“I told you,” put in Balan, “that he was only staggered. Hush! he is speaking, I believe.”

But they neither surprised one of those disordered gestures nor one of those incoherent speeches, which almost always escape from the feeble when excited by fear, or from the imprudent ones who believe in the discretion of their cells. One word alone, “honour,” reached the ears of the two spies.

“These rascals of rank,” grumbled Balan, “always have this word in their mouths. That which they most fear is the opinion of some dozen friends, and several thousand strangers, who read the ‘Gazette des Tribunaux.’ They only think of their own heads later on.”

When the gendarmes came to conduct Albert before the investigating magistrate, they found him seated on the side of his bed, his feet pressed upon the iron rail, his elbows on his knees, and his head buried in his hands. He rose, as they entered, and took a few steps towards them; but his throat was so dry that he was scarcely able to speak. He asked for a moment, and, turning towards the little table, he filled and drank two large glassfuls of water in succession.

“I am ready!” he then said. And, with a firm step, he followed the gendarmes along the passage which led to the Palais de Justice.

M. Daburon was just then in great anguish. He walked furiously up and down his office, awaiting the prisoner. Again, and for the twentieth time since morning, he regretted having engaged in the business.

“Curse this absurd point of honour, which I have obeyed,” he inwardly exclaimed. “I have in vain attempted to reassure myself by the aid of sophisms. I was wrong in not withdrawing. Nothing in the world can change my feelings towards this young man. I hate him. I am his judge; and it is no less true, that at one time I longed to assassinate him. I faced him with a revolver in my hand: why did I not present it and fire? Do I know why? What power held my finger, when an almost insensible pressure would have sufficed to kill him? I cannot say. Why is not he the judge, I the assassin? If the intention was as punishable as the deed, I ought to be guillotined. And it is under such conditions that I dare examine him!”

Passing before the door he heard the heavy footsteps of the gendarmes in the passage.

“It is he,” he said aloud and then hastily seated himself at his table, bending over his portfolios, as though striving to hide himself. If the tall clerk had used his eyes, he would have noticed the singular spectacle of an investigating magistrate more agitated than the prisoner he was about to examine. But he was blind to all around him; and, at this moment, he was only aware of an error of fifteen centimes, which had slipped into his accounts, and which he was unable to rectify.

Albert entered the magistrate’s office with his head erect. His features bore traces of great fatigue and of sleepless nights. He was very pale; but his eyes were clear and sparkling.

The usual questions which open such examinations gave M. Daburon an opportunity to recover himself. Fortunately, he had found time in the morning to prepare a plan, which he had now simply to follow.

“You are aware, sir,” he commenced in a tone of perfect politeness, “that you have no right to the name you bear?”

“I know, sir,” replied Albert, “that I am the natural son of M. de Commarin. I know further that my father would be unable to recognise me, even if he wished to, since I was born during his married life.”

“What were your feelings upon learning this?”

“I should speak falsely, sir,