Complete Works of Emile Zola (1045 page)

“What’s it all about?” he inquired of his fireman.

He knew very well, and lent but an inattentive ear to the news of the murder and the rumours that were current respecting it. What surprised, and particularly agitated him, was to tumble into the midst of this inquiry, to again come upon this coupé which he had caught sight of in the obscurity, launched at full speed. He craned his neck, gazing at the pool of clotted blood on the cushion; and, once more, he saw the murder scene, and particularly the corpse, stretched across the line yonder with its throat open. Then, turning aside his eyes, he noticed the Roubauds, while Pecqueux continued relating to him the story of how they were mixed up in the business — their departure from Paris in the same train as the victim, and the last words they had exchanged together at Rouen. Jacques knew Roubaud, from having occasionally pressed his hand since he had been driving the express. As to his wife, he had caught sight of her in the distance, and he had avoided her, like the others, in his unhealthy terror. But, at this moment, he was struck by her, as he observed her weeping and pale, with her gentle, bewildered blue eyes, beneath the crushing volume of black hair. He continued to look at her; and, becoming absent, he asked himself, in surprise, how it was that the Roubauds and he were there? How it was that events had brought them together, before this carriage steeped in crime — they who had returned from Paris on the previous evening, he who had come back from Barentin at that very instant?

“Oh! I know, I know,” said he aloud, interrupting the fireman. “I happened to be there, at the exit from the tunnel, last night, and I thought I saw something, as the train passed.”

This remark caused great excitement, and everybody gathered round him. Why had he spoken, after formally making up his mind to hold his tongue? So many excellent reasons prompted him to silence! And the words had unconsciously left his lips, while he was gazing at this woman. She had abruptly drawn aside her handkerchief, to fix her tearful eyes, wide-open, on him.

The commissary of police quickly approached.” Saw what? What did you see?” he inquired.

And Jacques, with the unswerving look of Séverine upon him, related what he had seen: the coupé lit up, passing through the night at full speed, and the fleeting outlines of the two men, one thrown down backwards, the other with a knife in his hand. Roubaud, standing beside his wife, listened with his great bright eyes fixed on Jacques.

“So,” inquired the commissary, “you would be able to recognise the murderer?”

“Oh! as to that, no! I do not think so,” answered the other.

“Was he wearing a coat, or a blouse?” asked the commissary.
“
I can say nothing positively. Just reflect, a train that must have been going at a speed of sixty miles an hour!” Séverine, against her will, exchanged a glance with Roubaud, who had the energy to say:

“True enough! It would require a good pair of eyes.”

“No matter,” concluded M. Cauche; “this is an important piece of evidence. The examining-magistrate will assist you to throw light on it all. Monsieur Lantier and Monsieur Roubaud, give me your exact names for the summonses.”

It was all over. The throng of bystanders dispersed, little by little, and the business of the station resumed its activity. Roubaud had to run and attend to the 9.50 slow train, in which passengers were already taking their seats. He had given Jacques a more vigorous shake of the hand than usual; and the latter, remaining alone with Séverine, behind Madame Lebleu, Pecqueux, and Philomène, who went off whispering together, had considered himself bound to escort the young woman under the marquee, to the foot of the staircase leading to the lodgings of the staff, finding nothing to say, and yet forced to remain beside her, as if a bond had just been fastened between them.

The brightness of day, had now increased. The sun, conqueror of the morning haze, was ascending in the great expanse of limpid blue sky; while the sea breeze, gaining strength with the rising tide, contributed its saline freshness to the atmosphere. And, as Jacques at last left Séverine, he again encountered those great eyes, whose terrified and imploring sweetness had so profoundly moved him.

But there came a low whistle. It was Roubaud giving the signal to start. The engine responded by a prolonged screech, and the 9.50 train moved off, rolled along more rapidly, and disappeared in the distance, amid the golden dust of the sun.

CHAPTER IV

ONE day, during the second week in March, M. Denizet, the examining-magistrate, had again summoned certain important witnesses in the Grandmorin case, to his chambers at the Rouen Law Courts.

For the last three weeks, this case had been causing enormous sensation. It had set Rouen upside down; it had impassioned Paris; and the opposition newspapers, in their violent campaign against the Empire, had just grasped it as a weapon. The forthcoming general elections, which occupied the public mind in preference to all other political events, added keen excitement to the struggle. In the Chamber there had been some very stormy sittings; one at which the validity of the powers of two members attached to the Emperor’s household, had been bitterly disputed; and another that had given rise to a most determined attack on the financial administration of the Prefect of the Seine, coupled with a demand for the election of a Municipal Council.

The Grandmorin case, coming at an appropriate moment, served to keep up the agitation. The most extraordinary stories were abroad. Every morning, the newspapers were full of assumptions injurious for the Government. On the one hand, the public were given to understand that the victim — a familiar figure at the Tuileries, formerly on the bench, Commander of the Legion of Honour, immensely rich — was addicted to the most frightful debauchery; on the other, the inquiry into the case, having so far proved fruitless, they began to accuse the police and legal authorities, of winking at the affair, and joked about the legendary assassin who could not be found. If there was a good deal of truth in these attacks, they were all the harder to bear.

M. Denizet was fully alive to his heavy responsibility. He, also, became impassioned with the case, and the more so as he was ambitious, and had been burning to have a matter of this importance in his hands, so as to bring into evidence the high qualities of perspicacity and energy with which he credited himself.

The son of a large Normandy cattle-breeder, he had studied law at Caen, but had entered the judicial department of the Government rather late in life; and, his peasant origin, aggravated by his father’s bankruptcy, had made his promotion slow. Substitute at Bernay, Dieppe, and Havre, it had taken him ten years to become Imperial Procurator at Pont-Audemer; then, sent to Rouen as substitute, he had been acting as examining-magistrate for eighteen months, and was over fifty years of age.

Without any fortune, a prey to requirements that could not be satisfied out of his meagre salary, he lived in this ill-remunerated dependence of the magistracy, only frankly accepted by men of mediocre capacity, and where the intelligent are eaten up with envy, whilst on the look-out for an opportunity to sell themselves.

M. Denizet was a man of the most lively intelligence, with a very penetrating mind. He was even honest, and fond of his profession, intoxicated with his great power which, in his justice-room, made him absolute master of the liberty of others. It was his interests alone that kept his zeal within bounds. He had such a burning desire to be decorated and transferred to Paris, that, after having at the commencement of the inquiry, allowed himself to be carried away by his love of truth, he now proceeded with extreme prudence, perceiving pitfalls on all sides, which might swallow up his future.

It must be pointed out that M. Denizet had been warned; for, from the outset of his inquiry, a friend had advised him to look in at the Ministry of Justice in Paris. He did so, and had a long chat with the secretary, M. Camy-Lamotte, a very important personage, possessing considerable power over the gentlemen comprising this branch of the civil service. It was, moreover, his duty to prepare the list of promotions, and he was in constant communication with the Tuileries. He was a handsome man, who had started on his career as substitute, like his visitor; but through his connections and his wife, he had been elected deputy, and made grand officer of the Legion of Honour.

The case had come quite naturally into his hands. The Imperial Procurator at Rouen, disturbed at this shady drama wherein a former judge figured as victim, had taken the precaution to communicate with the Minister, who had passed the matter on to the secretary. And here came a coincidence: M. Camy-Lamotte happened to be a schoolfellow of President Grandmorin. Younger by a few years, he had been on such terms of intimacy with him that he knew him thoroughly, even to his vices. And so, he spoke of his friend’s tragic death with profound affliction, and talked to M. Denizet of nothing but his warm desire to secure the guilty party But he did not disguise the fact that they were very much annoyed at the Tuileries, about the stir the business had occasioned, which was quite out of proportion to its importance, and he had taken the liberty to recommend great tact.

In fact, the magistrate had understood that he would do well not to be in a hurry, and to avoid running any risk unless previously approved. He had even returned to Rouen with the certainty that the secretary, on his part, had sent out detectives, wishing to inquire into the case himself. They wanted to learn the truth, so as to be better able to hide it, if necessary.

Nevertheless, time passed, and M. Denizet, notwithstanding his efforts to be patient, became irritated at the jokes of the press. Then the policeman reappeared, sniffing the scent, like a good hound. He was carried away by the necessity of finding the real track, for the glory of being the first to discover it, and reserving his freedom to abandon it if he received orders to do so. And, whilst awaiting a letter, a piece of advice, a simple sign from the Ministry which failed to reach him, he had actively resumed his inquiry.

Not one of the two or three arrests that had been made, could be maintained. But, suddenly, the opening of the will of President Grandmorin aroused in M. Denizet a suspicion, which he felt had flashed through his mind at the first — the possible guilt of the Roubauds. This will, full of strange legacies, contained one by which Séverine inherited the house situated at the place called La Croix-de-Maufras. From that moment, the motive of the crime, sought in vain until then, became evident — the Roubauds, aware of the legacy, had murdered their benefactor to gain possession of the property at once. This idea haunted him the more, as M. Camy-Lamotte had spoken in a peculiar way of Madame Roubaud, whom he had known formerly at the home of the President when she was a young girl. Only, how unlikely! how impossible, materially and morally! Since searching in this direction, he had at every step, encountered facts that upset his conception of a classically conducted judicial inquiry. Nothing became clear; the great central light, the original cause which would illuminate everything, was wanting.

Another clue existed which M. Denizet had not lost sight of, the one suggested by Roubaud himself — that of the man who might have got into the coupé, thanks to the crush, at the moment the train was leaving. This was the famous legendary murderer who could not be found, and in reference to whom the opposition newspapers were making such silly fun. At the outset, every effort had been made to trace this man. At Rouen, where he had entered the train, at Barentin, where he had left it; but the result had lacked precision. Some witnesses even denied that it could have been possible for the reserved coupé to be taken by assault, others gave the most contradictory information. And this clue seemed unlikely to lead to anything, when the magistrate, in questioning the signalman, Misard, came involuntarily upon the dramatic adventure of Cabuche and Louisette, the young girl who, victimised by the President, had repaired to the abode of her sweetheart to die.

This information burst on him like a thunderbolt, and at once he formulated the indictment in his head. It was all there — the threats of death made by the quarryman against his victim, the deplorable antecedents of the man, an alibi, clumsily advanced, impossible to prove. In secrecy, on the previous night, in a moment of energetic inspiration, he had caused Cabuche to be carried off from the little house he occupied on the border of the wood, a sort of out-of-the-way cavern, where those who arrested the man, found a pair of blood-stained trousers. And, whilst offering resistance to the conviction gaining on him, whilst determined not to abandon the presumption against the Roubauds, he exulted at the idea that he alone had been smart enough to discover the veritable assassin. It was in view of making this a certainty that, on this specific day, he had summoned to his chambers several witnesses who had already been heard immediately after the crime.

The quarters of the examining-magistrate were near the Rue Jeanne d’Arc, in the old dilapidated building, dabbed against the side of the ancient palace of the Dukes of Normandy, now transformed into the Law Courts, which it dishonoured. This large, sad-looking room on the ground floor was so dark, that in winter it became necessary to light a lamp at three o’clock in the afternoon. Hung with old, discoloured green paper, its only furniture were two armchairs, four chairs, the writing-table of the magistrate, the small table of the registrar; and, on the frigid-looking mantelpiece, two bronze cups, flanking a black marble timepiece. Behind the writing-table was a door leading to a second room, where the magistrate sometimes concealed persons whom he wished to have at hand; while the entrance door opened direct on a broad corridor supplied with benches, where witnesses waited.

The Roubauds were there at half-past one, although the subpoenas had only been made returnable for two o’clock. They came from Havre, and had taken time to lunch at a little restaurant in the Grande Rue. Both attired in black, he in a frock coat, she in a silk gown, like a lady, maintained the rather wearisome and painful gravity of a couple who had lost a relative. She sat on a bench motionless, without uttering a word, whilst he, remaining on his feet, his hands behind his back, strode slowly to and fro before her. But at each turn their eyes met, and their concealed anxiety then passed like a shadow over their mute countenances.