The Widow Lerouge (Murder Mystery). Emile Gaboriau
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said the concierge, “and isn’t he in a state! His fair ones do treat him well! One of these fine mornings I shall have to take him to a lunatic asylum in a straight waistcoat.”
“Look at him now!” interrupted his wife, “just look at him now, in the middle of the courtyard!”
The old fellow had stopped at the extremity of the porch. He had taken off his hat, and, while talking to himself, gesticulated violently.
“No,” said he, “I have not yet got hold of the clue, I am getting near it; but have not yet found it out.”
He mounted the staircase, and rang his bell, forgetting that he had his latch-key in his pocket. His housekeeper opened the door.
“What, is it you, sir,” said she, “and at this hour!”
“What’s that you say?” asked the old fellow.
“I say,” replied the housekeeper, “that it is more than half-past eight o’clock. I thought you were not coming back this evening. Have you at least dined?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, fortunately I have kept your dinner warm. You can sit down to it at once.”
Old Tabaret took his place at the table, and helped himself to soup, but mounting his hobby-horse again, he forgot to eat, and remained, his spoon in the air, as though suddenly struck by an idea.
“He is certainly touched in the head,” thought Manette, the housekeeper. “Look at that stupid expression. Who in his senses would lead the life he does?” She touched him on the shoulder, and bawled in his ear, as if he were deaf — “You do not eat. Are you not hungry?”
“Yes, yes,” muttered he, trying mechanically to escape the voice that sounded in his ears, “I am very hungry, for since the morning I have been obliged —” He interrupted himself, remaining with his mouth open, his eyes fixed on vacancy.
“You were obliged —?” repeated Manette.
“Thunder!” cried he, raising his clenched fists towards the ceiling — “heaven’s thunder! I have it!”
His movement was so violent and sudden that the housekeeper was a little alarmed, and retired to the further end of the dining-room, near the door.
“Yes,” continued he, “it is certain there is a child!”
Manette approached him quickly. “A child?” she asked in astonishment.
“What next!” cried he in a furious tone. “What are you doing there? Has your hardihood come to this that you pick up the words which escape me? Do me the pleasure to retire to your kitchen, and stay there until I call you.”
“He is going crazy!” thought Manette, as she disappeared very quickly.
Old Tabaret resumed his seat. He hastily swallowed his soup which was completely cold. “Why,” said he to himself, “did I not think of it before? Poor humanity! I am growing old, and my brain is worn out. For it is clear as day; the circumstances all point to that conclusion.”
He rang the bell placed on the table beside him; the servant reappeared.
“Bring the roast,” he said, “and leave me to myself.”
“Yes,” continued he furiously carving a leg of Presale mutton —“Yes, there is a child, and here is his history! The Widow Lerouge, when a young woman, is in the service of a great lady, immensely rich. Her husband, a sailor, probably had departed on a long voyage. The lady had a lover — found herself enciente. She confided in the Widow Lerouge, and, with her assistance, accomplished a clandestine accouchement.”
He called again.
“Manette, the dessert, and get out!”
Certainly such a master was unworthy of so excellent a cook as Manette. He would have been puzzled to say what he had eaten for diner, or even what he was eating at this moment; it was a preserve of pears.
“But what,” murmured he, “has become of the child? Has it been destroyed? No; for the Widow Lerouge, an accomplice in an infanticide, would be no longer formidable. The child has been preserved, and confided to the care of our widow, by whom it has been reared. They have been able to take the infant away from her, but not the proofs of its birth and its existence. Here is the opening. The father is the man of the fine carriage; the mother is the lady who came with the handsome young man. Ha! ha! I can well believe the dear old dame wanted for nothing. She had a secret worth a farm in Brie. But the old lady was extravagant; her expenses and her demands have increased year by year. Poor humanity! She has leaned upon the staff too heavily, and broken it. She has threatened. They have been frightened, and said, ‘Let there be an end of this!’ But who has charged himself with the commission? The papa? No; he is too old. By jupiter! The son — the child himself! He would save his mother, the brave boy! He has slain the witness and burnt the proofs!”
Manette all this time, her ear to the keyhole, listened with all her soul; from time to time she gleaned a word, an oath, the noise of a blow upon the table; but that was all.
“For certain,” thought she, “his women are running in his head.”
Her curiosity overcame her prudence. Hearing no more, she ventured to open the door a little way. The old fellow caught her in the very act.
“Monsieur wants his coffee?” stammered she timidly.
“Yes, you may bring it to me,” he answered.
He attempted to swallow his coffee at a gulp, but scalded himself so severely that the pain brought him suddenly from speculation to reality.
“Thunder!” growled he; “but it is hot! Devil take the case! it has set me beside myself. They are right when they say I am too enthusiastic. But who amongst the whole lot of them could have, by the sole exercise of observation and reason, established the whole history of the assassination? Certainly not Gevrol, poor man! Won’t he feel vexed and humiliated, being altogether out of it. Shall I seek M. Daburon? No, not yet. The night is necessary to me to sift to the bottom all the particulars, and arrange my ideas systematically. But, on the other hand, if I sit here all alone, this confounded case will keep me in a fever of speculation, and as I have just eaten a great deal, I may get an attack of indigestion. My faith! I will call upon Madame Gerdy: she has been ailing for some days past. I will have a chat with Noel, and that will change the course of my ideas.”
He got up from the table, put on his overcoat, and took his hat and cane.
“Are you going out, sir?” asked Manette.
“Yes.”
“Shall you be late?”
“Possibly.”
“But you will return to-night?”
“I do not know.”
One minute later, M. Tabaret was ringing his friend’s bell.
Madame Gerdy lived in respectable style. She possessed sufficient for her wants; and her son’s practice, already large, had made them almost rich. She lived very quietly, and with the exception of one or two friends, whom Noel occasionally invited to dinner, received very few visitors. During more than fifteen years that M. Tabaret came familiarly to the apartments, he had only met the cure of the parish, one of Noel’s old professors, and Madame Gerdy’s brother, a retired colonel. When these three visitors happened to call on the same evening, an event somewhat rare, they played at a round game called Boston; on other evenings piquet or all-fours was the rule. Noel, however, seldom remained in the drawing-room, but shut himself up after dinner in his study, which with his bedroom formed a separate apartment to his mother’s, and immersed himself in his law papers. He was supposed to work far into the night. Often in winter his lamp was not extinguished before dawn.
Mother and son absolutely lived for one another, as all who knew them took pleasure in repeating. They loved and honoured Noel for the care he bestowed upon his mother,