Within an Inch of His Life (Murder Mystery). Emile Gaboriau
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the little I know will be of no use in aiding justice to discover the guilty man. It may have been eleven o’clock, for I am not even quite sure of the hour, when I had gone to bed, and just blown out my candle: suddenly a bright light fell upon the window. I was amazed, and utterly confused; for I was in that state of sleepiness which is not yet sleep, but very much like it. I said to myself, ‘What can this be?’ but I did not get up: I only was roused by a great noise, like the crash of a falling wall; and then I jumped out of bed, and said to myself, ‘The house is on fire!’ What increased my anxiety was the fact, which I at once recollected, that there were in the courtyard, and all around the house, some sixteen thousand bundles of dry wood, which had been cut last year. Half dressed, I rushed downstairs. I was very much bewildered, I confess, and could hardly succeed in opening the outer door: still I did open it at last. But I had barely put my foot on the threshold, when I felt in my right side, a little above the hip, a fierce pain, and heard at the same time, quite close to me, a shot.”
The magistrate interrupted him by a gesture.
“Your statement, count, is certainly remarkably clear. But there is one point we must try to establish. Were you really fired at the moment you showed yourself at the door?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then the murderer must have been quite near on the watch. He must have known that the fire would bring you out; and he was lying in wait for you.”
“That was and still is my impression,” declared the count.
M. Galpin turned to M. Daubigeon.
“Then,” he said to him, “the murder is the principal fact with which we have to do; and the fire is only an aggravating circumstance,—the means which the criminal employed in order to succeed the better in perpetrating his crime.”
Then, returning to the count, he said,—
“Pray go on.”
“When I felt I was wounded,” continued Count Claudieuse, “my first impulse was instinctively to rush forward to the place from which the gun seemed to have been fired at me. I had not proceeded three yards, when I felt the same pain once more in the shoulder and in the neck. This second wound was more serous than the first; for I lost my consciousness, my head began to swim and I fell.”
“You had not seen the murderer?”
“I beg your pardon. At the moment when I fell, I thought I saw a man rush forth from behind a pile of fagots, cross the courtyard, and disappear in the fields.”
“Would you recognize him?”
“No.”
“But you saw how he was dressed: you can give me a description?”
“No, I cannot. I felt as if there was a veil before my eyes; and he passed me like a shadow.”
The magistrate could hardly conceal his disappointment.
“Never mind,” he said, “we’ll find him out. But go on, sir.”
The count shook his head.
“I have nothing more to say,” he replied. “I had fainted; and when I recovered my consciousness, some hours later, I found myself here lying on this bed.”
M. Galpin noted down the count’s answers with scrupulous exactness: when he had done, he asked again,—
“We must return to the details of the attack, and examine them minutely. Now, however, it is important to know what happened after you fell. Who could tell us that?”
“My wife, sir.”
“I thought so. The countess, no doubt, got up when you rose.”
“My wife had not gone to bed.”
The magistrate turned suddenly to the countess; and at a glance he perceived that her costume was not that of a lady who had been suddenly roused from slumber by the burning of her house.
“I see,” he said to himself.
“Bertha,” the count went on to state, “our youngest daughter, who is lying there on that bed, under the blanket, has the measles, and is suffering terribly. My wife was sitting up with her. Unfortunately the windows of her room look upon the garden, on the side opposite to that where the fire broke out.”
“How, then, did the countess become aware of the accident?” asked the magistrate.
Without waiting for a more direct question, the countess came forward and said,—
“As my husband has just told you, I was sitting up with my little Bertha. I was rather tired; for I had sat up the night before also, and I had begun to nod, when a sudden noise aroused me. I was not quite sure whether I had really heard such a noise; but just then a second shot was heard. I left the room more astonished than frightened. Ah, sir! The fire had already made such headway, that the staircase was as light as in broad day. I went down in great haste. The outer door was open. I went out; and there, some five or six yards from me, I saw, by the light of the flames, the body of my husband lying on the ground. I threw myself upon him; but he did not even hear me; his heart had ceased to beat. I thought he was dead; I called for help; I was in despair.”
M. Seneschal and M. Daubigeon trembled with excitement.
“Well, very well!” said M. Galpin, with an air of satisfaction,—“very well done!”
“You know,” continued the countess, “how hard it is to rouse country-people. It seems to me I remained ever so long alone there, kneeling by the side of my husband. At last the brightness of the fire awakened some of the farm-hands, the workmen, and our servants. They rushed out, crying, ‘Fire!’ When they saw me, they ran up and helped me carry my husband to a place of safety; for the danger was increasing every minute. The fire was spreading with terrific violence, thanks to a furious wind. The barns were one vast mass of fire; the outbuildings were burning; the distillery was in a blaze; and the roof of the dwelling-house was flaming up in various places. And there was not one cool head among them all. I was so utterly bewildered, that I forgot all about my children; and their room was already in flames, when a brave, bold fellow rushed in, and snatched them from the very jaws of death. I did not come to myself till Dr. Seignebos arrived, and spoke to me words of hope. This fire will probably ruin us; but what matters that, so long as my husband and my children are safe?”
Dr. Seignebos had more than once given utterance to his contemptuous impatience: he did not appreciate these preliminary steps. The others, however, the mayor, the attorney, and even the servants, had hardly been able to suppress their excitement. He shrugged his shoulders, and growled between his teeth,—
“Mere formalities! How petty! How childish!”
After having taken off his spectacles, wiped them and replaced them twenty times, he had sat down at the rickety table in the corner of the room, and amused himself with arranging the fifteen or twenty shot he had extracted from the count’s wounds, in long lines or small circles. But, when the countess uttered her last words, he rose, and, turning to M. Galpin, said in a curt tone,—
“Now, sir, I hope you will let me have my patient again.”
The magistrate was not a little incensed: there was reason enough, surely; and, frowning fiercely, he said,—
“I appreciate, sir, the importance of your duties; but mine are, I think, by no means less solemn nor less urgent.”
“Oh!”
“Consequently you will be pleased, sir, to grant me five minutes more.”
“Ten, if it must be, sir. Only I warn you that every minute henceforth may endanger the life of my patient.”
They had drawn near to each other, and were measuring each other with defiant looks, which betrayed the bitterest animosity. They would surely not quarrel at the bedside of a dying man? The countess seemed to fear such a thing; for she said reproachfully,—
“Gentlemen,