The Eight Strokes of the Clock. Leblanc Maurice
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went downstairs to the private room containing the telephone. The room was empty. Rénine asked Gaston Dutreuil for the Aubrieuxs' number, took down the instrument and was put through.
The maid who came to the telephone answered that Madame Aubrieux had fainted, after giving way to an access of despair, and that she was now asleep.
"Fetch her mother, please. Prince Rénine speaking. It's urgent."
He handed the second receiver to Morisseau. For that matter, the voices were so distinct that Dutreuil and Hortense were able to hear every word exchanged.
"Is that you, madame?"
"Yes. Prince Rénine, I believe?"
"Prince Rénine."
"Oh, sir, what news have you for me? Is there any hope?" asked the old lady, in a tone of entreaty.
"The enquiry is proceeding very satisfactorily," said Rénine, "and you may hope for the best. For the moment, I want you to give me some very important particulars. On the day of the murder, did Gaston Dutreuil come to your house?"
"Yes, he came to fetch my daughter and myself, after lunch."
"Did he know at the time that M. Guillaume had sixty thousand francs at his place?"
"Yes, I told him."
"And that Jacques Aubrieux was not feeling very well and was proposing not to take his usual cycle-ride but to stay at home and sleep?"
"Yes."
"You are sure?"
"Absolutely certain."
"And you all three went to the cinema together?"
"Yes."
"And you were all sitting together?"
"Oh, no! There was no room. He took a seat farther away."
"A seat where you could see him?"
"No."
"But he came to you during the interval?"
"No, we did not see him until we were going out."
"There is no doubt of that?"
"None at all."
"Very well, madame. I will tell you the result of my efforts in an hour's time. But above all, don't wake up Madame Aubrieux."
"And suppose she wakes of her own accord?"
"Reassure her and give her confidence. Everything is going well, very well indeed."
He hung up the receiver and turned to Dutreuil, laughing:
"Ha, ha, my boy! Things are beginning to look clearer. What do you say?"
It was difficult to tell what these words meant or what conclusions Rénine had drawn from his conversation. The silence was painful and oppressive.
"Mr. Chief-Inspector, you have some of your men outside, haven't you?"
"Two detective-sergeants."
"It's important that they should be there. Please also ask the manager not to disturb us on any account."
And, when Morisseau returned, Rénine closed the door, took his stand in front of Dutreuil and, speaking in a good-humoured but emphatic tone, said:
"It amounts to this, young man, that the ladies saw nothing of you between three and five o'clock on that Sunday. That's rather a curious detail."
"A perfectly natural detail," Dutreuil retorted, "and one, moreover, which proves nothing at all."
"It proves, young man, that you had a good two hours at your disposal."
"Obviously. Two hours which I spent at the cinema."
"Or somewhere else."
Dutreuil looked at him:
"Somewhere else?"
"Yes. As you were free, you had plenty of time to go wherever you liked … to Suresnes, for instance."
"Oh!" said the young man, jesting in his turn. "Suresnes is a long way off!"
"It's quite close! Hadn't you your friend Jacques Aubrieux's motor-cycle?"
A fresh pause followed these words. Dutreuil had knitted his brows as though he were trying to understand. At last he was heard to whisper:
"So that is what he was trying to lead up to!… The brute!…"
Rénine brought down his hand on Dutreuil's shoulder:
"No more talk! Facts! Gaston Dutreuil, you are the only person who on that day knew two essential things: first, that Cousin Guillaume had sixty thousand francs in his house; secondly, that Jacques Aubrieux was not going out. You at once saw your chance. The motor-cycle was available. You slipped out during the performance. You went to Suresnes. You killed Cousin Guillaume. You took the sixty bank-notes and left them at your rooms. And at five o'clock you went back to fetch the ladies."
Dutreuil had listened with an expression at once mocking and flurried, casting an occasional glance at Inspector Morisseau as though to enlist him as a witness:
"The man's mad," it seemed to say. "It's no use being angry with him."
When Rénine had finished, he began to laugh:
"Very funny!… A capital joke!… So it was I whom the neighbours saw going and returning on the motor-cycle?"
"It was you disguised in Jacques Aubrieux's clothes."
"And it was my finger-prints that were found on the bottle in M. Guillaume's pantry?"
"The bottle had been opened by Jacques Aubrieux at lunch, in his own house, and it was you who took it with you to serve as evidence."
"Funnier and funnier!" cried Dutreuil, who had the air of being frankly amused. "Then I contrived the whole affair so that Jacques Aubrieux might be accused of the crime?"
"It was the safest means of not being accused yourself."
"Yes, but Jacques is a friend whom I have known from childhood."
"You're in love with his wife."
The young man gave a sudden, infuriated start:
"You dare!… What! You dare make such an infamous suggestion?"
"I have proof of it."
"That's a lie! I have always respected Madeleine Aubrieux and revered her...."
"Apparently. But you're in love with her. You desire her. Don't contradict me. I have abundant proof of it."
"That's a lie, I tell you! You have only known me a few hours!"
"Come, come! I've been quietly watching you for days, waiting for the moment to pounce upon you."
He took the young man by the shoulders and shook him:
"Come, Dutreuil, confess! I hold all the proofs in my hand. I have witnesses whom we shall meet presently at the criminal investigation department. Confess, can't you? In spite of everything, you're tortured by remorse. Remember your dismay, at the restaurant, when you had seen the newspaper. What? Jacques Aubrieux condemned to die? That's more than you bargained for! Penal servitude would have suited your book; but the scaffold!… Jacques Aubrieux executed to-morrow, an innocent man!… Confess, won't you? Confess to save your own skin! Own up!"
Bending over the other, he was trying with all his might to extort a confession from him. But Dutreuil drew himself up and coldly, with a sort of scorn in his voice, said:
"Sir, you are a madman. Not a word that you have said has any sense in it. All your accusations are false. What about the bank-notes? Did you find them at my place as you said you would?"
Rénine, exasperated, clenched his fist in his face:
"Oh, you swine, I'll dish you yet, I swear I will!"
He drew the inspector aside:
"Well, what do you say to it? An arrant rogue, isn't he?"
The inspector nodded his head:
"It