The Lerouge Case Part 62

Had any one come to him then he would never have thought of resisting, nor of defending himself; he would not have taken a step to hide himself, to fly, to save his head.

For a moment he had serious thoughts of giving himself up, in order to secure peace, to gain quiet, to free himself from the anxiety about his safety.

But he struggled against this dull stupor, and at last the reaction came, shaking off this weakness of mind and body.

The consciousness of his position, and of his danger, returned to him.

He foresaw, with horror, the scaffold, as one sees the depth of the abyss by the lightning flashes.

"I must save my life," he thought; "but how?"

That mortal terror which deprives the a.s.sa.s.sin of even ordinary common sense seized him. He looked eagerly about him, and thought he noticed three or four pa.s.sers-by look at him curiously. His terror increased.

He began running in the direction of the Latin quarter without purpose, without aim, running for the sake of running, to get away, like Crime, as represented in paintings, fleeing under the lashes of the Furies.

He very soon stopped, however, for it occurred to him that this extraordinary behaviour would attract attention.

It seemed to him that everything in him betokened the murderer; he thought he read contempt and horror upon every face, and suspicion in every eye.

He walked along, instinctively repeating to himself: "I must do something."

But he was so agitated that he was incapable of thinking or of planning anything.

When he still hesitated to commit the crime, he had said to himself; "I may be discovered." And with that possibility in view, he had perfected a plan which should put him beyond all fear of pursuit. He would do this and that; he would have recourse to this ruse, he would take that precaution. Useless forethought! Now, nothing he had imagined seemed feasible. The police were seeking him, and he could think of no place in the whole world where he would feel perfectly safe.

He was near the Odeon theatre, when a thought quicker than a flash of lightning lit up the darkness of his brain.

It occurred to him that as the police were doubtless already in pursuit of him, his description would soon be known to everyone, his white cravat and well trimmed whiskers would betray him as surely as though he carried a placard stating who he was.

Seeing a barber's shop, he hurried to the door; but, when on the point of turning the handle, he grew frightened.

The barber might think it strange that he wanted his whiskers shaved off, and supposing he should question him!

He pa.s.sed on.

He soon saw another barber's shop, but the same fears as before again prevented his entering.

Gradually night had fallen, and, with the darkness, Noel seemed to recover his confidence and boldness.

After this great s.h.i.+pwreck in port, hope rose to the surface. Why should he not save himself? There had been many just such cases. He could go to a foreign country, change his name, begin his life over again, become a new man entirely. He had money; and that was the main thing.

And, besides, as soon as his eighty thousand francs were spent, he had the certainty of receiving, on his first request, five or six times as much more.

He was already thinking of the disguise he should a.s.sume, and of the frontier to which he should proceed, when the recollection of Juliette pierced his heart like a red hot iron.

Was he going to leave without her, going away with the certainty of never seeing her again? What! he would fly, pursued by all the police of the civilized world, tracked like a wild beast, and she would remain peaceably in Paris? Was it possible? For whom then had he committed this crime? For her. Who would have reaped the benefits of it? She. Was it not just, then, that she should bear her share of the punishment?

"She does not love me," thought the advocate bitterly, "she never loved me. She would be delighted to be forever free of me. She will not regret me, for I am no longer necessary to her. An empty coffer is a useless piece of furniture. Juliette is prudent; she has managed to save a nice little fortune. Grown rich at my expense, she will take some other lover. She will forget me, she will live happily, while I--And I was about to go away without her!"

The voice of prudence cried out to him: "Unhappy man! to drag a woman along with you, and a pretty woman too, is but to stupidly attract attention upon you, to render flight impossible, to give yourself up like a fool."

"What of that?" replied pa.s.sion. "We will be saved or we will perish together. If she does not love me, I love her; I must have her! She will come, otherwise--"

But how to see Juliette, to speak with her, to persuade her. To go to her house, was a great risk for him to run. The police were perhaps there already.

"No," thought Noel; "no one knows that she is my mistress. It will not be found out for two or three days and, besides, it would be more dangerous still to write."

He took a cab not far from the Carrefour de l'Observatoire, and in a low tone told the driver the number of the house in the Rue de Provence, which had proved so fatal to him. Stretched on the cus.h.i.+ons of the cab, lulled by its monotonous jolts, Noel gave no thought to the future, he did not even think over what he should say to Juliette. No. He pa.s.sed involuntarily in review the events which had brought on and hastened the catastrophe, like a man on the point of death, reviews the tragedy or the comedy of his life.

Just one month before, ruined, at the end of his expedients and absolutely without resources, he had determined, cost what it might, to procure money, so as to be able to continue to keep Madame Juliette, when chance placed in his hands Count de Commarin's correspondence.

Not only the letters read to old Tabaret, and shown to Albert, but also those, which, written by the count when he believed the subst.i.tution an accomplished fact, plainly established it.

The reading of these gave him an hour of mad delight.

He believed himself the legitimate son; but his mother soon undeceived him, told him the truth, proved to him by several letters she had received from Widow Lerouge, called on Claudine to bear witness to it, and demonstrated it to him by the scar he bore.

But a falling man never selects the branch he tries to save himself by.

Noel resolved to make use of the letters all the same.

He attempted to induce his mother to leave the count in his ignorance, so that he might thus blackmail him. But Madame Gerdy spurned the proposition with horror.

Then the advocate made a confession of all his follies, laid bare his financial condition, showed himself in his true light, sunk in debt; and he finally begged his mother to have recourse to M. de Commarin.

This also she refused, and prayers and threats availed nothing against her resolution. For a fortnight, there was a terrible struggle between mother and son, in which the advocate was conquered.

It was then that the idea of murdering Claudine occurred to him.

The unhappy woman had not been more frank with Madame Gerdy than with others, so that Noel really thought her a widow. Therefore, her testimony suppressed, who else stood in his way?

Madame Gerdy, and perhaps the count. He feared them but little. If Madame Gerdy spoke, he could always reply: "After stealing my name for your son, you will do everything in the world to enable him to keep it."

But how to do away with Claudine without danger to himself?

After long reflection, the advocate thought of a diabolical stratagem.

He burnt all the count's letters establis.h.i.+ng the subst.i.tution, and he preserved only those which made it probable.

These last he went and showed to Albert, feeling sure, that, should justice ever discover the reason of Claudine's death, it would naturally suspect he who appeared to have most interest in it.

Not that he really wished Albert to be suspected of the crime, it was simply a precaution. He thought that he could so arrange matters that the police would waste their time in the pursuit of an imaginary criminal.

Nor did he think of ousting the Viscount de Commarin and putting himself in his place. His plan was simply this; the crime once committed, he would wait; things would take their own course, there would be negotiations, and ultimately he would compromise the matter at the price of a fortune.

He felt sure of his mother's silence, should she ever suspect him guilty of the a.s.sa.s.sination.

His plan settled, he decided to strike the fatal blow on the Shrove Tuesday.

To neglect no precaution, he, that very same evening, took Juliette to the theatre, and afterwards to the masked ball at the opera. In case things went against him, he thus secured an unanswerable _alibi_.

The loss of his overcoat only troubled him for a moment. On reflection, he rea.s.sured himself, saying: "Pshaw! who will ever know?"