Messengers of Evil Part 7

But Fandor would not allow himself to become disheartened--never that!

In the school of his vanished friend he had learned to give himself up with single-minded devotion to any task he took up; his sole satisfaction being duty well fulfilled.... Well, the Dollon case should be cleared up!... To do so was to render a service to humanity! Having come to this conclusion he hastened to interview Monsieur Fuselier.

"Monsieur Fuselier," cried Fandor as he shook hands with the magistrate, "you must know quite well why I have come to see you!"

"About the rue Norvins affair?"

"Say rather about the Depot affair! It is there the affair became tragic."

Monsieur Fuselier smiled:

"You know then?"

"That Jacques Dollon has hanged himself? Yes. That he was innocent?

Again, yes!" confessed Fandor, smiling in his turn: "You know that at _La Capitale_ we get all the information going, and are the first to get it!"

"Evidently," conceded the magistrate. "But if you know all about it, why put my professional discretion to the torture by asking absurd questions?"

"Now, what the deuce are they about on Clock Quay? Don't they supervise the accused in their cells?"

"Certainly they do! When this Dollon arrived at the Depot he was immediately conducted to Monsieur Bertillon: there he was measured and tested, finger marks taken, and so on."

"Just so," said Fandor. "I saw Bertillon before coming on to you. He told me Dollon seemed crushed: he submitted to all the tests without making the slightest objection; but he never spoke of suicide, never said anything which could lead one to imagine such a fatal termination."

"Well, he would not cry it aloud on the housetops!... When he left Monsieur Bertillon, what then?"

"After!... Oh, the police took him to a cell, and left him there. At midnight the chief warder made his rounds and saw nothing abnormal. It was in the morning they found this unfortunate Dollon had hanged himself."

"What did he hang himself with?"

"With strips of his s.h.i.+rt twisted into a rope.... Oh, my dear fellow, I see what you are thinking! You fancy that there has been a want of common prudence--that the warders were lax--that they had let him retain his braces, his cravat or his shoe laces!... Well, it was not so--precautions were taken."

"And this suicide remains incomprehensible!"

"Well!... This wretched youth must have been ferociously energetic, because he had fastened these s.h.i.+rt ropes of his to the iron bars of his bed, and strangled himself by lying on his back. Death must have been long in coming to release him from his agony."

"Can I not see him?" asked Fandor.

"Why not photograph him?" asked the magistrate in a bantering tone.

"Oh, if it were possible!..." Fandor stopped short. A youth knocked and entered:

"A lady, who wishes to see you, monsieur."

"Tell her I am too busy."

"She asked me to say that it is urgent."

"Ask her name."

"Here is her card, monsieur."

Monsieur Fuselier looked at the card: he started!

"Elizabeth Dollon!... Ah ... Good Heavens, what am I to say to this poor girl? How am I to tell her?"

Just then the door was pushed violently open, and a girl, in tears, rushed towards him:

"Monsieur, where is my brother?"

"But, mademoiselle!..."

Whilst the magistrate mechanically asked his distracted visitor to sit down, Jerome Fandor discreetly withdrew to the further side of the room; he was anxious that the magistrate should forget his presence, so that he might be a witness of what promised to be a most exciting interview.

"Pray control yourself, mademoiselle," begged the magistrate. "Your brother has perhaps been arrested through a mistake...."

"Oh, monsieur, I am sure of it, but it is frightful!"

"Mademoiselle, the dreadful thing would be that he was guilty."

"But they have not set him at liberty yet? He has not been able to clear himself?"

"Yes, yes, mademoiselle, he has vindicated himself, I even ..." Monsieur Fuselier stopped short, intensely pained, not knowing how to tell Elizabeth Dollon the terrible news.

At once she cried: "Ah, monsieur, you hesitate! You have learned something fresh? You are on the track of the a.s.sa.s.sins?"

"It is certain ... your brother is not guilty!"

The poor girl's countenance suddenly brightened. She had pa.s.sed a horrible night after her return to Paris, and the receipt of the wire from Police Headquarters.

"What a nightmare!" she cried. "But the telegram said he was injured--nothing serious, is it?... Where is he now? Can I see him?"

"Mademoiselle," said the magistrate, "your brother has had a terrible shock!... It would be better!... I fear that!..."

Suddenly Elizabeth Dollon cried:

"Oh, monsieur, how you said that! How can seeing me do him harm?"

As Monsieur Fuselier did not reply, she burst into tears:

"You are hiding something from me! The papers said this morning that he also was a victim! Swear to me that he is not?"

"But ..."

"You _are_ hiding something from me!" The poor girl was frantic with terror: she wrung her hands in a state of despair: "Where is he? I must see him! Oh, take pity on me!"

As she watched the magistrate's downcast look, his air of discomfiture, the horrid truth flashed on Elizabeth Dollon: