Within an Inch of His Life Part 32

Grandpapa Chandore started. He said,--

"But"--

"Oh! I do not blame him," broke in the young lawyer; "but I blame the laws which make him act as he does. How can a magistrate remain perfectly impartial in certain very important cases, like this one, when his whole future career depends upon his success? A man may be a most upright magistrate, incapable of unfairness, and conscientious in fulfilling all his duties, and yet he is but a man. He has his interest at stake. He does not like the court to find that that there is no case.

The great rewards are not always given to the lawyer who has taken most pains to find out the truth."

"But M. Galpin was a friend of ours, sir."

"Yes; and that is what makes me fear. What will be his fate on the day when M. Jacques's innocence is established?"

They were just coming home, quite proud of their achievement, and waving in triumph the copy of Jacques's letter. Dionysia seized upon it; and, while she read it aside, Miss Adelaide described the interview, stating how haughty and disdainful she had been, and how humble and repentant M.

Galpin had seemed to be.

"He was completely undone," said the two old ladies with one voice: "he was crushed, annihilated."

"Yes, you have done a nice thing," growled the old baron; "and you have much reason to boast, forsooth."

"My aunts have done well," declared Dionysia. "Just see what Jacques has written! It is clear and precise. What can we fear when he says, 'Be rea.s.sured: when the time comes, I shall be able to set matters right'?"

M. Folgat took the letter, read it, and shook his head. Then he said,--

"There was no need of this letter to confirm my opinion. At the bottom of this affair there is a secret which none of us have found out yet.

But M. de Boiscoran acts very rashly in playing in this way with a criminal prosecution. Why did he not explain at once? What was easy yesterday may be less easy to-morrow, and perhaps impossible in a week."

"Jacques, sir, is a superior man," cried Dionysia, "and whatever he says is perfectly sure to be the right thing."

His mother's entrance prevented the young lawyer from making any reply.

Two hours' rest had restored to the old lady a part of her energy, and her usual presence of mind; and she now asked that a telegram should be sent to her husband.

"It is the least we can do," said M. de Chandore in an undertone, "although it will be useless, I dare say. Boiscoran does not care that much for his son. Pshaw! Ah! if it was a rare _faience_, or a plate that is wanting in his collection, then would it be a very different story."

Still the despatch was drawn up and sent, at the very moment when a servant came in, and announced that dinner was ready. The meal was less sad than they had antic.i.p.ated. Everybody, to be sure, felt a heaviness at heart as he thought that at the same hour a jailer probably brought Jacques his meal to his cell; nor could Dionysia keep from dropping a tear when she saw M. Folgat sitting in her lover's place. But no one, except the young advocate, thought that Jacques was in real danger.

M. Seneschal, however, who came in just as coffee was handed round, evidently shared M. Folgat's apprehensions. The good mayor came to hear the news, and to tell his friends how he had spent the day. The funeral of the firemen had pa.s.sed off quietly, although amid deep emotion. No disturbance had taken place, as was feared; and Dr. Seignebos had not spoken at the graveyard. Both a disturbance and a row would have been badly received, said M. Seneschal; for he was sorry to say, the immense majority of the people of Sauveterre did not doubt M. de Boiscoran's guilt. In several groups he had heard people say, "And still you will see they will not condemn him. A poor devil who should commit such a horrible crime would be hanged sure enough; but the son of the Marquis de Boiscoran--you will see, he'll come out of it as white as snow."

The rolling of a carriage, which stopped at the door, fortunately interrupted him at this point.

"Who can that be?" asked Dionysia, half frightened.

They heard in the pa.s.sage the noise of steps and voices, something like a scuffle; and almost instantly the tenant's son Michael pushed open the door of the sitting-room, crying out,--

"I have gotten him! Here he is!"

And with these words he pushed in Cocoleu, all struggling, and looking around him, like a wild beast caught in a trap.

"Upon my word, my good fellow," said M. Seneschal, "you have done better than the gendarmes!"

The manner in which Michael winked with his eye showed that he had not a very exalted opinion of the cleverness of the gendarmes.

"I promised the baron," he said, "I would get hold of Cocoleu somehow or other. I knew that at certain times he went and buried himself, like the wild beast that he is, in a hole which he has scratched under a rock in the densest part of the forest of Rochepommier. I had discovered this den of his one day by accident; for a man might pa.s.s by a hundred times, and never dream of where it was. But, as soon as the baron told me that the innocent had disappeared, I said to myself, 'I am sure he is in his hole: let us go and see.' So I gathered up my legs; I ran down to the rocks: and there was Cocoleu. But it was not so easy to pull him out of his den. He would not come; and, while defending himself, he bit me in the hand, like the mad dog that he is."

And Michael held up his left hand, wrapped up in a b.l.o.o.d.y piece of linen.

"It was pretty hard work to get the madman here. I was compelled to tie him hand and foot, and to carry him bodily to my father's house. There we put him into the little carriage, and here he is. Just look at the pretty fellow!"

He was hideous at that moment, with his livid face spotted all over with red marks, his hanging lips covered with white foam, and his brutish glances.

"Why would you not come?" asked M. Seneschal.

The idiot looked as if he did not hear.

"Why did you bite Michael?" continued the mayor.

Cocoleu made no reply.

"Do you know that M. de Boiscoran is in prison because of what you have said?"

Still no reply.

"Ah!" said Michael, "it is of no use to question him. You might beat him till to-morrow, and he would rather give up the ghost than say a word."

"I am--I am hungry," stammered Cocoleu.

M. Folgat looked indignant.

"And to think," he said, "that, upon the testimony of such a thing, a capital charge has been made!"

Grandpapa Chandore seemed to be seriously embarra.s.sed. He said,--

"But now, what in the world are we to do with the idiot?"

"I am going to take him," said M. Seneschal, "to the hospital. I will go with him myself, and let Dr. Seignebos know, and the commonwealth attorney."

Dr. Seignebos was an eccentric man, beyond doubt; and the absurd stories which his enemies attributed to him were not all unfounded. But he had, at all events, the rare quality of professing for his art, as he called it, a respect very nearly akin to enthusiasm. According to his views, the faculty were infallible, as much so as the pope, whom he denied. He would, to be sure, in confidence, admit that some of his colleagues were amazing donkeys; but he would never have allowed any one else to say so in his presence. From the moment that a man possessed the famous diploma which gives him the right over life and death, that man became in his eyes an august personage for the world at large. It was a crime, he thought, not to submit blindly to the decision of a physician. Hence his obstinacy in opposing M. Galpin, hence the bitterness of his contradictions, and the rudeness with which he had requested the "gentlemen of the law" to leave the room in which _his_ patient was lying.

"For these devils," he said, "would kill one man in order to get the means of cutting off another man's head."

And thereupon, resuming his probes and his sponge, he had gone to work once more, with the aid of the countess, digging out grain by grain the lead which had honeycombed the flesh of the count. At nine o'clock the work was done.

"Not that I fancy I have gotten them all out," he said modestly, "but, if there is any thing left, it is out of reach, and I shall have to wait for certain symptoms which will tell me where they are."

As he had foreseen, the count had grown rather worse. His first excitement had given way to perfect prostration; and he seemed to be insensible to what was going on around him. Fever began to show itself; and, considering the count's const.i.tution, it was easily to be foreseen that delirium would set in before the day was out.

"Nevertheless, I think there is hardly any danger," said the doctor to the countess, after having pointed out to her all the probable symptoms, so as to keep her from being alarmed. Then he recommended to her to let no one approach her husband's bed, and M. Galpin least of all.

This recommendation was not useless; for almost at the same moment a peasant came in to say that there was a man from Sauveterre at the door who wished to see the count.

"Show him in," said the doctor; "I'll speak to him."