The Greatest Murder Mysteries of Émile Gaboriau - Emile Gaboriau

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kill himself,” said she, “but I—”

      “Well, what do you wish to say? Speak!”

      “It was I, a wretch, who have killed you. I will not survive you.”

      An inexpressible anguish distorted Sauvresy’s features. She kill herself! If so, his vengeance was vain; his own death would then appear only ridiculous and absurd. And he knew that Bertha would not be wanting in courage at the critical moment.

      She waited, while he reflected.

      “You are free,” said he, at last, “this would merely be a sacrifice to Hector. If you died, he would marry Laurence Courtois, and in a year would forget even our name.”

      Bertha sprang to her feet; she pictured Hector to herself married and happy. A triumphant smile, like a sun’s ray, brightened Sauvresy’s pale face. He had touched the right chord. He might sleep in peace as to his vengeance. Bertha would live. He knew how hateful to each other were these enemies whom he left linked together.

      The servants came in one by one; nearly all of them had been long in Sauvresy’s service, and they loved him as a good master. They wept and groaned to see him lying there so pale and haggard, with the stamp of death already on his forehead. Sauvresy spoke to them in a feeble voice, which was occasionally interrupted by distressing hiccoughs. He thanked them, he said, for their attachment and fidelity, and wished to apprise them that he had left each of them a goodly sum in his will. Then turning to Bertha and Hector, he resumed:

      “You have witnessed, my people, the care and solicitude with which my bedside has been surrounded by this incomparable friend and my adored Bertha. You have seen their devotion. Alas, I know how keen their sorrow will be! But if they wish to soothe my last moments and give me a happy death, they will assent to the prayer which I earnestly make, to them, and will swear to espouse each other after I am gone. Oh, my beloved friends, this seems cruel to you now; but you know not how all human pain is dulled in me. You are young, life has yet much happiness in store for you. I conjure you yield to a dying man’s entreaties!”

      They approached the bed, and Sauvresy put Bertha’s hand into Hector’s.

      “Do you swear to obey me?” asked he.

      They shuddered to hold each other’s hands, and seemed near fainting; but they answered, and were heard to murmur:

      “We swear it.”

      The servants retired, grieved at this distressing scene, and Bertha muttered:

      “Oh, ’tis infamous, ’tis horrible!”

      “Infamous—yes,” returned Sauvresy, “but not more so than your caresses, Bertha, or than your hand-pressures, Hector; not more horrible than your plans, than your hopes—”

      His voice sank into a rattle. Soon the agony commenced. Horrible convulsions distorted his limbs; twice or thrice he cried out:

      “I am cold; I am cold!”

      His body was indeed stiff, and nothing could warm it.

      Despair filled the house, for a death so sudden was not looked for. The domestics came and went, whispering to each other, “He is going, poor monsieur; poor madame!”

      Soon the convulsions ceased. He lay extended on his back, breathing so feebly that twice they thought his breath had ceased forever. At last, a little before ten o’clock, his cheeks suddenly colored and he shuddered. He rose up in bed, his eye staring, his arm stretched out toward the window, and he cried:

      “There—behind the curtain—I see them—I see them!”

      A last convulsion stretched him again on his pillow.

      Chapter XXI

       Table of Contents

      The old justice of the peace ceased reading his voluminous record. His hearers, the detective and the doctor remained silent under the influence of this distressing narrative. M. Plantat had read it impressively, throwing himself into the recital as if he had been personally an actor in the scenes described.

      M. Lecoq was the first to recover himself.

      “A strange man, Sauvresy,” said he.

      It was Sauvresy’s extraordinary idea of vengeance which struck him in the story. He admired his “good playing” in a drama in which he knew he was going to yield up his life.

      “I don’t know many people,” pursued the detective, “capable of so fearful a firmness. To let himself be poisoned so slowly and gently by his wife! Brrr! It makes a man shiver all over!”

      “He knew how to avenge himself,” muttered the doctor.

      “Yes,” answered M. Plantat, “yes, Doctor; he knew how to avenge himself, and more terribly than he supposed, or than you can imagine.”

      The detective rose from his seat. He had remained motionless, glued to his chair for more than three hours, and his legs were benumbed.

      “For my part,” said he, “I can very well conceive what an infernal existence the murderers began to suffer the day after their victim’s death. You have depicted them, Monsieur Plantat, with the hand of a master. I know them as well after your description as if I had studied them face to face for ten years.”

      He spoke deliberately, and watched for the effect of what he said in M. Plantat’s countenance.

      “Where on earth did this old fellow get all these details?” he asked himself. “Did he write this narrative, and if not, who did? How was it, if he had all this information, that he has said nothing?”

      M. Plantat appeared to be unconscious of the detective’s searching look.

      “I know that Sauvresy’s body was not cold,” said he, “before his murderers began to threaten each other with death.”

      “Unhappily for them,” observed Dr. Gendron, “Sauvresy had foreseen the probability of his widow’s using up the rest of the vial of poison.”

      “Ah, he was shrewd,” said M. Lecoq, in a tone of conviction, “very shrewd.”

      “Bertha could not pardon Hector,” continued M. Plantat, “for refusing to take the revolver and blow his brains out; Sauvresy, you see, had foreseen that. Bertha thought that if her lover were dead, her husband would have forgotten all; and it is impossible to tell whether she was mistaken or not.”

      “And nobody knew anything of this horrible struggle that was going on in the house?”

      “No one ever suspected anything.”

      “It’s marvellous!”

      “Say, Monsieur Lecoq, that is scarcely credible. Never was dissimulation so crafty, and above all, so wonderfully sustained. If you should question the first person you met in Orcival, he would tell you, as our worthy Courtois this morning told Monsieur Domini, that the count and countess were a model pair and adored each other. Why I, who knew—or suspected, I should say—what had passed, was deceived myself.”

      Promptly as M. Plantat had corrected himself, his slip of the tongue did not escape M. Lecoq.

      “Was it really a slip, or not?” he asked himself.

      “These wretches have been terribly punished,” pursued M. Plantat, “and it is impossible to pity them; all would have gone rightly if Sauvresy, intoxicated by his hatred, had not committed a blunder which was almost a crime.”

      “A crime!” exclaimed the doctor.

      M. Lecoq smiled and muttered in a low tone:

      “Laurence.”

      But low as he had spoken, M. Plantat heard him.

      “Yes, Monsieur Lecoq,” said he severely.

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