Part 32 (1/2)
”To take a carafe of kirsch for clear water,” continued the notary, without paying any attention to the Baron's agitation. ”The devil! the safe thing to do is to give him an emetic at once; this poor fellow has enough prussic acid in his stomach to poison a cow.”
”Who is talking of prussic acid and poisoning?” exclaimed the public prosecutor, running with an unsteady step from one extremity of the table to the other, ”who has been poisoned? I am the public prosecutor, I am the only one here who has any power to start an investigation. Have they had an autopsy? Where did they find it? Buried in the fields or the woods, or floating on the river?”
”You lie! there is no dead body in the river!” exclaimed Bergenheim, in a thundering voice, as he seized the magistrate by the collar in a bewildered way.
The magistrate was incapable of making the least resistance when held by such a vigorous hand and he received two or three shakings. Suddenly the Baron stopped, and struck his forehead with a gesture common to persons who feel that their reason has given way under a paroxysm of rage.
”I am crazy,” said he, with much emotion. ”Monsieur,” he added, ”I am very sorry. We really have all taken too much wine. I beg your pardon, gentlemen. I will leave you a moment--I need some fresh air.”
He hurriedly left the room, almost running against the persons who were carrying Marillac to his room. The public prosecutor, whose ideas had been somewhat mixed before, was now completely muddled by this unheard-of attack upon his dignity, and fell back exhausted in his chair.
”All poor drinkers!” said the notary to Monsieur de Carrier who was left alone with him, for the prosecutor, half suffocated with indignation and intoxication, could no longer be counted as one of them. ”Here they are, all drunk, from just a few gla.s.ses of wine.”
The notary shook his head with a mysterious air.
”These things, though, are plain enough to me,” said he at last; ”first, this Monsieur Marillac has not a very strong head and tells pretty tedious stories when drunk; then his friend has a way of taking kirsch for water which I can understand only in extreme cases; but the Baron is the one who astonished me most. Did you notice how he shook our friend who has just fallen on the floor? As to the Baron pretending that he was drunk and thus excusing himself, I do not believe one word of it; he drank nothing but water. There were times this evening when he appeared very strange indeed! There is some deviltry underneath all this; Monsieur de Carrier, rest a.s.sured there is some deviltry underneath it all.”
”I am the public prosecutor--they can not remove the body without me,”
stammered the weak voice of the magistrate, who, after trying in vain to recover his equilibrium, lay flat upon the floor.
CHAPTER XXI. A STRATAGEM
Instead of joining the persons who were carrying Marillac away, Christian went into the garden after leaving the dining-room, in quest of the fresh air which he gave as an excuse for leaving his guests. In fact, he felt oppressed almost to suffocation by the emotions he had undergone during the last few hours. The dissimulation which prudence made a necessity and honor a duty had aggravated the suffering by protracted concealment.
For some time Christian walked rapidly among the paths and trees in the park. Bathing his burning brow in the cool night air, he sought to calm the secret agitation and the boiling blood that were raging within him, in the midst of which his reason struggled and fought like a s.h.i.+p about to be wrecked. He used all his strength to recover his self-possession, so as to be able to master the perils and troubles which surrounded him with a calm if not indifferent eye; in one word, to regain that control over himself that he had lost several times during the supper. His efforts were not in vain. He contemplated his situation without weakness, exaggeration, or anger, as if it concerned another. Two facts rose foremost before him, one accomplished, the other uncertain. On one side, murder, on the other, adultery. No human power could remedy the first or prevent its consequences; he accepted it, then, but turn his mind away from it he must, in the presence of this greater disaster. So far, only presumptions existed against Clemence--grave ones, to be sure, if one added Lambernier's revelations to Marillac's strangely indiscreet remarks. It was his first duty to himself, as well as to her, to know the whole truth; if innocent, he would beg her forgiveness; if guilty, he had a chastis.e.m.e.nt to inflict.
”It is an abyss,” thought he, ”and I may find as much blood as mud at the bottom of it. No matter, I will descend to its very depths.”
When he returned to the chateau, his face had resumed its usual calm expression. The most observing person would hardly have noticed any change in his looks. The dining-room had been abandoned at last. The victorious and the vanquished had retired to their rooms. First of all, he went up to the artist's apartment, so that no singularity in his conduct should attract attention, for, as master of the house, a visit to one of his guests who had fallen dead, or nearly so, at his own table was a positive duty. The attentions lavished upon Marillac by his friend had removed the danger which might have resulted from his imprudent excesses in drinking, and the sort of poisoning with which he had crowned the whole. He lay upon his bed in the same position in which he had first been placed, and was sleeping that heavy, painful sleep which serves as an expiation for bacchic excesses. Gerfaut was seated a few steps from him, at a table, writing; he seemed prepared to sit up all night, and to fulfill, with the devotion of a friend, the duties of a nurse.
Octave arose at sight of the Baron, his face having resumed its habitual reserved expression. The two men greeted each other with equal composure.
”Is he sleeping?” asked Christian.
”But a few minutes only,” replied the latter; ”he is all right now, and I hope,” Octave added, smilingly, ”that this will serve as a lesson to you, and that hereafter you will put some limits to your princely hospitality. Your table is a regular ambush.”
”Do not throw stones at me, I pray,” replied the Baron, with an appearance of equal good-humor. ”If your friend wants to ask an explanation of anybody it is of you, for you took some kirsch of 1765 for water.”
”I really believe that I was the drunker of the two,” interrupted Octave, with a vivacity which concealed a certain embarra.s.sment; ”we must have terribly scandalized Monsieur de Camier, who has but a poor opinion of Parisian heads and stomachs.”
After looking for a moment at the sleeping artist, Christian approached the table where Gerfaut was seated, and threw a glance over the latter's writing.
”You are still at work, I see?” said he, as his eyes rested upon the paper.
”Just now I am following the modest trade of copyist. These are some verses which Mademoiselle de Corandeuil asked me for--”
”Will you do me a favor? I am going to her room now; give me these verses to hand to her. Since the misfortune that befell Constance, she has been terribly angry with me, and I shall not be sorry to have some reason for going to her room.”
Octave finished the two or three lines which remained to be copied, and handed the sheet to Bergenheim. The latter looked at it attentively, then carefully folded it and put it in his pocket.