Part 20 (1/2)
Jeanne seemed so astounded at this idea, that she could scarcely get her breath to protest. ”Oh, M. l'Inspecteur, oh! Who ever heard of anything so wild! Is _that_ what people are saying? Oh, why!” she laughed out in her amazement, ”she hardly knew him by sight.”
”Why,” said the man evidently not speaking to Jeanne, ”didn't you say that she ran down along the bank of the river, screaming that he had killed himself for her sake?”
”Yes, I said that,” answered another man's voice, astonished and on the defense, ”and she _did_ too! and when the body was pulled out she flung herself down on it, and shrieked that she wanted to die with him.”
Jeanne broke in now, at the top of her voice, calling Heaven and earth and all the saints to witness that she never heard of anything so preposterous in her life, and that anybody in Bayonne could tell them so, and what crazy stories would people be making up next out of whole cloth? ”Some one is trying to play a joke on M. l'Inspecteur from Saint Sauveur. n.o.body _could_ have heard our Madame say such things, because she couldn't possibly have said them, any more than she could about a clerk who sold her a yard of cloth over the counter. For she didn't know any more about the young man than that! Why, she _never_ knew him except as the son of one of her friends. He never came to the house, and more than that she hadn't even laid eyes on him for more than two years. He had been in America and is only just returned, day before yesterday.
_Any_body you ask here can tell you that.”
”Nom de Dieu!” said the first man's voice in extreme surprise. ”Hadn't seen him for two years!”
”No, he hasn't even been in France since he was a little young boy!” The first man laughed as though the joke were on his comrade.
The second man's voice said, still defending himself, but now uncertainly, ”Very queer his following her right up there, if he scarcely knew her--what was _he_ doing in Saint Sauveur at this season, I'd like to know, if not....”
”Oh, as to that,” said Jeanne carelessly, ”I happen to know why he was there. I saw the young monsieur day before yesterday, just as he was about to take the seven o'clock train, valise in hand, and I had a talk with him, our young mademoiselle and I.”
”Why, I thought you hardly knew him by sight in this house and he never came here,” broke in the second policeman suspiciously.
”I didn't say it was here we saw him,” said Jeanne, ”and I said it was Madame who hardly knew him. But he is the brother of a little girl cla.s.smate of our mademoiselle. They are all children together. Well, every evening at six, except the days when Mademoiselle takes her music lesson, I go to the school to fetch her home, and that afternoon, as we were coming up the rue Port Neuf, we met the young man going towards the station, and when he saw our mademoiselle, he stopped for a moment for a chat, as young folks will. He was in high good spirits and said he was off for a fine business trip to the mountains and expected to have a good time as well as do business, and would be in Cauterets the next morning. Well, you know Cauterets is just over a ridge of the Pyrenees from Saint Sauveur and Mlle. Marise said, 'Why, is not that queer, my maman is at Saint Sauveur just now! Why don't you take the other train at Pierrefitte-Nestalos and run up to Saint Sauveur for half a day and take Maman a message from me, something I forgot to ask her before she left,' and the young man said he had been half planning to go to Saint Sauveur on business anyhow, and to tell him the message and if he saw her maman, he'd repeat it. Only he said, 'I don't believe your maman knows me,' and Mlle. Marise said, 'Well, you tell her you are Danielle's big brother, and she'll know. She knows all about my school-mates,' and the young man asked which sanitarium it was in Luz and Mlle. Marise reminded him, 'No, it's at Saint Sauveur where Maman is,' and told him the name of the sanitarium, and then he said he hoped he'd get a little fis.h.i.+ng in the Gavarnie, and I said the water would be too high, and he said he'd go and have a look at it anyway. And then he went along with his valise. Mlle. Marise is at school or you could ask her all about this too.”
”Eh _bien_, my friend from Saint Sauveur!” said the first man's voice, in a rallying tone of jocularity. ”This sounds as though some of you country-people must have lost your heads a bit. Come now. Did you yourself _hear_ her, saying all that?”
”No, of course I didn't,” said the other man stiffly, ”I was in the office at Luz. How could I know anything was happening? But the men who got the body out said she was awful to hear.”
”Oh, I don't doubt,” agreed Jeanne, ”that she was. Any woman would have been driven half crazy by such an awful thing, the only son of a friend, killed before your eyes. And she is terribly nervous into the bargain, the least little thing sends her off into hysteria. Some nights I have to rub her back until eleven o'clock to quiet her. And the doctor has warned her against the least excitement. Why, two days ago there was an important prize-contest at our mademoiselle's school and the poor woman, although she would have given anything to go, was forbidden by the doctor. He said the excitement would be too much for her, and she would feel it so if her daughter were defeated. You can ask any one whether she was there! And that evening, although Mlle. Marise had won the prize, she was so worked up, I had to give her a sleeping draught to get her a little rest, poor thing....”
”Were they _sure_ of what she said?” asked the first man of the other.
”Would they swear to it?”
”I don't see how anybody could hear anything!” put in Jeanne. ”In ordinary weather the gave of Gavarnie makes such a noise down there in that gorge, you can't hear your own voice even if you yell. I remember last summer when Madame was taking the cure, when we went to see her ...
and now in flood....”
”They'd certainly swear to her being in a terrible state of agitation,”
said the other in a rather nettled tone. He went on, ”You saw for yourself what was put in the paper about it this morning, how they had met there by design and spent the night together at the hotel and all.”
”You won't get far in an inquest, my young friend, if you take what a newspaper says. Newspapers are always wrong,” said the first man pityingly, in a tone of experienced scepticism. ”If this happened at ten in the morning, they can't have been together more than an hour. If he was seen here in Bayonne at six o'clock the evening before, he couldn't possibly have reached Saint Sauveur before nine the next morning. You know you wait three or four hours for the connection at Lourdes. To my mind there's nothing in it. I will take you to the convent to see her, if you insist, but I have no liking for scenes with hysteric women.”
”Oh, messieurs!” said Jeanne shocked at the idea, ”you couldn't possibly expect to see her _now_! Not for a week, at least, the doctor said.”
”A _week_!” cried the second voice, dismayed, ”sacrebleu, I can't kick my heels for a week, waiting.”
”Well, suppose we go through the usual routine?” suggested the other.
”Go to see the family of the young man, and if they confirm all this ...
there's no use going further. There is plenty of time for you to get all the facts you need for your report, and catch the one o'clock train back to Saint Sauveur.”
Jeanne said now jocularly, with a change of manner to the intimate knowing tone of a servant-girl speaking to a policeman, ”If you're not in a hurry, you must stay to have a gla.s.s in honor of the house. We have an excellent white wine, and the patron never counts the bottles.”
Marise heard her lead them down the hall and across the landing to the dining-room, and then in an instant heard her come back and run on tip-toe up the hall. She thrust her head through the curtains, showing a haggard gray face, glistening with sweat, and whispered, ”Don't move, don't speak to a soul till I get back. I must see the Garniers before they do.”