Le Petit Vieux de Batignolles (The Little Old Man from Batignolles | by Emile Gaboriau

 

translated by Nina Cooper

 

CHAPTER I

 

When I was finishing my studies to become a Civil Service Public Health Officer---those were good days—I was 23---I was living on Rue Monsieur le Prince, almost at the corner of the Rue Racine. There I had a furnished room for 30 francs a month, including maid service, which would cost a good 100 francs today. It was so big I could put my legs into my pants without opening the window.

 Leaving early in the morning to go about my hospital rounds, coming back very late because the Café Leroy had an irresistible attraction for me, I scarcely came to know the other lodgers in my apartment building by sight. They were all quiet, retired persons or small business people. There was one, however, with whom, little by little, I finally struck up an acquaintance.

He was a man of middle height, insignificant-looking, always very clean-shaven, a very important man they called Monsieur Méchinet. The house porter treated him with particular respect and never failed to take off his hat quickly when he passed by his station.

Monsieur Méchinet’s apartment opened onto my landing right in front of my door. On several occasions we found ourselves face to face. At those times we usually greeted each other. One evening, he came over to my place to ask me for some matches. One night I borrowed some tobacco from him. One morning we happened to leave at the same time and walked side by side to the end of the street, chatting.

 Those were our first relations. Without being either nosey or impertinent---you aren’t at the age I was then---you like to know what to make of the people you form a friendship with. Naturally, therefore, I began to observe not only my neighbor’s existence, but also to take an interest in his comings and goings.

 He was married and Madame Caroline Méchinet, blonde, fair, petite, good-natured and plump, seemed to adore her husband. But her husband’s schedule wasn’t regular. Frequently he went out before daylight and often the sun was up when I heard him come back to his place. Sometimes he disappeared for whole weeks at a time. How the pretty, little Madame Méchinet could tolerate that, that’s what I couldn’t understand.

 Intrigued, I thought our house porter, usually as talkative as a magpie, could enlighten me somewhat. Error! Hardly had I pronounced Méchinet’s name than he sent me on my way in no uncertain terms. He told me, lifting his eyebrows, that he wasn’t in the habit of “squealing” on his tenants. That reception so added to my curiosity that, becoming totally shameless, I started spying on my neighbor. Then I discovered some things that seemed to me of enormous importance. One time I saw him come back dressed in the latest fashion, in his Sunday best, with five or six decorations on the front of his suit. The next day I saw him on the stairway dressed in a dirty shirt and wearing a ragged cloth hat which gave him a sinister look. And that wasn’t all. One fine afternoon, as he was leaving, I saw his wife come with him as far as the doorway of their apartment, and there, kissing him passionately, saying:

“I beg you, Méchinet, be careful. Think about your little wife!”

Be careful!   Why?...For what reason? What did that mean? Then, the wife was his accomplice!...My amazement wasn’t long in becoming twice as great.

One night I was soundly asleep when suddenly someone knocked hurriedly on my door. I got up. I opened the door…Monsieur Méchinet came in, or, rather, rushed into my room. His clothes were torn and in disorder, his tie and the front of his shirt pulled apart. He was bareheaded, his face completely bloody….

Alarmed, “What’s happened?” I cried out.

But he, motioning me to be quiet, said:

“Not so loud. Someone could hear you. This is probably nothing, although I’m suffering like the devil. I told myself that you, a medical student, would probably know how to take care of this…”

Not saying a word, I made him sit down, examined him quickly, and gave him the necessary attention. Although there had been a great loss of blood, the wound was slight. To tell the truth, it was nothing but a superficial graze starting at the left ear and stopping at the corner of the mouth.

 The wound dressed,Monsieur Méchinet said to me:

“So, for this time I’m well and healthy again. Thanks a million Monsieur Godeuil. But, please, most of all, don’t tell anybody about this little accident….and, Good Night.”

“Good Night!” As if I really could think about sleeping! When I remember what sort of absurd hypotheses and romantic notions went through my head, I can’t keep from laughing. Monsieur Méchinet took on fantastic proportions in my mind.

 He, himself, came over quietly the next day to thank me and to invite me to dinner. You can well imagine that, going into my neighbors’ house, I was all eyes and all ears. But I concentrated all my attention in vain. I found nothing of a nature to dissipate the mystery that so strongly intrigued me. However, dating from this dinner, our relationship went forward. Decidedly, Monsieur Méchinet had taken a liking to me. Rarely a week went by without his inviting me to " eat his soup,” in his expression. .And almost every day at the time to drink absinthe he came to meet me at the Café Leroy and we played a game of dominoes.

 So it was that on a certain evening in the month of July, a Friday, about 5:00 p. m., he was in the process of beating me with a double-six domino, when a rather, I must admit, dangerous-looking, tall armed guard suddenly entered and came to whisper in his ear some words I couldn’t hear.

 All at once, with a deeply distressed expression, Monsieur Méchinet stood up.  

 “I’m coming,” he said. “Run ahead and say I’m coming.”

The man left as fast as his legs could carry him and Méchinet then held out his hand to me.

“Excuse me,” my old neighbor added. “Duty comes first….We’ll take up our game again tomorrow.”

And burning up with curiosity, I showed a great deal of vexation, saying I really regretted not being able to go with him.

“Actually,” he muttered, “Why not? Would you like to come along? You might find that interesting…"

As my only answer, I picked up my hat and we left.

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

 Certainly, I was far from suspecting that I was taking one of those steps, apparently insignificant, which have a decisive influence on one’s entire life.

 “I’m being let in on it,”  I thought to myself, “I’ve got the key to the puzzle.”

And filled with a silly, adolescent satisfaction, I trotted along like a skinny cat beside Monsieur Méchinet.. I say: “I trotted,” because I had a hard time not letting myself be outdistanced by that good man. He rushed along, he hurried along, the length of the Rue Racine, pushing aside passers-by as if his fortune depended on his legs. Fortunately, at the Place de l’Odéon, we came across a carriage. Monsieur Méchinet hailed it and opening the door:

“Get in, Monsieur Godeuil,” he said to me.

 I did as he said and he took a place beside me after having shouted to the coachman in a commanding tone:

 “39,  Rue Lécluse, in the Batignolles….and hurry!”

The distance of the trip brought out a chain of swear words from the coachman. That didn’t matter. He whipped up his nags with a masterful crack of his whip and the carriage started off.

 “Ah! Then we’re going to the Batignolles?” I asked with a winning smile. But Monsieur Méchinet didn’t answer me. I doubt that he even heard me. A total metamorphosis had taken place in him. He didn’t seem to me to be exactly emotional, but his pinched lips and the contraction of his bushy eyebrows betrayed a painfully distressing preoccupation. His gaze, lost in the void, seemed to be studying the terms of some insoluble problem. He had taken out his snuff box and constantly took enormous pinches that he rubbed between his index finger and his thumb, formed into lumps, and  carried to his nose. Nevertheless he didn’t inhale it.

 This was a tic he had which amused me a great deal. This worthy man, who had a horror of tobacco, always carried a snuff box like a vaudeville financier. If something pleasant or troublesome happened to him unexpectedly, crack, he took it out of his pocket and appeared to sniff and snort furiously. Often the snuff box was empty. The gesture was the same. I later learned that this was his own system to hide his impressions or to turn aside the attention of those questioning him.

Even so, we were still moving along…

Not without some trouble, the carriage went up the Rue de Clichy. It went up the outside boulevard, took the Rue de Lécluse and wasn’t long in stopping some distance from the address indicated. The street was so obstructed by a thick crowd to go further was physically impossible.  There were 200 to 300 people stationed in front of the house bearing the number 39. Their necks craning, their eyes shining, panting with curiosity, they were with difficulty held back by a half-dozen city policemen, raising their harshest voices in vain: “Move on, Messieurs, move on!....”

Out of the carriage, we moved forward, painfully slipping through the on-lookers. We had already reached the door of Number 39, when a city policeman rudely pushed us back.

“Get back! Nobody goes through here!”

My companion looked him up and down and raising himself to his full height:

“So you don’t recognize me? “he asked. :”I’m Méchinet and this young man—he pointed to me—is with me.”

“Pardon! Excuse me!” stammered the agent, raising his hand to his hat. “I didn’t know; please come in.”

We went in. In the vestibule, a heavy-set, talkative woman, the concierge apparently, redder than a peony, was gesticulating and holding forth to a group of the building’s renters.

 “Where is it?” Monsieur Méchinet asked her roughly.

“On the fourth floor, dear Monsieur,” she answered, “on the fourth floor, the door on the right. Jesus! Mon Dieu! What a tragedy! In an establishment like ours! Such a nice man!”

I didn’t hear any more of that. Monsieur Méchinet had rushed to the stairs and I was following him, climbing four steps at a time, my heart beating so fast my breathing was cut off.

 On the fourth floor, the door on the right was open. We went in. We went through an antechamber, a dining room, a living room, and finally we came to a bedroom. If I live a thousand years I’ll never forget the sight that struck my eyes. And even at this moment that I’m writing, after so many years, I can see it even in its smallest details. Two men were kneeling at the fireplace facing the door: a Police Commissioner, wearing his official sash, and an Investigating Magistrate. On the right, seated at a table, a young man, the stenographer, was writing.

 On the floor in the middle of the room, was the cadaver of an old white-haired man lying in a sea of black, coagulated blood. He was stretched out on his back, his arms crossed. Terrified, I remained nailed to the threshold, so close to fainting that, in order not to fall, I was obliged to lean against the doorframe.

 My profession had made me familiar with death. I had long since gotten over the repugnance of the amphitheatre but this was the first time that I’d found myself faced with a crime. Because it was apparent that an abominable crime had been committed. Less easy to impress than I, my neighbor had entered with a firm step.

 “Ah! It’s you, Méchinet, the Commissioner of Police said to him. “I’m very sorry to have had you disturbed.”

“Why?”

“ “Because we won’t need your expertise…We know the guilty person. I’ve given arrest orders and he must be under arrest right now.”

Ah! Such a strange thing! From the gesture Monsieur Méchinet made, you’d have thought that assurance displeased him. He took out his snuff box, took two or three of his imaginary pinches, and said:

“Ah! The guilty person is known!...

It was the Investigating Magistrate who answered.

“And known in a certain and positive manner, yes, Monsieur Méchinet. ..The crime committed, the murderer fled, thinking his victim was not alive..He was mistaken. Providence was watching…This unfortunate old man was still alive. Bringing together all his strength, he dipped one of his fingers in the blood escaping in floods from his wound, and there, on the floor, he wrote the name of his murderer with his blood, thus denouncing him to human justice. See for yourself.”

Thus pointed out, I saw what I had not at first noticed. On the floor, in badly formed big letters, readable, however, had been written in blood: MONIS…

“And so?” asked Monsieur Méchinet.

The Commissioner of Police answered: “That’s the name of a nephew of the poor dead man…a nephew he was fond of, and whose name is Monistrol…”

“The devil!” burst out my neighbor.

“I don’t suppose,” continued the Investigating Magistrate, “that the miserable man will try to deny it…The five letters are an overwhelming indictment against him. Besides, who profits by such a cowardly crime as this? Only he, the sole heir of this old man who leaves, they say, a large fortune. There’s more. The crime was committed  yesterday.Well! Yesterday evening nobody visited this poor old man but his nephew. The concierge saw him arrive about 9:00 p. m. and leave a little before midnight.

 “It’s clear,” agreed Monsieur Méchinet, “it’s very clear, this Monistrol was nothing but an imbecile.”

And shrugging:

“Did he even steal anything? Did he break some piece of furniture to give pretence for a motive for the crime?”

“Until now, nothing seems to us to be out of place,” answered the Commissioner of Police. “You’ve said it, the miserable man isn’t very smart. As soon as he sees he’s been found out, he’ll confess.”

And on that, the Commissioner of Police and Monsieur Méchinet went over to a window opening and conferred in a low voice, while the Investigating Magistrate gave some instructions to his stenographer.

 

 

CHAPTER III

 

From then on, I had the picture. I’d wanted to know exactly what my enigmatic neighbor did…I knew. Now the irregular nature of his life was explained: his absences, his late night returns, his sudden disappearance, the fears and the complicity of his young wife, the wound that I’d dressed.

 But what did my discovery mean to me! I had come to myself little by little. The ability to think and deliberate had returned to me and I was examining everything around me with bitter curiosity. From where I was, leaning against the door jamb, my glance took in the whole apartment. Nothing, absolutely nothing betrayed a murder scene there. On the contrary, everything revealed comfort, and at the same time, parsimonious and methodical habits. Everything was in its place. There was not one bad fold in the drapes, and the wood furniture gleamed, proving daily care. Besides, it appeared evident that the conjectures of the Investigating Magistrate and the Police Commissioner were correct and that the poor old man had been murdered the evening before at the time he was getting ready for bed.

 In fact, the bed sheets were laid back and a night shirt and cap were laid out on the bed covering. On the table at the head of the bed I saw a glass of sugar-water, a box of matches, and an evening newspaper, the Patrie. A heavy and solid brass candlestick was shining on one corner of the fireplace mantle. But the candle that had lit the crime had had been used up.  The murderer had fled without snuffing it out and it had burned down right to the end, blackening the pointed alabaster disk to which it had been affixed.

 I noticed these details at a glance without my will having anything to do with it, you might say. My eyes took the place of some sort of photographic object. The theatre of the murder was engraved on my mind as if on a prepared plaque, with such precision that no circumstance was missing. It had such solidity that even today I could sketch the apartment of “the little old man of Batignolles” without forgetting anything, without even forgetting a wine cork half covered with green wax that I think I can still see on the floor under the stenographer’s chair.

 This was an extraordinary faculty that has left me, my most important faculty, which I no longer have the occasion to exercise, which suddenly is coming back. Then I was too strongly moved to analyze my impressions.  

 I had only one desire, stubborn, burning, irresistible: to approach the cadaver stretched out two meters from me. At first I fought. I shielded myself against the obsession of that desire. But fate took a hand in it…I moved toward it.

 Had anyone noticed my presence? I don’t think so. In any case, nobody paid any attention to me. Monsieur Méchinet and the Commissioner of Police were still chatting near the window. The stenographer was re-reading his criminal indictment to the Investigating Magistrate. So nothing stood in the way of the accomplishment of my plan.

 In addition, I must confess a sort of fever had gotten hold of me, which made me insensitive to exterior circumstances and absolutely isolated me. That was so true that I dared kneel down near the cadaver to see better and closer.  

 Far from thinking that someone was going to shout at me: “What are you doing there?” I acted slowly and calmly, like a man who, having been given a mission, was accomplishing it.

 This unfortunate old man seemed to me to be about 70 or 75-years old. He was short and very thin, but certainly healthy and built to last until 100. He still had a lot of hair, of a yellowish-white hue, curling at the neck. His gray beard, full and thick, seemed not to have been cared for in five or six days. It must have grown after his death. That circumstance that I had often noticed among our subjects at the medical amphitheatre didn’t astonish me. What surprised me was the facial expression of the unfortunate man. It was calm; I would say more than that, smiling. His lips were half opened as if for a friendly greeting. Death must have come terribly quickly for him to have kept that welcoming expression!...That was the first idea that came to my mind.

Yes, but how could you reconcile these two circumstances which were irreconcilable: a sudden death and those five letters: Monis, that I was looking at in bloody strokes on the floor? To write that, what effort it must have taken a dying man!  Only the hope of vengeance would have been able to lend him such strength. And what rage must have been his to feel himself dying without having been able to trace the entire name of his assassin. And nevertheless the cadaver’s face seemed to be smiling at me.

 The poor old man had been struck in the throat and the weapon had gone through the neck from one side to the other. The instrument of the crime must have been a dagger or rather one of those formidable Catalan knifes, big as the hand, which cut from both sides and which are also as pointed as a needle.  

 I have never in my life been shaken by such strange sensations.

My temples were beating with an unbelievable violence, and my heart in my chest

swelled to almost break.

 Then what was I about to discover?

Pushed by a mysterious and irresistible force which destroyed my free will, I took the still and icy hands of the cadaver between my hands in order to examine them better. The right one was clean..It was one of the fingers of the left hand, the index finger, that

was stained with blood. What! It was with the left hand the old man had written! What about that! Stricken with a sort of vertigo, with wild eyes, my hair bristling on my head, and assuredly paler than the dead man stretched out at my feet, I stood up uttering a terrible cry.

 “Grand Dieu!”

All the others jumped at this cry, surprised, frightened:

“What is it?” they all asked me at the same time. “What’s going on?”

I tried to answer, but emotion was strangling me. It seemed to me as if my mouth was full of sand. I could only point to the hands of the dead man stammering:

“There! There!”

As fast as lightening, Monsieur Méchinet threw himself on his knees near the cadaver. What I had seen, he saw, and my impression was his also, because standing up quickly:

 “That poor old man wasn’t the one who traced those letters there,” he declared.

 And as the Investigating Magistrate and the Police Commissioner looked at him with their mouths open, he explained to them the significance of only the left hand being stained with blood.

“And to think that I hadn’t paid attention to that!” the Commissioner, distressed,  kept repeating.

 Monsieur Méchinet was gripped with fury.

 “That’s how it is,” he said, “The things that stare you in the face are those you don’t see at all.  But that doesn’t make any difference! Now the situation has devilishly changed. From the moment that it’s no longer the old man who wrote, it’s the one who killed him who did.”

“Obviously, “ approved the Commissioner.

 My neighbor continued: “Now can you imagine a murderer stupid enough to

incriminate himself by writing his name beside the body of his victim? No, right? Now, we conclude…..”

The Investigating Magistrate had become worried.  

 “It’s clear,” he stated, “appearances have misled us..Monistrol isn’t the guilty one…Who is he?” It’s up to you, Monsieur Méchinet to find him.”

He stopped…A policeman was entering. Speaking to the Commissioner he said:

“Your orders have been carried out, Monsieur  ...Monistrol has been arrested and booked at the Depot. He has confessed everything.”

 

CHAPTER IV

 

The shock was so much more severe because it was unexpected. It’s impossible to describe the stupor of us all. What! While we were there striving to find proofs of Monistrol’s innocence, he had admitted he was guilty!

Monsieur Méchinet was the first one to recover. Quickly, five or six times, he carried full fingers from his snuff box to his nose, and was advancing toward the policeman.

 “You’re mistaken or you’re misleading us,” he said to him. “There’s no middle ground.”

“I swear to you, Monsieur Méchinet…..”

“Shut up! Either you’ve misunderstood what Monistrol said, or you’ve gotten drunk on the hope of astonishing us by telling us the crime is solved.”

Humble and respectful up until then, the policeman refused to take any more.

 “Excuse me!” he interrupted, “I’m neither an imbecile nor a liar, and I know what I’m saying….”

The discussion was turning into an argument so fast that the Investigating Magistrate thought he should step in.

 “Cool down, Monsieur Méchinet,” he declared, “and before pronouncing judgment, wait to hear what he has to say.”

Then, turning to the policeman:

“And you, my friend,” he continued, “tell us what you know and your reasons for what you’re saying.”

With this support, the policeman crushed Monsieur Méchinet with an ironic look and said, with a very discernible nuance of complaisant stupidity:

“Well,” he began, “here’s the thing: Monsieur the Investigating Magistrate and Monsieur the Commissioner here charged us, Inspector Goulard, my colleague Poltin and me, to arrest the accused Monistrol, a dealer in costume jewelry, living  at 75 Rue Vivienne, the before-mentioned Monsistrol being accused of assassination on the person of his uncle.

 “That’s accurate,” the Commissioner approved in a low voice.

 “Thereupon,” the policeman continued, “we took a carriage and had us taken to address indicated. We arrived and we found the gentleman, Monistrol, in the back of the shop on the point of sitting down to dinner with his wife, a woman 25 to 30-years old of admirable beauty.

 “Seeing all three of us standing in a single line, my fellow stood up. ‘What do you want?’ he asked us. On that, the Brigadier Goulard took the arrest warrant out of his pocket and answered: ‘In the name of the law, I arrest you…’ “

Monsieur Méchinet seemed on pins and needles.

 “Can’t you cut it short?” he asked the policeman.

But the other man continued in the same calm tone as if he hadn’t heard him..

 “I’ve arrested quite a few individuals in my lifetime. Well, I’ve never seen any of them fall apart like that one. ‘You’re joking,’ he said to us, ‘or you’ve made a mistake.’ “No, we haven’t made a mistake.” ‘But really, why are you arresting me?’

“Goulard shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t act like a child,’ he said. “What about your uncle? The cadaver has been found and there are overwhelming proofs against you.”

“Ah! The criminal, what a nasty situation! He began trembling and finally fell into a chair sobbing and stammering some answer it was impossible to understand.”

“Seeing that Goulard shook him by the collar of his suit, saying to him: ‘Believe me, the fastest way is to confess everything.’

 He looked at us with a dazed air and murmured: “’All right! Yes! I confess everything!’ “

“Good maneuveur, Goulard!” the Commissioner approved.

The policeman was triumphing.” It was a matter of not staying very long in the shop,” he continued. “It had been recommended that we avoid any scandal, and the on-lookers were already gathering. Goulard grabbed the accused by the arm, yelling at him:

‘Come on, let’s go! They’re waiting for us at the Prefecture.’ Monsistrol, stood up on his wobbly legs as well as he could and in the tone of a man who’s taking his courage in both hands, said: “Let’s get started!”

 “We thought the worst was over. We hadn’t counted on the wife. Until then she had stayed in an armchair as if in a faint, without saying a word, without even seeming to understand what was happening. But when she saw that we were very definitely taking away her man, she bounded up like a lioness and threw herself across the door, crying out: ‘You won’t leave!’ On my word of honor, she was superb. But Goulard had seen a great many others like her.

‘Come now, come now, little mother,’ he said, ‘Don’t give us any trouble. You’ll get him back, your husband!’”

“Nevertheless, far from letting us pass, she clutched the door facing even harder, swearing that her husband was innocent, declaring that if he was taken to prison, she would follow him, sometimes threatening us and sometimes heaping curses on us, sometimes begging us in her sweetest voice…”

“Then, when she saw that nothing would keep us from fulfilling our duty, she turned loose of the door and threw herself around her husband’s neck.

‘Oh! Dearly beloved,” she moaned, ‘is it possible that they’re accusing you of a crime? You….you!...Speak to them, to these men, tell them you’re innocent!...’ “

 “It’s true. We were all moved, but he, more insensitive than we were, he was barbarous enough to push his poor wife away so brutally that she went to fall down in a heap in a corner of the back shop. Fortunately, that was the end of it.”

“The wife being prostrate, we took advantage of it to wrap up the husband in the carriage that we’d brought along. “Wrap up” is really the right word, because he’d become like something inert, he couldn’t stand up; we had to carry him. And, not to forget anything, I have to say that his dog, a kind of black, bad-tempered little runt, wanted absolutely to jump into the carriage with us, and we had a lot of trouble getting rid of him. On the way, as he should have, Goulard tried to distract our prisoner and to make him blab…But it was impossible to get a word out of his throat. It was only on arriving at the Prefecture that he seemed to come to himself. When he was solidly and completely installed in a cell in solitary confinement, he threw himself helplessly on the bed repeating: ‘What have I done to you, Oh Mon Dieu, What have I done to you!’

 “At this moment Goulard went up to him and for the second time:’So,” he interrogated him, ‘You confess you’re guilty!’ Monistrol nodded and said:    ‘Yes, Yes….then, in a harsh voice: ‘Please, leave me alone,’ he said.”

“That’s what we did, after having taken care, however, to place a guard to watch through the window in the cell’s door, just in case the fellow tried to put an end to his days. Goulard and Poltin stayed there, and here I am!”

“ That does it,” the Commissioner muttered. “Nothing could be clearer.”

That was also the opinion of the Investigating Magistrate because he mumbled:

“After that, how could you doubt the guilt of Monistrol?”

Me, I was confused, and nevertheless my convictions remained unshaken. And I was even opening my mouth to hazard an objection when Monsieur Méchinet stopped me.

“All that’s well and good!” he burst out. “Only, if we admit that Monistrol is the murderer, we’re also forced to admit that he wrote his name there on the floor…and Damne!  That’s tough…”

“Bast!” interrupted the Commissioner, “From the moment the accused confessed, what’s the good of being preoccupied with a circumstance the investigation will explain…”

But my neighbor’s observation had raised the Investigating Magistrate’s uncertainty. So, without making a decision:

“I’m going back to the Prefecture,” he said. “I’m going to interrogate Monistrol right this evening.”

And after having charged the Commissioner with filling out all the paperwork carefully and waiting for the doctors called to do the autopsy, he left, followed by his stenographer and the policeman who had come to tell us of the success of the arrest.

 “Provided these medical devils don’t make us wait too long!” grumbled the Commissioner, who was thinking of his dinner.

 Neither Monsieur Méchinet nor I answered him. We remained standing, facing each other, obviously obsessed by the same idea.

“After all,” murmured my neighbor, “maybe it was the old man who wrote it.”

 “Then with the left hand? Is that possible!  Without considering  the fact that the death of the poor good man must have been instantaneous.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Considering his wound, I’d swear to it…Besides the doctors who’re coming will tell you whether I’m right or wrong.”

Monsieur Méchinet rubbed his nose with a veritable frenzy.

“Maybe, in fact, there is some mystery in all this,” he said. “This needs to be looked into. That would mean an investigation to be started over.…So be it; let’s redo it…And to begin with, let’s interrogate the porter.”

And running to the stairwell, he leaned over the ramp, shouting:

“Concierge!...Hey! Concierge! Come up a little while, please…”

 

 

CHAPTER V

 While waiting for the concierge to come upstairs, Monsieur Méchinet began a rapid and knowledgeable examination of the crime scene. But it was above all the lock of the apartment’s entry door that attracted his attention. It was intact and the key turned in the lock without difficulty. That fact act absolutely did away with the idea that an unknown robber had entered during the night with the help of false keys. On my side, mechanically, or rather by means of the astonishing instinct that had been brought out of me, I went to pick up the wine cork on the floor half covered with wax that I’d noticed. It had been used, and on the wax side it still had traces of the bottle opener. But on the other side could be seen a rather deep sort of nick, evidently produced by a sharp cutting instrument.

 Suspecting the importance of my discovery, I communicated it to Monsieur Méchinet, and he couldn’t hold back an expression of pleasure.  

 “Finally,” he cried out, “finally, we have a clue. This wine cork, it’s the murderer who let it fall here. He stuck the fragile point of the weapon he used in it. Conclusion: The murder weapon is a dagger with a fixed handle, and not one of those knives that can be closed. With this cork, I’m sure of getting to the guilty man, whoever he is.”

The Commissioner of Police was finishing up his duties in the bedroom. We, Monsieur Méchinet and I, still in the living room, were interrupted by the sound of panting. Almost immediately there showed up the powerfully built woman I had noticed in the vestibule holding forth in the middle of the renters. It was the woman porter, redder, if that was possible, than she was when we arrived.

“ “What can I do to help you, Monsieur?”

“Sit down, Madame,” he answered.

“But, Monsieur, the fact is, I have people downstairs….”

“They’ll wait for you. I told you to sit down.”

Taken aback by Monsieur Méchinet’s tone, she obeyed. Then, fixing her with his terrible little gray eyes, he said:

“I need certain information,” he said, “and I’m going to question you. In your own interest, I advise you to answer straightforwardly. And first of all, what is the name of this poor fellow who’s been murdered?”

“His name was Pigoreau, good Monsieur, but he was mainly known under the name of Anténor,. He took that in the past as more fitting to his line of work.”

“Had he been living in this house very long?”

“For eight years.”

“Where did he live before that?”

“Where did he live before? Rue Richelieu, where his shop was….because he was known there. He had been a hair dresser and that’s how he’d earned his fortune.”

“He was reputed to be rich?”

“I have it from his niece that he was worth at least a million.”

In that regard, the general opinion would have to be verified, since they had inventoried the poor old man’s papers.

 “Now,” Monsieur Méchinet continued, “what type of man was this Monsieur Pigoreau, called Anténor?”

“ Oh, the cream of the crop of men, dear, good Monsieur,” answered the concierge. ..He was a great worrier, cranky, so miserly you couldn’t believe it, but he wasn’t proud.  And so amusing in addition to all that! You could spend entire nights listening to him when he was in good form. What tales he knew! Just think about it, a former hairdresser who had, as he used to say, curled the hair of the most beautiful women in Paris.”

“What was his life style like?”

“Like everybody…like people who have an income, that’s understood, and who, nevertheless, hold on to their money.”

“Can you give me some details?”

“Oh! As for that, I certainly think so, seeing that I was the one who took care of his housekeeping. That wasn’t hard for me to do, since he did almost everything, sweeping, dusting, and polishing himself. That was really his mania! So, every day the good God made, I brought him up a cup of chocolate. He drank it. After that he swallowed a big glass of water and that was his lunch. After that he got dressed, and that took him up to 2:00 p. m. because he was more coquettish and careful of his person than a bride. As soon as he was decked out, he went out to take a walk about Paris. At 6:00 p. m. he went to eat dinner in a middle class pension run by the Gomet ladies, on the Rue de la Paix. After his dinner he hurried to drink his demi-tasse of coffee and a little cognac at the Guerbois Café. And at 11:00 p. m. he came back to go to bed.  Finally, he had only one fault, the poor fellow.  He was drawn to the opposite sex. Many times I said to him: ‘At your age, have you no shame!,,,But no one’s perfect and you can understand that in a former perfume salesman who’s had a heap of good opportunities in his lifetime.”

A flattering smile played across the sturdy concierge’s lips, but nothing was capable of amusing Monsieur Méchinet.

 “Did Monsieur Pigoreau have a lot of visitors?” he continued.

“Very few…I hardly ever saw anyone come to visit him except his nephew, Monsieur Monistrol, whom he took to dinner at Father Lathuile’s every Sunday.”

“And how were they together, the uncle and the nephew?”

“Like two peas in a pod.”

“They never had any arguments?”

“Never! Except they were always squabbling because of Madame Clara.”

“Who is this Madame Clara?”

“The wife of Monsieur Monistrol, really a superb creature…The departed Father Anténor couldn’t stand her. He said his nephew loved her too much, that woman, and that she led him about by his nose. He said she made him see things through rose-colored glasses. He claimed she didn’t love her husband, that she had a life-style too exalted for her position and that she would wind up doing stupid things. Madame Clara and her Uncle had even fallen out at the end of last year. She wanted the good uncle to lend Monsieur Monistrol 100,000 francs to buy the stock of a jeweler in the Palais-Royale. But he refused, saying they could do with his fortune whatever they liked after his death, but, until then, having earned it, he claimed he wanted to keep it and enjoy it.”

I thought Monsieur Méchinet was going to make a point of that circumstance, which seem very serious to me, but…not at all. I motioned to him in vain. He went on.

 “We still need to know: who discovered the crime?

“It was discovered by me, my good Monsieur, by me!” moaned the woman porter. “Ah! It was terrible! Just imagine that this morning, on the stroke of noon, I came upstairs as usual to bring Père Anténor his cup of chocolate…Since I do the housekeeping, I have a key to the apartment. I opened the door, I entered, and what did I see..Ah!  Mon Dieu!”

     And she began to let out piercing cries…

“This grief is proof of your good heart, Madame,” Monsieur Méchinet said gravely..”However, I’m in a great hurry. Try to control yourself. What did you think on seeing your tenant murdered?”

“I’ve told whoever would listen: It was his nephew, the robber, who did it in order to inherit.”

“What gave you that certainty? Because, after all, to accuse a man of such a serious crime is to push him toward the scaffold.”

 “Eh, Monsieur, then who could it be? Monsieur Monistrol came to see his uncle last evening and when he left it was almost midnight. And what’s more, he, who always speaks to me, said nothing to me when arriving or when leaving. And from that moment right up to when I discovered everything, nobody, I’m sure, went up to Monsieur Anténor’s apartment.”

I admit that deposition confused me. Still naïve, I would not have thought of continuing that interrogation. Fortunately, Monsieur Méchinet had great experience and he possessed to the utmost degree that very difficult art of drawing the whole truth from witnesses.

 “So, Madame,” he insisted, “You’re certain that Monsieur Monistrol came last evening?”

“Certain.”

“You saw him clearly, really recognized him?”

“Ah! Let me explain, please. I didn’t stare at him. He went by very quickly, trying to hide himself like the thief he is, and the corridor is poorly lit…”

At that answer of an importance that couldn’t be overestimated, I jumped. And going up to the concierge:

“If that’s how it was,” I burst out, “how dare you swear you recognized Monsieur Monistrol?”

She looked me up and down and answered with an ironic smile:

 “If I didn’t see the master’s face, I did see the dog’s muzzle. As I always pet it, he came into my quarters. I was going to give him a mutton bone when his master whistled for him.”

I was looking at Monsieur Méchinet, anxious to know what he thought of these answers, but his face kept the secret of his impressions faithfully. He only added:

“What breed is Monsieur Monistrol’s dog?”

“He’s a Spitz, like the conductors used to have, completely black, with a white spot above his ear. His name is Pluton.”

Monsieur Mechinet got up.

 “You may leave,” he said to the woman porter. “I have what I need to know.”

And when she had left:

“It seems to me impossible that the nephew is the guilty one. “

However, the doctors had arrived during this long interrogation. When they had finished the autopsy their conclusion was;

“The death of the Pigoreau individual was certainly instantaneous. Therefore, he wasn’t the one who traced these five letters, Monis,  that we’ve seen on the floor near the cadaver”

So, I wasn’t mistaken.

“But if he wasn’t the one, then who was it?” Monsieur Méchinet exclaimed. “Monistrol, that’s what they’ll never convince me of.”

And when the Commissioner, delighted to be able finally to go to dinner, was joking to him about what was puzzling him, ridiculous perplexities, since Monistrol had confessed, he admitted:

Maybe, in fact, I’m just an imbecile,” he said. “Only time will tell. And while we’re waiting, my dear Monsieur Godeuil, come with me to the Préfecture.”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VI

 

We took a carriage to go to the Préfecture of Police, just as we had done to come to the Batignolles. Monsieur Méchinet’s was greatly preoccupied. His fingers never stopped traveling from his empty snuff box to his nose and I heard him mutter between his teeth:

“I must have a clear conscience. I have to have a clear conscience.”

Then he took from his pocket the wine cork I’d turned over to him.  He turned it over and over with the expression of a monkey trying to crack a walnut, muttering:

“It looks like an open and shut case; however, there must be something to get out of this green wax.

 Me, sunken in my corner, I didn’t say a word. Assuredly, my situation was one of the most bizarre, but I wasn’t thinking about that. Everything I had of mental ability was absorbed by that affair. I ruminated in my mind the diverse and contradictory elements. I wore myself out trying to penetrate the secret of the drama I felt coming on.

 When our carriage stopped, it was dark night. The Quai des Orfèvres were deserted and silent: not a sound, not a passer-by. The rare shops in the area were closed. All life in the neighborhood had taken refuge in the little restaurant which took up almost the whole corner of the Rue de Jérusalem. The shadows of the customers could be seen through the red curtains of the front window.  

 “Will they let you go in to where the accused is?” I asked Monsieur Méchinet.

“Certainly,” he answered me, “Am I not in charge of following this business?” Isn’t it necessary that, according to the unforeseen necessities of the investigation, I can interrogate the detainee at all hours of the day and night?”

And walking rapidly, he went under the entry arch, saying to me:

“Hurry, hurry, we have no time to lose.”

He had no need to encourage me. I followed him, agitated by indefinable emotions and quivering with a vague curiosity. This was the first time I’d crossed the threshold of the Préfecture of Police. God knows what my prejudices were then.

 “There,” I was saying to myself, not without some fright, “there is the secret of Paris.”

I was so engrossed in my own thoughts that, forgetting to look where I was going, I almost fell. The shock brought me back to the realization of the situation. We were going along an immense corridor with humid walls and rough paving stones. Soon my companion went into a little room where two men were playing cards while three or four others, stretched out on camp beds, were smoking their pipe. He exchanged some words with them, which I couldn’t hear, since I’d stayed outside. Then he came back out and we started walking again. Having gone across a courtyard, we had picked up another corridor.  We weren’t long in arriving in front of an iron grill gate with heavy bolts and a strong lock. On a word from Monsieur Méchinet, a guard opened that gate. We passed a vast room on the right, where I seemed to see policemen and Paris city guards, and finally we climbed a rather steep staircase

At the top of that staircase, at the entrance of a narrow corridor pierced with a large number of small doors, was a rather fat man with a jovial face, who certainly looked nothing like the classical jailor. As soon as he saw my companion:

“Eh! It’s Monsieur Méchinet!" he cried out. “Ma foi!  I was expecting you.  Let’s bet you’ve come for the murderer of the little old Batignolles man.”

“Precisely. Is there anything new?”

“No.”

“Nevertheless, the Investigating Magistrate must have come.”

“He’s left here.”

“Well?”

“He didn’t stay three minutes with the accused man. On leaving him, he seemed to be very satisfied. At the bottom of the stairway, he met Monsieur the Director and said to him: ‘It’s an affair in the bag. The murderer didn’t even try to deny it.’ Monsieur Méchinet jumped about three feet but the guard didn’t notice it, because he continued:

“What’s more, that didn’t surprise me. Just by looking at this individual when they brought him to me, I said:  ‘There’s one who won’t be able to hold up.’ “

“And what’s he doing now?”

“He’s whining. Now, they ordered me to keep a watch on him, fearing he’d commit suicide. And as I should, I’m watching him, but it’s totally useless. He’s just another one of those sly customers who think more of their own skin than they do of others.”

“Let’s look at him,” interrupted Monsieur Méchinet. “And above all, don’t make any noise.”

At that, all three of us, on tip-toe, went up to the solid oak door with a window grill opening at the height of a man. Through this opening you could see what was happening in the cell, which was lit by a puny gas jet. The guard glanced in first, Monsieur Méchinet looked next, and then came my turn. On a little narrow iron bed with a covering of gray wool cloth with yellow stripes, I saw a man lying on his stomach, his head hidden in his half- folded arms. He was crying. The dull sound of his sobs came as far as me and at times a convulsive quivering shook him from head to foot.

“Let us in now,” Monsieur Méchinet commanded the guard.

He obeyed and we entered.

 At the creaking of the key in the lock, the prisoner raised up and seated on his miserable bed, his legs and his arms hanging down, his head bowed toward his chest, he looked at us with a dazed expression. He was a man from 25 to 38-years old, with a height a little below medium, but robust, with an apoplectic neck sunk between large shoulders. He was ugly. Smallpox had disfigured him. His long straight nose and his receding forehead gave him something of the stupid facial expression of sheep. However, his eyes were very beautiful and he had teeth of remarkable whiteness.

 “Well! Monsieur Monistrol, we’re distressed, aren’t we?” Monsieur Méchinet began. And the unfortunate man not answering: “I agree the situation isn’t very cheerful,” he continued. “However, if I were in your place I’d prove I was a man. I’d give myself an alibi and I’d try to show my innocence.”

“I’m not innocent.”

This time, there was no equivocation and no suspecting the intelligence of a policeman. We had gathered the terrible confession from the mouth of the accused man.

“What!” Monsieur Méchinet exclaimed: “You’re the one who…..”

The man had gotten up on his legs, staggering, his eyes bloodshot, his mouth slobbering, in prey to a veritable excess of rage.

  “Yes, it was me,” he interrupted.”Just me. How many times do I have to repeat it? An Investigating Magistrate already came in a while ago.. I confessed everything and signed my confession….What more do you want? Go away. I know what I’m in for, and I’m not afraid.  I killed, I must be killed. Cut off my neck. As fast as possible would be best.”

At first a little dazed, Monsieur Méchinet quickly recovered.

 “Just a moment! What the devil! They don’t cut off people’s neck just like that. First of all they have to prove they’re guilty.  Then the law understands certain things that lead one astray, certain inevitabilities, if you like. That’s the reason they invented extenuating circumstances.”

Monistrol’s only reply was an inarticulate groaning, and Monsieur Méchinet continued:

“You were really terribly mad at your uncle?”

“Oh! No”

“Then why?...”

“In order to inherit. My business was in bad shape. Go check that out. I needed money. My uncle, who was very rich, refused to give me any.”

“I understand. You were hoping not to get caught.”

“I was hoping so.”

Up to that point, I was astonished at the way Monsieur Méchinet was conducting this rapid interrogation. But now, I could explain it. I was guessing what would come next. I saw what trap he was setting for the accused.

 “One thing more,” he began again suddenly. “Where did you buy the revolver you used to commit the murder?”

“I’ve had it in my possession a long time,” he answered.

“What did you do with it after the crime?”

“I threw it on the outside boulevard.”

“That’s good,” Monsieur Méchinet said gravely. “They’ll make a search and they’ll certainly find it.”

And after a moment of silence:

“What I can’t explain to myself,” he added, “is why you had your dog come with you.”

“What! How! My dog…”

“Yes, Pluton…The concierge recognized it.”

Monistrol’s hands clinched. He opened his mouth to answer, but a sudden thought crossed his mind. He threw himself on his bed, saying in an accent of unshakeable resolution:

“You’ve tortured me enough. You won’t get another word out of me.”

It was clear that to insist would have been a waste of time. So we left and once outside on the quay, seizing Monsieur Méchinet’s arm, I said:

“You heard him,” I said to him. “This unfortunate man doesn’t even know how his uncle died. Is it still possible to doubt his innocence!”

But this old policeman was a terrible skeptic.

 “Who knows,” he answered. “I’ve seen some remarkable actors in my life. But that’s enough of this for today.  …This evening I’m going to invite you to eat my soup. Tomorrow it’ll be daylight and we’ll see.”

CHAPTER VII

 

It was nearly 10:00 p. m. when Monsieur Méchinet, that I was still with, rang at the door of his apartment.  

 “I never carry my entry key,” he said to me. “In our  confounded profession, you never know what can happen. There’re a lot of scoundrels who have it in for me, and if I’m not always careful for myself, I must be so for my wife.”

My worthy neighbor’s explanation wasn’t needed. I had even observed that he knocked in a certain way, which must have been a signal agreed on between his wife and himself. It was the very nice Madame Méchinet who came to open the door for us. With a movement as nimble and gracious as that of a cat, she jumped to her husband’s neck, crying out:

“You’re really here! I don’t know why, but I was almost worried.”

But she suddenly stopped. She had just seen me. Her happy expression darkened, and she stepped backward, addressing me as much as her husband.

“What!” she continued. “You’re coming from the café at this hour! That doesn’t make sense!”

Monsieur Méchinet had on his lips the indulgent smile of the man who’s sure he’s loved, who knows how to calm with a single word the quarrel about to start.

“Don’t scold us, Caroline,” he answered. “My associate has his reason for there being two of us. We’re not coming from the café and we haven’t wasted our time. They came to get me for an affair, for a murder committed in the Batignolles.”

The young woman examined alternately, her husband and me, with a suspicious look, and when she was persuaded that we weren’t deceiving her, she said only:

“Ah!”

But it would take a whole page to detail all that was contained in that brief exclamation.

 She was addressing Monsieur Méchinet and clearly meant:

“What! You took this man into your confidence. You revealed your situation to him. You let him in on our secrets!”

That was how I interpreted that very eloquent “Ah!” and my worthy neighbor interpreted it just as I did, because he answered:

“Well! Yes! Where’s the problem? If I have to fear the vengeance of miserable men I’ve delivered up to justice, what do I have to fear from honest people?  Do you imagine I’m hiding, that I’m ashamed of my job?”

“You’ve misunderstood me, my love,” the young woman objected.

Monsieur didn’t even hear her. He had just gotten on his favorite hobbyhorse---I noticed this detail later---which always carried him away.

“Parbleu! You have unusual ideas, Madame, my wife. What! I’m one of the lost guardians of civilization! At the price of my repose and at the risk of my life I protect society’s security and I should be ashamed of it! That would be really too funny! You’ll tell me there exists, against us policemen, a large number of silly prejudices bequeathed to us from the past. What does that matter to me! Yes, I know there are touchy gentlemen who look down on us from high up. But, Sacrebleu!  I’d like very much to see their faces if tomorrow my colleagues and I went on strike leaving the pavement free for the army of criminals that we hold in check.”

Probably accustomed to sorties of this sort, Madame Méchinet didn’t say a word, and she was right, because my good neighbor, not meeting any contradiction, became calm as if by magic.

 “But that’s enough of that,” he said to his wife. “It’s a matter right now of something of very different importance. We haven’t eaten dinner. We’re dying of hunger. Do you have anything for us to eat?”

What happened that evening must have happened too often for Madame Méchinet to let herself be taken by surprise.

 “In five minutes these Messieurs will be served,” she answered with the nicest smile.

 In fact, we shortly sat down at the table in front of a piece of cold beef, served by Madame Méchinet, who never stopped filling our glasses with an excellent little Mâcon wine.  And I, while my worthy neighbor worked his fork industriously, considering the interior peace which was his, that pretty little attentive wife which was his, I wondered if there was here one of those “fierce” Sûreté agents who have been the heroes of so many absurd stories.

 Nevertheless that enormous hunger wasn’t long in being satisfied and Monsieur Méchinet undertook to tell his wife about our expedition. And he didn’t tell it sketchily. He went into the minutest details. She was sitting beside him and from the way in which she was listening, with a little competent expression, asking for explanations when she hadn’t understood, you could she was a bourgeoise Egéria (Note: wife and instructress of Numa Pompilius; a woman counselor) accustomed to being consulted and who had a decisive say.

 When Monsieur Méchinet had finished:

“You made a big mistake,” she said, “an irreparable mistake.”

“What?”

“You shouldn’t have gone to the Prefécture when you left the Batignolles.”

“However, Monistrol….”

“Yes, you wanted to question him. What good did that do you?”

“That helped me, my dear love….”

 “To do nothing. You should have run to the Rue Vivienne, to the wife. You would have surprised her while she was still feeling the emotion which she must necessarily have felt about her husband’s arrest. If she’s an accomplice, as you must suppose she is, with a little cleverness you could get her to confess.”

At these words, I jumped out of my chair.

“What, Madame, you believe Monsitrol is guilty?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she answered.

 “Yes.”

 Then more strongly:

“But please understand that I’m sure, absolutely sure, that the idea of the murder came from the wife. Of 20 crimes committed by men, 15 have been conceived, mulled over and inspired by women. Ask Méchinet about that. The concierge’s deposition should have enlightened you. What sort of person is that Madame Monistrol? A remarkably beautiful person, she told you, coquettish, ambitious, eaten up with covetousness and someone who leads her husband around by the nose. What’s her situation now? Shabby, constrained, precarious. She is suffering because of that. And the proof is that she asked his uncle to lend him 100,000 francs. He refused to give them to him, destroying all her hopes. Don’t you know she held that against him mortally! Don’t you see, she must have repeated very often: ‘Nevertheless, if he should die, that old miser, we’d be rich, my husband and me.’ And when she saw him in good health and strong as an oak, she said to herself with fatality: ‘He’ll live to be a hundred and when he leaves us his inheritance, we’ll be toothless and too old to enjoy it. And who knows, he may even bury both of us!’ From that point to the idea of a crime, is that so far? And once she’d made up her mind, she would have taken a long time to prepare her husband. She would have familiarized him with the thought of a murder. You might say she would have put the knife in his hand. And one day, threatened with bankruptcy, driven crazy by his wife’s complaints, he did the deed.”

“All that is logical,” Monsieur Méchinet approved.

Very logical, perhaps, but what had become of the facts we had revealed?

“Then, Madame,” I said, “you think Monistrol is stupid enough to have incriminated himself by writing his name…?”

She shrugged slightly and answered:

 “Was that stupid? Me, I don’t think so, because that’s your strongest argument in favor of his innocence.”

The reasoning was so plausible but lacking in real merit that I remained a moment without saying anything. Then I began again:

 “But he admits he’s guilty, Madame,” I insisted.

 “That’s an excellent way to get the law to point out his innocence.”

“Oh!”

“You’re the proof of that, Monsieur Godeuil.”

“Eh! Madame, the poor man doesn’t even know how his uncle was killed.”

 “Pardon, he appeared not to know that. ….That’s not the same thing.”

 The discussion became livelier and it would have lasted even longer if Monsieur Méchinet hadn’t put an end to it.

 “Cone now, come now,” he said to his wife gently. “You’re a great deal too romantic this evening.” And speaking to me:

“As for you, I’ll come get you tomorrow and we’ll go together to see Madame Monistrol. And this settled, since I’m falling asleep, …Good Night…”

He himself must have slept. But as for me, I couldn’t close my eyes. A secret voice rising from my deepest being cried out to me that Monistrol was innocent. My imagination represented to me with sad vividness the tortures of this unfortunate man alone in his cell at the holding Depot.

“But why had he confessed?”

 

 

CHAPTER VIII

 

What I lacked then---a hundred times since then I’ve had the occasion to realize that---was experience, practice in the profession, above all, the exact understanding of police methodology and investigation.  I vaguely sensed that the investigation had been conducted badly, or rather conducted carelessly, but I would have been embarrassed to say why, most of all to say what should have been done.

 I was no less passionately interested in Monistrol. It seemed to me his cause was my own. And that was very understandable. My youthful vanity had come into play. Wasn’t it one of my remarks that raised the first doubts as to the culpability of this unfortunate man?

“I owe it to myself to demonstrate his innocence,” I told myself.

 Unfortunately, the discussions of the evening had so troubled me that I no longer knew on what exact fact to raise the scaffolding of my theory. So, as it always happens when you apply your mind to the solution of a problem, my thoughts became as tangled as a ball of thread in the hands of a child. I could no longer see clearly. It was chaos.

 Sunk into the depths of my armchair, I was torturing my head when at 9:00 a. m.

Monsieur Méchinet, faithful to his promise of the evening before, came to pick me up.

“Come on! Come on!” he said, shaking me brusquely, since I hadn’t heard him enter. “Let’s go!”

 “I’m ready,” I said, standing up.

 We went downstairs in haste, and I noticed then that my worthy neighbor had dressed with more care than usual. He had managed to give himself those debonair and rich appearances which most seduce the Parisian shopkeeper. His gaiety was that of a man sure of himself, who marches to certain victory

 Soon we were in the street and while we were walking along:

“Well!” he asked me, “What do you think of my wife? At the Préfecture I have a reputation for being difficult, and, even so, I consult her---Molière often consulted his maid---and often I’ve found good advice. She has one weakness. For her, there are no stupid crimes and her imagination attributes diabolical plots to every scoundrel. And, since I have exactly the opposite failing, as I’m a little too matter-of-fact, it’s rare that our consultations don’t bring out the truth.”

“What’s that!” I exclaimed. “You think you’ve solved the mystery of the Monistrol affair!

 He stopped short, took out his snuff box, and inhaled three or four of his imaginary pinches and in a tone of discreet vanity:

"I at least have the way to solve it,” he answered.

However, we were coming to the top of the Rue Vivienne, not far from Monistrol’s establishment.

 “Be careful,” Monsieur Méchinet said to me, “Follow me, and whatever happens, don’t be surprised.

 He was right to warn me. Without that warning I would have been unusually surprised to see him suddenly enter the shop of an umbrella merchant. Stiff and serious as an Englishman, he had himself shown everything in the shop. Not finding anything to his liking, he ended up asking if it wasn’t possible to have an umbrellas made for him using a model he would furnish. He was told that would be the simplest thing in the world and he left saying he would be back the next day.

 And certainly the half-hour he had spent in the store hadn’t been wasted. While at the same time as he was examining the objects shown him, he had the art to draw from the merchants all they knew about the Monistrol couple. Actually, an easy talent, because the affair of “the little old man of the Batignolles,” had profoundly affected the neighborhood and had become the subject of every conversation.

 “There, you see how you get exact information,” he said to me when we were outside, “As soon as people know who they’re dealing with, they strike a pose, they compose fancy sentences, and then good-bye to the real truth.”

Monsieur Méchinet repeated that comedy in seven or eight stores in the vicinity. And in one of them, where the owners were cantankerous and not very talkative, he even made a 20 franc purchase.

 But after two hours of that unusual exercise, which amused me very much, we knew the public opinion exactly.  We knew precisely what people thought of Monsieur and Madame Monistrol in the neighborhood where they had lived since their marriage, that is for the last four years.  

 On the subject of the husband, they all spoke with one voice. He was, they affirmed the best of men, helpful, honest, intelligent and hardworking. If his business hadn’t succeeded, that was because luck doesn’t always favor those who merit it the most. He was wrong to take on a shop which was bound to fail, since in the last 15 years four businesses had gone under there.

 He adored his wife. Everybody knew that and said it, but this great love hadn’t gone beyond conventional limits. There had been no backlash of ridicule towards him.  Nobody could believe he was guilty. His arrest, they said, was a police mistake.

 As for Madame Monistrol, the opinions were divided. Some found her too elegant for her social position; others held that a fashionable outfit was one of the obligations, one of the necessities of the commerce in items of luxury she provided. In general, people were persuaded that she loved her husband very much. Because, for example, with one voice they praised her upright behavior. Her proper behavior was so much more meritorious because she was remarkably beautiful and she was besieged by many admirers. But she had never been talked about. The slightest suspicion had never touched her spotless reputation.

 I could see that threw Monsieur Méchinet off the track.

 “This is astounding,” he told me. “Not one bit of gossip, not one malicious rumor, not one slander. Ah! That wasn’t what Caroline was thinking. According to her, we should have found one of those little shop girls, who stay behind the counter and show off their beauty more than their merchandise, who relegate their husband to the back of the shop---their husband either a blind imbecile or a dirty man who turns a blind eye. And that’s not it at all!”

And I didn’t answer, being hardly less disconcerted than my neighbor. We were mow far from the deposition of the concierge of the Rue Lécluse. The point of view, it’s true, varied so much depending on the neighborhood. What in the Batignolles was considered damnable flirtation was no more in the Rue Vivienne but a job requirement.

 But we had already spent so much time in our investigation for us to be able to stop and exchange our impressions and discuss our conjectures.  

 “Now,” said Monsieur Méchinet, “before going into the shop, let’s study the outside of it.”

And breaking the practice of discreet investigations, in the middle of Paris activity, he motioned me to follow him under a carriage door entry exactly across from the Monistrol store.  It was a modest boutique, almost poor when compared with those around it. The front window craved the attention of an artist’s brush. Below, in letters gilded in the past, now smoked and blackened, the name Monistrol was exhibited. On the glass could be read: “Gold and Gold filled.”

Helas! It was primarily imitation gold which shone in the displace case. Hung along rods were a great number of gold-filled chains, jet costume jewelry, tiaras spangled with rhinestones, then necklaces set with coral, broaches, rings, and cuff buttons enhanced with false stones in every color.

 In short, a poor display. I recognized it at a glance. Nothing to tempt robbers to break in.

“Let’s go in,” I said to Monsieur Méchinet.

 He was less impatient than I was, or knew how better to contain his impatience, because he held me back by the arm, saying:

“An instant, I’d at least like to get a look at Madame Monistrol.”

But for more than 20 minutes more, we waited in vain planted in our observation post: the boutique remained empty. Madame Monistrol did not appear.

“Decidedly, this is enough of standing on one foot and then the other,” my worthy neighbor finally exclaimed. “Come on, Monsieur Godeuil, let’s take a chance…..”

 

CHAPTER IX

 

We had only to cross the street to enter Monistrol’s shop. That was done in four strides. At the noise of the door opening, a little servant  girl,15 or 16-years old, dirty and ill-kempt came from the rear of the shop.

 “How may I help these Messieurs,” she asked.

 “Madame Monistrol?”

“She’s here, Messieurs, and I’ll go tell her, because, you see….”

Monsieur Méchinet didn’t give her chance to finish. With a fairly brutal gesture, he pushed her out of the passageway and went into the back of the boutique, saying:

“That’s good. Since she’s here, I’m going to talk to her.”

Me, I followed on the heels of my worthy neighbor, persuaded that we wouldn’t leave without the key to the enigma.

That back part of the boutique was a sad room, serving as a living room, a dining room and a bedroom, all at the same time. Disorder reigned there, and even more so that lack of unity or harmony noticed among the poor who try to appear rich. At the back was a bed with damask curtains, with lace pillow covers and in front of the fireplace there was a table completely encumbered with a more than modest lunch. In a big armchair was a young, very blonde woman, holding in her hand a piece of paper with a stamp on it. That was Madame Monistrol.

And of a certainty, when they talked about her beauty, all the neighbors had stayed well below reality…I was astounded. Only one circumstance displeased me. She was in full mourning, wearing a crepe dress slightly décolleté which fit her marvelously. That was too much presence of mind for great sadness. It seemed to me that I saw the artfulness of an actress wearing in advance the costume of a role she was to play.

 At our entry, she stood up with the movement of a startled deer and in a voice that seemed broken by tears:

“What do you want, Messieurs?” she asked.

Monsieur Méchinet had seen everything as I had.

“Madame, he answered harshly, “I’ve been sent by the law. I’m an agent of the Sûreté service.”

At that declaration, she at first fell back in her armchair with a moan that would have softened a tiger. Then, suddenly, seized with a kind of wildness, her eyes shining and her lips trembling:

“Then have you come to arrest me?” she cried out. “Then bless you. Take me; I’m ready. Lead me away. So I’ll go join that honest man you arrested yesterday evening. Whatever his fate, I want to share it. He’s innocent, as I am too. That doesn’t matter. If he must be the victim in an error of human justice, it would be a final joy for me to die with him.”

She was interrupted by a muffled growl which came from one of the corners at the rear of the boutique. I looked and I saw a black dog, his hair standing up, and his eyes bloodshot, who was about to jump on us.

 “Be quiet, Pluton,” said Madame Monistrol. “All right, go lie down. These Messieurs don’t mean me any harm.”

Slowly, and not ceasing to fix us with a furious look, the dog took refuge under the bed.

 “You were right to say we didn’t mean you any harm, Madame,” Monsieur Méchinet began again. “We haven’t come to arrest you.”

If she heard him, it hardly appeared so.

 She went on, “I’ve already received this letter I’m holding this morning. It orders me to show up, this afternoon at 3:00 p. m. at the Palais de Justice, in the office of the Investigating Magistrate. What do they want with me, Oh! mon Dieu!    What do they want with me!”

“To clear up some matters which will demonstrate, I hope, your husband’s innocence. So, Madame, don’t consider me an enemy. What I want is to bring out the truth.”

He took out his snuff box and rummaged around in it hastily with his fingers, and with a solemn tone I’d never heard him use:

“I must tell you, dear Madame, how important will be your answers to the questions I’m going to have the honor of asking you. Do you agree to answer me frankly?”

She stared a long time at my worthy neighbor with her big blue eyes, wet with tears, and in a tone of sad resignation:

“Question me, Monsieur,” she said.

For the third time, I repeat: I was absolutely inexperienced. Nevertheless, I suffered from the way Monsieur Méchinet conducted that interrogation. It seemed to me he revealed his perplexities and instead of following an end decided in advance, he made his points by chance. Oh! If I’d been allowed to do it!...Ah! If I’d dared!...

He, inscrutable, had sat down across from Madame Monistrol.

“You must know, Madame,” he began, “that evening before last, about 11:00 p. m. the honorable Pigoreau, known as Anténor, your husband’s uncle, was murdered.”

“Alas!...”

“Where was Monsieur Monistrol at that hour?”

“Mon Dieu! It’s a catastrophe!”

Monsieur Méchinet didn’t move a muscle.

“I asked you, Madame,” he insisted, “where your husband spent evening before last.”

It took the young woman some time to answer because sobs seemed to stifle her voice. Finally, getting hold of herself:

“Day before yesterday,” she moaned, “my husband spent the evening away from home.”

“Do you know where he was?”

“Oh! As for as that goes, yes..One of our workers, who lives in Montrouge, was supposed to deliver a set of false pearls to us and he didn’t deliver it. We risked keeping the order on the books, which would have been a disaster, because we’re not rich. That’s why, while we were dining, my husband said to me: ‘I’m going right to that fellow’s house!’ And in fact, toward 9:00 p. m. he left. And I even took him as far as the omnibus, where he got on in front of me, on the Rue Richelieu.

I breathed easier. That could be an alibi, after all.

Monsieur Méchinet had the same idea, and said more gently:

“If that’s how it was,” he continued,” your worker will be able to swear he saw Monsieur Monistrol at his house at 11:00 p. m.”

“Alas! No….”

“What do you mean?  Why?”

“Because he had gone out. My husband didn’t see him.”

“In fact, that is a misfortune...But it could be that the concierge noticed Monsieur Monistrol..”

“Our worker lives in a house where there isn’t a concierge..”

That might be the truth. It was surely a terrible charge against the unfortunate detainee.

 “And what time did your husband get home?” continued Monsieur Méchinet.

“A little after midnight.”

“You didn’t find he’d been gone a long time?”

“Oh! Yes, I did and I even reproached him for it. To excuse himself he told me that he’d taken the long way home, that he’d strolled along, and that he’d stopped at a café to drink a glass of beer.”

“What did he look like when he came back in?”

“He seemed vexed, but that was very understandable.”

“What clothes was he wearing?”

“The ones he was wearing when he was arrested.”

“You didn’t notice anything unusual about him?”

“Nothing.”

 

CHAPTER X

 

“Standing up, a little behind Monsieur Méchinet, I could observe Madame Monistrol’s facial expressions at my leisure and catch the most fleeting tell-tale signs of her impressions. She seemed crushed by an immense sadness. Big tears were rolling down her pale cheeks. And nevertheless it seemed to me that I found, at moments, something like a gleam of joy at the bottom of her big blue eyes.

“Could she be guilty, then?” I was thinking.

And that thought, that had just come to me, persisting in my mind, I went forward quickly and in a harsh tone:

“But you, Madame,” I asked. “You. Where were you during that fatal evening, at the time your husband was running uselessly to Montrouge, looking for your worker?”

 She stared at me a long moment with a look full of stupor and said softly;
“I was here, Monsieur,” she answered. “Witnesses will confirm it. “

“Witnesses!”

“Yes, Monsieur. It was so hot that evening that I wanted to have something cold, an ice..  But to have something by myself bored me. So, I sent my maid to invite two of my neighbors, Madame Dorstrich, the wife of the shoemaker whose shop joins ours, and Madame Rivaille, the glove seller across the street. These two ladies accepted my invitation and they stayed here right up to 11:30 p. m. Ask them. They’ll tell you so. In the middle of the very cruel tests I’m undergoing, that fortunate circumstance is the gift of the bon Dieu.”

Was this really a chance circumstance?”

With a glance faster than lightening, that’s what we both asked ourselves, Monsieur Méchinet and I. When chance is as intelligent as that, when it serves a cause so conveniently, it’s very difficult not to suspect its having been prepared for and brought about. But the moment was badly chosen to follow our thought to its conclusion.

 “You’ve never been a suspect, you yourself, Madame,” Monsieur Méchinet shamelessly declared. “The worse that could be supposed is that your husband told you about the crime before committing it.”

“Monsieur, if you knew us….”

“Wait a moment. Your business isn’t doing very well, we’ve been told. You were in financial straits….”

“Momentarily, yes, in fact….”

“Your husband must be unhappy and worried about that precarious situation. More than anything, he must suffer for you, whom he adores, for you who’re young and beautiful.  For you more than for himself, he must ardently desire the pleasures of luxury and the well-being that fortune can buy.”

“Monsieur, one more time, my husband is innocent.”

Seeming to be thinking, Monsieur Méchinet appeared to fill his nose with snuff, then he suddenly said:

“Then, Sacrebleu!  How do you explain these confessions! An innocent man who declares he’s guilty just at the mention of the crime he’s suspected of. That’s rare, Madame, that’s prodigious!”

The young woman blushed slightly. For the first time her look, up until then straightforward and clear, became troubled and shifty.

 “I suppose,” she answered with a faint voice and beginning to cry again, “I suppose my husband, frightened and amazed at seeing himself accused of so great a crime, lost his head...”

Monsieur Méchinet shook his head.

“If we absolutely had to,” he pronounced, “we could admit temporary insanity. But this morning, after a long night in which to think it over, Monsieur Monistrol persists in his first confessions.”

Was this true? Was my worthy neighbor making that up or, before coming to pick me up, had he gone to the Depot holding cells to have a conference

Whichever it was, the young woman appeared about to faint, and hiding her head between her hands, she murmured:

“Seigneur Dieu! My husband has gone crazy1”

I’ll have to say that wasn’t my opinion. From then on I was persuaded that I was witnessing an act and that the young woman’s great despair was nothing but a lie. I wondered if, for certain reasons which escaped me, she hadn’t been responsible for the terrible decision taken by her husband, and if, him innocent, she didn’t know the real murderer. But Monsieur Méchinet didn’t look like a man who would go that far. After having addressed some words of consolation to the young woman, too banal to encourage her to say anything further, he gave her to understand that she would dispel a great number of suspicions if she willing allowed a careful search of her domicile.

 She seized that suggestion with a rapidity which wasn’t faked.   

 “Go ahead and search, Messieurs,” she told us. “Examine, pry into everything. You’d be doing me a favor. And it won’t take very long. We own only the shop, the section behind the shop where we are, our maid’s room on the seventh floor and a little cellar. Here are the keys to everything.”

To my great astonishment, Monsieur Méchinet accepted. He appeared to conduct the most exact and the most patient investigation. What was his purpose? He must have some secret aim, because this search, obviously, couldn’t turn up anything. As soon as he had, apparently, finished:

“We have only the cellar left to explore,” he said.

“I’ll take you there,” Madame Monistrol said.

And with that, armed with a lighted candle, she had us go through a back entry of the shop, cross a courtyard and guided us down a very slippery staircase, to a door she opened, saying:

“There it is. Go in, Messieurs.”

With a quick and trained eye, my worthy neighbor examined the cellar. It was poorly kept and even more poorly filled. There was a little keg of beer in one corner and right in front of it, supported on a wooden framework, was a wine cask. It had a wooden butt cock to draw out wine. On the right, lined up on iron racks were some fifty full bottles. Monsieur Méchinet didn’t lose sight of those bottles and he found an opportunity to move them, one by one. And what I saw, he saw. Not one of them had been sealed with green wax. So, the cork I’d picked up which had been used to protect the murderer’s weapon had not come from the Monistrol cellar.

“Decidedly,” Monsieur Méchinet said, pretending some disappointment, “I don’t find anything. We can go back upstairs.”

 That’s what we did, but not in the same order as when we went down. On the return trip I walked ahead. Because of that, I was the one who opened the door of the back shop. As soon as I did, the Monistrol couple’s dog jumped toward me, barking so furiously that I jumped back.

 “Diable! Your dog is mean!” Monsieur Méchinet said to the young woman.

With a gesture of her hand, she had already ordered the dog to one side.

 “No, he’s certainly not mean,” she said. “He’s just a good guard dog…We’re jewelers, more open to robbers than other people. We trained him.”

Mechanically, as you always do when threatened by a dog, I called this one by his name: “Pluton! Pluton!” But he, instead of coming to me, recoiled, growling, showing his sharp teeth.

 “Oh! It’s useless to call him,” Madame Monistrol said in an off-handed way. “He won’t obey you.

 “Is that so? Why not?”

“Ah! That’s because he’s faithful, like all those of his race. He knows only his master and me…”

That sentence, nothing on the surface, was for me like a bolt of lightening. .And without thinking, quicker than I would be today, I asked”

“Then where was this very faithful dog, Madame, the evening of the crime?”

The effect that point-blank question produced was such that she almost dropped the candlestick she was still holding.

 “I don’t know,: she stammered. “I can’t remember.”

“Maybe he followed your husband….”

“In fact, yes, it seems to me now that I remember….”

“Then he’s been trained to follow vehicles, since you told us that you went with your husband right to the omnibus.

 “She stopped talking and I was going to follow up, when Monsieur Méchinet interrupted me. Very far from taking advantage of the young woman’s trouble, he seemed to make it a point of reassuring her. After having instructed her to obey the Investigating Magistrate’s citation, he drew me outside.

“Have you lost your mind?” he asked me.

The reproach wounded me.

“Is finding the solution to the problem loosing your mind? I now have that solution…The Monistrol dog will lead us to the truth!”

My enthusiasm made my worthy neighbor smile and he said in a fatherly tone:

”You’re right,” he told me, “and I understood you very well. Only, if Madame Monistrol saw your suspicions, before this evening, the dog would be dead or would have disappeared.”

 

 

CHAPTER XI

 

I had committed an enormous indiscretion, that’s true. I had nonetheless found the chink in the armor, that joint through which the most solid defense can be broken apart. Me, a volunteer, I had seen clearly there where the old professional, groping about, had gone astray. Anyone else would have been jealous of me. He was not. He thought only of taking advantage of my fortunate discovery. As he told it, that shouldn’t be something taking a long time and difficult to do now that the arrest was based on a single positive starting point.

 We went into a neighborhood restaurant to talk it over while having lunch. And here was the problem which the hour before had seemed insolvable. Just the evidence had proved to us that Monistrol was innocent. Why did he admit he was guilty? We thought we could guess, but that wasn’t the question for the moment. We were equally sure that Madame Monistrol hadn’t budged from her house the evening of the murder. But everything indicated that she was morally an accomplice of the crime, that she had known about it. And even if she hadn’t advised and prepared for it, on the other hand, she knew the murderer very well.

 Then who was this murderer? A man Monistrol’s dog obeyed as he would his masters, since he had followed him when he went to the Batignolles. Therefore, he was someone familiar with the Monistrol household.

 However, he must hate the husband, since he had put everything together with a hellish cleverness so that suspicion of the crime would fall on that unfortunate man. On the other hand, he had to be someone dear to the wife, since she knew him and didn’t denounce him. She was thus without hesitation sacrificing her husband.

 Therefore…Oh! Mon Dieu! It was a foregone conclusion. The criminal could only be some miserable hypocrite who had taken advantage of the affection and confidence of the husband to take possession of the wife. In sort, Madame Monistrol, belying her reputation, certainly had a lover and that lover was the guilty person.

Full of that certainty, I began torturing my mind to try to imagine what infallible ruse would lead us to that miserable man.

 “Here’s how I think we ought to operate,” I said to Monsieur Méchinet. “Madame Monistrol and the murderer must have agreed that after the crime they’d remain a certain amount of time without seeing each other. That would be the most elementary caution. But you can believe that before long the woman will get impatient and want to see her accomplice. Put someone to watch her who will follow her everywhere. Before twice two forty-eight hours have gone by, the affaire will be in the bag.”

. Furiously digging into his empty snuff box, Monsieur Mechinet didn’t answer for a moment. He was mumbling between his teeth I don’t know what unintelligible words. Then suddenly leaning toward me:

“You haven’t got it right,” he said to me. “The genius of the profession, you have it, that’s for sure. I grant you that. But it’s practice you lack. Fortunately, me, I’m here. What! A sentence relating to the crime puts you on the trail and you don’t follow up on it.  “How’s that?”

“We must use this faithful poodle.”

“I’m not following your reasoning.”

“Then learn how to wait. Madame Monistrol will leave at about 2:00 p.m. to be at the Palais de Justice by 3:00 p.m. The little maid will be alone in the shop. You’ll see. That’s all I’ll tell you.”

And in fact I insisted in vain. He wouldn’t say anything more, avenging himself for his defeat with that very innocent malice.  Willingly or unwillingly, I had to follow him to the nearest café, where he forced me to play a game of dominoes. Preoccupied as I was, I played badly. He was shamelessly taking advantage of that fact to beat me when the clock struck 2:00 p. m.

 “Come to attention, men on guard duty!”  he said to me, putting down his dominoes.

He paid. We left and an instant afterwards we were again on sentry duty under the couch entry door where we had studied the outside of the Monistrol store.

 We hadn’t been there ten minutes when Madame Monistrol appeared on the threshold of her shop, dressed in black, wearing a large crepe veil, like a widow.

“Pretty get-up for an interview!” grumbled Monsieur Méchinet.

She gave some instructions to her little maid and wasn’t long in leaving.

 My companion waited patiently five long minutes, and when he supposed the young woman already far away:

“It’s time,” he told me.

And for the second time, we went into the jewelry store. The little maid was alone there, seated behind the counter. To distract herself, she was nibbling on some morsels of sugar stolen from her employer. She recognized us as soon as we appeared. Embarrassed and a little frightened, she stood up.

 But without giving her time to open her mouth:

“Where is Madame Monistrol?” Monsieur Méchinet demanded.

“Out, Monsieur.”

“You’re deceiving me. She’s back there, in the back of the shop.”

“Messieurs, I swear to you she’s not. Go look for yourselves.”

Monsieur Méchinet slapped his forehead with the most annoyed air, repeating:

“Mon Dieu! How disagreeable this is. How upset that poor Madame Monistrol is going to be.”

And the little maid was looking at him with her mouth open, her eyes wide with astonishment.

“But in fact,” he continued, “you, my good girl can perhaps take the place of your mistress. If I’ve come back, it’s because I’ve lost the address of the Monsieur that she’d asked me to visit.”

“What Monsieur?”

“You know very well. Monsieur….Come now! Well! Now I’ve forgotten his name. Monsieur….Parbleu! He’s the only one you know…That Monsieur your devil of a dog obeys so well..”

“Ah! Monsieur Victor….”

“That’s right, exactly. What does this Monsieur do?”

“He makes jewelry. He’s a great friend of Monsieur. They were working together when Monsieur was a jewelry worker before becoming an owner. And that’s why he can do whatever he wants to with Pluton.”

“Then you can tell me where this Monsieur Victor lives….”

“Certainly, He lives on the Rue du Roi-Doré, number 23.

 The poor girl appeared very happy to be so well informed. Me, I was suffering to hear her in this way denounce her mistress without knowing it.”

More hard-hearted, Monsieur Méchinet had none of this delicacy. And when we’d gotten our information, he even terminated the scene with a sad joke:

“Thank you,” he said to the young girl. “Thank you! You’ve just done Madame Monsitrol a great service and she’ll be very happy.”

 

 

 

CHAPTER XII

 

As soon as we were on the sidewalk, I had only one thought. To take to our running legs and dash to the Rue du Roi-Doré and arrest this Victor, the real guilty man, obviously.

A word from Monsieur Méchinet fell like a cold shower on my head.

“And the law!” he said to me. “Without an arrest warrant from the Investigating Magistrate, I can’t do anything.  We have to go to the Palais de Justice.”

“But we’ll meet Madame Monistrol there. And if she sees us, she’ll have her accomplice warned.”

“So be it!” answered Monsieur Méchinet with badly disguised bitterness, “So be it! The guilty man will get away and the formality will be saved. However, I can prevent this danger. Let’s keep walking; let’s walk faster.”

And in fact the hope of success gave him the gait of a deer. Arrived at the Palais de Justice, he climbed the steep staircase which leads to the Investigating Magistrates’ gallery four steps at a time.  Speaking to the head of the bailiffs, he asked him if the Magistrate in charge of the Little Old Batignolles Man affair was in his office.

 “He’s there with a witness, a young lady in black,” answered the bailiff.

“That’s certainly her!” my companion told me.

 Then to the bailiff:

“You know me,” he continued. “Quick! Give me something to write a short note to the Magistrate with. You’ll carry it to him.”

The bailiff left with the note, dragging his shoes on the dusty tiles. He wasn’t long in coming back to announce to us that the Magistrate was waiting in No. 9.

In order to receive Monsieur Méchinet, the Magistrate had left Madame Monistrol in his office, watched by his stenographer, and had borrowed the office of one of his colleagues.

“What is it?” he asked in a tone that allowed me to measure the abyss which separates an Investigating Magistrate from a poor Sûreté agent.

Briefly and clearly, Monsieur Méchinet laid out what we’d been doing, the results, and our hopes.

It must be said that the Investigating Magistrate hardly seemed to share our convictions.

“But since Monistrol confesses!” he kept repeating with a stubbornness which exasperated me.

Nevertheless, after a great deal of explanation:

“I’m going to sign a warrant, nevertheless,” he said.

In possession of that indispensable document, Monsieur Méchinet flew so lightly that I almost fell in rushing down the stairways after him.  A carriage horse couldn’t have followed us. I don’t know if it took us a quarter of an hour to get to the Rue du Roi-Doré. But once there:

“Be careful,” Monsieur Méchinet said to me.

 And it was with the calmest air that he started into the narrow pathway of the building bearing the number 23.

“Monsieur Victor?” he asked the concierge.

“On the fifth floor, the door on the right in the corridor.”

“Is he at home?”

“Yes.”

Monsieur Méchinet took a step toward the stairs and then seemed to change his mind.

“I must bring him a gift of a good bottle of wine, this good Victor,” he said to the porter.” What wine merchant does he go to around here?”

“To the one across from here.”

 We were over there in a minute and with the air of a regular customer:

“A bottle of wine, please, and a good year, the one with the green seal.’

Ah! Par ma foi! That thought would never have come to me at that time! Nevertheless, it was so simple. When the bottle was brought to us, my companion compared it with the cork found at the apartment of Pigoreau, called Anténor, and we were happy to confirm the identity of the wax.

 From this point, a material certainty was joined to our moral certainty. Monsieur Méchinet knocked confidently at Victor’s door.

 “Come in!” a deep voice yelled out.

The key was in the door. We went in.  In a very orderly room I saw a man about 30-years old, slim, pale and blond, behind a workbench. Our presence didn’t seem to bother him.

 “What do you want?” he asked politely.

Monsieur Méchinet went right up to him. Grabbing him by the arm, he said:

“I’m arresting you in the name of the law!”

The man became livid but didn’t lower his eyes.

“Are you joking?” he asked in an insolent tone. “What have I done?”

Monsieur Méchinet shrugged.

 “Don’t act innocent! We know everything.-You were seen leaving Père Anténor’s. In my pocket I have the cork you used to protect the point of your dagger.”

This was like a blow to the neck of the miserable man. He collapsed in his chair stammering:

“I’m innocent….”

“You can tell that to the Magistrate,” Monsieur Méchinet said calmly. “But I doubt very much that he’ll believe you. Your accomplice, Madame Méchinet, has admitted everything.”

Victor stood up as if on a spring.

“That’s impossible!” he cried out. “She didn’t know anything about it.”

“Then you did the job all alone. Very good! That’s as good as a confession. “

Then speaking to me as a man sure of his facts:

“Go look in the drawers, dear Monsieur Godeuil,” Monsieur Méchinet continued. “You’ll probably find this pretty fellow’s dagger. And you’ll certainly find his love letters and the portrait of his lady love.”

A gleam of fury shown in the murderer's eyes and he ground his teeth, but Monsieur Méchinet’s broad shoulders and iron fist snuffed out in him all attempts at resistance. In addition, I found what my companion said I would in a drawer of a chest.. And 20 minutes later, Victor was “properly wrapped up” ---that’s the expression—in a carriage between Monsieur Méchinet and me, rolling toward the Prefécture.

“Well! What do you know,” I said to myself, stunned at the simplicity of the scene, at the arrest of a murderer, of a man promised to the scaffold, “ Is that all it is!   Later I was to learn at my expense that there are more terrible criminals. This one, as soon as he was locked up in the Depot holding cells, feeling himself lost, fell apart and told us about his crime in detail.  

 He said he had known Père Pigoreau for a long time and was known to him. His goal in the murder was, above all, to make the accusation and punishment for the crime fall back on Monistrol. That’s why he dressed up like Monistrol and had Pluton follow him. And once the old man was murdered, he had the horrible courage to dip the cadaver’s finger in the blood in order to trace those five letters: MONIS, which had almost condemned an innocent man.

“And it was nicely set up, don’t you agree?” he said with bragging cynicism. “If I had succeeded, I would have killed two birds with one stone. I would have gotten rid of my friend Monistrol, that I hated and that I was jealous of, and I would have made the woman I love rich.”

 It was, in fact, simple and terrible.

“Unfortunately, my boy,” Monsieur Méchinet objected, “you lost your head at the last moment. What do you expect! You can’t be perfect! You dipped the cadaver’s left hand in the blood….”

With a start, Victor stood up straight.

“What!” he exclaimed. “Is that what gave me away!”

“Exactly!”

With the gesture of a misunderstood genius, the miserable man lifted his arms toward heaven.

“Soyez donc artiste!” he cried out.

And looking us up and down with pity, he added:

“Père Pigoreau was left-handed!”

So it was as a result of an investigation mistake that the very prompt discovery of the guilty man came about. That lesson wasn’t lost on me. Fortunately, I remember it in circumstances a great deal more dramatic that I’ll talk about later.

Monistrol was set free the next day. And when the Investigating Magistrate reproached him for his lying confession which set up the law for a terrible error, he got out of him only this:

“I love my wife. I wanted to sacrifice myself for her. I thought she was guilty.”

Was she guilty? I would swear she was.

She was arrested, but she was acquitted with the same judgment that condemned Victor to life at hard labor.

 Monsieur and Madame Monistrol are today the owners of a wine shop with a bad reputation on the Avenue Vincennes. . Their uncle’s inheritance has long since been spent. They are in terrible poverty.

    

THE END