Mysterious juror, by Fortune Du Boisgobey. Tr. from the 3d ed.

Chapter I

It is growing late and the long court-room is partially obscured by shadows; the waning light still illumines the platform where the court is sitting ; but the seats of the jurors, the bench of the accused, and the crowd of spectators are already plunged in the semi-obscurity of the twilight of a gloomy autumn day.

**The case is closed," the grave voice of the president has said. The magistrates and the jurors have retired. Nothing now remains but to hear the verdict, yet the audience has not stirred.

It is made up of those amateurs of strong emotions who would pass the whole night upon their feet rather than fail to be present at the denouement of the drama. They must witness the anguish of the accursed at the moment when

963 1 55 he is brought back into the court room, and when his eyes question the face of his counsel' to learn his fate before his sentence is pronounced.

There has not been a more exciting case tried in Paris for many years.

First, the accused k a woman, and a woman of rank. The crime imputed to her is an odious one, but it has not been clearly proved ; she denies it, and has defended herself with a skill which has elicited the admiration of veterans at the bar. ^

The room is crowded with political, literkry and fashionable celebrities. Among the privileged ones who occupy reserved seats are two gentlemen who are exchanging, in a low voice, their opinions on the discussion which has just ended and to which they have listened with the most exemplary attention.

*'My friend, said the younger, ** I VBOuld bet that this remarkable- Baroness will be acquitted off-hand."

Not I/' murmured the other, who appeared older and more serious.

"You take the bet then? I give Mme. de Noyal one hundred louis against fifty/'

'' Do not speak so loud. It is not decent to bet on a woman's life."

"Bahl No one can hear us. Do you take the bet or not?''

" Well, let it be so. I will take it."

" Good ! you can get ready to write a check for a thousand francs this evening." .

*'We sh^U see! and while waiting I should like to know upon what grounds you base your certainty of an acquittal."

"Upon very simple reasoning. When one 'person kills another, he has a motive for the murder. Now I defy you and I defy all the attorney-generals in France to say why the Baroness Angelique de Noyal should have sent a bullet into the heart of her cousin, Mile. Jeanne Caristie. It was not for her money, surely, for the young girl had none, while the Baroness has had an income of eighty thousand francs since she has been the widow of that great booby, de Noyal/'

"Do you believe then that one commits murder for money only?" ^

**No; sometimes from hate and sometimes for revenge. But what reason could Mme. de Noyal have to hate an orphan girl whom she had taken into her house and overwhelmed with kindness ? Will you tell me that Mme. de Noyal, who is one of the most beautiful and elegant women in Paris, was jealous of a little girl from the provinces whom no one has ever courted — unless it be you?"

**I have nothing to do with the case, and I beg you not to bring me into it."

**Ah! Ah! what a tone you take! Excuse me, Monsieur Robert du Plessis. If I had

thought that "

My poor Raoul, you must try to cure your mania for joking on all subjects. The tragic death of this young woman has deeply affected me. You know this, and yet you talk as if you had forgotten it/'

"I was wrong, I acknowledge it. Let us go back to this dear Baroness who has been pursued with incomprehensible animosity. These lawyers of the new school attack her because she is noble, rich and in good society, but they will have their trouble for their pains. The charge falls to the ground."

**I am not of your opinion. Shall I run over the facts ? Mme. de Noyal was passing the summer at her country house with Mile. Caristie. One evening at the beginning of September she went for a walk in the park, taking her cousin with her, a thing she had never before done. An hour after she returned, wild with excitement, and told her servants that some one had shot at her and wounded Jeanne, and that instead of remaining to aid her cousin, she had made her escape.''

" We do not expect a woman to be very brave, and to have remained, at the risk of being killed, would have been heroism/'

^'Agreed, but it is not so easy to tell how Mile. Caristie was killed by a bullet fired by somq person so near that the powder burned her corsage."

You have heard the answers which the prisoner gave to the questions of the president. She said that the shot was fired from a hedge which borders the path where they were walking, side by side, and that her cousin, who was on her left, almost touched the hedge. Besides it has been proved that the Baroness was extremely afraid of pistols, and that she had never owfied or even handled one in her whole life. And the revolver was not found. Her counsel argued from this fact that it was not she who fired it, and I believe that he is right, although the prosecution affirms the contrary ; but there has been no proof that she is not the accomplice of the assassin who has disappeared without leaving any trace. How could he have

THE MYSTERIOUS JUROR. II

got into' the park and how could he have got out, if she had not opened the gate for him ?"

My dear fellow, you were born for an attorney-general ; you plead as if you were a lawyer. It is very fortunate that you were not on the prosecution for they have not convinced the jury. He who wishes to prove too much, proves nothing. The prosecuting attorney was too violent and overshot the mark/*

Perhaps that is so; but there is no half-way, either this woman is a monster or she is a saint."

I prefer to believe that she is a saint, and I repeat that there is no crime without a cause. This story of rivalry between the cousins is a ridiculous invention of the prosecution who are very much put to it for an argument. Where is this Don Juan whom both these women adored ? No one has been able to say who he is. Perhaps it is you," said Raoul, who seemed to have constituted himself the official advocate of the accused.

''There it is again said du Plessis angrily, have already asked you not to mix me up with the affair/'

Oh ! do not be angry ; you had nothing to do with it, I know that— and the proof of it is that you were not called as a witness. But really, you used to visit at Mme. de Noyals; you have often seen Mile. Caristie and ought to know better than I, who hardly knew them at all, whether there was any one addressing them.'*

''Mme. de Noyal did not lack admirers. A great many fine gentlemen would gladly have consoled the widow who is worth two or three millions, but these same fine gentlemen would not have married an orphan without dower, simply for her beautiful eyes^ Perhaps I might ' have done so foolish a thing. I liked Mile, Caristie very much, and I think I might have become seriously in love with her; but I had not reached that point when this terrible event happened/'

Acknowledge then that there is no sense in the supposition of the attorney-general."

Pardon me ! Mnre. de Noyal was not jealous of me, but perhaps she was of some one else."

**You would have perceived it, and yo4a have just told me that you never saw anything of the kind."

**No-— not among those with whom I generally saw her. But she went into society a great deal and I did not visit at all the houses where she went with her young cousin."

.**True ! But other people would have known the men with whom she was pleased, and no one has said that she showed a preference for any one. Maybe you will tell me that she kept it a secret."

Ah ! you have tired me out at last ! I will not answer j^ou at all. One thing is certain — Mile. Caristie was murdered,^ and — — "

Unless she committed suicide,"

" Come ! you reason with your mind already made up. I give up trying to convince you, and it will be useless to discuss the matter any longer, for I hear the bell which announces the renewal of the session. The jurors have agreed and their verdict will settle the question."

"And win my bet," said Raoul. His friend shrugged his shoulders and kept still.

" The Court ! Hats off ! " shouted the crier. The magistrates had taken their seats, the jurors were in their places, and the prosecuting attorney had resumed his place. The counsel for the defense had not left the room. All were ^ present but the prisoner.

By the light of the lamps which had just been lighted, the robe of the president, flanked by those of the assistant judges, glowed like a red spot between two black ones.

The audience was excited, and the murmur of the anxious spectators was heard, as at the theater when the curtain rises on the supreme scene of a drama which has been impatiently expected.

More agitated than he appeared Robert du Plessis looked at the jurors. He tried to read their faces, but with little success. Their faces only expressed fatigue, and satisfaction at being relieved from a long and arduous service. There was one, however, who was distinguished from the others by his dress and the expression of his face.

He was still young, forty at most, and his eyes shone, with a peculiar light; they were restless and uneasy eyes which saw everything and fixed themselves nowhere. Robert fancied they rested on him with a certain persistence, but he must have been mistaken, for he did not remember ever to have_seen this juryman who was dressed like a club-man, and he was surprised that he had not noticed him during the session as he sat at the end of the highest bench — the place reserved for the foreman, who is chosen by lot. But Robert had only looked at the accused and the free and honest citizens who were to be her judges left the room at the same time as she.

They had just returned and this man was about to read the verdict

At the request of the president, he rose, placed his hand on his heart, and in the midst of an affecting silence, pronounced in a sonorous voice the consecrated formula: "On my honor and my conscience, before God and before men, the decision of the jury is:" He paused between this invariable preamble and the words which followed, just as an actor docs before uttering some word for effect. And the words were : Not guilty."

An "Ah!" went up from every breast, but there were neither cheers nor murmurs. It expressed the relief of the people after their long waiting,— nothing more. And to teil the truth, opinions differed widely.

The procureur-general did not try to repress a gesture of dissatisfaction, but the judges retained their impassability of countenance, and the counsel for the defense, smiling, bowed like a man who was expecting this result. Nothing remained but to inform the prisoner, and the president gave the order for her to be brought in. She entered with her head high, her face unmoved, hei look steady, andsheard the clerk read the verdict. She evidently already knew what to expect, for a glance of her counsel had reassured her. Then, the president said gravely and slowly :

*'We, president of the Court of Assizes ot the Seine, by virtue of the power vested in us by the law; seeing the- decision of the jury, declare the said Angelique Rabutin, widow de Noyal, acquitted of the charge brought against her and we command that she be set at liberty immediately, if she be not detained for other cause."

Robert du Plessis knew tKe president, and it was through him that he had a reserved place at the trial. It seemed to him that the severe magistrate had slipped rapidly over the words the said prescribed by the code,, which does not ' pride itself on politeness, and he was obliged to him for it, although he was not absolutely convinced of the innocence of the Baroness.

He was still in doubt, but he wished to believe it, and he was not at all sorry that the jury had acquitted a woman at whose house he had been received before the tragic event which had brought her into the Court of Assizes. Appearances were against her, but the proofs were lacking, and Robert preferred agreeing with the verdict to persisting in suspecting Mme. de Noyal of assassinating a young girl whom he had been so near loving.

Human justice punishes, but it does not restore, and a condemnation, even if it had been just, would not have restored Jeanne Canstie, the victim of an unexplained if not inexplicable crime.

THE MYSTERIOUS JUROR. ig

Robert du Plessis began then to rejoice at the happy issue of this judicial drama, and even to pity the woman who had been marked by an ineffaceable stain and whose acquittal would only partially reinstate her, for the world is so constituted that accusation and calumny always leave a taint. He had forgotten what the acquittal was going to cost him. His friend Raoul recalled it to his mind by saying gaily: **You owe me fifty louis, you know." "I know it," replied Robert, "I will pay them and not regret it either, for I would willingly have given fifty louis that I might not have to deplore that I had been friends with a criminal."

Well, you take your part with a good grace and I compliment you. It is never too late to find out that one is mistaken. And now I hope you will again go to see the poor Baroness. You owe her a visit after the crisis which she has passed through, as much as if she had recovered from an illness which threatened her life."

"It is not the same thing at all, and I have not the least desire to congratulate her."

**Bah! you will go all the same, and I shall ask you to introduce me. I am dying to know her."

**As for me, I wish I had never known her, and as for presenting you, that would not be easy, for I do not suppose she will open her house again. It is not as if she had passed the season at Aix."

Why not? That would be very fearless, and would be the best way of showing that she had nothing to be ashamed of/'

"That may be; but no one would visit her."

"On the contrary, I bet that she would be obliged to refuse people."

"Enough of such bets," said Robert, angrily. "The play is over; let us go."

It was time, for the audience had risen, the Court, the jurors and the accused had already gone, and the two friends had only to follow the crowd which noisily evacuated the court-room. This they did, and with difficulty succeeded in getting out of the Palais de Justice, the doors were so blocked.

Raoul Vignemale, careless optimist that he was, lighted a cigar while descending the grand staircase. His comrade was in no such hurry to smoke. Although not easily affected, having always lived to amuse himself, and never taking anything too seriously, the judicial drama which he had just witnessed had impressed him very strongly, and he was more preoccupied than he would like to have confessed, with his future relations with Mme de Noyal. He would be almost obliged to see her again, although he had said the contrary, and he was not decided about it. He hoped that she would relieve him from his embarrassment by expatriating herself, or at least by withdrawing from society so that she might be forgotten.

The jury had acquitted her but Robert doubted her innocence. He was traveling in Scotland when the murder was committed in the park of a villa in the suburbs of Paris. He heard of the event through the papers, then almost immediately of the arrest of the Baroness. The proceedings of this strange trial had not enlightened him very much. He would have liked to know more before coming to a conclusion, but he had obtained no further information— not concerning the facts — but about the causes.

While waiting for an opportunity, he wished to separate himself from his friend Raoul, to whom he w^ould not confide his perplexities and whose company would have hindered him. He was seeking a pretext, when he saw, in a group at the foot of the staircase, the man who had read the verdict. The others were also jurymen and seemed to be talking among themselves, of the case which they had just decided.

Robert wanted very much to hear what they were saying, but he could not mingle in their conversation, and was passing on his way just as they separated, after shaking hands with each other. He followed with his eyes the one whom he had observed in the court-room, and was not surprised to see him get into an elegant coupe which was waiting on the Boulevard du Palais. This personage had already seemed to him to belong to that section of the world which rides in its carriage, and as the only one of his kind on the jury. He regretted that he did not know his name, but he hoped to meet him some day in a parlor or club-room, and resolved in that case to get some one to introduce him, for the sole purpose of finding out what he thought of the trial of the Baroness.

*'Who is that juror who is bowing to you suddenly asked Vignemale, stopping in the middle of the large court.

"What, — a juror?" murmured du Plessis, **Yes, I saw him on the benches."

24 THE MYSJERIOUS JUROR.

*'That is my upholsterer — M. Dauphin. Do you think he was on the jury

" I am sure of it. One does not soon forget a head like that ; it seems to me he is anxious to speak to you. Is he going to present his bill?"

"No, for I do not owe him anything, but I should like to talk with him."

"Really ? Well, then I will leave you. I do not care to talk with this famous merchant, and I will be off to the club, where I shall find a card party perhaps, by way of an appetizer before dinner."

"As you please," said Robert, who, as we have seen, wished to be relieved of his companion, " I will try to join you there, but I wish to give an order to M. Dauphin, and since I have met him here, I will improve the opportunity."

Vignemale was already some way off, for he too was glad to separate, from his friend. He preferred the emotions of play to those oi the court-room, and it was difficult for him to pass a whole day without a game of cards.

When Robert w^as alone, within a few steps of the upholsterer, he went to him and addressed him familiarly.

**Well! Monsieur Dauphin, you were on the jury and the trial must have seemed very long to you.''

**One must do his duty as a citizen," responded the tradesman, drawing himself up, **but I confess that this has been pretty hard.''

**It certainly must be hard to leave business when one is at the head of a house like yours."

**Oh! that is nothing; but when it is a question of a woman's life "

Fortunately you acquitted her."

"Yes — by a small majority. There were seven for acquittal and five against. Six against six the result would have been the same, but a change of only two would have condemned her."

"Is it indiscreet to ask how you voted ?"

**No, Monsieur, for I have the courage of my convictions. I voted for conviction, but I should also have voted for extenuating circumstances. I am absolutely opposed to capital punishment."

"Oh! then I am certain that you voted conscientiously, I, perhaps, should have acquitted Mme. de Noyal.''

"If she was acquitted, it was because she had an able advocate.'*

"Who? Her counsel?^'

"No, the foreman of the jury. Ah! but she owes him a big debt.'*

"What!" cried Robert, "did he speak in favor of the accused

"Yes, Monsieur,'' responded the upholsterer, "and much better than her counsel did. When we went into the jury-room, we were all for conviction. Well, in three-quarters of an hour he had changed the majority— arid not by any high-flown rhetoric either — but by talking simply, just as he would have talked in a parlon

He has reasons which convince you — if you only listen to him. My mind was already made up, and yet there was a moment when I was almost persuaded."

**He should seek admission to the bar; he would make a hundred thousand francs a year."

**Oh! there is no need of that ! He is very rich. You must know his name, the Marquis de Chenerailles.'*

**No, I do not know him at all."

**That is astonishing, for he is often mentioned in the fashionable journals, and I should very much like to be his upholsterer, for he is going to furnish a superb apartment which he has just hired in the neighborhood of the Champs Elysees.''

"If I should make his acquaintance I will recommend you to him,'' said Robert du Plessis, a little ironically; "but I think he must know Mme. de Noyal, since he defended her so ably.*'

"That cannot be, or the prosecution would have challenged him."

**True! and it permitted this gentleman to take his seat, very fortunately too, for perhaps she was innocent/'

**I doubt it, but I am very well pleased that she came out of it safely, for if she had been condemned to death I should have had bad dreams, and I have just passed through so

many emotions "

' **That you long to get home to recover yourself. Good evening M. Dauphin. Come to my house some morning, I want to renew the paper on my smoking-room," and without stopping to hear the upholsterer's thanks, Robert went with accelerated steps toward the Boulevard du PalaiSc

Chapter II

Whither was he going so rapidly ? He did not know himself, but he felt impelled to walk fast in the open air after eight hours in the stifling atmosphere of the court-room.

He went up the boulevard, and instead of going over the Pont au Change, turned to the left, by the Quay de V Horologe. Night had come, and there were very few people on the quay, which is not mu^eh frequented even in day time, especially at the entrance which is darkened by the high towers of the Conciergerie,* for farther on, in the house which separates it from the old Place Dauphine, there are shops and lighted windows. Robert walked along the parapet by the river. He was pleased with the isolation for it permitted him to become absorbed in his reflections, and he went on without looking in front of him, so that he

* A prison.

just escaped running against two men who were talking on the sidewalk, near a carriage.

He hastened to get down into the roadway, when by the light of a gas jet he recognized the foreman of the jury. This gentleman was about to enter his carriage. One foot was already in, and his interlocutor was holding the door open, as the commissionaires do at the entrance of the theatres.

The latter certainly did not belong to what the bourgeois call the classe dirigeante (directing class).

He wore a soft felt hat, a pink cravat, and a checked suit of clothes. He would have made a fine appearance on the outside boulevards, at the hour when the gentlemen who wear caps with three flaps walk abroad, for he had the physique of a workman; he was not more than twenty-five years of age, had a leaden complexion and wore heart-breakers " plastered on his sallow temples. What could M.

de Chenerailles have to say to such a queer fellow ? Robert asked himself this question as he brusquely left the path so as to avoid meeting them face to face.

Although he had got out of the way so quickly, he had seen the gentleman put a bank-note into the hand of the blackguard, and then enter his carriage which rolled rapidly toward the Pont Neuf.

The man with the soft hat, after pocketing the note, expressed his joy by executing a fling which would have made a success in a ball of the barriere and started off in the same direction as the coupe, without noticing Robert du Plessis, whom he left behind.

Why did Robert immediately follow him ? From mere curiosity, without any hope of satisfying it, and even without knowing what he should gain, if, by any chance, he should discover the motive of the clandestine relations between the lord of Chenerailles and a street loafer.

At any other time, he would have thought very little of this mystery. Of what importance was it to him that the person whom M. Dauphin admired was a false lord?— the species is not rare in Paris— or perhaps the mysterious chief of some association of low fellows? He had seen him for the first time on the jury bench, and probably would never see him again, although the upholsterer had said he was well launched in fashionable society.

But this evening, disturbed by a series of uuforeseen events and strange coincidences, Robert du Plessis was disposed to be restive, like a horse startled by the unexpected report of a cannon.

He had reached the age of thirty without having done any serious work or having any serious thoughts.

He was the son of a grave magistrate and a pious mother, who had died when he was very young, and at his majority he found himself master of a handsome fortune, which he spent freely.

He knew no other law than his own fancy, and the only tender sentiment which he had experienced was inspired by the unfortunate young girl wTio had been murdered in Mme. de Noyal's park. He had never confessed this sentiment to its object, and he believed that he had concealed it so well that even- Mme. de Noyal had not suspected it.

However that may have been, Raoul now knew how it was, for Robert had allowed it to escape him that he had thought of asking the hand of Mile. Caristie. Raoul Vignemale, broker by profession, and a gay fellow, would willingly have told big stories of his matrimonial designs: but he was incapable of betraying a secret, and if he thought about it at all, would not think long.

Robert could not forget the poor, dead girl so easily, and he longed to avenge her. Unoccupied as he was, he had nothing better to do than to search for the assassin, for he was now inclined to believe that the jury was not mistaken in acquitting the ac(:used, and he would be very proud and very happy to find the real criminal. It may have been a chimerical enterprise; but this v/as another reason why it should tempt Robert, who, in spite of the scepticism which he affected, had a strong tendency to imitate the chevalier Don Quixote de la Mancha, redresser of wrongs and seeker of adventures.

The accident of two successive meetings seemed to indicate a trail. M. Dauphin had stopped him in the Palace yard to inform him that Mme. de Noyal owed her release to this foreman of the jury whom he had just surprised talking familiarly with a man of suspicious appearance, on a deserted quay.

Robert's imagination supplied the rest. He fancied that he held the end of a thread which would lead to some interesting discoveries, and meanwhile he put himself on the track of the

THE MYSTORIOUS JUROR. 35

person v/ho had just received a bank-note as a gratuity.

This was surely too much to give to a door opener, and it might easily be supposed that it had been given in payment for some important service.

The rogue was going away with his nose in the air and his hands in his pocket. Du Plessis, who had never before followed anybody, excepting pretty women, kept a little too near him, for he exposed himself to the danger of being observed, an imprudence which a professional detective would not have committed ; but the man, having come out on the Pont Neuf without turning round, ran after an omnibus which was passing, caught it while in motion, and climbed nimbly upon the roof.

Robert did not hesitate to do the same, and this time there was no risk, for the roofs are free to all, so long as there is any room, and there was still one place left just beside the last passenger.