The widow Lerouge. A novel

Front matter

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THE WIDOW LEROUGE. v

Chapter I

On Thursday, the 6th of March, 1862, tw© da r s after Shrove Tuesday, five women of t village of Joncliere presented themes at the bureau of police at Bougival. They stated that for two days past no i i had seen the Widow Lerouge, — one of / fir neighbors, who lived by herself in an isolated cottage. The house was shut up. Several persons had knocked without receiving an answer. The window-shutters as well as the door were closed ; and it was impossible to obtain even a glimpse of the interior.

This state of affairs alarmed them. Apprehensive of a crime, or at the least an accident, they demanded the interference of justice to satisfy their doubts by forcing the door and entering the house.

Bougival is a quiet maritime village, its inhabitants principally boatmen, who ply upon the river. Trifling offences are sometimes heard of in its neighborhood, but crimes are rare.

The commissary of police at first refused to listen to the women, but their importunities fatigued him into compliance. He called into requisition the services of a (locksmith, the brigadier of gendarmes, jand two of his men ; and, thus accompanied, he followed the neighbor of the Widow Lerouge.

Whatever celebrity it possesses, La Jonchere owes to the projectors of the railway, which has now passed close to it for several years, with more enterprise than profit. It is a hamlet of small importance, seated upon the side of the hill which overlooks the Seine between Malmaison and Bougival. It is about twenty minutes’ walk from the main road ; which, passing by Rueil and Port Marly, goes from Paris to St. Germain. A steep and rugged road, or rather by-path, not easily travelled, turning off at right angles from the main road, leads to it.

The little troup, headed by * the gendarmes, followed the highway bordering the river, until it reached this cross-road, into which it turned, and after stumbling over its rugged inequalities for about a hundred yards halted before the dwelling of the Widow Lerouge.

It was a house, or rather cottage, of modest, but comfortable appearance, and must have been built by some Parisian shopkeeper in love with the beauties of Nature; for all the trees had been carefully cut down. More deep than wide, it consisted of two apartments on the ground floor with a loft above. Around it extended a much-neglected garden, enclosed by a wall of dry stones about three feet high, much dilapidated, — broken and crumbling in many places, and affording but slight protection against trespassers. To this garden a light wooden gate, turning on hinges clumsily constructed of iron wire, gave access.

“ This is the house,” said the women. -

The commissary turned. During his short walk, the number of his followers had been rapidly increasing, and now included all the idle persons in the village. He saw before him about forty peasants of both sexes, nearly wild with curiosity.

“ Let no one enter the garden,” said he ; and, to ensure obedience, he placed the two gendarmes on sentry before the entrance, and advanced towards the house, accompanied by the brigadier and the locksmith.

THE WIDOW LEROUGE.

After calling several times, he knocked loudly with his cane, at the door first, and then successively at each of the window-shutters. After each blow, he placed his ear against the wood and listened. Hearing nothing, he turned to the locksmith.

“ Open 1 ” said he.

The workman unstrapped his basket, and produced his implements. He had already introduced a skeleton key into the lock, when a loud exclamation was heard from the crowd outside the gate.

“ The key ! ” they cried. “ Here is the key ! ”

An urchin of some dozen years, playing with his companions, had perceived in a ditch by the roadside an enormous key, which he had picked up and carried to the cottage in triumph.

“ Give it to me gamin,” said the brigadier. “We shall see.”

The key was tried. It was, in fact, the key of the house.

The commissary and the locksmith exchanged glances full of sinister misgivings.

o o o o

“ This looks bad,” muttered the brigadier. They entered the house ; while the crowd, restrained with difficulty by the gendarmes, stamped with impatience, or clambered on the garden wall, stretching their necks eagerly, to see or hear something of what was passing within the cottage.

Those who anticipated the discovery of crime, were unhappily not deceived. Of this the commissary was satisfied upon the threshold. Every thing in the first room pointed with a sad eloquence to the presence of a malefactor. The furniture — a bureau and two large trunks — were forced and broken open. In the inner room, the disorder was even greater. It seemed as though some furious hand had taken a fiendish pleasure in creating frightful disorder.

In the inner room, near the chimney, was found extended upon the hearth the dead body of the Widow Lerouge. She was lying with her face in the ashes. One side of the face and a portion of the hair were burnt ; it appeared a miracle that the fire had not caught her clothing.

“Wretches!” exclaimed the brigadier. “ Could they not have robbed, without assassinating the poor woman ? ”

“But where has she been wounded ? ” inquired the commissary. “ I do not see any blood.”

“ Hold ! here between the shoulders,” replied the brigadier ; “ two fierce blows, by my faith. I’ll wager my stripes she had no time to cry out.”

He stooped over the corpse and touched it.

“ She is cold,” he continued, “ and completely rigid. It is at least thirty-six hours since she received her death-wound.”

The commissary began writing at the table his summary official report.

“ Wc are not here to speculate, but to discover the criminal,” said he. “ Let information be at once conveyed to the justice of peace, and the mayor at Bougival, and send this letter without delay to the Palace de Justice in Paris. In less than two hours a judge of inquiry can be here. In the meanwhile, I will proceed to a provisional inquest.”

“ Shall I carry the letter ? ” asked the brigadier.

“ No, send one of your men; you will be useful to me here in keeping away intruders, and finding the witnesses I shall require. It is advisable to leave every thing in this chamber as we have found it. I shall install myself in the other.”

A gendarme departed at a run towards the station at Rueil ; and the commissary commenced his investigations in regular form, as prescribed by law.

“ Who was this Widow Lerouge ? "Where did she come from? How was she employed ? Upon what means did she live ? What were her habits, her manners, her companionships ? Was she known to have enemies? Was she a miser? Did she pass for being rich ? ”

All this it was important to the commissary to ascertain.

But, although the witnesses were numerous enough, they possessed but little information. The depositions of the neighbors, successively interrogated, were empty, incoherent, and incomplete. No one knew any thing of the victim. She was a stranger in the country. Many presented themselves as witnesses, moreover, who came forward less to afford information than to seek the gratification of their curiosity. A gardener who had been an acquaintance of the deceased, and a young girl who supplied her with milk, were the only persons capable of giving any precise evidence ; and that was insignificant enough.

In a word, after three hours of laborious investigation, after having undergone the infliction of all the gossip of the country, after receiving evidence the most contradictory, and listened to commentaries the most ridiculous the following is all that appeared any way near certainty to the bewildered commissary.

Twelve years before, at the beginning of 1850, the woman Lerouge had made her appearance at Bougival , with a large wagon piled with furniture, linen, and her per-

THE WIDOW LEROUGE.

sonal effects. She had stopped at an inn, declared her intention of settling in the neighborhood, and immediately went in quest of a house. Finding this one unoccupied, and liking it, she had taken it, without trying to beat down the terms ; paid in advance three hundred and twenty francs for the first six months, but refused to sign a lease.

The house taken, she installed herself the same day, and expended about a hundred francs on repairs.

She was a woman about fifty-four or fifty-five years of age, well preserved, active, and in the enjoyment of excellent health. No one knew her reasons for taking up her abode in a country where she was an absolute stranger. She was supposed to have come from Normandy, having been at times seen to wear the high white muslin head-dress of that country. This night bonnet, as the neighbors called it, did not prevent her from wearing very coquettish costumes during the day ; indeed, she Svorc ordinarily very handsome dresses, very showy ribbons on her bonnets, and covered herself with as many jewels as a gipsy. Without doubt she had lived near the sea, for sailors and seafaring topics recurred incessantly in her conversation.

Her husband she said was dead, having been lost at sea ; but, as she never entered into particulars on this subject, the impression was that she disliked speaking of

him.

On one particular occasion she had remarked in presence of the milkmaid and three other persons, “No woman was ever more miserable than I during my married life." And at another, “All new, all fine! A new broom sweeps clean. My sea-monster of a husband loved me for only a year 1”

The Widow Lerouge passed for rich, or at the least for being very well off ; and she was not a miser. She had given a woman at Malmaison sixty francs to pay her rent, and at another time advanced two hundred francs to a fisherman of Port Marly. She was fond of good living, spent a good deal of money on" her table, and bought wine in large quantities. She took pleasure in treating her acquaintances, and her dinners were excellent. If complimented on her easy circumstances, she made no very strong denial. She had frequently been' heard to say, “ I have neither lands nor houses : but I have every thing I want ; and, if I wished for any thing more, I could have it.”

Beyond this, the slightest allusion to her past life, her country, or her family had never escaped her, although she was talkative, and at times very boastful. She was supposed, however, to have seen the world, and to know a great deal. She never went out in the evenings, but barricaded herself in her cottage as in a fortress. It was well known that she got tipsy regularly after dinner and went to bed very soon afterwards. Rarely had strangers been seen to visit her, — two or three times a lady and a young man, and upon one occasion two gentlemen, — one old and decorated, the other young and of a distinguished appearance; these latter came in a magnificent carriage.

In conclusion, the deceased was held in little esteem by her neighbors. Her conversation was often singular, and odious in the mouth of a woman of her age. She had been heard to give a young girl the most detestable counsels. A pork butcher, embarrassed in his business, tempted by her supposed wealth, had at one time paid her his addresses. She declined his advances, declaring that to be married once was enough for her. At several times two men had been seen in her house, the first of whom was young and looked like a laborer who worked upon the railway; the other was a big man, rather elderly, with huge brown whiskers and dressed in a blouse, who appeared very fierce and even dangerous. These men wt^re suspected to be her lovers.

Having interrogated all his witnesses, the commissary proceeded to write out their depositions. As he finished the last page, the judge of inquiry arrived upon the scene, attended by the chief of the detective police, and one of his agents.

M. Daburon was a man thirty-eight years of age, well made, and of very prepossessing appearance; sympathetic notwithstanding his coldness; wearing upon his handsome countenance a calm and sweet expression, although tinged with sadness. This settled melancholy had remained with him ever since his recovery, two years before, from a dreadful malady, which had well nigh proved fatal.

Judge of inquiry since 1859, he had rapidly acquired the most brilliant reputation. Laborious, patient, and acute, he knew with singular skill how to disentangle the skein of the most complicated affair, and from the midst of a thousand threads lay hold of the right one. None better than he could solve those terrible problems where the sign x — in algebra, the unknown quantity — represents the criminal. Armed with an irresistible logic, he deduced the unknown from the known, and excelled in collecting and uniting in a bundle of overwhelming proof facts to others unimportant and cir-

THE WIDOW LEROUGE.

cumstances in appearance the most insignificant.

Although possessed of qualifications for his office so numerous and valuable, he was tremblingly distrustful of his own abilities, and exercised his terrible functions with diffidence and hesitation. He wanted audacity to risk those coups de . theatre , so often resorted to by his contemporaries in the pursuit of truth.

Thus it was repugnant to his feelings to deceive even an accused person, or lay snares for him ; in fact the mere idea of the possibility of a judicial error terrified him. They said of him in the courts, “ He is a trembler.” What he sought was not presumption or conviction, but the most absolute certainty. No rest for him until the day when the accused was forced to bow before the evidence; so much so that he had been jestingly reproached with seeking not to discover criminals but innocents.

The chief of detective police was none other than the celebrated Gevrol, who has so often figured in our previous works. He was really an able man, but wanting in perseverance, and liable to be blinded by an incredible obstinacy. If he lost a clew, he could not bring himself to acknowledge it, still less to retrace his steps. His audacity and coolness, however, rendered it difficult to disconcert him ; and *being at once courageous, and possessed of immense personal strength, he never hesitated to confront the most daring of malefactors.

But his specialty, his triumph, his glory, ”was his memory of faces, so prodigious as to exceed belief. Did he see a face for five minutes, it was enough. Its possessor was catalogued, and, no matter how long the interval, recognized on reappearance. The impossibilities of place, the unlikelihood of circumstances, the most incredible disguises, could not lead him astray. What he remembered, he said, was the peculiarities of the shape, size, color, and expression of the eyes, at which alone he looked, without noticing any other features.

This faculty was severely tested before he had been a week at Poissy, by the following experiment. Three prisoners were draped in coverings completely disguising their figures. Over their faces were veils, allowing nothing of the features to be seen except the eyes ; and in this state they were shown to Gevrol.

Without the slightest hesitation he recognized the prisoners and named them.

Had chance alone assisted him ?

The aid-de-camp who attended Gevrol was an old offender, reconciled to the law, — a jolly fellow, cunning, quick, and useful in his way, but secretly jealous of his chief, whose abilities he held in light estimation. He was named Lecoq.

The commissary, by this time heartily tired of his responsibilities, welcomed the judge of inquiry and his agents as liberators. He related rapidly the facts collected in his official report.

“ You have proceeded well, monsieur,” said the judge. “ All is stated clearly ; yet there is one fact you have omitted to ascertain.”

“ What is that, monsieur ? ” inquired the commissary.

“ On what day was the Widow Lerouge last seen, and at what hour ? ”

“ I am coming to that, monsieur. She was seen and spoken to on the evening of Shrove Tuesday, at twenty minutes after five. She was then returning from Bougival with a pannier of provisions.”

“ You are sure of the hour ? ” inquired Gevrol.

“ Perfectly, and for this reason : two witnesses, the woman Tellier and a cooper who lives hard by, alighted from the omnibus which leaves Marly every hour, when they perceived the widow in the cross-road, and hastened to overtake her. They conversed with her until they separated at the door of her own house.”

“ And what had she in her pannier ? ” demanded the judge of inquiry.

The witnesses were ignorant. They knew only that she carried two bottles of wine sealed, and another of brandy. She complained to them of headache, and said, “ While you are going to enjoy yourselves, according to custom on Shrove Tuesday, I am going to' bed.”

“So, so ! ” exclaimed the chief of police. “ I know where it is necessary to search I ”

“ You think so ? ” inquired M. Daburon.

“ Par bleu ! it is clear enough. We want to find the large brown man, the gallant in the blouse. The brandy and the wine were intended for his entertainment. The widow expected him to supper. He came, sure enough, the amiable gallant 1 ”

“ Oh ! ” cried the brigadier, evidently scandalized, “ she was very old, and terribly ugly 1 ”

Gevrol regarded the honest gendarme with an expression of contemptuous pity.

“Know, brigadier,” said he, “that a woman who has money is always young and pretty, if she desires to be thought so ! ”

“ Perhaps there is something in that,” replied the judge. “ It did not occur to me. I am more impressed by the remark of this unfortunate woman, ‘ If I wished for any thing more, I could have it. ’ ”

THE WIDOW LEROUGE.

/ ^KThat also attracted my attention,” acquiesced the commissary.

Gevrol did not take the trouble to listen. He held to his own opinion, and began to inspect minutely every nook and corner of the room. Suddenly he turned towards the commissary.

“ Now that I think of it, ” cried he, “ was it not on Tuesday that the weather changed ? It had been dry for a fortnight, and on that evening it rained. At what hour did the rain commence here ? ”

“ At half-past nine,” answered the brigadier. “ I went out from supper to make my circuit of the dancing halls, when I was overtaken by a heavy shower opposite to the Rue Pecheurs. In less than ten minutes there was half an inch of water on the pavement.”

“ Very well,” said Gevrol. “ Then if the man came after half-past nine his shoes must have been muddy. If dry, he arrived sooner. This ought to have been ascertained before the floor was disturbed. Were there any imprints of footsteps, M. le commissary ? ”

“ I must confess we never thought of looking for them.”

“ Ah ! ” exclaimed the chief of police, in a tone of irritation, “ that is vexatious ! ”

“ Wait ,” replied the commissary ; “ there is yet time to see if there are any, — not in this room, but in the other. We have there deranged absolutely nothing. My footsteps and those of the brigadier may be easily distinguished. Let us see.”

As the commissary opened the door of the second chamber, Gevrol stopped him.

“ I demand permission, M. the judge,” said he, “ to examine the apartment before any one else is permitted to enter.”

“ Certainly,” acquiesced Daburon.

Gevrol passed into the room, the others remaining on the threshold. He took in at a glance the scene of the crime.

Every thing, as the commissary had stated, seemed to have been overturned by some furious madman.

In the middle of the chamber stood a table laid for one person, and covered with a fine linen table cloth, white as snow. Upon this was placed a magnificent wineglass of the rarest manufacture, a very handsome knife, and a plate of the finest porcelain. There was an opened bottle of wine, hardly touched, and another of brandy, from which about five or six petits verves had been taken.

At the right, along the wall, stood two handsome cupboards of walnut, with ornamental locks and hinges of brass, one each side of the window ; both were empty, and the contents scattered on all sides. There were clothing, linen, and other effects unfolded, tossed about, or smashed to pieces.

At the back, near the chimney, a small closet in the wall for holding the plate was torn open. At the other side of the chimney, an old secretary with a marble top had been smashed into fragments, and rummaged to its inmost recesses. The desk, wrenched away, hung by a single hinge. The drawers were pulled out and emptied upon the floor;

At the left of the room the bed had been completely disarranged and overturned, the bed-ticking cut, and the straw with which it was filled thrown out.

“ Not the slightest imprint,” murmured Gevrol, disappointed. “ He must have arrived before half-past nine. You can all come in now.”

He walked right to the corpse of the widow, near which he knelt.

“ It cannot be said,” grumbled he, “ that the work is not properly done ! the assassin was no apprentice 1 ”

Then looking right and left, —

“ Oh I oh ! ” continued he, “ the poor devil was busy with her cooking when he struck her ; see her pan of ham and eggs upon the hearth. The brute hadn’t patience to wait for his dinner. He struck the blow fasting ; therefore he can’t invoke the gaiety of dessert in his defence 1 ”

“It is evident,” said the commissary, “ that robbery was the motive of this crime.”

“ It is probable,” answered Gevrol in a sharp tone ; “ and that accounts for the absence of silver on the table. ”

“ Hold 1 Some pieces of gold in this drawer ! ” exclaimed Lecoq, who had been searching on his own account, — “ about three hundred and twenty francs 1 ”

“ What ! ” cried Gevrol, a little disconcerted.

But hd recovered from his embarrassment quickly, and continued, —

“ He must have forgotten them ; that often happens. I have more than once known an assassin, having accomplished the murder, so utterly bewildered as to depart without remembering the plunder, for which he had committed the crime. Our man became excited perhaps, or perhaps may have been interrupted. Some one may have knocked at the door. "What makes me more willing to think so is, that the scamp did not leave the candle burning. You see he took the trouble to extinguish it.”

“ Bart 1 ” said Lecoq. “ That proves

THE WIDOW LEROUGE.

nothing. He is probably an economical and careful man.”

The investigations of the two agents were continued all through the house ; but their most minute researches resulted in discovering absolutely nothing; not one piece of evidence to convict; not the most feeble ;!* nation which might serve as a point of departure. Even the dead woman’s papers, if she possessed any, had disappeared. Not a letter, not a scrap of paper even, to be met with.

From time to time Gevrol stopped to swear or grumble.

“ Oh ! it is a clever piece of work ! See what care the scoundrel takes of number one ! He is a clever hand I ”

“ What conclusion do you come to, monsieur ?” at length demanded the judge of inquiry.

“It is a drawn game, M. the judge,” replied Gevrol. “ We arc baffled for the present. The miscreant lias taken his measures with great precaution ; but, before night, I shall have a dozen men in pursuit. He shall not escape us long. He has carried off some table silver and some jewels. He is lost 1 ”

“ With all that,” remarked M. Daburon, “ we are no further advanced than we were this morning.”

“ Sapristi 1 ” growled Gevrol. “A man can only do what he can 1 ”

“ Confound it ! ” said Lccoq in a low tone, perfectly audible, however, “ why is not Perc Tiranclaire here ? ”

“What could he do more than we have done ? ” retorted Gevrol, directing a furious glance at his subordinate.

Lecoq stooped his head and was silent, inwardly delighted at having wounded his chief.

“ Who and what is this Perc Tirauclaire V ” demanded the judge. “It seems to me that I have heard the name, but can’t think where.”

“ He is an extraordinary jnan 1 ” exclaimed Lecoq.

“ He was formerly a pawnbroker’s clerk,” added Gevrol ; “ but he is now a rich old fellow. His real name is Tabaret ; and he has taken to the business of police, as others do to painting or music, for amusement.”

“ And to augment his revenues ? ” asked the commissary.

“ He ? ” replied Lecoq. . “ No danger of that. He works so much for the glory of success that he often spends money from his own pocket. It is great amusement for him though ! In the service we have nicknamed him * Tirauclaire,’ because of a phrase he is in the habit of repeating. Ah 1 he is smart, the old weasel 1 It was he who in the case of the banker s wife, you remember, discovered the truth, that the lady was herself the robber.”

“ True I ” retorted Gevrol ; “and it was he who had poor Deremc beheaded for killing his wife ; and all the while the poor man was innocent.”

“ We lose our time, monsieurs,” interrupted the judge of inquiry. And, addressing himself to Lecoq, he said, —

“ Go and find Pere Tabaret. I have a great desire to speak to him, and shall be gh\d to see him at work here.”

Lecoq started at a run. Gevrol was seriously humiliated.

“ You have the right to demand the services of whom you please,” said he in a tone of suppressed passion ; “ but I might — ”

“ Do not annoy yourself, M. Gevrol. I have great confidence in your ability. But to-day we happen to differ in opinion. You hold absolutely to your brown man in the blouse, and I am convinced he is not the criminal at all ! ”

“ I believe that. I am right,” replied the chief, “ and I hope to prove it ; but I shall find the scoundrel, be lie whom he may ! ”

“ I ask nothing better,” said M. Daburon.

“ Only if you will permit me to give — what shall I say without failing in respect ? — a piece of advice ? ”

“ Speak ! ”

“ I would advise you to distrust Pbre

Tabaret.”

“ Truly ? And for what reason ? ”

“ The old fellow is too passionate ; he owes his success in the police to nothing more or less than his invention. And, as he is vainer than a peacock, he is apt to overdo matters in order to make a sensation. When in the presence of a crime like this of to-day, for example, he pretends to be able to explain every thing on the instant. And he will in fact invent a history that will be en rapport exactly with the situation. He will pretend, unassisted, to reconstruct all the scenes of an assassination, as a savant who from a single bone reconstructs an antideluvian animal. Sometimes, as in the case of the banker’s wife, he divines correctly ; but at other times he is far out of the way, as in the case of the tailor, the unfortunate Dereme.”

“ I thank you for your advice,” said M. Daburon, “ and will endeavor to profit by it. Now, M. le commissary,” continued lie, “ it is most important to ascertain, if possible, from what part of the country came the Widow Lerouge.”

THE WIDOW LEROUGE.

ll

The procession of witnesses marshalled by the brigadier commenced to pass before the judge of inquiry.

But nothing new was elicited. It was evident that the Widow Lerouge had been during her lifetime a singularly discrete woman ; for, although talkative, nothing in any waj connected with her antecedents remained in the memory of the gossips of Joncliere.

All the people interrogated tried obstinately to impart to the judge their own convictions and personal conjectures. Public opinion sided with Gevrol. With one voice, the assembly denounced the big brown man of the grey blouse. He must surely be the culprit. Every one remembered his ferocious aspect, and how, struck by his suspicious appearance, they had wisely avoided him. He had one evening menaced a woman, and another day beaten a child. They could point out neither the child nor the woman ; but no matter : these brutal acts were notoriously public.