After the departure of her son and the detective, Madame Cormier was prostrated. Her son! Her Florentin! The poor child! And she was sunk in despair.
Had they not suffered enough? Was this new proof necessary? Why had their life been so unmercifully cruel? Why had not Dr. Saniel let her die? At least she would not have seen this last catastrophe, this disgrace; her son accused of assassination, in prison, at the assizes!
Heretofore when she had yielded to her feelings and bewailed their sad lot, Phillis was at hand to cheer and caress her; but now she was alone in her deserted apartment, no one to hear her, see her, nor scold. Why should she not abandon herself to tears? She wept and trembled, but the moment arrived when, after having reached the extreme of despair, which showed her her son condemned as an assassin, and executed, she stopped and asked herself if she had not gone too far.
He would return; certainly she might expect him. And she waited for him without breakfasting; he would not like to sit down to the table all alone, the poor child.
Besides, she was too profoundly overcome to eat. She arranged the fire with care, so that the haricot of mutton would keep warm, for it was his favorite dish.
Minutes and hours passed and he did not return. Her anguish came back; a witness would not be retained so long by the judge. Had they arrested him? Then what would become of him?
She fell into a state of tears and despair, and longed for Phillis. Fortunately she would not be late to-day. Finally a quick, light step was heard on the landing, and as soon as she could, Madame Cormier went to open the door, and was stunned on seeing the agitated face of her daughter. Evidently Phillis was surprised by the sudden opening of the door.
“You know all, then?” Madame Cormier cried.
Phillis put her arms about her, and drew her into the dining-room, where she made her sit down.
“Becalm,” she said. “They will not keep him.”
“You know some way?”
“We will find a way. I promise you that they will not keep him.”
“You are sure?”
“I promise you.”
“You give me life. But how did you know?”
“He wrote to me. The concierge gave me his letter, which had just come.”
“What does he say?”
Madame Cormier took the letter that Phillis handed her, but the paper shook so violently in her trembling hand that she could not read.
“Read it to me.”
Phillis took it and read
“DEAR LITTLE SISTER: After listening to my story, the judge retains
me. Soften for mamma the pain of this blow. Make her understand
that they will soon acknowledge the falseness of this accusation;
and, on your part, try to make this falseness evident, while on
mine, I will work to prove my innocence.
“Embrace poor mamma for me, and find in your tenderness, strength,
and love, some consolation for her; mine will be to think that you
are near her, dear little beloved sister.
“FLORENTIN.”
“And it is this honest boy that they accuse of assassination!” cried Madame Cormier, beginning to weep.
It required several minutes for Phillis to quiet her a little.
“We must think of him, mamma; we must not give up.”
“You are going to do something, are you not, my little Phillis?”
“I am going to find Doctor Saniel.”
“He is a doctor, not a lawyer.”
“It is exactly as a doctor that he can save Florentin. He knows that Caffie was killed without a struggle between him and the assassin; consequently without the wrenching off of a button. He will say it and prove it to the judge, and Florentin’s innocence is evident. I am going to see him.”
“I beg of you, do not leave me alone too long.”
“I will come back immediately.”
Phillis ran from the Batignolles to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. In answer to her ring, Joseph, who had returned to his place in the anteroom, opened the door, and as Saniel was alone, she went immediately to his office.
“What is the matter?” he asked, on seeing her agitation.
“My brother is arrested.”
“Ah! The poor boy!”
What he had said to her on explaining that this arrest could not take place was sincere; he believed it, and he more than believed it, he wished it. When he decided to kill Caffie he had not thought that the law would ever discover a criminal; it would be a crime that would remain unpunished, as so many were, and no one would be disturbed. But now the law had found and arrested one who was the brother of the woman he loved.
“How was he arrested?” he asked, as much for the sake of knowing as to recover himself.
She told what she knew, and read Florentin’s letter.
“He is a good boy, your brother,” he said, as if talking to himself.
“You will save him?”
“How can I?”
This cry escaped him without her understanding its weight; without her divining the expression of anxious curiosity in his glance.
“To whom shall I address myself, if not to you? Are you not everything to me? My support, my guide, my counsel, my God!”
She explained what she wished him to do. Once more an exclamation escaped Saniel.
“You wish me to go to the judge—me?”
“Who, better than you, can explain how things happened?”
Saniel, who had recovered from his first feeling of surprise, did not flinch. Evidently she spoke with entire honesty, suspecting nothing, and it would be folly to look for more than she said.
“But I cannot present myself before a judge in such away,” he said. “It is he who sends for those he wants to see.”
“Why can you not go to his court, since you know things which will throw light upon it?”
“Is it truly easy to go before this court? In going before it, I make myself the defender of your brother.”
“That is exactly what I ask of you.”
“And in presenting myself as his defender, I take away the weight of my deposition, which would have more authority if it were that of a simple witness.”
“But when will you be asked for this deposition? Think of Florentin’s sufferings during this time, of mamma’s, and of mine. He may lose his head; he may kill himself. His spirit is not strong, nor is mamma’s. How will they bear all that the newspapers will publish?”
Saniel hesitated a moment.
“Well, I will go,” he said. “Not this evening, it is too late, but tomorrow.”
“Oh, dear Victor!” she exclaimed, pressing him in her arms, “I knew that you would save him. We will owe you his life, as we owe you mamma’s, as I owe you happiness. Am I not right to say you are my God?”
After she was gone he had a moment of repentance in which he regretted this weakness; for it was a weakness, a stupid sentimentalism, unworthy of a sensible man, who should not permit himself to be thus touched and involved. Why should he go and invite danger when he could be quiet, without any one giving him a thought? Was it not folly? The law wanted a criminal. Public curiosity demanded one. Why take away the one that they had? If he succeeded, would they not look for another? It was imprudence, and, to use the true word, madness. Now that he was no longer under the influence of Phillis’s beautiful, tearful eyes, he would not commit this imprudence. All the evening this idea strengthened, and when he went to bed his resolution was taken. He would not go to the judge.
But on awakening, he was surprised to find that this resolution of the evening was not that of the morning, and that this dual personality, which had already struck him, asserted itself anew. It was at night that he resolved to kill Caffie, and he committed the deed in the evening. It was in the morning that he had abandoned the idea, as it was in the morning that he revoked the decision made the previous evening not to go to the rescue of this poor boy. Of what then, was the will of man made, undulating like the sea, and variable as the wind, that he had the folly to believe his was firm?
At noon he went to the Palais de justice and sent in his card to the judge, on which he wrote these words: “Regarding the Caffie affair.”
He was received almost immediately, and briefly explained how, according to his opinion, Caffie was killed quickly and suddenly by a firm and skilful hand, that of a killer by profession.
“That is the conclusion of your report,” the judge said.
“What I could not point out in my report, as I did not know of the finding of the button and the opinion it has led to, is that there was no struggle between the assassin and the victim, as is generally supposed.”
And medically he demonstrated how this struggle was impossible.
The judge listened attentively, without a word, without interruption.
“Do you know this young man?” he asked.
“I have seen him only once; but I know his mother, who was my patient, and it is at her instigation that I decided to make this explanation to you.”
“Without doubt, it has its value, but I must tell you that it tends in no way to destroy our hypothesis.”
“But if it has no foundation?”
“I must tell you that you are negative, doctor, and not suggestive. We have a criminal and you have not. Do you see one?”
Saniel thought that the judge looked at him with a disagreeable persistency.
“No,” he said, sharply.
Then rising, he said, more calmly:
“That is not in my line.”
He had nothing to do but to retire, which he did; and on passing through the vestibule he said to himself that the magistrate was right. He believed that he held a criminal. Why should he let him go?
As for him, he had done what he could.
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