The Crime of the Boulevard, Page 4

  CHAPTER IV.

  M. DESBRIERE now began the investigation. He questioned the porter andportress, while he studied the salon in detail. Bernardet roamed about,examining at very close range each and every object in the room, as adog sniffs and scents about for a trail.

  "What kind of a man was your lodger?" was the first question.

  Moniche replied in a tone which showed that he felt that his tenant hadbeen accused of something.

  "Oh! Monsieur le Commissaire, a very worthy man, I swear it!"

  "The best man in the world," added his wife, wiping her eyes.

  "I am not inquiring about his moral qualities," M. Desbriere said. "WhatI want to know is, how did he live and whom did he receive?"

  "Few people. Very few," the porter answered. "The poor man likedsolitude. He lived here eight years. He received a few friends, but, Irepeat, a very small number."

  M. Rovere had rented the apartment in 1888, he installed himself in hisrooms, with his pictures and books. The porter was much astonished atthe number of pictures and volumes which the new lodger brought. Ittook a long time to settle, as M. Rovere was very fastidious andpersonally superintended the hanging of his canvases and the placing ofhis books. He thought that he must have been an artist, although he saidthat he was a retired merchant. He had heard him say one day that he hadbeen Consul to some foreign country--Spain or South America.

  He lived quite simply, although they thought that he must be rich. Washe a miser? Not at all. Very generous, on the contrary. But, plainly, heshunned the world. He had chosen their apartment because it was in aretired spot, far from the Parisian boulevards. Four or five yearsbefore a woman, clothed in black, had come there. A woman who seemedstill young--he had not seen her face, which was covered with a heavyblack veil--she had visited M. Rovere quite often. He always accompaniedher respectfully to the door when she went away. Once or twice he hadgone out with her in a carriage. No, he did not know her name. M.Rovere's life was regulated with military precision. He usually heldhimself upright--of late sickness had bowed him somewhat; he went outwhenever he was able, going as far as the Bois and back. Then, afterbreakfasting, he shut himself up in his library and read and wrote. Hepassed nearly all of his evenings at home.

  "He never made us wait up for him, as he never went to the theatre,"said Moniche.

  The malady from which he suffered, and which puzzled the physicians, hadseized him on his return from a Summer sojourn at Aix-les-Bains for hishealth. The neighbors had at once noticed the effect produced by thecure. When he went away he had been somewhat troubled with rheumatism,but when he returned he was a confirmed sufferer. Since the beginning ofSeptember he had not been out, receiving no visits, except from hisdoctor, and spending whole days in his easy chair or upon his lounge,while Mme. Moniche read the daily papers to him.

  "When I say that he saw no one," said the porter, "I make a mistake.There was that gentleman"----

  And he looked at his wife.

  "What gentleman?"

  Mme. Moniche shook her head, as if he ought not to answer.

  "Of whom do you speak?" repeated the Commissary, looking at both ofthem.

  At this moment, Bernardet, standing on the threshold of the libraryadjoining the salon, looked searchingly about the room in which M.Rovere ordinarily spent his time, and which he had probably left to meethis fate. His ear was as quick to hear as his eye to see, and as heheard the question he softly approached and listened for the answer.

  "What gentleman? and what did he do?" asked the Commissary, a littlebrusquely, for he noticed a hesitation to reply in both Moniche and hiswife.

  "Well, and what does this mean?"

  "Oh, well, Monsieur le Commissaire, it is this--perhaps it meansnothing," and the concierge went on to tell how, one evening, a veryfine gentleman, and very polished, moreover, had come to the house andasked to see M. Rovere; he had gone to his apartment, and had remained along time. It was, he thought, about the middle of October, and Mme.Moniche, who had gone upstairs to light the gas, met the man as he wascoming out of M. Rovere's rooms, and had noticed at the first glance thetroubled air of the individual. (Moniche already called the gentleman_the 'individual,'_) who was very pale and whose eyes were red.

  Then, at some time or other, the individual had made another visit to M.Rovere. More than once the portress had tried to learn his name. Up tothis moment she had not succeeded. One day she asked M. Rovere who itwas, and he very shortly asked her what business it was of hers. She didnot insist, but she watched the individual with a vague doubt.

  "Instinct. Monsieur; my instinct told me"----

  "Enough," interrupted M. Desbriere; "if we had only instinct to guide uswe should make some famous blunders."

  "Oh, it was not only by instinct, Monsieur."

  "Ah! ah! let us hear it"----

  Bernardet, with his eyes fastened upon Mme. Moniche, did not lose asyllable of her story, which her husband occasionally interrupted tocorrect her or to complete a statement, or to add some detail. Thecorpse, with mouth open and fiery, ferocious eyes, seemed also tolisten.

  Mme. Moniche, as we already know, entered M. Rovere's apartment whenevershe wished. She was his landlady, his reader, his friend. Rovere wasbrusque, but he was good. So it was nothing strange when the woman,urged by curiosity, suddenly appeared in his rooms, for him to say: "Ah,you here? Is that you? I did not call you." An electric bell connectedthe rooms with the concierge lodge. Usually she would reply: "I thoughtI heard the bell." And she would profit by the occasion to fix up thefire, which M. Rovere, busy with his reading or writing, had forgottento attend to. She was much attached to him. She did not wish to have himsuffer from the cold, and recently had entered as often as possible,under one pretext or another, knowing that he was ill, and desiring tobe at hand in case of need. When, one evening, about eight days before,she had entered the room while the visitor, whom Moniche called theindividual, was there, the portress had been astonished to see the twomen standing before Rovere's iron safe, the door wide open and bothlooking at some papers spread out on the desk.

  Rovere, with his sallow, thin face, was holding some papers in his hand,and the other was bent over, looking with eager eyes at--Mme. Monichehad seen them well--some rent rolls, bills and deeds. Perceiving Mme.Moniche, who stood hesitating on the threshold, M. Rovere frowned,mechanically made a move as if to gather up the scattered papers. Butthe portress said, "Pardon!" and quickly withdrew. Only--ah! only--shehad time to see, to see plainly the iron safe, the heavy doors standingopen, the keys hanging from the lock, and M. Rovere in his dressinggown; the official papers, yellow and blue, others bearing seals and aribbon, lying there before him. He seemed in a bad humor, but saidnothing. Not a word.

  "And the other one?"

  The other man was as pale as M. Rovere. He resembled him, moreover. Itwas, perhaps, a relative. Mme. Moniche had noticed the expression withwhich he contemplated those papers and the fierce glance which he castat her when she pushed open the door without knowing what sight awaitedher. She had gone downstairs, but she did not at once tell her husbandabout what she had seen. It was some time afterward. The individual hadcome again. He remained closeted with M. Rovere for some hours. Thesick man was lying on the lounge. The portress had heard them throughthe door talking in low tones. She did not know what they said. Shecould hear only a murmur. And she had very good ears, too. But she heardonly confused sounds, not one plain word. When, however, the visitor wasgoing away she heard Rovere say to him: "I ought to have told allearlier."

  Did the dead man possess a secret which weighed heavily upon him, andwhich he shared with that other? And the other? Who was he? Perhaps anaccomplice. Everything she had said belonged to the Commissary of Policeand to the press. She had told her story with omissions, with timorouslooks, with sighs of doubts and useless gestures. Bernardet listened,noting each word, the purposes of this portress, the melodramatic gossipin certain information in which he verified the precision--all t
his wasengraven on his brain, as earlier in the day the expression of the deadman's eyes had been reflected in the kodak.

  He tried to distinguish, as best he could, the undeniable facts in thisfirst deposition, when a woman of the people, garrulous, indiscreet,gossiping and zealous, has the joy of playing a role. He mentallyexamined her story, with the interruptions which her husband made whenshe accused the individual. He stopped her with a look, placing his handon her arm and said: "One must wait! One does not know. He had theappearance of a worthy man." The woman, pointing out with a grandgesture, the body lying upon the floor, said: "Oh, well! And did not M.Rovere have the appearance of a worthy man also? And did it hinder himfrom coming to that?"

  Over Bernardet's face a mocking little smile passed.

  "He always had the appearance of a worthy man," he said, looking at thedead man, "and he even seemed like a worthy man who looked at rascalswith courage. I am certain," slowly added the officer, "that if onecould know the last thought in that brain which thinks no more, couldsee in those unseeing eyes the last image upon which they looked, onewould learn all that need be known about that individual of whom youspeak and the manner of his death."

  "Possibly he killed himself," said the Commissary.

  But the hypothesis of suicide was not possible, as Bernardet remarked tohim, much to the great contempt of the reporters who were covering theirnotebooks with a running handwriting and with hieroglyphics. The woundwas too deep to have been made by the man's own hand. And, besides, theywould find the weapon with which that horrible gash had been made, nearat hand. There was no weapon of any kind near the body. The murdererhad either carried it away with him in his flight or he had thrown itaway in some other part of the apartment. They would soon know.

  They need not even wait for an autopsy to determine that it was anassassination. "That is evident," interrupted the Commissary; "theautopsy will be made, however."

  And, with an insistence which surprised the Commissary a little,Bernardet, in courteous tones, evidently haunted by one particular idea,begged and almost supplicated M. Desbriere to send for the Attorney forthe Republic, so that the corpse could be taken as soon as possible tothe Morgue.

  "Poor man!" exclaimed Mme. Moniche. "To the Morgue! To the Morgue!"Bernardet calmed her with a word.

  "It is necessary. It is the law. Oh, Monsieur le Commissaire, let us doit quickly, quickly. I will tell you why. Time will be gained--I mean tosay, saved--and the criminal found."

  Then, while M. Desbriere sent an officer to the telephone office to askfor the Attorney for the Republic to come as quickly as possible to theBoulevard de Clichy, Mme. Moniche freed her mind to the reporters inregard to some philosophical considerations upon human destiny, whichcondemned in so unforeseen, so odiously brutal a manner, a good lodger,as respectable as M. Rovere, to be laid upon a slab at the Morgue, likea thief or a vagabond--he who went out but seldom, and who "loved hishome so much."

  "The everlasting antithesis of life!" replied Paul Rodier, who made anote of his reflection.