Chapter 28

“However, whether I defend myself or not, it will, no doubt, be all the same. Ah! if I were only a sailor, or even a marine, that would be another pair of sleeves; they would hear me! But now, I am nothing but a poor civilian; and here everybody knows civilians must have broad shoulders. Wrong or right, as soon as they are accused, they are convicted.”

The doctor seemed to have made up his mind; for he interrupted this flow of words, saying in his kindest voice,--

“Calm yourself, my friend. There is a test which will clearly establish your innocence. The ball that has struck Lieut. Champcey is still in the wound; and I am the man who is going to take it out, I promise you. We all here have rifles with conical balls; you are the only one who has an ordinary shot-gun with round balls, so there is no mistake possible. I do not know if you understand me?”

Yes, he understood, and so well, that his pale face turned livid, and he looked all around with frightened glances. For about six seconds he hesitated, counting his chances; then suddenly falling on his knees, his hands folded, and beating the ground with his forehead, he cried out,--

“I confess! Yes, it may be I who have hit the officer. I heard the bushes moving in his direction, and I fired at a guess. What a misfortune! O God, what a misfortune! Ah! _I_ would give my life to save his if I could. It was an accident, gentlemen, I swear. Such accidents happen every day in hunting; the papers are full of them. Great God! what an unfortunate man I am!”

The doctor had stepped back. He now ordered the two sailors who had arrested the man, to make sure of him, to bind him, and carry him to Saigon to prison. One of the gentlemen, he said, would write a few lines, which they must take with them. The man seemed to be annihilated.

“A misfortune is not a crime,” he sighed out. “I am an honest mechanic.”

“We shall see that in Saigon,” answered the surgeon.

And he hastened away to see if all the preparations had been made to carry the wounded man. In less than twenty minutes, and with that marvellous skill which is one of the characteristic features of good sailors, a solid litter had been constructed; the bottom formed a real mattress of dry leaves; and overhead a kind of screen had been made of larger leaves. When they put Daniel in, the pain caused him to utter a low cry of pain. This was the first sign of life he had given.

“And now, my friends,” said the doctor, “let us go! And bear in mind, if you shake the lieutenant, he is a dead man.”

It was hardly eight in the morning when the melancholy procession started homeward; and it was not until between two and three o’clock on the next morning that it entered Saigon, under one of those overwhelming rains which give one an idea of the deluge, and of which Cochin China has the monopoly. The sailors who carried the litter on which Daniel lay had walked eighteen hours without stopping, on footpaths which were almost impassable, and where every moment a passage had to be cut through impenetrable thickets of aloes, cactus, and jack-trees. Several times the officers had offered to take their places; but they had always refused, relieving each other, and taking all the time as ingenious precautions as a mother might devise for her dying infant. Although, therefore, the march lasted so long, the dying man felt no shock; and the old doctor said, quite touched, to the officers who were around him,--

“Good fellows, how careful they are! You might have put a full glass of water on the litter, and they would not have spilled a drop.”

Yes, indeed! Good people, rude and rough, no doubt, in many ways, coarse sometimes, and even brutal, bad to meet on shore the day after pay-day, or coming out from a drinking-shop, but keeping under the rough outside a heart of gold, childlike simplicity, and the sacred fire of noblest devotion. The fact was, they did not dare breathe heartily till after they had put their precious burden safe under the hospital porch.

Two officers who had hastened in advance had ordered a room to be made ready. Daniel was carried there; and when he had been gently put on a white, good bed, officers and sailors withdrew into an adjoining room to await the doctor’s sentence. The latter remained with the wounded man, with two assistant surgeons who had been roused in the meantime.

Hope was very faint. Daniel had recovered his consciousness during the journey, and had even spoken a few words to those around him, but incoherent words, the utterance of delirium. They had questioned him once or twice; but his answers had shown that he had no consciousness of the accident which had befallen him, nor of his present condition; so that the general opinion among the sailors who were waiting, and who all had more or less experience of shot-wounds, was, that fever would carry off their lieutenant before sunrise.

Suddenly, as if by magic, all was hushed, and not a word spoken.

The old surgeon had just appeared at the door of the sick-chamber; and, with a pleasant and hopeful smile on his lips, he said,--

“Our poor Champcey is doing as well as could be expected; and I would almost be sure of his recovery, if the great heat was not upon us.”

And, silencing the murmur of satisfaction which arose among them at this good news, he went on to say,--

“Because, after all, serious as the wound is, it is nothing in comparison with what it might have been; and what is more, gentlemen, I have the _corpus delicti_.”

He raised in the air, as he said this, a spherical ball, which he held between his thumb and forefinger.

“Another instance,” he said, “to be added to those mentioned by our great masters of surgery, of the oddities of projectiles. This one, instead of pursuing its way straight through the body of our poor friend, had turned around the ribs, and gone to its place close by the vertebral column. There I found it, almost on the surface; and nothing was needed to dislodge it but a slight push with the probe.”

The shot-gun taken from the hands of the murderer had been deposited in a corner of the large room: they brought it up, tried the ball, and found it to fit accurately.

“Now we have a tangible proof,” exclaimed a young ensign, “an unmistakable proof, that the wretch whom our men have caught is Daniel’s murderer. Ah, he might as well have kept his confession!”

But the old surgeon replied with a dark frown,--

“Gently, gentlemen, gently! Don’t let us be over-hasty in accusing a poor fellow of such a fearful crime, when, perhaps, he is guilty only of imprudence.”

“O doctor, doctor!” protested half a dozen voices.

“I beg your pardon! Don’t let us be hasty, I say; and let us consider, For an assassination there must be a motive, and an all-powerful motive; for, aside from the scaffold which he risks, no man is capable of killing another man solely for the purpose of shedding his blood. Now, in this case, I look in vain for any reason, which could have induced the man to commit a murder. He certainly did not expect to rob our poor comrade. But hatred, you say, or vengeance, perhaps! Well, that may be. But, before a man makes up his mind to shoot even the man he hates like a dog, he must have been cruelly offended by him; and, to bring this about, he must have been in contact, or must have stood in some relation to him. Now, I ask you, is it not far more probable that the murderer saw our friend Champcey this morning for the first time?”

“I beg your pardon, commandant! He knew him perfectly well.”

The man who interrupted the doctor was one of the sailors to whom the prisoner had been intrusted to carry him to prison. He came forward, twisting his worsted cap in his hands; and, when the old surgeon had ordered him to speak, he said,--

“Yes, the rascal knew the lieutenant as well as I know you, commandant; and the reason of it is, that the scoundrel was one of the emigrants whom we brought here eighteen months ago.”

“Are you sure of what you say?”

“As sure as I see you, commandant. At first my comrade and I did not recognize him, because a year and a half in this wretched country disfigure a man horribly; but, while we were carrying him to jail, we said to one another, ‘That is a head we have seen before.’ Then we made him talk; and he told us gradually, that he had been one of the passengers, and that he even knew my name, which is Baptist Lefloch.”

This deposition of the sailor made a great impression upon all the bystanders, except the old doctor. It is true he was looked upon, on board “The Conquest,” as one of the most obstinate men in holding on to his opinions.

“Do you know,” he asked the sailor, “if this man was one of the four or five who had to be put in irons during the voyage?”

“No, he was not one of them, commandant.”

“Did he ever have anything to do with Lieut. Champcey? Has he been reprimanded by him, or punished? Has he ever spoken to him?”

“Ah, commandant! that is more than I can tell.”

The old doctor slightly shrugged his shoulders, and said in a tone of indifference,--

“You see, gentlemen, this deposition is too vague to prove anything. Believe me, therefore, do not let us judge before the trial, and let us go to bed.”

Day was just breaking, pale and cool; the sailors disappeared one by one. The doctor was getting ready to lie down on a bed which he had ordered to be put up in a room adjoining that in which the wounded man was lying, when an officer came in. It was one of those who had been standing near Champcey; he, also, was a lieutenant.

“I should like to have a word in private with you, doctor,” he said.

“Very well,” replied the old surgeon. “Be kind enough to come up to my room.” And when they were alone, he locked the door, and said,--

“I am listening.”

The lieutenant thought a moment, like a man who looks for the best form in which to present an important idea, and then said,--

“Between us, doctor, do you believe it was an accident, or a crime?”

The surgeon hesitated visibly.

“I will tell you, but you only, frankly, that I do not believe it was an accident. But as we have no evidence”--

“Pardon me! I think I have evidence.”

“Oh!”

“You shall, judge yourself. When Daniel fell, he said, ‘This time, they have not missed me!’”

“Did he say so?”

“Word for word. And Saint Edme, who was farther from him than I was, heard it as distinctly as I did.”

To the great surprise of the lieutenant, the chief surgeon seemed only moderately surprised; his eyes, on the contrary, shone with that pleased air of a man who congratulates himself at having foreseen exactly what he now is told was the fact. He drew a chair up to the fireplace, in which a huge fire had been kindled to dry his clothes, sat down, and said,--

“Do you know, my dear lieutenant, that what you tell me is a matter of the greatest importance? What may we not conclude from those words, ‘This time they have not missed me’? In the first place, it proves that Champcey was fully aware that his life was in danger. Secondly, that plural, ‘They have not,’ shows that he knew he was watched and threatened by several people: hence the scamp whom we caught must have accomplices. In the third place, those words, ‘This time,’ establish the fact that his life has been attempted before.”

“That is just what I thought, doctor.”

The worthy old gentleman looked very grave and solemn, meditating deeply.

“Well, I,” he continued slowly, “I had a very clear presentiment of all that as soon as I looked at the murderer. Do you remember the man’s amazing impudence as long as he thought he could not be convicted of the crime? And then, when he found that the calibre of his gun betrayed him, how abject, how painfully humble, he became! Evidently such a man is capable of anything.”

“Oh! you need only look at him”--

“Yes, indeed! Well, as I was thus watching him, I instinctively recalled the two remarkable accidents which so nearly killed our poor Champcey,--that block that fell upon him from the skies, and that shipwreck in the Dong-Nai. But I was still doubtful. After what you tell me, I am sure.”

He seized the lieutenant’s hand; and, pressing it almost painfully, he went on,--

“Yes, I am ready to take my oath that this wretch is the vile tool of people who hate or fear Daniel Champcey; who are deeply interested in his death; and who, being too cowardly to do their own business, are rich enough to hire an assassin.”

The lieutenant was evidently unable to follow.

“Still, doctor,” he objected, “but just now you insisted”--

“Upon a diametrically opposite doctrine; eh?”

“Precisely.”

The old surgeon smiled, and said,--

“I had my reasons. The more I am persuaded that this man is an assassin, the less I am disposed to proclaim it on the housetops. He has accomplices, you think, do you?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, if we wish to reach them, we must by all means reassure them, leave them under the impression that everybody thinks it was an accident. If they are frightened, good-night. They will vanish before you can put out your hand to seize them.”

“Champcey might be questioned; perhaps he could furnish some information.”

But the doctor rose, and stopped him with an air of fury,--

“Question my patient! Kill him, you mean! No! If I am to have the wonderful good luck to pull him through, no one shall come near his bed for a month. And, moreover, it will be very fortunate indeed if in a month he is sufficiently recovered to keep up a conversation.”

He shook his head, and went on, after a moment’s silence,--

“Besides, it is a question whether Champcey would be disposed to say what he knows, or what he suspects. That is very doubtful. Twice he has been almost killed. Has he ever said a word about it? He probably has the same reasons for keeping silence now that he had then.”

Then, without noticing the officer’s objections, he added,--

“At all events, I will think it over, and go and see the judges as soon as they are out of bed. But I must ask you, lieutenant, to keep my secret till further order. Will you promise?”

“On my word, doctor.”

“Then you may rest assured our poor friend shall be avenged. And now, as I have barely two hours to rest, please excuse me.”

XXIV.

As soon as he was alone, the doctor threw himself on his bed; but he could not sleep. He had never in his life been so much puzzled. He felt as if this crime was the result of some terrible but mysterious intrigue; and the very fact of having, as he fancied, raised a corner of the veil, made him burn with the desire to draw it aside altogether.

“Why,” he said to himself, “why might not the scamp whom we hold be the author of the other two attempts likewise? There is nothing improbable in that supposition. The man, once engaged, might easily have been put on board ‘The Conquest;’ and he might have left France saying to himself that it would be odd indeed, if during a long voyage, or in a land like this, he did not find a chance to earn his money without running much risk.”

The result of his meditations was, that the chief surgeon appeared, at nine o’clock, at the office of the state attorney. He placed the matter before him very fully and plainly; and, an hour afterwards, he crossed the yard on his way to the prison, accompanied by a magistrate and his clerk.

“How is the man the sailors brought here last night?” he asked the jailer.

“Badly, sir. He would not eat.”

“What did he say when he got here?”

“Nothing. He seemed to be stupefied.”

“You did not try to make him talk?”

“Why, yes, a little. He answered that he had done some mischief; that he was in despair, and wished he were dead.”

The magistrate looked at the surgeon as if he meant to say, “Just as I expected from what you told me!” Then, turning again to the jailer, he said,--

“Show us to the prisoner’s cell.”

The murderer had been put into a small but tidy cell in the first story. When they entered, they found him seated on his bed, his heels on the bars, and his chin in the palm of his hands. As soon as he saw the surgeon, he jumped up, and with outstretched arms and rolling eyes, exclaimed,--

“The officer has died!”

“No,” replied the surgeon, “no! Calm yourself. The wound is a very bad one; but in a fortnight he will be up again.”

These words fell like a heavy blow upon the murderer. He turned pale; his lips quivered; and he trembled in all his limbs. Still he promptly mastered this weakness of the flesh; and falling on his knees, with folded hands, he murmured in the most dramatic manner,--

“Then I am not a murderer! O Great God, I thank thee!”

And his lips moved as if he were uttering a fervent prayer.

It was evidently a case of coarsest hypocrisy; for his looks contradicted his words and his voice. The magistrate, however, seemed to be taken in.

“You show proper feelings,” he said. “Now get up and answer me. What is your name?”

“Evariste Crochard, surnamed Bagnolet.”

“What age?”

“Thirty-five years.”

“Where were you born?”

“At Bagnolet, near Paris. And on that account, my friend”--

“Never mind. Your profession?”

The man hesitated. The magistrate added,--

“In your own interest I advise you to tell the truth. The truth always comes out in the end; and your position would be a very serious one if you tried to lie. Answer, therefore, directly.”

“Well, I am an engraver on metal; but I have been in the army; I served my time in the marines.”

“What brought you to Cochin China?”

“The desire to find work. I was tired of Paris. There was no work for engravers. I met a friend who told me the government wanted good workmen for the colonies.”

“What was your friend’s name?”

A slight blush passed over the man’s cheek’s, and he answered hastily,--

“I have forgotten his name.”

The magistrate seemed to redouble his attention, although he did not show it.

“That is very unfortunate for you,” he answered coldly. “Come, make an effort; try to remember.”

“I know I cannot; it is not worth the trouble.”

“Well; but no doubt you recollect the profession of the man who knew so well that government wanted men in Cochin China? What was it?”

The man, this time, turned crimson with rage, and cried out with extraordinary vehemence,--

“How do I know? Besides, what have I to do with my friend’s name and profession? I learned from him that they wanted workmen. I called at the navy department, they engaged me; and that is all.”

Standing quietly in one of the corners of the cell, the old chief surgeon lost not a word, not a gesture, of the murderer. And he could hardly refrain from rubbing his hands with delight as he noticed the marvellous skill of the magistrate in seizing upon all those little signs, which, when summed up at the end of an investigation, form an overwhelming mass of evidence against the criminal. The magistrate, in the meantime, went on with the same impassive air,--

“Let us leave that question, then, since it seems to irritate you, and let us go on to your residence here. How have you supported yourself at Saigon?”

“By my work, forsooth! _I_ have two arms; and I am not a good-for- nothing.”

“You have found employment, you say, as engraver on metal?”

“No.”

“But you said”--

Evariste Crochard, surnamed Bagnolet, could hardly conceal his impatience.

“If you won’t let me have my say,” he broke out insolently, “it isn’t worth while questioning me.”

The magistrate seemed not to notice it. He answered coldly,--

“Oh! talk as much as you want. I can wait.”

“Well, then, the day after we had landed, M. Farniol, the owner of the French restaurant, offered me a place as waiter. Of course I accepted, and stayed there a year. Now I wait at table at the Hotel de France, kept by M. Roy. You can send for my two masters; they will tell you whether there is any complaint against me.”

“They will certainly be examined. And where do you live?”

“At the Hotel de France, of course, where I am employed.”

The magistrate’s face looked more and more benevolent. He asked next,--

“And that is a good place,--to be waiter at a restaurant or a hotel?”

“Why, yes--pretty good.”

“They pay well; eh?”

“That depends,--sometimes they do; at other times they don’t. When it is the season”--

“That is so everywhere. But let us be accurate. You have been now eighteen months in Saigon; no doubt you have laid up something?”

The man looked troubled and amazed, as if he had suddenly found out that the apparent benevolence of the magistrate had led him upon slippery and dangerous ground. He said evasively,--

“If I have put anything aside, it is not worth mentioning.”

“On the contrary, let us mention it. How much about have you saved?”

Bagnolet’s looks, and the tremor of his lips, showed the rage that was devouring him.

“I don’t know,” he said sharply.

The magistrate made a gesture of surprise which was admirable. He added,--

“What! You don’t know how much you have laid up? That is too improbable! When people save money, one cent after another, to provide for their old age, they know pretty well”--

“Well, then, take it for granted that I have saved nothing.”

“As you like it. Only it is my duty to show you the effect of your declaration. You tell me you have not laid up any money, don’t you? Now, what would you say, if, upon search being made, the police should find a certain sum of money on your person or elsewhere?”

“They won’t find any.”

“So much the better for you; for, after what you said, it would be a terrible charge.”

“Let them search.”

“They are doing it now, and not only in your room, but also elsewhere. They will soon know if you have invested any money, or if you have deposited it with any of your acquaintances.”

“I may have brought some money with me from home.”

“No; for you have told me that you could no longer live in Paris, finding no work.”

Crochard, surnamed Bagnolet, made such a sudden and violent start, that the surgeon thought he was going to attack the magistrate. He felt he had been caught in a net the meshes of which were drawing tighter and tighter around him; and these apparently inoffensive questions assumed suddenly a terrible meaning.

“Just answer me in one word,” said the magistrate. “Did you bring any money from France, or did you not?”

The man rose, and his lips opened to utter a curse; but he checked himself, sat down again, and, laughing ferociously, he said,--

“Ah! you would like to ‘squeeze’ me, and make me cut my own throat. But luckily, I can see through you; and I refuse to answer.”

“You mean you want to consider. Have a care! You need not consider in order to tell the truth.”

And, as the man remained obstinately silent, the magistrate began again after a pause, saying,--

“You know what you are accused of? They suspect that you fired at Lieut. Champcey with intent to kill.”

“That is an abominable lie!”

“So you say. How did you hear that the officers of ‘The Conquest’ had arranged a large hunting-party?”

“I had heard them speak of it at _table d’hote_.”

“And you left your service in order to attend this hunt, some twelve miles from Saigon? That is certainly singular.”

“Not at all; for I am very fond of hunting. And then I thought, if I could bring back a large quantity of game, I would probably be able to sell it very well.”

“And you would have added the profit to your other savings, wouldn’t you?”

Crochard, surnamed Bagnolet, was stung by the point of this ironical question, as if he had received a sharp cut. But, as he said nothing, the magistrate continued,--

“Explain to us how the thing happened.”