Chapter 22

RECORDER. Step forward.

MOUZON [_to the recorder_] Recorder, write. [_Very quickly, stuttering_] In the year nineteen hundred and ninety-seven, etc. Before me, Mouzon, examining magistrate, in the presence of--and so on--the Sieur Etchepare Jean-Pierre was brought to our office, his first appearance being recorded in the report of--and so on. We may mention that the accused, having consented to interrogation in the absence of his advocate--[_To Etchepare_] You do consent, don't you?

ETCHEPARE. I am innocent. I don't need any advocate.

MOUZON [_resumes his stuttering_] We dispensed therewith. In consequence of which we have immediately proceeded as below to the interrogation of the said Sieur Etchepare Jean-Pierre. [_To Etchepare_] Etchepare, on the occasion of your first appearance you refused to reply, which wasn't perhaps very sensible of you, but you were within your rights. You lost your temper and I was even obliged to remind you of the respect due to the law. Are you going to speak to-day?

ETCHEPARE [_disturbed_] Yes, your worship.

MOUZON. Ah! Aha! my fine fellow, you are not so proud to-day!

ETCHEPARE. No. I've been thinking. I want to get out of this as quickly as possible.

MOUZON. Well, well, for my part, I ask nothing more than to be able to set you at liberty. So far we understand each other excellently. Let us hope it'll last. Sit down. And first of all I advise you to give up trying to father the crime onto a band of gipsies. The witness Bridet, who has business relations with you, has endeavored, no doubt at your instigation, to induce us to accept this fable. I warn you he has not succeeded.

ETCHEPARE. I don't know what Bridet may have told you.

MOUZON. Oh! You deny it? So much the better! Come, you are cleverer than I thought! Was it you who murdered Goyetche?

ETCHEPARE. No, Monsieur.

MOUZON. You had an interest in his death?

ETCHEPARE. No, Monsieur.

MOUZON. Oh, really! I thought you had to pay him a life annuity.

ETCHEPARE [_after a moment's hesitation_] Yes, Monsieur.

MOUZON. Then you had an interest in his death? [_Silence_] Eh! You don't answer? Well, let us continue. You said to a witness, the young woman--the young woman Gracieuse Mendione--"It is really too stupid to be forced to pay money to that old swine."

ETCHEPARE [_without conviction_] That's not true.

MOUZON. It's not true! So the witness is a liar, eh?

ETCHEPARE. I don't know.

MOUZON. You don't know. [_A pause_] You thought that Goyetche had lived too long?

ETCHEPARE. No, Monsieur.

MOUZON. No, Monsieur. Then why did you say to another witness, Piarrech Artola, why did you say, in speaking of your creditor, "It's too much, the Almighty has forgotten him"?

ETCHEPARE. I didn't say that.

MOUZON. You didn't say that. So this witness is a liar too! Answer me. Is he a liar? [_Silence_] You don't answer. It's just as well. Come now, Etchepare, why do you persist in these denials--eh? Isn't it all plain enough? You are avaricious, interested, greedy for gain--

ETCHEPARE. It's so hard to make a living.

MOUZON. You are a man of violent temper--from time to time you get drunk, and then you become dangerous. You have been four times convicted for assault and wounding--you are over-ready with your knife. Is that the truth or isn't it? You were tired of paying--for nothing--a biggish annual sum to this old man. The time for payment was approaching; you were pressed for money; you felt that Goyetche had lived too long, and you killed him. It's so obvious--eh? Isn't it true?

ETCHEPARE [_gradually recovering himself_] I did not murder him.

MOUZON. We won't juggle with words. Did you pay anyone else to kill him?

ETCHEPARE. I had nothing to do with his death. You yourself say I was pressed for money. So how could I have paid anyone to kill him?

MOUZON. Then you did it yourself.

ETCHEPARE. That's a lie.

MOUZON. Listen, Etchepare--you will confess sooner or later. Already you are weakening in your defence.

ETCHEPARE. If I was to shout, you'd say I was play-acting.

MOUZON. I tell you sooner or later you will change your tune. Already you admit facts which constitute a serious charge against you.

ETCHEPARE. That's true; I said it without thinking of the consequences.

MOUZON. Ah, but you ought to think of the consequences; for they may be peculiarly serious for you.

ETCHEPARE. I'm not afraid of death.

MOUZON. The death of others--

ETCHEPARE. Nor my own.

MOUZON. So much the better. But you are a Basque; you are a Catholic. After death there is hell.

ETCHEPARE. I'm not afraid of hell; I've done nothing wrong.

MOUZON. There is the dishonor that will fall on your children. You love your children, do you not? Eh? They will ask after you--they love you--because they don't know--yet--

ETCHEPARE [_suddenly weeping_] My poor little children! My poor little children!

MOUZON. Come, then! All good feeling isn't extinct in you. Believe me, Etchepare, the jury will be touched by your confession, by your repentance--you will escape the supreme penalty. You are still young--you have long years before you in which to expiate your crime. You may earn your pardon and perhaps you may once again see those children, who will have forgiven you. Believe me--believe me--in your own interests even, confess! [_Mouzon has approached Etchepare during the foregoing; he places his hands on the latter's shoulders; he continues, with great gentleness_] Come, isn't it true? If you can't speak, you've only to nod your head. Eh? It's true? Come, since I know it's true. Eh? I can't hear what you say. It was you, wasn't it? It was you!

ETCHEPARE [_still weeping_] It was not me, sir! I swear it was not me! I swear it!

MOUZON [_in a hard voice, going back to his desk_] Oh, you needn't swear. You have only to tell me the truth.

ETCHEPARE. I am telling the truth--I am--I can't say I did it when I didn't!

MOUZON. Come, come! We shall get nothing out of you to-day. [_To the recorder_] Read him his interrogatory and let him be taken back to his cell. One minute--Etchepare!

ETCHEPARE. Monsieur?

MOUZON. There is one way to prove your innocence, since you profess to be innocent. Prove, in one way or another, that you were elsewhere than at Irissary on the night of the crime, and I will set you at liberty. Where were you?

ETCHEPARE. Where was I?

MOUZON. I ask you where you were on the night of Ascension Day. Were you at home?

ETCHEPARE. Yes.

MOUZON. Is that really the truth?

ETCHEPARE. Yes.

MOUZON [_rising, rather theatrically, pointing at Etchepare_] Now, Etchepare, that condemns you. I know that you went out that night. When you were arrested you said to your wife, "Don't for the world admit that I went out last night." Come, I must tell you everything. Someone saw you--a servant. She told the gendarmes that as she was saying good-night to a young man from Iholdy, with whom she had been dancing, at ten o'clock at night, she saw you a few hundred yards from your house. What have you to say to that?

ETCHEPARE. It is true--I did go out.

MOUZON [_triumphantly_] Ah! Now, my good man, we've had some trouble in getting you to say something. But I can read it in your face when you are lying--I can read it in your face in letters as big as that. The proof is that there was no witness who saw you go out--neither your servant nor anyone else; and yet I would have sworn to it with my head under the knife. Come, we have made a little progress now. [_To the recorder_] Have you put down carefully his first admission? Good. [_To Etchepare_] Now think for a moment. We will continue our little conversation. [_He goes towards the fireplace, rubbing his hands, pours himself a glass of spirits, swallows it, gives a sigh of gratification, and returns to his chair_]

FIRST GENDARME [_to his comrade_] A cunning one, he is!

SECOND GENDARME. You're right!

MOUZON. Let us continue. Come, now that you've got so far, confess the whole thing! Here are these good gendarmes who want to go to their grub. [_The gendarmes, the recorder, and Mouzon laugh_] You confess? No? Then tell me, why did you insist on saying that you remained at home that night?

ETCHEPARE. Because I'd told the gendarmes so and I didn't want to make myself out a liar.

MOUZON. And why did you tell the gendarmes that?

ETCHEPARE. Because I thought they'd arrest me on account of the smuggling.

MOUZON. Good. Then you didn't go to Irissary that night?

ETCHEPARE. No.

MOUZON. Where did you go?

ETCHEPARE. Up the mountain, to look for a horse that had got away the night before, one of a lot we were taking to Spain.

MOUZON. Good. Excellent. That isn't badly thought out--that can be maintained. You went to look for a horse lost on the mountain, a horse which escaped from a lot you were smuggling over the frontier on the previous night. Excellent. If that is true, there is nothing for it but to set you at liberty before we are much older. Now to prove that you've simply to tell me to whom you sold the horse; we shall send for the purchaser, and if he confirms your statement, I will sign your discharge. To whom did you sell the horse?

ETCHEPARE. I didn't sell it.

MOUZON. You gave it away? You did something with it!

ETCHEPARE. No--I didn't find it again.

MOUZON. You didn't find it again! The devil! That's not so good. Come! Let's think of something else. You didn't go up the mountain all alone?

ETCHEPARE. Yes, all alone.

MOUZON. Bad luck! Another time, you see, you ought to take a companion. Were you out long?

ETCHEPARE. All night. I got in at five in the morning.

MOUZON. A long time.

ETCHEPARE. We aren't well off, and a horse is worth a lot of money.

MOUZON. Yes. But you didn't spend the whole night on the mountain without meeting someone--shepherds or customs officers?

ETCHEPARE. It was raining in torrents.

MOUZON. Then you met no one?

ETCHEPARE. No one.

MOUZON. I thought as much. [_In a tone of disappointed reproach, with apparent pity_] Tell me, Etchepare, do you take the jurymen for idiots? [_Silence_] So that's all you've been able to think of? I said you were intelligent just now. I take that back. But think what you've told me--a rigmarole like that. Why, a child of eight would have done better. It's ridiculous I tell you--ridiculous. The jurymen will simply shrug their shoulders when they hear it. A whole night out of doors, in the pouring rain, to look for a horse you don't find--and without meeting a living soul--no shepherds, no customs officers--and you go home at five in the morning--although at this time of the year it's daylight by then--yes, and before then--but no, no one saw you and you saw no one. So everybody was stricken with blindness, eh? A miracle happened, and everyone was blind that night. You don't ask me to believe that? No? Why not? It's quite as probable as what you do tell me. So everybody wasn't blind? [_The recorder bursts into a laugh; the gendarmes imitate him_] You see what it's worth, your scheme of defence! You make the gaolers and my recorder laugh. Don't you agree with me that your new method of defence is ridiculous?

ETCHEPARE [_abashed, under his breath_] I don't know.

MOUZON. Well, if you don't know, we do! Come now! I have no advice to give you. You repeat that at the trial and see what effect you produce. But why not confess? Why not confess? I really don't understand your obstinacy. I repeat, I really do not understand it.

ETCHEPARE. Well, if I didn't do it, am I to say all the same that I did?

MOUZON. So you persist in your story of the phantom horse? You persist in it, do you?

ETCHEPARE. How do I know? How should I know what I ought to say? I should do better not to say anything at all--everything I say is turned against me!

MOUZON. Because the stories you invent are altogether too improbable--because you think me more of a fool than I am in thinking that I am going to credit such absurd inventions. I preferred your first method; at least you had two witnesses to speak for you--two witnesses who were not worth very much, it's true, but witnesses all the same. You've made a change; well, you are within your rights. Let us stick to the lost horse.

ETCHEPARE. Well, then? [_A long pause_]

MOUZON. Come! Out with it!

ETCHEPARE [_without emphasis, hesitation, gazing at the recorder as though to read in his eyes whether he was replying as he should_] Well, I'm going to tell you, Monsieur. You are right--it isn't true--I didn't go up into the mountain. What I said first of all was the truth--I didn't go out at all. Just now I was all muddled. At first I denied everything, even what was true--I was so afraid of you. Then, when you told me--I don't remember what it was--my head's all going like--I don't know--I don't remember--but all the same I know I am innocent. Well, just now, I almost wished I could admit I was guilty if only you'd leave me in peace. What was I saying? I don't remember. Ah, yes--when you told me--whatever it was, I've forgotten--it seemed to me I'd better say I'd gone out--and I told a lie. But [_sincerely_] what I swear to you is that I am not the guilty man. I swear it, I swear it!

MOUZON. I repeat, I ask nothing better than to be able to believe it. So now it's understood, is it, that you were at home?

ETCHEPARE. Yes, Monsieur.

MOUZON. We shall hear your wife directly. You have no other witnesses to call?

ETCHEPARE. No, Monsieur.

MOUZON. Good. Take the accused away--but remain in the Court. I shall probably need him directly for a confrontation. His interrogatory isn't finished.

_The gendarmes lead Etchepare away._