As Madame Lachesnaye walked in, he immediately turned on the charm; he was well versed in the social niceties and made it his duty to attend gatherings of the elite in Rouen and places near by.
‘Please take a seat, madame,’ he said, proffering a chair.
Madame Lachesnaye moved forward. She was dressed in mourning, a young woman with fair hair, looking unwell, but also rather surly and unattractive. To Monsieur Lachesnaye, who also had fair hair and who also looked unwell, Monsieur Denizet extended only token politeness; he was even rather brusque. Lachesnaye had been appointed as judge in the Court of Appeal when he was only thirty-six and had even received a decoration, thanks to the influence of both his father-in-law and his father, who had also been a magistrate and had served on a number of important joint committees. To Denizet, Lachesnaye was the prime example of a lawyer who had got where he was as a result of favouritism and money, one of those undeserving individuals who had obtained a position and was assured of rapid advancement through family connections and an inherited fortune, whereas he, lacking both wealth and connections, was reduced to constantly begging favours in an endless, uphill struggle for promotion. So he derived great satisfaction from having Lachesnaye there in front of him in his office, aware of his authority, of the absolute power he exercised over the freedom of others, and knowing that, if such were his whim, he had only to pronounce a word for a witness to stand accused and be immediately arrested.
‘Madame,’ he continued, ‘please forgive me for having to inflict this tragic affair upon you yet again; I realize how distressing it must be for you. I am sure that you are as keen as we ourselves to have the matter resolved and to see the guilty party brought to justice.’
He nodded to the clerk, a tall, sallow-looking youth with a lean face. The interview began.
No sooner had Monsieur Denizet begun to put his questions to Madame Lachesnaye, however, than her husband, who by then had sat down, as it was quite plain that no one was going to invite him to do so, insisted on answering on her behalf. He made it very obvious how bitterly he resented his father-in-law’s will. It was beyond belief! There were so many bequests, and all of them so generous that they amounted to almost half the estate, an estate worth three million, seven hundred thousand francs! Nearly all these bequests were to people nobody knew, mainly to women of inferior status. There was even one bequest to a girl who sold violets on a doorstep in the Rue du Rocher. It was outrageous. As soon as the investigation was over, he intended to have this invidious will declared null and void.
Monsieur Lachesnaye went on at great length, airing his grievances through clenched teeth and revealing himself for what he was - a fool, a petty-minded provincial, driven by pure greed. Monsieur Denizet sat looking at him with his big, bright eyes, his eyelids half closed, and his lips drawn tightly together in an expression of jealous contempt for this nonentity who was not content with his two millions and whom, thanks to his acquired fortune, he would one day see clad in purple as a High Court judge.
‘That, I think, would be ill advised, monsieur,’ said Denizet, when Lachesnaye had at last finished. ‘The will could only be overturned if the total bequests amounted to more than half of the estate, which is not the case.’
Then, turning towards his clerk, he said:
‘I hope you are not writing all this down, Laurent.’
The clerk gave him a quick smile, as much as to say that he knew what was expected of him.
‘Surely,’ continued Monsieur Lachesnaye even more acrimoniously, ‘you don’t expect me to stand by and see La Croix-de-Maufras go to this Roubaud couple! A gift like that to the daughter of one of his servants! Why, for goodness’ sake? What right does she have to it! Besides, if it’s proved that they had a hand in the crime ...’
Monsieur Denizet quickly returned to the subject of his investigation.
‘Do you think they were involved?’ he asked.
‘Good heavens!’ Lachesnaye exclaimed, ‘if they knew what was in the will, they had an obvious interest in our poor father’s death ... What’s more, they were the last people to speak to him ... It all seems very suspicious.’
The magistrate was becoming irritated; he had allowed himself to be side-tracked from his new line of inquiry. He turned towards Berthe.
‘Tell me, madame,’ he said, ‘do you consider that your former school friend would be capable of such a crime?’
Madame Lachesnaye glanced at her husband before answering. They had been married for only a few months, and the marriage had done nothing to improve the unpleasant, acerbic nature of either of them. They each grew nastier by the day. Lachesnaye had so turned his wife against Séverine that, in order to get the house back, she would have been quite prepared to see her arrested there and then.
‘All I will say, monsieur,’ she eventually replied, ‘is that the person you refer to had some rather disagreeable tendencies as a child.’
‘Am I to understand that she misbehaved when she was at Doinville?’
‘That she misbehaved! Certainly not, monsieur! Misbehaviour was something my father would never have allowed!’
This was the voice of prudish, middle-class respectability, incensed at the mere thought of anything untoward. Madame Lachesnaye prided herself on being a paragon of virtue, respected throughout Rouen and welcomed at every door.
‘Even so,’ she continued, ‘some people have a certain ingrained wantonness and ease of manners ... Suffice it to say, monsieur, that a number of things which I would never have thought possible now seem to me to be beyond doubt.’
Monsieur Denizet was again beginning to grow irritated. This was not the line of inquiry he had intended to pursue. The fact that Monsieur and Madame Lachesnaye continued to insist on raising these issues seemed to be a challenge to his authority, a questioning of his intelligence.
‘Come, come!’ he exclaimed. ‘Let us be reasonable. People like the Roubauds do not kill someone like your father simply to get their hands on an inheritance. If this had been the case there would have been other signs, some indication that they were anxious to have the property made over to them. No, the motive is insufficient. There would have to have been some other reason; but there isn’t one, and what you are saying doesn’t provide one either. Besides, you have only to consider the facts of the case to see that from a practical point of view it is impossible. No one saw the Roubauds get into the coupé, and one witness assures us that they returned to their own compartment. They were certainly in their own compartment when the train arrived at Barentin. So we would need to assume that they managed to get from their carriage to the President’s, three carriages further down the train, and back again, in a matter of minutes, while the train was travelling at full speed.9 Is this likely? I have interviewed a number of engine drivers and guards, who all tell me that one would need to be well practised to have the strength and the nerve to perform such an operation. Madame Roubaud would certainly not have been up to it, which means that the husband would have had to risk it on his own. In order to do what? To kill a benefactor who had just got them out of a serious mess? No, it simply does not make sense. We need to look elsewhere - for a man who boarded the train at Rouen, who got out at the next stop and who had recently threatened to kill the victim ...’
This was the new line of inquiry that had aroused his interest, and he was about to expand when the usher’s head appeared round the door. Before he had a chance to speak, however, a gloved hand pushed the door wide open and in walked a fair-haired lady, very elegantly attired in mourning. She was in her fifties but still strikingly good-looking, with the distinctive charm and opulent grace of a goddess in an antique painting.
‘Here I am at last, my dear judge. Do forgive me for being late. The roads are impassable! The three leagues from Doinville to Rouen seemed like six today.’
Monsieur Denizet courteously rose to his feet.
‘I trust you have been keeping well since I saw you last Sunday, madame.’
‘Yes,
very well indeed ... Tell me, my dear judge, have you recovered from the shock my coachman gave you? He said that he nearly overturned the carriage as he was driving you back, about two kilometres from the chateau.’
‘A mere bump in the road, madame! I had forgotten all about it... Please, do take a seat. As I said to Madame de Lachesnaye a moment ago, I must apologize for distressing you yet again over this appalling business.’
‘Heavens above! It has to be done ... Good afternoon, Berthe. Good afternoon, Lachesnaye!’
The new arrival was Madame Bonnehon, the murdered man’s sister. She kissed her niece and shook hands with the husband. She had been a widow since she was thirty. Her husband had owned a factory and had left her a large fortune, although she was already very wealthy in her own right, having inherited the Doinville estate when the family property had been divided between her and her brother. She had led a very happy life there and had had numerous love affairs, so it was said, but she had always been so open and forthright in her dealings with other people that she continued to be regarded with great respect in the higher circles of Rouen society. Her lovers had all been men in the legal profession, to whom she was drawn by a mixture of chance encounter and natural inclination. For twenty-five years she had held receptions at the château for members of the judiciary. Important people from the law courts were driven out to Doinville and back again to Rouen in what seemed a never-ending round of parties and celebrations. Even now she had not lost her taste for such things, and it was said that she had a maternal attachment to a young barrister who was the son of a judge at the Court of Appeal, Monsieur Chaumettes; she was seeking to obtain promotion for the son and showered invitations and attention upon the father. She was also still very close to an old friend from earlier days who was likewise a judge at the Court of Appeal, a certain Monsieur Desbazeilles, a bachelor and something of a celebrity in literary circles; his finely wrought sonnets were frequently quoted. For years she had kept a room at Doinville at his permanent disposal. He was now over sixty and was still regularly invited to dine, as a friend of long standing, although latterly his rheumatism allowed him to indulge in little more than nostalgia. So Madame Bonnehon continued to reign like a queen, as gracious as ever despite the threat of advancing years, and no one dreamed of trying to usurp her position. The first time she sensed she might have a rival had been during the previous winter, when she was invited to a reception by Madame Leboucq, the wife of yet another Appeal Court judge, a tall dark-haired woman of thirty-four and very good-looking, whose house had become a centre of attraction for people at Court. This lent a certain wistfulness to her usually cheery disposition.
‘If I may, madame,’ continued Monsieur Denizet, ‘I would like to ask you a few questions.’
He had finished questioning the Lachesnayes but had not yet asked them to leave. His office, usually so cold and uninviting, was beginning to feel more like a cosy drawing room. The clerk, with an air of resignation, once again prepared himself to take down the notes.
‘One of our witnesses has mentioned a telegram which your brother allegedly received, asking him to come to Doinville urgently. We have found no trace of this telegram. Had you by any chance written to him yourself, madame?’
Madame Bonnehon, remaining perfectly relaxed, smiled pleasantly and began to answer the magistrate, as if she were merely engaging in a friendly chat.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I hadn’t written to my brother. I was expecting him and I knew that he intended to come, but no date had been arranged. He usually just turned up without warning, nearly always by the night train. He stayed in a cottage in the grounds with a private lane leading to it, so we didn’t even hear him arrive. He would hire a carriage at Barentin, and no one saw anything of him till the following day, sometimes quite late on. It was like having a neighbour who had moved away and who came back for the occasional flying visit. The reason I was expecting him this time was that he had promised to bring me ten thousand francs, which was money he owed me from a business transaction. I know for certain that he had the ten thousand francs in his possession, which is why I’ve always thought that the reason he was killed was purely and simply to steal his money.’
The magistrate remained silent for a moment or two. Then, looking her straight in the eyes, he said:
‘What is your opinion of Madame Roubaud and her husband?’
Madame Bonnehon protested vehemently.
‘My dear Monsieur Denizet,’ she exclaimed, ‘can we please not waste our time discussing the Roubauds! They are a perfectly decent couple! Séverine was a lovely girl, very quiet and well behaved, and extremely pretty what’s more, which is no bad thing. In my opinion, since you insist on hearing it again, both she and her husband are quite incapable of a criminal act.’
Monsieur Denizet nodded approvingly. He looked triumphantly at Madame Lachesnaye, who, feeling wounded to the quick by this last remark from Madame Bonnehon, could not refrain from intervening.
‘Dearest Aunt,’ she said, ‘I think you are very easily pleased.’
Madame Bonnehon contented herself by replying in her usual, plain-spoken manner.
‘I think you have said enough, Berthe; we must agree to differ. Séverine was a very happy child, always laughing, and what harm is there in that, for goodness’ sake? I know exactly what you and your husband think of her, but it’s only money that makes you so upset about your father leaving her the house at La Croix-de-Maufras. He left it to Séverine because he was very fond of her ... he brought her up and provided her with a dowry. Why shouldn’t he include her in his will? Good heavens, he thought of her as if she were his own daughter! Money is not everything, my dear Berthe!’
For Madame Bonnehon, of course, having always been a person of considerable means, money was of little concern. Indeed, being the attractive and much-admired woman she was, she liked to think that the only things worth living for were love and beauty.
‘It was Roubaud who mentioned the telegram,’ observed Monsieur de Lachesnaye curtly. ‘If there was no telegram, the President wouldn’t have told him he’d received one. Why did Roubaud lie?’
‘It is quite possible,’ exclaimed Monsieur Denizet heatedly, ‘that the President himself invented the telegram as a way of explaining his sudden departure to the Roubauds. According to them, he had said he wouldn’t be leaving till the next day; when he then found himself on the same train as them, he needed to invent some excuse in order to hide the real reason for his journey, which, incidentally, no one knows ... This is of no importance. It is leading us nowhere.’
There was another silence. When the magistrate resumed, he spoke more calmly and chose his words carefully: ‘Madame, I now come to a particularly delicate issue; I trust that you will forgive the nature of my questions. No one respects the memory of your brother more than I ... However, there were rumours, were there not, that he entertained a number of mistresses.’
Madame Bonnehon smiled, appearing not in the least disturbed by the question.
‘Really, my dear sir, at his age!’ she replied. ‘My brother lost his wife in the early years of his marriage, and I have never presumed to find fault with the way he chose to enjoy himself. He lived his own life, and it was not my business to interfere. All I know is that he lived in a manner that befitted his position and that he remained a perfect gentleman to the last.’
Berthe, overcome with embarrassment at this discussion of her father’s mistresses, lowered her eyes; her husband, equally embarrassed, walked over to the window and turned his back.
‘Please forgive me for harping on this,’ continued Monsieur Denizet, ‘but was there not a story concerning a young chambermaid at Doinville?’
‘Ah, yes, Louisette ... Louisette, monsieur, was a thoroughly nasty piece of work. She was only fourteen and she was having an affair with a known criminal. People tried to blame her death on my brother. It was disgraceful. Allow me to tell you what happened.’
What she said was no doubt said in all sinceri
ty, but she was well aware of the President’s private life, and his tragic death had come as no surprise; she felt she needed to uphold the family’s good name. As far as the unfortunate business with Louisette was concerned, even if she secretly admitted to herself that her brother was quite capable of taking a fancy to her, she was equally convinced that Louisette, even at her tender age, was totally depraved.
‘Picture to yourself a young girl,’ she said, ‘sweet and gentle, lovely yellow hair, rosy cheeks, a little angel, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, innocent as the day she was born, never committed a sin in her life! Well, she was not yet fourteen and she was having an affair with a brute of a man, a quarry worker who had just spent five years in prison for killing someone in a public bar. He lived like some wild creature, on the edge of the Becourt forest, in a shack made out of tree-trunks and mud that he had taken over from his father, who had died of shame. He scraped a living by digging rubble out of one of the abandoned quarries, which once, I believe, provided half the stones for building the city of Rouen. Louisette used to go and stay with this monster in his den; he lived there on his own because everyone was so frightened of him that they avoided him like the plague. The pair would often be seen wandering through the woods, holding hands, such a dainty little girl with an overgrown brute like him. What more can I say? It was scandalous, unbelievable! Obviously I only came to hear of all this afterwards. I had taken Louisette on almost out of charity, as an act of kindness. I knew that her family, the Misards, were poor, but what they didn’t tell me was that they had beaten the child black and blue and still not managed to stop her running off to stay with Cabuche the minute she could get out of the house ... And then the accident happened. When my brother came to Doinville he didn’t bring his own servants with him. Louisette and another woman used to go over to his cottage to do the housework for him. One morning Louisette went on her own and disappeared. If you ask me, she had been intending to run away for some time. Her lover was probably waiting for her and took her away with him. The worst of it was that five days later we heard she was dead. People said that my brother had attempted to rape her in the most vicious way and that she had run to Cabuche, terrified, and died of brain fever.10 What really happened no one knows; there are so many different stories that it’s difficult to say. That she died of a fever is true; a doctor certified as much. My own opinion is that she did something foolish - slept out of doors at night or wandered around in the marshes ... Surely, my dear sir, you don’t imagine that my brother maltreated her. It’s a horrible thought. It’s impossible!’