The Lock and Key Library: the Most Interesting Stories of All Nations: French Novels
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The Lock and Key Library: the Most Interesting Stories of All Nations: French Novels
Detective and mystery stories, French; French fiction -- Translations into English
"No more than before," he answered, with the same impassive face.
He did well not to flinch. What I had said might be only an
attempt to wrest his secret from him by feigning to know all.
Nevertheless, the detail concerning the place where he had
appointed to meet his brother had made him start. That was the
spot to hit, and quickly.
"The cowardly assassin," I continued, "yes, the coward, because he
dared not commit the crime himself, had carefully calculated all
the circumstances of the murder; but he had reckoned without
certain little accidents, for instance, that his brother would keep
the three letters he had received, the first two at New York, the
last at Liverpool, and which contained instructions relating to the
stages of this clandestine journey. Neither had he taken into
account that the son of his victim would grow up, would become a
man, would conceive certain suspicions of the true cause of his
father's death, and would succeed in procuring overwhelming proof
of the dark conspiracy. Come, then," I added fiercely, "off with
the mask! M. Jacques Termonde, it is you who had my unhappy father
killed by your brother Edmond. I have in my possession the letters
you wrote him in January, 1864, to induce him to come to Europe,
first under the false name of Rochester and afterwards under that
of Rochdale. It is not worth your while to play the indignant or
the astonished with me--the game is up."
He had turned frightfully pale; but his arms still remained
crossed, and his bold eyes did not droop. He made one last attempt
to parry the straight blow I had aimed at him, and he had the
hardihood to say:
"How much did that wretch Edmond ask as the price of the forgery
which he fabricated in revenge for my refusal to give him money?"
"Be silent, you--" said I still more fiercely. "Is it to me that
you dare to speak thus--to me? Did I need those letters in order
to learn all? Have we not known for weeks past, I, that you had
committed the crime, and you, that I had divined your guilt? What
I still needed was the written, indisputable, undeniable proof,
that which can be laid before a magistrate. You refused him money?
You were about to give him money, only that you mistrusted him, and
chose to wait until the day of his departure. You did not suspect
that I was upon your track. Shall I tell you when it was you saw
him for the last time? Yesterday, at ten o'clock in the morning,
you went out, you changed your cab first at the Place de la
Concorde, and a second time at the Palais Royal. You went to the
Grand Hotel, and you asked whether Mr. Stanbury was in his room. A
few hours later I, myself, was in that same room. Ah! how much did
Edmond Termonde ask from me for the letters? Why, I tore them from
him, pistol in hand, after a struggle in which I was nearly killed.
You see now that you can deceive me no more, and that it is no
longer worth your while to deny."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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