His face was so pale, his eyes so distracted that after he went out, the sheriff’s officer spoke to his man: “Follow him,” he said.
Barthe, who had seated himself in the armchair, weak with relief when the affair seemed to have been arranged, looked up tensely, when he heard the officer give the order.
“I know who you are,” he said.
“Well, I know that myself,” Marbois said, shortly. “What’s the matter with you fellows, anyway?”
“You’d like to know what’s in that trunk?” Barthe asked.
“What’s all this about the trunk?”
“You’d like to know, wouldn’t you? That’s what you say to us. You know all right. Books in the trunk, eh? You know better.” He unfastened the straps, took out his key-ring which Guiret had given back to him after he had taken it from him to lock the trunk. “You’re a brave man, I hope.” With a swift turn of the wrist he turned the key: “Quietly, please. She’s asleep, that’s all. Yes, she’s there, and you’ll agree with me she’s very pretty.”
He lifted the cover with careful deliberation. An odor rose like a cloud into the face of the sheriff’s officer. The flesh on the body was mottled, there was a large hole in the breast, the lips of which had already turned purple. Marbois fell back and uttered a startled cry. Barthe laughed:
“It’s worse than you thought, eh?”
Just then Guiret pushed the door open, the change in his hand, a smile on his face. He saw the open trunk, he stared for a moment at the two men in the room, then turned to flee. The man who had followed him was coming in the door. They grappled.
“Armand—Armand—help—help me out—why do you stand there—help—”
But Barthe was seated again now: “He’s not the sheriff’s man. He’s from the police. He didn’t fool me. Marousse sent him here—Marousse sent him here—”
Guiret passed quickly from frenzy to complete submission. The money was scattered all about him on the floor and he stooped to pick it up.
“I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it,” Barthe was saying. “She came here to see me. She had money, all the money that she had won and we had lost. We asked her to give us some of it—she wouldn’t—”
“Yes, yes—” Guiret shouted, eager to shriek in a high voice the story of the events of that horrible night, words that he had repeated in a whisper for over thirty hours: “I killed her, yes. It was for the money and her jewels. Here—here is everything—” He threw on the table the jewels, tied in his handkerchief, a small distorted bundle bulging with bracelets and necklaces. He opened it and spread the jewels out: “See! She flaunted these before us. She wanted to talk to Barthe. Yes, she intended to run away with him. She flaunted her money and these when we had lost everything. I did not intend to kill her. I struck her in anger, then she threatened me—and I struck her again—and then—”
“He shot her—” Barthe said simply. “That was the way it all started.”
She Thought of Everything
IT WAS an evening much like any other evening, after a day when nothing had happened that did not happen any day, that Madame Chertier decided to kill her husband. He was reading with one elbow propped on the table, the light on his book, his face in the shadow. Nevertheless, he must have sensed something, for he looked up and spoke.
“Why do you look at me?”
And she replied: “I wasn’t looking at you, dear.”
“Thought you were,” he murmured. His wife sat back in her chair, tilted her head so that the lamplight did not reach her face, with her hands out of sight, so that he did not notice the sudden contraction of her fingers. Mr. Chertier turned a few pages rapidly, doubtless to skip some boring description. His wife shrugged, and he spoke again.
“What makes you laugh?”
“I wasn’t laughing,” she answered.
“Thought you were,” he murmured again. Then he was reading once more, vest loosened to ease his protruding abdomen, legs crossed, one foot swinging a slipper.
When she saw him thus, placid and self-satisfied, Madame Chertier thought ardently of her lover, of the many joys that freedom would bring her, and closing her eyes pictured without emotion that coarse body deprived of life, that smug, fat face motionless, the funeral, the black crepe dress which she would wear, her widow’s bonnet trimmed with white.
The idea of the murder had entered her head so gently that she accepted it calmly. It seemed to her that she had always had that idea, that it had been in her forever, fatal and almost natural. Why should she seek explanations, reasons, excuses? Everything was driving her to that end, and having dared to think and consider the idea, she felt a sort of relief, and her brain was strangely lucid.
At eleven o’clock, Mr. Chertier closed his book.
“Bed time?”
They exchanged a few words as they undressed. He kissed her forehead as usual, went to sleep immediately. She turned to the wall and thought things over. All night, she mused, calculated, figured out schemes. Now that she had reached a decision, it was important that she should be careful, patient, meticulous, and wise.
In the morning, she was sweeter than ordinarily. Her husband spoke of this change of humor, congratulated her. And she replied in an absolutely candid voice: “I’m the same as usual. But you seldom notice me.”
She had an appointment at a dressmaker that day, which she kept. She selected a brilliantly colored dress. And so that her existence should be unchanged, if there was an investigation later, she went to see her lover, and did not return home before the usual hour. At dinner, while the maid was busy near them, she spoke in a casual way of a visit she planned to their summer home in the country.
Mr. Chertier was surprised.
“If it bothers you at all,” she said quietly, “I’ll stay—”
He waited until the maid had gone to the kitchen to explain.
“I wouldn’t wish to deprive you of a pleasure trip, dear. But you might have picked a better time. My business is not going so well just now—”
“Ah?” she breathed. And pretending that she had not noticed that the maid had reentered the dining-room, she added: “Business is bad, you say? You mustn’t worry so—is it very serious?”
He reminded her with a glance that they were not alone, and she showed confusion. But she had planned the remarks, had been careful that she was overheard. The last sentence— recalled at the proper time by the maid—might explain matters, direct suspicions elsewhere. From now on, every word, every act must count. She had planted in a witness’s mind the facts that she was going away on a trip and that her husband was worried.
Days and weeks elapsed. And Madame Chertier’s preoccupation grew. At times, she wished that chance would interfere, that her husband should die a natural death. But chance never works when it is needed.
As she could not wait forever, she set herself a date, and started methodical preparations. At the end of spring, vacation time drawing near, she retained a berth in a sleeping-car for the following week. The maid would testify that she had planned the trip months ago.
Mr. Chertier did not object, and he even suggested that it would be wise to hire a large taxi to carry all the baggage in one trip. She agreed that this was a good thought, and had the maid order the car, mentioning before her husband that it was his desire. Then she said that it might be a good time to grant the maid and the cook a few days of vacation. Mr. Chertier could live at a hotel, she added.