Celebrated Crimes (Complete)

"You must let me in," the woman continued; "it is absolutely necessary I should speak to you."

"Come to-morrow."

"I leave Paris to-morrow, and I must have those papers to-night."

He again refused, but she spoke firmly and decidedly. "I must come in. The porter said you were all out, but, from the rue des Menetriers I could see the light in your room. My brother is with me, and I left him below. I shall call him if you don't open the door."

"Come in, then," said Derues; "your papers are in the sitting-room. Wait here, and I will fetch them." The woman looked at him and took his hand. "Heavens! how pale you are! What is the matter?"

"Nothing is the matter: will you wait here? "But she would not release his arm, and followed him into the sitting-room, where Derues began to seek hurriedly among the various papers which covered a table. "Here they are," he said; "now you can go."

"Really," said the woman, examining her deeds carefully, "never yet did I see you in such a hurry to give up things which don't belong to you. But do hold that candle steadily; your hand is shaking so that I cannot see to read."

At that moment the silence which prevailed all round was broken by a cry of anguish, a long groan proceeding from the chamber to the right of the sitting-room.

"What is that?" cried the woman. "Surely it is a dying person!"

The sense of the danger which threatened made Derues pull himself together. "Do not be alarmed," he said. "My wife has been seized with a violent fever; she is quite delirious now, and that is why I told the porter to let no one come up."

But the groans in the next room continued, and the unwelcome visitor, overcome by terror which she could neither surmount nor explain, took a hasty leave, and descended the staircase with all possible rapidity. As soon as he could close the door, Derues returned to the bedroom.

Nature frequently collects all her expiring strength at the last moment of existence. The unhappy lady struggled beneath her coverings; the agony she suffered had given her a convulsive energy, and inarticulate sounds proceeded from her mouth. Derues approached and held her on the bed. She sank back on the pillow, shuddering convulsively, her hands plucking and twisting the sheets, her teeth chattering and biting the loose hair which fell over her face and shoulders. "Water! water!" she cried; and then, "Edouard, – my husband! – Edouard! – is it you?" Then rising with a last effort, she seized her murderer by the arm, repeating, "Edouard! – oh!" and then fell heavily, dragging Derues down with her. His face was against hers; he raised his head, but the dying hand, clenched in agony, had closed upon him like a vise. The icy fingers seemed made of iron and could not be opened, as though the victim had seized on her assassin as a prey, and clung to the proof of his crime.

Derues at last freed himself, and putting his hand on her heart, "It is over," he remarked; "she has been a long time about it. What o'clock is it? Nine! She has struggled against death for twelve hours!"

While the limbs still retained a little warmth, he drew the feet together, crossed the hands on the breast, and placed the body in the chest. When he had locked it up, he remade the bed, undressed himself, and slept comfortably in the other one.

The next day, February 1st, the day he had fixed for the "going out" of Madame de Lamotte, he caused the chest to be placed on a hand-cart and carried at about ten o'clock in the morning to the workshop of a carpenter of his acquaintance called Mouchy, who dwelt near the Louvre. The two commissionaires employed had been selected in distant quarters, and did not know each other. They were well paid, and each presented with a bottle of wine. These men could never be traced. Derues requested the carpenter's wife to allow the chest to remain in the large workshop, saying he had forgotten something at his own house, and would return to fetch it in three hours. But, instead of a few hours, he left it for two whole days – why, one does not know, but it may be supposed that he wanted the time to dig a trench in a sort of vault under the staircase leading to the cellar in the rue de la Mortellerie. Whatever the cause, the delay might have been fatal, and did occasion an unforeseen encounter which nearly betrayed him. But of all the actors in this scene he alone knew the real danger he incurred, and his coolness never deserted him for a moment.

The third day, as he walked alongside the handcart on which the chest was being conveyed, he was accosted at Saint Germain l'Auxerrois by a creditor who had obtained a writ of execution against him, and at the imperative sign made by this man the porter stopped. The creditor attacked Derues violently, reproaching him for his bad faith in language which was both energetic and uncomplimentary; to which the latter replied in as conciliatory a manner as he could assume. But it was impossible to silence the enemy, and an increasing crowd of idlers began to assemble round them.

"When will you pay me?" demanded the creditor. "I have an execution against you. What is there in that box? Valuables which you cart away secretly, in order to laugh at my just claims, as you did two years ago?"

Derues shuddered all over; he exhausted himself in protestations; but the other, almost beside himself, continued to shout.

"Oh!" he said, turning to the crowd, "all these tricks and grimaces and signs of the cross are no good. I must have my money, and as I know what his promises are worth, I will pay myself! Come, you knave, make haste. Tell me what there is in that box; open it, or I will fetch the police."

The crowd was divided between the creditor and debtor, and possibly a free fight would have begun, but the general attention was distracted by the arrival of another spectator. A voice heard above all the tumult caused a score of heads to turn, it was the voice of a woman crying:

"The abominable history of Leroi de Valine, condemned to death at the age of sixteen for having poisoned his entire family!"

Continually crying her wares, the drunken, staggering woman approached the crowd, and striking out right and left with fists and elbows, forced her way to Derues.

"Ah! ah!" said she, after looking him well over, "is it you, my gossip Derues! Have you again a little affair on hand like the one when you set fire to your shop in the rue Saint-Victor?"

Derues recognised the hawker who had abused him on the threshold of his shop some years previously, and whom he had never seen since. "Yes, yes," she continued, "you had better look at me with your little round cat's eyes. Are you going to say you don't know me?"

Derues appealed to his creditor. "You see," he said, "to what insults you are exposing me. I do not know this woman who abuses me."

"What! – you don't know me! You who accused me of being a thief! But luckily the Maniffets have been known in Paris as honest people for generations, while as for you – "

"Sir," said Derues, "this case contains valuable wine which I am commissioned to sell. To-morrow I shall receive the money for it; to-morrow, in the course of the day, I will pay what I owe you. But I am waited for now, do not in Heaven's name detain me longer, and thus deprive me of the means of paying at all."

"Don't believe him, my good man," said the hawker; "lying comes natural to him always."

"Sir, I promise on my oath you shall be paid tomorrow; you had better trust the word of an honest man rather than the ravings of a drunken woman."

The creditor still hesitated, but, another person now spoke in Derues' favour; it was the carpenter Mouchy, who had inquired the cause of the quarrel.

"For God's sake," he exclaimed, "let the gentleman go on. That chest came from my workshop, and I know there is wine inside it; he told my wife so two days ago."

"Will you be surety for me, my friend?" asked Derues.

"Certainly I will; I have not known you for ten years in order to leave you in trouble and refuse to answer for you. What the devil are respectable people to be stopped like this in a public place? Come, sir, believe his word, as I do."

After some more discussion, the porter was at last allowed to proceed with his hand-cart. The hawker wanted to interfere, but Mouchy warned her off and ordered her to be silent. "Ah! ah!" she cried, "what does it matter to me? Let him sell his wine if he can; I shall not drink any on his premises. This is the second time he has found a surety to my knowledge; the beggar must have some special secret for encouraging the growth of fools. Good-bye, gossip Derues; you know I shall be selling your history some day. Meanwhile —

"The abominable history of Leroi de Valine, condemned to death at the age of sixteen for having poisoned his entire family!"

Whilst she amused the people by her grimaces and grotesque gestures, and while Mouchy held forth to some of them, Derues made his escape. Several times between Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois and the rue de la Mortellerie he nearly fainted, and was obliged to stop. While the danger lasted, he had had sufficient self-control to confront it coolly, but now that he calculated the depth of the abyss which for a moment had opened beneath his feet, dizziness laid hold on him.

Other precautions now became necessary. His real name had been mentioned before the commissionaire, and the widow Masson, who owned the cellar, only knew him as Ducoudray. He went on in front, asked for the keys, which till then had been left with her, and the chest was got downstairs without any awkward questions. Only the porter seemed astonished that this supposed wine, which was to be sold immediately, should be put in such a place, and asked if he might come the next day and move it again. Derues replied that someone was coming for it that very day. This question, and the disgraceful scene which the man had witnessed, made it necessary to get rid of him without letting him see the pit dug under the staircase. Derues tried to drag the chest towards the hole, but all his strength was insufficient to move it. He uttered terrible imprecations when he recognised his own weakness, and saw that he would be obliged to bring another stranger, an informer perhaps, into this charnel-house, where; as yet, nothing betrayed his crimes. No sooner escaped from one peril than he encountered another, and already he had to struggle against his own deeds. He measured the length of the trench, it was too short. Derues went out and repaired to the place where he had hired the labourer who had dug it out, but he could not find the man, whom he had only seen once, and whose name he did not know. Two whole days were spent in this fruitless search, but on the third, as he was wandering on one of the quays at the time labourers were to be found there, a mason, thinking he was looking for someone, inquired what he wanted. Derues looked well at the man, and concluding from his appearance that he was probably rather simpleminded, asked —

"Would you like to earn a crown of three livres by an easy job?"

"What a question, master!" answered the mason. "Work is so scarce that I am going back into the country this very evening."

"Very well! Bring your tools, spade, and pickaxe, and follow me."

They both went down to the cellar, and the mason was ordered to dig out the pit till it was five and a half feet deep. While the man worked, Derues sat beside the chest and read. When it was half done, the mason stopped for breath, and leaning on his spade, inquired why he wanted a trench of such a depth. Derues, who had probably foreseen the question, answered at once, without being disconcerted —

"I want to bury some bottled wine which is contained in this case."

"Wine!" said the other. "Ah! you are laughing at me, because you think I look a fool! I never yet heard of such a recipe for improving wine."

"Where do you come from?"

"D'Alencon."

"Cider drinker! You were brought up in Normandy, that is clear. Well, you can learn from me, Jean-Baptiste Ducoudray, a wine grower of Tours, and a wine merchant for the last ten years, that new wine thus buried for a year acquires the quality and characteristics of the oldest brands."

"It is possible," said the mason, again taking his spade, "but all the same it seems a little odd to me."

When he had finished, Derues asked him to help to drag the chest alongside the trench, so that it might be easier to take out the bottles and arrange them: The mason agreed, but when he moved the chest the foetid odour which proceeded from it made him draw back, declaring that a smell such as that could not possibly proceed from wine. Derues tried to persuade him that the smell came from drains under the cellar, the pipe of which could be seen. It appeared to satisfy him, and he again took hold of the chest, but immediately let it go again, and said positively that he could not execute Derues' orders, being convinced that the chest must contain a decomposing corpse. Then Derues threw himself at the man's feet and acknowledged that it was the dead body of a woman who had unfortunately lodged in his house, and who had died there suddenly from an unknown malady, and that, dreading lest he should be accused of having murdered her, he had decided to conceal the death and bury her here.

The mason listened, alarmed at this confidence, and not knowing whether to believe it or not. Derues sobbed and wept at his feet, beat his breast and tore out his hair, calling on God and the saints as witnesses of his good faith and his innocence. He showed the book he was reading while the mason excavated: it was the Seven Penitential Psalms. "How unfortunate I am!" he cried. "This woman died in my house, I assure you – died suddenly, before I could call a doctor. I was alone; I might have been accused, imprisoned, perhaps condemned for a crime I did not commit. Do not ruin me! You leave Paris to-night, you need not be uneasy; no one would know that I employed you, if this unhappy affair should ever be discovered. I do not know your name, I do not wish to know it, and I tell you mine, it is Ducoudray. I give myself up to you, but have some pity! – if not for me, yet for my wife and my two little children – for these poor creatures whose only support I am!"

Seeing that the mason was touched, Derues opened the chest.