The Crime of the Boulevard

by Jules Claretie

  CHAPTER V.

  SOME time passed before the arrival of the Attorney, and through theclosed Venetian blinds the murmurs of the crowd collected below could beheard. The Commissary wrote his report on the corner of a table, by thelight of a single candle, and now and then asked for some detail ofBernardet, who seemed very impatient. A heavy silence had fallen on theroom; those who a short time before had exchanged observations in loudtones, since the Commissary had finished with Mme. Moniche had droppedtheir voices and spoke in hushed tones, as if they were in a sick room.Suddenly a bell rang, sending shrill notes through the silent room.Bernardet remarked that no doubt, the Attorney had arrived. He looked athis watch, a simple, silver Geneva watch, but which he prized highly--apresent from his wife--and murmured:

  "There is yet time." It was, in fact, the Attorney for the Republic, whocame in, accompanied by the Examining Magistrate, M. Ginory, whomcriminals called "the vise," because he pressed them so hard when he gothold of them. M. Ginory was in the Attorney's office when the officerhad telephoned to M. Jacquelin des Audrays, and the latter had askedhim to accompany him to the scene of the murder. Bernardet knew themboth well. He had more than once been associated with M. Audrays. Healso knew M. Ginory as a very just, a very good man, although he wasmuch feared, for, while searching for the truth of a matter he reservedjudgment of those whom he had fastened in his vise. M. Audrays was stilla young man, slender and correct, tightly buttoned up in his redingote,smooth-shaven, wearing eyeglasses.

  The red ribbon in his buttonhole seemed a little too large, like arosette worn there through coquetry. M. Ginory, on the contrary, woreclothes too large for him; his necktie was tied as if it was a blackcord; his hat was half brushed; he was short, stout and sanguine, withhis little snub nose and his mouth, with its heavy jaws. He seemed,beside the worldly magistrate, like a sort of professor, or savant, orcollector, who, with a leather bag stuffed with books, seemed morefitted to pore over some brochures or precious old volumes than to spendhis time over musty law documents. Robust and active, with hisfifty-five years, he entered that house of crime as an experttopographist makes a map, and who scarcely needs a guide, even in anunknown country. He went straight to the body, which, as we have said,lay between the two front windows, and both he and M. Audrays stood amoment looking at it, taking in, as had the others, all the detailswhich might serve to guide them in their researches. The Attorney forthe Republic asked the Commissary if he had made his report, and thelatter handed it to him. He read it with satisfied nods of his head;during this time Bernardet had approached M. Ginory, saluted him andasked for a private interview with a glance of his eye; the ExaminingMagistrate understood what he meant.

  "Ah! Is it you, Bernardet? You wish to speak to me?"

  "Yes, Monsieur Ginory. I beg of you to get the body to the dissectingroom for the autopsy as soon as possible." He had quietly and almostimperceptibly drawn the Magistrate away toward a window, away from thereporters, who wished to hear every word that was uttered, where he hadhim quite by himself, in a corner of the room near the library door.

  "There is an experiment which must be tried, Monsieur, and it ought totempt a man like you," he said.

  Bernardet knew very well that, painstaking even to a fault, taken withany new scientific discoveries, with a receptive mind, eager to studyand to learn, M. Ginory would not refuse him any help which would aidjustice. Had not the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences crowned,the year before, M. Ginory's book on "The Duties of a Magistrate to theDiscoveries of Science?"

  The word "experiment" was not said in order to frighten M. Ginory.

  "What do you mean by that, Bernardet?" the Magistrate asked. Bernardetshook his head as if to intimate that the explanation was too long togive him there. They were not alone. Some one might hear them. And if ajournal should publish the strange proposition which he wished to----

  "Ah! Ah!" exclaimed the Examining Magistrate, "then it is somethingstrange, your experiment?"

  "Any Magistrate but you would think it wild, unreasonable, orridiculous, which is worse. But you--oh! I do not say it to flatter you,Monsieur," quickly added the police officer, seeing that the praisetroubled this man, who always shrank from it. "I speak thus because itis the very truth, and any one else would treat me as crack-brained. Butyou--no!"

  M. Ginory looked curiously at the little man, whose attitude was humbleand even supplicating, and seemed to seek a favorable response, andwhose eyes sparkled and indicated that his idea was no common one.

  "What is that room there?" asked M. Ginory, pointing to the half-openlibrary door.

  "It is the study of M. Rovere--the victim"----

  "Let us go in there," said M. Ginory.

  In this room no one could hear them; they could speak freely. Onentering, the Examining Magistrate mechanically cast his eye over thebooks, stopping at such and such a title of a rare work, and, seatinghimself in a low, easy chair, covered with Caramanie, he made a sign tothe police officer to speak. Bernardet stood, hat in hand, in front ofhim.

  "M. le Juge," Bernardet began, "I beg your pardon for asking you togrant me an interview. But, allowing for the difference in ourpositions, which is very great, I am, like you, a scholar; very curious.I shall never belong to the Institute, and you will"----

  "Go on, Bernardet."

  "And you will belong to it, M. Ginory, but I strive also, in my lowersphere, to keep myself _au courant_ with all that is said and with allthat is written. I was in the service of the Academy when your beautifulwork was crowned, and when the perpetual secretary spoke of thoseMagistrates who knew how to unite the love of letters with a study ofjustice; I thought that lower down, much lower down on the ladder, M. leJuge, he might have also searched for and found some men who studied tolearn and to do their best in doing their duty."

  "Ah! I know you, Bernardet. Your chief has often spoken of you."

  "I know that M. Leriche is very good to me. But it is not for me toboast of that. I wish only to inspire confidence in you, because what Iwish to say to you is so strange--so very strange"----

  Bernardet suddenly stopped. "I know," he began, "that if I were to sayto a physician what I am about to say to you he would think I ought tobe shut up in Sainte-Anne. And yet I am not crazy, I beg of you tobelieve. No! but I have searched and searched. It seems to me that thereis a mass of inventions, of discoveries, which we police officers oughtto make use of. And, although I am a sub-Inspector"----

  "Go on! Go on!" said the Magistrate, quickly, with a movement of thehead toward the open door of the salon, where the Attorney for theRepublic was conducting the investigation, and his nod seemed to say:"They are at work in there--let us make haste."

  "I will be as brief as possible," said Bernardet, who understood what hemeant.

  "Monsieur," (and his tone became rapid, precise, running up and downlike a ball), "thirty years, or, rather, to be exact, twenty-six yearsago, some American journals, not political, but scientific, publishedthe fact that the daguerrotype--we have made long strides since then inphotography--had permitted them to find in the retina of a murderedman's eye the image of the one who struck him."

  "Yes, I know," said M. Ginory.

  "In 1860, I was too young, and I had no desire to prove the truth ofthis discovery. I adore photography as I adore my profession. I pass myleisure hours in taking instantaneous pictures, in developing them,printing, and finishing them. The idea of what I am about to propose toyou came to me by chance. I bought upon one of the quays a volume of theSociete de Medicine Legale of 1869, in which Dr. Vernois gives anaccount of a communication sent to the society by a physician, who alsosent photographic proofs, thus indorsed: 'Photographs taken of theretina of a woman assassinated the 14th of June, 1868.'"

  "Yes," again said M. Ginory. "It was a communication from Dr. Bourion,of Darnez."

  "Precisely."

  "And the proof sent by the Doctor showed the instant when, afterstriking the mother, the assassin killed the child
, while the dog sprangtoward the little carriage in which the little one lay."

  "Yes, Monsieur Ginory."

  "Oh, well, but my poor Bernardet, Dr. Vernois, since you have read hisreport"----

  "By chance, Monsieur, I found it on a book stall and it has kept runningin my head ever since, over and over and over again."

  "Dr. Vernois, my poor fellow, made many experiments. At first the proofsent was so confused, so hazy, that no one who had not seen whatBourion had written could have told what it was. If Vernois, who was avery scientific man, could find nothing--nothing, I repeat--whichjustified Dr. Bourion's declarations, what do you expect that any oneelse could make of those researches? Do not talk any more or even thinkany more about it."

  "I beg your pardon, Monsieur Ginory; one can and ought to think aboutit. In any case, I am thinking about it."

  A smile of doubt crossed M. Ginory's lips. Bernardet quickly added:"Photography of the invisible has been proven. Are not the RoentgenRays, the famous X Rays, as incredible as that photography can find theimage of a murderer on the retina of a dead person's eye? They inventsome foolish things, those Americans, but they often presage the truth.Do they not catch, by photography, the last sighs of the dying? Do theynot fix upon the film or on plates that mysterious thing which hauntsus, the occult? They throw bridges across unknown abysses as over greatbodies of water or from one precipice to another, and they reach theother side. I beg your pardon, Monsieur," and the police officer stoppedshort in his enthusiastic defence as he caught sight of M. Ginory'sastonished face; "I seem to have been making a speech, a thing Idetest."

  "Why do you say that to me? Because I looked astonished at what you havetold me? I am not only surprised, I am charmed. Go on! Go on!"

  "Oh! well, what seemed folly yesterday will be an established factto-morrow. A fact is a fact. Dr. Vernois had better have tested againand again his contradictory experiments. Dr. Bourion's experiments hadpreceded his own. If Dr. Vernois saw nothing in the picture taken of theretina of the eye of the woman assassinated June 14, 1868, I have seensomething--yes, I have seen with a magnifying glass, while studyingthoroughly the proof given to the society and reproduced in the bulletinof Volume I., No. 2, of 1870; I have seen deciphered the image which Dr.Bourion saw, and which Dr. Vernois did not see. Ah! it was confused, theproof was hazy. It was scarcely recognizable, I confess. But there aremirrors which are not very clear and which reflect clouded vision;nevertheless, the image is there. And I have seen, or what one callsseen, the phantom of the murderer which Dr. Bourion saw, and whichescaped the eyes of the member of the Academy of Medicine and of theHygiene Council, Honorary Physician of the Hospital, if you please."

  M. Ginory, who had listened to the officer with curiosity, began tolaugh, and remarked to Bernardet that, according to this reasoning,illustrated medical science would find itself sacrificed to theinstinct, the divination of a provincial physician, and that it was onlytoo easy to put the Academicians in the wrong and the Independents inthe right.

  "Oh, Monsieur, pardon; I put no one in the right or wrong. Dr. Bourionbelieved that he had made a discovery. Dr. Vernois was persuaded thatDr. Bourion had discovered nothing at all. Each had the courage of hisconviction. What I contest is that, for twenty-six years, no one hasexperimented, no one has made any researches, since the firstexperiment, and that Dr. Bourion's communication has been simply droppedand forgotten."

  "I ask your pardon in my turn, Bernardet," replied M. Ginory, a littlequizzically. "I have also studied the question, which seems to me acurious"----

  "Have you photographed any yourself, M. Ginory?"

  "No."

  "Ah! There is where the proof is."

  "But in 1877, the very learned Doyen of the Academy of Medicine, M.Brouardel, whose great wisdom, and whose sovereign opinion was law, oneof those men who is an honor to his country, told me that when he was inHeidelberg he had heard Professor Kuhne say that he had studied thissame question; he had made impressions of the retina of the eye in thefollowing cases: After the death of a dog or a wolf, he had taken outthe eye and replaced it with the back part of the eye in front; then hetook a very strong light and placed it in front of the eye and betweenthe eye and the light he placed a small grating. This grating, after anexposure of a quarter of an hour, was visible upon the retina. But thoseare very different experiments from the ones one hears of in America."

  "They could see the bars in the grating? If that was visible, why couldnot the visage of the murderer be found there?"

  "Eh! Other experiments have been attempted, even after those of whichProfessor Kuhne told our compatriot. Every one, you understand, hasborne only negative results, and M. Brouardel could tell you, betterthan I, that in the physiological and oculistic treatises, publishedduring the last ten years, no allusion has been made to the preservationof the image on the retina after death. It is an _affair classe_,Bernardet."

  "Ah! Monsieur, yet"--and the police officer hesitated. Shaking his head,he again repeated: "Yet--yet!"

  "You are not convinced?"

  "No, Monsieur Ginory, and shall I tell you why? You, yourself, in spiteof the testimony of illustrious savants, still doubt. I pray you topardon me, but I see it in your eyes."

  "That is still another way to use the retina," said Ginory, laughing."You read one's thoughts."

  "No, Monsieur, but you are a man of too great intelligence to say toyourself that there is nothing in this world _classe_, that every mattercan be taken up again. The idea has come to me to try the experiment ifI am permitted. Yes, Monsieur, those eyes, did you see them, the eyes ofthe dead man? They seemed to speak; they seemed to see. Their expressionis of lifelike intensity. They see, I tell you, they see! They perceivesomething which we cannot see, and which is frightful. They bear--and noone can convince me to the contrary--they bear on the retina thereflection of the last being whom the murdered man saw before he died.They keep it still, they still retain that image. They are going to holdan autopsy; they will tell us that the throat is cut. Eh! Parbleu! Weknow it well. We see it for ourselves. Moniche, the porter, knows it aswell as any doctor. But when one questions those eyes, when one searchesin that black chamber where the image appears as on a plate, when onedemands of those eyes their secret, I am convinced that one will findit."

  "You are obstinate, Bernardet."

  "Yes, very obstinate, Monsieur Ginory, and very patient. The pictureswhich I took with my kodak will give us the expression, the interior, soto speak; those which we would take of the retina would reveal to us thesecret of the agony. And, moreover, unless I deceive myself, whatdanger attends such an experiment? One opens the poor eyes, and that issinister, certainly, but when one holds an autopsy at the Morgue, whenone enlarges the gash in the throat in order to study it, when onedissects the body, is it any more respectful or proper? Ah! Monsieur, ifI but had your power"----

  M. Ginory seemed quite struck with all that the police officer had saidto him, but while he still held to his convictions, he did not seemquite averse to trying the experiment. Who can say to science "Halt!"and impose upon it limits which cannot be passed? No one!

  "We will see, Bernardet."

  And in that "we will see" there was already a half promise.

  "Ah! if you only will, and what would it cost you?" added Bernardet,still urgent; indeed, almost suppliant.

  "Let us finish this now. They are waiting for me," said the ExaminingMagistrate.

  As he left M. Rovere's study, he instinctively cast a glance at the rarevolumes, with their costly bindings, and he reentered the salon where M.Jacquelin des Audrays had, without doubt, finished his examination.