The Crime of the Boulevard

by Jules Claretie

  CHAPTER VII.

  THE murder of M. Rovere, committed in broad daylight, in a quarter ofParis filled with life and movement, caused a widespread sensation.There was so much mystery mixed in the affair. What could be ascertainedabout the dead man's life was very dramatically written up by PaulRodier in a sketch, and this, republished everywhere and enlarged upon,soon gave to the crime of the Boulevard de Clichy the interest of ajudicial romance. All that there was of vulgar curiosity in man awoke,as atavistic bestiality at the smell of blood.

  What was this M. Rovere, former Consul to Buenos Ayres or Havana,amateur collector of objects of virtu, member of the Society ofBibliophiles, where he had not been seen for a long time? What enemy hadentered his room for the purpose of cutting his throat? Might he nothave been assassinated by some thief who knew that his rooms contained acollection of works of art? The fete at Montmartre was often in fullblast in front of the house where the murder had been committed, andamong the crowd of ex-prison birds and malefactors who are alwaysattendant upon foreign kirmesses might not some one of them havereturned and committed the crime? The papers took advantage of theoccasion to moralize upon permitting these fetes to be held in theoutlying boulevards, where vice and crime seemed to spring spontaneouslyfrom the soil.

  But no one, not one journal--perhaps by order--spoke of that unknownvisitor whom Moniche called _the individual_, and whom the portress hadseen standing beside M. Rovere in front of the open safe. Paul Rodier inhis sketch scarcely referred to the fact that justice had a clewimportant enough to penetrate the mystery of the crime, and in the endarrest the murderer. And the readers while awaiting developments askedwhat mystery was hidden in this murder. Moniche at times, wore afrightened yet important air. He felt that he was an object of curiosityto many, the centre of prejudices. The porter and his wife possessed aterrible secret. They were raised in their own estimation.

  "We shall appear at the trial," said Moniche, seeing himself alreadybefore the red robes, and holding up his hand to swear that he wouldtell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  And as they sat together in their little lodge they talked the matterover and over, and brought up every incident in M. Rovere's life whichmight have a bearing on the case.

  "Do you remember the young man who came one day and insisted on seeingMonsieur le Consul?"

  "Ah! Very well, indeed," said Moniche. "I had forgotten that one. A felthat, his face bronzed, and a droll accent. He had come from away offsomewhere. He was probably a Spaniard."

  "Some beggar, likely. A poor devil whom the Consul had known in America,in the Colonies, one knows not where."

  "A bad face!" said Moniche. "M. Rovere received him, however, and gavehim aid, I remember. If the young man had come often, I should thinkthat he struck the blow. And also, I ought to add, if there was not theother."

  "Yes, but there is the other," his wife replied. "There is the one whomI saw standing in front of the coupons, and who was looking at thoseother papers with flashing eyes, I give my word. There is that one,Moniche, and I am willing to put my hand into the fire and yours, too,Moniche, if it is not he."

  "If he is the one, he will be found."

  "Oh! but if he has disappeared? One disappears very quickly in thesedays."

  "We shall see! we shall see! Justice reigns, and we are here!" He saidthat "we are here!" as a grenadier of the guard before an importantengagement.

  They had taken the body to the Morgue. At the hour fixed for the autopsyBernardet arrived. He seemed much excited, and asked M. Ginory if,since their conversation in M. Rovere's library, he had reflected anddecided to permit him to make the experiment--the famous experimentreported for so many years as useless, absurd, almost ridiculous.

  "With any one but M. Ginory I should not dare to hope," thought thepolice officer, "but he does not sneer at strange discoveries."

  He had brought his photographic apparatus, that kodak which he declaredwas more dangerous to the criminal than a loaded weapon. He haddeveloped the negatives which he had taken, and of the three, two hadcome out in good condition. The face of the murdered man appeared with aclearness which, in the proofs, rendered it formidable as in thereality; and the eyes, those tragic, living eyes, retained theirterrible, accusing expression which the supreme agony had left in them.The light had struck full on the eyes--and they spoke. Bernardet showedthe proofs to M. Ginory. They examined them with a magnifying glass, butthey showed only the emotion, the agony, the anger of that last moment.Bernardet hoped to convince M. Ginory that Bourion's experiment was nota failure.

  Eleven o'clock was the hour named for the autopsy. Twenty minutesbefore, Bernardet was at the Morgue. He walked restlessly about outsideamong the spectators--some were women, young girls, students, andchildren who were hovering about the place, hoping that some chancewould permit them to satisfy their morbid curiosity and to enter andgaze on those slabs whereon lay--swollen, livid, disfigured--the bodies.

  Never, perhaps, in his life had the police officer been so stronglymoved with a desire to succeed. He brought to his tragic task all theardor of an apostle. It was not the idea of success, the renown, or thepossibility of advancement which urged him on; it was the joy, the gloryof aiding progress, of attaching his name to a new discovery. He workedfor art and the love of art. As he wandered about, his sole thought wasof his desire to test Dr. Bourion's experiment; of the realization ofhis dream. "Ah! if M. Ginory will only permit it," he thought.

  As he formulated that hope in his mind, he saw M. Ginory descend fromthe fiacre; he hurried up to him and saluted him respectfully. SeeingBernardet so moved and the first one on the spot, he could not repress asmile.

  "I see you are still enthused."

  "I have thought of nothing else all night, Monsieur Ginory."

  "Well, but," said Monsieur Ginory in a tone which seemed to Bernardet toimply hope, "no idea must be rejected, and I do not see why we shouldnot try the experiment. I have reflected upon it. Where is theunsuitableness?"

  "Ah, Monsieur le Juge," cried the agent, "if you permit it who knows butthat we may revolutionize medical jurisprudence?"

  "Revolutionize, revolutionize!" Would the Examining Magistrate yet findit an idiotic idea?

  M. Ginory passed around the building and entered by a small door openingon the Seine. The registrar followed him, and behind him came the policeagent. Bernardet wished to wait until the doctors delegated to performthe autopsy should arrive, and the head keeper of the Morgue advised himto possess himself with patience, and while he was waiting to lookaround and see the latest cadavers which had been brought there.

  "We have had, in eight days, a larger number of women than men, which israre. And these women were nearly all habitues of the public balls andrace tracks."

  "And how can you tell that?"

  "Because they have pretty feet."

  Professor Morin arrived with a confrere, a young Pasteurian doctor, witha singular mind, broad and receptive, and who passed among hiscompanions for a man fond of chimeras, a little retiring, however, andgiving over to making experiments and to vague dreams. Monsieur Morinsaluted M. Ginory and presented to him the young doctor, Erwin by name,and said to the Magistrate that the house students had probably begunthe autopsy to gain time.

  The body, stripped of its clothing, lay upon the dissecting table, andthree young men, in velvet skull caps, with aprons tied about theirwaists, were standing about the corpse; they had already begun theautopsy. The mortal wound looked redder than ever in the whiteness ofthe naked body.

  Bernardet glided into the room, trying to keep out of sight, listeningand looking, and, above everything, not losing sight of M. Ginory'sface. A face in which the look was keen, penetrating, sharp as a knife,as he bent over the pale face of the murdered man, regarding it assearchingly as the surgeons' scalpels were searching the wound and theflesh. Among those men in their black clothes, some with bared heads, inorder to work better; others with hats on, the stretched-ou
t corpseseemed like a wax figure upon a marble slab. Bernardet thought of thoseimages which he had seen copied from Rembrandt's pictures--the poet withthe anatomical pincers and the shambles. The surgeons bent over thebody, their hands busy and their scissors cutting the muscles. Thatwound, which had let out his life, that large wound, like a monstrousand grimacing mouth, they enlarged still more; the head oscillated fromside to side, and they were obliged to prop it with some mats. The eyesremained the same, and, in spite of the hours which had passed, seemedas living, as menacing and eloquent as the night before; they were,however, veiled with something vitreous over the pupils, like theamaurosis of death, yet full of that anger, of that fright, or thatferocious malediction which was reproduced in a startling manner in thenegatives taken by Bernardet.

  "The secret of the crime is in that look," thought the police agent."Those eyes see, those eyes speak; they tell what they know, they accusesome one."

  Then, while the professor, his associates and his students went on withthe autopsy, exchanging observations, following in the mutilated body,their researches for the truth, trying to be very accurate as to thenature of the wound, the form even of the knife with which it was made,Bernardet softly approached the Examining Magistrate and in a low tone,timidly, respectfully, he spoke some words, which were insistent,however, and pressing, urging the Magistrate to quickly interfere.

  "Ah! Monsieur le Juge, this is the moment; you who can doeverything"----

  The Examining Magistrate has, with us, absolute power. He does whateverseems to him best. And he wishes to do a thing, because he wishes to doit. M. Ginory, curious by nature and because it was his duty,hesitated, scratched his ear, rubbed his nose, bit his lips, listened tothe supplicating murmur of the police officer; but decided not to speakjust then, and continued gazing with a fixed stare at the dead man.

  This thought came to him, moreover, insistent and imperious, that he wasthere to testify in all things in favor of that truth, the discovery ofwhich imposed upon him--and suddenly, his sharp voice interrupted thesurgeon's work.

  "Messieurs, does not the expression of the open eyes strike you?"

  "Yes; they express admirably the most perfect agony," M. Morin replied.

  "And does it not seem," asked the Examining Magistrate, "as if they werefixed with that expression on the murderer?"

  "Without doubt! The mouth seems to curse and the eyes to menace."

  "And what if the last image seen, in fact, that of the murderer, stillremains upon the retina of the eyes?"

  M. Morin looked at the Magistrate in astonishment, his air was slightlymocking and the lips and eyes assumed a quizzical expression. ButBernardet was very much surprised when he heard one remark. Dr. Erwinraised his head and while he seemed to approve of that which M. Ginoryhad advanced, he said: "That image must have disappeared from theretina some time ago."

  "Who knows?" said M. Ginory.

  Bernardet experienced a profound emotion. He felt that this time theproblem would be officially settled. M. Ginory had not feared ridiculewhen he spoke, and a discussion arose there, in that dissecting room, inthe presence of the corpse. What had existed only in a dream, inBernardet's little study, became here, in the presence of the ExaminingMagistrate, a member of the Institute, and the young students, almostfull fledged doctors, a question frankly discussed in all its bearings.And it was he, standing back, he, a poor devil of a police officer, whohad urged this Examining Magistrate to question this savant.

  "At the back of the eyes," said the Professor, touching the eyes withhis scalpel, "there is nothing, believe me. It is elsewhere that youmust look for your proof."

  "But"--and M. Ginory repeated his "Who knows?"--"What if we try it thistime; will it inconvenience you, my dear Master?" M. Morin made amovement with his lips which meant _peuh!_ and his whole countenanceexpressed his scorn. "But, I see no inconvenience." At the end of amoment he said in a sharp tone: "It will be lost time."

  "A little more, a little less," replied M. Ginory, "the experiment isworth the trouble to make it."

  M. Ginory had proved without doubt that he, like Bernardet, wished tosatisfy his curiosity, and in looking at the open eyes of the corpse,although in his duties he never allowed himself to be influenced by thesentimental or the dramatic, yet it seemed to him that those eyes urgedhim to insist, nay, even supplicated him.

  "I know, I know," said M. Morin, "what you dream of in your magistrate'sbrain is as amusing as a tale of Edgar Poe's. But to find in those eyesthe image of the murderer--come now, leave that to the inventive geniusof a Rudyard Kipling, but do not mix the impossible with our researchesin medical jurisprudence. Let us not make romance; let us make, you theexaminations and I the dissection."

  The short tone in which the Professor had spoken did not exactly pleaseM. Ginory, who now, a little through self-conceit (since he had made theproposition), a little through curiosity, decided that he would not beata retreat. "Is there anything to risk?" he asked. "And it might be onechance in a thousand."

  "But there is no chance," quickly answered M. Morin. "None--none!"

  Then, relenting a little, he entered the discussion, explaining why hehad no faith.

  "It is not I, M. Ginory, who will deny the possibility of such a result.But it would be miraculous. Do you believe in miracles, the impressionsof heat, of the blood, of light, on our tissues are not catalogueable,if I may be allowed the expression. The impression on the retina isproduced by the refraction which is called ethereal, phosphorescent, andwhich is almost as difficult to seize as to weigh the imponderable. Tothink to find on the retina a luminous impression after a certain numberof hours and days would be, as Vernois has very well said, to think onecan find in the organs of hearing the last sound which reverberatedthrough them. _Peuh!_ Seize the air-bubble at the end of a tube andplace it in a museum as a curiosity. Is there anything left of it but adrop of water which is burst, while of the fleeting vision or thepassing sound nothing remains."

  The unfortunate Bernardet suffered keenly when he heard this. He wishedto answer. The words came to his lips. Ah! if he was only in M. Ginory'splace. The latter, with bowed head, listened and seemed to weigh eachword as it dropped from M. Morin's lips.

  "Let us reason it, but," the Professor went on, "since theophthalmoscope does not show to the oculist on the retina, any of theobjects or beings which a sick man sees--you understand, not one ofthem--how can you think that photography can find that object or beingon the retina of a dead man's eye?"

  He waited for objections from the Examining Magistrate and Bernardethoped that M. Ginory would combat some of the Professor's arguments. Hehad only to say: "What of it? Let us see! Let us experiment!" AndBernardet had longed for just these words from him; but the Magistrateremained silent, his head still bent. The police agent felt, withdespair, his chance slipping, slipping away from him, and that never,never again would he find a like opportunity to test the experiment.Suddenly, the strident tones of Dr. Erwin's voice rung out sharply, likean electric bell, and Bernardet experienced a sensation like that of asudden unexpected illumination.

  "My dear Master," he respectfully began, "I saw at home in Denmark, apoor devil, picked up dying, half devoured by a wolf; and who, whentaken from the very jaws of the beast, still retained in the eye a veryvisible image in which one could see the nose and teeth of the brute. Avision! Imagination, perhaps! But the fact struck me at the time and wemade a note of it."

  "And?" questioned M. Morin, in a tone of raillery.

  Bernardet cocked his ears as a dog does when he hears an unusual sound.M. Ginory looked at this slender young man with his long blond hair, hiseyes as blue as the waters of a lake, his face pale and wearing thepeculiar look common to searchers after the mysterious. The students andthe others gathered about their master, remained motionless and listenedintently as to a lecture.

  "And," Dr. Erwin went on frigidly, "if we had found absolutely nothingwe would, at least, have kept silent about an unsuccessful research, itis useless to say. Th
ink, then, my dear Master, the exterior objectsmust have imprinted themselves on the retina, did they not? reduced insize, according to the size of the place wherein they were reflected;they appeared there, they certainly appeared there! There is--I beg yourpardon for referring to it, but it is to these others (and Dr. Erwindesignated M. Ginory, his registrar, and Bernardet)--there is in theretina a substance of a red color, the _pourpre retinien_, verysensitive to the light. Upon the deep red of this membrane objects areseen white. And one can fix the image. M. Edmond Perrier, professor inthe Museum of Natural History, reports (you know it better than I, mydear Master), in a work on animal anatomy and physiology which ourstudents are all familiar with, that he made an experiment. Afterremoving a rabbit's eye, a living rabbit's eye--yes, science iscruel--he placed it in a dark room, so that he could obtain upon theretina the image of some object, a window for instance, and plunged itimmediately into a solution of alum and prevented the decomposition ofthe _pourpre retinien_, and the window could plainly be seen, fixed onthe eye. In that black chamber which we have under our eyebrows, in theorbit, is a storehouse, a storehouse of images which are retained, likethe image which the old Dane's eye held of the wolf's nose and teeth.And who knows? Perhaps it is possible to ask of a dead man's eye thesecret of what it saw when living."

  This was, put in more scientific terms by the young Danish doctor, thesubstance of what Bernardet believed possible. The young men hadlistened with the attractive sympathy, which is displayed when anythingnovel is explained. Rigid, upon the marble slab, the victim seemed towait for the result of the discussion, deaf to all the confused soundsabout him; his eye fixed upon the infinite, upon the unknowable which henow knew.

  It was, however, this insensible body which had caused the discussion ofwhat was an enigma to savants. What was the secret of his end? The lastword of his agony? Who made that wound which had ended his life? Andlike a statue lying on its stone couch, the murdered man seemed to wait.What they knew not, he knew. What they wished to know, he still knew,perhaps! This doubt alone, rooted deep in M. Ginory's mind, was enoughto urge him to have the experiment tried, and, excusing himself for hisinfatuation, he begged M. Morin to grant permission to try theexperiment, which some of the doctors had thought would be successful.

  "We shall be relieved even if we do not succeed, and we can but add ourdefeat to the others."

  M. Morin's face still bore its sceptical smile. But after all, theExamining Magistrate was master of the situation, and since young Dr.Erwin brought the result of the Denmark experiment--a contribution newin these researches--to add weight to the matter, the Professorrequested that he should not be asked to lend himself to an experimentwhich he declared in advance would be a perfectly useless one.

  There was a photographic apparatus at the Morgue as at the Prefecture,used for anthropometry. Bernardet, moreover, had his kodak in his hand.One could photograph the retina as soon as the membrane was separatedfrom the eye by the autopsy, and when, like the wing of a butterfly, ithad been fastened to a piece of cork. And while Bernardet was accustomedto all the horrors of crime, yet he felt his heart beat almost tosuffocation during this operation. He noticed that M. Ginory became verypale, and that he bit his lips, casting occasional pitying glancestoward the dead man. On the contrary, the young men bent over the bodyand studied it with the admiration and joy of treasure seekers diggingin a mine. Each human fibre seemed to reveal to them some new truth.They were like jewelers before a casket full of gems, and what theystudied, weighed, examined, was a human corpse. And when those eyes,living, terrible, accusing, were removed, leaving behind them two emptyorbits, the Professor suddenly spoke with marvelous eloquence, flowingand picturesque, as if he were speaking of works of art. And it was, intruth, a work of art, this wonderful mechanism which he explained to hisstudents, who listened eagerly to each word. It was a work of art, thiseye, with its sclerotic, its transparent cornea, its aqueous andvitreous humor, its crystalline lens, and the retina, like aphotographic plate in that black chamber in which the luminous raysreflect, reversed, the objects seen. And M. Morin, holding between hisfingers the object which he was demonstrating, spoke of the membraneformed of fibres and of the terminal elements of the optic nerve, as aprofessor of painting or of sculpture speaks of a gem chased by aBenvenuto.

  "The human body is a marvel," cried M. Morin, "a marvel, Messieurs," andhe held forth for several minutes upon the wonderful construction ofthis marvel. His enthusiasm was shared, moreover, by the young men andDr. Erwin, who listened intently. Bernardet, ignorant and respectful,felt troubled in the presence of this renowned physiologist, andcongratulated himself that it was he who had insisted on this experimentand caused a member of the Institute to hold forth thus. As for M.Ginory, he left the room a moment, feeling the need of air. Theoperation, which the surgeons prolonged with joy, made him ill, and hefelt very faint. He quickly recovered, however, and returned to thedissecting room, so as not to lose any of the explanation which M. Morinwas giving as he stood with the eye in his hand. And in that eye animage remained, perhaps. He was anxious to search for it, to find it.

  "I will take it upon myself," Bernardet said.