The Detective Megapack

by Various Writers

  “But she could have written you a letter.”

  “She said that she had forgotten the address.”

  “Ah, my poor friend,” I exclaimed, “I see that you are striving to convince yourself. Well, so much the better. Now, when does the marriage take place? I suppose that after so long and dark a night the sun of matrimony will rise radiant.”

  “Don’t laugh,” exclaimed Zarco; “you shall be my best man.”

  “With much pleasure.”

  * * * *

  Man proposes, but God disposes. We were still seated in the library, chatting together, when there came a knock at the door. It was about two o’clock in the morning. The judge and I were both startled, but we could not have told why. The servant opened the door, and a moment later a man dashed into the library so breathless from hard running that he could scarcely speak.

  “Good news, judge, grand news!” he said when he recovered breath. “We have won!”

  The man was the prosecuting attorney.

  “Explain yourself, my dear friend,” said the judge, motioning him to a chair. “What remarkable occurrence could have brought you hither in such haste and at this hour of the morning?”

  “We have arrested Gabriela Zahara.”

  “Arrested her?” exclaimed the judge joyfully.

  “Yes, sir, we have her. One of our detectives has been following her for a month. He has caught her, and she is now locked up in a cell of the prison.”

  “Then let us go there at once!” exclaimed the judge. “We will interrogate her to-night. Do me the favor to notify my secretary. Owing to the gravity of the case, you yourself must be present. Also notify the guard who has charge of the head of Señor Romeral. It has been my opinion from the beginning that this criminal woman would not dare deny the horrible murder when she was confronted with the evidence of her crime. So far as you are concerned,” said the judge, turning to me, “I will appoint you assistant secretary, so that you can be present without violating the law.”

  I did not answer. A horrible suspicion had been growing within me, a suspicion which, like some infernal animal, was tearing at my heart with claws of steel. Could Gabriela and Blanca be one and the same? I turned to the assistant district attorney.

  “By the way,” I asked, “where was Gabriela when she was arrested?”

  “In the Hotel of the Lion.”

  My suffering was frightful, but I could say nothing, do nothing without compromising the judge; besides, I was not sure. Even if I were positive that Gabriela and Blanca were the same person, what could my unfortunate friend do? Feign a sudden illness? Flee the country? My only way was to keep silent and let God work it out in His own way. The orders of the judge had already been communicated to the chief of police and the warden of the prison. Even at this hour the news had spread throughout the city and idlers were gathering to see the rich and beautiful woman who would ascend the scaffold. I still clung to the slender hope that Gabriela and Blanca were not the same person. But when I went toward the prison I staggered like a drunken man and was compelled to lean upon the shoulder of one of the officials, who asked me anxiously if I were ill.

  VI

  We arrived at the prison at four o’clock in the morning. The large reception room was brilliantly lighted. The guard, holding a black box in which was the skull of Señor Romeral, was awaiting us.

  The judge took his seat at the head of the long table; the prosecuting attorney sat on his right, and the chief of police stood by with his arms folded. I and the secretary sat on the left of the judge. A number of police officers and detectives were standing near the door.

  The judge touched his bell and said to the warden:

  “Bring in Doña Gabriela Zahara!”

  I felt as if I were dying, and instead of looking at the door, I looked at the judge to see if I could read in his face the solution of this frightful problem.

  I saw him turn livid and clutch his throat with both hands, as if to stop a cry of agony, and then he turned to me with a look of infinite supplication.

  “Keep quiet!” I whispered, putting my finger on my lips, and then I added: “I knew it.”

  The unfortunate man arose from his chair.

  “Judge!” I exclaimed, and in that one word I conveyed to him the full sense of his duty and of the dangers which surrounded him. He controlled himself and resumed his seat, but were it not for the light in his eyes, he might have been taken for a dead man. Yes, the man was dead; only the judge lived.

  When I had convinced myself of this, I turned and looked at the accused. Good God! Gabriela Zahara was not only Blanca, the woman my friend so deeply loved, but she was also the woman I had met in the stagecoach and subsequently at Granada, the beautiful South American, Mercedes!

  All these fantastic women had now merged into one, the real one who stood before us, accused of the murder of her husband and who had been condemned to die.

  There was still a chance to prove herself innocent. Could she do it? This was my one supreme hope, as it was that of my poor friend.

  Gabriela (we will call her now by her real name) was deathly pale, but apparently calm. Was she trusting to her innocence or to the weakness of the judge? Our doubts were soon solved. Up to that moment the accused had looked at no one but the judge. I did not know whether she desired to encourage him or menace him, or to tell him that his Blanca could not be an assassin. But noting the impassibility of the magistrate and that his face was as expressionless as that of a corpse, she turned to the others, as if seeking help from them. Then her eyes fell upon me, and she blushed slightly.

  The judge now seemed to awaken from his stupor and asked in a harsh voice:

  “What is your name?”

  “Gabriela Zahara, widow of Romeral,” answered the accused in a soft voice.

  Zarco trembled. He had just learned that his Blanca had never existed; she told him so herself—she who only three hours before had consented to become his wife!

  Fortunately, no one was looking at the judge, all eyes being fixed upon Gabriela, whose marvelous beauty and quiet demeanor carried to all an almost irresistible conviction of her innocence.

  The judge recovered himself, and then, like a man who is staking more than life upon the cast of a die, he ordered the guard to open the black box.

  “Madame!” said the judge sternly, his eyes seeming to dart flames, “approach and tell me whether you recognize this head?”

  At a signal from the judge the guard opened the black box and lifted out the skull.

  A cry of mortal agony rang through that room; one could not tell whether it was of fear or of madness. The woman shrank back, her eyes dilating with terror, and screamed: “Alfonzo, Alfonzo!”

  Then she seemed to fall into a stupor. All turned to the judge, murmuring: “She is guilty beyond a doubt.”

  “Do you recognize the nail which deprived your husband of life?” said the judge, arising from his chair, looking like a corpse rising from the grave.

  “Yes, sir,” answered Gabriela mechanically.

  “That is to say, you admit that you assassinated your husband?” asked the judge, in a voice that trembled with his great suffering.

  “Sir,” answered the accused, “I do not care to live any more, but before I die I would like to make a statement.”

  The judge fell back in his chair and then asked me by a look: “What is she going to say?”

  I, myself, was almost stupefied by fear.

  Gabriela stood before them, her hands clasped and a far-away look in her large, dark eyes.

  “I am going to confess,” she said, “and my confession will be my defense, although it will not be sufficient to save me from the scaffold. Listen to me, all of you! Why deny that which is self-evident? I was alone with my husband when he died. The servants and the doctor have testified to this. Hence, only I could have killed him. Yes, I committed the crime, but another man forced me to do it.”

  The judge trembled when he heard these words, but, dom
inating his emotion, he asked courageously:

  “The name of that man, madame? Tell us at once the name of the scoundrel!”

  Gabriela looked at the judge with an expression of infinite love, as a mother would look at the child she worshiped, and answered: “By a single word I could drag this man into the depths with me. But I will not. No one shall ever know his name, for he has loved me and I love him. Yes, I love him, although I know he will do nothing to save me!”

  The judge half rose from his chair and extended his hands beseechingly, but she looked at him as if to say: “Be careful! You will betray yourself, and it will do no good.”

  He sank back into his chair, and Gabriela continued her story in a quiet, firm voice:

  “I was forced to marry a man I hated. I hated him more after I married him than I did before. I lived three years in martyrdom. One day there came into my life a man whom I loved. He demanded that I should marry him, he asked me to fly with him to a heaven of happiness and love. He was a man of exceptional character, high and noble, whose only fault was that he loved me too much. Had I told him: ‘I have deceived you, I am not a widow; my husband is living,’ he would have left me at once. I invented a thousand excuses, but he always answered: ‘Be my wife!’ What could I do? I was bound to a man of the vilest character and habits, whom I loathed. Well, I killed this man, believing that I was committing an act of justice, and God punished me, for my lover abandoned me. And now I am very, very tired of life, and all I ask of you is that death may come as quickly as possible.”

  Gabriela stopped speaking. The judge had buried his face in his hands, as if he were thinking, but I could see he was shaking like an epileptic.

  “Your honor,” repeated Gabriela, “grant my request that I may die soon.”

  The judge made a sign to the guards to remove the prisoner.

  Before she followed them, she gave me a terrible look in which there was more of pride than of repentance.

  * * * *

  I do not wish to enter into details of the condition of the judge during the following day. In the great emotional struggle which took place, the officer of the law conquered the man, and he confirmed the sentence of death.

  On the following day the papers were sent to the Court of Appeals, and then Zarco came to me and said: “Wait here until I return. Take care of this unfortunate woman, but do not visit her, for your presence would humiliate instead of consoling her. Do not ask me whither I am going, and do not think that I am going to commit the very foolish act of taking my own life. Farewell, and forgive me all the worry I have caused you.”

  Twenty days later the Court of Appeals confirmed the sentence, and Gabriela Zahara was placed in the death cell.

  * * * *

  The morning of the day fixed for the execution came, and still the judge had not returned. The scaffold had been erected in the center of the square, and an enormous crowd had gathered. I stood by the door of the prison, for, while I had obeyed the wish of my friend that I should not call on Gabriela in her prison, I believed it my duty to represent him in that supreme moment and accompany the woman he had loved to the foot of the scaffold.

  When she appeared, surrounded by her guards, I hardly recognized her. She had grown very thin and seemed hardly to have the strength to lift to her lips the small crucifix she carried in her hand.

  “I am here, señora. Can I be of service to you?” I asked her as she passed by me.

  She raised her deep, sunken eyes to mine, and, when she recognized me, she exclaimed:

  “Oh, thanks, thanks! This is a great consolation for me, in my last hour of life. Father,” she added, turning to the priest who stood beside her, “may I speak a few words to this generous friend?”

  “Yes, my daughter,” answered the venerable minister.

  Then Gabriela asked me: “Where is he?”

  “He is absent—”

  “May God bless him and make him happy! When you see him, ask him to forgive me even as I believe God has already forgiven me. Tell him I love him yet, although this love is the cause of my death.”

  We had arrived at the foot of the scaffold stairway, where I was compelled to leave her. A tear, perhaps the last one there was in that suffering heart, rolled down her cheek. Once more she said: “Tell him that I died blessing him.”

  Suddenly there came a roar like that of thunder. The mass of people swayed, shouted, danced, laughed like maniacs, and above all this tumult one word rang out clearly:

  “Pardoned! Pardoned!”

  At the entrance to the square appeared a man on horseback, galloping madly toward the scaffold. In his hand he waved a white handkerchief, and his voice rang high above the clamor of the crowd: “Pardoned! Pardoned!”

  It was the judge. Reining up his foaming horse at the foot of the scaffold, he extended a paper to the chief of police.

  Gabriela, who had already mounted some of the steps, turned and gave the judge a look of infinite love and gratitude.

  “God bless you!” she exclaimed, and then fell senseless.

  As soon as the signatures and seals upon the document had been verified by the authorities, the priest and the judge rushed to the accused to undo the cords which bound her hands and arms and to revive her.

  All their efforts were useless, however. Gabriela Zahara was dead.

  THE ROME EXPRESS, by Arthur Griffiths

  CHAPTER I

  The Rome Express, the direttissimo, or most direct, was approaching Paris one morning in March, when it became known to the occupants of the sleeping-car that there was something amiss, very much amiss, in the car.

  The train was travelling the last stage, between Laroche and Paris, a run of a hundred miles without a stop. It had halted at Laroche for early breakfast, and many, if not all the passengers, had turned out. Of those in the sleeping-car, seven in number, six had been seen in the restaurant, or about the platform; the seventh, a lady, had not stirred. All had reëntered their berths to sleep or doze when the train went on, but several were on the move as it neared Paris, taking their turn at the lavatory, calling for water, towels, making the usual stir of preparation as the end of a journey was at hand.

  There were many calls for the porter, yet no porter appeared. At last the attendant was found—lazy villain!—asleep, snoring loudly, stertorously, in his little bunk at the end of the car. He was roused with difficulty, and set about his work in a dull, unwilling, lethargic way, which promised badly for his tips from those he was supposed to serve.

  By degrees all the passengers got dressed, all but two—the lady in 9 and 10, who had made no sign as yet; and the man who occupied alone a double berth next her, numbered 7 and 8.

  As it was the porter’s duty to call every one, and as he was anxious, like the rest of his class, to get rid of his travellers as soon as possible after arrival, he rapped at each of the two closed doors behind which people presumably still slept.

  The lady cried “All right,” but there was no answer from No. 7 and 8.

  Again and again the porter knocked and called loudly. Still meeting with no response, he opened the door of the compartment and went in.

  It was now broad daylight. No blind was down; indeed, the one narrow window was open, wide; and the whole of the interior of the compartment was plainly visible, all and everything in it.

  The occupant lay on his bed motionless. Sound asleep? No, not merely asleep—the twisted unnatural lie of the limbs, the contorted legs, the one arm drooping listlessly but stiffly over the side of the berth, told of a deeper, more eternal sleep.

  The man was dead. Dead—and not from natural causes.

  One glance at the blood-stained bedclothes, one look at the gaping wound in the breast, at the battered, mangled face, told the terrible story.

  It was murder! murder most foul! The victim had been stabbed to the heart.

  With a wild, affrighted, cry the porter rushed out of the compartment, and to the eager questioning of all who crowded round him, he could only mutter
in confused and trembling accents:

  “There! there! in there!”

  Thus the fact of the murder became known to every one by personal inspection, for every one (even the lady had appeared for just a moment) had looked in where the body lay. The compartment was filled for some ten minutes or more by an excited, gesticulating, polyglot mob of half a dozen, all talking at once in French, English, and Italian.

  The first attempt to restore order was made by a tall man, middle-aged, but erect in his bearing, with bright eyes and alert manner, who took the porter aside, and said sharply in good French, but with a strong English accent:

  “Here! it’s your business to do something. No one has any right to be in that compartment now. There may be reasons—traces—things to remove; never mind what. But get them all out. Be sharp about it; and lock the door. Remember you will be held responsible to justice.”

  The porter shuddered, so did many of the passengers who had overheard the Englishman’s last words.

  Justice! It is not to be trifled with anywhere, least of all in France, where the uncomfortable superstition prevails that every one who can be reasonably suspected of a crime is held to be guilty of that crime until his innocence is clearly proved.

  All those six passengers and the porter were now brought within the category of the accused. They were all open to suspicion; they, and they alone, for the murdered man had been seen alive at Laroche, and the fell deed must have been done since then, while the train was in transit, that is to say, going at express speed, when no one could leave it except at peril of his life.

  “Deuced awkward for us!” said the tall English general, Sir Charles Collingham by name, to his brother the parson, when he had reëntered their compartment and shut the door.

  “I can’t see it. In what way?” asked the Reverend Silas Collingham, a typical English cleric, with a rubicund face and square-cut white whiskers, dressed in a suit of black serge, and wearing the professional white tie.