The Eight Strokes of the Clock - Maurice Leblanc (reading in the dark .TXT) 📗

allow me, madame. Your friend Germaine is right. The examining-magistrate will be here presently; and the fact that the dagger and the pocketbook are in your possession will lead to your immediate arrest. This must not happen. Please allow me.”

His insinuating voice diminished Thérèse d’Ormeval’s resistance. She released her fingers, one by one. He took the bag, opened it, produced a little dagger with an ebony handle and a grey leather pocketbook and quietly slipped the two into the inside pocket of his jacket.

Germaine Astaing gazed at him in amazement:

“You’re mad, monsieur! What right have you⁠ ⁠… ?”

“These things must not be left lying about. I shan’t worry now. The magistrate will never look for them in my pocket.”

“But I shall denounce you to the police,” she exclaimed, indignantly. “They shall be told!”

“No, no,” he said, laughing, “you won’t say anything! The police have nothing to do with this. The quarrel between you must be settled in private. What an idea, to go dragging the police into every incident of one’s life!”

Madame Astaing was choking with fury:

“But you have no right to talk like this, monsieur! Who are you, after all? A friend of that woman’s?”

“Since you have been attacking her, yes.”

“But I’m only attacking her because she’s guilty. For you can’t deny it: she has killed her husband.”

“I don’t deny it,” said Rénine, calmly. “We are all agreed on that point. Jacques d’Ormeval was killed by his wife. But, I repeat, the police must not know the truth.”

“They shall know it through me, monsieur, I swear they shall. That woman must be punished: she has committed murder.”

Rénine went up to her and, touching her on the shoulder:

“You asked me just now by what right I was interfering. And you yourself, madame?”

“I was a friend of Jacques d’Ormeval.”

“Only a friend?”

She was a little taken aback, but at once pulled herself together and replied:

“I was his friend and it is my duty to avenge his death.”

“Nevertheless, you will remain silent, as he did.”

“He did not know, when he died.”

“That’s where you are wrong. He could have accused his wife, if he had wished. He had ample time to accuse her; and he said nothing.”

“Why?”

“Because of his children.”

Madame Astaing was not appeased; and her attitude displayed the same longing for revenge and the same detestation. But she was influenced by Rénine in spite of herself. In the small, closed room, where there was such a clash of hatred, he was gradually becoming the master; and Germaine Astaing understood that it was against him that she had to struggle, while Madame d’Ormeval felt all the comfort of that unexpected support which was offering itself on the brink of the abyss:

“Thank you, monsieur,” she said. “As you have seen all this so clearly, you also know that it was for my children’s sake that I did not give myself up. But for that⁠ ⁠… I am so tired⁠ ⁠… !”

And so the scene was changing and things assuming a different aspect. Thanks to a few words let fall in the midst of the dispute, the culprit was lifting her head and taking heart, whereas her accuser was hesitating and seemed to be uneasy. And it also came about that the accuser dared not say anything further and that the culprit was nearing the moment at which the need is felt of breaking silence and of speaking, quite naturally, words that are at once a confession and a relief.

“The time, I think, has come,” said Rénine to Thérèse, with the same unvarying gentleness, “when you can and ought to explain yourself.”

She was again weeping, lying huddled in a chair. She too revealed a face aged and ravaged by sorrow; and, in a very low voice, with no display of anger, she spoke, in short, broken sentences:

“She has been his mistress for the last four years.⁠ ⁠… I can’t tell you how I suffered.⁠ ⁠… She herself told me of it⁠ ⁠… out of sheer wickedness⁠ ⁠… Her loathing for me was even greater than her love for Jacques⁠ ⁠… and every day I had some fresh injury to bear⁠ ⁠… She would ring me up to tell me of her appointments with my husband⁠ ⁠… she hoped to make me suffer so much I should end by killing myself.⁠ ⁠… I did think of it sometimes, but I held out, for the children’s sake⁠ ⁠… Jacques was weakening. She wanted him to get a divorce⁠ ⁠… and little by little he began to consent⁠ ⁠… dominated by her and by her brother, who is slyer than she is, but quite as dangerous⁠ ⁠… I felt all this⁠ ⁠… Jacques was becoming harsh to me.⁠ ⁠… He had not the courage to leave me, but I was the obstacle and he bore me a grudge.⁠ ⁠… Heavens, the tortures I suffered!⁠ ⁠…”

“You should have given him his liberty,” cried Germaine Astaing. “A woman doesn’t kill her husband for wanting a divorce.”

Thérèse shook her head and answered:

“I did not kill him because he wanted a divorce. If he had really wanted it, he would have left me; and what could I have done? But your plans had changed, Germaine; divorce was not enough for you; and it was something else that you would have obtained from him, another, much more serious thing which you and your brother had insisted on⁠ ⁠… and to which he had consented⁠ ⁠… out of cowardice⁠ ⁠… in spite of himself.⁠ ⁠…”

“What do you mean?” spluttered Germaine. “What other thing?”

“My death.”

“You lie!” cried Madame Astaing.

Thérèse did not raise her voice. She made not a movement of aversion or indignation and simply repeated:

“My death, Germaine. I have read your latest letters, six letters from you which he was foolish enough to leave about in his pocketbook and which I read last night, six letters in which the terrible word is not set down, but in which it appears between every line. I trembled as I read it! That Jacques should come to this!⁠ ⁠… Nevertheless the idea of stabbing him did not occur to me for a second. A woman like myself, Germaine, does not readily commit murder.⁠ ⁠… If