The Crystal Stopper - Maurice Leblanc (best ereader for epub .txt) 📗

shaken, and then fell back, sobbing:

“Oh, my poor mummy, poor mummy!” he stammered.

They tried to question him about that mother, of whom he had never spoken; but his tears were interrupted by a sudden fit of rebellion and he cried:

“I have done no murder⁠ ⁠… I won’t die. I have done no murder⁠ ⁠…”

“Gilbert,” they said, “show yourself a man.”

“Yes, yes⁠ ⁠… but I have done no murder⁠ ⁠… Why should I die?”

His teeth chattered so loudly that words which he uttered became unintelligible. He let the men do their work, made his confession, heard mass and then, growing calmer and almost docile, with the voice of a little child resigning itself, murmured:

“Tell my mother that I beg her forgiveness.”

“Your mother?”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… Put what I say in the papers⁠ ⁠… She will understand⁠ ⁠… And then⁠ ⁠…”

“What, Gilbert?”

“Well, I want the governor to know that I have not lost confidence.”

He gazed at the bystanders, one after the other, as though he entertained the mad hope that “the governor” was one of them, disguised beyond recognition and ready to carry him off in his arms:

“Yes,” he said, gently and with a sort of religious piety, “yes, I still have confidence, even at this moment⁠ ⁠… Be sure and let him know, won’t you?⁠ ⁠… I am positive that he will not let me die. I am certain of it⁠ ⁠…”

They guessed, from the fixed look in his eyes, that he saw Lupin, that he felt Lupin’s shadow prowling around and seeking an inlet through which to get to him. And never was anything more touching than the sight of that stripling⁠—clad in the straitjacket, with his arms and legs bound, guarded by thousands of men⁠—whom the executioner already held in his inexorable hand and who, nevertheless, hoped on.

Anguish wrung the hearts of all the beholders. Their eyes were dimmed with tears:

“Poor little chap!” stammered someone.

Prasville, touched like the rest and thinking of Clarisse, repeated, in a whisper:

“Poor little chap!”

But the hour struck, the preparations were finished. They set out.

The two processions met in the passage. Vaurheray, on seeing Gilbert, snapped out:

“I say, kiddie, the governor’s chucked us!”

And he added a sentence which nobody, save Prasville, was able to understand:

“Expect he prefers to pocket the proceeds of the crystal stopper.”

They went down the staircases. They crossed the prison-yards. An endless, horrible distance.

And, suddenly, in the frame of the great doorway, the wan light of day, the rain, the street, the outlines of houses, while far-off sounds came through the awful silence.

They walked along the wall, to the corner of the boulevard.

A few steps farther Vaucheray started back: he had seen!

Gilbert crept along, with lowered head, supported by an executioner’s assistant and by the chaplain, who made him kiss the crucifix as he went.

There stood the guillotine.

“No, no,” shouted Gilbert, “I won’t⁠ ⁠… I won’t⁠ ⁠… Help! Help!”

A last appeal, lost in space.

The executioner gave a signal. Vaucheray was laid hold of, lifted, dragged along, almost at a run.

And then came this staggering thing: a shot, a shot fired from the other side, from one of the houses opposite.

The assistants stopped short.

The burden which they were dragging had collapsed in their arms.

“What is it? What’s happened?” asked everybody.

“He’s wounded⁠ ⁠…”

Blood spurted from Vaucheray’s forehead and covered his face.

He spluttered:

“That’s done it⁠ ⁠… one in a thousand! Thank you, governor, thank you.”

“Finish him off! Carry him there!” said a voice, amid the general confusion.

“But he’s dead!”

“Get on with it⁠ ⁠… finish him off!”

Tumult was at its height, in the little group of magistrates, officials and policemen. Everyone was giving orders:

“Execute him!⁠ ⁠… The law must take its course!⁠ ⁠… We have no right to delay! It would be cowardice!⁠ ⁠… Execute him!”

“But the man’s dead!”

“That makes no difference!⁠ ⁠… The law must be obeyed!⁠ ⁠… Execute him!”

The chaplain protested, while two warders and Prasville kept their eyes on Gilbert. In the meantime, the assistants had taken up the corpse again and were carrying it to the guillotine.

“Hurry up!” cried the executioner, scared and hoarse-voiced. “Hurry up!⁠ ⁠… And the other one to follow⁠ ⁠… Waste no time⁠ ⁠…”

He had not finished speaking, when a second report rang out. He spun round on his heels and fell, groaning:

“It’s nothing⁠ ⁠… a wound in the shoulder⁠ ⁠… Go on⁠ ⁠… The next one’s turn!”

But his assistants were running away, yelling with terror. The space around the guillotine was cleared. And the prefect of police, rallying his men, drove everybody back to the prison, helter-skelter, like a disordered rabble: the magistrates, the officials, the condemned man, the chaplain, all who had passed through the archway two or three minutes before.

In the meanwhile, a squad of policemen, detectives and soldiers were rushing upon the house, a little old-fashioned, three-storied house, with a ground-floor occupied by two shops which happened to be empty. Immediately after the first shot, they had seen, vaguely, at one of the windows on the second floor, a man holding a rifle in his hand and surrounded with a cloud of smoke.

Revolver-shots were fired at him, but missed him. He, standing calmly on a table, took aim a second time, fired from the shoulder; and the crack of the second report was heard. Then he withdrew into the room.

Down below, as nobody answered the peal at the bell, the assailants demolished the door, which gave way almost immediately. They made for the staircase, but their onrush was at once stopped, on the first floor, by an accumulation of beds, chairs and other furniture, forming a regular barricade and so close-entangled that it took the aggressors four or five minutes to clear themselves a passage.

Those four or five minutes lost were enough to render all pursuit hopeless. When they reached the second floor they heard a voice shouting from above:

“This way, friends! Eighteen stairs more. A thousand apologies for giving you so much trouble!”

They ran up those eighteen stairs and nimbly at that! But, at the top, above the third story, was the garret, which was reached by a ladder and a trapdoor. And the fugitive had taken away the ladder and bolted the trapdoor.

The reader will not have forgotten the sensation created