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By Root 1438 0

came as a sudden revelation; everything became clear. The two crimes were connected. He was amazed at the way it all fitted together so logically. But the consequences were going to be very far-reaching. First, before mentioning the watch, he questioned Cabuche about the gloves and the handkerchiefs. For a moment Cabuche was on the point of confessing everything — yes he adored her, yes he desired her, he even kissed the dresses she had worn, picked up and stole things she dropped — laces from her stays, grips, hairpins. Then he was suddenly overcome with shame and embarrassment and would say no more. Monsieur Denizet, deciding that this was the moment, produced the watch and showed it to him. Cabuche looked at it aghast. He remembered it clearly; he had discovered it tied inside a handkerchief, which he had stolen from beneath Séverine’s pillow and taken home with him as one of his trophies. He had left it in his house while he racked his brains to think of a way of returning it. But what was the point of saying that? He would then have to admit to all the other things he had taken — bits of clothing and underwear with the scent of her perfume on them. He felt so ashamed of himself. They didn’t believe anything of what he said already. He could no longer understand it himself; everything was confused in his mind. It was all too complicated for him; it was becoming a nightmare. He no longer flew into a rage whenever they accused him of murder but stood there looking bewildered, answering that he did not know to every question he was asked. He did not know about the gloves and the handkerchiefs. He did not know about the watch. The whole thing was beginning to irritate him. Why didn’t they stop pestering him and take him off to be guillotined?

The following day, Monsieur Denizet had Roubaud arrested. Feeling that he now had the upper hand, he had issued the warrant in a moment of inspiration, thoroughly confident in his own perspicacity and before having any definite proof against him. Although there was still much that remained unexplained, he sensed that Roubaud was the vital link and even the instigator in this double murder. His suspicions met with immediate success when he discovered the deed of gift leaving their estate to the survivor, signed by Roubaud and Séverine in the presence of Maitre Colin, a solicitor in Le Havre, a week after they had taken possession of La Croix-de-Maufras. From that moment, Denizet was able to reconstruct the whole story, with such powerful arguments and telling evidence that his case against him was unassailable; the truth itself would have appeared less convincing, more far-fetched and even fantastical by comparison. Roubaud was a coward who on two occasions, frightened to commit murder himself, had enlisted the service of his bestial accomplice, Cabuche. The first time, eager to get his hands on President Grandmorin’s legacy, knowing what was in his will and also knowing that Cabuche bore a grudge against him, Roubaud had slipped the knife into his hand and pushed him into the coupé while the train was standing in the station at Rouen. Having shared the ten thousand francs between them, the two would probably never have seen each other again, had not one murder led to another. It was here that Monsieur Denizet displayed the profound understanding of criminal mentality for which he was so much admired; he had continued to keep his eye on Cabuche, he now revealed, because he was convinced that, statistically, the first murder would be followed by a second. In effect it needed only eighteen months: the Roubauds’ marriage had broken up, Roubaud had squandered his five thousand francs in gambling, and his wife had been driven to take a lover to amuse herself. No doubt she had refused to sell La Croix-de-Maufras lest her husband dissipate that money too; they were continually arguing, and she might have been threatening to hand him over to the police. At all events, a number of witnesses had testified to the complete breakdown of their marriage, and it was this that had eventually led to