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By Root 1439 0

and nervous excitement, in which even occasions for celebration assumed an unhealthy, excessive character. So when, following the murder of a woman in an isolated house at La Croix-de-Maufras, it was learned that the examining magistrate at Rouen had by a stroke of genius reopened the inquiry into the Grandmorin affair and connected the two cases together, there was a veritable explosion of triumph in the official newspapers. There had still been occasional satirical references in the opposition press to the mysterious, mythical killer who had been invented by the police and given so much publicity in order to cover up the misdemeanours of certain highly placed individuals who had been compromised by the affair. These taunts could now be dealt with once and for all. The murderer and his accomplice were under arrest; President Grandmorin would emerge from the episode with his reputation untarnished. Once again there was fierce controversy; excitement grew day by day in both Rouen and Paris. The public, apart from being fascinated by a gruesome story of murder, was drawn to the case as if the future of the state itself depended on finally establishing the truth of the affair. For a whole week the press talked of nothing else.

Monsieur Denizet was summoned to Paris and presented himself at the private dwelling of the Secretary-General, Monsieur Camy-Lamotte, in the Rue du Rocher. He found him standing in his sparsely furnished study. He looked more drawn and tired than when he had last seen him; his star was on the wane and his scepticism was now coloured with regret, as if at this moment of great personal triumph he sensed the imminent collapse of the regime he had served. For the last two days he had been struggling to resolve a dilemma, still uncertain what use he should make of Séverine’s letter, which he had kept and which would have completely undermined the case for the prosecution, confirming as it did Roubaud’s account with a piece of incontrovertible evidence. No one knew it existed. He could destroy it. The day before, however, the Emperor had told him that on this occasion he demanded the law should take its course, without interference, even if the outcome should prove damaging to his government. It was a gesture of good faith, an intuition perhaps that, after the country had acclaimed him, a single miscarriage of justice could change the course of destiny. Although the Secretary-General had no moral scruples of his own, having learned to resolve political issues in a purely mechanical way, these instructions troubled him, and he wondered whether his allegiance to the Emperor might entail disobeying him.

‘Well,’ exclaimed Monsieur Denizet, feeling very pleased with himself, ‘my hunch was right! It was Cabuche who stabbed the President. There was some truth in the other line of inquiry, I agree, and personally I always felt there was something suspicious about Roubaud’s evidence. Anyway, we’ve got both of them.’

Monsieur Camy-Lamotte looked at him steadily with his pale-coloured eyes.

‘So all the facts in the dossier I received have been verified, and you are absolutely convinced?’

‘Absolutely,’ Monsieur Denizet assured him. ‘There can be no doubt whatever ... It all fits together. I cannot remember a case in which, for all its apparent complications, the crime followed a more logical sequence and was easier to predict.’

‘But Roubaud objects. He claims it was he who committed the first murder and tells some story about his wife being violated and him being driven by jealousy and killing in a fit of blind rage. The opposition newspapers are full of it.’

‘The opposition newspapers will report any old gossip. But they don’t really believe it. How can Roubaud be a jealous husband when he encouraged his wife to take a lover? Let him try telling that to the court! He just wants to stir up scandal, but he won’t succeed. If he had some evidence ... but he hasn’t. He talks of a letter, which he claims he made his wife write and which should have been found amongst the victim’s papers. You went through those papers,