The Beast Within - Emile Zola [77]
Tormented by thoughts such as these, Roubaud brought the conversation back to the investigation.
‘So you’ve no idea why we’ve been summoned again?’ he asked. ‘Is there some new evidence?’
Jacques shrugged his shoulders.
‘There’s talk of an arrest,’ he said. ‘That’s what I heard at the station just now, when I arrived.’
The Roubauds were simultaneously amazed, curious and very disturbed. An arrest! No one had said anything to them about an arrest. Had the arrest already been made or had it yet to happen? They plied him with questions. But he could tell them nothing more.
Just then Séverine heard footsteps coming along the corridor.
‘It’s Berthe and her husband,’ she whispered.
It was indeed Monsieur and Madame Lachesnaye. They walked stiffly past the Roubauds, Madame Lachesnaye not even deigning to look at her old school friend, and were immediately shown into the examining magistrate’s office by an usher.
‘Well,’ said Roubaud. ‘We shall have to be patient. This will take at least two hours. Come and sit down.’
Roubaud had seated himself on Severine’s left and beckoned to Jacques to take the other seat beside her. For a moment he hesitated. But Severine looked at him so sweetly and timidly that he overcame his qualms and came to sit next to her. She seemed so fragile, sitting there between them, so gentle and submissive. As they waited, Jacques felt the warmth from her body gradually relaxing him.
Inside Monsieur Denizet’s office the questioning was about to begin. The inquiry had already amassed a substantial dossier of information filling several files of documents, all bound in blue folders. The investigation had sought to trace the victim’s movements from the moment he left Paris. Monsieur Vandorpe, the stationmaster, had testified that the 6.30 express had left on time, that carriage number 293 had been attached to the train at the last minute, that he had chatted briefly with Roubaud, who had got into his compartment shortly before President Grandmorin arrived at the station, that the latter had been safely conducted to his coupé and that there was definitely no one else in the compartment. The guard, Henri Dauvergne, had been questioned about what happened at Rouen during the train’s ten-minute stop there. He was unable to offer any clear statement. He had seen Monsieur and Madame Roubaud chatting on the platform outside the coupé and was fairly sure that they had returned to their own compartment and that one of the inspectors had closed the carriage door behind them. He couldn’t be absolutely sure because there were so many people milling about on the platform, and the station was poorly lit. As to whether some person or other - namely the mystery killer, whom the police had so far failed to find - could have jumped into the coupé as the train was leaving the station, he said he thought it highly unlikely albeit not impossible, as similar occurrences had to his knowledge happened twice before. Other station employees at Rouen had been asked the same questions, but far from shedding any light on the matter, they had merely succeeded in confusing things further, by making statements that completely contradicted each other. One fact that appeared to be established beyond doubt was that Roubaud, standing on the inside of a carriage, shook hands with the stationmaster at Barentin, who was standing on the carriage footboard. The stationmaster in question, Monsieur Bessière, had formally testified that this was the case. He also added that his colleague had been alone in the compartment with his wife, who was lying on one of the seats apparently fast asleep. The inquiry had been extended further - to the other passengers who had travelled from Paris in the same compartment as the Roubauds. The fat lady and her fat spouse, who had arrived late