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By Root 1267 0

appearance of the murderer. Jacques, being the only witness who had actually seen him, was the one person who might provide exact information. But he could add nothing to his original statement. What he saw, he repeated, had lasted less than a second; it had come and gone so quickly that all it left in his mind was a general impression, a blur. What he had seen was a man slitting another man’s throat. That was all he could say. For half an hour the magistrate doggedly tried to elicit something more precise, repeating his questions time and time again, in every manner conceivable. Was he tall? Was he short? Did he have a beard? Was his hair long or short? What sort of clothes was he wearing? Was he a professional person or was he working class? Jacques became more and more confused and could give only vague answers.

‘Let me ask you one final question,’ Monsieur Denizet said suddenly, looking him straight in the eye. ‘If you saw the murderer, would you recognize him?’

Jacques felt a wave of anxiety run through him; it was as if Monsieur Denizet could see inside his mind. His eyelids fluttered; he seemed to be speaking his thoughts aloud.

‘Would I recognize him?’ he murmured. ‘Yes ... perhaps I would.’

But immediately the strange fear that he might unwittingly have been an accomplice to the crime made him draw back and evade the question.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t be certain. You must remember that the train was travelling at eighty kilometres an hour!’

The magistrate threw up his hands in despair. He was about to ask Jacques to wait in the adjoining room for further questioning, when he suddenly changed his mind.

‘Please wait here a moment,’ he said. ‘Take a seat.’

He once again rang for the usher.

‘Please show in Monsieur and Madame Roubaud,’ he said.

As soon as they walked through the door and saw Jacques, a look of anxiety shot across their faces. Had he said anything? Had he been asked to wait in order to bring them together face to face? In the presence of Jacques, their confidence vanished, and they sounded very unsure of themselves as they began to answer the magistrate’s questions. Monsieur Denizet, however, simply ran through their earlier statement. The Roubauds merely had to repeat what they had said before, almost word for word. The magistrate listened with his head lowered, not even looking at them.

Suddenly he turned towards Séverine.

‘Madame,’ he said, ‘you told the safety officer at Le Havre, whose report I have here, that you were sure a man got into the coupé at Rouen just as the train was leaving the station.’

The question took Séverine by surprise. Why had he mentioned that? Was it a trap? Did he want to see whether what she said now would contradict what she had said before? She looked quickly at her husband. Roubaud felt he must say something.

‘Monsieur,’ he said, ‘I don’t think that my wife was quite as definite as that.’

‘Forgive me, Monsieur Roubaud,’ continued the magistrate, ‘but when you admitted that this was a possibility, your wife said: “That’s what happened, I’m sure it did.” What I would like to know, madame, is whether you had any particular reason for saying that.’

Séverine was beginning to feel very worried. She was convinced that if she wasn’t careful he would lead her from one question to another and force her to admit what had happened. On the other hand she couldn’t just stand there and say nothing.

‘No, monsieur,’ she said. ‘There was no particular reason. I must have said it because that was the only thing that seemed possible; how else can it have happened?’

‘So you didn’t actually see the man, and you can tell us nothing about him.’

‘Absolutely nothing, monsieur.’

For a moment it seemed as if Monsieur Denizet was about to abandon this line of inquiry, but the minute he began to question Roubaud he returned to it.

‘Tell me, monsieur,’ he asked, ‘how is it that you didn’t see this man, if he really did get into the carriage, since it appears from your statement that you were still talking to the victim when the whistle blew for the train to