“I have but too good reason to do so, sir. Ah, my dead father, who foresaw it all at the time, warned me! I laughed, when he said, ‘Take care, or she will dishonour us all.’ He was right. Through her, I have been hunted down by the police, just like some skulking thief. Everywhere that they inquired after me with their warrant, people must have said ‘Ah, ha, he has then committed some crime!’ And here I am before a magistrate! Ah, sir, what a disgrace! The Lerouges have been honest people, from father to son, ever since the world began. Inquire of all who have ever had dealings with me, they will tell you, ‘Lerouge’s word is as good as another man’s writing.’ Yes, she was a wicked woman; and I have often told her that she would come to a bad end.”
“You told her that?”
“More than a hundred times, sir.”
“Why? Come, my friend, do not be uneasy, your honour is not at stake here, no one questions it. When did you warn her so wisely?”
“Ah, a long time ago, sir,” replied the sailor, “the first time was more than thirty years back. She had ambition even in her blood; she wished to mix herself up in the intrigues of the great. It was that that ruined her. She said that one got money for keeping secrets; and I said that one got disgraced and that was all. To help the great to hide their villainies, and to expect happiness from it, is like making your bed of thorns, in the hope of sleeping well. But she had a will of her own.”
“You were her husband, though,” objected M. Daburon, “you had the right to command her obedience.”
The sailor shook his head, and heaved a deep sigh.
“Alas, sir! it was I who obeyed.”
To proceed by short inquiries with a witness, when you have no idea of the information he brings, is but to lose time in attempting to gain it. When you think you are approaching the important fact, you may be just avoiding it. It is much better to give the witness the rein, and to listen carefully, putting him back on the track should he get too far away. It is the surest and easiest method. This was the course M. Daburon adopted, all the time cursing Gevrol’s absence, as he by a single word could have shortened by a good half the examination, the importance of which, by the way, the magistrate did not even suspect.
“In what intrigues did your wife mingle?” asked he. “Go on, my friend, tell me everything exactly; here, you know, we must have not only the truth, but the whole truth.”