The Monomaniac (La bête humaine)

by Émile Zola

"Oh! certainly!" said he; "everything is against him! I enumerated the proofs to you. I may say they are classic, for not one is wanting. I did not fail to look for an accomplice, a woman in the coupé, as you suggested. This seemed to agree with the evidence of a driver, a man who caught a glimpse of the murder scene. But skilfully cross-questioned by me, this man did not persist in his first statement, and he even recognised the travelling-rug, as being the dark bundle he had referred to. Oh! yes; Cabuche is certainly the culprit, and the more so, as, if we cannot fix it on him, we have no one else."

Up to then, the chief secretary had delayed bringing the written proof he possessed to the knowledge of the magistrate; and now that he had formed a conviction, he was still less eager to establish the truth. What was the use of upsetting the false clue of the prosecution, if the real clue was to lead to greater embarrassments? All this would have to be considered in the first instance.

"Very well," he resumed, with that smile of the worn-out man, "I am willing to admit you are right. I only sent for you for the purpose of discussing certain grave points. This is an exceptional case, and it has now become quite political; you feel this, do you not? We shall therefore, perhaps, find ourselves compelled to act as government men. Come, frankly, this girl, the sweetheart of Cabuche, was victimised, eh?"

The magistrate gave the pout of a cunning fellow, whilst his eyes became half lost in his lids.

"If you ask me," said he, "I think the President put her in a great fright, and this will assuredly come out at the trial. Moreover, if the defence is entrusted to a lawyer of the opposition, we may expect a regular avalanche of tiresome tales; for there is no lack of these stories down there, in our part of the country."

This Denizet was not so stupid when free from the routine of the profession, where he soared on high in his unlimited perspicacity and mighty power. He understood why he had been summoned to the private residence of the chief secretary, in preference to the Ministry of Justice.

"Briefly," concluded he, seeing that M. Camy-Lamotte did not open his mouth, "we shall have a rather nasty business."

The chief secretary confined himself to tossing his head. He was engaged in calculating the results of the trial of the Roubauds. It was a dead certainty that if the husband were brought up at the assizes, he would relate all: how his wife had been led astray, she also, when a young girl, and the intrigues that followed, and the jealous rage that had urged him on to murder, without taking into consideration that, in this instance, it was not a question of a domestic and a convicted criminal. This assistant station-master, married to this pretty woman, would mix up a number of people of independent means, and others connected with the railways, in the business. Then, who could tell where the affairs of a man like the President would lead them? They might perhaps fall into unforeseen abominations. No, decidedly; the case against the Roubauds, the real culprits, was more objectionable than the other. He had made up his mind; he put it absolutely aside. If they had to choose between the two, he was in favour of proceeding with the prosecution of the innocent Cabuche.

"I give in to your theory," he at last said to M. Denizet. "There are, indeed, strong presumptions against the quarryman, if so be he had a legitimate vengeance to satisfy; but all this is very sad, and what a quantity of mud will be thrown about! Of course I know that justice should remain indifferent to consequences, and that, soaring above the interests——"

He concluded his phrase with a gesture, while the magistrate, silent in turn, awaited with gloomy countenance, the orders he felt were coming. From the moment they accepted his idea of the truth—that creation of his own intelligence, he was ready to sacrifice the idea of justice to the requirements of the government. But the secretary, notwithstanding his usual dexterity in this kind of transaction, hastened on a little, spoke too rapidly, like a chief in the habit of being obeyed.