The Sin That Was His

by Frank L. Packard

There were many there from Tournayville—but there was all of St. Marleau. It was St. Marleau's own and particular affair. Since early morning, since very early morning, Raymond had seen and heard the vehicles of all descriptions rattling past the presbytère, the occupants dressed in their Sunday clothes. It was a jour de fête. St. Marleau did not every day have a murder of its own! The fields were deserted; only the very old and the children had not come. They were not all in the room, for there was not place for them all—those who had not been on hand at the opening of the doors had been obliged to content themselves with gathering outside to derive what satisfaction they could from their proximity to the fateful events that were transpiring within; and they had at least seen the prisoner led handcuffed from the jail that adjoined the courthouse, and had been rewarded to the extent of being able to view with intense and bated interest people they had known all their lives, such as Valérie, and Mother Blondin, and the more privileged of their fellows who had been chosen as witnesses, as these latter disappeared inside the building!

Raymond's eyes roved around the courtroom, and rested upon the judge upon the bench. His first glance at the judge, taken at the moment the other had entered the room, had brought a certain, quick relief. Far from severity, the white-haired man sitting there in his black gown had a kindly, genial face. He found his first impressions even strengthened now. His eyes passed on to the crown prosecutor; and here, too, he found cause for reassurance. The man was middle-aged, shrewd-faced, and somewhat domineering. He was crisp, incisive, and had been even unnecessarily blunt and curt in his speech and manner so far—he was not one who would enlist the sympathy of a jury. On the other hand—Raymond's eyes shifted again, to hold on the clean-cut, smiling face of the prisoner's counsel—Lemoyne, that was the lawyer's name he had been told, was young, pleasant-voiced, magnetic. Raymond experienced a sort of grim admiration, as he looked at this man. No man in the courtroom knew better than Lemoyne the hopelessness of his case, and yet he sat there confident, smiling, undisturbed.

Raymond's eyes sought the floor. It was a foregone conclusion that the verdict would be guilty. There was not a loophole for defence. But they would not hang the man. He clung to that. Lemoyne could at least fight for the man's life. They would not hang a man who could not remember. They had beaten him, Raymond, the night before last; and at first he had been like a man stunned with the knowledge that his all was on the table and that the cards in his hand were worthless—and then had come a sort of philosophical calm, the gambler's optimism—the hand was still to be played. They would sentence the man for life, and—well, there was time enough in a lifetime for another chance. Somehow—in some way—he did not know now—but in some way he would see that there was another chance. He would not desert the man.

Again he raised his eyes, but this time as though against his will, as though they were impelled and drawn in spite of himself across the room. That was Raymond Chapelle, alias Arthur Leroy, alias Three-Ace Artie, alias Henri Mentone, sitting there in the prisoner's box; at least, that gaunt, thin-faced, haggard man there was dressed in Raymond Chapelle's clothes—and he, François Aubert, the priest, the curé, in his soutane, with his crucifix around his neck, sat here amongst the witnesses at the trial of Raymond Chapelle, who had killed Théophile Blondin in the fight that night. One would almost think the man knew! How the man's eyes burned into him, how they tormented and plagued him! They were sad, those eyes, pitiful—they were helpless—they seemed to seek him out as the only friend amongst all these bobbing heads, and these staring, gaping faces.

“Marcien Labbée!”—the clerk's voice snapped through the courtroom. “Marcien Labbée!” The clerk was a very fussy and important short little man, who puffed his cheeks in and out, and clawed at his white side-whiskers. “Marcien Labbée!”

The station agent rose from the bench, entered the witness box, and was sworn.

With a few crisp questions, the crown prosecutor established the time of the train's arrival, and the fact that the curé and another man had got off at the station. The witness explained that the curé had started to walk toward the village before the other man appeared on the platform.

“And this other man”—the crown prosecutor whirled sharply around, and pointed toward Henri Mentone—“do you recognise him as the prisoner at the bar?”

Labbée shook his head.

“It was very dark,” he said. “I could not swear to it.”