“Come,” he spluttered, “Coralie’s at death’s door. The monster has buried her. That’s the only thing that matters.”
“Then you don’t believe that monster to be your father?” asked Don Luis.
“You’re mad!”
“For all that, captain, you’re trembling! . . .”
“I dare say, I dare say, but it’s because of Coralie. . . . I can’t even hear what the man’s saying! . . . Oh, it’s a nightmare, every word of it! Make him stop! Make him shut up! Why didn’t I wring his neck?”
He sank into a chair, with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. It was really a horrible moment; and no catastrophe would have overwhelmed a man more utterly.
Don Luis looked at him with feeling and then turned to the porter:
“Explain yourself, M. Vacherot,” he said. “As briefly as possible, won’t you? No details. We can go into them later. We were saying, on the fourteenth of April, 1895 . . .”
“On the fourteenth of April, 1895, a solicitor’s clerk, accompanied by the commissary of police, came to my governor’s, close by here, and ordered two coffins for immediate delivery. The whole shop got to work. At ten o’clock in the evening, the governor, one of my mates and I went to the Rue Raynouard, to a sort of pavilion or lodge, standing in a garden.”
“I know. Go on.”