“I know! I know!” cried the young Englishman. “I know all—why should you recall all that?”
“To refresh your memory, my dear friend,” responded Dubard, with withering sarcasm. “Do you recollect how that we were friends in those days—you, Felice Solaro, and myself? Solaro and I were at the Hôtel National, and you were given a room at the villa by your employer’s hostess, his elder sister, Madame Sazarac—who had married the general. Do you not remember these days, spent at Monte Carlo, or up at La Turbie, our luncheons, our dinners at the Paris, and our little games at the tables? Oh yes, you had a merry time then—we all had—even the poor general himself. And then—”
“Stop!” Macbean implored, raising both his hands. “Enough!—I know! Heavens!—as though I could ever forget!”
“But you have forgotten, it seems, or you—of all persons—would never seek to come between me and the woman I am to marry. Therefore hear me—once and for all. And when you have heard, reflect well before you adopt a course which must inevitably reflect upon yourself—nay more, which must cause your own ruin. Do you recollect how your employer Morgan-Mason had gone alone to Marseilles to meet his Indian manager who was returning to England, and how you, being alone, the general often invited you to ride with him up the Corniche road, and sometimes into the mountains? He was fond of the English because his wife was English, and he had taken a great fancy to you. Being in command of the Alpine frontier defences in France, he had often to make inspections of those high-up fortresses that guard the passes into Italy, and one day he invited you to ride with him away up to the fortress of Saint Martin Lantosque that overlooks Monte Malto.”
“I will not hear you!” cried Macbean hoarsely. “Enough! Enough!”
But the Frenchman continued in the same quiet, hard, meaning tone, his voice sounding clear in the quiet of night.
“With Solaro I chanced to call at the villa just as your horses were brought round, and we stood upon the steps and saw you mount. You waved your hand triumphantly to us, and trotted away at the side of the man who held the south-east frontier of France under his command. Do you recollect, as you rode down the drive bordered by its flowering azaleas, how you turned and looked back at us, in wonder whether we suspected your intentions? Perhaps not—the truth remains the same,” he added, his face now closer to that of the man against whom he was making that withering accusation. “You rode nearly twenty miles into the mountains, and were high up above the Vesubie, in a wild, solitary district devoid of any human habitation, when, it being hot, you offered your brandy-flask to the general, who was without one—for you yourself had surreptitiously taken it from his holster prior to setting out. Being thirsty, he took a long drink. Half an hour later he felt ill, and dismounted. And in an hour the poor fellow was dead!”
George Macbean stood still, gripping the moss-grown rail, glaring at his accuser, though no word escaped his lips.
“The cognac you gave to the general was never suspected by the doctors, who declared the fatality to be due to an internal malady from which he had long suffered, and which was known might cause sudden death. The gallant officer was buried with military honours in Nice, and none were aware of the truth save Solaro and I. We knew that a sum of money which the general had upon him had been stolen, and further, that the brandy you had given him you had not dared to drink yourself. In secret, we charged you with the general’s murder, for the sake of the money upon him; but you defied us, and made a gallant fight to brave it out. But it was useless. Solaro declared that you had concealed the money, whereupon you offered to allow us to search your possessions, and we found a draft on the Credit Lyonnais in the flap of your writing-case. You offered to allow us to seal, before your eyes, the brandy in the bottle in your room, together with that remaining in your flask, and we sent it to be analysed by an analyst in Paris whom you yourself named. You hoped to mislead us, to disarm our suspicions by allowing us to make all the inquiries we, as friends of the general, thought fit! Ah! that was a fatal mistake, my friend! You condemned yourself. The analyst’s report does not lie. I still have it here, in my pocket-book, and do you know what it says? It states that the contents of both bottle and the flask filled from it were submitted to the tests of Marsh, Reinsch, and Fresenius, and in each case the result was the same—the cognac contained sufficient of a specific irritant poison of an arsenical nature to render a single mouthful of it a fatal dose! This document,” he added, touching his breast-pocket as he spoke, “proves you to be the murderer of Felix Sazarac—you poisoned him deliberately when up alone in that mountain pass, and Solaro found in your effects part of the money you stole from the dead man’s pockets?”
Macbean tried to speak, but his throat contracted; he was unable. Alas! that terrible truth had been ever before him since that fatal day in spring, when his life had been fettered. Try how he would, he could not put from him the horror of those awful hours. There were, unfortunately, witnesses against him, witnesses who could prove his guilt and send him to an assassin’s punishment.