Гастон Леру - The Secret of the Night

"If you have not it, Sire, you know well that it is because I have wished you to have it. The corpse had been searched by Katharina, the little Bohemian, and I, Sire, prevented Koupriane from finding that signature in Katharina's possession. In saving the secret I have saved General Trebassof's life, who would have preferred to die rather than accept such an arrangement."

The Tsar stopped Rouletabille in his enthusiastic outburst.

"All that would be very beautiful and perhaps admirable," said he, more and more coldly, because he had entirely recovered himself, "if Natacha had not, herself, with her own hand, poisoned her father and her step–mother!—always with arsenate of soda."

"Oh, some of that had been left in the house," replied Rouletabille. "They had not given me all of it for the analysis after the first attempt. But Natacha is innocent of that, Sire. I swear it to you. As true as that I have certainly escaped being hanged."

"How, hanged?"

"Oh, it has not amounted to much now, Your Majesty."

And Rouletabille recounted his sinister adventure, up to the moment of his death, or, rather, up to the moment when he had believed he was going to die.

The Emperor listened to the young reporter with complete stupefaction. He murmured, "Poor lad!" then, suddenly:

"But how have you managed to escape them?"

"Sire they have given me twenty–four hours for you to set Natacha at liberty, that is to say, that you restore her to her rights, all her rights, and she be always the recognized heiress of Trebassof. Do you understand me, Sire?

"I will understand you, perhaps, when you have explained to me how Natacha has not poisoned her father and step–mother."

"There are some things so simple, Sire, that one is able to think of them only with a rope around one's neck. But let us reason it out. We have here four persons, two of whom have been poisoned and the other two with them have not been. Now, it is certain that, of the four persons, the general has not wished to poison himself, that his wife has not wished to poison the general, and that, as for me, I have not wished to poison anybody. That, if we are absolutely sure of it, leaves as the poisoner only Natacha. That is so certain, so inevitable, that there is only one case, one alone, where, in such conditions, Natacha would not be regarded as the poisoner."

"I confess that, logically, I do not see," said the Tsar, "anything beyond that but more and more of a tangle. What is it?"

"Logically, the only case would be that where no one had been poisoned, that is to say, where no one had taken any poison."

"But the presence of the poison has been established!" cried the Emperor.

"Still, the presence of the poison proves only its presence, not the crime. Both poison and ipecac were found in the stomach expulsions. From which a crime has been concluded. What state of affairs was necessary for there to have been no crime? Simply that the poison should have appeared in the expulsions after the ipecac. Then there would have been no poisoning, but everyone would believe there had been. And, for that, someone would have poured the poison into the expulsions."

The Tsar never quitted Rouletabille's eyes.

"That is extraordinary," said he. "But of course it is possible. In any case, it is still only an hypothesis.

"And so long as it could be an hypothesis that no one thought of, it could be just that, Sire. But if I am here, it is because I have the proof that that hypothesis corresponds to the reality. That necessary proof of Natacha's innocence, Your Majesty, I have found with the rope around my neck. Ah, I tell you it was time! What has hindered us hitherto, I do not say to realize, but even to think, of that hypothesis? Simply that we thought the illness of the general had commenced before the absorption of the ipecac, since Matrena Petrovna had been obliged to go for it to her medicine–closet after his illness commenced, in order to counteract the poison of which she also appeared to be the victim.

"But, if I acquire proof that Matrena Petrovna had the ipecac at hand before the sickness, my hypothesis of pretense at poisoning has irresistible force. Because, if it was not to use it before, why did she have it with her before? And if it was not that she wished to hide the fact that she had used it before, why did she wish to make believe that she went to find it afterwards?

"Then, in order to show Natacha's innocence, here is what must be proved: that Matrena Petrovna had the ipecac on her, even when she went to look for it."

"Young Rouletabille, I hardly breathe," said the Tsar.

"Breathe, Sire. The proof is here. Matrena Petrovna necessarily had the ipecac on her, because after the sickness she had not the time for going to find it. Do you understand, Sire? Between the moment when she fled from the kiosk and when she returned there, she had not the actual time to go to her medicine–closet to find the ipecac."

"How have you been able to compute the time?" asked the Emperor.

"Sire, the Lord God directed, Who made me admire Feodor Feodorovitch's watch just when we went to read, and to read on the dial of that watch two minutes to the hour, and the Lord God directed yet, Who, after the scene of the poison, at the time Matrena returned carrying the ipecac publicly, made the hour strike from that watch in the general's pocket.

"Two minutes. It was impossible for Matrena to have covered that distance in two minutes. She could only have entered the deserted datcha and left it again instantly. She had not taken the trouble to mount to the floor above, where, she told us and repeated when she returned, the ipecac was in the medicine–closet. She lied! And if she lied, all is explained.

"It was the striking of a watch, Sire, with a striking apparatus and a sound like the general's, there in the quarters of the revolutionaries, that roused my memory and indicated to me in a second this argument of the time.

"I got down from my gallows–scaffold, Your Majesty, to experiment on that time–limit. Oh, nothing and nobody could have prevented my making that experiment before I died, to prove to myself that Rouletabille had all along been right. I had studied the grounds around the datcha enough to be perfectly exact about the distances. I found in the court where I was to be hanged the same number of steps that there were from the kiosk to the steps of the veranda, and, as the staircase of the revolutionaries had fewer steps, I lengthened my journey a few steps by walking around a chair. Finally, I attended to the opening and closing of the doors that Matrena would have had to do. I had looked at a watch when I started. When I returned, Sire, and looked at the watch again, I had taken three minutes to cover the distance—and it is not for me to boast, but I am a little livelier than the excellent Matrena.

"Matrena had lied. Matrena had simulated the poisoning of the general. Matrena had coolly poured ipecac in the general's glass while we were illustrating with matches a curious–enough theory of the nature of the constitution of the empire."

"But this is abominable!" cried the Emperor, this time definitely convinced by the intricate argument of Rouletabille. "And what end could this imitation serve?'"

"The end of preventing the real crime! The end that she believed herself to have attained, Sire, to have Natacha removed forever—Natacha whom she believed capable of any crime."

"Oh, it is monstrous! Feodor Feodorovitch has often told me that Matrena loved Natacha sincerely."

"She loved her sincerely up to the day that she believed her guilty. Matrena Petrovna was sure of Natacha's complicity in Michael Nikolaievitch's attempt to poison the general. I shared her stupor, her despair, when Feodor Feodorovitch took his daughter in his arms after that tragic night, and embraced her. He seemed to absolve her. It was then that Matrena resolved within herself to save the general in spite of himself, but I remain persuaded that, if she had dared such a plan against Natacha, it would only be because of what she believed definite proof of her step–daughter's infamy. These papers, Sire, that you have shown me, and which show, if nothing more, an understanding between Natacha and the revolutionaries, could only have been in the possession of Michael or of Natacha. Nothing was found in Michael's quarters. Tell me, then, that Matrena found them in Natacha's apartment. Then, she did not hesitate!"