Conscience Part 23

She remained silent.

"You see," he said smiling, "that your philosophy is weak."

"It is not of my philosophy that I am thinking, but of Caffie and ourselves."

"And how can Caffie be a.s.sociated with you or yours?"

"He is, or rather he may be, if this justice in which I believe in spite of your joking permits him to be."

"You are talking in enigmas."

"What have you heard about Caffie since you went away?"

"Nothing, or almost nothing."

"You know it is thought that the crime was committed by a butcher."

"The commissioner picked up the knife before me, and it is certainly a butcher's knife. And more than that, the stroke that cut Caffie's throat was given by a hand accustomed to butchery. I have indicated this in my report."

"Since then, more careful investigations have discovered a trousers'

b.u.t.ton--"

"Which might have been torn off in a struggle between Caffie and his a.s.sa.s.sin, I read in a newspaper. But as for me, I do not believe in this struggle. Caffie's position in his chair, where he was a.s.saulted and where he died, indicates that the old scamp was surprised. Otherwise, if he had not been, if he had struggled, he could have cried out, and, without doubt, he would have been heard."

"If you knew how happy I am to hear you say that!" she cried.

"Happy! What difference can it make to you?" and he looked at her in surprise. "Of what importance is it to you whether Caffie was killed with or without a struggle? You condemned him; he is dead. That should satisfy you."

"I was very wrong to p.r.o.nounce this condemnation, which I did without attaching any importance to it."

"Do you think that hastened its execution?"

"I am not so foolish as that, but I should be better pleased if I had not condemned him."

"Do you regret it?"

"I regret that he is dead."

"Decidedly, the enigma continues; but you know I do not understand it, and, if you wish, we will stop there. We have something better to do than to talk of Caffie."

"On the contrary, let me talk to you of him, because we want your advice."

Again he looked at her, trying to read her face and to divine why she insisted on speaking of Caffie, when he had just expressed a wish not to speak of him. What was there beneath this insistence?

"I will listen," he said; "and, since you wish to ask my advice on the subject, you must tell me immediately what you mean."

"You are right; and I should have told you before, but embarra.s.sment and shame restrained me. And I reproach myself, for with you I should feel neither embarra.s.sment nor reproach."

"a.s.suredly."

"But before everything else, I must tell you--you must know--that my brother Florentin is a good and honest boy; you must believe it, you must be convinced of it."

"I am, since you tell me so. Besides, he produced the best impression on me during the short time I saw him the other day at your house."

"Would not one see immediately that he has a good nature?"

"Certainly."

"Frank and upright; weak, it is true, and a little effeminate also, that is, lacking energy, letting himself be carried away by goodness and tenderness. This weakness made him commit a fault before his departure for America. I have kept it from you until this moment, but you must know it now. Loving a woman who controlled him and made him do what she wished, he let himself be persuaded to-take a sum of forty-five francs that she demanded, that she insisted on having that evening, hoping to be able to replace it three days later, without his employer discovering it."

"His employer was Caffie?"

"No; it was three months after he left Caffie, and he was with another man of business of whom I have never spoken to you, and now you understand why. The money he expected failed him; his fault was discovered, and his employer lodged a complaint against him."

"We made him withdraw his complaint, never mind how, and Florentin went to America to seek his fortune. And since you have seen him, you admit that he might be capable of the fault that he committed, without being capable-of becoming an a.s.sa.s.sin."

He was about to reply, but she closed his lips with a quick gesture.

"You will see why I speak of this, and you will understand why I do not drop the subject of Caffie, and of this b.u.t.ton, on which the police count to find the criminal. This b.u.t.ton belonged to Florentin."

"To your brother?"

"Yes, to Florentin, who, the day of the crime, had been to see Caffie."

"That is true; the concierge told the commissioner of police that he called about three o'clock."

Phillis gave a cry of despair.

"They know he was there? Then it is more serious than we imagined or believed."

"In answering a question as to whom Caffie had received that day, the concierge named your brother. But as this visit took place between three and half-past, and the crime was certainly committed between five and half-past, no one can accuse your brother of being the a.s.sa.s.sin, since he left before Caffie lighted his lamp. As this lamp could not light itself, it proves that he could not have butchered a man who was living an hour after the concierge saw your brother and talked with him."

"What you say is a great relief; if you could know how alarmed we have been!"

"You were too hasty to alarm yourself."

"Too hasty? But when Florentin read the account to us and came to the b.u.t.ton, he exclaimed, 'This b.u.t.ton is mine!' and we experienced a shock that made us lose our heads. We saw the police falling on us, questioning Florentin, reproaching him with the past, which would be retailed in all the newspapers, and you must understand how we felt."

"But cannot your brother explain how he lost this b.u.t.ton at Caffie's?"

"Certainly, and in the most natural way. He went to see Caffie, to ask him for a letter of recommendation, saying that he had been his clerk for several years. Caffie gave it to him, and then, in the course of conversation, Caffie spoke of a bundle of papers that he could not find.

Florentin had had charge of these papers, and had placed them on a high shelf in the closet. As Caffie could not find them, and wanted them, Florentin brought a small ladder, and, mounting it, found them. He was about to descend the ladder, when he made a misstep, and in trying to save himself, one of the b.u.t.tons of his trousers was pulled off."

"And he did not pick it up?"

"He did not even notice it at first. But later, in the street, seeing one leg of his trousers longer than the other, he thought of the ladder, and found that he had lost a b.u.t.ton. He would not return to Caffie's to look for it, of course."

"Of course."