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"This, first of all, that it was not the runaway who killed Jean Daval, because Jean Daval was his accomplice." "And after that?" "Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, I will ask you to remember the first sentence uttered by Monsieur le Comte when he recovered from fainting. The sentence forms part of Mlle. de Gesvres' evidence and is in the official report: 'I am not wounded. Daval? Is he alive?
But he's not barking now. What time is it?" "About four." "Listen! Surely, some one's walking in the drawing room!" "There's no danger, your father is down there, Suzanne." "But there is danger for him. His room is next to the boudoir." "M. Daval is there too " "At the other end of the house. He could never hear." They hesitated, not knowing what course to decide upon. Should they call out?
Yet another priest succeeds: this is 'vénérable et religieux personne, frère Jean Toutmouillé, of the order of the preaching friars of Rouen. Toutmouillé was quite a youth at the time of Joan of Arc's death. Another priest follows, William Daval, also one of the order of preaching friars, and belonging to the Church of Saint James at Rouen.
M. Filleul examined certain further details in the room, put a few questions to the doctor and then asked M. de Gesvres to tell him what he had seen and heard. The count worded his story as follows: "Jean Daval woke me up.
"So far, in fact, you cannot see anything, except anomalies. They appeared much more suspicious to me, however, when I learned that Charpenais the painter, the man who copied the Rubens pictures, had been introduced and recommended to the Comte de Gesvres by Jean Daval himself." "Well?" "Well, from that to the conclusion that Jean Daval and Charpenais were accomplices required but a step.
And it is not no, it is not monstrous at all. There is one detail which has passed unobserved and which, nevertheless, is of the greatest importance; and that is that Jean Daval, at the moment when he was stabbed, had all his clothes on, including his walking boots, was dressed, in short, as a man is dressed in the middle of the day, with a waistcoat, collar, tie and braces.
I took them from his pocket-book, a few minutes after his death." "And the motive of his theft?" "Go to 18, Rue de la Barre, at Dieppe, which is the address of a certain Mme. Verdier. It was for this woman, whom he got to know two years ago, and to supply her constant need of money that Daval turned thief." So everything was cleared up.
"Well, then, who killed Jean Daval? Is the man alive? Where is he hiding?" "There is a misunderstanding between us, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, or, rather, you have misunderstood the facts from the beginning The murderer and the runaway are two distinct persons." "What's that?" exclaimed M. Filleul.
"The man whom M. de Gesvres saw in the boudoir and struggled with, the man whom the young ladies saw in the drawing-room and whom Mlle. de Saint-Veran shot at, the man who fell in the park and whom we are looking for: do you suggest that he is not the man who killed Jean Daval?" "I do." "Have you discovered the traces of a third accomplice who disappeared before the arrival of the young ladies?"
I am telling you this without any details, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, for the simple reason that I remember only the principal facts, and that these facts followed upon one another with extraordinary swiftness." "And after that? "After that, I don't know I fainted. When I came to, Daval lay stretched by my side, mortally wounded." "At first sight, do you suspect no one?" "No one."
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