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From a chest he took a tool which Charles Rambert, who had had some intimate experience of late with the light-fingered community, immediately recognised as a jemmy. "Take hold of that," said Juve, and as Charles took it in his hand he added: "Now put the jemmy into this groove, and press with all your force.
Do you know, Charles, that I have suffered too? Do you know what agony and torture I, as a man of honour, have endured? Have you not heard the story of my appearance at the Assizes and of my humiliation in court?" "You did all that!" Charles Rambert murmured. "Strange chance, indeed!" Then his tone changed and he sobbed. "Oh, my poor father, what an awful fatality it all is!"
"That is," Mme. Rambert finished for her, "I have sometimes protested to you that I was the victim of an abominable persecution, and that there was a tragic mystery in my life: in short, that if I was shut up here, it was because someone wanted me to be shut up. Come now, Berthe, has it never occurred to you that perhaps I was telling the truth?"
Dalbos appealed for mercy to the new-comers. It was granted, but as he turned to go he was shot dead. Another of the name of Rambert tried to escape by disguising himself as a woman, but was recognised and shot down a few yards outside his own door.
But even in your own interests you must have the courage to adopt some definite theory. Well, would you have been glad if your son had taken his own life?" "May I entreat you to remember that my son is dead!" Etienne Rambert said once more. "I can only remember the one fact that he was my son. I can't say that I desired his death. I don't even know now if he was guilty.
"Yes, I know: a woman named Rambert; age about forty; hallucination that people are persecuting her; anæmic, with alternate crises of excitement and melancholia, punctuated by fits of passion; treatment: rest, nourishment, anodynes." "You evidently remember the case distinctly." "She interested me; she has marvellous eyes. Well, what about her?"
"Dear M. Rambert!" murmured Thérèse, much moved: "do that; speak to Lady Beltham about me; I should be so glad!" Thérèse did not finish all she would have said. A loud ring at the front door bell broke in upon her words, and Etienne Rambert rose and walked across the room. "That must be the good Baronne de Vibray come for you," he said.
He stood squarely in front of his prisoner and looked him full in the eyes. "I am Juve," he said, "the detective!" and as the young man stared at him in silent dismay, Juve went on, emphasising each of his words, and with a sardonic smile flickering over his face. "And you, Mademoiselle Jeanne you are Charles Rambert!" Juve had spoken in a tone of command that brooked no reply.
"My poor, poor boy!" the unhappy Etienne Rambert murmured, and added, as if speaking only to himself: "I wonder if you are not entirely responsible if there are circumstances to plead for you!" "Do you still accuse me, papa? Do you really believe I am the murderer?" Etienne Rambert shook his head hopelessly.
All I had to do then was to write and ask you to come here to-day; and the regrettable story of your broken relations with the lady was an ample guarantee to me that you would be punctual at the appointment!" Whistling a quick-step, sure sign with him of a light heart, Juve opened the door of the little room where he had left Charles Rambert, and looked at the sleeping lad.
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