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The crowd made way promptly; and almost immediately a young man appeared, led and pushed forward by several persons. Cocoleu's clothes, all in disorder, showed clearly that he had offered a stout resistance. He was a youth of about eighteen years, very tall, quite beardless, excessively thin, and so loosely jointed, that he looked like a hunchback.
"More than you, gentlemen, I feel a desire to believe M. de Boiscoran innocent. M. Daubigeon, who knows what I mean, will tell you so. In my heart I pleaded his cause long before you. But I am the representative of the law; and my duty is above my affections. Does it depend on me to set aside Cocoleu's accusation, however stupid, however absurd, it may be?
"And that is exactly," he commenced at last, "what makes me ask myself whether the discovery of Cocoleu's rascality would not be rather injurious than beneficial to M. de Boiscoran." The doctor was furious. He cried, "I should like to know" "Nothing can be more simple," replied the advocate.
An hour later there arrived at the court-house a gendarme and Michael, the son of the Boiscoran tenant, who had been sent out to ascertain if Cocoleu's statement was true. They brought back the gun which the wretch had used, and which he had concealed in that den which he had dug out for himself in the forest of Rochepommier, and where Michael had discovered him the day after the crime.
"In in the court yard." "Were you asleep when the fire broke out?" "No." "Did you see it commence?" "Yes." "How did it commence?" The idiot looked fixedly at the Countess Claudieuse with the timid and abject expression of a dog who tries to read something in his master's eyes. "Tell us, my friend," said the Countess gently, "tell us." A flash of intelligence shone in Cocoleu's eyes.
Seignebos is no doubt right, my dear friends," wrote Jacques. "I have but too good reasons to be sure that Cocoleu's imbecility is partly assumed, and that his evidence has been prompted by others. Still I must beg you will take no steps that would lead to another medical investigation. The slightest imprudence may ruin me.
"Ah, I begin to see! I notice from Cocoleu's eyes, that this practice with the bottle must have been going on for some time already. Cocoleu is drunk." Goudar again took up his violin and repeated his song. "I I want want to to drink!" stammered Cocoleu. Goudar kept him waiting a little while, and then handed him the bottle. The idiot threw back his head, and drank till he had lost his breath.
Big drops of perspiration rolled slowly down his temples; and nervous shocks agitated his limbs, and convulsed his features. "I, I am telling the truth!" he said at last. "M. de. Boiscoran has set Valpinson on fire?" "Yes." "How did he do it?" Cocoleu's restless eyes wandered incessantly from the count, who looked indignant, to the countess, who seemed to listen with painful surprise.
"Cocoleu's idiocy is, perhaps the most serious difficulty in the way of the prosecution, and the most powerful argument for the defence. What can M. Galpin say, if M. de Boiscoran charges him with basing a capital charge upon the incoherent words of a creature void of intelligence, and, consequently, irresponsible." "Ah! permit me," said Dr. Seignebos. But M. de Chandore heard every syllable.
"And this is what brings me here," he cried, still in the door; "for this opinion, if it is not put into proper order, will deprive M. de Boiscoran of his best and surest chance of escape." After what Dionysia had told them, neither M. de Chandore nor M. Folgat attached much importance to the state of Cocoleu's mind: still this word "escape" attracted their attention.
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