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The passenger who did that, was the criminal, and it was M. Etienne Rambert. "As I have already proved that it was Gurn who murdered the Marquise de Langrune, it seems to follow necessarily that M. Etienne Rambert must be Gurn!" Juve paused to make sure that the jury had followed his deductions and taken all his points. He proceeded, in the most tense hush.
Juve stared at the map with hypnotised gaze; for a piece had been cut out of it, cut out with a penknife neatly and carefully, and that piece must have shown the exact district where the château stood which had been occupied by the Marquise de Langrune.
"About a year ago, when I was engaged on the case of the murder of the Marquise de Langrune at her château of Beaulieu, down in Lot, I found a small piece of a map showing the district in which I was at the time. I took it to M. de Presles, the magistrate who was conducting the enquiry. He attached no importance to it, and I myself could not see at the time that it gave us any new evidence."
President Bonnet had convinced his audience completely, and his closing words cast a chill upon them all. The Marquise de Langrune deemed it time to create a diversion. "Who are these people, Lord and Lady Beltham?" she enquired.
Gentlemen, I have to say that all these cases, the Beltham, Langrune and Dollon murders, and the Rosen-Danidoff burglaries, are absolutely and indisputably to be attributed to one and the same individual, to that man standing there Gurn!" Having made this extraordinary assertion, Juve again turned round towards the prisoner.
"Well, gentlemen," said the old fellow, who was greatly upset by the discovery of the murderer of the Marquise de Langrune, "when I got to the château early this morning I found the two old servants, Marie and Louise, entirely occupied attending to the young mistress. Marie slept in an adjoining room to hers last night, and was awakened about five o'clock by the poor child's inarticulate cries.
"No, sir, nobody could have secreted himself in the château during the day; people are always coming to the kitchen, so the back door is under constant supervision; and all yesterday afternoon there were gardeners at work on the lawn in front of the main entrance; if any stranger had presented himself there he would certainly have been seen; and finally, Mme. de Langrune had given orders, which I always attended to myself, to keep the door locked through which one gets down to the cellars.
With a tender half-melancholy he recognised every turn in the road, every bit of scenery. "Just fancy my coming back here at sixty years of age, with a great son of eighteen!" he said with a laugh. "And I remember as if it were yesterday the good times I have had at the château of Beaulieu. Mme. de Langrune and I will have plenty of memories to talk over.
Your attitude throughout this affair has been this: it is not for me to anticipate the issue of the enquiry which will be held some day into the murder of Mme. de Langrune, but I must recall the fact that the moment you believed your son was the murderer, the moment you discovered the blood-stained towel which furnished the circumstantial evidence of his guilt, you the man of honour, mind you, never thought of handing over the culprit to the police who were actually in the precincts of the château, but only thought of securing his escape, and helping him to get away!
"I will give you a bit of good news; that is, that you are innocent of the Langrune affair when you were Charles Rambert, and innocent also of the Danidoff affair, when you were Mademoiselle Jeanne. I need not say anything about the scrap last night, in which you played a still more distinguished part." "Why tell me that?" asked Charles Rambert nervously.
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