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Updated: June 14, 2025
He had not read a third of the leading article, which, like all leading articles of the time, was exclusively occupied with the Roman question, when, letting the paper drop from his hands, he became absorbed in meditation. The fixed idea, stronger than one's will, and more interesting to him than politics, brought him forcibly back to La Jonchere, where lay the murdered Widow Lerouge.
What was he about to learn now? He longed to interrogate quickly, but he saw that Lerouge told his story with difficulty, laboriously disentangling his recollections; he was guided by a single thread which the least interruption might seriously entangle. "What Claudine proposed to me," continued the sailor, "was villainous; and I am an honest man.
Fortunately, though, my poor father was dead." M. Daburon pitied the speaker sincerely. "Rest a while, my friend," he said; "compose yourself." "No," replied the sailor, "I would rather get through with it quickly. One man, the priest, had the charity to tell me of it. If ever he should want Lerouge!
"One of your coachmen pretends to have driven you there at least ten times." "The man is mistaken. But what matters the number of visits?" "Do you recollect the arrangements of the rooms? Can you describe them?" "Perfectly, sir: there were two. Claudine slept in the back room." "You were in no way a stranger to Widow Lerouge.
His conscience told him that this would be another blunder. He renewed, then, the painful examination. "Sir," said he, "the sentiments expressed by the viscount are very fine, without doubt; but did he not mention Widow Lerouge?" "Yes," replied the count, who appeared suddenly to brighten, as by the remembrance of some unnoticed circumstances, "yes, certainly."
She wanted to save, to economize, so that our child should not be obliged in his turn to go to sea. She was to get a very good price, that we could save up to go towards the three hundred pistoles. That confounded meadow, to which she alluded, decided me." "Did she not tell you of the commission with which she was charged?" asked the magistrate. This question astonished Lerouge.
On leaving M. Daburon his thoughts reverted to the scene of the murder; and, so blinded was the old fellow to external objects, that he moved along the street, first jostled on the right, then on the left, by the busy passers by, advancing one step and receding two. He repeated to himself for the fiftieth time the words uttered by Widow Lerouge, as reported by the milk-woman.
"In that case they ought at least to have called me Lerouge," said Charras, with a burst of laughter. In the meantime a group, kept at a distance by the police agents, had formed round them. People had recognized them and saluted them. A little child, whose mother could not hold him back, ran quickly to Charras and took his hand. They got into the train apparently as free as other travellers.
The doctor explained, as the old man had done, the position of the body. In his opinion also, there had been a struggle. He pointed out a bluish circle, hardly perceptible, round the neck of the victim, produced apparently by the powerful grasp of the murderer; finally he declared that Widow Lerouge had eaten about three hours before being struck.
Indeed he had almost betrayed himself by the eagerness with which he exclaimed, "What! your mother knew the Widow Lerouge?" By an effort he restrained himself, and with difficulty dissembled his satisfaction; for he was delighted to find himself so unexpectedly on the trace of the antecedents of the victim of La Jonchere.
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