Part 41 (1/2)
”Oh, really? Camouflage contrived by whom?”
”By Mathias de Gorne himself.”
”That's curious! And with what object?”
”With the object of pa.s.sing himself off for dead and of arranging subsequent matters in such a way that M. Vignal was bound to be accused of the death, the murder.”
”An ingenious theory,” the deputy agreed, still in a satirical tone. ”What do you think of it, M. Vignal?”
”It is a theory which flashed through my own mind. Mr. Deputy,” replied Jerome. ”It is quite likely that, after our struggle and after I had gone, Mathias de Gorne conceived a new plan by which, this time, his hatred would be fully gratified. He both loved and detested his wife. He held me in the greatest loathing. This must be his revenge.”
”His revenge would cost him dear, considering that, according to your statement, Mathias de Gorne was to receive a second sum of sixty thousand francs from you.”
”He would receive that sum in another quarter, Mr. Deputy. My examination of the financial position of the de Gorne family revealed to me the fact that the father and son had taken out a life-insurance policy in each other's favour. With the son dead, or pa.s.sing for dead, the father would receive the insurance-money and indemnify his son.”
”You mean to say,” asked the deputy, with a smile, ”that in all this camouflage, as you call it, M. de Gorne the elder would act as his son's accomplice?”
Renine took up the challenge:
”Just so, Mr. Deputy. The father and son are accomplices.
”Then we shall find the son at the father's?”
”You would have found him there last night.”
”What became of him?”
”He took the train at Pompignat.”
”That's a mere supposition.”
”No, a certainty.”
”A moral certainty, perhaps, but you'll admit there's not the slightest proof.”
The deputy did not wait for a reply. He considered that he had displayed an excessive goodwill and that patience has its limits and he put an end to the interview:
”Not the slightest proof,” he repeated, taking up his hat. ”And, above all, ... above all, there's nothing in what you've said that can contradict in the very least the evidence of that relentless witness, the snow. To go to his father, Mathias de Gorne must have left this house. Which way did he go?”
”Hang it all, M. Vignal told you: by the road which leads from here to his father's!”
”There are no tracks in the snow.”
”Yes, there are.”
”But they show him coming here and not going away from here.”
”It's the same thing.”
”What?”