Eight Strokes of the Clock | Page 9

she cried. "I can't allow that!... You are speaking of a cousin
of my uncle's? Why mix up the two stories?"

"Why mix up this story with another which took place at that time?"
said the prince. "But I am not mixing them up, my dear madame; there
is only one story and I am telling it as it happened."
Hortense turned to her uncle. He sat silent, with his arms folded; and
his head remained in the shadow cast by the lamp-shade. Why had he
not protested?
Rénine repeated in a firm tone:
"There is only one story. On the evening of that very day, the 5th of
September at eight o'clock, M. d'Aigleroche, doubtless alleging as his
reason that he was going in pursuit of the runaway couple, left his
house after boarding up the entrance. He went away, leaving all the
rooms as they were and removing only the firearms from their glass
case. At the last minute, he had a presentiment, which has been
justified to-day, that the discovery of the telescope which had played so
great a part in the preparation of his crime might serve as a clue to an
enquiry; and he threw it into the clock-case, where, as luck would have
it, it interrupted the swing of the pendulum. This unreflecting action,
one of those which every criminal inevitably commits, was to betray
him twenty years later. Just now, the blows which I struck to force the
door of the drawing-room released the pendulum. The clock was set
going, struck eight o'clock ... and I possessed the clue of thread which
was to lead me through the labyrinth."
"Proofs!" stammered Hortense. "Proofs!"
"Proofs?" replied Rénine, in a loud voice. "Why, there are any number
of proofs; and you know them as well as I do. Who could have killed at
that distance of eight hundred yards, except an expert shot, an ardent
sportsman? You agree, M. d'Aigleroche, do you not?... Proofs? Why
was nothing removed from the house, nothing except the guns, those
guns which an ardent sportsman cannot afford to leave behind--you
agree, M. d'Aigleroche--those guns which we find here, hanging in
trophies on the walls!... Proofs? What about that date, the 5th of
September, which was the date of the crime and which has left such a
horrible memory in the criminal's mind that every year at this time--at

this time alone--he surrounds himself with distractions and that every
year, on this same 5th of September, he forgets his habits of
temperance? Well, to-day, is the 5th of September.... Proofs? Why, if
there weren't any others, would that not be enough for you?"
And Rénine, flinging out his arm, pointed to the Comte d'Aigleroche,
who, terrified by this evocation of the past, had sunk huddled into a
chair and was hiding his head in his hands.
Hortense did not attempt to argue with him. She had never liked her
uncle, or rather her husband's uncle. She now accepted the accusation
laid against him.
Sixty seconds passed. Then M. d'Aigleroche walked up to them and
said:
"Whether the story be true or not, you can't call a husband a criminal
for avenging his honour and killing his faithless wife."
"No," replied Rénine, "but I have told only the first version of the story.
There is another which is infinitely more serious ... and more probable,
one to which a more thorough investigation would be sure to lead."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean this. It may not be a matter of a husband taking the law into his
own hands, as I charitably supposed. It may be a matter of a ruined man
who covets his friend's money and his friend's wife and who, with this
object in view, to secure his freedom, to get rid of his friend and of his
own wife, draws them into a trap, suggests to them that they should
visit that lonely tower and kills them by shooting them from a distance
safely under cover."
"No, no," the count protested. "No, all that is untrue."
"I don't say it isn't. I am basing my accusation on proofs, but also on
intuitions and arguments which up to now have been extremely
accurate. All the same, I admit that the second version may be incorrect.

But, if so, why feel any remorse? One does not feel remorse for
punishing guilty people."
"One does for taking life. It is a crushing burden to bear."
"Was it to give himself greater strength to bear this burden that M.
d'Aigleroche afterwards married his victim's widow? For that, sir, is the
crux of the question. What was the motive of that marriage? Was M.
d'Aigleroche penniless? Was the woman he was taking as his second
wife rich? Or were they both in love with