Through the Wall Part 58

At this the judge leaned over to Coquenil and, after some low words, he spoke to the clerk who bowed and went out.

"You denied a moment ago," resumed the questioner, "that your name is Groener. Also that you were disguised this afternoon as a wood carver. Do you deny that you have a room, rented by the year, in the house where Madam Cecile has her apartment? Ah, that went home!" he exclaimed. "You thought we would overlook the little fifth-floor room, eh?"

"I know nothing about such a room," declared the other.

"I suppose you didn't go there to change your clothes before you called at Madam Cecile's?"

"Certainly not."

"Call Jules," said Hauteville to the sleepy guard standing at the door, and straightway the clerk reappeared with a large leather bag.

"Open it," directed the magistrate. "Spread the things on the table. Let the prisoner look at them. Now then, my stubborn friend, what about these garments? What about this wig and false beard?"

Groener rose wearily from his chair, walked deliberately to the table and glanced at the exposed objects without betraying the slightest interest or confusion.

"I've never seen these things before, I know nothing about them," he said.

"Name of a camel!" muttered Coquenil. "He's got his nerve with him all right!"

The judge sat silent, playing with his lead pencil, then he folded a sheet of paper and proceeded to mark it with a series of rough geometrical patterns, afterwards going over them again, shading them carefully. Finally he looked up and said quietly to the guard: "Take off his handcuffs."

The guard obeyed.

"Now take off his coat."

This was done also, the prisoner offering no resistance.

"Now his shirt," and the shirt was taken off.

"Now his boots and trousers."

All this was done, and a few moments later the accused stood in his socks and underclothing. And still he made no protest.

Here M. Paul whispered to Hauteville, who nodded in a.s.sent.

"Certainly. Take off his garters and pull up his drawers. I want his legs bare below the knees."

"It's an outrage!" cried Groener, for the first time showing feeling.

"Silence, sir!" glared the magistrate.

"You'll be bare _above_ the knees in the morning when your measurements are taken." Then to the guard: "Do what I said."

Again the guard obeyed, and Coquenil stood by in eager watchfulness as the prisoner's lower legs were uncovered.

"Ah!" he cried in triumph, "I knew it, I was sure of it! There!" he pointed to an egg-shaped wound on the right calf, two red semicircles plainly imprinted in the white flesh. "It's the first time I ever marked a man with my teeth and--it's a jolly good thing I did."

"How about this, Groener?" questioned the judge. "Do you admit having had a struggle with Paul Coquenil one night on the street?"

"No."

"What made that mark on your leg?"

"I--I was bitten by a dog."

"It's a wonder you didn't shoot the dog," flashed the detective.

"What do you mean?" retorted the other.

Coquenil bent close, black wrath burning in his deep-set eyes, and spoke three words that came to him by lightning intuition, three simple words that, nevertheless, seemed to smite the prisoner with sudden fear: "_Oh, nothing, Raoul!_"

So evident was the prisoner's emotion that Hauteville turned for an explanation to the detective, who said something under his breath.

"Very strange! Very important!" reflected the magistrate. Then to the accused: "In the morning we'll have that wound studied by experts who will tell us whether it was made by a dog or a man. Now I want you to put on the things that were in that bag."

For the first time a sense of his humiliation seemed to possess the prisoner. He clinched his hands fiercely and a wave of uncontrollable anger swept over him.

"No," he cried hoa.r.s.ely, "I won't do it, I'll never do it!"

Both the judge and Coquenil gave satisfied nods at this sign of a breakdown, but they rejoiced too soon, for by a marvelous effort of the will, the man recovered his self-mastery and calm.

"After all," he corrected himself, "what does it matter? I'll put the things on," and, with his old impa.s.sive air, he went to the table and, aided by the guard, quickly donned the boots and garments of the wood carver. He even smiled contemptuously as he did so.

"What a man! What a man!" thought Coquenil, watching him admiringly.

"There!" said the prisoner when the thing was done.

But the judge shook his head. "You've forgotten the beard and the wig.

Suppose you help make up his face," he said to the detective.

M. Paul fell to work zealously at this task and, using an elaborate collection of paints, powders, and brushes that were in the bag, he presently had accomplished a startling change in the unresisting prisoner--he had literally transformed him into the wood carver.

"If you're not Groener now," said Coquenil, surveying his work with a satisfied smile, "I'll swear you're his twin brother. It's the best disguise I ever saw, I'll take my hat off to you on that."

"Extraordinary!" murmured the judge. "Groener, do you still deny that this disguise belongs to you?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'It's the best disguise I ever saw, I'll take my hat off to you on that.'"]

"I do."

"You've never worn it before?"

"Never."

"And you're not Adolf Groener?"

"Certainly not."