"It is false." An angry flush rose to Gascoigne's face as the judge thus gave him the lie. "It is false—you are a professional gambler—a Greek—a sharper, with no ostensible means!"
"Pardon me, monsieur; you are quite misinformed. I could prove to you –"
"It would be useless; the police have long known and watched you."
"Such espionage is below contempt," cried Gascoigne, indignantly.
"Silence! Do not dare to question the conduct of the authorities. It is the visit of persons of your stamp to Paris that renders such precautions necessary."
"If you believe all you hear from your low agents, with their lying, scandalous reports—"
"Be careful, prisoner; your demeanour will get you into trouble. Our information about you is accurate and trustworthy. Judge for yourself."
Gascoigne looked incredulous.
"Listen; you arrived in Paris three months ago, accompanied by a young demoiselle whom you had decoyed from her home."
"She was my wife."
"Yes; you married her after your arrival here. The official records of the 21st arrondisement prove that—married her without her parents' consent."
"That is not so. They approved."
"How could they? Your wife's father is French vice-consul at Gibraltar. Her mother is dead. Neither was present at your marriage; how, then, could they approve?"
Gascoigne did not answer.
"On your first arrival you were well provided with funds—the proceeds, no doubt, of some nefarious scheme; a run of luck at the tables; the plunder of some pigeon—"
"The price of my commission in the English Army."
"Bah! You never were in the English Army."
"I can prove it."
"I shall not believe you. Being in funds, I say, you lived riotously, stayed at one of the best hotels, kept a landau and pair, dined at the Trois Frères and the Rocher de Cancale, frequented the theatres; madame wore the most expensive toilettes. But you presently ran short of cash."
"It's not surprising. But I presume I was at liberty to do what I liked with my own."
"Coming to the end of your resources," went on the judge, coldly ignoring the sneer, "you tried the gaming-table again, with varying success. You went constantly to the Hôtel Paradis—"
"On the contrary, occasionally, not often."
"You were there last night; it is useless to deny it. We have the deposition of the proprietor, who is well known to the police—M. Hippolyte Ledantec; you shall be confronted with him."
"Is he in custody?" asked Gascoigne, eagerly.
"I tell you it is not your place to question."
"He ought to be. It was he who committed the murder."
"You know there was a murder, then? Curious. When the body was discovered by the porter there was no one present. How could you know of the crime unless you had a hand in it?"
"I saw it committed. I tried my best to save the Baron, but Ledantec stabbed him before I could interpose."
"An ingenious attempt to shift the guilt; but it will not serve. We know better."
"I am prepared to swear it was Ledantec. Why should I attack the Baron? I owed him no grudge."
"Why? I will tell you. For some time past, as I have reminded you, your funds have been running low, fortune has been against you at the tables, and you could not correct it at the Hôtel Paradis as you do with less clever players—"
"You are taking an unfair advantage of your position, Monsieur le Juge. Any one else who dared accuse me of cheating—"
"Bah! no heroics. You could not correct fortune, I say; yet money you must have. The hotel-keeper was pressing for his long-unpaid account. Madame, your smart wife, was dissatisfied; she made you scenes because you refused her money; in return, you ill-used her."
"It is false! My wife has always received proper consideration at my hands."
"You ill-used her, ill-treated her; we have it from herself."
"Do you know, then, where she is?" interrupted Gascoigne, with so much eagerness that it was plain he had taken his wife's defection greatly to heart. "Why has she left me? With whom? I have always suspected that villain Ledantec; he is an arch scoundrel, a very devil!"
"The reasons for your wife's disappearance are sufficiently explained by this letter."
"To me?" said Gascoigne, stretching out his hand for it.
"To you, but impounded by us. It was found, in our search of your apartments yesterday, placed in a prominent place upon your dressing-table."
"Give it me—it is mine!"
"No! but you shall hear what it says. Listen:—
"'I could have borne with resignation the miserable part you have imposed upon me. After luring me from my home with dazzling offers, after promising me a life of luxury and splendid ease, you rudely, cruelly dispelled the illusion, and made it plain to me that I had shared the lot of a pauper. All this I could have borne—poverty, however distasteful, but not the infamy, the degradation, of being the partner and associate of your evil deeds. Sooner than fall so low I prefer to leave you for ever. Do not seek for me. I have done with you. All is at an end between us!'"
CHAPTER III.
THE MOUSETRAP
"Well," said the judge, when he had finished reading, "you see what your wife thinks of you. What do you say now?"
"There is not a word of truth in that letter. It is a tissue of misstatements from beginning to end. You must place no reliance upon it."
"There you must allow me to differ from you. This letter is, in my belief, perfectly genuine. It supplies a most important link in the chain of evidence, and I shall give it the weight it deserves. But enough—will you still deny your guilt?"
"It is Ledantec's doing," said Gascoigne, following out a line of thought of his own. "She was nothing loth, perhaps, for he has been instilling insidious poison into her ears for these weeks past. I had my suspicions, but could prove nothing; now I know. It was for this, to put money in his purse for her extravagance, that he first robbed, then struck down the baron."
"Why do you still persist in this shallow line of defence? You cannot deceive me; it would be far better to make a clean breast of it at once."
"I have already told you all I know. I repeat, I saw Ledantec strike the blow."
"Psha! this is puerile. I will be frank with you. We have the fullest and strongest evidence of your guilt—why, then, will you not confess it?"
"I have nothing to confess; I am perfectly innocent. I was the poor man's friend, not his murderer. I tried hard to save him, but, unhappily, I was too late."
"You will not confess?"
A flush of anger rose to Gascoigne's cheek; his eyes flashed with the indignation he felt at being thus bullied and browbeaten; his lips quivered, but still he made no reply.
"Come! you have played this comedy long enough," said the judge, his manner growing more insolent, his look more threatening. "Will you, or will you not, confess?"
Gascoigne met his gaze resolutely, but with a dogged, obstinate silence, the result of a firm determination not to utter a word.
"This is unbearable," said the judge, angrily, after having repeated his question several times without eliciting any reply. "Take him away! Let him be kept in complete isolation, in one of the separate cells of the Mousetrap—the Souricière."
At a signal from within the police entered, resumed charge of the prisoner, and escorted him, by many winding passages, down a steep staircase to an underground passage, ending in a dungeon-like room, badly lighted by one small,