The Best Detectives Murder Mysteries for Christmas Holidays. Эдгар Аллан По

honourable nature of the man, Jeanne Beroldy had conceived the monstrous project of ridding herself of her elderly undistinguished husband, and becoming the wife of the rich American.

      Throughout, Madame Beroldy confronted her accusers with complete sang froid and self possession. Her story never varied. She continued to declare strenuously that she was of royal birth, and that she had been substituted for the daughter of the fruit seller at an early age. Absurd and completely unsubstantiated as these statements were, a great number of people believed implicitly in their truth.

      But the prosecution was implacable. It denounced the masked “Russians” as a myth, and asserted that the crime had been committed by Madame Beroldy and her lover, Georges Conneau. A warrant was issued for the arrest of the latter, but he had wisely disappeared. Evidence showed that the bonds which secured Madame Beroldy were so loose that she could easily have freed herself.

      And then, towards the close of the trial, a letter, posted in Paris, was sent to the Public Prosecutor. It was from Georges Conneau and, without revealing his whereabouts, it contained a full confession of the crime. He declared that he had indeed struck the fatal blow at Madame Beroldy’s instigation. The crime had been planned between them. Believing that her husband ill-treated her, and maddened by his own passion for her, a passion which he believed her to return, he had planned the crime and struck the fatal blow that should free the woman he loved from a hateful bondage. Now, for the first time, he learnt of Mr. Hiram P. Trapp, and realized that the woman he loved had betrayed him! Not for his sake did she wish to be free—but in order to marry the wealthy American. She had used him as a cat’s-paw, and now, in his jealous rage, he turned and denounced her, declaring that throughout he had acted at her instigation.

      And then Madame Beroldy proved herself the remarkable woman she undoubtedly was. Without hesitation, she dropped her previous defence, and admitted that the “Russians” were a pure invention on her part. The real murderer was Georges Conneau. Maddened by passion, he had committed the crime, vowing that if she did not keep silence he would enact a terrible vengeance from her. Terrified by his threats, she had consented—also fearing it likely that if she told the truth she might be accused of conniving at the crime. But she had steadfastly refused to have anything more to do with her husband’s murderer, and it was in revenge for this attitude on her part that he had written this letter accusing her. She swore solemnly that she had had nothing to do with the planning of the crime, that she had awoke on that memorable night to find Georges Conneau standing over her, the blood-stained knife in his hand.

      It was a touch and go affair. Madame Beroldy’s story was hardly credible. But this woman, whose fairy tales of royal intrigues had been so easily accepted, had the supreme art of making herself believed. Her address to the jury was a masterpiece. The tears streaming down her face, she spoke of her child, of her woman’s honour—of her desire to keep her reputation untarnished for the child’s sake. She admitted that, Georges Conneau having been her lover, she might perhaps be held morally responsible for the crime—but, before God, nothing more! She knew that she had committed a grave fault in not denouncing Conneau to the law, but she declared in a broken voice that that was a thing no woman could have done. … She had loved him! Could she let her hand be the one to send him to the Guillotine? She had been guilty of much, but she was innocent of the terrible crime imputed to her.

      However that may have been, her eloquence and personality won the day. Madame Beroldy, amidst a scene of unparalleled excitement, was acquitted. Despite the utmost endeavours of the police, Georges Conneau was never traced. As for Madame Beroldy, nothing more was heard of her. Taking the child with her, she left Paris to begin a new life.

      17. We Make Further Investigations

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      I have set down the Beroldy case in full. Of course all the details did not present themselves to my memory as I have recounted them here. Nevertheless, I recalled the case fairly accurately. It had attracted a great deal of interest at the time, and had been fully reported by the English papers, so that it did not need much effort of memory on my part to recollect the salient details.

      Just for the moment, in my excitement, it seemed to clear up the whole matter. I admit that I am impulsive, and Poirot deplores my custom of jumping to conclusions, but I think I had some excuse in this instance. The remarkable way in which this discovery justified Poirot’s point of view struck me at once.

      “Poirot,” I said, “I congratulate you. I see everything now.”

      “If that is indeed the truth, I congratulate you, mon ami. For as a rule you are not famous for seeing—eh, is it not so?”

      I felt a little annoyed.

      “Come now, don’t rub it in. You’ve been so confoundedly mysterious all along with your hints and your insignificant details that any one might fail to see what you were driving at.”

      Poirot lit one of his little cigarettes with his usual precision. Then he looked up.

      “And since you see everything now, mon ami, what exactly is it that you see?”

      “Why, that it was Madame Daubreuil—Beroldy, who murdered Mr. Renauld. The similarity of the two cases proves that beyond a doubt.”

      “Then you consider that Madame Beroldy was wrongly acquitted? That in actual fact she was guilty of connivance in her husband’s murder?”

      I opened my eyes wide.

      “But of course! Don’t you?”

      Poirot walked to the end of the room, absentmindedly straightened a chair, and then said thoughtfully.

      “Yes, that is my opinion. But there is no ‘of course’ about it, my friend. Technically speaking, Madame Beroldy is innocent.”

      “Of that crime, perhaps. But not of this.”

      Poirot sat down again, and regarded me, his thoughtful air more marked than ever.

      “So it is definitely your opinion, Hastings, that Madame Daubreuil murdered M. Renauld?”

      “Yes.”

      “Why?”

      He shot the question at me with such suddenness that I was taken aback.

      “Why?” I stammered. “Why? Oh, because—” I came to a stop.

      Poirot nodded his head at me.

      “You see, you come to a stumbling-block at once. Why should Madame Daubreuil (I shall call her that for clearness sake) murder M. Renauld? We can find no shadow of a motive. She does not benefit by his death; considered as either mistress or blackmailer she stands to lose. You cannot have a murder without a motive. The first crime was different, there we had a rich lover waiting to step into her husband’s shoes.”

      “Money is not the only motive for murder,” I objected.

      “True,” agreed Poirot placidly. “There are two others, the crime passionnel is one. And there is the third rare motive, murder for an idea which implies some form of mental derangement on the part of the murderer. Homicidal mania, and religious fanaticism belong to that class. We can rule it out here.”

      “But what about the crime passionnel? Can you rule that out? If Madame Daubreuil was Renauld’s mistress, if she found that his affection was cooling, or if her jealousy was aroused in any way, might she not have struck him down in a moment of anger?”

      Poirot shook his head.

      “If—I say if, you note—Madame Daubreuil was Renauld’s mistress, he had not had time to tire of her. And in any case you mistake her character. She is a woman who can simulate great emotional stress. She is a magnificent actress. But, looked at dispassionately, her life disproves her appearance. Throughout, if we examine it, she had been cold-blooded and calculating in her motives and actions. It was not to link her life with that of her young lover