The Strand Magazine/Volume 3/Issue 13/Catissou
HE corporal sat astride a cane-bottomed chair in front of the gendarme quarters at Pierrebuffière and smoked his pipe; slowly the smoke curled upwards in regular lines, forming circles which gradually expanded, quivered, and finally vanished in the warm air of this July evening.
Martial Tharaud had seen many similar circles of smoke act in just the same way above the cannon's mouth.
He was now taking life easily in his little garden, the head of a family, with a corporal's stripes on his sleeve, and wished for nothing better—not even to become sergeant, because then he would probably have to go to Eymoutiers, Saint-Léonard, or Limoges. He was fond of his little corner at Pierrebuffière, fond of those roses which he had grafted himself, and fond of that creeping plant which ran along the white walls of the house and hung in wreaths around the tin tricolour flag suspended over the door.
As the corporal smoked he watched some boys who, at a short distance from him, were playing upon a hillock at the game of pique-romme, in which they threw long pointed pieces of iron into the ground, as though throwing at a target. Occasionally he cried warningly to them: "Take care, there, youngsters; mind you don't run them into your feet!"
Then he turned round and looked over his shoulder through the open window at a pretty, dark-complexioned woman, still young, who was bustling about the kitchen where the pots and pans shone like silver; he smiled at her and said as he puffed away: "They are having a game, the little rascals!"
Then the woman, with bare arms—nice white arms, half covered with flour—came to the window-sill, put her jolly, energetic-looking face (red with the heat of the stove) out of the window and looked towards the boys, who were excitedly throwing their pieces of iron at the mark.
"Go along! there's no danger! Besides, it makes them skilful and brave!"
"And gives them an appetite for your clafoutis, Catissou!"
The clafoutis—a Limousin dish as solid as the thick cabbage soup of the country districts—was already baking in the oven, with its black cherries stuck in the flour like bricks in mortar.
"Is the clafoutis cooking all right?" asked the corporal.
And Catissou shrugged her shoulders as if to say: "Are you foolish? Is your housekeeper in the habit of neglecting her pastry?
II.
"A good Woman," said Martial Tharaud to us a moment afterwards as we passed him with a nod.
He was in the humour for a gossip.
"Yes, yes" (he became loquacious when speaking of Catissou), "she's a good woman; and a sturdy woman, too. To see her make the kettle boil and wash the children—we have three, all boys; see them over there?—nobody would believe she had been on show at the fairs! And yet it's true enough! Oh, it's quite a story! I'll tell you all about it.
"It is about ten years ago I had just left the chasseurs and entered the gendarmerie at Limoges, and that suited me, because I belong to that part. The adjutant told us one morning that there was a splendid capture to be made. A worthy old man named Coussac, a foreman builder, had been murdered in his own house at Montmailler, and there was no clue to the identity of the assassin. That was in September. We had to search the highways and byways; and the adjutant, M. Boudet (he's captain now), told the sergeant, the corporals, and the men to redouble their vigilance and keep their eyes open; and if we met any suspicious-looking persons under the chestnut trees or along the highroads we were to seize them without hesitation and haul them up before the authorities.
"Information had been sent all over the district, and also to Châteauneuf, Ambazac, everywhere, even to Bellac. In a word, the whole department was on the alert.
"Now, it's all very fine to tell you to arrest all suspicious-looking individuals, but you must not always judge by appearances. There are many worthy people who have very evil-looking faces. Why, I knew a man whose looks would have brought him to the guillotine or the galleys; yet he was a man who might have taken a prize for upright conduct! It's true enough! He gave away all he had to the poor—a perfect saint, my word on it! And there are others who look like saints, but who ought to have the handcuffs put on at once.
"We took up hawkers."
"Still, we were told to arrest them; and so we did. We ran in some of those natives of Lorraine who come to Sauviat and Saint-Yrieix to buy china-ware, you know; we took up hawkers, old men, yellow-looking beggars—as yellow as their bags; and we even ran in some silly people who were roaming about without any knowledge of the place. But not one of them was capable of giving that fillip to old Coussac. So the time went on, and we could not lay hands on the Montmailler murderer.
"And it wasn't an easy thing at all to find out who had killed the old foreman builder. We had scarcely any clue, and we did not know how to set to work.
"Well! one day I was at the gendarme quarters, about to curry-comb my horse, when a handsome young woman, with eyes like sloes and lips as red as cherries, came up to me and said: 'Well! have you any news of the murderer after all this time? I am the daughter of Léonard Coussac!'"
"It made me start when I heard that, I tell you! She spoke so energetically, and her eyes flashed so angrily, that I felt as though I ought to be ashamed of myself for not having taken a grip of the collar of that scoundrel who had killed the young woman's father. Then I tried to clear myself by explaining that it was not exactly our fault, that we had very little information about the murderer, and so on; but she looked at me straight in the eyes in such a manner that I felt I was making a mess of it.
"'What about the hand?' she asked."
"'Now, look here, miss,' I said suddenly, stopping in the midst of my excuses. 'I would willingly risk an arm or a leg, if necessary, to catch that scoundrel!' And I meant it, too. And it wasn't exactly what you call—er—professional duty which made me say it. It was those confounded black eyes which seemed all on fire. 'But, you see, we want a clue!'
"'A clue?' Then she shrugged her shoulders. 'What about the hand?' she asked. 'Isn't that a clue?'
"'The hand? What hand?'
"Then Catherine Coussac—her name was Catherine, Catissou in our country dialect—told me the story of the crime, a story which, I confess, made my blood run cold.
III.
"It was one September evening when poor old Coussac was killed, and it was as warm as a summer day. In his house he had the money which Mr. Sabourdy, the contractor he worked for, had left with him before starting for Guéret. He had about ten thousand francs besides that, for he had to pay the men and meet two bills which would be due in two or three days. It was Saturday. After he had paid the men, the foreman builder returned home, pleased, and with a good appetite. He ate his cabbage soup and some dumplings, and after the meal his mother went upstairs to rest on the bed, as she was rather tired, while old Coussac and his daughter Catissou remained in the downstairs room, sitting near the chest where the money was. He was reading he Almanach Limousin which had just come out, and she was knitting a woollen stocking.
"You must understand that Coussac's rooms were at the back of the house, overlooking the garden. The one on the ground floor, in which Coussac and his daughter were then sitting, had a window about five feet from the ground, with inside shutters which were usually closed in the evening; but that evening the window had been left slightly open, because the old man felt rather warm. He was reading by the light of a shaded lamp, and Catissou heard him turn over the pages of the Almanach at regular intervals. She has often told me that, as she was working away mechanically, the tick-tick of the clock, and the rustle of the paper as the leaves were regularly turned over, made her feel drowsy.
"Suddenly she lifted her head from her work with a yawn to see if it wasn't time to go to bed, and she saw—she thought at first that she was mistaken or dreaming—she saw between the shutters a hand, a big hand, a thick, wide hand with something terrifying about it, something which Catissou noticed at once—the four fingers were almost as thick as the thumb, and were all the same size, and all as long as one another, just as if they had been cut off at a certain point. But they had not been cut off, for they had nails; only they all finished in a line. This frightful hand, with the spatulated fingers—that's what Dr. Boutsilloux called them—glided along the shutters like a great spider, and it was evidently trying to push back the shutters without making a noise; it remained there almost motionless as Catissou looked up, as though the man to whom it belonged guessed that she was looking at it.
"The hand."
"For a moment Catherine thought that her eyes had been affected by the light of the lamp, causing her to see black and red spots as you do when you look at the sun. She opened them wide, and saw the hand gliding over the woodwork nearer and nearer. Catissou could no longer doubt the reality of what she saw, and tried to cry out; but she seemed choked, as if the hand were strangling her, and she could not utter a sound.
"She jumped up, stretched her arm out towards Coussac, and shook him by the sleeve, pointing to the terrible hand at the window. But, at the very moment when old Coussac turned and perceived the hand, the shutter was pushed violently back and the window opened very quickly, which caused the door of the room to open, admitting a draught of air which blew out the lamp and left Catherine and her father in the dark.
"Then there was the noise of a heavy body jumping into the room, and Coussac endeavoured to find a knife in the drawer of the table on which he was reading—a knife to defend himself, and, above all, Catissou and Mr. Sabourdy's money; but, before he could open the drawer, he was seized by the throat, and felt something cold enter his body under the neck near the heart. Catissou could see nothing, but she guessed what was taking place, and she uttered a scream. Bang! A blow from a fist like a hammer on her head, and she fell senseless. The man must have had cat's eyes; he could see everything, and took good aim. If Catissou was not killed by the knife, it was because it had broken off short; still the fist was enough for the man's purpose in her case.
"How long the poor girl remained insensible, she could not say; but when she came to herself she was still in the lower room, and her grandmother in her nightdress, with a face as white as a sheet, was trying to restore poor old Léonard, who was dying.
"Of course you can guess that the chest had been broken open, and the thousand-franc notes stolen.
"What an awful night that was! It will be many a long day before it is forgotten in the Montmailler suburb. The neighbours were called up, the garden was searched, a guard put round the houses and the houses searched from top to bottom. They found the imprints of iron-tipped boots in the flower-beds; instructions were given that these marks should not be touched, and the size was carefully measured. Every place round about was searched, but to no purpose. And, in the meantime, Coussac was dying, and his mother, half crazy with grief and rage, was saying what she would do if she only got hold of the assassin.
"As for Catherine, who was half mad too, the sight of that terrible hand, with the four fingers of the same length, gliding, gliding over the oaken shutter like a field-spider or a crab-fish, was continually before her eyes.
"You can guess that everything that could be done was done to find the wretch who had sent the worthy man to 'Louyat,' that's what they call the cemetery at Limoges; the parson told me that the name comes from 'Alleluia.' Yes, everything possible was done, but I say again there was no clue! Of course, there was the hand, as Catissou told me at the barracks; but nobody knew a man with a hand like that in the whole of that part of the country—he would soon have been noticed. They questioned the men who worked with old Coussac, one after another. No, they did not know anyone with such a fist; and you could not suspect any of them. They were all decent fellows; they liked to wet their whistles a bit, but that isn't a crime. Besides, none of them knew that Mr. Sabourdy had left other money than the wages with Coussac. Who, then, could the rascal be who had such a hand as Catissou had seen?
"One day a journeyman butcher came and told us that he well remembered one day having a quarrel with a big, evil-looking fellow, who had pulled out a knife; and the butcher had noticed, as he had pulled out this Nontron knife from his pocket, that this fellow had a very peculiar hand, a big, hairy hand with all the fingers of the same size! Now, the knife that had killed Léonard Coussac was a Nontron knife. But the butcher knew nothing about this man and nobody else had seen the fellow at Limoges, so we could only believe that the butcher was humbugging us. And still the hunt went on, but it was no good; and I was in a rare state about it, I was, for I had said to Catissou, looking her full in the face: Come, Miss Catissou, answer me plainly; what would you give to the one who brought your father's murderer to you with a rope round his neck?' and she had not answered in words, but had become quite pale, and you should have seen her eyes, her beautiful black eyes! They were full of tears, and they promised—something!
"We saw a large canvas poster."
"Still, even that could not help me to find the wretch.
"At last, seeing that not one of the 12th, from the colonel to the last gendarme, could put his hand upon the fellow, Catherine said: 'Very well; if you can't find him, I will!'
"She left her situation as dressmaker, and asked the police authorities for permission to take part in the fairs. That surprised us all; but it surprised me especially, when in every place where there was any entertainment on, we saw a large canvas poster with a portrait of Catherine Coussac, dressed in pink tights, with a red velvet jacket, short shirt, and copper fish-scales; and above this picture were the words, in big letters, Woman Torpedo Fish.
"What a name! It was quite strange enough for Catherine to mix up with mountebanks at all—although they are good as other people, ay, and even better than a good many other people we meet. Still, it was surprising enough for her to become a strolling player, or such like; but Woman Torpedo Fish, that beat all! Of course you know that the torpedo is a fish which gives you an electric shock if you touch it—a fish which seems to have an electric machine in its body. Well, by some electrical arrangement, when you touched Catherine Coussac's hand you received an electric shock."
"It was not necessary for me to touch her to be electrified; I only had to look at her. Look at her now; she is twenty-eight and a little stouter, but she's still pretty. Well, ten years ago, when she used to wear that lace cap on her black hair—that lace cap which the silly women have thrown aside for hats like the ladies wear—well, very few people who passed her went on their way without looking back at her! Such a figure she had! and such a complexion! There were some handsome girls in Limoges, but Catherine was the handsomest, though I say it as shouldn't.
"Didn't she draw the people to the booth! She didn't want a big band like the Corvi Circus, nor a lot of gag like the troupe which plays the Tour de Nesle. Not a bit of it; she just showed herself; people said, 'I say, that's a pretty girl!' and they went in.
IV.
"One day, at Magnac Laval—it was Shrove Tuesday—I went in with the other people to see the Woman Torpedo Fish. There she was on a little stage, and old Mrs. Coussac, Léonard's mother, sat below, squatting like a witch, and frowning at everyone who came in, as though she would like to throw a spell upon them. Since the murder of her son, she had become sullen, and she scarcely said anything but 'So they won't take him to the guillotine, the rascal who killed my son!'
"I stepped forward. Catherine recognised me, and, as I stopped in front of her, and thought how well the costume suited her, she smiled, and said to me in a significant tone: 'Oh, it is you; but it isn't your hand I am looking for.' And her black eyes blazed again, with a look of madness almost.
"Then I understood what the brave girl was doing. Then I knew why she was going all over the country, disguised as a mountebank. The recollection of that frightful hand was always present, and she held out her own white little hand—as soft as satin, but as strong as a vice—to everyone, hoping in this way to recognise the hand with the fingers all of the same size.
"That was her own idea! That was the only clue, but it would be sufficient for her, she thought. It was not an easy task to find that fellow—almost as bad as looking for a needle in a haystack. And yet there is always a chance that a murderer will come and prowl round the scene of his crime. Blood seems to attract like a magnet, that's what I think. Of course, the man had fled from Limoges after the crime, and might still be far away, but he would come back and have a look at Montmailler at some time or other; so the Woman Torpedo Fish had the chances in her favour that she would see him again and recognise that hand—that hand which seemed to haunt her to such an extent that she has told me that she often dreamt it was round her neck, strangling her.
"In this way Catherine went about from place to place with old Mrs. Coussac. The electric woman's van went wherever it could, drawn by an old horse which had served in the gendarmerie. From fair to fair they dragged along, the mother and the daughter, and they must have covered miles enough to make a journey round the world. They saw Auvergne, Bordeaux, Angoulême, Tours, and right on to Orléans—and a good many other places, too, in the south. But it was in the department of Haute-Vienne that they felt most confident of success. They said to each other: That is where he did it, and that is where he will be taken!' A superstitious idea, perhaps, but you can't help such things.
"Women soon get at the bottom of things, I tell you. They are as artful as can be.
"Well, one day—I remember it as if it was yesterday, it was the 22nd of May and a Tuesday also—the booths were making no end of a row upon the Place Royale—Place de la République. There were roundabouts, waxworks, athletic sports, performing monkey, Pezon's menagerie, everything you could think of, including, of course, the Woman Torpedo Fish.
"Catherine, fresh as a daisy, walked about on the platform outside, pointing to the picture of herself and crying out: 'Walk up, walk up, ladies and gentlemen! Just about to begin!' while poor old Widow Coussac, looking a hundred years old, as yellow as a guinea, as thin as a rake, and coughing in a way that made your heart ache, glared around at the people.
"Walk up, walk up, walk up!"
"I walked up like the other people, except that, as I went in, I said 'Good morning, miss,' to Catissou.
"'Good morning, gendarme,’ she answered.
"She knew my name perfectly well, but she only gave me my title. It seemed to me that it was as good as saying: 'Although you are a gendarme, you don't know how to nab people who murder poor old men, do you?' and, besides, she had a right to call me 'gendarme,' because I was in uniform.
"Well, there I was inside. There were about twenty persons in the booth, men and women; and while Catissou smiled at them, old Mrs. Coussac, squatting in a corner, glared at them as usual.
"I can see it all now, just as it I was there. Catissou, standing on the stage with a red curtain for the background, with spangles in her hair, a rose in her breast, and, as a contrast to all this red, a pair of plump, white arms, and pretty shoulders, and a head—welly a head pretty enough to turn the heads of all the men who saw her. The sun shone through the canvas upon Catissou, making the imitation fish-scales, which she had sewn upon her garments, shine like diamonds.
"There she was, explaining to the audience what sort of a thing this electric fish is, where it lives, how the Arabs call it 'Thunder,' and what a shock it gives you, as if you had been struck by lightning; and how—but there, it's all done with now, and very likely Catissou herself has forgotten if, although she has said it so many times. But she had it at her fingers' ends at that time, and said it right off as pat as a lawyer; and the audience sat with their mouths wide open taking it all in, and devouring Catissou with their eyes, which proves that they had good taste.
"After that, she held out her hand as usual, and said to them: 'Walk up and shake hands and feel the electric shock! Don't be afraid; it won't hurt you!' All hands were held out to touch Catissou's dainty little hand; some laughed at the sensation, others shook their hands and looked rather angry.
"I sat there, looking on and feeling just a little jealous at all those people mauling Catherine's pretty hand, when all at once I saw her go as pale as death, and spring upon one of the hands like a dog at a piece of meat.
"Right in front of her stood a tall, herculean fellow, with curly red hair showing under a fur cap. He wore a starched blue blouse over a countryman's jacket, and had wide, square shoulders, a protruding lower jaw—I was looking at him sideways—and temples that hid his eyes from anyone looking at him from my position. No beard, only a few hairs visible on his white, dull face. An evil-looking face it was. Catissou was looking him straight in the face, and holding his hand—it seemed enormous in her small, woman's hand—in a frenzied grasp, as if her life depended upon it.
"A shiver passed through me, and I said to myself: 'That's the man!'
"Yes, she held him; held him with all her might. And she said to the great fellow, who had suddenly turned as pale as she had:
"Who killed Léonard Coussac?'
"He started back and tried to free his hand from the grasp of the Woman Torpedo Fish. Ah! Catissou didn't require any electrical arrangement to give that man a shock! He drew back his hand without being able to get it out of Catharine's grasp. 'Let me go, will you!' he said, trying to push her away. 'Are you mad?' He turned his head this way and that way, his eyes, wild with rage and fear, looking for a way of escape.
"'Wretch!' cried Catissou, sinking her fingers in his flesh as she tried to tighten her grasp, 'it was you who did it—you! you! you!'
"She shook him as a dog does a rat, and he was so stupefied he did not know what to do. But he soon recovered himself. He got his hand free from Catherine's fingers and dealt her a blow with it on the shoulder, which made her sink on her knees; then he turned towards the door like a wild boar.
"The audience was scared and made a rush for the door. The man made a bound, pushing the people before him, when I, by a quick movement, placed myself in front of him. He was a head taller than I was, and an evil look appeared on his face as I lifted my arm and seized him by the blouse.
"Who killed Leonard Coussac?"
"'I arrest you in the name of the law!'
"His reply was a blow, which would have sent me rolling, perhaps, it I had not been rendered strong by the presence of Catherine. As it was, I took very little notice of it, and held him tight, struggling with him and dragging him about. I wouldn't loose him, you would have had to cut my hand off first. And all the time he was trying to stun me or break my skull by hitting me about the head. All at once—whizz—a knife sank into my flesh just below the neck, in the very same place as old Coussac had been struck. I have the scar now. Seems to have been the usual place for the rascal to strike!
"He reckoned on killing me, but the collar of my uniform stopped the blow a bit and the blade of the knife—a Nontron knife, with a yellow handle—cut the collar clean through and gave me a nick in the flesh, that's all.
"I gripped the wrist of the hand that held the knife and held it above my head. If it came down again, it would be all up with me—me, a gendarme! So the knife was in the air over my head like the sword of Damo—what do you call him, Damocles?—yes, Damocles; and round the handle of the knife were the four fingers, all the same size, which had enabled Catherine Coussac to recognise the murderer of her father.
"I suppose the struggle did last some little time, but it seemed much longer to me. The blood was running from my wound, and I felt I was losing strength. I must leave go of the arm, and the knife would———. I made an effort; then, just in the nick of time, the good-for-nothing rascal gave a yell—such a yell it was! He gave a jump and started backwards as if to free himself from something, and he stepped backwards so quickly that he fell over something on to the ground, dragging me with him. He had fallen over old Mrs. Coussac, who had actually bitten him in the leg as the best way to make him leave go of me.
"We struggled about on the floor, but not for long. Catherine was up and helped me by getting the knife away from him, and I fastened my right hand on his throat and nearly strangled him. Then up came Sergeant Bugead and a comrade, attracted by the noise, and we soon had the handcuffs on the fellow, and they took him off through the crowd, who, now that he was unable to do anything, became very brave and wanted to lynch him.
"It was about time that help came, for I was done up. I felt myself going, and I fainted from loss of blood—fainted! Wasn't it silly for a gendarme to faint?
"And as I went off I had a feeling that I was being supported by a pair of white arms, and above me I fancied I could see, not the Nontron knife, but Catherine's eyes, looking tenderly at me.
V.
"Well, that's how a good marriage was brought about. My wound got well, of course, or you wouldn't see me here; but it got well twice as quick because Catherine looked after it. And when I got about again, she said plainly: 'Look here now! You suit me and I suit you. I swear I'll be a good wife to you!" Catherine's marriage was the last pleasure old Mrs. Coussac enjoyed, poor old woman! No! I make a mistake; her last piece of happiness was hearing that sentence had been passed on the murderer of Léonard Coussac.
"We struggled about on the floor."
"He turned out to be a bricklayer's labourer who had applied to Mr. Sabourdy for work, and had overheard about the money being entrusted to old Coussac. His greed had been excited, and he had committed the murder. He had done it quite alone; no accomplice. After the murder he had gone to Paris, then come back to Guéret, and then to Limoges; all the money gone and on the look-out for work. And he evidently wasn't particular what sort of work, either! He hardly took the trouble to defend himself at the trial. He seemed to say: 'You've got me. So much the worse for me!' He was condemned to death. He tried to cheat the executioner by knocking his head against the wall of his cell. But he didn't succeed, and the executioner had him after all.
"At the trial the judge complimented me. I don't say that for the sake of boasting, but because it's true. But I had no need of his compliments, nor of anything else. I had got Catissou, and that was enough for me. However, on the wedding-day, my captain's wedding gift was a corporal's stripes; and I tell you I was pleased at that. And since then—well, if you want to see a happy man, look at me!
"Catissou has had ever so many offers from theatrical managers to go on show—even from Australia. The newspapers had been full of her, and that made the managers eager to get her. But Catissou only laughed at it. She's got something else to do now. She has to wash the children, pipeclay my epaulettes, look after the poultry, and superintend the house—and she does superintend the house, too, and the corporal as well!
"No, no! Catissou is not an artiste. But if there should ever be a crime committed in these parts, and they can't find the man who did it, I wouldn't mind backing Catissou against all the detectives they like to employ!"
VI.
The corporal knocked out the ashes of his pipe on his left thumb-nail, and was about to fill up again, when Catherine Tharaud came to the door, making a pretty picture surrounded by the creeping plant, with the rays of the setting sun falling upon her.
"Come along, Martial," she said, with a pleasant smile, "the clafoutis is ready, and the soup. Call the little ones."
Martial Tharaud arose, put his hands up to his mouth, and called out to the boys, who were still enjoying their game:
"Hallo, there! Come along, you little rascals! Soup is ready!"
The boys ran up to him, and, as they all went inside, he took off his military cap and gaily saluted us.