"Do you still refuse? Do you still obstinately persist in remaining
dumb? Very well, we shall see."
The judge got up from his chair, and disappeared through a side-door.
After a short pause, Gascoigne's escort bade him march, and the three
followed through the same door.
They entered a second chamber, smaller than the first, the uses of
which were at once obvious to Gascoigne, although he had never been
there before. It was like a low shed or workroom, lighted from above,
perfectly plain--even bald--in its decoration, but in the centre,
occupying the greater part of the space, and leaving room only for a
passage around, was a large flat slab of marble, something like that
seen in fishmongers' shops. The similarity was maintained by the sound
of water constantly flowing and falling upon the marble slab, as
though to keep it and its burden always fresh and cool.
But that burden! Three corpses, stark naked but for a decent
waistband, were laid out upon the marble table. One was that of a
child who had been fished up from the Seine that morning; the second
that of a stonemason who had fallen from a scaffolding and broken his
neck and both legs; the third was the murdered man of the Hotel
Paradis, the Baron d'Enot, stripped of his well-made clothes, lying
stark and stiff on his back, with the great knife-wound gaping red and
festering in his breast.
Pages:
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35