The Cauldron of Oil: A Case Worth Looking At Read online

  ‘Wait till to-morrow,’ said Jean; ‘and perhaps I may tell you.’

  He lit his candle, and left them. Both the brothers observed that his hand trembled, and that his manner—never very winning—was, on that night, more serious and more unsociable than usual.

  III THE YOUNGER BROTHER

  When post-time came on the morning of the twenty-seventh, no letter arrived from Saturnin Siadoux On consideration the family interpreted this circumstance in a favourable light. If the master of the house had not written to them, it followed surely, that he meant to make writing unnecessary by returning on that day.

  As the hours passed, the widow and her nieces looked out, from time to time, for the absent man. Towards noon, they observed a little assembly of people approaching the village. Ere long, on a nearer view, they recognised at the head of the assembly, the chief magistrate of Toulouse, in his official dress. He was accompanied by his Assessor (also in official dress), by an escort of archers, and by certain subordinates attached to the town-hall. These last appeared to be carrying some burden, which was hidden from view by the escort of archers. The procession stopped at the house of Saturnin Siadoux; and the two daughters, hastening to the door, to discover what had happened, met the burden which the men were carrying, and saw, stretched on a litter, the dead body of their father.

  The corpse had been found that morning on the banks of the river Lers. It was stabbed in eleven places with knife or dagger wounds. None of the valuables about the dead man’s person had been touched; his watch and his money were still in his pockets.

  Whoever had murdered him, had murdered him for vengeance, not for gain.

  Some time elapsed before even the male members of the family were sufficiently composed to hear what the officers of justice had to say to them. When this result had been at length achieved, and when the necessary inquiries had been made, no information of any kind was obtained which pointed to the murderer, in the eye of the law. After expressing his sympathy, and promising that every available means should be tried to

  effect the discovery of the criminal, the chief magistrate gave his orders to his escort, and withdrew.

  When night came, the sister and the daughters of the murdered man retired to the upper part of the house, exhausted by the violence of their grief. The three brothers were left once more alone in the parlour, to speak together of the awful calamity which had befallen them. They were of hot Southern blood, and they looked on one another with a Southern thirst for vengeance in their tearless eyes.

  The silent younger son was now the first to open his lips.

  ‘You charged me yesterday,’ he said to his brother Thomas, ‘with looking strangely at Monsieur Chaubard all the evening; and I answered that I might tell you why I looked at him when to-morrow came. To-morrow has come, and I am ready to tell you.’

  He waited a little, and lowered his voice to a whisper when he spoke again.

  ‘When Monsieur Chaubard was at our supper-table last night,’ he said, ‘I had it in my mind that something had happened to our father, and that the priest knew it.’

  The two elder brothers looked at him in speechless astonishment.

  ‘Our father has been brought back to us a murdered man!’ Jean went on, still in a whisper. ‘I tell you, Louis—and you, Thomas—that the priest knows who murdered him.’

  Louis and Thomas shrank from their younger brother, as if he had spoken blasphemy.

  ‘Listen,’ said Jean. ‘No clue has been found to the secret of the murder. The magistrate has promised us to do his best—but I saw in his face that he had little hope. We must make the discovery ourselves—or our father’s blood will have cried to us for vengeance, and cried in vain. Remember that—and mark my next words. You heard me say yesterday evening, that I had met Monsieur Chaubard on his way to Toulouse in excellent health and spirits. You heard our old friend and neighbour contradict me at the supper-table, and declare that he had seen the priest, some hours later, go into our church here with the face of a panic-stricken man. You saw, Thomas, how he behaved when you went to fetch him to our house. You saw, Louis, what his looks were like when he came in.

  The change was noticed by everybody—what was the cause of it? I saw the cause in the priest’s own face, when our father’s name turned up in the talk round the supper-table.

  Did Monsieur Chaubard join in that talk? He was the only person present who never joined in it once. Did he change it, on a sudden, whenever it came his way? It came his way four times; and four times he changed it—trembling, stammering, turning whiter and whiter, but still, as true as the Heaven above us, shifting the talk off himself; every time!

  Are you men? Have you brains in your heads? Don’t you see, as I see, what this leads to?

  On my salvation I swear it—the priest knows the hand that killed our father!’

  The faces of the two elder brothers darkened vindictively, as the conviction of the truth fastened itself on their minds.

  ‘ How could he know it?’ they inquired, eagerly.

  ‘He must tell us himself;’ said Jean.

  ‘And if he hesitates—if he refuses to open his lips?’

  ‘We must open them by main force.’

  They drew their chairs together after that last answer, and consulted, for some time, in whispers. When the consultation was over, the brothers rose and went into the room where the dead body of their father was laid out. The three kissed him, in turn, on the forehead—then took hands together, and looked, meaningly, in each other’s faces—then

  separated. Louis and Thomas put on their hats, and went at once to the priest’s residence; while Jean withdrew by himself to the great room at the back of the house, which was used for the purposes of the oil-factory.

  Only one of the workmen was left in the place. He was watching an immense cauldron of boiling linseed-oil.

  ‘You can go home,’ said Jean, patting the man kindly on the shoulder. ‘There is no hope of a night’s rest for me, after the affliction that has befallen us—I will take your place at the cauldron. Go home, my good fellow—go home.’

  The man thanked him, and withdrew. Jean followed, and satisfied himself that the workman had really left the house. He then returned, and sat down by the boiling cauldron. Meanwhile, Louis and Thomas presented themselves at the priest’s house. He had not yet retired to bed, and he received them kindly—but with the same extraordinary agitation in his face and manner which had surprised all who saw him on the previous day. The brothers were prepared beforehand with an answer, when he inquired what they wanted of him. They replied immediately that the shock of their father’s horrible death had so seriously affected their aunt and their eldest sister, that it was feared the minds of both might give way, unless spiritual consolation and assistance were afforded to them that night. The unhappy priest—always faithful and self-sacrificing where the duties of his ministry were in question—at once rose to accompany the young men back to the house. He even put on his surplice, and took the crucifix with him, to impress his words of comfort all the more solemnly on the afflicted women whom he was called on to succour.

  Thus innocent of all suspicion of the conspiracy to which he had fallen a victim, he was taken into the room where Jean sat waiting by the cauldron of oil; and the door was locked behind him.

  Before he could speak, Thomas Siadoux openly avowed the truth.

  ‘It is we three who want you,’ he said—‘not our aunt, and not our sister. If you answer our questions truly, you have nothing to fear. If you refuse—” He stopped, and looked toward Jean and the boiling cauldron.

  Never, at the best of times, a resolute man; deprived, since the day before, of such resources of energy as he possessed, by the mental suffering which he had undergone in secret—the unfortunate priest trembled from head to foot, as the three brothers closed round him. Louis took the crucifix from him, and held it; Thomas forced him to place his right hand on it; Jean stood in front of him and put the questions.

&n
bsp; ‘Our father has been brought home a murdered man,’ he said. ‘Do you know who killed him?’

  The priest hesitated; and the two elder brothers moved him nearer to the cauldron.

  ‘Answer us, on peril of your life,’ said Jean. ‘Say, with your hand on the blessed crucifix, do you know the man who killed our father?’

  ‘I do know him.’

  ‘When did you make the discovery?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At

  Toulouse.’

  ‘Name the murderer.’

  At those words, the priest closed his hand fast on the crucifix, and rallied his sinking courage.

  ‘Never!’ he said firmly. ‘The knowledge I possess was obtained in the confessional.

  The secrets of the confessional are sacred. If I betray them, I commit sacrilege. I will die first!’

  ‘Think!’ said Jean. ‘If you keep silence, you screen the murderer. If you keep silence, you are the murderer’s accomplice. We have sworn over our father’s dead body to avenge him—if you refuse to speak, we will avenge him on you. I charge you again, name the man who killed him.’

  ‘I will die first,’ the priest reiterated, as firmly as before.

  ‘Die then!’ said Jean. ‘Die in that cauldron of boiling oil.’

  ‘Give him time,’ cried Louis and Thomas, earnestly pleading together.

  ‘We will give him time,’ said the younger brother. ‘There is the clock yonder, against the wall. We will count five minutes by it. In those five minutes, let him make his peace with God—or make up his mind to speak.’

  They waited, watching the clock. In that dreadful interval, the priest dropped on his knees and hid his face. The time passed in dead silence.

  ‘Speak! for your own sake, for our sakes, speak!’ said Thomas Siadoux, as the minute hand reached the point at which the five minutes expired.

  The priest looked up—his voice died away on his lips—the mortal agony broke out on his face in great drops of sweat—his head sank forward on his breast.

  ‘Lift him!’ cried Jean, seizing the priest on one side. ‘Lift him, and throw him in!’

  The two elder brothers advanced a step—and hesitated.

  ‘Lift him, on your oath over our father’s body!’

  The two brothers seized him on the other side. As they lifted him to a level with the cauldron, the horror of the death that threatened him, burst from the lips of the miserable man in a scream of terror. The brothers held him firm at the cauldron’s edge. ‘Name the man!’ they said for the last time.

  The priest’s teeth chattered—he was speechless. But he made a sign with his head—a sign in the affirmative. They placed him in a chair, and waited patiently until he was able to speak.

  His first words were words of entreaty. He begged Thomas Siadoux to give him back the crucifix. When it was placed in his possession, he kissed it, and said faintly, ‘I ask pardon of God for the sin that I am about to commit.’ He paused; and then looked up at the younger brother, who still stood in front of him. ‘I am ready,’ he said. ‘Question me, and I will answer.’

  Jean repeated the questions which he had put, when the priest was first brought into the room.

  ‘You know the murderer of our father?’

  ‘I know him.’

  ‘Since

  when?’

  ‘Since he made his confession to me yesterday, in the cathedral of Toulouse.’

  ‘Name

  him.’

  ‘His name is Cantegrel.’

  ‘The man who wanted to marry our aunt?’

  ‘The

  same.

  ‘What brought him to the confessional?’

  ‘His own remorse.

  ‘What were the motives for his crime?’

  ‘There were reports against his character; and he discovered that your father had gone privately to Narbonne to make sure that they were true.’

  ‘Did our father make sure of their truth?’

  ‘He

  did.’

  ‘Would those discoveries have separated our aunt from Cantegrel if our father had lived to tell her of them?’

  ‘They would. If your father had lived, he would have told your aunt that Cantegrel was married already; that he had deserted his wife at Narbonne; that she was living there with another man, under another name; and that she had herself confessed it in your father’s presence.

  ‘Where was the murder committed?’

  ‘Between Villefranche and this village. Cantegrel had followed your father to Narbonne; and had followed him back again to Villefranche. As far as that place, he travelled in company with others, both going and returning. Beyond Villefranche, he was left alone at the ford over the river. There Cantegrel drew the knife to kill him, before he reached home and told his news to your aunt.’

  ‘How was the murder committed?’

  ‘It was committed while your father was watering his pony by the bank of the stream.

  Cantegrel stole on him from behind, and struck him as he was stooping over the saddle-bow.’

  ‘This is the truth, on your oath?’

  ‘On my oath, it is the truth.’

  ‘You may leave us.’

  The priest rose from his chair without assistance. From the time when the terror of death had forced him to reveal the murderer’s name, a great change had passed over him. He had given his answers with the immoveable calmness of a man on whose mind all human interests had lost their hold. He now left the room, strangely absorbed in himself; moving with the mechanical regularity of a sleepwalker; lost to all perception of things and persons about him. At the door he stopped—woke, as it seemed, from the trance that possessed him—and looked at the three brothers with a steady changeless sorrow, which they had never seen in him before, which they never afterwards forgot.

  ‘I forgive you,’ he said, quietly and solemnly. ‘Pray for me, when my time comes.

  With those last words, he left them.

  IV THE END

  The night was far advanced; but the three brothers determined to set forth instantly for Toulouse, and to place their information in the magistrate’s hands, before the morning dawned.

  Thus far, no suspicion had occurred to them of the terrible consequences which were to follow their night-interview with the priest. They were absolutely ignorant of the punishment to which a man in holy orders exposed himself; if he revealed the secrets of

  the confessional. No infliction of that punishment had been known in their neighbourhood—for, at that time, as at this, the rarest of all priestly offences was a violation of the sacred trust confided to the confessor by the Roman Church. Conscious that they had forced the priest into the commission of a clerical offence, the brothers sincerely believed that the loss of his curacy would be the heaviest penalty which the law could exact from him. They entered Toulouse that night, discussing the atonement which they might offer to Monsieur Chaubard, and the means which they might best employ to make his future life easy to him.

  The first disclosure of the consequences which would certainly follow the outrage they had committed, was revealed to them when they made their deposition before the officer ofjustice. The magistrate listened to their narrative with horror vividly expressed in his face and manner.

  ‘Better you had never been born,’ he said, ‘than have avenged your father’s death, as you three have avenged it. Your own act has doomed the guilty and the innocent to suffer alike.’

  Those words proved prophetic of the truth. The end came quickly, as the priest had foreseen it, when he spoke his parting words.

  The arrest of Cantegrel was accomplished without difficulty, the next morning. In the absence of any other evidence on which to justify this proceeding, the private disclosure to the authorities of the secret which the priest had violated, became inevitable. The Parliament of Languedoc was, under these circumstances, the tribunal appealed to; and the decision of that assembly immediately ordered the pri
est and the three brothers to be placed in confinement, as well as the murderer Cantegrel. Evidence was then immediately sought for, which might convict this last criminal, without any reference to the revelation that had been forced from the priest—and evidence enough was found to satisfy judges whose minds already possessed the foregone certainty of the prisoner’s guilt. He was put on his trial, was convicted of the murder, and was condemned to be broken on the wheel. The sentence was rigidly executed, with as little delay as the law would permit.

  The cases of Monsieur Chaubard, and of the three sons of Siadoux, next occupied the judges. The three brothers were found guilty of having forced the secret of a confession from a man in holy orders, and were sentenced to death by hanging. A far more terrible expiation of his offence awaited the unfortunate priest. He was condemned to have his limbs broken on the wheel, and to be afterwards, while still living, bound to the stake, and destroyed by fire. Barbarous as the punishments of that period were, accustomed as the population was to hear of their infliction, and even to witness it, the sentences pronounced in these two cases dismayed the public mind; and the authorities were surprised by receiving petitions for mercy from Toulouse, and from all the surrounding neighbourhood. But the priest’s doom had been sealed. All that could be obtained, by the intercession of persons of the highest distinction, was, that the executioner should grant him the mercy of death, before his body was committed to the flames. With this one modification, the sentence was executed, as the sentence had been pronounced, on the curate of Croix-Daurade.

  The punishment of the three sons of Siadoux remained to be inflicted. But the people, roused by the death of the ill-fated priest, rose against this third execution, with a

  resolution before which the local government gave way. The cause of the young men was taken up by the hot-blooded populace, as the cause of all fathers and all sons; their filial piety was exalted to the skies; their youth was pleaded in their behalf; their ignorance of the terrible responsibility which they had confronted in forcing the secret from the priest, was loudly alleged in their favour. More than this, the authorities were actually warned that the appearance of the prisoners on the scaffold would be the signal for an organised revolt and rescue. Under this serious pressure, the execution was deferred, and the prisoners were kept in confinement until the popular ferment had subsided.