Addressed To The Advocate Who Defended Him At His Trial

: Anonymous

Respected Sir,--On the twenty-seventh of February I was sent, on business

connected with the stables at Maison Rouge, to the city of Metz. On the

public promenade I met a magnificent woman. Complexion, blond.

Nationality, English. We mutually admired each other; we fell into

conversation. (She spoke French perfectly--with the English accent.) I

offered refreshment; my proposal was accepted. We had a long and

interestin interview--we discovered that we were made for each other. So

far, Who is to blame?



Is it my fault that I am a handsome man--universally agreeable as such to

the fair sex? Is it a criminal offense to be accessible to the amiable

weakness of love? I ask again, Who is to blame? Clearly, nature. Not the

beautiful lady--not my humble self.



To resume. The most hard-hearted person living will understand that two

beings made for each other could not possibly part without an appointment

to meet again.



I made arrangements for the accommodation of the lady in the village near

Maison Rouge. She consented to honor me with her company at supper, in my

apartment at the stables, on the night of the twenty-ninth. The time fixed

on was the time when the other servants were accustomed to retire--eleven

o'clock.



Among the grooms attached to the stables was an Englishman, laid up with a

broken leg. His name was Francis. His manners were repulsive; he was

ignorant of the French language. In the kitchen he went by the nickname of

the "English Bear." Strange to say, he was a great favorite with my master

and my mistress. They even humored certain superstitious terrors to which

this repulsive person was subject--terrors into the nature of which I, as

an advanced freethinker, never thought it worth my while to inquire.



On the evening of the twenty-eighth the Englishman, being a prey to the

terrors which I have mentioned, requested that one of his fellow servants

might sit up with him for that night only. The wish that he expressed was

backed by Mr. Fairbank's authority. Having already incurred my master's

displeasure--in what way, a proper sense of my own dignity forbids me to

relate--I volunteered to watch by the bedside of the English Bear. My

object was to satisfy Mr. Fairbank that I bore no malice, on my side,

after what had occurred between us. The wretched Englishman passed a night

of delirium. Not understanding his barbarous language, I could only gather

from his gesture that he was in deadly fear of some fancied apparition at

his bedside. From time to time, when this madman disturbed my slumbers, I

quieted him by swearing at him. This is the shortest and best way of

dealing with persons in his condition.



On the morning of the twenty-ninth, Mr. Fairbank left us on a journey.

Later in the day, to my unspeakable disgust, I found that I had not done

with the Englishman yet. In Mr. Fairbank's absence, Mrs. Fairbank took an

incomprehensible interest in the question of my delirious fellow servant's

repose at night. Again, one or the other of us was to watch at his

bedside, and report it, if anything happened. Expecting my fair friend to

supper, it was necessary to make sure that the other servants at the

stables would be safe in their beds that night. Accordingly, I volunteered

once more to be the man who kept watch. Mrs. Fairbank complimented me on

my humanity. I possess great command over my feelings. I accepted the

compliment without a blush.



Twice, after nightfall, my mistress and the doctor (the last staying in

the house in Mr. Fairbank's absence) came to make inquiries. Once before

the arrival of my fair friend--and once after. On the second occasion

(my apartment being next door to the Englishman's) I was obliged to hide

my charming guest in the harness room. She consented, with angelic

resignation, to immolate her dignity to the servile necessities of my

position. A more amiable woman (so far) I never met with!



After the second visit I was left free. It was then close on midnight. Up

to that time there was nothing in the behavior of the mad Englishman to

reward Mrs. Fairbank and the doctor for presenting themselves at his

bedside. He lay half awake, half asleep, with an odd wondering kind of

look in his face. My mistress at parting warned me to be particularly

watchful of him toward two in the morning. The doctor (in case anything

happened) left me a large hand bell to ring, which could easily be heard

at the house.



Restored to the society of my fair friend, I spread the supper table. A

pate, a sausage, and a few bottles of generous Moselle wine, composed our

simple meal. When persons adore each other, the intoxicating illusion of

Love transforms the simplest meal into a banquet. With immeasurable

capacities for enjoyment, we sat down to table. At the very moment when I

placed my fascinating companion in a chair, the infamous Englishman in the

next room took that occasion, of all others, to become restless and noisy

once more. He struck with his stick on the floor; he cried out, in a

delirious access of terror, "Rigobert! Rigobert!"



The sound of that lamentable voice, suddenly assailing our ears, terrified

my fair friend. She lost all her charming color in an instant. "Good

heavens!" she exclaimed. "Who is that in the next room?"



"A mad Englishman."



"An Englishman?"



"Compose yourself, my angel. I will quiet him."



The lamentable voice called out on me again, "Rigobert! Rigobert!"



My fair friend caught me by the arm. "Who is he?" she cried. "What is his

name?"



Something in her face struck me as she put that question. A spasm of

jealousy shook me to the soul. "You know him?" I said.



"His name!" she vehemently repeated; "his name!"



"Francis," I answered.



"Francis--what?"



I shrugged my shoulders. I could neither remember nor pronounce the

barbarous English surname. I could only tell her it began with an "R."



She dropped back into the chair. Was she going to faint? No: she

recovered, and more than recovered, her lost color. Her eyes flashed

superbly. What did it mean? Profoundly as I understand women in general, I

was puzzled by this woman!



"You know him?" I repeated.



She laughed at me. "What nonsense! How should I know him? Go and quiet the

wretch."



My looking-glass was near. One glance at it satisfied me that no woman in

her senses could prefer the Englishman to Me. I recovered my self-respect.

I hastened to the Englishman's bedside.



The moment I appeared he pointed eagerly toward my room. He overwhelmed me

with a torrent of words in his own language. I made out, from his gestures

and his looks, that he had, in some incomprehensible manner, discovered

the presence of my guest; and, stranger still, that he was scared by the

idea of a person in my room. I endeavored to compose him on the system

which I have already mentioned--that is to say, I swore at him in my

language. The result not proving satisfactory, I own I shook my fist in

his face, and left the bedchamber.



Returning to my fair friend, I found her walking backward and forward in a

state of excitement wonderful to behold. She had not waited for me to fill

her glass--she had begun the generous Moselle in my absence. I prevailed

on her with difficulty to place herself at the table. Nothing would induce

her to eat. "My appetite is gone," she said. "Give me wine."



The generous Moselle deserves its name--delicate on the palate, with

prodigious "body." The strength of this fine wine produced no stupefying

effect on my remarkable guest. It appeared to strengthen and exhilarate

her--nothing more. She always spoke in the same low tone, and always, turn

the conversation as I might, brought it back with the same dexterity to

the subject of the Englishman in the next room. In any other woman this

persistency would have offended me. My lovely guest was irresistible; I

answered her questions with the docility of a child. She possessed all the

amusing eccentricity of her nation. When I told her of the accident which

confined the Englishman to his bed, she sprang to her feet. An

extraordinary smile irradiated her countenance. She said, "Show me the

horse who broke the Englishman's leg! I must see that horse!" I took her

to the stables. She kissed the horse--on my word of honor, she kissed the

horse! That struck me. I said. "You do know the man; and he has wronged

you in some way." No! she would not admit it, even then. "I kiss all

beautiful animals," she said. "Haven't I kissed you?" With that charming

explanation of her conduct, she ran back up the stairs. I only remained

behind to lock the stable door again. When I rejoined her, I made a

startling discovery. I caught her coming out of the Englishman's room.



"I was just going downstairs again to call you," she said. "The man in

there is getting noisy once more."



The mad Englishman's voice assailed our ears once again. "Rigobert!

Rigobert!"



He was a frightful object to look at when I saw him this time. His eyes

were staring wildly; the perspiration was pouring over his face. In a

panic of terror he clasped his hands; he pointed up to heaven. By every

sign and gesture that a man can make, he entreated me not to leave him

again. I really could not help smiling. The idea of my staying with him,

and leaving my fair friend by herself in the next room!



I turned to the door. When the mad wretch saw me leaving him he burst out

into a screech of despair--so shrill that I feared it might awaken the

sleeping servants.



My presence of mind in emergencies is proverbial among those who know me.

I tore open the cupboard in which he kept his linen--seized a handful of

his handkerchiefs--gagged him with one of them, and secured his hands with

the others. There was now no danger of his alarming the servants. After

tying the last knot, I looked up.



The door between the Englishman's room and mine was open. My fair friend

was standing on the threshold--watching him as he lay helpless on the

bed; watching me as I tied the last knot.



"What are you doing there?" I asked. "Why did you open the door?"



She stepped up to me, and whispered her answer in my ear, with her eyes

all the time upon the man on the bed:



"I heard him scream."



"Well?"



"I thought you had killed him."



I drew back from her in horror. The suspicion of me which her words

implied was sufficiently detestable in itself. But her manner when she

uttered the words was more revolting still. It so powerfully affected me

that I started back from that beautiful creature as I might have recoiled

from a reptile crawling over my flesh.



Before I had recovered myself sufficiently to reply, my nerves were

assailed by another shock. I suddenly heard my mistress's voice calling to

me from the stable yard.



There was no time to think--there was only time to act. The one thing

needed was to keep Mrs. Fairbank from ascending the stairs, and

discovering--not my lady guest only--but the Englishman also, gagged and

bound on his bed. I instantly hurried to the yard. As I ran down the

stairs I heard the stable clock strike the quarter to two in the morning.



My mistress was eager and agitated. The doctor (in attendance on her) was

smiling to himself, like a man amused at his own thoughts.



"Is Francis awake or asleep?" Mrs. Fairbank inquired.



"He has been a little restless, madam. But he is now quiet again. If he is

not disturbed" (I added those words to prevent her from ascending the

stairs), "he will soon fall off into a quiet sleep."



"Has nothing happened since I was here last?"



"Nothing, madam."



The doctor lifted his eyebrows with a comical look of distress. "Alas,

alas, Mrs. Fairbank!" he said. "Nothing has happened! The days of romance

are over!"



"It is not two o'clock yet," my mistress answered, a little irritably.



The smell of the stables was strong on the morning air. She put her

handkerchief to her nose and led the way out of the yard by the north

entrance--the entrance communicating with the gardens and the house. I was

ordered to follow her, along with the doctor. Once out of the smell of the

stables she began to question me again. She was unwilling to believe that

nothing had occurred in her absence. I invented the best answers I could

think of on the spur of the moment; and the doctor stood by laughing. So

the minutes passed till the clock struck two. Upon that, Mrs. Fairbank

announced her intention of personally visiting the Englishman in his room.

To my great relief, the doctor interfered to stop her from doing this.



"You have heard that Francis is just falling asleep," he said. "If you

enter his room you may disturb him. It is essential to the success of my

experiment that he should have a good night's rest, and that he should own

it himself, before I tell him the truth. I must request, madam, that you

will not disturb the man. Rigobert will ring the alarm bell if anything

happens."



My mistress was unwilling to yield. For the next five minutes, at least,

there was a warm discussion between the two. In the end Mrs. Fairbank was

obliged to give way--for the time. "In half an hour," she said, "Francis

will either be sound asleep, or awake again. In half an hour I shall come

back." She took the doctor's arm. They returned together to the house.



Left by myself, with half an hour before me, I resolved to take the

Englishwoman back to the village--then, returning to the stables, to

remove the gag and the bindings from Francis, and to let him screech to

his heart's content. What would his alarming the whole establishment

matter to me after I had got rid of the compromising presence of my

guest?



Returning to the yard I heard a sound like the creaking of an open door on

its hinges. The gate of the north entrance I had just closed with my own

hand. I went round to the west entrance, at the back of the stables. It

opened on a field crossed by two footpaths in Mr. Fairbank's grounds. The

nearest footpath led to the village. The other led to the highroad and the

river.



Arriving at the west entrance I found the door open--swinging to and fro

slowly in the fresh morning breeze. I had myself locked and bolted that

door after admitting my fair friend at eleven o'clock. A vague dread of

something wrong stole its way into my mind. I hurried back to the stables.



I looked into my own room. It was empty. I went to the harness room. Not a

sign of the woman was there. I returned to my room, and approached the

door of the Englishman's bedchamber. Was it possible that she had remained

there during my absence? An unaccountable reluctance to open the door made

me hesitate, with my hand on the lock. I listened. There was not a sound

inside. I called softly. There was no answer. I drew back a step, still

hesitating. I noticed something dark moving slowly in the crevice between

the bottom of the door and the boarded floor. Snatching up the candle from

the table, I held it low, and looked. The dark, slowly moving object was a

stream of blood!



That horrid sight roused me. I opened the door. The Englishman lay on his

bed--alone in the room. He was stabbed in two places--in the throat and in

the heart. The weapon was left in the second wound. It was a knife of

English manufacture, with a handle of buckhorn as good as new.



I instantly gave the alarm. Witnesses can speak to what followed. It is

monstrous to suppose that I am guilty of the murder. I admit that I am

capable of committing follies: but I shrink from the bare idea of a crime.

Besides, I had no motive for killing the man. The woman murdered him in my

absence. The woman escaped by the west entrance while I was talking to my

mistress. I have no more to say. I swear to you what I have here written

is a true statement of all that happened on the morning of the first of

March.



Accept, sir, the assurance of my sentiments of profound gratitude and

respect.













TT





Tried for the murder of Francis Raven, Joseph Rigobert was found Not

Guilty; the papers of the assassinated man presented ample evidence of the

deadly animosity felt toward him by his wife.



The investigations pursued on the morning when the crime was committed

showed that the murderess, after leaving the stable, had taken the

footpath which led to the river. The river was dragged--without result. It

remains doubtful to this day whether she died by drowning or not. The one

thing certain is--that Alicia Warlock was never seen again.



So--beginning in mystery, ending in mystery--the Dream Woman passes from

your view. Ghost; demon; or living human creature--say for yourselves

which she is. Or, knowing what unfathomed wonders are around you, what

unfathomed wonders are in you, let the wise words of the greatest of all

poets be explanation enough:



"We are such stuff

As dreams are made of, and our little life

Is rounded with, a sleep."