Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/333

 sword of just vengeance is about to fall. When you have heard my account of the evidence, your powerful understanding will then lead you to contemn that kind-hearted credulity which, though it may be praiseworthy in the lady de Scuderi, would, on my part as a judge, be wholly unbecoming, and, indeed, unpardonable.

"So, then, to commence: Rene Cardillac is one morning found murdered; as usual, in such cases, he has been stabbed to the heart with a stiletto. No one is beside him but his apprentice, Olivier Brusson, and his daughter. In the bed-chamber of Brusson, amongst other effects that were examined, is found a dagger covered with blood, still fresh, and which, on being tried, fits exactly into the wound." "Cardillac," says the young man, "was, in my presence, attacked and knocked down on the streets at midnight." "The villains then wished to rob him?" "That," says he, "I cannot tell." "But you were walking with him, and was it not possible for you to lay hold of the murderers, and call for help?" "My master," he answers, "was fifteen or twenty steps before me, and I followed him." "Wherefore, in the name of wonder, were you at such a distance?" "My master would have it so." "But what, in all the world, could the goldsmith, Cardillac, have to do at such an hour on the street?" "That again," answers he, "I cannot answer." "But, till now," says the Chambre Ardente, "he was never known to leave his own house after nine o'clock in the evening." At this remark, Olivier, instead of returning any direct answer, falters, grows confused, bursts into tears, then swears over again that Cardillac had actually gone out of his house on the night referred to, and had, consequently, been put to death.

"But your ladyship will please to observe, with attention, what now follows: It has been proved, even to an absolute certainty, that Cardillac did not, on that evening, leave his own house, and, of course, Olivier's story of the midnight walk is an infamous fabrication. The house-door is provided 28*