While Rouletabille urged his view, the Emperor let him talk on and on, and now his eyes were dim.
"Is it possible that Natacha has not been the accomplice, in all, of Michael Nikolaievitch?" he demanded. "It was she who opened her father's house to him that night. If she was not his accomplice she would have mistrusted him, she would have watched him."
"Sire, Michael Nikolaievitch was a very clever man. He knew so well how to play upon Natacha, and Annouchka, in whom she placed all her hope. It was from Annouchka that she wished to hold the life of her father. It was the word, the signature of Annouchka that she demanded before giving her own. The evening Michael Nikolaievitch died, he was charged to bring her that signature. I know it, myself, because, pretending drunkenness, I was able to overhear enough of a conversation between Annouchka and a man whose name I must conceal. Yes, that last evening, Michael Nikolaievitch, when he entered the datcha, had the signature in his pocket, but also he carried the weapon or the poison with which he already had attempted and was resolved to reach the father of her whom he believed was assuredly to be his wife."
"You speak now of a paper, very precious, that I regret not to possess, monsieur," said the Tsar coldly, "because that paper alone would have proved to me the innocence of your protegee."
"If you have not it, Sire, you know well that it is because I have wished you to have it. The corpse had been searched by Katharina, the little Bohemian, and I, Sire, prevented Koupriane from finding that signature in Katharina's possession. In saving the secret I have saved General Trebassof's life, who would have preferred to die rather than accept such an arrangement."
The Tsar stopped Rouletabille in his enthusiastic outburst.
"All that would be very beautiful and perhaps admirable," said he, more and more coldly, because he had entirely recovered himself, "if Natacha had not, herself, with her own hand, poisoned her father and her step–mother!—always with arsenate of soda."
"Oh, some of that had been left in the house," replied Rouletabille. "They had not given me all of it for the analysis after the first attempt. But Natacha is innocent of that, Sire. I swear it to you. As true as that I have certainly escaped being hanged."
"How, hanged?"
"Oh, it has not amounted to much now, Your Majesty."
And Rouletabille recounted his sinister adventure, up to the moment of his death, or, rather, up to the moment when he had believed he was going to die.
The Emperor listened to the young reporter with complete stupefaction. He murmured, "Poor lad!" then, suddenly:
"But how have you managed to escape them?"
"Sire they have given me twenty–four hours for you to set Natacha at liberty, that is to say, that you restore her to her rights, all her rights, and she be always the recognized heiress of Trebassof. Do you understand me, Sire?
"I will understand you, perhaps, when you have explained to me how Natacha has not poisoned her father and step–mother."
"There are some things so simple, Sire, that one is able to think of them only with a rope around one's neck. But let us reason it out. We have here four persons, two of whom have been poisoned and the other two with them have not been. Now, it is certain that, of the four persons, the general has not wished to poison himself, that his wife has not wished to poison the general, and that, as for me, I have not wished to poison anybody. That, if we are absolutely sure of it, leaves as the poisoner only Natacha. That is so certain, so inevitable, that there is only one case, one alone, where, in such conditions, Natacha would not be regarded as the poisoner."
"I confess that, logically, I do not see," said the Tsar, "anything beyond that but more and more of a tangle. What is it?"
"Logically, the only case would be that where no one had been poisoned, that is to say, where no one had taken any poison."
"But the presence of the poison has been established!" cried the Emperor.
"Still, the presence of the poison proves only its presence, not the crime. Both poison and ipecac were found in the stomach expulsions. From which a crime has been concluded. What state of affairs was necessary for there to have been no crime? Simply that the poison should have appeared in the expulsions after the ipecac. Then there would have been no poisoning, but everyone would believe there had been. And, for that, someone would have poured the poison into the expulsions."
The Tsar never quitted Rouletabille's eyes.
"That is extraordinary," said he. "But of course it is possible. In any case, it is still only an hypothesis.
"And so long as it could be an hypothesis that no one thought of, it could be just that, Sire. But if I am here, it is because I have the proof that that hypothesis corresponds to the reality. That necessary proof of Natacha's innocence, Your Majesty, I have found with the rope around my neck. Ah, I tell you it was time! What has hindered us hitherto, I do not say to realize, but even to think, of that hypothesis? Simply that we thought the illness of the general had commenced before the absorption of the ipecac, since Matrena Petrovna had been obliged to go for it to her medicine–closet after his illness commenced, in order to counteract the poison of which she also appeared to be the victim.
"But, if I acquire proof that Matrena Petrovna had the ipecac at hand before the sickness, my hypothesis of pretense at poisoning has irresistible force. Because, if it was not to use it before, why did she have it with her before? And if it was not that she wished to hide the fact that she had used it before, why did she wish to make believe that she went to find it afterwards?
"Then, in order to show Natacha's innocence, here is what must be proved: that Matrena Petrovna had the ipecac on her, even when she went to look for it."
"Young Rouletabille, I hardly breathe," said the Tsar.
"Breathe, Sire. The proof is here. Matrena Petrovna necessarily had the ipecac on her, because after the sickness she had not the time for going to find it. Do you understand, Sire? Between the moment when she fled from the kiosk and when she returned there, she had not the actual time to go to her medicine–closet to find the ipecac."
"How have you been able to compute the time?" asked the Emperor.
"Sire, the Lord God directed, Who made me admire Feodor Feodorovitch's watch just when we went to read, and to read on the dial of that watch two minutes to the hour, and the Lord God directed yet, Who, after the scene of the poison, at the time Matrena returned carrying the ipecac publicly, made the hour strike from that watch in the general's pocket.