Overall: Yeah it was Clerval.
So Vic’s… well he’s still Vic after all this time. Upon hearing that someone’s been murdered he regards the tale with disinterest until he hears that the method of murder was strangulation. At which point, suddenly, he realizes that this could potentially be related to the guy who just left him swearing vengeance on him and his family. Is murder such a common occurrence around Vic that it only arouses interest if the method shows that it might be related?
When Vic sees Clerval’s body, well he’s not in a good way. He immediately begins shouting in French and is taken by a fever for the next two months while he lives in a cell. The local magistrate is kind enough, but rather convinced that Vic murdered Clerval. Once Vic has sufficiently recovered, his mind still in a tumult, he begins talking to the magistrate about the upcoming trial. Vic’s father arrives and the two have a happy reunion. Good on you Papa Frank, traveling all the way out to who knows where to see your son when he’s in a jam. Especially since the book has told us that he’s been getting up there in his age and travel may not really be for him anymore.
Vic goes to his court date and is acquitted without much fuss. A letter from the people of the island Vic was living on provides him with a solid alibi for the night of the murder. After this, Vic is released from his holding and wants to just return to Switzerland. I said earlier that Vic is still Vic, but I will say there’s a very clear shift in the man described in the earliest chapters of the book and him now. While he’s still quite dramatic and sensitive, he’s much more sickly in a physical sense. He needs to take medication to get to sleep now, he’s consumed with anxiety over Adam. It’s a rather humanizing scene of Vic just silently crying to himself on a boat one night. I feel for the guy, his life sucks at this point. He may be selfish but that doesn’t mean I wish this on him.
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