“Tell me exactly how you discovered the crime, M. Dollon,” he said as, pale and trembling, the steward accompanied him along the corridor to the scene of the murder.
“I went this morning as usual, sir,” the steward replied, “to say good morning to Mme. de Langrune and receive her orders for the day. I knocked at her door as I always did, but got no answer. I knocked louder, but still there was no answer. I don’t know why I opened the door instead of going away; perhaps I had some kind of presentiment. Oh, I shall never forget the shock I had when I saw my poor dear mistress lying dead at the foot of her bed, steeped in blood, and with such a horrible gash in her throat that for a moment I thought her head was severed from the trunk.”
The police sergeant corroborated the steward’s story.
“The murder certainly was committed with peculiarly horrible violence, sir,” he remarked. “The body shows that the victim was struck with the utmost fury. The murderer must have gone mad over the corpse from sheer lust of blood. The wounds are shocking.”
“Knife wounds?” M. de Presles asked.
“I don’t know,” said the sergeant uncertainly. “Your worship can form your own opinion.”
The magistrate followed the steward into the room where Dollon had taken care that nothing was touched.
In its furniture and general arrangement Mme. de Langrune’s room corresponded with the character of the old lady. It was large, and quietly furnished with old presses, armchairs, chairs and old-fashioned tables. It was evident that she had had no liking for modern fashions, but had preferred to have her own room stamped with the rather severe, yet very comfortable character of former days.
The whole of one side of the room was filled by the Marquise’s bed. It was large, and raised upon a kind of dais covered with a carpet of subdued tones. At the foot of the bed, on the right, was a large window, fastened half open despite the keen cold, no doubt for hygienic reasons. In the middle of the room was a round mahogany table with a few small articles upon it, a blotting-pad, books and so on. In one corner a large crucifix was suspended from the wall with a prie-Dieu in front of it, the velvet of which had been worn white by the old lady’s knees. Finally, a little further away, was a small escritoire, half open now, with its drawers gaping and papers scattered on the floor.
There were only two ways of ingress into the room: one by the door through which the magistrate had entered, which opened on to the main corridor on the first floor, and the other by a door communicating with the Marquise’s dressing-room; this dressing-room was lighted by a large window, which was shut.
The magistrate was shocked by the spectacle presented by the corpse of the Marquise. It was lying on its back on the floor, with the arms extended; the head was towards the bed, the feet towards the window. The body was almost naked. A gash ran almost right across the throat, leaving the bones exposed. Torrents of blood had saturated the victim’s clothes, and on the carpet round the body a wide stain was still slowly spreading wider.
M. de Presles stooped over the dead woman.
“What an appalling wound!” he muttered. “The medical evidence will explain what weapon it was made with; but no doctor is required to point out the violence of the blow or the fury of the murderer.” He turned to the old steward who, at sight of his mistress, could hardly restrain his tears. “Nothing has been moved in the room, eh?”
“Nothing, sir.”
The magistrate pointed to the escritoire with its open drawers.
“That has not been touched?”
“No, sir.”
“I suppose that is where Mme. de Langrune kept her valuables?”
The steward shook his head.
“The Marquise could not have had any large sum of money in the house: a few hundred francs perhaps for daily expenses, but certainly no more.”
“So you do not think robbery was the motive of the crime?”
The steward shrugged his shoulders.
“The murderer may have thought that Mme. de Langrune had money here, sir. But anyhow he must have been disturbed, because he did not take away the rings the Marquise had laid upon the dressing-table before she got into bed.”
The magistrate walked slowly round the room.
“This window was open?” he asked.
“The Marquise always left it like that; she liked all the fresh air she could get.”
“Might not the murderer have got in that way?”
The steward shook his head.
“It is most unlikely, sir. See: the windows are fitted outside with a kind of grating pointing outwards and downwards, and I think that would prevent anyone from climbing in.”
M. de Presles
