She Stands Accused Part 17

The cook, Josephine Blin, was called. At one time she had been suspect.

Her version of the potage incidents, though generally in agreement with that of the accused widow, differed from it in two essential points.

When she took Boursier's soup into the dining-room, she said, Mme Boursier was in the comptoir, three or four paces away from the desk on which she put the terrine. This Mme Boursier denied. She said she had been in the same comptoir as her husband. Josephine declared that Mme Boursier had ordered her to clean the soup-dish out with sand, but her mistress maintained she had bade the girl do no more than clean it.

For the rest, Josephine thought about fifteen minutes elapsed before Boursier came to take the soup. During that time she had seen Mme Boursier writing and making up accounts.

Toupie, the medical student, said he had nursed Boursier during the previous year. Boursier was then suffering much in the same way as he had appeared to suffer during his fatal illness. He had heard Mme Boursier consulting with friends about an autopsy, and her refusal had been on their advice.

The doctors called were far from agreeing on the value of the experiments they had made. Orfila, afterwards to intervene in the much more universally notorious case of Mme Lafarge, stuck to his opinion of death by a.r.s.enic. If his evidence in the Lafarge case is read it will be seen that in the twenty years that had pa.s.sed from the Boursier trial his notions regarding the proper routine of a.n.a.lysis for a.r.s.enic in a supposedly poisoned body had undergone quite a change. But by then the Marsh technique had been evolved. Here, however, he based his opinion on experiments properly described as "very equivocal;" and stuck to it. He was supported by a colleague named Lesieur.

M. Gardy said he had observed that the greater part of the grains about the ileum, noted on the 1st of August, had disappeared next day. The a.n.a.lysis had been made with quant.i.ties too small. He now doubted greatly if the substance taken to be a.r.s.enic oxide would account for death.

M. Barruel declared that from the glareous matter removed from the body only a grain of the supposed a.r.s.enic had been extracted, and that with difficulty. He had put the substance on glowing charcoal, but, in his opinion, the experiment was VERY EQUIVOCAL. It was at first believed that there was a big amount of a.r.s.enic, but he felt impelled to say that the substance noted was nothing other than small cl.u.s.ters of fat. The witness now refused to conclude, as he had concluded on the 1st of August, that enough poison had been in the body to cause death.

It would almost seem that the medical evidence should have been enough to destroy the case for the prosecution, but other witnesses were called.

Bailli, at one time a clerk to Boursier, said he had helped his patron to distribute a.r.s.enic and rat-poison in the shop cellars. He was well aware that the whole of the poison had not been used, but in the course of his interrogation he had failed to remember where the residue of the poisons had been put. He now recollected. The unused portion of the a.r.s.enic had been put in a niche of a bottle-rack.

In view of evidence given by a subsequent witness Bailli's rather sudden recovery of memory might have been thought odd if a friend of his had not been able to corroborate his statement. The friend was one Rousselot, another grocer. He testified that he and Bailli had searched together. Bailli had then cudgelled that dull a.s.s, his brain, to some effect, for they had ultimately come upon the residue of the a.r.s.enic bought by Boursier lying with the remainder of the mort aux rats. Both the poisons had been placed at the bottom of a bottle-rack, and a plank had been nailed over them.

Rousselot, asked why he had not mentioned this fact before, answered stupidly, "I thought you knew it!"

The subsequent witness above referred to was an employee in the Ministere du Roi, a man named Donzelle. In a stammering and rather confused fas.h.i.+on he attempted to explain that the vacillations of the witness Bailli had aroused his suspicions. He said that Bailli, who at first had been vociferous in his condemnation of the Widow Boursier, had later been rather more vociferous in her defence. The witness (Donzelle) had it from a third party that Mme Boursier's sister-in-law had corrupted other witnesses with gifts of money. Bailli, for example, could have been seen carrying bags of ecus under his arm, coming out of the house of the advocate briefed to defend Mme Boursier.

Bailli, recalled, offered to prove that if he had been to Maitre Couture's house he had come out of it in the same fas.h.i.+on as he had gone in--that was, with a bag of bay salt under each arm.

Maitre Couture, highly indignant, rose to protest against the insinuation of the witness Donzelle, but the President of the court and the Avocat-General hastened to say that the eminent and honourable advocate was at no need to justify himself. The President sternly reprimanded Donzelle and sent him back to his seat.

III

The Avocat-General, M. de Broe, stated the case for the prosecution. He made, as probably was his duty, as much as he could of the a.r.s.enic said to have been found in the body (that precipitated as yellow sulphur of a.r.s.enic), and of the adultery of Mme Boursier with Kostolo. He dwelt on the cleaning of the soup-dish, and pointed out that while the soup stood on the desk Mme Boursier had been here and there near it, never out of arm's reach. In regard to Kostolo, the Greek was a low scallywag, but not culpable.

The prosecution, you observe, rested on the poison's being administered in the soup.

In his speech for the defence the eloquent Maitre Couture began by condemning the gossip and the popular rumour on which the case had been begun. He denounced the action of the magistrates in inst.i.tuting proceedings as deplorably unconsidered and hasty.

Mme Boursier, he pointed out, had everything to lose through the loss of her husband. Why should she murder a fine merchant like Boursier for a doubtful quant.i.ty like Kostolo? He spoke of the happy relations.h.i.+p that had existed between husband and wife, and, in proof of their kindness for each other, told of a comedy interlude which had taken place on the Sunday morning.

Boursier, he said, had to get up before his wife that morning, rising at six o'clock. His rising did not wake his wife, and, perhaps humorously resenting her lazy torpor, he found a piece of charcoal and decorated her countenance with a black moustache. It was true that Mme Boursier showed some petulance over her husband's prank when she got down at eight o'clock, but her ill-humour did not last long. Her husband caressed and petted her, and before long the wife joined her merry-minded husband in laughing over the joke against her. That, said Maitre Couture, that mutual laughter and kindness, seemed a strange preliminary to the supposed poisoning episode of two hours or so later.

The truth of the matter was that Boursier carried the germ of death in his own body. What enemy had he made? What vengeance had he incurred?

Maitre Couture reminded the jury of Boursier's poor physical condition, of his stoutness, of the shortness of his neck. He brought forward Toupie's evidence of Boursier's illness of the previous year, alike in symptoms and in the sufferings of the invalid to that which proved fatal on Tuesday the 30th of June. Then Maitre Couture proceeded to tear the medical evidence to pieces, and returned to the point that Mme Boursier had been sleeping so profoundly, so serenely, on the morning of her supposed contemplated murder that the prank played on her by her intended victim had not disturbed her.

The President's address then followed. The jury retired, and returned with a verdict of "Not guilty."

On this M. Hardouin discharged the accused, improving the occasion with a homily which, considering the ordeal that Mme Boursier had had to endure through so many months, and that might have been considered punishment enough, may be quoted merely as a fine specimen of salting the wound:

"Veuve Boursier," said he, "you are about to recover that liberty which suspicions of the gravest nature have caused you to lose. The jury declares you not guilty of the crime imputed to you. It is to be hoped that you will find a like absolution in the court of your own conscience. But do not ever forget that the cause of your unhappiness and of the dishonour which, it may be, covers your name was the disorder of your ways and the violation of the most sacred obligations. It is to be hoped that your conduct to come may efface the shame of your conduct in the past, and that repentance may restore the honour you have lost."

IV

Now we come, as the gentleman with the crimson handkerchief coyly showing between dress waistcoat and s.h.i.+rt might have said, waving his pointer as the canvas of the diorama rumbled on its rollers, to Riguepeu!

Some twenty years have elapsed since the Veuve Boursier stumbled from the stand of the accused in the a.s.size Court of the Seine, acquitted of the poisoning of her grocer husband, but convicted of a moral flaw which may (or may not) have rather diminished thereafter the turnover of the epicerie in the Rue de la Paix. One hopes that her punishment finished with her acquittal, and that the mood of the mob, as apt as a flying straw to veer for a zephyr as for a whirlwind, swung to her favour from mere revulsion on her escape from the scaffold. The one thing is as likely as the other. Didn't the heavy man of the fit-up show, eighteen months after his conviction for rape (the lapse of time being occupied in paying the penalty), return as an actor to the scene of his delinquency to find himself, not, as he expected, pelted with dead cats and decaying vegetables, but cheered to the echo? So may it have been with the Veuve Boursier.

Though in 1844, the year in which the poison trial at Auch was opened, four years had pa.s.sed since the conviction of Mme Lafarge at Tulle, controversy on the latter case still was rife throughout France. The two cases were linked, not only in the minds of the lay public, but through close a.n.a.logy in the idea of lawyers and experts in medical jurisprudence. From her prison cell Marie Lafarge watched the progress of the trial in Gascony. And when its result was published one may be sure she shed a tear or two.

But to Riguepeu...

You will not find it on anything but the biggest-scale maps. It is an inconsiderable town a few miles from Vic-Fezensac, a town not much bigger than itself and some twenty kilometres from Auch, which is the capital of the department of Gers. You may take it that Riguepeu lies in the heart of the Armagnac district.

Some little distance from Riguepeu itself, on the top of a rise, stood the Chateau Philibert, a one-floored house with red tiles and green shutters. Not much of a chateau, it was also called locally La Maison de Madame. It belonged in 1843 to Henri Lacoste, together with considerable land about it. It was reckoned that Lacoste, with the land and other belongings, was worth anything between 600,000 and 700,000 francs.

Henri had become rich late in life. The house and the domain had been left him by his brother Philibert, and another brother's death had also been of some benefit to him. Becoming rich, Henri Lacoste thought it his duty to marry, and in 1839, though already sixty-six years of age, picked on a girl young enough to have been his granddaughter.

Euphemie Verges was, in fact, his grand-niece. She lived with her parents at Mazeyrolles, a small village in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Compared with Lacoste, the Verges were said to be poor.

Lacoste took it on himself to look after the girl's education, having her sent at his charges to a convent at Tarbes. In 1841, on the 2nd of May, the marriage took place.

If this marriage of youth with crabbed age resulted in any unhappiness the neighbours saw little of it. Though it was rumoured that for her old and rich husband Euphemie had given up a young man of her fancy in Tarbes, her conduct during the two years she lived with Lacoste seemed to be irreproachable. Lacoste was rather a nasty old fellow from all accounts. He was n.i.g.g.ardly, coa.r.s.e, and a womanizer. Euphemie's position in the house was little better than that of head domestic servant, but in this her lot was the common one for wives of her station in this part of France. She appeared to be contented enough with it.

About two years after the marriage, on the 16th of May, 1843, to be exact, after a trip with his wife to the fair at Riguepeu, old Lacoste was taken suddenly ill, ultimately becoming violently sick. Eight days later he died.

By a will which Henri had made two months after his marriage his wife was his sole beneficiary, and this will was no sooner proved than the widow betook herself to Tarbes, where she speedily began to make full use of her fortune. Milliners and dressmakers were called into service, and the widow blossomed forth as a lady of fas.h.i.+on. She next set up her own carriage. If these proceedings had not been enough to excite envy among her female neighbours the frequent visits paid to her in her genteel apartments by a young man did the trick. The young man came on the scene less than two months after the death of the old man. It was said that his visits to the widow were prolonged until midnight. Scandal resulted, and out of the scandal rumour regarding the death of Henri Lacoste. It began to be said that the old man had died of poison.

It was in December, six months after the death of Lacoste, that the rumours came to the ears of the magistrates. Nor was there lack of anonymous letters. It was the Widow Lacoste herself, however, who demanded an exhumation and autopsy on the body of her late husband--this as a preliminary to suing her traducers. Note, in pa.s.sing, how her action matches that of Veuve Boursier.

On the orders of the Juge d'instruction an autopsy was begun on the 18th of December. The body of Lacoste was exhumed, the internal organs were extracted, and these, with portions of the muscular tissue, were submitted to a.n.a.lysis by a doctor of Auch, M. Bouton, and two chemists of the same city, MM. Lidange and Pons, who at the same time examined samples of the soil in which the body had been interred. The finding was that the body of Lacoste contained some a.r.s.enical preparation.

The matter now appearing to be grave, additional scientific a.s.surance was sought. Three of the most distinguished chemists in Paris were called into service for a further a.n.a.lysis. They were MM. Devergie, Pelouze, and Flandin. Their report ran in part:

The portion of the liver on which we have experimented proved to contain a notable quant.i.ty of a.r.s.enic, amounting to more than five milligrammes; the portions of the intestines and tissue examined also contained appreciable traces which, though in smaller proportion than contained by the liver, accord with the known features of a.r.s.enical poisoning. There is no appearance of the toxic element in the earth taken from the grave or in the material of the coffin.

As soon as Mme Lacoste was apprised of the findings of the autopsy she got into her carriage and was driven to Auch, where she visited a friend of her late husband and of herself. To him she announced her intention of surrendering herself to the Procureur du Roi. The friend strongly advised her against doing any such thing, advice which Mme Lacoste accepted with reluctance.

On the 5th of January a summons to appear was issued for Mme Lacoste.

She was seen that day in Auch, walking the streets on the arm of a friend. She even went to the post-office, but the police agents failed to find her. She stopped the night in the town. Next day she was at Riguepeu. She was getting out of her carriage when a servant pointed out gendarmes coming up the hill with the Mayor. When those officials arrived Euphemie was well away. Search was made through the house and outbuildings, but without result. "Don't bother yourself looking any further, Monsieur le Maire," said one of the servants. "The mistress isn't far away, but she's in a place where I could hide a couple of oxen without you finding them."

From then on Mme Lacoste was hunted for everywhere. The roads to Tarbes, Toulouse, and Vic-Fezensac were patrolled by brigades of gendarmes day and night, but there was no sign of the fugitive. It was rumoured that she had got away to Spain, that she was cached in a barrel at Riguepeu, that she was in the fields disguised as a shepherd, that she had taken the veil.

In the meantime the process against her went forward. Evidence was to hand which seemed to inculpate with Mme Lacoste a poor and old schoolmaster of Riguepeu named Joseph Meilhan. The latter, arrested, stoutly denied not only his own part in the supposed crime, but also the guilt of Mme Lacoste. "Why doesn't she come forward?" he asked. "She knows perfectly well she has nothing to fear--no more than I have."

From the 'information' laid by the court of first instance at Auch a warrant was issued for the appearance of Mme Lacoste and Meilhan before the a.s.size of Gers. Mme Lacoste was apparently well instructed by her friends. She did not come into the open until the last possible moment.

She gave herself up at the Auch prison on the 4th of July.