Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/391

350 toms of illness four or five minutes after eating this gruel. She did not say that she herself handed Victoire the jar of farina, and that she with her own hands sprinkled salt in the gruel,—a thing which had never been done before.

Thursday, the 9th, the procureur du roi again visited the house, but nothing new was developed.

The following days twenty-nine witnesses were heard by the magistrate, not one of whom had the slightest personal knowledge of the facts. Three among them testified as to the searches made upon Victoire.

Friley, the advocate, said that he found upon the bed where the young girl was lying seven or eight shining grains, of the same character as those found in the pockets of the servant. The next day he found four or five similar grains under the bed, and showed them to Duparc and to a soldier named Cavin. He was asked what he had done with these pieces of evidence. He said that the first day he gathered the seven or eight grains in a piece of paper and intrusted them to the young Beaugillot, who could not tell what he had done with them. As to the four or five grains found the second day, he gave them to the surgeons who came to examine the body, and the experts burned them.

The surgeon Herbert, who, as we have seen, carried away, without saying a word, the bread found in the pockets of Victoire, declared that these pieces of bread, examined by the apothecary Thierry, had been found to contain several grains of arsenic. He handed to the procureur du roi a package which he affirmed to be the same that Thierry had examined.

The commissary Bertot, alone of all the witnesses, was able to furnish evidence legally acceptable,—the little package of powder which he had found on turning the pockets of Victoire on her arrival at the prison.

The examination had proceeded thus far, when on the 24th of August the procureur du roi was informed, by reports coming from the house of the Duparcs, that if he would search a cupboard in a room occupied by a lady named Précorbin, a lodger with the Duparcs, he would find some property which might throw some light on the matter. The key found upon Victoire, they said, would open the door of this cupboard.

Victoire, interrogated upon this subject, said that the key was that of a wardrobe which she used at the house of one of her former masters. Then, recognizing her mistake, she said that the key opened a sideboard at the Duparcs'.

The cupboard designated to the magistrate was built into the wall in a little recess forming a part of the room occupied by Madame Précorbin. It was proved that the girl Salmon had never known of its existence; that Madame Duparc alone had the key; that she had reserved it for her own use, and was in the habit of keeping her things in it.

So strange was the assertion of the Duparcs, that the magistrate determined to visit this cupboard. The key taken from Victoire was found to open it, and in it were found many articles belonging to the Duparcs, and also several belonging to Victoire Salmon.

At the sight of these articles Madame Duparc exclaimed that Victoire had locked up this property belonging to her master, and that she had undoubtedly intended to carry it away.

Victoire was not present at this discovery, and was not interrogated regarding it until two days later. She replied to the questions of the magistrate,—

"How is it possible that they could find any of my things in the cupboard of which you speak? I never had at the house of the Duparcs either a wardrobe or a cupboard in which to place my clothes: I had so small an amount that I did not need one. Every thing I had was hung in the little room where I slept."

They showed her the articles found in the