Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/493

448 "Why," said Benoit, calmly, "my mother was killed in the same manner!"

Benoit was then taken to the Morgue: the body of Formage still remained there. Frédéric looked at it calmly. "That is not Formage," he said. They showed him the shirt and cravat of the victim, which he himself had given to Formage. He still persisted in his denials. They raised one of the arms of the body, and showed him two doves tattooed into the skin. "You have slept with Formage for several months; it is impossible that you should not have noticed this mark." Then memory seemed to return to Frédéric, and his frightful impassibility abandoned him.

In a trunk belonging to Formage were found several letters and copies of letters which served to explain Benoit's deed and to fasten upon him a still more execrable crime. One of them, dated the 2d of July, and addressed to Frédéric Benoit, who was then at his father's house at Vouziers, read as follows:—

What a sudden light! Formage murdered in the same manner as Madame Benoit,—with a blow from a razor! Formage murdered twenty days after his threat to reveal an unpunished crime, of which he alone was cognizant! Whether or not the letter had been sent to its address, this posthumous revelation of Formage was none the less overwhelming. But if it was more than the draught of a letter, if it was a copy, if the letter had been posted, all was explained,—the precipitate return of Benoit, the long interview in the garden of the Palais-Royal, the trap at Versailles: Formage had signed his death-warrant in threatening the parricide.

While justice was collecting on all sides the evidence necessary for the conviction of Benoit, Louise Feucher died in Paris, and before her death made a full confession. She had assisted her cousin in killing Madame Benoit.

On the 16th of December, 1831, this human monster was brought to trial for his crimes, and on the 30th of August he paid the penalty upon the scaffold.