Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 03.pdf/602

Rh cottage. There was a cabbage-garden and a good wheel-road. My very fear now gave me the necessary courage. I resolved to go no farther, and at once said, ' I see you have led me wrong; I shall stop here.' Hardly had the words left my mouth when he turned sharply round, stretched his arms above my head, and let fall a cord with a running noose. We were at this moment almost in contact. Instinctively I let fall everything I carried, and with both hands seized the man's two arms, pushing him from me with all my strength. This movement saved me. The cord, which was already round my head, only caught and pulled off my cap. I shrieked out, ' My God! my God! I am lost! ' "I was too much agitated to observe why the assassin did not repeat his attack. All I recollect is that the cord was still in his hand. I caught up my box and umbrella, and flew down the hill. In crossing a little ditch, I fell and bruised myself severely, losing my umbrella. Fear, however, gave me strength. I heard the heavy steps of the murderer in pursuit, and was on my legs again in an instant, running for life. At that moment the moon rose above the trees on my left, and I saw the glimmer of a white house on the plain. Toward this I flew, crossing the railway, and falling repeatedly in my headlong course. Soon I saw lights. It was Balan. I stopped at the first house. A man ran out, and I was saved." Such was Marie Pichon's narrative. The authorities, now fully aroused, at once com menced a searching inquiry. Ultimately the eye of justice rested on a certain small house in the little hamlet of Dumollard. Village gossip spoke unreservedly of the skulking nocturnal habits of its master, — the stern, unsocial manners of his wife. Their name was the same as the village, Dumollard : a very common name in that district. The man had a peculiar scar or tumor on his upper lip. The magistrates at once waited upon Dumollard, and requested an explanation

of the employment of his time on the day and night of the 28th of May. The answers being evasive, and certain articles in the house wearing a very suspicious look, Du mollard was given into custody, conveyed to Trevoux,and instantly identified by Marie Pichon as her assailant. Meanwhile a 'search in his house resulted in the discovery of an immense accumulation of articles, evidently the produce of plunder, — clothes, linen, pieces of lace, ribbons, gowns, handker chiefs, gloves; in a word, every species of articles that might have belonged to girls of the servant-class. Very many of these bore traces of blood; others had been roughly washed and wrung out. These ob jects amounted in all to twelve hundred and fifty. " The man must have a charne] some where," said one of the searchers. It was next ascertained that in November, '58, Dumollard was seen to alight one even ing at the station of Montluel, accompanied by a young woman, whose luggage he de posited in the office, saying that he would call for it next day. It was never claimed. "On the night you mean," said the wife of Dumollard — who, after the search in the house, had been likewise taken into custody, and now showed a disposition to confess — "Dumollard came home very late, bringing a silver watch and some blood-stained clothes. He gave me the latter to wash, only saying, in his short way, ' I have killed a girl in Montmain Wood, and I am going back to bury her.' He took his pickaxe, and went out. The next day he wanted to claim the girl's luggage, but I dissuaded him from doing so." In order to verify this statement, the magistrates, on the 31st of July, '61, repaired to Montmain Wood, taking with them the two accused. For some hours all their searches proved fruitless, the woman de claring her inability to point out the precise spot, and the man preserving a stolid silence. At length some appearance of a tumulus was detected among the bushes, and a few strokes of the pickaxe made visible some bones. A