"Very well: the man who has bequeathed you his entire fortune is dying; the symptoms of his illness are extremely peculiar and, if he dies, as is probable, you will find yourself in a very awkward position...."
"What!" exclaimed the young man. "You think I shall be suspected?"
"I think that, at any rate," replied M. Pelletan, "all imaginable precautions will be taken to ascertain the cause of death. As far as M. Pigache and myself are concerned, we have decided that there ought to be a post-mortem examination."
"Oh! monsieur," cried the young man, "you could not do me a greater service; insist upon it, demand a post-mortem examination, and you will play the part of a father to me if you do."
"Very well, monsieur," replied Doctor Pelletan, seeing him so much excited; "do not be troubled. Not only shall the matter be carried through, but it shall be carried through as delicately as possible, and we will pay our utmost attention to it."
Between noon and one o'clock—that is to say, within thirty or forty minutes of this conversation—the dying man expired.
The reader will already have recognised the two principal actors in this drama by the designation of the place where it happened, and by the details of the victim's agony.
The dead man was Claude-Auguste Ballet, lawyer, aged twenty-five, son of a rich Paris solicitor. His friend was Edme-Samuel Castaing, who in a few days' time would be twenty-seven, doctor of medicine, born at Alençon, living in Paris, No. 31 rue d'Enfer. His father, an honourable and universally respected man, was Inspector-General of Forests, and Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur.
One hour after the death of Auguste Ballet, M. Martignon, his brother-in-law, warned by a letter from Castaing that Auguste Ballet could not live through the day, hurried to Saint-Cloud, where he found the sick man already dead.