“How extraordinary!” said M. de Terremondre.
“From the state of the body,” added Léon, “it is believed that death took place three days ago.”
“Then,” remarked M. Mazure, the archivist, “that would make it Saturday that the crime was committed.”
Paillot, the bookseller, who had remained silent up till now, with his mouth wide open out of deference to death, now began to collect his thoughts.
“On Saturday, about five o’clock in the afternoon, I plainly heard stifled cries and the heavy thud produced by the fall of a body. I even said to these gentlemen” (he turned towards M. de Terremondre and M. Bergeret) “that something extraordinary was going on in Queen Marguerite’s house.”
No one supported the claim that the bookseller was making that he alone, by the keenness of his senses and the penetration of his mind, had suspected the deed at the moment when it was taking place.
After a respectful silence, Paillot began again:
“During the night between Saturday and Sunday I said to Madame Paillot: ‘There isn’t a sound from Queen Marguerite’s house.’”
M. Mazure asked the age of the victim. Paillot replied that Madame Houssieu was between seventy-nine and eighty years of age, that she had been a widow fifty years, that she owned landed property, stocks and shares, and a large sum of money, but that, being miserly and eccentric, she kept no servant, and cooked her victuals herself over the fireplace in her room, living alone amidst a wreckage of furniture and crockery, covered with the dust of a quarter of a century. It was actually more than twenty-five years since any one had wielded a broom in Queen Marguerite’s house. Madame Houssieu went out but seldom, bought a whole week’s supply of provisions for herself, and never let any one into the house save the butcher-boy and two or three urchins who ran errands for her.
“And the crime is supposed to have been committed on Saturday afternoon?” asked M. de Terremondre.