“It is a pretty story,” he said musingly. “There is not time to tell it now as it should be told—but, in a word, this woman, after she left Ribaut, secured a place with a pastry-cook named Durand, in the Rue Auxerois. He was wealthy and she seems to have conceived a passion for him. One morning his wife was found dead in bed. He welcomed the release, perhaps, but he did not look twice at Madame Basarge. Instead, he married again, this time a pretty girl from Orleans, which had been his home. One day, the pastry-shop did not open. The neighbors became alarmed and burst in the door. They found Durand and his wife in bed. They had been dead for hours, and their purple flesh proved they had been poisoned. Madame Basarge was missing. So was Durand’s little daughter. We found out afterwards that the woman had learned her infamous art from one of the disciples of the Widow Montvoisin.”
He paused, and his face grew stern.
“You can conceive, Monsieur, how I searched for that woman. I had just come to the office. I felt personally responsible—my reputation seemed at stake. But we found not a trace of her. She descended into depths from which even the police recoiled. But I have waited. I knew that fate would deliver her to me. I am prepared.”
He turned to a case of papers at his side, and after a moment’s search, drew out one, opened it, and glanced over it.
“There was no question of her guilt,” he continued, after a moment, “and a decree of death was issued against her. I hold it here in my hand. There need be no further delay in its execution.”
He folded the paper again, and sat for a time, tapping it against the table.
“That woman is a genius,” he said, at last. “I admire her. She baffled us so completely. Your concierge told my men he had sent you to the Rue du Chevet, and we scoured the quarter from top to bottom, but could find no trace of you. It is not often my men fail, M. le Moyne, but how were they to suspect the existence of a cavern thirty feet underground? I must see it for myself, some day. And the girl—well, we found no trace of the girl, either, nor of Madame Basarge, nor of this gamine you say she had with her—they must have had another hiding-place.”
But my brain was busy with another problem.
“You said, M. le Comte,” I began, “that a daughter of the confectioner Durand was missing. Was she ever found?”
“She was never found. Ah, I see,” and he looked at me suddenly. “This gamine—how old was she?”