She did not condescend to take her husband into her fullest confidence, but she gave him an outline of her latest plans. He agreed, of course. It was too late now for this weak-minded sot to try and emancipate his soul from the thraldom of his domineering wife, and as usual he was content to leave everything to her.
The first move was to get Marie's niece to spend a couple of days away from the apartments in the Villa Menesimy. This was accomplished easily. Then Marie called on Madame Levin with a smile and an apology, and asked her to come to the Villa Menesimy on the following Sunday to have tea with herself and her husband, and receive the forty pounds to which she was entitled.
Madame Levin hesitated. She disliked Vere Goold, the victim of drink and drugs, and she was afraid of Mrs. Goold, who was obviously a person who would stick at nothing. But when Marie emphasized her willingness to settle her debt the widow forgot her fears. She had arranged to leave Monte Carlo within a few days, and she was anxious to recover her forty pounds before she took her departure.
The Sunday came, and at half-past four Madame Levin entered the apartments the Goolds occupied at the Villa Menesimy. She was never seen alive again, for Marie Goold in inviting her to tea did so to take her life. Vere Goold, his faculties paralysed by drugs, opened the door to Madame Levin, and presently Marie emerged from the kitchen to greet her and to explain laughingly that her niece had been called away, and that she was compelled to prepare the tea herself. She placed a chair for her visitor, and returned to the kitchen, whilst Vere Goold, his whole body trembling, sat facing Madame Levin, trying to make conversation.
The widow forgot her doubts and fears, and chatted brightly to the accompaniment of the pleasant jingle of tea-things from the kitchen. Goold mumbled answers to her remarks, but the widow thought that his nervousness and distracted condition were due to drink and drugs, and she did her best to put him at his ease.
The noise in the kitchen ceased abruptly, but Madame Levin did not turn her head. She talked on of her home in Stockholm and of her future plans, and her voice was the only one heard as Marie Goold crept from the kitchen with a formidable-looking poker in her right hand. Madame Levin's back was towards the kitchen door, and she never heard the footfalls of her murderess.
Vere Goold sprang to his feet as the poker was raised by his wife and brought down with terrific force upon the head of the unfortunate visitor. She collapsed without a sound, and then Marie finished her off with a knife, her husband looking on dazed and stupefied.
She roused him with an oath, and, realizing that they were both in danger, he worked as she commanded. They had a big trunk in the bedroom, and this was hauled out. A large carpet-bag was found which could hold the head and legs of the murdered woman, and the rest of the corpse was packed in the trunk.
Late that night the niece returned, and she noticed at once that the carpet and curtains of the sitting-room were splashed with blood, but her aunt anticipated questions by informing her that her uncle had had a fit, during which he had vomited blood.
The next evening—the murder took place on Sunday, August 4, 1907—the guilty couple prepared for flight. They could not leave the trunk and the carpet-bag behind them, and they took both with them, Goold carrying the latter. The trunk was conveyed in a cab to the railway station, and tickets taken for Marseilles.