The girl, one of Madame Guerin's cutest confederates, was equally as good an actress as Miss Northcliffe, and, shrewd man of the world as the doctor was, she had no difficulty in persuading him that he had captured her maiden fancy.
Now, as I have said, the doctor was not a penniless adventurer. He was a prosperous professional man, with a good position and a consoling balance at his bankers, the Crédit Lyonnais. Apart from the somewhat unconventional means by which they had become acquainted, the engagement was, on the surface, nothing remarkable. Miss Smith was obviously well educated, and fit to preside over the doctor's home. They were, therefore, of equal social position.
Madame Guerin was, of course, the brains of the affair, and only the "spade work" was left to her husband. It was she who decided when she and Miss Smith should leave London on the plea that they had to keep engagements in France, and it was she who instructed Miss Smith to agree to her fiancé's request that she should name the day.
The two women left for Paris the day before Cesbron, but they only stopped a day at the capital before they proceeded to the Villa the swindler had rented in the vicinity of Fontainebleau. It was situated in a very lonely spot, and Madame Guerin and Cesbron had taken it because they had decided to murder the doctor and obtain his fortune.
They had already endeavoured to get the doctor to transfer his account to the Paris bank which they said looked after Miss Smith's immense fortune; but he declined to effect the change. However, they were not disheartened. If they were equal to killing the doctor they were also capable of forging a claim to his money at the Crédit Lyonnais.
The marriage was fixed to take place in the second week in November, 1906, and early in the same month Madame Guerin invited the doctor to spend a few days at her Villa before he became the husband of the heiress. He was very busy just then, but, of course, he was most anxious to see his friends, and he accepted the invitation, and in due course arrived at the isolated house.
If he had not been absorbed in his forthcoming marriage, the doctor would hardly have found the place attractive at that time of the year. Of course, Madame Guerin was always interesting, and she was a perfect hostess. There were good points about her friend Cesbron, too, and, with the excitement of the engagement, the flattery of his hostess, and the attentions of Cesbron, the doctor was never dull.
He could never be expected to believe that the woman with the plump, smiling face and the sympathetic eyes had planned his murder, or that Cesbron, her husband, was merely waiting for the proper moment to "remove" him.
One afternoon Madame Guerin and the doctor were chatting in the front room, when Cesbron drove up in a cart with a huge, iron-bound trunk.
"Is our friend going to be married too?" he asked jocularly.