Robert had decided to murder his mother-in-law so that his wife might receive at once her share of the estate. He knew that the old lady had recently made her will bequeathing her fortune in equal shares to her son and her daughter, and, therefore, there was no danger of Julia losing her inheritance. The ex-wine merchant, however, was not capable of carrying out the plan unaided, and he sought an acquaintance, Bastien, a jobbing carpenter, who promised to help in the murder for a fee of twenty thousand francs, to be paid within thirty days of Madame Robert's receipt of her legacy. The terms were agreed to, and they began to make their plans.
There was a big garden attached to a house in the Rue Vaugirard, and Robert rented both for a month, and the night before the murder he and Bastien dug a grave for their intended victim, who at the time they were working was busy counting her savings with a view to sending the money to the bank in the morning. The widow may have been a miser, but she had a great deal of common sense, and she never kept large sums in her home.
Curiously enough, she and her son had of late begun to quarrel fiercely. She had accused him of being lazy, and he had flung reproaches at her, and it was known in the Rue St. Jacques that the Houets were constantly at loggerheads.
"There'll be a tragedy in that house," said the landlord of the inn at the corner. "The police ought to be told. It is not safe to leave the old woman alone with that crazy son of hers."
When the ill-feeling between the mother and son was at its height, Bastien, Robert's confederate, drove up to her residence in a cab, and on being admitted to her presence announced that he came with an invitation to spend the day with her son-in-law. Madame eagerly accepted, for the three meals at his expense would enable her to add at least a franc to her store.
On the journey to the Rue Vaugirard the widow commented on the fact that her strange companion held a coil of rope in his hands.
"Yes," he said, with an impudent grin, "I bought it for a special job. I hope it will prove strong enough."
Again he grinned meaningly; but the old woman was, of course, unconscious of the fact that the "special job" he referred to was her murder by strangulation.
The cab stopped outside the gate at the end of the garden and some distance from the house. With remarkable agility Madame Houet descended, and when Bastien had opened the entrance to the garden passed in. She had not proceeded a dozen paces, however, nor had she had time to notice the newly-made grave, when two strong hands shot out and gripped her by the throat, and before she could utter a sound Bastien's rope was around her neck, and she was swiftly strangled. The next ten minutes was spent by the men filling in the grave, and when that task was over they adjourned to the house and steadied their nerves by imbibing copious draughts of wine.
"The fortune is mine!" Robert cried exultingly. "Bastien, my friend, we have nothing to fear. You have only to keep your mouth shut, and the police are helpless, and ten years hence, even if they discover proofs of our guilt, they won't be able to touch us. That is the law of France. A murderer must be convicted within ten years of the last arrest for the crime or else he goes free without any penalty."