"And the money?" asked Bastien sharply.
"I have been told that it takes about a month to wind up the affairs of a dead woman," said the ex-wine merchant. "My wife will have her mother's fortune by then. Call four weeks from to-day and I will hand you your well-earned reward."
They shook hands on it and parted. Nothing remained except to wait, and that was easy enough.
The instant Madame Houet was missed her son was arrested. On the face of it there seemed to be every justification for that procedure, and the detectives felt that they had the murderer in their power. That the widow had been murdered they had no doubt, and it was only when they were searching for her body that they arrested Robert and Bastien. Following the capture of the latter the son was released, it being admitted that he could have had nothing to do with the disappearance of his mother. It was, however, quite another matter to find the corpse. Madame Houet had simply vanished, and, although the detectives built up a strong case against the two accused, they were compelled to release them because they were unable to produce the body.
It was proved that Bastien had called for the widow and had driven away with her, and it was known that he had fetched her at the instigation of Robert. The two men agreed that they had seen Madame Houet on the day of her disappearance, but swore that she had left them with the intention of going home. The cleverest members of the detective force traced the men's movements on the fatal day, but failed to discover the garden in the Rue Vaugirard, for Robert had, of course, never gone near it since the hasty burial, and, apparently, there was no one to give information to the police about the strange man who had paid the rent for it for a month and had not occupied it for more than a day and that day September 13th, 1821.
When Robert and his confederate walked out of their cells they entered a café and had lunch, and they confined their conversation to denunciations of the authorities for having kept them in gaol so long. Before they separated, however, Robert fixed an appointment with his fellow-assassin to call for the twenty thousand francs and they went their way, animated by feelings of triumph, the ex-wine merchant, especially, scarcely able to suppress his joy.
There is a well-known proverb which says that "A little learning is a dangerous thing," and Robert, the murderer, discovered its truth when he sent his wife to claim half her mother's fortune. He had carefully studied the laws relating to murder, and, confident that the police would never find Madame Houet's body, he had willingly accepted the inconveniences of being constantly under suspicion because he believed that the ten years required by the law would soon pass and place him beyond danger. After the tenth year if the corpse and his guilt were brought to light he would not be prosecuted. It was a curious regulation, but it just suited Robert, and he hummed gaily to himself while awaiting his wife's return.
She came back with a long face and whispered the bad news.
"The gentlemen in the Government office told me," she said, between her tears of disappointment, "that under the law they cannot distribute my mother's money until ten years have passed, when, if her body isn't found, she becomes legally dead. At present, according to the law, she is considered to be alive, and, therefore, her estate cannot be touched."
The ex-wine merchant nearly collapsed, and it was some time before he induced his wife to complain that she was practically destitute and extract an allowance of thirty francs a week on account from the State. For that she had to sign a bond guaranteeing to repay the money to her mother if the latter should appear on the scene again.