The worker in tapestry, however, was not the man to part with his money. It was all he lived for; it was all he thought about; and in a few curt words he gave Voirbo to understand that if his marriage depended on the success of his application he had better forget all about it at once. In short, he would not lend him ten francs, much less ten thousand.
There was no one else to whom he could apply, and Bodasse's refusal filled Voirbo with dismay, but he had to pretend to be indifferent after the first shock of disappointment was over, and an hour later both men appeared to have forgotten the incident when they sat in a café and drank wine to one another's health. But Voirbo's brain was on fire. He had regarded the capture of the girl's fifteen thousand francs as a certainty, and he could not bear to admit to himself that he was going to lose her fortune after all. Where could he raise ten thousand francs? Besides his ostensible occupation of tailor he was one of the numerous agents of the Paris secret police. He had used his official position in the past to blackmail inoffensive citizens, but he knew that it would take him more than a year to raise ten thousand francs by that method.
Bodasse, unconscious of his companion's thoughts, continued to drink at Voirbo's expense, while the latter was rapidly summing up to himself the risks he would have to run if he murdered the man sitting opposite him. He knew all about Bodasse's life—the fellow's miserly habits; his lack of friends because he had been afraid that if he made many they might cost him money; his unpopularity in the neighbourhood in which he lived, and the well-known fact that his greatest wish was to be left alone. Voirbo recalled, too, that Bodasse was in the habit of disappearing from human sight for weeks at a time, when he either shut himself up in his room or went into the country. In the former case he was wont to provide himself with sufficient food to last out his spell of seclusion, and if letters came they were pushed under his door so that he might not be disturbed by having to open it. With murder in his heart, Voirbo thought over this, and came to the only possible conclusion—the murder of Désiré Bodasse would be about the easiest crime to commit and the chances of escape would favour him.
The bottle of wine finished, Voirbo suggested an adjournment to his rooms, where he had often provided Bodasse with food. The old miser agreed with alacrity, and shortly afterwards they were in an apartment at the top of a high house. From outside the murmur of traffic faintly reached their ears, and from the stairs came occasional voices, but, for all that, the two men were quite alone, and Bodasse was absolutely at the mercy of the younger and stronger man.
The temptation was irresistible. Voirbo looked at the small body and wizened face, the thin, scraggy neck and the lustreless eyes. Life seemed to be half-way out of his body already, and it would be easy to let the other half out too. Bodasse was sitting with his back towards Voirbo, who had risen and was walking irresolutely about the room.
Suddenly the fellow found the courage to put his thoughts into acts. A heavy flat-iron, such as tailors use, was lying handy. He picked it up, poised it for a moment, and then brought it down upon the old man's head with a fearful crash, which sent him in a heap on the floor. There he finished him by cutting his throat. The first act in the drama was accomplished.
Until the murder was done Voirbo had not thought of locking the door, but now he ran to it and turned the key. There were at least a dozen persons in the building at the time, for it was let out in apartments, but Voirbo, with extraordinary self-possession, proceeded to make arrangements for disposing of the body. He could not carry it out as it was, and, therefore, like many other murderers, he decided to divide it into several pieces. The head is, of course, the most important part of the body, because it is the easiest to identify. Get rid of the head and identification is rendered a hundred times more difficult. Voirbo gave it his special attention, and he disposed of it by filling the eyes and mouth with lead and dropping it into the Seine. The rest of the body was carted away in pieces, but on his second journey he had a very narrow escape, and disaster would have resulted early on had he not formed his plans with the utmost thoroughness. He undoubtedly proved himself efficient in small matters as well as in large, as his unexpected meeting with the police showed.
With a hamper and a large parcel, both containing portions of the murdered man's body, he left the house one dark December night, with the intention of pitching them into the Seine at a spot where there would be no one to notice him. The hamper and the parcel were heavy, cumbrous and conspicuous, but Voirbo knew that on such a night there would be few pedestrians, and any who noticed him would think that he had been doing his Christmas shopping, and was taking the Christmas dinner and some presents home to his family. Owing to the weight of his double burden progress was slow, but Voirbo was not nervous. Nobody gave him a second glance, and he had the satisfaction of meeting more than one late shopper carrying big parcels too.
But just as he was congratulating himself on complete success he was horrified to see two policemen coming straight towards him. His legs trembled, and for a moment he thought of dropping hamper and parcel and taking to flight, but before he could make up his mind the two officers of the law had stopped in front of him, and one was actually resting a hand on the hamper.
"Who are you, and what's inside your parcels?" said one of the policemen suspiciously.