"Oh," cried the doctor, striking his forehead, "now, I recollect your advice; in my worry, I must say, I had quite forgotten it.
"Well," he added, "your foresight is confirmed. Perhaps not so much time as you suppose elapsed between the first blow and the rest; but I am convinced that the countess had ceased to live nearly three hours, when the last blows were struck."
M. Gendron went to the billiard-table, and slowly raised the sheet, discovering the head and part of the bust.
"Let us inform ourselves, Plantat," he said.
The old justice of the peace took the lamp, and passed to the other side of the table. His hand trembled so that the globe tingled. The vacillating light cast gloomy shadows upon the walls. The countess's face had been carefully bathed, the blood and mud effaced. The marks of the blows were thus more visible, but they still found upon that livid countenance, the traces of its beauty. M. Lecoq stood at the head of the table, leaning over to see more clearly.
"The countess," said Dr. Gendron, "received eighteen blows from a dagger. Of these, but one is mortal; it is this one, the direction of which is nearly vertical—a little below the shoulder, you see." He pointed out the wound, sustaining the body in his left arm. The eyes had preserved a frightful expression. It seemed as if the half-open mouth were about to cry "Help! Help!"
Plantat, the man with a heart of stone, turned away his head, and the doctor, having mastered his first emotion, continued in a professionally apathetic tone:
"The blade must have been an inch wide, and eight inches long. All the other wounds—those on the arms, breast, and shoulders, are comparatively slight. They must have been inflicted at least two hours after that which caused death."
"Good," said M. Lecoq.
"Observe that I am not positive," returned the doctor quickly. "I merely state a probability. The phenomena on which I base my own conviction are too fugitive, too capricious in their nature, to enable me to be absolutely certain."