M. Galpin turned to M. Daubigeon.
“Then,” he said to him, “the murder is the principal fact with which we have to do; and the fire is only an aggravating circumstance,—the means which the criminal employed in order to succeed the better in perpetrating his crime.”
Then, returning to the count, he said,—
“Pray go on.”
“When I felt I was wounded,” continued Count Claudieuse, “my first impulse was instinctively to rush forward to the place from which the gun seemed to have been fired at me. I had not proceeded three yards, when I felt the same pain once more in the shoulder and in the neck. This second wound was more serous than the first; for I lost my consciousness, my head began to swim and I fell.”
“You had not seen the murderer?”
“I beg your pardon. At the moment when I fell, I thought I saw a man rush forth from behind a pile of fagots, cross the courtyard, and disappear in the fields.”
“Would you recognize him?”
“No.”
“But you saw how he was dressed: you can give me a description?”