"I declare that, in the month of February, 1827, a person named—"
The Chouette had drawn the poniard; already had she raised her arm to strike her victim between the shoulders; Sarah turned again. The Chouette, that she might not be off her guard, leaned her right hand, armed as it was, on the back of Sarah's armchair, and then stooped towards her, as if in attitude to reply to her question.
"Tell me again the name of the man who handed the child to you?" said the countess.
"Pierre Tournemine," repeated Sarah, as she wrote it down, "at this time at the galleys of Rochefort, brought me a child, which had been confided to him by the housekeeper of—"
The countess could not finish. The Chouette having got rid of her basket by allowing it to slide from her arm onto the floor, threw herself on the countess with equal fury and rapidity; and having grasped the back of her neck with her left hand, forced her face down on the table, and then with her right hand drove the stiletto in between her two shoulders.
This atrocious assassination was so promptly effected that the countess did not utter a cry—a moan. Still sitting, she remained with her head and the front of her body on the table. Her pen fell from her fingers.
"Just the very blow which fourline gave the little old man in the Rue du Roule!" said the monster. "One more who will never wag tongue again! Her account is settled!" And the Chouette, gathering up the jewels together, huddled them into her basket, not perceiving that her victim still breathed.
The murder and robbery effected, the horrid old devil opened the glass door, ran swiftly along the tree-covered path, went out by the small side door, and reached the lone tract of ground. Near the Observatory she took a hackney-coach, which drove her to Bras-Rouge's in the Champs Elysées.
The widow Martial, Nicholas, Calabash, and Barbillon had, as we know, an appointment with the Chouette in this den of infamy, in order to rob and murder the diamond-matcher.