Alphonse Karr, the witness, an ex-waiter of the Théâtre-Concert Européen of Montmartre, said that he would have sworn that this man was Wilhelm Müller, whom he had often seen at the chat noir, only for the fact that he knew that Müller was dead.
This paragraph greatly interested Hellier and he searched on through the files of the Petit Journal in hopes of finding more details of the case. He found none.
But he found a headline that interested him in a copy of the Petit Journal, dated some days after the murder of Mesnier. It ran:
“Another motiveless murder.”
It related to the murder of a woman named Sabatier, who had been found strangled in a field near Paris.
There was no possible motive for the crime, the woman had a purse in her hand containing twenty-five francs. The purse had not been taken, no violence had been done to her, if we except the fact that she had been strangled as though by some violent maniac.
“This case,” said the Petit Journal, “recalls that of the old man, Mesnier, recorded by us some days since, in each the victim was strangled, evidently by the grip of a powerful hand; in each there was no motive for the crime, for it will be remembered that Mesnier had received his quarterly annuity and the money, a fairly large sum, was lying intact upon the table.”
Hellier, just by chance before dropping the file of the paper, turned a page, and came upon the detail of another crime.
A child had been strangled on the high road leading to Villeneuve St George’s, in the broad light of day.
A labourer had seen the occurrence from a distance. He saw the figure of a man, he saw the child. He thought the man was playing with the child. Then he saw the child lying on the high road and the man running away across a field. He could give no definite description of the man. He was about the middle height and dressed in dark clothes.