“Monsieur,” he went on to the medical officer, “in this room you will see a dead man. I do not believe that he died from natural causes; you will be good enough to make a post-mortem in the presence of the Chief of the Police, who will come at my request. Try to discover some traces of poison. You will, in a few minutes, have the opinion of Monsieur Desplein and Monsieur Bianchon, for whom I have sent to examine the daughter of my best friend; she is in a worse plight than he, though he is dead.”
“I have no need of those gentlemen’s assistance in the exercise of my duty,” said the medical officer.
“Well, well,” thought Corentin. “Let us have no clashing, monsieur,” he said. “In a few words I give you my opinion—Those who have just murdered the father have also ruined the daughter.”
By daylight Lydie had yielded to fatigue; when the great surgeon and the young physician arrived she was asleep.
The doctor, whose duty it was to sign the death certificate, had now opened Peyrade’s body, and was seeking the cause of death.
“While waiting for your patient to awake,” said Corentin to the two famous doctors, “would you join one of your professional brethren in an examination which cannot fail to interest you, and your opinion will be valuable in case of an inquiry.”
“Your relations died of apoplexy,” said the official. “There are all the symptoms of violent congestion of the brain.”
“Examine him, gentlemen, and see if there is no poison capable of producing similar symptoms.”
“The stomach is, in fact, full of food substances; but short of chemical analysis, I find no evidence of poison.
“If the characters of cerebral congestion are well ascertained, we have here, considering the patient’s age, a sufficient cause of death,” observed Desplein, looking at the enormous mass of material.