“Yes, I swear it. I then tried to stop the murderer, but he escaped from my hands, knocked me senseless with a blow—here is the cut on my forehead now—and he got off, heaven only knows where. I had cried, ‘à voleur’ and ‘assassinat’ as loud as I could before I became insensible, but no one came to my help. When I recovered my consciousness I walked feebly down the path, and meeting a sergent de ville, told him all about the murder, but he arrested me, thinking, he says, I was drunk, and I was locked up in a cell till this evening, when the Chef released me, apologising for the mistake of his subordinate. I have only to add,” observed Miss Kingscott, after she had finished answering the questions put to her, “that had it not been for this mistake on the part of your boasted sergents de ville, which could only have arisen from sheer stupidity, the murderer might never have got off.”
“C’est possible!” said the judge, making a note against the name of the unfortunate guardian of the peace who had arrested the governess. “But Mademoiselle will recollect that according to her statement it was several hours after the escape of her assailant that she was thus arrêtée. Call the next witnesses!”
And the interrogatory went on.
The Mère Cliquelle and her husband, “son petit bon homme,” as she called him, were then examined to the same purport as already detailed by the Chef to Miss Kingscott, Dèchemal corroborating what had been previously told him, and certifying to their arrest by him, and importation before the Juge de Paix.
Auguste, the other of the Chefs inquisitors, had little to tell. He had searched the cabarets and hotels, and enquired at the office of the Steamboat Company, and along the quays. No Englishman, or any one else resembling Markworth’s description had been seen or heard of since yesterday evening, or had taken passage for England.
This was all the evidence that could be obtained, and on it Monsieur le Juge de Paix framed the acte d’accusation, by which the charge of wilful murder was established against Markworth, and a warrant issued for his arrest.
The police, therefore, acting under the orders of the Chef, were on the alert.
Directions were also given to the fishermen and sailors about the quays to look out for a body in the river: the Seine was then dragged with better effect, for the very next day the surmises of the Judge and the Chef were set at rest.
The body of a fair woman, with light brown hair and about twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, was discovered floating beneath the battlements of the centre quay. The features were nearly indistinguishable from the action of the water or the attacks of crustacea, but the remains of a crimson merino dress still clung around the body, which Miss Kingscott immediately recognised and identified as that of Susan Hartshorne. The Mère Cliquelle and her husband were also certain that the remains were those of the poor English lady, although neither were positive about the dress. Madame Cliquelle said that she had never observed any particular colour in the dress of Madame (Miss Kingscott had testified in her deposition that Susan Hartshorne always wore robes of bright hue, different, as a rule, from anyone else), but she might have worn this particular dress and gone out in it that evening without her having noticed it. Hélas! however, what need had they to be particular about a worthless dress when they had the body of the poor Madame before them! The Mère Cliquelle wept over the lifeless shell of humanity; and even her little husband shed tears as he recounted how he and la pauvre belle ange Anglaise used to “spik Inglese togeders.”
The afternoon of the same day, too, a fisherman from Honfleur communicated with the police, and gave evidence that about ten o’clock on the night of the murder he had conveyed an Englishman, answering in every respect to the description of Markworth, across from Havre to his own village: he had been out to sea and along the coast since then, and had consequently not heard of the inquiry before.