“When an Aragonese is affronted, he does not wait till the next day to avenge himself. If I had thought that M. Alphonse meant to insult me, I would have given him one in the belly with my knife on the spot.”
They compared his shoes with the footprints in the garden; his shoes were very much larger.
Finally the innkeeper, with whom the man had lodged, affirmed that he had spent the whole night rubbing and dosing one of his mules that was sick.
Moreover, this Aragonese was a man of good reputation, well known in the neighbourhood, to which he came every year on his business. So they released him and made their excuses to him.
I forgot the deposition of a servant, who had been the last to see M. Alphonse in life. It was at the moment when he was about to go upstairs to his wife, and, calling the servant, he had asked him with an air of anxiety, if he knew where I was. The servant answered him that he had seen nothing of me. M. Alphonse then heaved a sigh, and remained speechless for more than a minute, then he said, “Well, I declare, the devil must have taken him away too!”
I asked this man whether M. Alphonse had his diamond ring when he spoke to him. The servant hesitated about answering; at last he said that he thought no, but that he really had not paid any attention.
“If he had had the ring on his finger,” he added, correcting himself, “I should certainly have noticed it, for I thought that he had given it to Madame Alphonse.”
While questioning this man I felt something of the superstitious terror which Madame Alphonse’s deposition had spread all through the house. The public prosecutor looked at me with a smile, and I took good care not to say anything more.
Some hours after M. Alphonse’s funeral, I made ready to leave Ille. M. de Peyrehorade’s carriage was to take me to Perpignan. In spite of his weak condition, the poor old man insisted on accompanying me to the gate of his garden. We crossed it in silence, he dragging himself along painfully, leaning on my arm. At the moment of our parting, I cast a last look on the Venus. I could well foresee that my host, although he did not share the terror and hatred with which it inspired a part of his family, would wish to rid himself of an object which would remind him unceasingly of a fearful calamity. My intention was to get him to promise to place it in a museum. I was hesitating about how to broach the matter, when M. de Peyrehorade mechanically turned his head in the direction in which he saw me looking fixedly. He caught sight of the statue, and at once burst into tears. I embraced him, and, without venturing to say a single word to him, got into the carriage.
Since my departure I have not learned that the slightest fresh light has been shed upon this mysterious catastrophe.