“Mon Dieu! that is my own signature, and that notarial signature I would swear to as Alphonse Domairon’s!”
At this moment the huissier came into court with the package of letters, which he handed to the president. That officer looked over them, with Pache still upon the stand.
“M. Pache,” said the president, handing a letter to the witness, “do you identify that handwriting?”
“I do; it is undoubtedly Desruelles’.”
“Be kind enough to read that letter aloud to the Court.”
M. Pache, adjusting his eye glasses, read, “Ma Mignon: The will is all perfect. The Cosaque totally deceived. I sail for Martinique to-morrow, and ma poudre de succession will make short work of my stumbling-block of a cousin!”
He turned severely upon Desruelles: “Atrocious wretch! You plotted to poison me, then! I abandon the case.”
Desruelles fell back fainting. Mme. Desruelles eagerly came forward. “I swear, Judge, that letter was not in the parcel I received from Mlle. Tolly! I never saw it before!”
The president turned from her coldly. “The handwriting is precisely the same.”
The prisoner, reviving, stared around him with a ghastly face, and the president looked down upon him gloomily.