The acte d'accusation was read. It set forth the facts of the adulterous association of the two accused, of the money lent by Mme Boursier to Kostolo, of their meetings, and all the suspicious circumstances previous to the death of the epicier.
The cook-girl, Josephine Blin, had prepared the potage au riz in the kitchen, using the small iron pan that it was her wont to employ. Having made the soup, she conveyed it in its terrine to a small secretaire in the dining-room. This secretaire stood within the stretch of an arm from the door of the comptoir in which Mme Boursier usually worked. According to custom, Josephine had divided the potage in two portions—one for Boursier and the other for the youngest child. The youngster and she had eaten the second portion between them, and neither had experienced any ill-effects.
Josephine told her master that the soup was ready. He came at her call, but did not eat the soup at once, being otherwise occupied. The soup stood on the secretaire for about fifteen minutes before Boursier started to eat it.
According to the accused, the accusation went on, after Boursier's death the two doctors asked that they might be allowed to perform an autopsy, since they were at a loss to explain the sudden illness. This Mme Boursier refused, in spite of the insistence of the doctors. She refused, she said, in the interest of her children. She insisted, indeed, on a quick burial, maintaining that, as her husband had been tres replet, the body would rapidly putrefy, owing to the prevailing heat, and that thus harm would be done to the delicate contents of the epicerie.
Led by rumours of the bluish stains—almost certain indications of a violent death—the authorities, said the accusation, ordered an exhumation and autopsy. Arsenic was found in the body. It was clear that Boursier, ignorant, as he was, of his wife's bad conduct, had not killed himself. This was a point that the widow had vainly attempted, during the process of instruction, to maintain. She declared that one Clap, a friend of her late husband, had come to her one day to say that a certain Charles, a manservant, had remarked to him, "Boursier poisoned himself because he was tired of living." Called before the Juge d'instruction, Henri Clap and Charles had concurred in denying this.
The accusation maintained that the whole attitude of Mme Boursier proved her a poisoner. As soon as her husband became sick she had taken the dish containing the remains of the rice soup, emptied it into a dirty vessel, and passed water through the dish. Then she had ordered Blin to clean it, which the latter did, scrubbing it out with sand and ashes.
Questioned about arsenic in the house, Mme Boursier said, to begin with, that Boursier had never spoken to her about arsenic, but later admitted that her husband had mentioned both arsenic and mort aux rats to her.
Asked regarding the people who frequented the house she had mentioned all the friends of Boursier, but neglected to speak of Kostolo. Later she had said she never had been intimate with the Greek. But Kostolo, "barefaced enough for anything," had openly declared the nature of his relations with her. Then Mme Boursier, after maintaining that she had been no more than interested in Kostolo, finding pleasure in his company, had been constrained to confess that she had misconducted herself with the Greek in the dead man's room. She had given Kostolo the run of her purse, the accusation declared, though she denied the fact, insisting that what she had given him had been against his note. There was only one conclusion, however. Mme Boursier, knowing the poverty of her paramour, had paid him as her cicisbeo, squandering upon him her children's patrimony.
The accusation then dealt with the supposed project of marriage, and declared that in it there was sufficient motive for the crime. Kostolo was Mme Boursier's accomplice beyond any doubt. He had acted as nurse to the invalid, administering drinks and medicines to him. He had had full opportunity for poisoning the grocer. Penniless, out of work, it would be a good thing for him if Boursier was eliminated. He had been blatant in his visits to Mme Boursier after the death of the husband.
Then followed the first questioning of the accused.