Meanwhile M. Lacoste was letting new complaints be heard regarding his wife. Again Lespere was his confidant. His wife was bad and sulky. He was very inclined to undo what he had done for her. This was in March of 1843.
Towards the end of April he made a like complaint to another old friend, one Dupouy, who accused him of neglecting old friends through uxoriousness. Lacoste said he found little pleasure in his young wife. He was, on the contrary, a martyr. He was on the point of disinheriting her.
And so, with the usual amount of on dit and disait-on, the acte d'accusation came to the point of Lacoste at the Riguepeu fair. He set out in his usual health, but, several hours later, said to one Laffon, "I have the shivers, cramps in the stomach. After being made to drink by that —— Meilhan I felt ill."
Departing from the fair alone, he met up with Jean Durieux, to whom he said, "That —— of a Meilhan asked me to have a drink, and afterwards I had colic, and wanted to vomit."
Arrived home, Lacoste said to Pierre Cournet that he had been seized by a colic which made him ill all over, plaguing him, giving him a desire to vomit which he could not satisfy. Cournet noticed that Lacoste was as white as a sheet. He advised going to bed and taking hot water. Lacoste took the advice. During the night he was copiously sick. The old man was in bed in an alcove near the kitchen, but next night he was put into a room out of the way of noise.
Euphemie looked after her husband alone, preparing his drinks and admitting nobody to see him. She let three days pass without calling a doctor. Lacoste, it was true, had said he did not want a doctor, but, said the accusation, "there is no proof that he persisted in that wish."
On the fourth day she sent a summary of the illness to Dr Boubee, asking for written advice. On the fifth day a surgeon was called, M. Lasmolles, who was told that Lacoste had eaten a meal of onions, garlic stems, and beans. But the story of this meal was a lie, a premeditated lie. On the eve of the fair Mme Lacoste was already speaking of such a meal, saying that that sort of thing always made her husband ill.
According to the accusation, the considerable amount of poison found in the body established that the arsenic had been administered on several occasions, on the first by Meilhan and on the others by Mme Lacoste.
When Henri Lacoste had drawn his last breath his wife shed a few tears. But presently her grief gave place to other preoccupations. She herself looked out the sheet for wrapping the corpse, and thereafter she began to search in the desk for the will which made her her husband's sole heir.
Next day Meilhan, who had not once looked in on Lacoste during his illness, hastened to visit the widow. The widow invited him to dinner. The day after that he dined with her again, and they were seen walking together. Their intimacy seemed to grow daily. But the friendship of Mme Lacoste for Meilhan did not end there. Not very many days after the death of Lacoste Meilhan met the Mayor of Riguepeu, M. Sabazan, and conducted him in a mysterious manner into his schoolroom. Telling the Mayor that he knew him to be a man of discretion, he confided in him that the Veuve Lacoste intended giving him (Meilhan) a bill on one Castera. Did the Mayor know Castera to be all right? The Mayor replied that a bill on Castera was as good as gold itself. Meilhan said that Mme Lacoste had assured him this was but the beginning of what she meant to do for him.