第62章 THE MERRY WIDOWS(5)

The murmurs evoked by the reply Kostolo treated with lofty disdain.He seemed to find his audience somewhat prudish.

To further questioning he answered that he had never proposed marriage to the Veuve Boursier.Possibly something might have been said in fun.He knew, of course, that the late Boursier had made a lot of money.

The cook, Josephine Blin, was called.At one time she had been suspect.Her version of the potage incidents, though generally in agreement with that of the accused widow, differed from it in two essential points.When she took Boursier's soup into the dining-room, she said, Mme Boursier was in the comptoir, three or four paces away from the desk on which she put the terrine.This Mme Boursier denied.She said she had been in the same comptoir as her husband.Josephine declared that Mme Boursier had ordered her to clean the soup-dish out with sand, but her mistress maintained she had bade the girl do no more than clean it.For the rest, Josephine thought about fifteen minutes elapsed before Boursier came to take the soup.During that time she had seen Mme Boursier writing and making up accounts.

Toupie, the medical student, said he had nursed Boursier during theprevious year.Boursier was then suffering much in the same way as he had appeared to suffer during his fatal illness.He had heard Mme Boursier consulting with friends about an autopsy, and her refusal had been on their advice.

The doctors called were far from agreeing on the value of the experiments they had made.Orfila, afterwards to intervene in the much more universally notorious case of Mme Lafarge, stuck to his opinion of death by arsenic.If his evidence in the Lafarge case is read it will be seen that in the twenty years that had passed from the Boursier trial his notions regarding the proper routine of analysis for arsenic in a supposedly poisoned body had undergone quite a change.But by then the Marsh technique had been evolved.Here, however, he based his opinion on experiments properly described as very equivocal;'' and stuck to it.He was supported by a colleague named Lesieur.

M.Gardy said he had observed that the greater part of the grains about the ileum, noted on the 1st of August, had disappeared next day.The analysis had been made with quantities too small.He now doubted greatly if the substance taken to be arsenic oxide would account for death.

M.Barruel declared that from the glareous matter removed from the body only a grain of the supposed arsenic had been extracted, and that with difficulty.He had put the substance on glowing charcoal, but, in his opinion, the experiment was VERY EQUIVOCAL.It was at first believed that there was a big amount of arsenic, but he felt impelled to say that the substance noted was nothing other than small clusters of fat.The witness now refused to conclude, as he had concluded on the 1st of August, that enough poison had been in the body to cause death.

It would almost seem that the medical evidence should have been enough to destroy the case for the prosecution, but other witnesses were called.

Bailli, at one time a clerk to Boursier, said he had helped his patron to distribute arsenic and rat-poison in the shop cellars.He was well aware that the whole of the poison had not been used, but in the course of his interrogation he had failed to remember where the residue of the poisons had been put.He now recollected.The unused portion of the arsenichad been put in a niche of a bottle-rack.

In view of evidence given by a subsequent witness Bailli's rather sudden recovery of memory might have been thought odd if a friend of his had not been able to corroborate his statement.The friend was one Rousselot, another grocer.He testified that he and Bailli had searched together.Bailli had then cudgelled that dull ass, his brain, to some effect, for they had ultimately come upon the residue of the arsenic bought by Boursier lying with the remainder of the mort aux rats.Both the poisons had been placed at the bottom of a bottle-rack, and a plank had been nailed over them.

Rousselot, asked why he had not mentioned this fact before, answered stupidly, I thought you knew it!''

Bailli, recalled, offered to prove that if he had been to Maitre Couture's house he had come out of it in the same fashion as he had gone in--that was, with a bag of bay salt under each arm.

Maitre Couture, highly indignant, rose to protest against the insinuation of the witness Donzelle, but the President of the court and the Avocat-General hastened to say that the eminent and honourable advocate was at no need to justify himself.The President sternly reprimanded Donzelle and sent him back to his seat.

The Avocat-General, M.de Broe, stated the case for the prosecution.He made, as probably was his duty, as much as he could of the arsenic saidto have been found in the body (that precipitated as yellow sulphur of arsenic), and of the adultery of Mme Boursier with Kostolo.He dwelt on the cleaning of the soup-dish, and pointed out that while the soup stood on the desk Mme Boursier had been here and there near it, never out of arm's reach.In regard to Kostolo, the Greek was a low scallywag, but not culpable.

The prosecution, you observe, rested on the poison's being administered in the soup.

In his speech for the defence the eloquent Maitre Couture began by condemning the gossip and the popular rumour on which the case had been begun.He denounced the action of the magistrates in instituting proceedings as deplorably unconsidered and hasty.

Mme Boursier, he pointed out, had everything to lose through the loss of her husband.Why should she murder a fine merchant like Boursier for a doubtful quantity like Kostolo? He spoke of the happy relationship that had existed between husband and wife, and, in proof of their kindness for each other, told of a comedy interlude which had taken place on the Sunday morning.