"I believe I know the cause of the doctor's emotion. He has just
discovered that Madame de Tremorel was killed by a single blow, and that
the assassins afterward set themselves to disfiguring the body, when it
was nearly cold."
The doctor's eyes fastened on the detective, with a stupefied
expression.
"How could you divine that?" he asked.
"Oh, I didn't guess it alone; I ought to share the honor of the theory
which has enabled us to foresee this fact, with Monsieur Plantat."
"Oh," cried the doctor, striking his forehead, "now, I recollect your
advice; in my worry, I must say, I had quite forgotten it.
"Well," he added, "your foresight is confirmed. Perhaps not so much time
as you suppose elapsed between the first blow and the rest; but I am
convinced that the countess had ceased to live nearly three hours, when
the last blows were struck."
M. Gendron went to the billiard-table, and slowly raised the sheet,
discovering the head and part of the bust.
"Let us inform ourselves, Plantat," he said.
The old justice of the peace took the lamp, and passed to the other side
of the table. His hand trembled so that the globe tingled. The
vacillating light cast gloomy shadows upon the walls. The countess's
face had been carefully bathed, the blood and mud effaced. The marks of
the blows were thus more visible, but they still found upon that livid
countenance, the traces of its beauty. M. Lecoq stood at the head of the
table, leaning over to see more clearly.
"The countess," said Dr. Gendron, "received eighteen blows from a
dagger. Of these, but one is mortal; it is this one, the direction of
which is nearly vertical--a little below the shoulder, you see." He
pointed out the wound, sustaining the body in his left arm. The eyes had
preserved a frightful expression. It seemed as if the half-open mouth
were about to cry "Help! Help!"
Plantat, the man with a heart of stone, turned away his head, and the
doctor, having mastered his first emotion, continued in a professionally
apathetic tone:
"The blade must have been an inch wide, and eight inches long. All the
other wounds--those on the arms, breast, and shoulders, are
comparatively slight. They must have been inflicted at least two hours
after that which caused death."
"Good," said M. Lecoq.
"Observe that I am not positive," returned the doctor quickly. "I merely
state a probability. The phenomena on which I base my own conviction are
too fugitive, too capricious in their nature, to enable me to be
absolutely certain."
This seemed to disturb M. Lecoq.
"But, from the moment when--"
"What I can affirm," interrupted Dr. Gendron, "what I would affirm under
oath, is, that all the wounds on the head, excepting one, were inflicted
after death. No doubt of that whatever--none whatever. Here, above the
eye, is the blow given while the countess was alive."
"It seems to me, Doctor," observed M. Lecoq, "that we may conclude from
the proved fact that the countess, after death, was struck by a flat
implement, that she had also ceased to live when she was mutilated by
the knife."