THE MURDER OF MADAME HOUET
The annals of French crime are rich in dramatic and extraordinary
episodes, but none can excel in breathless interest the story of
the murder of Madame Houet and the discovery and punishment of her
murderers twelve years after her tragic death.
Madame Houet was a widow with a fortune estimated to exceed two hundred
and fifty thousand francs, who lived with her son in a little house
in the Rue St. Jacques, Paris. Her only daughter was married to a
wine merchant named Robert, who was reputed to be well off. The old
lady's son was a big, powerful fellow, whose weak brain prevented him
earning more than a precarious livelihood, a fact which annoyed his
penurious parent. She scraped and saved and half-starved herself to be
able to add a few coins daily to her store. In the circumstances, it
is not astonishing that amongst her neighbours she should have had the
reputation of being worth a great deal more than she actually was.
The gossips never tired of discussing her hidden wealth, and everybody
was prepared to hear of her murder for the sake of her hoard. Even her
son-in-law was ignorant of the extent of her savings--the old lady
would never discuss the subject with him or anyone else--and, after
making allowances for the exaggerations of the neighbours, he came to
the conclusion that his wife's share of her inheritance would not be
less than a quarter of a million francs. There were times, too, when
he comforted himself with the assurance that his wife's brother would
not live very long. More than one doctor had hinted that the weak brain
would soon affect the body, and that he would suddenly collapse and die.
These thoughts induced the wine merchant to sell his business and
retire. Robert had always wanted to live the life of a gentleman, as he
termed it. He was fond of the theatre and the restaurants, and he had a
mania for tempting fortune on the racecourse and on the roulette table.
So when he observed signs of decline in his mother-in-law--and his
wife often wept as she told him that the old lady was fading away--he
found a purchaser for his shop, pocketed the proceeds, and went the
pace, confident that before he had spent his capital he would be in
possession of Madame Houet's cash.
But Madame Houet was tougher than he thought, and easily outlasted the
twenty-five thousand francs Robert had received for his shop. For a
few months Monsieur and Madame Robert were seen everywhere, and they
became familiar figures in the fashionable restaurants and theatres.
When he came to his last thousand-franc note Robert determined to risk
it all on a visit to a gambling den. He carried out his intention, and
returned home at three in the morning penniless.
He was now not only without resources, but heavily in debt. As the
husband of Madame Houet's heiress he had been given extended credit,
but the ex-wine merchant knew that if he failed to keep his agreements
his creditors would complain to his mother-in-law.
But could he hold his creditors back until the old lady died? Several
times a week he called on her and noticed with increasing alarm that
she was daily improving in health. Her appetite was prodigious, as
he discovered every time he took her out to lunch. Driven desperate,
the penniless man tried forgery, and by imitating his mother-in-law's
signature on the back of a bill induced the merchant who had purchased
his business to advance him twelve thousand five hundred francs for
three months.
The weeks passed all too swiftly, and when only a fortnight remained of
the three months the forger's position was worse than ever. Fourteen
days more and the forged bill would be presented and dishonoured, and
Madame Houet would repudiate the signature. Robert went for long walks
every night to think over the situation, and eventually he found a
solution.
"I have urgent business to attend to," he told his wife one morning,
"and I am afraid I shall have to be often away from your side. Why not
pay that long-promised visit to your aunt in Marseilles? I should be
happier if I knew you were with her."
His wife agreed, and for a month was out of Paris, and during that
month the tragedy occurred.
Robert had decided to murder his mother-in-law so that his wife might
receive at once her share of the estate. He knew that the old lady had
recently made her will bequeathing her fortune in equal shares to her
son and her daughter, and, therefore, there was no danger of Julia
losing her inheritance. The ex-wine merchant, however, was not capable
of carrying out the plan unaided, and he sought an acquaintance,
Bastien, a jobbing carpenter, who promised to help in the murder for a
fee of twenty thousand francs, to be paid within thirty days of Madame
Robert's receipt of her legacy. The terms were agreed to, and they
began to make their plans.
There was a big garden attached to a house in the Rue Vaugirard, and
Robert rented both for a month, and the night before the murder he and
Bastien dug a grave for their intended victim, who at the time they
were working was busy counting her savings with a view to sending the
money to the bank in the morning. The widow may have been a miser, but
she had a great deal of common sense, and she never kept large sums in
her home.
Curiously enough, she and her son had of late begun to quarrel
fiercely. She had accused him of being lazy, and he had flung
reproaches at her, and it was known in the Rue St. Jacques that the
Houets were constantly at loggerheads.
"There'll be a tragedy in that house," said the landlord of the inn at
the corner. "The police ought to be told. It is not safe to leave the
old woman alone with that crazy son of hers."
When the ill-feeling between the mother and son was at its height,
Bastien, Robert's confederate, drove up to her residence in a cab,
and on being admitted to her presence announced that he came with
an invitation to spend the day with her son-in-law. Madame eagerly
accepted, for the three meals at his expense would enable her to add at
least a franc to her store.
On the journey to the Rue Vaugirard the widow commented on the fact
that her strange companion held a coil of rope in his hands.
"Yes," he said, with an impudent grin, "I bought it for a special job.
I hope it will prove strong enough."
Again he grinned meaningly; but the old woman was, of course,
unconscious of the fact that the "special job" he referred to was her
murder by strangulation.
The cab stopped outside the gate at the end of the garden and some
distance from the house. With remarkable agility Madame Houet
descended, and when Bastien had opened the entrance to the garden
passed in. She had not proceeded a dozen paces, however, nor had she
had time to notice the newly-made grave, when two strong hands shot
out and gripped her by the throat, and before she could utter a sound
Bastien's rope was around her neck, and she was swiftly strangled.
The next ten minutes was spent by the men filling in the grave, and
when that task was over they adjourned to the house and steadied their
nerves by imbibing copious draughts of wine.
"The fortune is mine!" Robert cried exultingly. "Bastien, my friend,
we have nothing to fear. You have only to keep your mouth shut, and
the police are helpless, and ten years hence, even if they discover
proofs of our guilt, they won't be able to touch us. That is the law
of France. A murderer must be convicted within ten years of the last
arrest for the crime or else he goes free without any penalty."
"And the money?" asked Bastien sharply.
"I have been told that it takes about a month to wind up the affairs
of a dead woman," said the ex-wine merchant. "My wife will have her
mother's fortune by then. Call four weeks from to-day and I will hand
you your well-earned reward."
They shook hands on it and parted. Nothing remained except to wait, and
that was easy enough.
The instant Madame Houet was missed her son was arrested. On the face
of it there seemed to be every justification for that procedure, and
the detectives felt that they had the murderer in their power. That
the widow had been murdered they had no doubt, and it was only when
they were searching for her body that they arrested Robert and Bastien.
Following the capture of the latter the son was released, it being
admitted that he could have had nothing to do with the disappearance of
his mother. It was, however, quite another matter to find the corpse.
Madame Houet had simply vanished, and, although the detectives built up
a strong case against the two accused, they were compelled to release
them because they were unable to produce the body.
It was proved that Bastien had called for the widow and had driven away
with her, and it was known that he had fetched her at the instigation
of Robert. The two men agreed that they had seen Madame Houet on the
day of her disappearance, but swore that she had left them with the
intention of going home. The cleverest members of the detective force
traced the men's movements on the fatal day, but failed to discover the
garden in the Rue Vaugirard, for Robert had, of course, never gone near
it since the hasty burial, and, apparently, there was no one to give
information to the police about the strange man who had paid the rent
for it for a month and had not occupied it for more than a day and that
day September 13th, 1821.
When Robert and his confederate walked out of their cells they
entered a café and had lunch, and they confined their conversation to
denunciations of the authorities for having kept them in gaol so long.
Before they separated, however, Robert fixed an appointment with his
fellow-assassin to call for the twenty thousand francs and they went
their way, animated by feelings of triumph, the ex-wine merchant,
especially, scarcely able to suppress his joy.
There is a well-known proverb which says that "A little learning is a
dangerous thing," and Robert, the murderer, discovered its truth when
he sent his wife to claim half her mother's fortune. He had carefully
studied the laws relating to murder, and, confident that the police
would never find Madame Houet's body, he had willingly accepted the
inconveniences of being constantly under suspicion because he believed
that the ten years required by the law would soon pass and place
him beyond danger. After the tenth year if the corpse and his guilt
were brought to light he would not be prosecuted. It was a curious
regulation, but it just suited Robert, and he hummed gaily to himself
while awaiting his wife's return.
She came back with a long face and whispered the bad news.
"The gentlemen in the Government office told me," she said, between her
tears of disappointment, "that under the law they cannot distribute my
mother's money until ten years have passed, when, if her body isn't
found, she becomes legally dead. At present, according to the law,
she is considered to be alive, and, therefore, her estate cannot be
touched."
The ex-wine merchant nearly collapsed, and it was some time before he
induced his wife to complain that she was practically destitute and
extract an allowance of thirty francs a week on account from the State.
For that she had to sign a bond guaranteeing to repay the money to her
mother if the latter should appear on the scene again.
By dint of desperate appeals to relatives Robert succeeded in getting
the money to take up the forged bill, but he had now another danger
to face--Bastien, the jobbing carpenter, who, he knew, would make a
terrible row when told of the failure to get hold of the widow's money.
The carpenter came with an expectant expression, and left infuriated.
Vainly had Robert explained. Bastien bluntly informed him that he did
not believe a word.
"You are trying to defraud me!" he had shrieked, shaking his fist and
sending Madame Robert into hysterics. "I will be even with you yet, and
if to-morrow you have not the money ready, I--" He ceased abruptly and
shuffled out of the house.
He did not come back for a fortnight. Then ensued a repetition of the
first scene, terminated by Robert handing him two hundred and fifty
francs.
It was a couple of months before Bastien believed his explanation of
his poverty, but the two murderers continued to quarrel whenever they
met. Robert was again hopelessly in debt, and could hardly raise a few
francs to give to his fellow-assassin, who was blackmailing him daily.
Eventually things became so bad that Bastien in desperation committed
a burglary for which he was arrested and sent to penal servitude for
seven years.
Then fresh information reached the authorities and Robert was arrested
again, whilst Bastien was brought from prison and taken with the
ex-wine merchant before the magistrate. They were severely examined,
but despite many contradictions and lies they had to be discharged
again, Bastien returning to gaol, and Robert to the miserable rooms
he called his home. This second arrest, however, meant that still ten
years would have to elapse before Madame Houet was considered dead in
law and her assassins free from punishment.
When Bastien had served his sentence for burglary he began to blackmail
Robert systematically, until another robbery landed him in gaol again.
As the years went by he grew jealous of the liberty enjoyed by Robert,
and, becoming garrulous, eventually confided in an old convict with
whom he worked exactly nine years and eight months from the day of his
second arrest. His fellow-prisoner had twelve years to serve, and was,
accordingly, not to be feared, but the very week he heard Bastien's
story of the tragedy in the Rue Vaugirard he saved a warder's life by
an act of bravery, and was rewarded by a free pardon in March, 1833.
The pardon, however, did not include employment, and the ex-convict
found the world hard and unsympathetic. No one would have anything
to do with a man whose record included a murder and several violent
assaults, and he was starving when it occurred to him that he might
be able to make something out of Bastien's confession. He, thereupon,
called on the chief of police, and offered to tell him where the body
of the widow was provided he was given five hundred francs when his
statement had been tested.
The chief willingly promised the sum mentioned, for it was a continual
source of exasperation to him that two such villains as Robert and
Bastien should have outwitted him and his legion of trained detectives.
The ex-convict recounted what Bastien had told him, and for the third
time Robert and Bastien were charged together. They were not so
confident now, for something seemed to tell them that they were not
going to escape again.
It is the French custom to have the accused present at any important
discovery bearing upon their case, and Robert and Bastien were,
accordingly, handcuffed and taken to the garden at the back of the
house in the Rue Vaugirard. Half a dozen detectives were provided
with spades, and, whilst the prisoners looked on, they dug as if for
their lives. But they met with no reward, and Robert, who had remained
motionless throughout, was regarding them with a sneering smile when
one of the detectives suddenly turned on him.
"Get out of the way, man!" he cried contemptuously. "One would think
that the widow Houet had gripped you by the feet."
On hearing this Robert started as though he had been shot, and it
did not surprise the officials in the least when the skeleton of the
murdered woman was found exactly under the spot where he had been
standing. It was plain that he had hoped to keep the officers away from
it and that his ruse would cause them to leave the garden without the
corpse. Had they done so, he and Bastien would have had to be released.
The skeleton was in an almost perfect state of preservation and there
was not the slightest difficulty in identifying it, for the rope was
still around the neck and on one of the fingers of the left hand was a
gold ring.
The ex-wine merchant and his confederate were tried before the Paris
Criminal Court and found guilty of murder. For some extraordinary
reason, however, the jury added "extenuating circumstances" to their
verdict and this took away from the judge the power to inflict death.
They were, however, consigned to a living death in one of the French
convict settlements, and there they existed for a few miserable years
before dying of inanition, overwork, and monotony.
Practically the whole of Madame Houet's fortune was inherited by her
son, who died in an asylum, and eventually the money which had been the
motive for a terrible crime passed into the coffers of the state, the
widow's son leaving no heirs.