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Since the death of Madame de Saint-Meran, I have known that a poisoner lived in my house. M. d'Avrigny warned me of it.
Madame d'Avrigny was getting up her annual private theatricals, and wanted Jacqueline to take the principal part in the play, saying that she ought to put her lessons in elocution to some use. The piece chosen was to illustrate a proverb, and was entirely new.
"Still, sir; and I shall always do so," replied d'Avrigny, "for it has never for one instant ceased to retain possession of my mind; and that you may be quite sure I am not mistaken this time, listen well to what I am going to say, M. de Villefort." The magistrate trembled convulsively. "There is a poison which destroys life almost without leaving any perceptible traces.
"Indeed, my dear friend," said M. d'Avrigny, "I would not accuse any one; I speak only of an accident, you understand, of a mistake, but whether accident or mistake, the fact is there; it is on my conscience and compels me to speak aloud to you. Make inquiry." "Of whom? how? of what?"
She presented him to Madame d'Avrigny, hoping that so fashionable a woman might want him to play at her receptions during the winter, and to a journalist who promised to give him a notice in his paper, provided and here he whispered something to Pierrot, who, smiling, answered neither yes nor no.
"M. de Saint-Meran?" "Yes." "Suddenly?" "From an apoplectic stroke." "An apoplectic stroke?" repeated the doctor. "Yes, and my poor grandmother fancies that her husband, whom she never left, has called her, and that she must go and join him. Oh, M. d'Avrigny, I beseech you, do something for her!" "Where is she?" "In her room with the notary." "And M. Noirtier?"
"No." said Villefort; "fetch the nearest." "The nearest," said the district doctor, "is a good Italian abbe, who lives next door to you. Shall I call on him as I pass?" "D'Avrigny," said Villefort, "be so kind, I beseech you, as to accompany this gentleman.
D'Avrigny took the young man's arm, and led him out of the room. A more than deathlike silence then reigned in the house. At the end of a quarter of an hour a faltering footstep was heard, and Villefort appeared at the door of the apartment where d'Avrigny and Morrel had been staying, one absorbed in meditation, the other in grief. "You can come," he said, and led them back to Noirtier.
"It has been mentioned, but the article is not mine; indeed, I doubt if it will please M. Villefort, for it says that if four successive deaths had happened anywhere else than in the house of the king's attorney, he would have interested himself somewhat more about it." "Still," said Chateau-Renaud, "Dr. d'Avrigny, who attends my mother, declares he is in despair about it.
And this time, as though nature had at least taken compassion on the vigorous frame, nearly bursting with its own strength, the words of Morrel were stifled in his throat; his breast heaved; the tears, so long rebellious, gushed from his eyes; and he threw himself weeping on his knees by the side of the bed. Then d'Avrigny spoke.
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