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Updated: June 24, 2025
They therefore sent a mounted messenger to Paris to notify the minister of police, the chief justice and the Emperor of this extraordinary crime. In the salon of Gondreville, Lechesneau found Mesdames Marion and Grevin, Violette, the senator's valet, and the justice of peace with his clerk.
Marthe was not strong enough to evade the cross-questioning of the director of the jury and the public prosecutor. Moreover the proof against her was too overwhelming. Lechesneau had sent for the under crust of the last loaf of bread she had carried to the cavern, also for the empty bottles and various other articles.
Lechesneau left the justice of peace and returned to the stables. "Monsieur," said Madame d'Hauteserre, at last, addressing Pigoult; "can you explain these arrests?" "The gentlemen are accused of abducting the senator by armed force and keeping him a prisoner; for we do not think they have murdered him in spite of appearances," replied Pigoult.
"Gentlemen," he said, politely, "you are too well-bred to make a useless resistance; follow me to the stables, where I must, in your presence, have the shoes of your horses taken off; they afford important proof of either guilt or innocence. Come, too, mademoiselle." The blacksmith of Cinq-Cygne and his assistant had been summoned by Lechesneau as experts.
Lechesneau, bound in gratitude to Malin, felt the importance of this attack upon his patron, and brought with him a captain of gendarmerie and twelve men. Before starting he laid his plans with the prefect, who was unable at that late hour, it being after dark, to use the telegraph.
While the operation at the stable was going on the justice of peace brought in Gothard and Michu. The work of detaching the shoes of each horse, putting them together and ticketing them, so as to compare them with the hoof-prints in the park, took time. Lechesneau, notified of the arrival of Pigoult, left the prisoners with the gendarmes and returned to the dining-room to dictate the indictment.
Lechesneau, who at first was much struck by the evident tranquillity in which the whole party were dining, now returned to his former opinion of their guilt as he noticed the stupefaction of the old people and the evident anxiety of Laurence, who was seeking to discover the nature of the trap which was set for them.
Marthe, deceived by the apparent friendliness of Lechesneau and the public prosecutor, who assured her that complete confession could alone save her husband's life, admitted that the cavern where the senator had been hidden was known only to her husband and the Messieurs de Simeuse and d'Hauteserre, and that she herself had taken provisions to the senator on three separate occasions at midnight.
The justice of peace called his attention to the condition of Michu's clothes and related the circumstances of his arrest. "They must have killed the senator and plastered the body up in some wall," said Pigoult. "I begin to fear it," answered Lechesneau. "Where did you carry that plaster?" he said to Gothard. The boy began to cry.
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