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Updated: July 21, 2025
It was lying on its back on the floor, with the arms extended; the head was towards the bed, the feet towards the window. The body was almost naked. A gash ran almost right across the throat, leaving the bones exposed. Torrents of blood had saturated the victim's clothes, and on the carpet round the body a wide stain was still slowly spreading wider. M. de Presles stooped over the dead woman.
"The Marquise always left it like that; she liked all the fresh air she could get." "Might not the murderer have got in that way?" The steward shook his head. "It is most unlikely, sir. See: the windows are fitted outside with a kind of grating pointing outwards and downwards, and I think that would prevent anyone from climbing in." M. de Presles saw that this was so.
If you oblige him so far," said the valet, pointing half-way down his little finger, "he'll send you on as far as that," stretching out his arm to its full length. This wise reflection, and the action that enforced it, had the effect, coming from a man who stood as high as second valet to the Comte de Serizy, of cooling the ardor of Pierrotin for the steward of Presles.
"Very well!" said Derville, "then I advise your Excellency to go to Presles yourself, and invite this Margueron to dinner. Crottat will send his head-clerk with a deed of sale drawn up, leaving only the necessary lines for description of property and titles in blank.
"He was bent on owning the estate of Presles, and he will keep it; I know him. Even if he were to have children, Celestine would still have half of what he might leave; the law forbids his giving away all his fortune. Still, these questions are nothing to me; I am only thinking of our honor. Go then, cousin," and he pressed Lisbeth's hand, "and listen carefully to the contract."
Louise, who had gone mechanically to raise the lid of a kettle beginning to boil over, looked round at his last words. "The magistrate?" she said: "M. de Presles? Why, he is here now in the library." "No?" exclaimed the sergeant, jumping up from the kitchen chair on which he had seated himself.
"That theme is rather more difficult: for, when Mademoiselle Poirier marries the Marquis de Presles, she becomes the Marquise de Presles; whereas, when Mademoiselle de Montmorency marries Monsieur Bernard, she becomes plain Madame Bernard." "True enough!
Has this secret journey anything to do with the affair which Pere Leger, the farmer at the Moulineaux, came to Paris the other day to settle?" "I don't know," replied the valet, "but the fat's in the fire. Last night I was sent to the stable to order the Daumont carriage to be ready to go to Presles at seven this morning. But when seven o'clock came, Monsieur le comte countermanded it.
"What place is that?" said Oscar, pointing to the chateau de Franconville, which produces a fine effect at that particular spot, backed, as it is, by the noble forest of Saint-Martin. "How is it," cried the count, "that you, who say you go so often to Presles, do not know Franconville?" "Monsieur knows men, not castles," said Mistigris.
"They say Monsieur Moreau wasn't worth three thousand francs when Monsieur le comte made him steward of Presles," said the valet. "Well, since 1806, there's seventeen years, and the man ought to have made something at any rate." "True," said the valet, nodding. "Anyway, masters are very annoying; and I hope, for Moreau's sake, that he has made butter for his bread."
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