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He had not given Lacoste a drink, hadn't even spoken with him, at the Riguepeu fair, but had passed the day with M. Mothe. Cournet had told him of Lacoste's having a headache, but had said nothing of vomitings. He had not seen Lacoste during the latter's illness, because Lacoste was seeing nobody. This business of the annuity had got rather entangled, but he would explain.
And so, with the usual amount of on dit and disait-on, the acte d'accusation came to the point of Lacoste at the Riguepeu fair. He set out in his usual health, but, several hours later, said to one Laffon, ``I have the shivers, cramps in the stomach. After being made to drink by that -Meilhan I felt ill.
It is to be hoped that your conduct to come may efface the shame of your conduct in the past, and that repentance may restore the honour you have lost. Now we come, as the gentleman with the crimson handkerchief coyly showing between dress waistcoat and shirt might have said, waving his pointer as the canvas of the diorama rumbled on its rollers, to Riguepeu!
Meilhan's statement was full of discrepancies. He told Castera that he held the note against 2000 francs previously lent to the widow. He now said that he had discounted the note on sight. But the fact was that since Meilhan had come to live in Riguepeu he had been without resources. He had stripped himself in order to establish his son in a pharmacy at Vic-Fezensac.
The Mayor did not know actually if the deed was in the writing of Mme Lacoste. He did not know her fist. But he could be certain that it was not in Meilhan's hand. This deed was later shown by Meilhan to the cure of Riguepeu, who saw at least that the deed was not in Meilhan's writing.
The friend strongly advised her against doing any such thing, advice which Mme Lacoste accepted with reluctance. On the 5th of January a summons to appear was issued for Mme Lacoste. She was seen that day in Auch, walking the streets on the arm of a friend. She even went to the post-office, but the police agents failed to find her. She stopped the night in the town. Next day she was at Riguepeu.
The cure of Riguepeu, however, while admitting that he had received such a letter from Meilhan's son, declared that this was long before the death of Henri Lacoste. The Mayor also said that he had spoken to Meilhan of his son's letter well before the time when the accused mentioned the annuity to him and asked for a draft of the assignment.
Some little distance from Riguepeu itself, on the top of a rise, stood the Chateau Philibert, a one-floored house with red tiles and green shutters. Not much of a chateau, it was also called locally La Maison de Madame. It belonged in 1843 to Henri Lacoste, together with considerable land about it.
Evidence was to hand which seemed to inculpate with Mme Lacoste a poor and old schoolmaster of Riguepeu named Joseph Meilhan. The latter, arrested, stoutly denied not only his own part in the supposed crime, but also the guilt of Mme Lacoste. ``Why doesn't she come forward? he asked. ``She knows perfectly well she has nothing to fear no more than I have.
Their intimacy seemed to grow daily. But the friendship of Mme Lacoste for Meilhan did not end there. Not very many days after the death of Lacoste Meilhan met the Mayor of Riguepeu, M. Sabazan, and conducted him in a mysterious manner into his schoolroom. Did the Mayor know Castera to be all right? The Mayor replied that a bill on Castera was as good as gold itself.
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