The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Widow Lerouge, by Emile Gaboriau

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Widow Lerouge
The Lerouge Case

Author: Emile Gaboriau

Release Date: April 12, 2006 [EBook #3802]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WIDOW LEROUGE ***

Produced by David Moynihan; Dagny

THE LEROUGE CASE

By Emile Gaboriau

CHAPTER I.

On Thursday, the 6th of March, 1862, two days after Shrove Tuesday, five
women belonging to the village of La Jonchere presented themselves at
the police station at Bougival.

They stated that for two days past no one had seen the Widow Lerouge,
one of their neighbours, who lived by herself in an isolated cottage.
They had several times knocked at the door, but all in vain. The
window-shutters as well as the door were closed; and it was impossible
to obtain even a glimpse of the interior.

This silence, this sudden disappearance alarmed them. Apprehensive of
a crime, or at least of an accident, they requested the interference of
the police to satisfy their doubts by forcing the door and entering the
house.

Bougival is a pleasant riverside village, peopled on Sundays by crowds
of boating parties. Trifling offences are frequently heard of in its
neighbourhood, but crimes are rare.

The commissary of police at first refused to listen to the women, but
their importunities so fatigued him that he at length acceded to their
request. He sent for the corporal of gendarmes, with two of his
men, called into requisition the services of a locksmith, and, thus
accompanied, followed the neighbours of the Widow Lerouge.

La Jonchere owes some celebrity to the inventor of the sliding railway,
who for some years past has, with more enterprise than profit, made
public trials of his system in the immediate neighbourhood. It is
a hamlet of no importance, resting upon the slope of the hill which
overlooks the Seine between La Malmaison and Bougival. It is about
twenty minutes' walk from the main road, which, passing by Rueil and
Port-Marly, goes from Paris to St. Germain, and is reached by a steep
and rugged lane, quite unknown to the government engineers.

The party, l