rom him the unpaid purchase-money for her
husband's shop. He represented Fenayrou as an idle gambler, and hinted
that he would find her a new purchaser. Such an underhand proceeding was
likely to provoke resentment if it should come to the ears of Fenayrou.
During the two years that elapsed between his departure from Fenayrou's
house and his murder, Aubert had prospered in his shop on the Boulevard
Malesherbes, whilst the fortunes of the Fenayrous had steadily
deteriorated.

At the end of the year 1881 Fenayrou sold his shop and went with
his family to live on one of the outer boulevards, that of
Gouvion-Saint-Cyr. He had obtained a post in a shady mining company, in
which he had persuaded his mother-in-law to invest 20,000 francs. He had
attempted also to make money by selling fradulent imitations of a
famous table-water. For this offence, at the beginning of 1882, he
was condemned by the Correctional Tribunal of Paris to three months'
imprisonment and 1,000 francs costs.

In March of 1882 the situation of the Fenayrous was parlous, that of
Aubert still prosperous.

Since Aubert's departure Mme. Fenayrou had entertained another lover, a
gentleman on the staff of a sporting newspaper, one of Fenayrou's turf
acquaintances. This gentleman had found her a cold mistress, preferring
the ideal to the real. As a murderess Madame Fenayrou overcame this
weakness.

If we are to believe Fenayrou's story, the most critical day in his life
was March 22, 1882, for it was on that day, according to his account,
that he learnt for the first time of his wife's intrigue with Aubert.
Horrified and enraged at the discovery, he took from her her nuptial
wreath, her wedding-ring, her jewellery, removed from its frame her
picture in charcoal which hung in the drawing-room, and told her,
paralysed with terror, that the only means of saving her life was to
help him to murder her lover.

Two months later, with her assistance, this outraged husband
accomplished his purpose with diabolical deliberation. He must have been
well aware that, had he acted on the natural impulse of the moment and
revenged himself then and there on Aubert, he would have committed what
is regarded by a French jury as the most venial of crimes, and would
have escaped with little or no punishment. He preferred, for reasons of
his own, to set about the commission of a deliberate and cold-blooded
murder that bears the stamp of a more sinister motive than the vengeance
o