o you, on the day of your second
marriage, this package, which he confided to my care.' She took the
package, in which the bottle and the manuscript were enclosed,
with a smiling, even joyous air, thanked me warmly, and went out.
The count's expression instantly changed; he appeared very restless
and agitated; he seemed to be on coals. I saw well enough that he
burned to rush after his wife, but dared not; I was going to retire;
but he stopped me. 'Pardon me,' said he, abruptly, 'you will permit
me, will you not? I will return immediately,' with which he ran
out. When I saw him and his wife a few minutes afterward, they
were both very red; their eyes had a strange expression and their
voices trembled, as they accompanied me to the door. They had
certainly been having a violent altercation."

"The rest may be conjectured," interrupted M. Lecoq. "She had gone
to secrete the manuscript in some safe place; and when her new
husband asked her to give it up to him, she replied, 'Look for it.'"

"Sauvresy had enjoined on me to give it only into her hands."

"Oh, he knew how to work his revenge. He had it given to his wife
so that she might hold a terrible arm against Tremorel, all ready
to crush him. If he revolted, she always had this instrument of
torture at hand. Ah, the man was a miserable wretch, and she must
have made him suffer terribly."

"Yes," said Dr. Gendron, "up to the very day he killed her."

The detective had resumed his promenade up and down the library.

"The question as to the poison," said he, "remains. It is a simple
one to resolve, because we've got the man who sold it to her in
that closet."

"Besides," returned the doctor, "I can tell something about the
poison. This rascal of a Robelot stole it from my laboratory, and
I know only too well what it is, even if the symptoms, so well
described by our friend Plantat, had not indicated its name to me.
I was at work upon aconite when Sauvresy died; and he was poisoned
with aconitine."

"Ah, with aconitine," said M. Lecoq, surprised. "It's the first
time that I ever met with that poison. Is it a new thing?"

"Not exactly. Medea is said to have extracted her deadliest poisons
from aconite, and it was employed in Rome and Greece in criminal
executions."

"And I did not know of it! But I have very little time to study.
Besides, this poison of Medea's was perhaps lost, as was that of
the Borgias; so many of these things are!"

"No, it was not lost, b