ordinary hut of the civilized savage. The house
consisted of a ground floor and one floor above, with garrets in the
roof.

The quarryman, her deceased husband, and the builder of this dwelling,
had put strong iron bars to all the windows; the front door was
remarkably thick. The man knew that he was alone there in the
open country--and what a country! His customers were the principal
master-masons in Paris, so the more important materials for his house,
which stood within five hundred yards of his quarry, had been brought
out in his own carts returning empty. He could choose such as suited him
where houses were pulled down, and got them very cheap. Thus the window
frames, the iron-work, the doors, shutters, and wooden fittings were all
derived from sanctioned pilfering, presents from his customers, and good
ones, carefully chosen. Of two window-frames, he could take the better.

The house, entered from a large stable-yard, was screened from the road
by a wall; the gate was of strong iron-railing. Watch-dogs were kept in
the stables, and a little dog indoors at night. There was a garden of
more than two acres behind.

His widow, without children, lived here with only a woman servant. The
sale of the quarry had paid off the owner's debts; he had been dead
about two years. This isolated house was the widow's sole possession,
and she kept fowls and cows, selling the eggs and milk at Nanterre.
Having no stableboy or carter or quarryman--her husband had made them do
every kind of work--she no longer kept up the garden; she only
gathered the few greens and roots that the stony ground allowed to grow
self-sown.

The price of the house, with the money she had inherited, would amount
to seven or eight thousand francs, and she could fancy herself living
very happily at Saint-Germain on seven or eight hundred francs a year,
which she thought she could buy with her eight thousand francs. She had
had many discussions over this with the notary at Saint-Germain, for she
refused to hand her money over for an annuity to the wine-merchant at
Nanterre, who was anxious to have it.

Under these circumstances, then, after a certain day the widow Pigeau
and her servant were seen no more. The front gate, the house door, the
shutters, all were closed. At the end of three days, the police, being
informed, made inquisition. Monsieur Popinot, the examining judge,
and the public prosecutor arrived from Paris, and this was what they
reported: