, "Edouard,--my husband!--Edouard!--is it you?" Then
rising with a last effort, she seized her murderer by the arm, repeating,
"Edouard!--oh!" and then fell heavily, dragging Derues down with her.
His face was against hers; he raised his head, but the dying hand,
clenched in agony, had closed upon him like a vise. The icy fingers
seemed made of iron and could not be opened, as though the victim had
seized on her assassin as a prey, and clung to the proof of his crime.

Derues at last freed himself, and putting his hand on her heart, "It is
over," he remarked; "she has been a long time about it. What o'clock is
it? Nine! She has struggled against death for twelve hours!"

While the limbs still retained a little warmth, he drew the feet
together, crossed the hands on the breast, and placed the body in the
chest. When he had locked it up, he remade the bed, undressed himself,
and slept comfortably in the other one.

The next day, February 1st, the day he had fixed for the "going out" of
Madame de Lamotte, he caused the chest to be placed on a hand-cart and
carried at about ten o'clock in the morning to the workshop of a
carpenter of his acquaintance called Mouchy, who dwelt near the Louvre.
The two commissionaires employed had been selected in distant quarters,
and did not know each other. They were well paid, and each presented
with a bottle of wine. These men could never be traced. Derues
requested the carpenter's wife to allow the chest to remain in the large
workshop, saying he had forgotten something at his own house, and would
return to fetch it in three hours. But, instead of a few hours, he left
it for two whole days--why, one does not know, but it may be supposed
that he wanted the time to dig a trench in a sort of vault under the
staircase leading to the cellar in the rue de la Mortellerie. Whatever
the cause, the delay might have been fatal, and did occasion an
unforeseen encounter which nearly betrayed him. But of all the actors in
this scene he alone knew the real danger he incurred, and his coolness
never deserted him for a moment.

The third day, as he walked alongside the handcart on which the chest was
being conveyed, he was accosted at Saint Germain l'Auxerrois by a
creditor who had obtained a writ of execution against him, and at the
imperative sign made by this man the porter stopped. The creditor
attacked Derues violently, reproaching him for his bad faith in language
which was both energ