Dollon complained of, need not cause any anxiety. It is a very slight superficial wound. A slight swelling above the broken skin possibly indicates an intra-muscular puncture, which might have been made by someone unaccustomed to such operations, for it is a clumsy performance. It is a queer business! … '
Monsieur Agram, who had been steadily observing Jacques Dollon, persisted:
'Is there not a gap, monsieur, in your recollections of what occurred? … Were you quite alone yesterday evening? Were you not expecting anyone? … Are you certain that you did not have a visitor? Did not someone pay you a visit—someone you had asked to come and see you?'
Jacques Dollon opened his eyes—eyes of stupefaction—and stared at the superintendent:
'No, monsieur.'
'It is that——' went on Monsieur Agram. Then stopping short, and drawing the doctor aside, he asked:
'Do you consider him in a fit state to bear a severe moral shock? … A confrontation?'
The doctor glanced at his patient:
'He appears to me to be quite himself again: you can act as you see fit, monsieur.'
Jacques Dollon, astonished at this confabulation, and vaguely uneasy, was, in fact, able to get up without help.
'Be good enough to go into your studio, monsieur,' said the magistrate.
Jacques Dollon complied without a word. No sooner did he cross the threshold than he recoiled, terror-struck.
He was shaking from head to foot; his lips were quivering; every feature expressed horrified shrinking from the spectacle confronting him.
'The—the—the Baroness de Vibray!' he barely articulated: 'how can it be possible?'
The superintendent of police did not lose a single movement made by the young painter, keeping a lynx-eyed watch on every expression that flitted across his countenance. He said:
'It certainly is the Baroness de Vibray, dead—assassinated, no doubt. How do you explain that?'
'But,' retorted Jacques Dollon, who appeared overwhelmed: 'I do not know! I do not understand!'
The magistrate replied:
'Yet, did you not invite her to your studio? Had you not asked her to come some evening soon? Had you not certain pieces of painted pottery to show her?'
'That is so,' confessed the painter: 'but I was not aware. … I did not know. … ' He seemed about to faint. The doctor made him sit down in the chair where he had been found unconscious. Whilst he was recovering, Monsieur Agram continued his investigations. He opened a little cupboard, in which were several poisonous powders: this was shown by the writing on the flasks containing them. He spoke to the doctor, taking care that Jacques Dollon should not overhear him:
'Did you not say that this woman's death is due to poison?'
'It certainly looks like it. … A post-mortem will … '
The Arrest
Interrupting the doctor, Monsieur Agram went up to Jacques Dollon:
'In the exercise of your profession, monsieur, do you not make use of various poisons, of which you have a reserve supply here?'
'That is so,' confirmed Jacques Dollon, in a faint voice: 'But it is a very long time since I employed any of them.'
'Very good, monsieur.'
Monsieur Agram now made Madame Béju leave the room. He asked her to transmit an order to his policemen: they were to drive back the crowd. Soon a cab brought by a constable entered the Close, and drew up before the door of Number 6.
Jacques Dollon, supported by two people, descended and entered the cab.
Immediately a rumour spread that he had been arrested.
This rumour was correct.
Our Inquiry—Silence at Police Headquarters—Probable Motives of the Crime
Such are the details referring to this strange affair, which we have been able to procure from those who were present. But the motives which determined the arrest of Monsieur Dollon are obscure.
There are, however, two suspicious facts. The first is the puncture made in Monsieur Jacques Dollon's left leg: this puncture is aggravated by a scratch. According to the doctors, soporific, injected into the human body by the de Pravaz syringe, acts violently and efficaciously. It is beyond a doubt that Monsieur Jacques Dollon has been rendered unconscious in this manner.
To begin with, the painter's first version was considered the true one, namely, that he had been surprised by robbers, who rendered him unconscious; but, on reflection, this explanation would not hold water. Murderous house-thieves do not send people to sleep: they kill them. Add to this that nothing has been stolen from Monsieur Dollon: therefore, mere robbery was not the motive of the crime.
Besides, Monsieur Dollon maintained that he was alone; yet at that time Madame de Vibray was in his studio, and was there precisely because the artist himself had asked her to come. We know that the Baroness de Vibray, who was very wealthy, took a particular interest in this young man and his sister.
We should consider ourselves to blame, did we not now remind our readers that the names of those personages—Dollon, Vibray—implicated in the drama of the rue Norvins, have already figured in the chronicles of crimes, both recent and celebrated.
Thus the assassination of the Marquise de Langrune cannot have been forgotten, an assassination which has remained a mystery, which was perpetrated a few years ago, and brought into prominence the personalities of Monsieur Rambert and the charming Thérèse Auvernois. …
Madame de Vibray, who has just been so tragically done to death, was an intimate friend of the Marquise de Langrune. …
Monsieur Jacques Dollon is a son of Madame de Langrune's old steward. …
We do not, of course, pretend to connect, in any way whatever, the drama of the rue Norvins with the bygone drama which ended in the execution of Gurn,[1] but we cannot pass over in silence the strange coincidence that, within the space of a few years, the same halo of mystery surrounds the same group of individuals. …
But let us return to our narrative:
Monsieur Jacques Dollon, interrogated by the superintendent of police, declared that he very rarely made use of the poisons locked up in the little cupboard of his studio. …
Notwithstanding this, it was discovered, during the course of the perquisition, that one of the phials containing poison had been recently opened, and that traces of the powder were still to be found on the floor. This powder is now being analysed, whilst the faculty are engaged in a post-mortem examination of the unfortunate victim's body; but, at the present moment, everything leads to the belief that there does not exist an immediate and certain link between this poison and the sudden death of the Baroness de Vibray.
It
