“Do not forget the garden of the rue de Vaugirard 81, you know. Fifteen feet from the end wall and fourteen from the side one. The dead sometimes come back.” Bastien had carefully preserved the plan of the garden, on which was marked the spot where the corpse had been buried. This garden belonged to an isolated house, which had been rented by Robert, and Bastien was engaged in digging a deep pit in it. He bought a cord, provided himself with quicklime; then one Sunday morning he called upon the Widow Houet, with a message from her daughter and son-in-law, that they expected her to lunch in the new house. Here let Bastien speak for himself: “The old woman knew me well as a friend of her children, and accompanied me in a cart to the rue de Vaugirard. On entering the garden and reaching a quiet corner, I slipped my rope round her neck and strangled her. When certainly dead I buried her, threw in quicklime, covered up the grave and went to breakfast. There was one guest short, but Robert asked no questions. I knew he was satisfied with me. I had done my part in the business, but he would not perform his, and never yet has he paid me my price, the half share of the widow’s fortune. After waiting patiently all these years and finding him ever after deaf to my demand and unmindful of my threats, I resolved to denounce him, through you.” This was the message brought by C----, and in response, warrants to arrest the Roberts, man and wife, were issued by the police. The culprits had already left Paris, but were followed and brought back. Meanwhile Bastien was taken into custody after a hand to hand encounter. He was searched, and in a pocketbook found upon him were the plan of the garden and the compromising papers relating to the Widow Houet’s estate. The case was clear. Nothing remained but to verify the facts by disinterring the corpse. It was necessary to proceed with great caution, lest the body should be removed by friends of the accused. A watch was set upon the house now occupied by a master pavier, and his sympathies were enlisted by warning him that he was to be the victim of a midnight robbery. He consented to allow two agents of the police to be stationed in the garden, and they took post there for several nights in succession, but nothing happened. At last after careful examination the position of the buried body was fixed by Bastien’s plan, and a party of diggers from the great cemetery of Père La Chaise came, accompanied by a doctor, to open the ground. The body of a woman was come upon at considerable depth, in fair preservation thanks to the quicklime. The rope was still around her neck, and she still wore a gold ring. The evidence was conclusive as to the murder, but the criminals were allowed the benefit of extenuating circumstances, and the capital sentence was commuted to _travaux forcés_ for life.