At the request of his father-in-law Helene had gone to get a bottle
of violet syrup from the pharmacist. The bottle was not capped. His
father-in-law thought the syrup had gone bad, because it was as red as
mulberry syrup, and refused to give it to his daughter (Mme Rabot). The
bottle was returned to the pharmacist, who remarked that the colour of
the syrup had changed, and that he did not recognize it as his own.
Mme Rabot having corroborated her husband's evidence, and told of
Helene's bad temper, thieving, and disorderliness, Dr Vincent Guyot, of
Rennes, was called.
Dr Guyot described the illness of the boy Albert and its result. He then
went on to describe the illness of Mme Rabot. He and his confreres had
attributed her sickness to the fact that she was enceinte, and to
the effect of her child's death upon her while in that condition. A
miscarriage of a distressing nature confirmed the first prognosis. But
later he and his confreres saw reason to change their minds. He believed
the boy had been poisoned, though he could not be certain. The mother,
he was convinced, had been the victim of an attempt at poisoning, an
opinion which found certainty in the case of Mme Briere. If Mme Rabot's
pregnancy went some way in explaining her illness there was nothing of
this in the illness of her mother. The explanation of everything was in
repeated dosing of an arsenical substance.
The witness had also attended Mme Roussell, of the Bout-du-Monde hotel.
It was remarkable that the violent sickness to which this lady was
subject for twenty days did not answer to treatment, but stopped only
when she gave up taking food prepared for her by Helene Jegado.
He had also looked after Perrotte Mace. Here also he had had doubts
of the nature of the malady; at one time he had suspected pregnancy, a
suspicion for which there were good grounds. But the symptoms that later
developed were not consistent with the first diagnosis. When Perrotte
died he and M. Revault, his confrere, thought the cause of death would
be seen as poison in an autopsy. But the post-mortem was rejected by the
parents. His feeling to-day was that Mme Roussell's paralysis was due
to arsenical dosage, and that Perrotte had died of poisoning. Helene,
speaking to him of Perrotte, had said, "She's a chest subject. She'll
never get better!" And she had used the same phrase, "never get better,"
with regard to little Rabot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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