Evidence from a business-man in Tarbes showed that Mme Lacoste's handling of her fortune was careful to a degree, her expenditure being well within her income. This witness also proved that the Fourcades' evidence of Euphemie's misbehaviour could have been dictated from spite. Fourcade had been found out in what looked like a swindle over money which he owed to the Lacoste estate. The court then went more deeply into the medico-legal evidence. It were tedious to follow the course of this long argument. After a lengthy dissertation on the progress of an acute indigestion and the effects of a strangulated hernia M. Devergie said that, as the poison existed in the body, from the symptoms shown in the illness it could be assumed that death had resulted from arsenic. The duration of the illness was in accord with the amount of arsenic found. M. Flandin agreed with this, but M. Pelouze abstained from expressing an opinion. He, however, rather gave the show away, by saying that if he was a doctor he would take care to forbid any arsenical preparations. "These preparations," he said moodily, "can introduce a melancholy obscurity into the investigations of criminal justice." Some sense was brought into the discussion by Dr Molas, of Auch. He put forward the then accepted idea of the accumulation of arsenic taken in small doses, and the power of this accumulation, on the least accident, of determining death. This was rather like chucking a monkey-wrench into the cerebration machinery of the Paris experts. They admitted that the absorption and elimination of arsenic varied with the individual, and generally handed the case over to the defence. M. Devergie was the only one who stuck out, but only partially even then. "I persist in believing," he said, "that M. Lacoste succumbed to poisoning by arsenic; but I use the word 'poisoning' only from the point of view of science: arsenic killed him." VII The speech of the Procureur du Roi was another resume of the acte d'accusation, with consideration of that part of the evidence which suited him best. This was followed by the speech of Maitre Canteloup in defence of Meilhan. The speech was a good effort which demonstrated that, whatever rumour might accuse the schoolmaster of, there were plenty of people of standing who had found him upright and free from stain through a long life. It reproached the accusation with jugglery over dates and so forth in support of its case, and confidently predicted the acquittal of Meilhan.