Wyllard's Weird: A NovelBraddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
General
Wyllard's Weird: A Novel
Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
Murder -- Fiction; Mystery and detective stories
"I don't know. He stood just inside the doorway, as if he was hiding
behind the door, looking at my aunt and Monsieur de Maucroix."
"How long did he stand there?"
"I don't know."
"For five minutes, do you think? As long as you could count a hundred?"
"Longer than that."
"Was he young or old, tall or short?"
"He was tall. I think he must have been old, because he wore dark
spectacles."
"Did your aunt and Monsieur de Maucroix observe him?"
"No. I asked my aunt when we were in the train if she had seen the
gentleman with the funny spectacles, and she said no."
"Did you see him again after he left the waiting-room?"
"No."
"Now tell me all you can about your journey to Saint-Germain."
"We went in the train, in a beautiful carriage with soft cushions. I
looked out of the window all the time. My aunt and Monsieur de Maucroix
sat by the other window talking."
"Did you hear what they said?"
"Not much. I was not listening. It was so nice to see the country, and
the trees rushing by. I heard Monsieur de Maucroix ask my aunt to go
away with him--he begged her to go--to Italy, I think he said. Is there
a place called Italy?"
"Yes. And how did your aunt answer?"
"She said she could not go. She was bound to Georges. Georges would
kill her if she left him. Monsieur de Maucroix laughed, and said that
people do not do such things nowadays. He laughed--and soon afterwards
my aunt and he were both dead. I saw the blood--streams of blood."
At this point, said the report, the girl Lemarque became hysterical,
and the rest of her evidence had to be postponed for another day. In
the mean time the grandmother, and Barbe Girot, Marie Prévol's servant,
were interrogated.
Madame Lemarque stated that her daughter was an actress at the
Porte-Saint-Martin. She was very beautiful, and was more renowned for
her grace and beauty than for her acting. She danced and sang and acted
in fairy scenes. She was only three-and-twenty years of age at the time
of her death.
Upon being asked by the judge whether her daughter led a strictly moral
life, Madame Lemarque replied that her conduct was purity itself as
compared with that of many ladies who acted in fairy pieces.
"But there was some one, perhaps," insinuated the judge, "there is
always some one. So beautiful a woman must have had many admirers. I
have her photograph here. It is an exquisite face, a beauty quite out
of the common, refined, spiritual. Surely among her many admirers there
must have been one whom she favoured above all the rest?"
"Yes, there was one, and it was that one who murdered my daughter and
Monsieur de Maucroix. No one can doubt it."
"But you have no actual knowledge of the fact? You speak upon
conjecture?"
"Who else should murder her? Whom did she ever injure, poor child? She
was amiability itself--the kindest of comrades, charitable, good to
everybody."
"What do you know of this person whom you suspect?"
"Nothing except that which I heard from my daughter."
"Did you never see him?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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