In a couple of hours, an investigating magistrate can be
here. In the meanwhile, I will proceed to make a preliminary inquiry."
"Shall I carry the letter?" asked the corporal of gendarmes.
"No, send one of your men; you will be useful to me here in keeping
these people in order, and in finding any witnesses I may want. We
must leave everything here as it is. I will install myself in the other
room."
A gendarme departed at a run towards the station at Rueil; and the
commissary commenced his investigations in regular form, as prescribed
by law.
"Who was Widow Lerouge? Where did she come from? What did she do? Upon
what means, and how did she live? What were her habits, her morals, and
what sort of company did she keep? Was she known to have enemies? Was
she a miser? Did she pass for being rich?"
The commissary knew the importance of ascertaining all this: but
although the witnesses were numerous enough, they possessed but
little information. The depositions of the neighbours, successively
interrogated, were empty, incoherent, and incomplete. No one knew
anything of the victim, who was a stranger in the country. Many
presented themselves as witnesses moreover, who came forward less to
afford information than to gratify their curiosity.
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