Meanwhile his cunning protected him, and even if the gaze of suspicion fell upon him he contrived his orgies with so neat a discretion that the Church, which is not wont to expose her malefactors, preserved a timid and an innocent silence.  The Abbe disappeared with a commendable constancy, and with that just sense of secrecy which should compel even an archiepiscopal admiration.  He was not of those who would drag his cloth through the mire.  Not until the darkness he loved so fervently covered the earth would he escape from the dull respectability of Entrammes, nor did he ever thus escape unaccompanied by his famous valise.  The grey suit was an effectual disguise to his calling, and so jealous was he of the Church’s honour that he never—­unless in his cups—­disclosed his tonsure.  One of his innumerable loves confessed in the witness-box that Bruneau always retained his hat in the glare of the Cafe, protesting that a headache rendered him fatally susceptible to draught; and such was his thoughtful punctilio that even in the comparative solitude of a guilty bed-chamber he covered his shorn locks with a nightcap.

And while his conduct at Laval was unimpeachable, he always proved a nice susceptibility in his return.  A cab carried him within a discreet distance of his home, whence, having exchanged the grey for the more sober black, he would tramp on foot, and thus creep in tranquil and unobserved.  But simple as it is to enjoy, enjoyment must still be purchased, and the Abbe was never guilty of a meanness.  The less guilty scheme was speedily staled, and then it was that the Abbe bethought him of murder.

His first victim was the widow Bourdais, who pursued the honest calling of a florist at Laval.  Already the curate was on those terms of intimacy which unite the robber with the robbed; for some months earlier he had imposed a forced loan of sixty francs upon his victim.  But on the 15th of July 1893, he left Entrammes, resolved upon a serious measure.  The black valise was in his hand, as he set forth upon the arid, windy road.  Before he reached Laval he had made the accustomed transformation, and it was no priest, but a layman, doucely dressed in grey, that awaited Mme. Bourdais’ return from the flower-market.  He entered the shop with the coolness of a friend, and retreated to the door of the parlour when two girls came to make a purchase.  No sooner had the widow joined him than he cut her throat, and, with the ferocity of the beast who loves blood as well as plunder, inflicted some forty wounds upon her withered frame.  His escape was simple and dignified; he called the cabman, who knew him well, and who knew, moreover, what was required of him; and the priest was snugly in bed, though perhaps exhausted with blood and pleasure, when the news of the murder followed him to his village.