Madame Derues, who hitherto had remained unnoticed.  An inquiry as to where the packet had been posted soon revealed the office, distinguished by a letter of the alphabet, and the postmaster described a servant-maid who had brought the letter and paid for it.  The description resembled the Derues’ servant; and this girl, much alarmed, acknowledged, after a great deal of hesitation, that she had posted the letter in obedience to her mistress’s orders.  Whereupon Madame Derues was sent as a prisoner to Fort l’Eveque, and her husband transferred to the Grand-Chatelet.  On being interrogated, she at length owned that she had sent these notes to Monsieur de Lamotte’s lawyer, and that her husband had given them her in an envelope hidden in the soiled linen for which she had brought him clean in exchange.

All this certainly amounted to serious presumptive evidence of guilt, and if Derues had shown himself to the multitude, which followed every phase of the investigation with increasing anxiety, a thousand arms would have willingly usurped the office of the executioner; but the distance thence to actual proof of murder was enormous for the magistracy.  Derues maintained his tranquillity, always asserting that Madame de Lamotte and her son were alive, and would clear him by their reappearance.  Neither threats nor stratagems succeeded in making him contradict himself, and his assurance shook the strongest conviction.  A new difficulty was added to so much uncertainty.

A messenger had been sent off secretly with all haste to Lyons; his return was awaited for a test which it was thought would be decisive.

One morning Derues was fetched from his prison and taken to a lower hall of the Conciergerie.  He received no answers to the questions addressed to his escort, and this silence showed him the necessity of being on his guard and preserving his imperturbable demeanour whatever might happen.  On arriving, he found the commissioner of police, Mutel, and some other persons.  The hall being very dark, had been illuminated with several torches, and Derues was so placed that the light fell strongly on his face, and was then ordered to look towards a particular part of the hall.  As he did so, a door opened, and a man entered.  Derues beheld him with indifference, and seeing that the stranger was observing him attentively, he bowed to him as one might bow to an unknown person whose curiosity seems rather unusual.

It was impossible to detect the slightest trace of emotion, a hand placed on his heart would not have felt an increased pulsation, yet this stranger’s recognition would be fatal!

Mutel approached the new-comer and whispered—­

“Do you recognise him?”

“No, I do not.”

“Have the kindness to leave the room for a moment; we will ask you to return immediately.”

This individual was the lawyer in whose office at Lyons the deed had been drawn up which Derues had signed, disguised as a woman, and under the name of Marie-Francoise Perier, wife of the Sieur de Lamotte.