nt was still at Montrouge; Mme. Derues was again sent out shopping;
again Derues was alone with his patient. But she was a patient no
longer; she had become a corpse. The highly successful medicine
administered to the poor lady by her jolly and assiduous nurse had
indeed worked wonders.

Derues had bought a large leather trunk. It is possible that to Derues
belongs the distinction of being the first murderer to put that harmless
and necessary article of travel to a criminal use. He was engaged in
his preparations for coffining Mme. de Lamotte, when a female creditor
knocked insistently at the door. She would take no denial. Clad in his
bonnet and gown, Derues was compelled to admit her. She saw the
large trunk, and suspected a bolt on the part of her creditor. Derues
reassured her; a lady, he said, who had been stopping with them was
returning to the country. The creditor departed. Later in the day Derues
came out of the house and summoned some porters. With their help the
heavy trunk was taken to the house of a sculptor, a friend of Derues,
who agreed to keep it in his studio until Derues could take it down to
his place in the country. Bertin came in to dinner again that evening,
and also the young de Lamotte. Derues was gayer than ever, laughing
and joking with his guests. He told the boy that his mother had quite
recovered and gone to Versailles to see about finding him some post at
the Court. "We'll go and see her there in a day or two," he said, "I'll
let you know when."

On the following day a smartly dressed, dapper, but very pale little
gentleman, giving the name of Ducoudray, hired a vacant cellar in a
house in the Rue de la Mortellerie. He had, he said, some Spanish wine
he wanted to store there, and three or four days later M. Ducoudray
deposited in this cellar a large grey trunk. A few days after he
employed a man to dig a large hole in the floor of the cellar, giving as
his reason for such a proceeding that "there was no way of keeping wine
like burying it." While the man worked at the job, his genial employer
beguiled his labours with merry quips and tales, which he illustrated
with delightful mimicry. The hole dug, the man was sent about his
business. "I will bury the wine myself," said his employer, and on one
or two occasions M. Ducoudray was seen by persons living in the house
going in and out of his cellar, a lighted candle in his hand. One day
the pale little gentleman was observed leaving the cella