mantelpiece. Fenayrou was getting the worst of the encounter. She ran
to his help, and dragged off his opponent. Fenayrou was free. He struck
again with the hammer. Aubert fell, and for some ten minutes Fenayrou
stood over the battered and bleeding man abusing and insulting
him, exulting in his vengeance. Then he stabbed him twice with the
sword-stick, and so ended the business.

The murderers had to wait till past eleven to get rid of the body, as
the streets were full of holiday-makers. When all was quiet they put it
into the goat chaise, wrapped round with the gas-piping, and wheeled it
on to the Chatou bridge. To prevent noise they let the body down by a
rope into the water. It was heavier than they thought, and fell with a
loud splash into the river. "Hullo!" exclaimed a night-fisherman, who
was mending his tackle not far from the bridge, "there go those butchers
again, chucking their filth into the Seine!"

As soon as they had taken the chaise back to the villa, the three
assassins hurried to the station to catch the last train. Arriving there
a little before their time, they went into a neighbouring cafe. Fenayrou
had three bocks, Lucien one, and Madame another glass of chartreuse.
So home to Paris. Lucien reached his house about two in the morning.
"Well," asked his wife, "did you have a good day?" "Splendid," was the
reply.

Eleven days passed. Fenayrou paid a visit to the villa to clean it
and put it in order. Otherwise he went about his business as usual,
attending race meetings, indulging in a picnic and a visit to the Salon.
On May 27 a man named Bailly, who, by a strange coincidence, was
known by the nickname of "the Chemist," walking by the river, had his
attention called by a bargeman to a corpse that was floating on the
water. He fished it out. It was that of Aubert. In spite of a gag tired
over his mouth the water had got into the body, and, notwithstanding the
weight of the lead piping, it had risen to the surface.

As soon as the police had been informed of the disappearance of Aubert,
their suspicions had fallen on the Fenayrous in consequence of the
request which Marin Fenayrou had made to the commissary of police to
aid him in the recovery from Aubert of his wife's letters. But there
had been nothing further in their conduct to provoke suspicion. When,
however, the body was discovered and at the same time an anonymous
letter received denouncing the Fenayrous as the murderers of Aubert, the
p