small dowry, he was without
resources. A deserter from the army during the Mexican war in 1869, he
had since then engaged in various commercial enterprises, all of
which had failed, chiefly through his own extravagance, violence and
dishonesty. Gabrielle was quick to empty his pockets of what little
remained in them. The proceeds of her own immorality, which Eyraud
was quite ready to share, soon proved insufficient to replenish them.
Confronted with ruin, Eyraud and Gompard hit on a plan by which the
woman should decoy some would-be admirer to a convenient trysting-place.
There, dead or alive, the victim was to be made the means of supplying
their wants.

On further reflection dead seemed more expedient than alive, extortion
from a living victim too risky an enterprise. Their plans were carefully
prepared. Gabrielle was to hire a ground-floor apartment, so that any
noise, such as footsteps or the fall of a body, would not be heard by
persons living underneath.

At the beginning of July, 1889, Eyraud and Bompard were in London. There
they bought at a West End draper's a red and white silk girdle, and at
a shop in Gower Street a large travelling trunk. They bought, also in
London, about thirteen feet of cording, a pulley and, on returning to
Paris on July 20, some twenty feet of packing-cloth, which Gabrielle,
sitting at her window on the fine summer evenings, sewed up into a large
bag.

The necessary ground-floor apartment had been found at No. 3 Rue
Tronson-Ducoudray. Here Gabrielle installed herself on July 24. The
bedroom was convenient for the assassins' purpose, the bed standing in
an alcove separated by curtains from the rest of the room. To the beam
forming the crosspiece at the entrance into the alcove Eyraud fixed a
pulley. Through the pulley ran a rope, having at one end of it a swivel,
so that a man, hiding behind the curtains could, by pulling the rope
strongly, haul up anything that might be attached to the swivel at the
other end. It was with the help of this simple piece of mechanism and a
good long pull from Eyraud that the impecunious couple hoped to refill
their pockets.

The victim was chosen on the 25th. Eyraud had already known of Gouffe's
existence, but on that day, Thursday, in a conversation with a common
friend, Eyraud learnt that the bailiff Gouffe was rich, that he was in
the habit of having considerable sums of money in his care, and that on
Friday nights Gouffe made it his habit to sleep