Round the Fire Stories

For answer Dacre took down an old vellum-covered volume from the shelf.

“Just listen to this,” said he; “it is in the French of the seventeenthcentury, but I will give a rough translation as I go. You will judge foryourself whether I have solved the riddle or not.

“The prisoner was brought before the Grand Chambers and Tournelles of Parliament, sitting as a court of justice, charged with the murder of Master Dreux d’Aubray, her father, and of her two brothers, MM. d’Aubray, one being civil lieutenant, and the other a counsellor of Parliament. In person it seemed hard to believe that she had really done such wicked deeds, for she was of a mild appearance, and of short stature, with a fair skin and blue eyes. Yet the Court, having found her guilty, condemned her to the ordinary and to the extraordinary question in order that she might be forced to name her accomplices, after which she should be carried in a cart to the Place de Grève, there to have her head cut off, her body being afterwards burned and her ashes scattered to the winds.”

The date of this entry is July 16, 1676.”

“It is interesting,” said I, “but not convincing. How do you prove thetwo women to be the same?”

“I am coming to that. The narrative goes on to tell of the woman’sbehaviour when questioned. ‘When the executioner approached her sherecognized him by the cords which he held in his hands, and she at onceheld out her own hands to him, looking at him from head to foot withoututtering a word.’ How’s that?”

“Yes, it was so.”

“‘She gazed without wincing upon the wooden horse and rings which hadtwisted so many limbs and caused so many shrieks of agony. When her eyesfell upon the three pails of water, which were all ready for her, shesaid with a smile, “All that water must have been brought here for thepurpose of drowning me, Monsieur. You have no idea, I trust, of making aperson of my small stature swallow it all.”’ Shall I read the details ofthe torture?”

“No, for Heaven’s sake, don’t.”

“Here is a sentence which must surely show you that what is hererecorded is the very scene which you have gazed upon to-night: ‘The goodAbbé Pirot, unable to contemplate the agonies which were suffered by hispenitent, had hurried from the room.’ Does that convince you?”

“It does entirely. There can be no question that it is indeed the sameevent. But who, then, is this lady whose appearance was so attractiveand whose end was so horrible?”

For answer Dacre came across to me, and placed the small lamp upon thetable which stood by my bed. Lifting up the ill-omened filler, he turnedthe brass rim so that the light fell full upon it. Seen in this way theengraving seemed clearer than on the night before.

“We have already agreed that this is the badge of a marquis or of amarquise,” said he. “We have also settled that the last letter is B.”

“It is undoubtedly so.”

“I now suggest to you that the other letters from left to right are, M,M, a small d, A, a small d, and then the final B.”

“Yes, I am sure that you are right. I can make out the two small d’squite plainly.”

“What I have read to you to-night,” said Dacre, “is the official recordof the trial of Marie Madeleine d’Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers, oneof the most famous poisoners and murderers of all time.”

I sat in silence, overwhelmed at the extraordinary nature of theincident, and at the completeness of the proof with which Dacre hadexposed its real meaning. In a vague way I remembered some details ofthe woman’s career, her unbridled debauchery, the coldblooded andprotracted torture of her sick father, the murder of her brothers formotives of petty gain. I recollected also that the bravery of her endhad done something to atone for the horror of her life, and that allParis had sympathized with her last moments, and blessed her as a martyrwithin a few days of the time when they had cursed her as a murderess.One objection, and one only, occurred to my mind.

“How came her initials and her badge of rank upon the filler? Surelythey did not carry their medieval homage to the nobility to the point ofdecorating instruments of torture with their titles?”

“I was puzzled with the same point,” said Dacre, “but it admits of asimple explanation. The case excited extraordinary interest at the time,and nothing could be more natural than that La Reynie, the head of thepolice, should retain this filler as a grim souvenir. It was not oftenthat a marchion

ess of France underwent the extraordinary question. Thathe should engrave her initials upon it for the information of others wassurely a very ordinary proceeding upon his part.”

“And this?” I asked, pointing to the marks upon the leathern neck.

“She was a cruel tigress,” said Dacre, as he turned away. “I think it isevident that like other tigresses her teeth were both strong and sharp.”

THE BEETLE-HUNTER

A curious experience? said the Doctor. Yes, my friends, I have had onevery curious experience. I never expect to have another, for it isagainst all doctrines of chances that two such events would befall anyone man in a single lifetime. You may believe me or not, but the thinghappened exactly as I tell it.

I had just become a medical man, but I had not started in practice, andI lived in rooms in Gower Street. The street has been renumbered sincethen, but it was in the only house which has a bow-window, upon theleft-hand side as you go down from the Metropolitan Station. A widownamed Murchison kept the house at that time, and she had three medicalstudents and one engineer as lodgers. I occupied the top room, which wasthe cheapest, but cheap as it was it was more than I could afford. Mysmall resources were dwindling away, and every week it became morenecessary that I should find something to do. Yet I was very unwillingto go into general practice, for my tastes were all in the direction ofscience, and especially of zoology, towards which I had always a strongleaning. I had almost given the fight up and resigned myself to being amedical drudge for life, when the turning-point of my struggles came ina very extraordinary way.

One morning I had picked up the _Standard_ and was glancing over itscontents. There was a complete absence of news, and I was about to tossthe paper down again, when my eyes were caught by an advertisement atthe head of the personal column. It was worded in this way:—

Wanted for one or more days the services of a medical man. It is essential that he should be a man of strong physique, of steady nerves, and of a resolute nature. Must be an entomologist—coleopterist preferred. Apply, in person, at 77B, Brook Street. Application must be made before twelve o’clock to-day.

Now, I have already said that I was devoted to zoology. Of all branchesof zoology, the study of insects was the most attractive to me, and ofall insects beetles were the species with which I was most familiar.Butterfly collectors are numerous, but beetles are far more varied, andmore accessible in these islands than are butterflies. It was this factwhich had attracted my attention to them, and I had myself made acollection which numbered some hundred varieties. As to the otherrequisites of the advertisement, I knew that my nerves could be dependedupon, and I had won the weight-throwing competition at theinter-hospital sports. Clearly, I was the very man for the vacancy.Within five minutes of my having read the advertisement I was in a caband on my way to Brook Street.

As I drove, I kept turning the matter over in my head and trying to makea guess as to what sort of employment it could be which needed suchcurious qualifications. A strong physique, a resolute nature, a medicaltraining, and a knowledge of beetles—what connection could there bebetween these various requisites? And then there was the dishearteningfact that the situation was not a permanent one, but terminable from dayto day, according to the terms of the advertisement. The more I ponderedover it the more unintelligible did it become; but at the end of mymeditations I always came back to the ground fact that, come what might,I had nothing to lose, that I was completely at the end of my resources,and that I was ready for any adventure, however desperate, which wouldput a few honest sovereigns into my pocket. The man fears to fail whohas to pay for his failure, but there was no penalty which Fortune couldexact from me. I was like the gambler with empty pockets, who is stillallowed to try his luck with the others.