第55章 ARSENIC A LA BRETONNE(12)

DR PINAULT.As we were carrying out the operation Helene came in, and it was plain that she was put out of countenance.

M.BIDARD.We were in my daughter's room, where nobody ever came.When Helene came to the door I was surprised.There was no explanation for her appearance except that she was inquisitive.

DR PINAULT.She seemed to be disturbed at not finding the emissions by the bed of the dead girl, and it was no doubt to find them that she came to the room.

HELENE.I had been given a funnel to wash.I was bringing it back.

M.BIDARD.Helene, with her usual cleverness, is making the most of a fact.She had already appeared when she was given the funnel.Her presence disturbed me.And to get rid of her I said, Here, Helene, take this away and wash it.''

The accused persisted in denying M.Bidard's version of the incident.

M.Malagutti, professor of chemistry to the faculty of sciences in Rennes, who, with M.Sarzeau, had been asked to make a chemical analysis of the reserved portions of the bodies of Rosalie, Perrotte Mace, and Rose Tessier, gave the results of his and his colleague s investigations.In the case of Rosalie they had also examined the vomitings.The final test on the portions of Rosalie's body carried out with hydrochloronitric acid--as best for the small quantities likely to result in poisoning by small doses--gave a residue which was submitted to the Marsh test.The tube showed a definite arsenic ring.Tests on the vomit gave the same result.

The poisoning of Perrotte Mace had also been accomplished by small doses.Arsenic was found after the strictest tests, which obviated allpossibility that the substance could have come from the ground in which the body was interred.

In the case of Rose Tessier the tests yielded a huge amount of arsenic.Rose had died after an illness of only four days.The large amount of arsenic indicated a brutal and violent poisoning, in which the substance could not be excreted in the usual way.

The President then addressed the accused on this evidence.She alone had watched near all three of the victims, and against all three she had motives of hate.Poisoning was established beyond all doubt.Who was the poisoner if not she, Helene Jegado?

Helene: Frankly, I have nothing to reproach myself with.I gave them only what came from the pharmacies on the orders of the doctors.''

After evidence of Helene's physical condition, by a doctor who had seen her in prison (she had a scirrhous tumour on her left breast), the speech for the defence was made.

M.Dorange was very eloquent, but he had a hopeless case.The defence he put up was that Helene was irresponsible, but the major part of the advocate's speech was taken up with a denouncement of capital punishment.It was a barbarous anachronism, a survival which disgraced civilization.

The President summed up and addressed the jury:

Cast a final scrutiny, gentlemen of the jury,'' he said, at the matter brought out by these debates.Consult yourselves in the calm and stillness of your souls.If it is not proved to you that Helene Jegado is responsible for her actions you will acquit her.If you think that, without being devoid of free will and moral sense, she is not, according to the evidence, as well gifted as the average in humanity, you will give her the benefit of extenuating circumstance.

But if you consider her culpable, if you cannot see in her either debility of spirit or an absence or feebleness of moral sense, you will do your duty with firmness.You will remember that for justice to be done chastisement will not alone suffice, but that punishment must be in proportion to the offence.''

The President then read over his questions for the jury, and that bodyretired.After deliberations which occupied an hour and a half the jury came back with a verdict of guilty on all points.The Procureur asked for the penalty of death.

THE PRESIDENT.Helene Jegado, have you anything to say upon the application of the penalty?

HELENE.No, Monsieur le President, I am innocent.I am resigned to everything.I would rather die innocent than live in guilt.You have judged me, but God will judge you all.He will see then...Monsieur Bidard.All those false witnesses who have come here to destroy me...they will see....

In a voice charged with emotion the President pronounced the sentence condemning Helene Jegado to death.

An appeal was put forward on her behalf, but was rejected.

On the scaffold, a few moments before she passed into eternity, having no witness but the recorder and the executioner, faithful to the habits of her life, Helene Jegado accused a woman not named in any of the processes of having urged her to her first crimes and of being her accomplice.The two officials took no notice of this indirect confession of her own guilt, and the sentence was carried out.The Procureur of Rennes, hearing of this confession, took the trouble to search out the woman named in it.She turned out to be a very old woman of such a pious and kindly nature that the people about her talked of her as thesaint.''