beneath the breach, was untrodden, and there
were no appearances to warrant the suspicion
that the corpse had been conveyed into the
cemetery at that spot. The walls were covered
with grass and wall-plants. On the top of the
wall of the garden, close to its junction with
that of the street, were found lying several
broken stalks of groundsel; and, close by, the
grass appeared crushed and broken, as though a
hand had rested on it. The searchers had
discovered in the hair of the corpse, some cypress-
leaves, the petals of a flower, and a strip of
twisted hemp, which seemed to have been torn
from a rope. There were cypress-trees growing
near the wall and sweeping parts of its summit
with their branches. There were also some
plants of geranium growing on the walls, the
petals of whose blossoms were similar to the
petals that fell from Cécile's hair. It was even
remarked that one blossom had lost all its
petals. Moreover, on the one spot on the
wall whence the corpse could have been
thrown, there were signs of some heavy body
having passed. A tuft of grass was torn
from its place, and hung by a single fibre
of the root. And a cypress-bough had been
snapped.

The strongest argument against the supposition
that the body had been thrown from the
wall of the Rue Riquet, was the fact that on
the roof of the orangery of the "frères"—a
building close to the corner of the two walls,
and the front of which ran flush with the
inner side of the garden, wall—was placed a
reflecting light. It was improbable that the
murderer should, of all other places, have
chosen that portion of the Rue Riquet which
was lighted by a lamp, for the disposal of his
burden. If the corpse were not thrown from
the Rue Riquet, said the police, it must have
come from the garden of the " frères." It did
not come from the Rue Riquet; and there were
marks of something having passed over the
garden wall. Therefore it did come from the garden
of the " frères." The bare logic is not
unassailable. But other reasons may be urged why
the conclusion of the police showed a want of
sagacity. They were very ready to limit the
"venue" of the murder to the precincts of the
"frères." They scarcely made a pretence of
examining a neighbourhood where they should
have examined every square inch. But the
strangest thing of all, is, their neglect to account
for the position in which the body was found.
Their hypothesis is directly contradicted by the
facts of the case. They suppose the corpse was
thrown from a wall. It is found in an attitude
in which it is all but impossible to suppose
it could by any possibility have fallen. The
clothes are disposed round it, as though it had
been deposited with some care. It showed
anything but the disorder of a fall from a
considerable height. Much rain had fallen in the
night. The corpse was entirely dry. The
weather had been wet for the last fortnight.
The soil must have been soft and easily
impressible. There was little or no mark in the
ground where the body lay. And yet it was said
to have been thrown from the wall.

The police should not have been satisfied with
a merely cursory examination of the other parts
of the cemetery wall. There was one means by
which it might have been deposited in the cemetery
by a person in the garden, which does not
seem to have occurred to the police, although it
might be deemed sufficiently obvious. Supposing
the murderer to have lowered the body from the
wall, by a rope passed round the waist, it might
have descended to the ground in just such an
attitude as that in which it was found. It
would have descended with no violent shock,
and would have made no mark of depth in the
soil. The murderer might have drawn up the
rope after it had done its work. It showed no
marks, they said, but they said so almost before
they could have looked. It is probable that the
fact of slight marks having been found on the
garden wall, aided their belief that there were no
other and stronger marks. But it was possible
that the corpse might have been conveyed to its
place by some other way than over the wall.
The cemetery was used as a short cut during the
day, and so slight was the security ensured by
the lock on the gate, that it was commonly
"picked," by any one who might wish to pass
through, with any instrument that happened to
be at hand. The gate was opened daily in this
manner, and the fact was notorious in Toulouse.
Why, then, coIuld the corpse have come from
no other place than from the garden of the
"frères"?

Having settled how the corpse came into the
Cimetière St. Aubin, the next point for the
authorities to decide was, where was the crime
committed? They found, or fancied they found,
tracks by which they traced the murderer into
the garden. At the base of the wall, on the
garden side, were footprints, and marks as of the
ends of the uprights of a ladder. The latter
were very faint; so faint, that there was a
doubt whether they had been caused by a
ladder. The prosecution admitted them as
weighty facts against the "frères," though the
footprints might have been made by any one of
the constant loungers in the garden; and though
their theory was, that the criminal had mounted
the ladder laden with a heavy load. There being
no doubt that the guilty man would be found
among the "frerès," the difficulty was to fix on
any one of them as more likely to be guilty
than the rest.

Now, suspicion had fallen on the bookbinder
Conte. He had insisted on Cécile's accompanying
him to the monastery on the morning
of the day of her disappearance, although
the books he had to deliver might have been
conveyed with perfect ease in one basket. He showed
signs, it is true, of astonishment and perturbation
at the disappearance of his apprentice.
But within a few hours after her disappearance,
he set off on the Diligence to Auch, urging, as
the reason of his sudden departure, his obligation
to discharge a loan, the time for the payment
of which would not arrive for nearly a