Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-06-13

Stilu mdTClitl 1HlfHuu, Ol
 N tho gendarmerie of Pierre Buff1ere,
 / > as seated astride q chair beneath the / flag that floated from the staff above
 him, he commenced the history for which WIG had asked. A very good woman, md ono whom you would never suppose had bccn a mountebank at tho fairs It is true, nevertheless; but stay, I'm getting ahead of the story.
 "Tharaud," said the Adjutant to me one morning, calling mo to him, '"Tharaud, we have a famous prize before us. Intelligence has just been brought mo that Coussac, the muster mason, has been assassinated in his hoase in tho Faubourg Montmailler.
 One day as was mounting my horse before tho door of the gendarmerie, a young girl sud- lenly appeared before me-a beautiful girl, with eyes like ripe mulberries and lips as I'd asa rose.
 And you have no news yet. monsieur" she @id to mo brusquely, and with so much ener- :y and imperiousness, that instinctively was :shamcd of myself though ignorant of her n'ssning "News of the assassin, she added :; I am tho daughter of Coussac, the mason."
 Ii was not our fault, tried to explain to '"r-we had so little to go upon-nO evidence, 'o traces of the assassin, and so on; but she '''k"l at me so squarely, so imploringly in ny face, that at last, thoroughly aroused, I declared to her that before long would have ,im if had to risk Q limb or my head to do [. Perhaps 1t was not so much professional ;cal that made me speak thus, as those black yes blazing at me and scorching me to the very core.
 "But, mademoiselle," said I, "we must have some token of him to succeed in a hurry"
 "A token," she repeated, "a tokeni What moro do you want than the hand?"
 "The hand What hand2" .,+ga..-
 Then Catherine Coussac, or Catissou, as hey called her in the family, related to me he history of the crime, history, I admit, hat gave me goose-fesh along the spine.
 It was an evening in September, and warm .s q summer day, that Leonard Coussac was murdered in his house, undoubtedly for the money, IF, 900 francs of 1t, left with him by his employer, Mons. Sabourdy, the contractor, to settle some heavy bills due on Monday, we will say, and this was Saturday. The work men paid off, the master mason entered to his supper with the appetite of 8 horse which knows that he has well earned his oats. After :ho repast was over, and Grandmother Cous- sac, the only other member of the family, Catherine's mother having died tho year pre- ,eding, had retired to rest, Father Leonard md his daughter remained alone in the room below stairs, he sitting beside the armoire that contained the money, reading the alman- ac, and she knitting the winter stockings. I must tell you that this house of Coussac looked upon a garden in the rear, and the room in which they were seated upon the same, through window at the back, closed IS general thing by heavy shutter. This evening, however, on account of the heat, it had been left purposely open. While he read thus by tho light of his shaded lamp, Catissou IS she has often told me, knitted mechanic ally, and also drowsy from the heat of the weather, heard nothing from time to time but the rustling of the turning leaves and the reg thar tic-tac of the clock on the wall.
 All at once, raising her eyes to sec If it was time to go to bed, she saw-at first she SUD- posed it n nightmare, a dream-she saw, I say, between the folding of the shutters, d hand enter, a great big, ashtonishing hand, thick, hairy, and with something horrible about it which she recognized at onco-a hand with the four fingers and the thumb also all of the same length, and as square and even at the ends as if cut by rule-spatula fingers, as Dr. Bouteiloux calls them.
 It entered, as I tell you, and glfded the length of the shutters, this frightful hand, like great spider hanging by its claws, and evidently seeking to push the shutters apart without making a noise. And now it re- mained motionless, as if the man to whom 1t belonged felt that Catissous eyes were fixed upon it.
 For an instant it seemed to her that she was crazy; that the light of the lamp, falling suddenly upon her staring eye-balls, made her sec strange and startling things-red and blue spots and scintillations, as you do when you look so long at the glaring sun. Badly frightened, she rubbed them hastily; the hand was still there, gliding over the woodwork with its sprawling, spatula-shaped digits. Catherine could doubt no longer; she strove to speak, to cry out q scream of terror, of warning, but her voice died in her throat; she was sufrocated, choked, as if already her neck was clutched by those groping fingers.
 She could move, however, and with bound sprang to her feet and darted to her fathers side, caught him by the shoulder, and pointed to the window. To late! As Coussac turned the window opened, q current of air swept the chamber, quicker than I can tell you the lamp was out, and Catissou and her father speeches. with terror before an unseen dan- ger, At the sound of some one leaping to the floor Coussac recovered from his stupor, sought as well as he was able in tho darkness for a weapon with which to defend himself and Catissou, and, above all the money in- trusted to his care by his patron, Mons, Sa- bourdy. A knife was in tho drawer at his elbow. If he could only reach that. But no, he could not for as he turned In his chair fingers closed upon his throat, and something cold and stinging entered his side. there, just above the heart.
 Catissou shrieked aloud, seeing nothing, nevertheless divining all. Pafl paf! blow of fist, heavy as hammer, falls upon her head and lays her out cold and stiff also. That she, too. was not killed outright as Coussac had been, was owing to the fact that tho blade of the knife had broken in the wound. The murderers fist, however, was weapon enough Lifeless as log, for how long the poor girl had no idea, she lay upon the floor as she had fallen.
 When she came to herself she was lying in the darkened room, which smelled of lamp smoke, oil and blood, and old Mother Copssac in her night-gown, and whiter than the linen itself, leaned above the body of her son, strug gling to revive him. It is useless to tell you that the armoire in which Coussac kept the money had been opened and rifled of its con- tents. Franc pieces, bills, notes, silver, gold, all were gone. A clean sweep of the whole business had been made by the assassin.
 Ah what night it wnsi They aroused the neighbors and searched in all directions. Be-