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up the chimney, you will admit that there was something excessively
outré--something altogether irreconcilable with our common notions of
human action, even when we suppose the actors the most depraved of men.
Think, too, how great must have been that strength which could have
thrust the body up such an aperture so forcibly that the united vigor
of several persons was found barely sufficient to drag it down!
"Turn, now, to other indications of the employment of a vigor most
marvellous. On the hearth were thick tresses--very thick tresses--of
grey human hair. These had been torn out by the roots. You are aware of
the great force necessary in tearing thus from the head even twenty or
thirty hairs together. You saw the locks in question as well as myself.
Their roots (a hideous sight!) were clotted with fragments of the flesh
of the scalp--sure token of the prodigious power which had been exerted
in uprooting perhaps half a million of hairs at a time. The throat of
the old lady was not merely cut, but the head absolutely severed from
the body: the instrument was a mere razor. I wish you also to look at
the brutal ferocity of these deeds. Of the bruises upon the body
of Madame L'Espanaye I do not speak. Monsieur Dumas, and his worthy
coadjutor Monsieur Etienne, have pronounced that they were inflicted by
some obtuse instrument; and so far these gentlemen are very correct. The
obtuse instrument was clearly the stone pavement in the yard, upon which
the victim had fallen from the window which looked in upon the bed. This
idea, however simple it may now seem, escaped the police for the same
reason that the breadth of the shutters escaped them--because, by the
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