The Duke of Saint-Maclou touched my arm, and I leaned forward to look in his face.  He nodded, and, brushing aside the trees, we sprang out upon the astonished fellows.  Fora moment they did not move, struck motionless with surprise, while we stood over them, pistols in hand.  We had caught them fair and square.  Expecting no interruption, they had guarded against none.  Their weapons were in their pockets, their hands busy with their job.  They sprang up the next moment; but the duke’s muzzle covered Lafleur, and mine was leveled full at Pierre.  A second later Lafleur fell on his knees with a cry for mercy; the little man stood quite still, his arms by his side and the iron box hard by his feet.  Lafleur’s protestations and lamentations began to flow fast.  Pierre shrugged his shoulders.  The duke advanced, and I kept pace with him.

“Keep your eye on that fellow, Mr. Aycon,” said the duke; and then he put his left hand in his pocket, took out a key and flung it in Lafleur’s face.  It struck him sharply between the eyes, and he whined again.

“Open the box,” said the duke.  “Open it—­do you hear?  This instant!”

With shaking hands the fellow dragged the box from where it lay by Pierre’s feet, and dropping on his knees began to fumble with the lock.  At last he contrived to unlock it, and raised the lid.  The duke sprang forward and, catching him by the nape of the neck, crammed his head down into the box, bidding him, “Look—­look—­look!” And while he said it he laughed, and took advantage of Lafleur’s posture to give him four or five hearty kicks.

“It’s empty!” cried Lafleur, surprise rescuing him for an instant from the other emotions to which his position gave occasion.  And, as he spoke, for the first time Pierre started, turning an eager gaze toward the box.

“Yes, it’s empty,” said the duke.  “The necklace isn’t there, is it?  Now, tell me all about it, or I’ll put a bullet through your head!”

Then the story came:  disentangled from the excuses and prayers, it was simply that Pierre was no footman but a noted thief—­that he had long meditated an attack on the Cardinal’s Necklace; had made Lafleur’s acquaintance in Paris, corrupted his facile virtue, and, with the aid of forged testimonials, presented himself in the character in which I had first made his acquaintance.  The rascals had counted on the duke’s preoccupation with Marie Delhasse for their opportunity.  The duke smiled to hear it.  Pierre listened to the whole story without a word of protest or denial; his accomplice’s cowardly attempt to present him as the only culprit gained no more notice than another shrug and a softly muttered oath.  “Destiny,” the little man seemed to say in the eloquent movement of his shoulders; while the growing light showed his beady eyes fixed, full and unfaltering, on me.

Lafleur’s prayers died away.  The duke, still smiling, set his pistol against the wretch’s head.