“It is impossible that it can be anything but a planned attack on the part of the peasants,” said the sergeant; “but there are two districts, Conches and Blangy, in each of which there are five or six persons capable of being concerned in the murder.  The one that I suspect most, Tonsard, passed the night carousing in the Grand-I-Vert; but your assistant, general, the miller Langlume, was there, and he says that Tonsard did not leave the tavern.  They were all so drunk they could not stand; they took the bride home at half-past one; and the return of the horse proves that Michaud was murdered between eleven o’clock and midnight.  At a quarter past ten Groison saw the whole company assembled at table, and Monsieur Michaud passed there on his way to Soulanges, which he reached at eleven.  His horse reared between the two pavilions on the mail-road; but he may have been shot before reaching Blangy and yet have stayed in the saddle for some little time.  We should have to issue warrants for at least twenty persons and arrest them; but I know these peasants, and so do these gentlemen; you might keep them a year in prison and you would get nothing out of them but denials.  What could you do with all those who were at Tonsard’s?”

They sent for Langlume, the miller, and the assistant of General Montcornet as mayor; he related what had taken place in the tavern, and gave the names of all present; none had gone out except for a minute or two into the courtyard.  He had left the room for a moment with Tonsard about eleven o’clock; they had spoken of the moon and the weather, and heard nothing.  At two o’clock the whole party had taken the bride and bridegroom to their own house.

The general arranged with the sergeant, the lieutenant, and the civil authorities to send to Paris for the cleverest detective in the service of the police, who should come to the chateau as a workman, and behave so ill as to be dismissed; he should then take to drinking and frequent the Grand-I-Vert and remain in the neighborhood in the character of an ill-wisher to the general.  The best plan they could follow was to watch and wait for a momentary revelation, and then make the most of it.

“If I have to spend twenty thousand francs I’ll discover the murderer of my poor Michaud,” the general was never weary of saying.

He went off with that idea in his head, and returned from Paris in the month of January with one of the shrewdest satellites of the chief of the detective police, who was brought down ostensibly to do some work to the interior of the chateau.  The man was discovered poaching.  He was arrested, and turned off, and soon after—­early in February—­the general rejoined his wife in Paris.

CHAPTER X

THE TRIUMPH OF THE VANQUISHED