“She is happier than I; she is dead, she suffers no longer; and I, who am not guilty, am accused of her death.”

M. Domini made one more effort.

“Come, Guespin; if in any way you know of this crime, I conjure you, tell me.  If you know the murderers, name them.  Try to merit some indulgence for your frankness and repentance.”

Guespin made a gesture as if resigned to persecution.  “By all that is most sacred,” he answered, “I am innocent.  Yet I see clearly that if the murderer is not found, I am lost.”

Little by little M. Domini’s conviction was formed and confirmed.  An inquest of this sort is not so difficult as may be imagined.  The difficulty is to seize at the beginning; in the entangled skein, the main thread, which must lead to the truth through all the mazes, the ruses, silence, falsehoods of the guilty.  M. Domini was certain that he held this precious thread.  Having one of the assassins, he knew well that he would secure the others.  Our prisons, where good soup is eaten, and good beds are provided, have tongues, as well as the dungeons of the medieval ages.

The judge ordered the brigadier to arrest Guespin, and told him not to lose sight of him.  He then sent for old Bertaud.  This worthy personage was not one of the people who worry themselves.  He had had so many affairs with the men of law, that one inquisition the more disturbed him little.

“This man has a bad reputation in my commune,” whispered the mayor to M. Domini.

Bertaud heard it, however, and smiled.

Questioned by the judge of instruction, he recounted very clearly and exactly what had happened in the morning, his resistance, and his son’s determination.  He explained the reason for the falsehood they told; and here again the chapter of antecedents came up.

“Look here; I’m better than my reputation, after all,” said he.  “There are many folks who can’t say as much.  You see many things when you go about at night—­enough.”

He was urged to explain his allusions, but in vain.

When he was asked where and how he had passed the night, he answered, that having left the cabaret at ten o’clock, he went to put down some traps in Mauprevoir wood; and had gone home and to bed about one o’clock.

“By the bye,” added he, “there ought to be some game in those traps by this time.”

“Can you bring a witness to prove that you went home at one?” asked the mayor, who bethought him of the count’s clock, stopped at twenty minutes past three.

“Don’t know, I’m sure,” carelessly responded the poacher, “it’s quite likely that my son didn’t wake up when I went to bed.”

He added, seeing the judge reflect: 

“I suspect that you are going to imprison me until the murderers are discovered.  If it was winter, I wouldn’t complain much; a fellow is well off in prison then, for it’s warm there.  But just at the time for hunting, it’s provoking.  It will be a good lesson for that Philippe; it’ll teach him what it costs to render a service to gentlefolks.”