return.  Three days, five days, ten days passed without any news of them.  In his impatience he spent his time worrying Lefebre.  A continuous correspondence was established between him and Mme. de Combray; but in his letters, as in his examination, he showed great mistrust, and Licquet even began to fear that the prudent lawyer would not have told where the yellow horse was, if he had not been sure that the hunt for it would be fruitless.  And so the detective, who had played his last card, was in an agony during the two weeks’ absence of his men.  At last they returned, discomfited and weary, leading the foundered yellow horse, and accompanied by a sort of colossus, “somewhat resembling a grenadier,” who was no other than Lanoe’s wife.

The story told by Licquet’s emissaries was as short as it was delusive.  On arriving at Bretteville-sur-Dives they had gone to the farm of Glatigny, but had not found Lanoe, whom Caffarelli had arrested a fortnight before.  His wife had received them, and after their first enquiry had led them to the famous horse’s stable, enchanted at being relieved of the famished beast who consumed all her fodder.  The men had gone as far as Caen, and obtained the prefect’s authorisation to speak to Lanoe.  The latter remembered that Lefebre had left the horse with him at the end of July, on returning from Tournebut, but he denied all knowledge of Mme. Acquet’s retreat.  If he was to be believed, she was “a prisoner of her family,” and would never be found, as the whole country round Falaise was “sold” to the mayor, M. de Saint-Leonard, who had declared himself his cousin’s protector.

Lanoe’s wife was sent back to Glatigny, but the horse was kept at Rouen—­apparently in the hope that this dumb witness would bring some revelation.  Licquet even cut off some of its hairs and sent them, carefully wrapped up, to Mme. de Combray, implying that they came from the faithful Delaitre, to whom the Marquise had confided the task of disposing of the compromising animal.  The same evening the Marquise, completely reassured, wrote the following note to the lawyer: 

“You see that my commissioner was speedy.  I have had certain proof.  He went to Lanoe’s wife, found the horse, got on it, went five or six leagues, killed it, and brought away the skin.  He brought me some of its coat, and I send you half, so that you may see the truth for yourself, and so have no fear.  I am going to write to Soyer to say that he sold the horse at Guibray for 350 livres.”

In her joy at being delivered from her nightmare, she wrote the same day to Colas, her groom, who was also in the Conciergerie:  “Do not worry:  do you need money?  I will send you twelve francs.  The cursed horse!  They have sent me some of its skin, which I send for recognition.  Burn this.”  And to her chambermaid, Catherine Querey:  “The horse is killed.  My agent skinned and burnt it.  If you are asked about the missing horse, say that it was sold.  My miserable daughter gives me a great deal of pain.”