climbed to the loft, and stopped at last in a little room at the end of the building.  It was full of soiled linen hung on ropes; a thick beam was fixed almost level with the ground, the whole length of the wall embellished with shelves supported by brackets.  Soyer thrust his hand into a small, worm-eaten hole in the beam, and drawing out a piece of iron, fitted it on a nail that seemed to be driven into one of the brackets.  Instantly the shelves folded up, a door opened in the wall, and they entered a room large enough to hold fifty people with ease.  A window—­impossible to discover from the outside—­opened on the roof of the chapel, and gave light and air to this apartment; it contained only a large wardrobe, in which were an earthen dish and an altar stone.

And so this old manor-house, with its venerable and homelike air, was arranged as a resort for brigands, and an arsenal and retreat for a little army of conspirators.  For Soyer also revealed the secrets of the oubliettes of the little chateau, whose unfurnished rooms could shelter a considerable garrison; they only found there three trunks full of silver, marked with so many different arms that Licquet believed it must have come from the many thefts perpetrated during the last fifteen years in the neighbourhood.  On examination it proved to be nothing of the sort, but that all these different pieces of silver bore the arms of branches of the families of Brunelle and Combray; but even though he was obliged to withdraw his first supposition, Licquet was firm in attributing to the owners of Tournebut all the misdeeds that had been committed in the region since the Directory.  These perfect hiding-places, this chateau on the banks of the river, in the woods between two roads, like the rocky nests in which the robber-chiefs of the middle ages fortified themselves, explained so well the attacks on the coaches, the bands of brigands who disappeared suddenly, and remained undiscoverable, that the detective gave free rein to his imagination.  He persuaded himself that d’Ache was there, buried in some hollow wall of which even Soyer had not the secret, and as the only hope, in this event, was to starve him out, Licquet sent all of Mme. de Combray’s servants away, and left a handful of soldiers in the chateau, the keys of which, as well as the administration of the property, he left in the hands of the mayor of Aubevoye.

His first thought on returning to Rouen was for his prisoners.  They had continued to correspond during his absence, and copies of all their letters were faithfully delivered to him; but they seemed to have told each other all they had that was interesting to tell, and the correspondence threatened to become monotonous.  The imagination of the detective found a way of reawakening the interest.  One evening, when every one was asleep in the prison, Licquet gave the gaoler orders to open several doors hastily, to push bolts, and walk about noisily in the corridors,