d old Trainard.

"The money ... on the nail...."

"What money?"

"The bank-notes."

"The bank-notes?"

"Oh, I'm getting sick of you! Here, lads...."

They laid the old fellow flat, tore off the rags that composed his
clothes, felt and searched him all over.

There was nothing on him.

"You thief and you robber!" yelled old Goussot. "What have you done with
it?"

The old beggar seemed more dazed than ever. Too cunning to confess, he
kept on whining:

"What do you want of me?... Money? I haven't three sous to call my
own...."

But his eyes, wide with wonder, remained fixed upon his clothes; and he
himself seemed not to understand.

The Goussots' rage could no longer be restrained. They rained blows upon
him, which did not improve matters. But the farmer was convinced that
Trainard had hidden the money before turning himself into the scarecrow:

"Where have you put it, you scum? Out with it! In what part of the
orchard have you hidden it?"

"The money?" repeated the tramp with a stupid look.

"Yes, the money! The money which you've buried somewhere.... Oh, if we
don't find it, your goose is cooked!... We have witnesses, haven't
we?... All of you, friends, eh? And then the gentleman...."

He turned, with the intention of addressing the stranger, in the
direction of the spring, which was thirty or forty steps to the left.
And he was quite surprised not to see him washing his hands there:

"Has he gone?" he asked.

Some one answered:

"No, he lit a cigarette and went for a stroll in the orchard."

"Oh, that's all right!" said the farmer. "He's the sort to find the
notes for us, just as he found the man."

"Unless ..." said a voice.

"Unless what?" echoed the farmer. "What do you mean? Have you something
in your head? Out with it, then! What is it?"

But he interrupted himself suddenly, seized with a doubt; and there was
a moment's silence. The same idea dawned on all the country-folk. The
stranger's arrival at Heberville, the breakdown of his motor, his
manner of questioning the people at the inn and of gaining admission to
the farm: were not all these part and parcel of a put-up job, the trick
of a cracksman who had learnt the story from the papers and who had come
to try his luck on the spot?...

"Jolly smart of him!" said the inn-keeper. "He must have taken the money
from old Trainard's pocket, before our eyes, while he was searching
him."

"Impossible!" spluttered Farmer Goussot. "He wou