nt away the servants, posted a gendarme at each door, and
conducted by Soyer, entered the apartments.

First he went to the brick wing built by de Marillac, where was a vast
chamber occupied by Bonnoeil and leading to the great hall,
astoundingly high and solemn in spite of its dilapidation, with a brick
floor, a ceiling with great beams, and immense windows looking over the
terrace towards the Seine. By a double door with monumental ironwork,
set in a wall as thick as a bastille, Mme. de Combray's apartments were
reached, the first room wainscoted, then a boudoir, next a small room
hidden by a staircase, and communicating with a lot of other small, low
rooms. A long passage, lighted by three windows opening on the terrace,
led, leaving the Marquise's bedchamber on the right, to the most ancient
part of the chateau the front of which had been recently restored.
Having crossed the landing of the steps leading to the garden, one
reached the salon; then the dining-room, where there was a stone
staircase leading to the first floor. On this were a long passage and
three chambers looking out on the valley of the Seine, and a lot of
small rooms that were not used. All the rest was lofts, where the
framework of the roofs crossed. When a door was opened, frightened bats
flapped their wings with a great noise in the darkness of this forest
of enormous, worm-eaten beams. In fact, everything looked very simple;
there was no sign whatever of a hiding-place. The furniture was opened,
the walls sounded, and the panels examined without finding any hollow
place. It was now Soyer's turn to appear. Whether he feared for himself,
or whether Licquet had made him understand that denial was useless, Mme.
de Combray's confidential man consented to guide the detectives. He took
a bunch of keys and followed by Licquet and Legendre, went up to a
little room under the roof of a narrow building next to Marillac's wing.
This room had only one window, on the north, with a bit of green stuff
for a curtain; its only furniture was a miserable wooden bed drawn into
the middle of the room. Licquet and the commissary examined the
partitions and had them sounded. Soyer allowed them to rummage in all
the corners, then, when they had given up all idea of finding anything
themselves, he went up to the bed, put his hand under the mattress and
removed a nail. They immediately heard the fall of a weight behind the
wall, which opened, disclosing a chamber large eno