wer. Hoping that chance would favour him, he adopted an
expedient to gain time. He let Mme. de Combray hear that Lefebre had
fainted during an examination, and was not in a condition to write. But
she did not slacken her correspondence, and wrote several letters daily
to the lawyer, which greatly increased Licquet's perplexity:

"Tell me what has become of my yellow horse. The police are still at
Tournebut; now if they hear about the horse--you can guess the rest. Be
smart enough to say that you sold it at the fair at Rouen. Little
Licquet is sharp and clever, but he often lies. My only worry is the
horse; they will soon have the clue. My hand trembles; can you read
this? If I hear anything about the horse I will let you know at once,
but just now I know nothing. Don't worry about the saddle and bridle.
They were sent to Deslorieres, who told me he had received them."

This yellow horse assumed gigantic proportions in Licquet's imagination;
it haunted him day and night, and galloped through all his nightmares. A
fresh search at Tournebut proved that the stables contained only a small
donkey and four horses, instead of the usual five, and the peasants said
that the missing beast was "reddish, inclining to yellow." As the
detective sent Real all of Mme. de Combray's letters in his daily
budget, they were just as much agitated in Paris over this mysterious
animal, whose discovery was, as the Marquise said, the clue to the whole
affair. Whom had this horse drawn or carried? One of the Bourbon
princes, perhaps? D'Ache? Mme. Acquet, whom they were vainly seeking
throughout Normandy? Licquet was obliged to confess to his chiefs that
he did not know to what occurrence the story of the horse referred. He
felt that the weight attached by Mme. de Combray to its return,
increased the importance of knowing what it had been used for. "This is
the main point," he said; "the horse, the saddle and bridle must be
found."

In the absence of Lefebre, who could have solved the enigma, and whom
Caffarelli had not decided to arrest, there remained one way of
discovering Mme. de Combray's secret--an odious way, it is true, but one
that Licquet, in his bewilderment, did not hesitate to employ. This was
to put a spy with her, who would make her speak. There was in the
Conciergerie at Rouen a woman named Delaitre, who had been there for six
years. This woman was employed in the infirmary; she had good enough
manners, expressed herself well, and