"Duquesnay de Montfiquet."

The growing daylight now made an investigation possible. Traces of blood
were found on the road to Luc from the place where the body lay, to its
junction with the road to Bayeux, a distance of about two hundred yards.
It was evident that the murder had been committed at the spot where the
two roads met, and that the assassins had carried the corpse to the
fields and behind the hayrick to retard discovery of the crime. The
disguised gendarmes whose presence had so disturbed the townsfolk had
disappeared. A horse struck by a ball was lying in a ditch. It was
raised, and though losing a great deal of blood, walked as far as the
village of Mathieu, on the road to Caen, where it was stabled.

These facts having been ascertained, M. Boullee's servants and the
peasants whom curiosity had attracted to the spot, escorted the dead
body, which had been put on a wheelbarrow, to La Delivrande. It was laid
in a barn near the celebrated chapel of pilgrimages, and there the
autopsy took place at five in the afternoon. It was found that "death
was due to a wound made by the blade of the sword-cane; the weapon,
furiously turned in the body, had lacerated the intestines." Three balls
had, besides, struck the victim, and five buckshot had hit him full in
the face and broken several teeth; of two balls fired close to the body,
one had pierced the chest above the left breast, and the other had
broken the left thigh, and one of the murderers had struck the face so
violently that his gun had broken against the skull.

The mayor had been occupied with the drawing of lots all day, and only
found time to write and inform the prefect of the murder when the
doctors had completed their task. He was in great perplexity, for the
villagers unanimously accused the gendarmes of the mysterious crime. It
was said that at dawn that morning the quartermaster Foison and four of
his men had gone into an inn at Mathieu, one of them carrying a gun with
the butt-end broken. While breakfasting, these "gentlemen," not seeing a
child lying in a closed bed, had taken from a tin box some "yellow
coins" which they divided, and the inference drawn was that the
gendarmes had plundered a traveller whom they knew to be well-supplied,
and sure of impunity since they could always plead a case of rebellion,
had got rid of him by murder. This was the sense of the letter sent to
Caffarelli by the Mayor of Luc on the evening of the 8th. The next
mor