let us see. M. de Boiscoran must have had powerful reasons
to deprive himself of the pleasure of spending the evening with Miss
Dionysia?"

"Yes, indeed."

"He must also have had his reasons for taking to the marshes, on his way
out, instead of going by the turnpike, and for coming back through the
woods."

Old Anthony was literally tearing his hair, as he exclaimed,--

"Ah, sir! These are the very words M. Galpin said."

"Unfortunately every man in his senses will say so."

"I know, sir: I know it but too well. And Master Jacques himself knew
it so well that at first he tried to find some pretext; but he has
never told a falsehood. And he who is such a clever man could not find
a pretext that had any sense in it. He said he had gone to Brechy to see
his wood-merchant"--

"And why should he not?"

Anthony shook his head, and said,--

"Because the wood-merchant at Brechy is a thief, and everybody knows
that master has kicked him out of the house some three years ago. We
sell all our wood at Sauveterre."

M. Folgat had taken out a note-book, and wrote down some of Anthony's
statements, preparing thus the outline of his defence. This being done,
he commenced again,--

"Now we come to Cocoleu."

"Ah the wretch!" cried Anthony.

"You know him?"

"How could I help knowing him, when I lived all my life here at
Boiscoran in the service of master's uncle?"

"Then what kind of a man is he?"

"An idiot, sir or, as they here call it, an innocent, who has Saint
Vitus dance into the bargain, and epilepsy moreover."

"Then it is perfectly notorious that he is imbecile?"

"Yes, sir, although I have heard people insist that he is not quite
so stupid as he looks, and that, as they say here, he plays the ass in
order to get his oats"--

M. de Chandore interrupted him, and said,--

"On this subject Dr. Seignebos can give you all the information you may
want: he kept Cocoleu for nearly two years at his own house."

"I mean to see the doctor," replied M. Folgat. "But first of all we must
find this unfortunate idiot."

"You heard what M. Seneschal said: he has put the gendarmes on his
track."

Anthony made a face, and said,--

"If the gendarmes should take Cocoleu, Cocoleu must have given himself
up voluntarily."

"Why so?"

"Because, gentlemen, there is no one who knows all the by-ways and
out-of-the-way corners of the country so well as that idiot; for he
has been hiding all his life like a savage in all