d. "I do not know how they left
it the last time some one slept here; I did not pay any attention to
that as I put on the sheets; all I know is that M. Bernard's cloak was
lying on the top."

"My cloak?" I exclaimed. "It was left in the stable."

"And mine, too," said Marcasse. "I have just folded both together and
put them on the corn-bin."

"You must have had two, then," replied the servant; "for I am sure I
took one off the bed. It was a black cloak, not new."

Mine, as a fact, was lined with red and trimmed with gold lace.
Marcasse's was light gray. It could not, therefore, have been one of
our cloaks brought up for a moment by the man and then taken back to the
stable.

"But, what did you do with it?" said the sergeant.

"My word, sir," replied the fat girl, "I put it there, over the
arm-chair. You must have taken it while I went to get a candle. I can't
see it now."

We searched the room thoroughly; the cloak was not to be found. We
pretended that we needed it, not denying that it was ours. The servant
unmade the bed in our presence, and then went and asked the man what
he had done with it. Nothing could be found either in the bed or in the
room; the man had not been upstairs. All the farm-folk were in a state
of excitement, fearing that some one might be accused of theft. We
inquired if a stranger had not come to Roche-Mauprat, and if he was
not still there. When we ascertained that these good people had neither
housed or seen any one, we reassured them about the lost cloak by saying
that Marcasse had accidentally folded it with the two others. Then we
shut ourselves in the room, in order to explore it at our ease; for it
was now almost evident that what I had seen was by no means a ghost, but
John Mauprat himself, or a man very like him, whom I had mistaken for
John.

Marcasse having aroused Blaireau by voice and gesture, watched all his
movements.

"Set your mind at rest," he said with pride; "the old dog has not
forgotten his old trade. If there is a hole, a hole as big as your hand,
have no fear. Now, old dog! Have no fear."

Blaireau, indeed, after sniffing everywhere, persisted in scratching the
wall where I had seen the apparition; he would start back every time his
pointed nose came to a certain spot in the wainscotting; then, wagging
his bushy tail with a satisfied air, he would return to his master as if
to tell him to concentrate his attention on this spot. The sergeant then
began to exam