his wife.' I
explained to him that, by signing that document, he would enable me to
compel those two people to speak out; and I declared my own assurance of
their innocence of any part in the crime. That was also his opinion. The
examining magistrate, after it was signed, presented the document to the
Berniers, who then did speak. They said, what I was certain they would
say, as soon as they were sure they would not lose their place.

"They confessed to poaching on Monsieur Stangerson's estates, and it
was while they were poaching, on the night of the crime, that they were
found not far from the pavilion at the moment when the outrage was being
committed. Some rabbits they caught in that way were sold by them to the
landlord of the Donjon Inn, who served them to his customers, or sent
them to Paris. That was the truth, as I had guessed from the first. Do
you remember what I said, on entering the Donjon Inn?--'We shall have
to eat red meat--now!' I had heard the words on the same morning when
we arrived at the park gate. You heard them also, but you did not attach
any importance to them. You recollect, when we reached the park gate,
that we stopped to look at a man who was running by the side of the
wall, looking every minute at his watch. That was Larsan. Well, behind
us the landlord of the Donjon Inn, standing on his doorstep, said to
someone inside: 'We shall have to eat red meat--now.'

"Why that 'now'? When you are, as I am, in search of some hidden secret,
you can't afford to have anything escape you. You've got to know the
meaning of everything. We had come into a rather out-of-the-way part of
the country which had been turned topsy-turvey by a crime, and my reason
led me to suspect every phrase that could bear upon the event of the
day. 'Now,' I took to mean, 'since the outrage.' In the course of my
inquiry, therefore, I sought to find a relation between that phrase and
the tragedy. We went to the Donjon Inn for breakfast; I repeated the
phrase and saw, by the surprise and trouble on Daddy Mathieu's face,
that I had not exaggerated its importance, so far as he was concerned.

"I had just learned that the concierges had been arrested. Daddy Mathieu
spoke of them as of dear friends--people for whom one is sorry. That
was a reckless conjunction of ideas, I said to myself. 'Now,' that
the concierges are arrested, 'we shall have to eat red meat.' No more
concierges, no more game! The hatred expressed by Daddy Mathie