“When did you last fire this gun?” asked the magistrate.
“Some four or five days ago.”
“What for?”
“To shoot some rabbits who infested my woods.”
M. Galpin raised and lowered the cock with all possible care: he noticed that it was the Remington patent. Then he opened the chamber, and found that the gun was loaded. Each barrel had a cartridge in it. Then he put the gun back in its place, and, pulling from his pocket the leaden cartridge-case which Pitard had found, he showed it to M. de Boiscoran, and asked him,—
“Do you recognize this?”
“Perfectly!” replied the other. “It is a case of one of the cartridges which I have probably thrown away as useless.”
“Do you think you are the only one in this country who has a gun by this maker?”
“I do not think it: I am quite sure of it.”
“So that you must, as a matter of course, have been at a spot where such a cartridge-case as this has been found?”