“Well, sir, have I not told you before that I have seen a hundred times children pick up these cases to play with? Besides, if I had really been at Valpinson, why should I deny it?”
M. Galpin rose to his full height, and said in the most solemn manner,—
“I am going to tell you why! Last night, between ten and eleven, Valpinson was set on fire; and it has been burnt to the ground.”
“Oh!”
“Last night Count Claudieuse was fired at twice.”
“Great God!”
“And it is thought, in fact there are strong reasons to think, that you, Jacques de Boiscoran, are the incendiary and the assassin.”
IX.
M. de Boiscoran looked around him like a man who has suddenly been seized with vertigo, pale, as if all his blood had rushed to his heart.
He saw nothing but mournful, dismayed faces.