Father Philibin nodded as if approvingly, and then remarked: 'Evidently everything can be accounted for.'
The bystanders seemed convinced; the theory of a prowler committing the crime about half-past ten o'clock, entering and leaving the room by the window, seemed more and more probable. Simon's statement confirmed the information given by Mignot and Mademoiselle Rouzaire. Moreover, the Mesdames Milhomme, the stationers, asserted that they had seen an evil-looking man roaming about the square at nightfall.
'There are so many rascals on the roads!' said the Jesuit Father by way of conclusion. 'We must hope that the police will set hands on the murderer, though such a task is not always an easy one.'
Marc alone experienced a feeling of uncertainty. Although he had been the first to think it possible that some stranger might have sprung on Zéphirin, he had gradually realised that there was little probability of such an occurrence. Was it not more likely that the man had been acquainted with the boy and had at first approached him as a friend? Then, however, had come the abominable impulse, horror and murder, strangulation as a last resource to stifle the victim's cries, followed by flight amidst a gust of terror. But all this remained very involved; and after some brief perception of its probability Marc relapsed into darkness, into the anxiety born of contradictory suppositions. He contented himself with saying to Simon, by way of calming him: 'All the evidence agrees: the truth will soon be made manifest.'
At that moment, just as Mignot returned after prevailing on Madame Simon to remain in her room, Darras, the Mayor of Maillebois, arrived with three gendarmes. A building contractor, on the high road to a considerable fortune, Darras was a stout man of forty-two, with a fair, round, pinky, clean-shaven face. He immediately ordered the shutters to be closed and placed two gendarmes outside the window, while the third, entering the house passage, went to guard the door of the room, which Zéphirin never locked. From this moment the orders were that nothing should be touched, and that nobody should even approach the scene of the crime. On hearing of it the mayor had immediately telegraphed to the Public Prosecution Office at Beaumont, and the magistrates would surely arrive by the first train.
Father Philibin and Brother Fulgence now spoke of having to attend to various matters connected with the distribution of prizes which was to take place in the afternoon, and Darras advised them to make haste and then return, for, said he, the Procureur de la République, otherwise the Public Prosecutor, would certainly wish to question them about the number of Le Petit Beaumontais and the copy-slip found near the body. So the two clerics took their departure; and while the gendarmes, stationed on the square outside the window, with difficulty restrained the now increasing crowd, which became violent and raised threatening cries, demanding the execution of the unknown murderer, Simon again went into the building with Darras, Marc, Mademoiselle Rouzaire, and Mignot, the whole party waiting in a large classroom lighted by broad windows which faced the playground.
It was now eight o'clock, and after a sudden stormy rainfall, the sky cleared, and the day became a splendid one. An hour elapsed before the magistrates arrived. The Procureur de la République, Raoul de La Bissonnière, came in person, accompanied by Daix, the Investigating Magistrate. Both were moved by the magnitude of the crime and foresaw a great trial. La Bissonnière, a dapper little man with a doll-like face, and whiskers of a correct legal cut, was very ambitious. Not content with his rapid advancement to the post he held—he was only forty-five—he was ever on the watch for some resounding case which would launch him in Paris, where, thanks to his suppleness and address, his complaisant respect for the powers of the day, whatever they might be, he relied on securing a high position. On the other hand, Daix, tall and lean, with a sharp-cut face, was a type of the punctilious Investigating Magistrate, devoted to his professional duties. But he was also of an anxious and timid nature, for his ugly but coquettish and extravagant wife, exasperated by the poverty of their home, terrorised and distressed him with her bitter reproaches respecting his lack of ambition.
On reaching the schools the legal functionaries, before taking any evidence, desired to visit the scene of the crime. Simon and Darras accompanied them to Zéphirin's bed-chamber while the others, who were soon joined by Father Philibin and Brother Fulgence, waited in the large classroom. When the magistrates returned thither, they had verified all the material features of the crime, and were acquainted with the various circumstances already known to the others. They brought with them the number of Le Petit Beaumontais and the copy-slip, to which they seemed to attach extreme importance. At once seating themselves at Simon's table, they examined those two pieces of evidence, exchanging impressions concerning them, and then showing the copy-slip to the two schoolmasters, Simon and Marc, as well as to the schoolmistress and the clerics. But this was only done by way of eliciting some general information, for no clerk was present to record a formal interrogatory.
'Oh! those copies,' Marc replied, 'are used currently in all the schools, in the secular ones as well as in those of the religious orders.'