"Who poisoned him?" I inquired hotly—"was it Bonvin the butcher? They say it was he poisoned both of Madame Vinet's cats."
"Eh, ben!" he returned, and I saw the tears well up into his watery blue eyes—"one should not accuse one's neighbours, but they say it was he, monsieur—they say it was in his garden that Hector found the bad stuff—there are some who have no heart, monsieur."
"Bonvin!" I cried, "so it was that pig who poisoned him, eh? and you saved his little girl the time the Belle Marie foundered."
"Oui, monsieur—the time the Belle Marie foundered. It is true I did—we did the best we could! Had it not been for the fog and the ebb tide I think we could have saved them all."
He fell to eating again, cutting into the cheese discreetly—this fine old gentleman of the sea.
It is a pity that some one has not poisoned Bonvin I thought. A short thick fellow, is Bonvin, with cheeks as red as raw chops and small eyes that glitter with cruelty. Bonvin, whose youngest child—a male, has the look and intelligence of a veal and whose mother weighs one hundred and five kilos—a fact which Bonvin is proud of since his first wife, who died, was under weight despite the fact that the Bonvins being in the business, eat meat twice daily. I have always believed the veal infant's hair is curled in suet. Its face grows purple after meals.
A rough old place is my village of vagabonds in winter, and I am glad Alice did not come. Poor Tanrade—how he would have enjoyed that northeast gale!
Two weeks later there came to my house abandoned by the marsh such joyful news that my hand trembled as I realized it—news that made my heart beat quicker from sudden surprise and delight. As I read and reread four closely written pages from Tanrade and a corroborative postscript from Alice, leaving no doubt as to the truth.