“I never drink claret, Monsieur le Maire; it sits uneasy on my stomach; but, ma foi, I confess, thanks to Dame Moret, and afterwards to the kindness of pretty Mademoiselle Julia, I have had enough. I do not usually, you see, indulge, but I did so to-day, to suit monsieur’s views.”
“You are very obliging, mon ami,” said Monsieur Gramont; “we must do disagreeable things sometimes, but a small glass of Cognac will refresh you after your ride;” and touching a bell, he ordered the domestic who answered the summons to bring in some brandy.
“Now, sergeant, what have you discovered from your visit to Dame Moret’s, and to the château Coulancourt?”
“Pardieu! monsieur, I have managed to track the whole proceedings of this pretended Monsieur de Tourville, and his man Bompart, from the very beginning.”
“Bien! just as I suspected,” said Monsieur Gramont; “but has this pretended De Tourville any idea you suspect him?”
“Parbleu! no, monsieur. If he played his part well, so did I mine. But there is another personage come on the stage that puzzles me.”
“Never mind him now, sergeant; stick to this Philip de Tourville.”
“Eh, bien! monsieur,” returned the sergeant, helping himself to a glass of brandy, the liquor making him exceedingly loquacious. “A day or two before I proceeded to Dame Moret’s I sent one of my men to the village in plain clothes, just to saunter about and pick up all he could. He learned that, on the morning of the wreck, two men came to Dame Moret’s house, and, as he supposed, stayed there; but he heard afterwards, for no one saw them come out, that the next morning two persons were seen at the windows of Château Coulancourt, and a few days afterwards Dame Moret gave out that a Monsieur de Tourville and his servant were come to stay a few weeks at the château, to fish and look about the country. This was all he could learn; but this satisfied me that these two men were the two sailors seen crossing the sands from Lyon Point the morning after the wreck of the Vengeance.”
“Of that I am quite satisfied,” said Bertram Gramont; “did you make any further discoveries at Dame Moret’s, or in the village?”
“No, monsieur; the old woman was keen enough, and stuck to her report of Monsieur de Tourville’s residing in the château; but I found a young man in her house, who excites my suspicion, from his coming from the same part of the coast where the Vengeance was wrecked. He gave his name as Louis Lebeau, of Rouen, a sailor. He said he belonged to a brig, from Bordeaux, bound to Hamburg; that he and the captain quarrelled, and so he was put ashore at his own request. I appeared quite satisfied, did not even examine his papers, but I have an intelligent spy watching his movements; for it looks odd, all these strangers coming from the same part of the coast, and where there are no habitations.”