It was very dark; the storm had ceased but the rain still fell heavily. The old Marquise continued her journey over the flooded roads, defying fatigue and only stopping occasionally to make sure she was not followed. Lefebre, now afraid also, hastened his steps beside her, bending beneath the weight of his portmanteau filled with crowns. Neither spoke. The endless road was the same one taken by the waggon containing the Alençon money on the day of the robbery, and the remembrance of this rendered their wild night march still more tragic.
It was scarcely dawn when the fugitives crossed the wood of Quesnay; at Langannerie they left the highroad and crossed by Bretteville-le-Rabet. It was now broad daylight, barns were opening, and people looked astonished at this strange couple who seemed to have been walking all night; the Marquise especially puzzled them, with her hair clinging to her cheeks, her skirts soaked and her slippers covered with mud. But no one dared question them.
At six in the morning Mme. de Combray and her companion arrived at Saint-Sylvain, five good leagues from Falaise. If Mme. Acquet had succeeded in leaving Noron they ought to meet her there. Lefebre enquired at the inn, but no one had been there. They waited for two hours which the lawyer employed in seeking a waggon to go on to Lisieux. A peasant agreed to take them for fifteen francs paid in advance, and about eight o'clock, as Mme. Acquet had not arrived they decided to start. They stopped at Croissanville a little further on, and while breakfasting, Lefebre wrote to Lanoë telling him to find Mme. Acquet at once and tell her to hasten to her mother at Tournebut.
The rest of the journey was uneventful. They reached Lisieux at supper-time and slept there. The next day Mme. de Combray took two places under an assumed name, in the coach for Evreux, where they arrived in the evening. The fugitives had a refuge in the Rue de l'Union with an old Chouan named Vergne, who had been in orders before the Revolution, but had become a doctor since the pacification. Next day Mme. de Combray and Lefebre made five leagues from Evreux to Louviers; they got out before entering the town as the Marquise wished to avoid the Hôtel du Mouton where she was known. They went by side streets to the bridge of the Eure where they hired a carriage which took them by nightfall to the hamlet of Val-Tesson. They were now only a league from Tournebut which they could reach by going through the woods. But would they not find gendarmes there? Mme. de Combray's flight might have aroused suspicion at Falaise, Caen and Bayeux, and brought police supervision to her house. It was nine in the evening when, after an hour's walk, she reached the Hermitage. She thought it prudent to send Lefebre on ahead, and accompanied him to the gate where she left him to venture in alone. All appeared tranquil in the château, the lawyer went into the kitchen where he found a scullery maid who called Soyer, the confidential man, and Mme. de Combray only felt safe when she saw the latter himself come to open a door into the garden; she then slipped, without being seen, into her own room.
CHAPTER VI
THE YELLOW HORSE
The man in the "black overcoat" who had conducted the gendarmes on their visit to Donnay, was no other than "Grand-Charles," one of Allain's followers. He had been arrested at Le Chalange on July 14th, and had consented without hesitation, to show the spot in the Buquets' garden where the money had been hidden. He recognised the position of the house and garden, the room in which Allain and his companions had been received on the night of the robbery, and even the glass which Mme. Buquet had filled for him. At the bottom of the garden traces of the excavation that had contained the money were found; the loft contained linen, and other effects of Mme. Acquet; her miniature was hanging on the wall of Joseph's room. Joseph alone had fled; his father, mother, and brother were taken to prison in Caen the same evening.
"Grand-Charles," who did not want to be the only one compromised, showed the greatest zeal in searching for his accomplices. As Querelle had done before, he led Manginot and his thirty gendarmes over all the country, until they reached the village of Mancellière, which passed as the most famous resort of malcontents in a circuit of twenty leagues. As in the happiest days of the Chouan revolt, there were bloody combats between the gendarmes and the deserters. After one of these engagements Pierre-François Harel,—who had passed most of his time since the Quesnay robbery in a barrel sunk in the earth at the bottom of a garden—was arrested in the house of a M. Lebougre, where he had gone to get some brandy and salt to dress a wound. But Manginot made a more important capture in Flierlé, who was living peacefully at Amayé-sur-Orne, with one of his old captains, Rouault des Vaux. Flierlé told his story as soon as he was interrogated; he knew that "high personages" were in the plot, and thought they would think twice before pushing things to an issue.
If Manginot was thus acting with an energy worthy of praise, he received none from Caffarelli, who was distressed at the turn affairs had taken, and wished that the affair of Quesnay might be reduced to the proportions of a simple incident. He interrogated the prisoners with the reserve and precaution of a man who was interfering in what did not concern him, and if he learned from Flierlé much that he would rather not have known about the persistent organisation of the Chouans in Calvados, he could get no information concerning the deed that had led to his arrest.