“We met the horse of the corporal of Arcis in the forest without his master,” he said to Peyrade.
“Lieutenant,” cried Corentin, “go instantly to Michu’s house and find out what is going on there. They must have murdered the corporal.”
This news interfered with the mayor’s breakfast. Corentin and Peyrade swallowed their food with the rapidity of hunters halting for a meal, and drove back to the chateau in their wicker carriage, so as to be ready to start at the first call for any point where their presence might be necessary. When the two men reappeared in the salon into which they had brought such trouble, terror, grief, and anxiety, they found Laurence, in a dressing-gown, Monsieur d’Hauteserre and his wife, the abbe and his sister, sitting round the fire, to all appearance tranquil.
“If they had caught Michu,” Laurence told herself, “they would have brought him with them. I have the mortification of knowing that I was not the mistress of myself, and that I threw some light upon the matter for those wretches; but the harm can be undone—How long are we to be your prisoners?” she asked sarcastically, with an easy manner.
“How can she know anything about Michu? No one from the outside has got near the chateau; she is laughing at us,” said the two agents to each other by a look.
“We shall not inconvenience you long,” replied Corentin. “In three hours from now we shall offer our regrets for having troubled your solitude.”
No one replied. This contemptuous silence redoubled Corentin’s inward rage. Laurence and the abbe (the two minds of their little world) had talked the man over and drawn their conclusions. Gothard and Catherine had set the breakfast-table near the fire and the abbe and his sister were sharing the meal. Neither masters nor servants paid the slightest attention to the two spies, who walked up and down the garden, the courtyard or the lawn, returning every now and then to the salon.
At half-past two the lieutenant reappeared.
“I found the corporal,” he said to Corentin, “lying in the road which leads from the pavilion of Cinq-Cygne to the farm at Bellache. He has no wound, only a bad contusion of the head, caused, apparently, by his fall. He told me he had been lifted suddenly off his horse and flung so violently to the ground that he could not discover how the thing was done. His feet left the stirrups, which was lucky, for he might have been killed by the horse dragging him. We put him in charge of Michu and Violette—”
“Michu! is Michu in his own house?” said Corentin, glancing at Laurence.