But now an exclamation arose from the crowd, while one or two stooped hurriedly to the earth, and the first picked up something that, as he held it out, glistened in his hand. It was an unset stone, a ruby.
"Tiens," said the chief, turning it over in his hand, "what's this? A ruby, and unset," he repeated. Then meditatively, "It may have fallen from a setting worn by one or other, victim or murderer--from, say, a ring, a collar, a brooch for cravat, or ruffle. Has he upon his body," he said to his attendant, "any setting to which it might by chance belong?"
The man bent down and inspected poor Douglas's form, then he rose and shook his head.
"Neither ring nor chain that I can see. Nought that is likely to have held such as that stone."
"Humph!" mused the chief, "humph!" Then he whispered to himself, "If anyone pass the gate to-morrow with an unfilled setting--bah! Non! non! non! He that has the setting belonging to the ruby will scarcely show it. Yet, that the murderer owns it is most likely. If it had been lost by anyone who has lately worshipped here," and he glanced up at the cathedral over which the daffodil dawn was coming now from the east, "there would have been hue and cry enough. Allons," he said aloud. "To the watch house. And, bonne femme, come you with us to testify." Then, turning to his underlings, he said, "Bring him with you--find a plank or door. And--and--be gentle with him. Pauvre garçon! Has he a mother, I wonder?"
For three or four days the search went on, those whom he had loved so aiding it in every way. Archibald, stern, silent, inwardly crushed; Bertie mad with grief and despair; Kate broken-hearted. The lower parts of the city were ransacked and received visits from the watch and the exempts, but nothing came of it except great discomfort to the denizens thereof. Nothing! And--which perhaps was not strange--never to one of those who had so loved him came the veriest shadow of a thought as to who the murderer was. It was not possible, indeed, that such a thought should come. He, they imagined--if ever in their sorrow they let his foul memory enter their mind--was in England. No, they never dreamt of him. They began, therefore, at last to think, as all the world which went to make up Amiens thought, that some of the outcasts, the thieves and scoundrels who had visited the city at fair-time, had taken his bright young life. Yet, strange to say, if such were the case, he had not been robbed. His pocketbook was on him, his purse untouched. There was little enough in either, it was true, yet, the night-birds would have had them had they been his slayers!
Then, at last, it seemed that the murderers were caught.
There rode up to the south gate, on the fifth day, a sergeant and three troopers of the Regiment Picardy, and with them they had--bound with rope;--two villainous-looking scoundrels, fellows in stained and tawdry riding coats, with brandy-inflamed faces, one having a broken leg, so that as he sat on his horse he groaned with every movement it made.
The sergeant's story was brief and soon told to the captain of the guard, while Bertie Elphinston, summoned to hear it, stood by hollow-eyed and sad, wondering if he was to learn that in these swashbucklers he saw the assassins of his poor friend.
"Monsieur le capitaine," said the sergeant, "by orders received from you we have scoured the roads for the last few days. Then, last night, we put up at the Dragon Volant, outside of Poix, and here we found these two larrons. This one--this creature here--who calls himself Jacques Potin, was abed with his broken leg, his horse having thrown him; the other one, who names himself Adolphe d'Aunay, was nursing him. Ma foi! a strange patient and a strange nursing. From the room they occupied came forth howlings and singings and songs of the vilest, mixed with oaths and laughter sufficient to have awakened their grandfathers in their prison graves. 'Twas this drew my attention to them, Monsieur le capitaine. Passing their door, attracted by their roars and singings, I was also led to stop and listen, because, the uproar over, I next heard this conversation: 'Curse you and your leg too!' said he who calls himself D'Aunay; 'if 'twere not for your accident we should have been in Paris now, safe and free with our prize disposed of. Your drunkenness, whereby you got your fall, has ruined all.' 'Mon petit choux,' said the other, 'bemoan not; here we are snug and comfortable. Our logement is good, the food of the best, the wine of the most superior. What would you more? And we have the jewels, which are a small fortune, and the money--bonnes pieces fortes et trebuchantes--for our immediate wherewithal. As for the bills and bonds--well, we have destroyed them, so they can tell no tales. Mon enfant, be gay.'