The gendarme, Morand, smiled with the disillusioned air of a man who knows very well what trouble is, and the sergeant replied:
"Put them? Why, in your kitchen, of course," and as the servant made a sign of refusal, he added: "I am sorry, but you must; besides, there's nothing for you to be afraid of; the men are handcuffed, and we shall not leave them. We are going to wait here for the magistrate who will examine them."
The gendarmes had pushed their wretched captives in before them, two tramps of the shadiest appearance.
Louise, who had gone mechanically to raise the lid of a kettle beginning to boil over, looked round at his last words.
"The magistrate?" she said: "M. de Presles? Why, he is here now—in the library."
"No?" exclaimed the sergeant, jumping up from the kitchen chair on which he had seated himself.
"He is, I tell you," the old woman insisted; "and the little man who generally goes about with him is here too."
"You mean M. Gigou, his clerk?"
"Very likely," muttered Louise.
"I leave the prisoners with you, Morand," said the sergeant curtly; "don't let them out of your sight. I am going to the magistrate. I have no doubt he will wish to interrogate these fellows at once."