"Our father has been brought back to us a murdered man!" Jean went on, still in a whisper. "I tell you, Louis—and you, Thomas—that the priest knows who murdered him."
Louis and Thomas shrank from their younger brother as if he had spoken blasphemy.
"Listen," said Jean. "No clue has been found to the secret of the murder. The magistrate has promised us to do his best; but I saw in his face that he had little hope. We must make the discovery ourselves, or our father's blood will have cried to us for vengeance, and cried in vain. Remember that, and mark my next words. You heard me say yesterday evening that I had met Monsieur Chaubard on his way to Toulouse, in excellent health and spirits. You heard our old friend and neighbor contradict me at the supper-table, and declare that he had seen the priest, some hours later, go into our church here with the face of a panic-stricken man. You saw, Thomas, how he behaved when you went to fetch him to our house. You saw, Louis, what his looks were like when he came in. The change was noticed by every body—what was the cause of it? I saw the cause in the priest's own face when our father's name turned up in the talk round the supper-table. Did Monsieur Chaubard join in that talk? He was the only person present who never joined in it once. Did he change it on a sudden whenever it came his way? It came his way four times; and four times he changed it—trembling, stammering, turning whiter and whiter, but still, as true as the heaven above us, shifting the talk off himself every time! Are you men? Have you brains in your heads? Don't you see, as I see, what this leads to? On my salvation I swear it—the priest knows the hand that killed our father!"
The faces of the two elder brothers darkened vindictively, as the conviction of the truth fastened itself on their minds.
"How could he know it?" they inquired, eagerly.
"He must tell us himself," said Jean.
"And if he hesitates—if he refuses to open his lips?"
"We must open them by main force."
They drew their chairs together after that last answer, and consulted for some time in whispers.
When the consultation was over, the brothers rose and went into the room where the dead body of their father was laid out. The three kissed him, in turn, on the forehead—then took hands together, and looked meaningly in each other's faces—then separated. Louis and Thomas put on their hats, and went at once to the priest's residence; while Jean withdrew by himself to the great room at the back of the house, which was used for the purposes of the oil factory.