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When he arrived there a servant had taken the animal to the stables, and a lady had come out and asked for the letter, but he denied all knowledge of the lady's name or the situation of the house. Manginot resolved to search the country in company with Saint-Aubin, but he was either stupid or pretended to be so, and refused to give any assistance.
He told how, in order to put off his comrades, who had been charged by Manginot to draw up a description of the fugitive, he had intentionally made it out incorrectly, describing her "as being very stout and having fair hair." He talked of d'Aché whom he considered a brigand and "the sole cause of all the misfortunes which had happened to Mme. de Combray and her family."
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.
It was he who had first warned the gendarmes of the sojourn of the brigands at Donnay, and this seemed exceedingly suspicious; the same day he gave the order to take Hébert. Several people in the village insinuated that Acquet and Hébert were irreconcilable enemies and that Manginot was on the wrong track; but the detective's head was now swelled with importance and he would not draw back.
Thus, in a region where he had only to touch, so to say, to catch a criminal, Captain Manginot was unlucky enough to incarcerate only the innocent, and to complete the irony, these innocent prisoners made such a poor face before the court of enquiry that his suspicions were justified.
As the elder d'Aché could never be caught, Placide, who loved tranquillity and hardly ever went away from home, was invariably taken in his stead. It happened again this time, and Manginot seized him, thinking he had done a fine thing. But the first interview undeceived him.
Acquet for the first time, and to her questions replied that her name had indeed been mentioned, and that Manginot, who was at the "Grand-Ture," was looking for her. The young woman began to cry. She implored Mme. Chauvel to keep her, promised to pay her, and appealed to her pity, so that the washerwoman was touched.
They thought of abandoning the search and returning to Paris, but Querelle begged so vehemently for twenty-four hours' reprieve that Manginot weakened. The third day, therefore, they explored the environs of Taverny and the borders of the forest as far as Bessancourt.
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.
Réal, instinctively scenting d'Aché in the business, remembered Captain Manginot who at the time of Georges Cadoudal's plot, had succeeded in tracing the stages of the conspirators between Biville and Paris, and to whom they owed the discovery of the rôle played by d'Aché in the conspiracy. Manginot then received an order to proceed to Calvados immediately.
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