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Updated: May 17, 2025
Raymond Pinceau was dead, and Jacques Bontet condemned to lifelong penal servitude; and the world had ceased to talk of the story that had been revealed at the trial of these men, and what the world loved even more to discuss of how much of the story had not been revealed.
If I could see her, and learn the longed-for truth from her, I should go in good heart to my conflict with the duke. "Go to your room," said Bontet, whom my prospective largesse had persuaded to civility and almost to eagerness, "and wait. If madame and the duke go there, I'll let you know. But you must risk meeting them."
He bowed to me, but addressed himself to Bontet. "Well, are the gentlemen to be here at five?" he asked. Bontet, with an air of relief, began an explanation. One of the gentlemen M. de Vieuville, he believed had read out the note in his presence, and had desired him to tell the duke that he and the other gentleman would meet the duke and his friend on the sands at a quarter to six.
I did not even cross the wall to see how Bontet fared under the blow I had given him whether he were dead, or lay still stunned, or had found life enough to crawl away. In truth, I cared not then. Presently across the sands, through the growing gloom, I saw a group approaching me.
"I don't mind about that," said I; and, in truth, nothing could make my relations with the pair more hostile than they were already. My business with Bontet was finished; but I indulged my curiosity for a moment. "You have a good stable over there, I see," I remarked. "How many horses have you there?"
"But we shall find about that from Bontet," said one of them, with a complacent nod at the fellow who lay still in a sort of stupor, with blood-stained bandages round his head. I stood by the door of the duchess' carriage, in which she and Gustave were to follow the body of the duke, and when she came to step in I offered her my hand. But she would have none of it.
But he stood looking at me composedly, with a smile on his lips. "Ah!" said he, "it is my friend Mr. Aycon. Bontet, bring me some wine, too, that I may drink with my friend." And he added, addressing me: "You will find our good Bontet most obliging. He is a tenant of mine, and he will do anything to oblige me and my friends. Isn't it so, Bontet?"
By this time a covered conveyance had been procured, and when the duchess, having fired her last scornful remark at me, walked to the door of the inn, the body of the duke was being placed in it. Gustave de Berensac assisted the servant, and their task was just accomplished when Jacques Bontet was carried by two of the police to the door.
For an instant he glared at her; then he cried: "That old fiend has played a trick on me! She has got the necklace!" And I began to understand the smile that I had seen on Mme. Delhasse's face, and her marvelous good humor; and I began to have my opinion concerning her evening stroll to Pontorson. Bontet and Pierre had been matched against more than they thought.
"And if you will search," said I, "some six yards behind the wall, and maybe a quarter of a mile from the road, I fancy you will find Bontet; he may have crawled a little way, but could not far, I think. As for the Duke of Saint-Maclou, gentlemen, his body was in the carriage that passed you this moment.
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