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Updated: June 25, 2025
To go to his father, Mathias de Gorne must have left this house. Which way did he go?" "Hang it all, M. Vignal told you: by the road which leads from here to his father's!" "There are no tracks in the snow." "Yes, there are." "But they show him coming here and not going away from here." "It's the same thing." "What?" "Of course it is. There's more than one way of walking.
"Why, sir, the snow's there, to tell the story; and the snow plainly says that, after the struggle, after the three shots, one man alone walked away and left the farm, one man only, and his footprints are not those of Mathias de Gorne. Then where can Mathias de Gorne be?" "But the well ... can be dragged?" "No. The well is practically bottomless.
"Alive and, what is more, in the pink of health." "I am delighted to hear it. But then what's the meaning of the footprints around the well and the presence of that revolver and those three shots?" "Simply camouflage." "Oh, really? Camouflage contrived by whom?" "By Mathias de Gorne himself." "That's curious! And with what object?"
The instructor gave me a savage look and then bawled out a number of commands in rapid succession so rapid that we were unable to follow any of them. We stood still and felt uncomfortable, not knowing what to do. There was an embarrassing pause, and then he thundered: "Bloody lot o' fools gorne to sleep 'ave yer? Don't try any o' yer tricks on me. I ain't 'avin' any.
"But you have a plan?" "None at all, so far. Ah, if I could see him, Jerome Vignal, and her, Natalie de Gorne, and hear them and know what they are saying in their own defence! But you can understand that I sha'n't be permitted either to ask them any questions or to be present at their examination. Besides, it must be finished by this time."
"Perhaps it would have been better if you had sent for me sooner, instead of waiting.... Events did not wait, you see, and I don't quite know what's to become of Jerome Vignal and Natalie de Gorne." "What, haven't you heard?" she said, quickly. "They've been arrested. They were going to travel by the express." "Arrested? No." Renine objected. "People are not arrested like that.
"His revenge would cost him dear, considering that, according to your statement, Mathias de Gorne was to receive a second sum of sixty thousand francs from you." "He would receive that sum in another quarter, Mr. Deputy. My examination of the financial position of the de Gorne family revealed to me the fact that the father and son had taken out a life-insurance policy in each other's favour.
A very few steps brought me to the first floor ... I had not a doubt that Madame de Gorne was there and had heard the sound of our discussion. Switching on the light of my pocket-torch, I looked into three bedrooms. The fourth was locked. I knocked at the door. There was no reply. But this was one of the moments in which a man allows no obstacle to stand in his way.
It is then, after M. Vignal has carried off Madame de Gorne and made his escape, that Mathias de Gorne, foaming at the mouth, wild with rage, but suddenly seeing his chance of taking the most terrible revenge, hits upon the ingenious idea of using against his enemy the very snowfall upon whose evidence you are now relying.
His strong and rather stern face was lighted up by a pair of fine eyes in which shone an ironical smile. "'Jerome Vignal, whispered my cousin. "The young man seemed not at all embarrassed. On seeing Natalie, he made a low bow; and, when Mathias de Gorne took a step forward, he eyed him from head to foot, as though to say: "'Well, what about it?
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