one glance the cavalier put spurs to his horse,
and thundered off again on the darkening road.

The courier, Excoffon, had but one passenger;
a pleasant companion enough, who had booked
himself from Lyons under the name of citizen
Laborde, and because the times were bad, and
the roads not over safe, citizen Laborde was
furnished with a dagger, which yet he did not
care to make too much show of. But Excoffon,
a strong muscular man, was armed to the teeth,
and by no means a pleasant person to molest,
judging from appearances; so citizen Laborde
had no fear, he said, pleasantly, and both
together would prove a match for most things.

After an hour's heavy jolting, they came to a
sharp steep hollow, overshadowed with trees
and thick bushes, with an ugly hill to climb on
the other side. It was an uncomfortable bit,
and the courier called to the postilion to make
the best of his way through it, for the night
was dark and his charge was heavy, and he was
behind his time already. As he spoke, four men
sprang out of the bushes, caught the leading
horse, and cut the traces; then, before the poor
postilion could utter a cry, struck him down
with a sabre-cut, severing his head clean from
his body. At the same moment, Laborde flung
himself on the courier, and stabbed him to the
heart, as he was rising to learn the cause of the
delay. The murderers then dragged the body
out of the chaise, cut off the head to make sure
that dead men could tell no tales, and rifled the
bags: getting as their booty seventy-five thousand
francs in gold, silver, bank-notes, and bills;
but leaving on the ground a sabre, a grey riding-
coat turned up with blue, a scabbard, and a
broken silver spur mended with string. The leading
horse was then given to the false Laborde,
whose true name was Dutrochat; and the five
men rode back into Paris, entering through the
Barrière of Rambouillet, between four and five
in the morning. The patrol found the post-
horse wandering on the boulevard near the
Palais Royal; and the four hacks were returned
to the horse-dealer Muiron, trembling and
covered with foam, as if they had been long and
hardly ridden. They were taken back by the
same two men who had hired them: Courriol and
one Bernard, his friend.

The next day all Paris rang with the murder,
and to Daubanton, the chief magistrate of the
district, was given the conduct of the case and
the discovery of the murderers. And first was
arrested Bernard, the horse hirer; then Courriol
was looked for, and after a time found at Château-
Thierry, concealed in the house of citizen Bruer;
and on him some of the bank-notes and bills
known to have been in the possession of the
hapless courier. And then Guesno got into
trouble, and was under official surveillance and
suspicion because he had had dealings with
Bruer and Bernard, and because Courriol and
Madeleine Brébant had breakfasted with him on
that fateful fourth of Floréal. But Guesno was
so clearly innocent that he was discharged at
once; nevertheless, his papers were taken from
him, and he was bidden to go to the office for
them on the morrow. Accordingly, the next
day he set out for the office of the citizen
magistrate Daubanton, on the way meeting with
Lesurques, whom he asked to accompany him,
telling him at the same time of his disagreeable
arrest. Lesurques, the young, handsome, and
respectable ex-militaire, the possessor of nearly
four hundred a year, serene in the consciousness
of present good, and hopeful of the better future,
without enemies and guiltless of crime—
Lesurques, the fashionable and prosperous, was
glad to lend the aid of his untarnished reputation
to his less secure friend, and help him to
overcome this embarrassment with all the
influence of his position. He was very happy to
do his friend this slight service, he said, tossing
back his bright brown hair, so turned and
went with him to Daubanton's, without hesitation;
and soon the two men were in the ante-
chamber, while waiting the magistrate's pleasure,
gazing curiously at the crowd passing in and
out. In that ante-chamber, also watching the
crowd, sat Santon, servant of the Evrards at
Montgeron, and Grossetête, Madame Châtelain's
fat peasant-girl at Lieusaint. They stared long
and eagerly at the two men, then beckoned to
Heudon, Daubanton's head man; and he, after
speaking with them earnestly a while, went
through the ante-chamber to the small room
where the magistrate sat writing.

Daubanton heard his story with marked
emotion; sent for the two women, spoke to
them, even cross-examined them; then, satisfied
with their report, he suddenly ordered Guesno
and Lesurques to be brought before him, and
confronted them with the maids, face to face.
And then the women turned round, and
positively and passionately swore to Lesurques as
one of the four men who had ridden into
Lieusaint on the eighth of Floréal, and had left a
silver spur, a sabre, and a pool of blood on the
road where Excoffon, the Courier of Lyons, lay
murdered. Santon, the hotel servant, had no
doubt of him. She knew him specially because
he had wanted to pay the bill in notes, but "le
gros brun"—the large dark man Courriol—had
interfered, and made him pay in silver. And as
for Grossetête, if she did not know him, who
should? For had she not mended his silver
spur with twine, and had she not looked at his
fair and gracious face, longer than mayhap she
would have looked at it had it been less comely?
Then Champeau and his wife were called, and
they, too, swore that Lesurques was the light-
haired horseman who had had his broken spur
mended with twine, and who had come galloping
back for his sabre, just as the poor courier had
driven to the door for fresh relays. Of Guesno,
also, they were equally positive; but he had
established an alibi before, so was in no greater
danger now than he had been; and the mistake
as to his identity did not shake the confidence
of the accusers or the magistrate in the certain
guilt of Lesurques. So, now six men were
taken; out of whom Guesno and Bruer were
weeded, leaving four accused: Lesurques the
most positively recognised of all.