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Page 25
It was better to make sure before one raised the village - and
Marquis, markedly, was beyond any aid the village could have
furnished. This course was strikingly justified by every
after-event.
I have said that the night was not dark. The sky was hard with
stars, like a mosaic. This white moonlight entered through the
tree-tops and in a measure illumined the road. We were easily
able to see, when we reached the point, that the cut-under had
turned out into the road circling the mountain to the west of the
village. The track was so clearly visible in the light, that I
must have observed it had I been thinking of the road instead of
the one who had set out upon it.
I was going on quickly, when Marquis stopped. He was stooping
over the track of the vehicle. He did not come on and I went
back.
"What is it?" I said.
He answered, still stooping above the track.
"The cut-under stopped here."
"How do you know that?" I asked, for it seemed hardly possible to
determine where a wheeled vehicle had stopped.
"It's quite clear," he replied. "The horse has moved about
without going on."
I now saw it. The hoof-marks of the horse had displaced the dust
where it had several times changed position.
"And that's not all," Marquis continued. "Something has happened
to the cut-under here!"
I was now closely beside him.
"It was broken down, perhaps, or some accident to the harness?"
"No," he replied. "The wheel tracks are here broadened, as
though they had skidded on a turn. This would mean little if the
cut-under had been moving at the time. But it was not moving;
the horse was standing. The cut-under had stopped."
He went on as though in a reflection to himself.
"The vehicle must have been violently thrown about here, by
something."
I had a sudden inspiration.
"I see it!" I cried. "The horse took fright, stopped, and then
bolted; there has been a run-away. That accounts for the turn
out. Let's hurry!"
But Marquis detained me with a firm hand on my arm.
"No," he said, "the horse was not running when it turned out and
it did not stop here in fright. The horse was entirely quiet
here. The hoof marks would show any alarm in the animal, and,
moreover, if it had stopped in fright there would have been an
inevitable recoil which would have thrown the wheels of the
vehicle backward out of their track. No moving animal, man
included, stopped by fright fails to register this recoil. We
always look for it in evidences of violent assault. Footprints
invariably show it, and one learns thereby, unerringly, the
direction of the attack."
He rose, his hand still extended and upon my arm.
"There is only one possible explanation," he added. "Something
happened in the cut-under to throw it violently about in the
road, and it happened with the horse undisturbed and the vehicle
standing still. The wheel tracks are widened only at one point,
showing a transverse but no lateral movement of the vehicle."
"A struggle?" I cried. "Major Carrington was right, Madame
Barras has been attacked by the driver!"
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