HE corporal sat astride a canebottomed chair in front of the

gendarme quarters at Pierrebuffière and smoked his pipe; slowly the smoke curled upwards in regular lines, forming circles which gradually expanded, quivered, and finally vanished in the warm air of this July evening.

Martial Tharaud had seen many similar circles of smoke act in just the same way above the cannon's mouth.

He was now taking life easily in his little garden, the head of a family, with a corporal's stripes on his sleeve, and wished for nothing better-not even to become sergeant, because then he would probably have to go to Eymoutiers, Saint-Léonard, or Limoges. He was fond of his little corner at Pierrebuffière, fond of those roses which he had grafted himself, and fond of that creeping plant which ran along the white walls of the house and hung in wreaths around the tin tricolour flag suspended over the door.

As the corporal smoked he watched some boys who, at a short distance from him,

game

of

were playing upon a hillock at the pique-romme, in which they threw long pointed pieces of iron into the ground, as though throwing at a target. Occasionally he cried warningly to them: "Take care, there, youngsters; mind you don't run them into your feet!

Then he turned round and looked over his shoulder through the open window at a pretty, dark-complexioned woman, still young, who was bustling about the kitchen where the pots and pans shone like silver; he smiled at her and said as he puffed away: "They are having a game, the little

rascals!"

Then the woman, with bare arms-nice white arms, half covered with flour-came to the window-sill, put her jolly, energeticlooking face (red with the heat of the stove) out of the window and looked towards the boys, who were excitedly throwing their pieces of iron at the mark.

"Go along! there's no danger! Besides, it makes them skilful and brave!" "And gives them an appetite for your clafoutis, Catissou!"

The clafoutis-a Limousin dish as solid

"A GOOD woman," said Martial Tharaud to us a moment afterwards as we passed him with a nod.

He was in the humour for a gossip.

"Yes, yes" (he became loquacious when speaking of Catissou), "she's a good woman; and a sturdy woman, too. To see her make the kettle boil and wash the children-we have three, all boys; see them over there? -nobody would believe she had been on show at the fairs! And yet it's true enough! Oh, it's quite a story! I'll tell you all

about it.

"It is about ten years ago-I had just left the chasseurs and entered the gendarmerie at Limoges, and that suited me, because I belong to that part. The adjutant told us one morning that there was a splendid capture to be made. A worthy old man named Coussac, a foreman builder, had been murdered in his

own house at Montmailler, and there was no clue to the identity of the assassin. That was in September. We had to search the highways and byways; and the adjutant, M. Boudet (he's captain now), told the sergeant, the corporals, and the men to redouble their vigilance and keep their eyes open; and if we met any suspiciouslooking persons under the chestnut trees or along the highroads we were to seize them without hesitation and haul them up before the authorities.

had

"Information been sent all over the district, and also to Châteauneuf, Ambazac, everywhere, even

Bellac. In a word, the whole department was on the alert.

"Now, it's all very fine to tell you to arrest all suspicious-looking individuals, but you must not always judge by appearances. There are many worthy people who have very evil-looking faces. Why, I knew a man whose looks would have brought him to the guillotine or the galleys; yet he was a man who might have taken a prize for upright conduct! It's true enough! He gave away all he had to the poor-a perfect saint, my word on it! And there are others who look like saints, but who ought to have the handcuffs put on at once.

"Still, we were told to arrest them; and so we did. We ran in some of those natives of Lorraine who come to Sauviat and SaintYrieix to buy china-ware, you know we took up hawkers, old men, yellow-looking beggars-as yellow as their bags; and we even ran in some silly people who were roaming about without any knowledge of the place. But not one of them was capable

to

WE TOOK UP HAWKERS.

E

of giving that fillip to old Coussac. So the time went on, and we could not lay hands on the Montmailler murderer.

"And it wasn't an easy thing at all to find out who had killed the old foreman builder. We had scarcely any clue, and we did not know how to set to work.

"Well! one day I was at the gendarme quarters, about to curry-comb my horse, when a handsome young woman, with eyes like sloes and lips as red as cherries, came up to me and said: Well! have you any news of the murderer after all this time? I am the daughter of Léonard Coussac !'"

"It made me start when I heard that, I tell you! She spoke so energetically, and her eyes flashed so angrily, that I felt as though I ought to be ashamed of myself for not having taken a grip of the collar of that scoundrel who had killed the young woman's father. Then I tried to clear myself by explaining that it was exactly our fault, that we had very little information about the murderer, and so on; but she looked at me straight in the eyes in such a manner that I felt I was

making a mess of it.

"Now, look here, miss,' I said suddenly, stopping in the midst of my excuses. 'I would willingly risk an

a story which, I confess, made my blood run cold.

III.

"IT was one September evening when poor old Coussac was killed, and it was as warm as a summer day. In his house he had the money which Mr. Sabourdy, the contractor he worked for, had left with him before starting for Guéret. He had about ten thousand francs besides that, for he had to pay the men and meet two bills which would be due in two or three days. It was Saturday. After he had paid the men, the foreman builder returned home, pleased, and with a good appetite. He ate his

cabbage soup and some dumplings, and after the meal his mother went upstairs to rest on the bed, as she was rather tired, while old Coussac and his daughter Catissou remained in the downstairs room, sitting near the chest where the money was. He was reading the Almanach Limousin which had just come out, and she was knitting a woollen stocking.

"You must understand that Coussac's rooms were at the back

of the house, overlooking the garden. The one on the ground floor, in which Coussac and his daughter were then sitting, had a window about five feet from the ground, with inside shutters which were usually closed in the evening; but that evening the window had been left slightly open, because the old man felt rather warm. He was reading by the light of a shaded lamp, and Catissou heard him turn over the pages of the Almanach at regular intervals. She has often told me that, as she was working away mechanically, the tick-tick of the clock, and the rustle of

the paper as the leaves were regularly turned over, made her feel drowsy.

"Suddenly she lifted her head from her work with a yawn to see if it wasn't time to go to bed, and she saw-she thought at first that she was mistaken or dreamingshe saw between the shutters a hand, a big hand, a thick, wide hand with something terrifying about it, something which Catissou noticed at once-the four fingers were almost as thick as the thumb, and were all the same size, and all as long as one another, just as if they had been cut off at a certain point. But they had not been cut off, for they had nails; only they all finished in a line. This frightful hand, with the spatulated fingers-that's what Dr. Boutsilloux called them-glided along the shutters like a great spider, and it was evidently trying to push back the shutters without making a noise; it remained there almost motionless as Catissou looked up, as though the man to whom it belonged guessed that she was looking at it.

"For a moment Catherine thought that her eyes had been affected by the light of the lamp, causing her to see black and red spots as you do when you look at the sun. She opened them wide, and saw the hand gliding over the woodwork nearer and nearer. Catissou could no longer doubt the reality of what she saw, and tried to cry out; but she seemed choked, as if the hand were strangling her, and she could not utter a sound.

"She jumped up, stretched her arm out

her father in the dark.

towards Coussac, and shook him by the sleeve, pointing to the terrible hand at the window. But, at the

very moment when old Coussac turned and perceived the hand, the shutter was pushed violently back and the window opened very quickly, which caused the door of the room to open, admitting a draught of air which blew out the lamp and left Catherine and

"Then there was the noise of a heavy body jumping into the room, and Coussac endeavoured to find a knife in the drawer of the table on which he was reading-a knife to defend himself, and, above all, Catissou and Mr. Sabourdy's money; but, before he could open the drawer, he was seized by the throat, and felt something cold enter his body under the neck near the heart. Catissou could see nothing, but she guessed what was taking place, and she uttered a scream. Bang! A blow from a fist like a hammer on her head, and she fell senseless. The man must have had cat's eyes; he could see everything, and took good aim. If Catissou was not killed by the knife, it was because it had broken off short; still the fist was enough for the man's purpose in her case.

"How long the poor girl remained insensible, she could not say; but when she came to herself she was still in the lower room, and her grandmother in her nightdress, with a face as white as a sheet, was trying to restore poor old Léonard, who was dying.

"Of course you can guess that the chest had been broken open, and the thousandfranc notes stolen.

"What an awful night that was! It will be many a long day before it is forgotten in the Montmailler suburb. The neighbours were called up, the garden was searched, a guard put round the houses and the houses searched from top to bottom. They found

the imprints of iron-tipped boots in the flower-beds; instructions were given that these marks should not be touched, and the size was carefully measured. Every place round about was searched, but to no purpose. And, in the meantime, Coussac was dying, and his mother, half crazy with grief and rage, was saying what she would do if she only got hold of the assassin.

"As for Catherine, who was half mad too, the sight of that terrible hand, with the four fingers of the same length, gliding, gliding over the oaken shutter like a fieldspider or a crab-fish, was continually before her eyes.

"You can guess that everything that could be done was done to find the wretch who had sent the worthy man to 'Louyat,' that's what they call the cemetery at Limoges; the parson told me that the name comes from Alleluia.' Yes, everything possible was done, but I say again there was no clue! Of course, there was the hand, as Catissou told me at the barracks; but nobody knew a man with a hand like that in the whole of that part of the country-he would soon have been noticed. They questioned the men who worked with old Coussac, one after another. No, they did not know anyone with such a fist; and you could not suspect any of them. They were all decent fellows; they liked to wet their whistles a bit, but that isn't a crime. Besides, none of them knew that Mr. Sabourdy had left other money than the wages with Coussac. Who, then, could the rascal be who had such a hand as Catissou had seen?

"One day a journeyman butcher came and told us that he well remembered one day having a quarrel with a big, evillooking fellow, who had pulled out a knife; and the butcher had noticed, as he had pulled out this Nontron knife from his pocket, that this fellow had a very peculiar hand, a big, hairy hand with all the fingers of the same size! Now, the knife that had killed Léonard Coussac was a Nontron knife. But the butcher knew nothing about this man and nobody else had seen the fellow at Limoges, so we could only believe that the butcher was humbugging us. And still the hunt went on, but it was no good; and I was in a rare state about it, I was, for I had said to Catissou, looking her full in the face: Come, Miss Catissou, answer me plainly; what would you give to the one who brought your father's murderer to you with a rope round his neck?'

and she had not answered in words, but had become quite pale, and you should have seen her eyes, her beautiful black eyes! They were full of tears, and they promised something!

"Still, even that could not help me to find the wretch.

"At last, seeing that not one of the 12th, from the colonel to the last gendarme, could put his hand upon the fellow, Catherine said: 'Very well; if you can't find him, I will!'

"She left her situation as dressmaker, and asked the police authorities for permission to take part in the fairs. That surprised us all; but it surprised me especially, when in every place where there was any entertainment on, we saw a large canvas poster with a portrait of Catherine Coussac, dressed in

么

"WE SAW A LARGE CANVAS POSTER,