so to speak, the sign manual which the criminal
vagrant leaves behind him on the scene of his crime.

BUNERAT. True; I was familiar with that detail.

LA BOUZOLE [_under his breath to Ardeuil_] That fellow would send a man
to the scaffold for the sake of seeming to know something.

VAGRET. Go on--go on.

MOUZON. Monsieur Delorme ought to have known this also: in the life of
the vagrant there is one necessity which comes next to hunger and
thirst--it is the need of footwear. This is so true that they have
sometimes been known to make this need a pretext for demanding an
appeal, because the journey to the Court of Appeal is generally made on
foot, so that the administration is obliged to furnish shoes, and, as
these are scarcely worn during the period of detention, they are in good
condition when the man leaves prison. Now the supposed vagrant has a
foot very nearly the same size as that of his victim. He has--you
yourself have told us--boots which are in a very bad condition. Well,
gentlemen, this badly shod vagrant does not take the good strong boots
which are in the house! I will add but one word more. If the crime had
been committed by a passing stranger--by a professional mendicant--will
you tell me why this remarkable murderer follows the road which passes
in front of the victim's house--a road on which he would find no
resources--a road on which houses are met with only at intervals of two
or three miles--when there is, close at hand, another road which runs
through various villages and passes numbers of farmhouses, in which it
is a tradition never to refuse hospitality to one of his kind? One word
more. Why does this vagrant steal family papers which will betray him as
the criminal the very first time he comes into contact with the police?
No, gentlemen, the criminal is not a vagrant. If you want to find him,
you must not look for a man wandering along the highway; you must look
for him among those relatives or debtors or friends, who had an interest
in his death.

VAGRET. This is very true.

BUNERAT. I call that admirably logical and extremely lucid.

MOUZON. Believe me, the matter is quite simple. If I were intrusted with
the examination, I guarantee that within three days the criminal would
be under lock and key.

VAGRET. Well, my dear colleague, I have a piece of news for you.
Monsieur Delorme, who is very unwell, has returned me his brief this
afternoon, and it will be intrusted to you. Henceforth t