"It is a detail such as may
well become valuable, though apparently foreign to the case, and
at the first view, insignificant."
"Hum!" grunted Papa Plantat. "Insignificant--foreign to it!"
His tone was so singular, his air so strange, that M. Domini was
struck by it.
"Do you share," he asked, "the opinion of the mayor regarding the
Tremorels?"
Plantat shrugged his shoulders.
"I haven't any opinions," he answered: "I live alone--see nobody;
don't disturb myself about anything. But--"
"It seems to me," said M. Courtois, "that nobody should be better
acquainted with people who were my friends than I myself."
"Then, you are telling the story clumsily," said M. Plantat, dryly.
The judge of instruction pressed him to explain himself. So M.
Plantat, without more ado, to the great scandal of the mayor, who
was thus put into the background, proceeded to dilate upon the main
features of the count's and countess's biography.
"The Countess de Tremorel, nee Bertha Lechaillu, was the daughter
of a poor village school-master. At eighteen, her beauty was
famous for three leagues around, but as she only had for dowry her
great blue eyes and blond ringlets, but few serious lovers presented
themselves.
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