"Now tell us all you know," said the Senechal.
And Peter ramblingly told how he and Tom had been drinking together the
night before, and how Tom had started off home and he had gone to bed.
"Were you both drunk?"
"Well--"
"Very well, you were. Did you think it right to let your friend go off
in that condition when he had to cross the Coupee?"
"I've seen him worse, many times, and no harm come to him."
"Well, get on!"
He told how Mrs. Tom woke him up in the morning, and how they had all
gone in search of the missing man.
"Was it you that found him?"
"No, it was Charles Guille of Clos Bourel. But I found something too."
"What was it?"
"This"--and from under his coat he drew out carefully the white stone
with its red-brown spots, and from his pocket the button and the scrap
of blue cloth. And those at the back stood up, with much noise, to see.
The men at the table looked at these scraps of possible evidence with
interest, as they were placed before them.
"Where did you find these things?"
"Between Plaisance and the Coupee."
"What do you make of them?"
"Seemed to me those red spots might be blood.
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