Short Fiction

a testimony of their gratitude.

“I gave them supper in the kitchen, and offered them my hospitality for the night. They left the following day.

“The woman returns every year at the same date with the child, a fine little girl, and a new⁠ ⁠… lord and master each time. One man only, a fellow from Auvergne, who thanked me in his strange accent, came back two years in succession. The little girl calls them all ‘Papa,’ just as one says ‘Monsieur’ with us.”

We were arriving at the house, and we could barely distinguish three shadows standing on the steps, waiting for us. The tallest one took a few steps forward, made a great bow, and said: “Monsieur le Comte, we have come today in recognition of our gratefulness.⁠ ⁠…”

He was a Belgian!

After him, the little one spoke in the shrill, singing voice which children use when they recite a compliment.

I appeared to know nothing, and I took Mademoiselle Elmire to one side, and, after a few questions, I asked her: “Is that the father of your child?”

“Oh! no, Monsieur.”

“Is the father dead?”

“Oh! no, Monsieur. We still see each other from time to time. He is a gendarme.”

“What! then it wasn’t the fellow from Marseilles who was there at the birth?”

“Oh! no, Monsieur. That was a rascal who stole all my savings.”

“And the gendarme, the real father, does he know his child?”

“Oh! yes, Monsieur, and he loves her very much; but he can’t take care of her because he has others by his wife.”

The Rabbit

At the usual time between five and a quarter past five in the morning, old Lecacheur appeared at the door of his house to watch his men start work.

Red in the face and half asleep⁠—one eye open and the other nearly shut⁠—he had some difficulty in buttoning his braces over his fat stomach while he cast a keen glance round every important corner of the farm. The sun shed its oblique rays through the beech-trees by the ditch and the squat apple trees in the courtyard, making the cocks on the dunghill crow, and the pigeons on the roof coo. In the fresh morning air the smell of the cow-house drifted through the open door, mingled with the pungent odour from the stable where the neighing horses turned their heads towards the light.

As soon as his trousers were safely fastened, old Lecacheur started off, going first to the henhouse to count the morning’s eggs, as he had had suspicions about some of his friends for some time past.

The servant-girl rushed towards him with her arms in the air, shouting:

“Master, master, a rabbit has been stolen in the night.”

“A rabbit?”

“Yes, master, the big grey one from the hutch on the right.”

The farmer opened his left eye wide and simply said:

“I must see to it.”

And off he went. The hutch had been broken, and the rabbit was gone. Then the man, greatly worried, closed his right eye and scratched his nose. After thinking the matter over he told the scared servant-girl, who was standing beside him like a fool:

“Go and fetch the police. Say I expect them to come at once.”

Old Lecacheur was mayor of his commune, Pavigny-le-Gras, over which he ruled with a high hand owing to his wealth and position.

As soon as the girl had disappeared in the direction of the village, which was about five hundred yards away, the peasant went home to have his morning coffee and discuss the matter with his wife, whom he found on her knees in front of the fire blowing it to make it burn up.

When he reached the door he said: “Now, someone has stolen a rabbit, the big, grey one.”

“The big, grey one?” she sighed. “What a shame! Whoever can have stolen that rabbit?”

She was a little, thin woman, full of energy, and very neat, who knew all about farming.

Lecacheur had his own ideas on the matter.

“It must be that fellow Polyte.”

The wife suddenly got up from the floor and said in a furious voice:

“He did it! He did it! No need to hunt about for anyone else. He did it! You are right Cacheux!”

All the avarice and fury of the careful peasant woman against the manservant of whom she had always been suspicious and against the servant-girl she had always suspected, showed in the contraction of her mouth and in the wrinkles in the cheeks and forehead of her thin, angry face.

“What have you done?” she asked.

“I have sent for the police.”

Polyte was a labourer who had been employed on the farm for a few days and dismissed by Lecacheur for insolence. He had been a soldier and was said to have kept the habits of pilfering and debauchery acquired in his African campaigns. He did anything to earn a livelihood, but whether mason, navvy, carter, reaper, stone-breaker, or tree-pruner, first and foremost he was a loafer. Not only could he never keep a place, but he was often obliged to go to different parts of the country to find a job.

From the very first day that he came to the farm, Lecacheur’s wife had detested him, and now she was sure that he had committed the theft.

In about half an hour the two policemen arrived. Inspector Sénateur was very tall and thin, Constable Lenient was short and fat.

Lecacheur made them sit down and told them all about it. Then they visited the scene of the theft to verify the destruction of the hutch and to collect evidence. When they got back to the kitchen, the mistress of the house brought out some wine, filled up the glasses and asked with a defiant glance:

“Are you going to catch him?”

The inspector seemed anxious. Of course he was sure to catch the thief if he were pointed out to him. If not, he could not promise to find the culprit. After long reflection he asked this simple question:

“Do you know the thief?”

An expression of Norman cunning crept round Lecacheur’s big mouth, and he replied:

“As for knowing him,