His attention had been attracted by a deposition mentioning the black horse that Georges had ridden from Preuseville to Aumale--the one that the school-master Monnier had hidden in a corridor of his house. With this slight clue he started for the country. There he learned that a workman called Saint-Aubin, who lived in the hamlet of Coppegueule, had been ordered to take the horse to an address on a letter which Monnier had given him. This man, when called upon to appear, remembered that he had led the horse "to a fine house in the environs of Gournay." When he arrived there a servant had taken the animal to the stables, and a lady had come out and asked for the letter, but he denied all knowledge of the lady's name or the situation of the house. Manginot resolved to search the country in company with Saint-Aubin, but he was either stupid or pretended to be so, and refused to give any assistance. He led the gendarmes six leagues, as far as Aumale, and said, at first, that he recognised the Chateau de Mercatet-sur-Villers, but on looking carefully at the avenues and the arrangement of the buildings, he declared he had never been there. The same thing happened at Beaulevrier and at Mothois; but on approaching Gournay his memory returned, and he led Manginot to a house in the hamlet of Saint-Clair which he asserted was the one to which Monnier had sent him. On entering the courtyard he recognised the servant to whom he had given the horse six months before, a groom named Joseph Planchon. Manginot instantly arrested the man, and then began his search. The house belonged to an ex-officer of marine, Francois Robert d'Ache, who rarely occupied it, being an ardent sportsman and preferring his estates near Neufchatel-en-Bray, where there was more game. Saint-Clair was occupied by Mme. d'Ache, an invalid who rarely left her room, and her two daughters, Louise and Alexandrine, as well as d'Ache's mother, a bedridden octogenarian, and a young man named Caqueray, who was also called the Chevalier de Lorme, who farmed the lands of M. and Mme. d'Ache, whose property had recently been separated by law. Caqueray looked upon himself as one of the family, and Louise, the eldest girl, was betrothed to him. Nothing could have been less suspicious than the members of this patriarchal household, who seemed to know nothing of politics, and whose tranquil lives were apparently unaffected by revolutions. The absence of the head of so united a family was the only astonishing thing about it. But Mme. d'Ache and her daughters explained that he was bored at Saint-Clair and usually lived in Rouen, that he hunted a great deal, and spent his time between his relatives who lived near Gaillon and friends at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. They could not say where he was at present, having had no news of him for two months.