"Which was it, shoes or sabots?" snarled the Purple Emperor.
"Sabots, you fool."
"Are these your sabots?" he asked, lifting up a wooden shoe with my initials cut on the instep.
"Yes," I replied.
"Then how did this blood come on the other one?" he shouted, and held up a sabot, the mate to the first, on which a drop of blood had spattered.
"I haven't the least idea," I said calmly; but my heart was beating very fast and I was furiously angry.
"You blockhead!" I said, controlling my rage, "I'll make you pay for this when they catch Yves Terrec and convict him. Brigadier Durand, do your duty if you think I am under suspicion. Arrest me, but grant me one favour. Put me in the Red Admiral's cottage, and I'll see whether I can't find some clew that you have overlooked. Of course, I won't disturb anything until the Commissaire arrives. Bah! You all make me very ill."
"He's hardened," observed the Purple Emperor, wagging his head.
"What motive had I to kill the Red Admiral?" I asked them all scornfully. And they all cried:
"None! Yves Terrec is the man!"
