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Consequently, overcome by his repugnance for the man, he was about to pass him by without speaking, when M. Bonacieux hailed him as he had the day before.

“Well, now, young man,” he said to him, “it seems we’re putting in some long nights! Seven o’clock in the morning, bedad! It strikes me that you’re turning received custom on its head and coming home just when others go out.”

“No one would make you the same reproach, Master Bonacieux,” said the young man. “You are the model of orderly folk. It’s true that when you’ve got a young and pretty wife, you needn’t go chasing after happiness: it’s happiness that comes looking for you, isn’t that so, M. Bonacieux?”

Bonacieux turned pale as death and grinned painfully.

“Ha, ha!” said Bonacieux, “you’re pleasant company! But where the devil were you running around last night, my young master? It seems the back roads weren’t in very good condition.”

D’Artagnan lowered his eyes to his completely mud-covered boots; but in that movement, his glance fell at the same time on the mercer’s shoes and stockings. One would have said they had been soaked in the same quagmire; they were soiled with absolutely the same stains as his boots.

Then an idea suddenly flashed through d’Artagnan’s mind. That little man, fat, short, gray-haired, that sort of lackey dressed in dark clothes, treated without consideration by the swordsmen who made up the escort, had been Bonacieux himself. The husband had presided over the abduction of his wife.

D’Artagnan felt a terrible desire to leap for the mercer’s throat and strangle him; but, as we have said, he was an extremely prudent lad, and he contained himself. However, the change that had come over his face was so visible that Bonacieux was frightened and tried to back away; but he was standing just in front of the door, which was closed, and the obstacle he encountered forced him to stay where he was.

“Ah, but it’s you who are joking, my good man!” said d’Artagnan. “It seems to me that if my boots could use a sponge down, your shoes and stockings also call for a brushing. Could you have been gadding about yourself, Master Bonacieux? Ah, devil take it! That would hardly be excusable in a man of your age and who, moreover, has a young and pretty wife like yours.”

“Oh, my God, no!” said Bonacieux. “But yesterday I was in Saint-Mandé to obtain information about a maidservant, whom I cannot possibly do without, and as the roads were bad, I brought back all this mire, which I have not yet had time to make disappear.”

The place Bonacieux designated as the end of his journey was a new proof in support of the suspicions d’Artagnan had conceived. Bonacieux had said Saint-Mandé, because Saint-Mandé is in absolutely the opposite direction from Saint-Cloud.

This probability was a first consolation for him. If Bonacieux knew where his wife was, then, by employing extreme means, one could always force the mercer to unclench his teeth and let out his secret. It was only a question of changing that probability into a certainty.

“Excuse me, my dear M. Bonacieux, if I impose on you unceremoniously, but nothing makes one so thirsty as lack of sleep, and I have a raging thirst. Allow me to take a glass of water in your house; you know that’s something neighbors can’t refuse.”

And without waiting for his landlord’s permission, d’Artagnan went briskly into the house and cast a quick glance at the bed. The bed was not unmade. Bonacieux had not slept in it. He had thus come back only an hour or two ago. He had gone with his wife wherever they had taken her, or at least to the first relay.

“Thank you, Master Bonacieux,” said d’Artagnan, emptying his glass, “that’s all I wanted from you. Now I’ll go home, have Planchet brush my boots, and when he’s done, I’ll send him to you, if you like, to brush your shoes.”

And he left the mercer quite dumbfounded with this singular good-bye, and asking himself if he had not run upon his own sword.

At the top of the stairs he found Planchet