The Thibaults Read Online Free

is used to braving the scepticism of the rest of mankind.
    For a while they were silent. Then Antoine was struck by an idea that rekindled his detective enthusiasm.
    “May I ask you a question, Mme. de Fontanin? You say your daughter spoke my brother’s name. And that all day yesterday she was suffering from an inexplicable attack of fever. Mayn’t that be because your son confided in her before going away?”
    Mme. de Fontanin smiled indulgently. “You’d realize that such a suspicion is absurd, M. Thibault, if you knew my children and the way they behave with their mother. Never has either of them hidden anything from—” She stopped abruptly, stung by the thought that Daniel’s recent conduct gave her the lie. “Still,” she went on at once, but with a certain stiffness, moving towards the door, “if Jenny isn’t asleep you can ask her about it yourself.”
    The little girl had her eyes open. Her delicately moulded profile showed against the pillow; her cheeks were flushed. The black muzzle of the little dog peeped comically from between the sheets beside her.
    “Jenny, this is M. Thibault—the brother of one of Daniel’s friends, you know.”
    The child cast at the intruder a look that, eager at first, darkened with mistrust.
    Antoine went up to the bed, took her wrist and drew out his watch.
    “Still too quick,” he said. Then he listened to her breathing. He put into each professional gesture a rather self-complacent gravity.
    “How old is she?”
    “Almost thirteen.”
    “Really? I wouldn’t have thought it. As a matter of principle one can never be too careful about these feverish attacks. Not that there’s anything to be alarmed about, of course,” he added, looking at the child and smiling. Then, moving from the bedside, he said in a different tone:
    “Do you know my brother, Mademoiselle? Jacques Thibault?”
    Her forehead wrinkled; she shook her head.
    “Really and truly? Your brother has never talked to you about his best friend?”
    “Never.”
    “But, Jenny,” Mme. de Fontanin insisted, “don’t you remember? When I woke you up last night you were dreaming that Daniel and his friend Thibault were being chased along a road. You said ‘Thibault’ quite distinctly.”
    The child seemed to be searching in her memory of the night. Then, “I don’t know the name,” she said at last.
    “By the way,” Antoine went on after a short pause, “I’ve just been asking your mother about a detail she can’t remember; we’ve got to know it if we are to find your brother. How was he dressed?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Then you didn’t see him yesterday morning?”
    “Yes, I did. Quite early—when he was having his coffee and rolls. But he hadn’t dressed then.” She turned to her mother. “You’ve only to go to his wardrobe, and see what clothes are missing.”
    “There’s something else, Mademoiselle, something very important. Was it at nine o’clock, or ten, or eleven that your brother came back to leave the letter? Your mother was out then, so she can’t say.”
    “I don’t know.”
    Antoine caught a hint of annoyance in Jenny’s voice.
    “What a pity!” He made a gesture of disappointment. “That means we’ll have trouble in getting on his track.”
    “Wait!” Jenny said raising her arm to make him stay. “It was at ten minutes to eleven.”
    “Exactly? Quite sure about it?”
    “Yes.”
    “You looked at the clock while he was with you, I suppose.”
    “No. But that was the time when I went to the kitchen to get some bread-crumbs—for my drawing, you know. If he’d come before that, or if he’d come after, I’d have heard the door and gone to see.”
    “Yes, of course.” He pondered for a moment. What use was it to tire her with more questions? He had been mistaken; she knew nothing. “Now,” he went on, “you must make yourself comfy, and shut your eyes, and go to sleep.” He drew the blankets up over the little bare arm, smiling to the child.