The Postman's Mistake

One day, Boniface, the Postman, found in leaving the post office that his route would not be so long and therefore felt a lively delight.

He had charge of the country around Vireville and, when he returned in the evening, he often found he had covered twenty miles in his long march.

Today the distribution would be easy; he could even stroll along a little and be home by three o'clock in the afternoon. What luck!

He went out along the Sennemare road and commenced his work. It was June, the month of green things and flowers, the true month of the fields and meadows.

The man, in his blue blouse and black cap with red braid, crossed through bypaths, fields of millet, oats and wheat, buried to the shoulders in their depths; and his head, moving along above the feathery waves, seemed to float upon a calm and verdant sea, which a light breeze caused to undulate gently. He entered the farms through wooden gateways built on the slopes and shaded by two rows of beech trees, greeted the farmer by name: "Good morning, Monsieur Chicot," and passed him his newspaper.

The farmer would wipe his hand on his trousers, receive the paper and slide it into his pocket to read at his ease after the midday meal. The dogs, asleep in barrels under the drooping apple trees, yapped with fury, pulling at their chains, but the postman, without turning, proceeded at his military gait, stretching his long limbs, the left arm over his bag, the right manipulating his cane which marched like himself, in a continuous, hurried fashion.

He distributed his printed matter and his letters in the hamlet of Sennemare, then set out across the fields with a paper for the tax collector who lived in a little isolated house a quarter of a mile from the village.

He was a new collector, this Chapatis, arrived but the week before and lately married.

He took a Paris paper, and sometimes Boniface, when he had time, would take a look at it before delivering it at its destination.

Now he opened his bag, took out the paper, slipped it out of its wrapper, unfolded it and began to read while walking. The first page did not interest him; politics did not arouse him; the finance he always passed over; but the general facts of the day he read eagerly.

That day they were very exciting. He became so much interested in the story of a crime executed in a gamekeeper's lodge that he stopped in the middle of a clover field to read it more slowly. The details were frightful. A woodcutter, in passing the forester's house the morning after, had noticed a little blood upon the sill, as if someone had been bleeding from the nose. "The keeper must have killed a wolf last night," he thought, but coming nearer, he perceived that the door was left open and that the lock had been broken. Then, seized with fear, he ran to the village, notified the mayor, who took with him as a reinforcement the keeper of fields and the schoolmaster; these four men returned together. They found the forester with his throat (continued on Page 70) Postman's Mistake (continued from page 59) cut before the chimney piece, his wife strangled on the bed and their little daughter, aged six years, stifled under two mattresses.

Boniface became so wrought up over the thought of this horrible multiple murder that he felt a weakness in his limbs and he shuddered.

Then he replaced the journal in its wrapper and went on, his head full of visions of the crime. He arrived shortly at Monsieur Chapatis's. He opened the gate of the little garden and approached the house. It was of low construction, containing only one story and a mansard roof. It was at least five hundred feet from its nearest neighbor.

The postman mounted the two front steps, placed his hand upon the knob, trying to open the door, but found it locked. Then he perceived that the shutters had not been opened and that no one had come out that morning.

A feeling of alarm took possession of him, for Monsieur Chapatis, since his arrival, had always been up rather early. It was then only ten minutes after seven, nearly an hour earlier than he usually got there. No matter. The tax collector ought to be up before that.

He made a tour around the house, walking with much precaution, as if he himself might be in some danger. He noticed nothing suspicious except a man's footprints on a strawberry bed.

Then suddenly he stopped. For, as he was passing a window, he heard, unmistakably, a groan issue from the house.

He approached nearer and glued his ear to the window in order to hear better. Assuredly someone was groaning. He could plainly hear long, soul-rending sighs and the sounds of struggle. Then the groans became louder and more frequent, finally changing into cries.

No longer doubtful that a violent crime was being committed, Boniface took to his legs, flew across the field and the meadow, running until he was out of breath, his bag shaking and hitting against his hip, and arrived gasping and in dismay at the door of the police headquarters.

Brigadier Malautour was mending a broken chair by means of some brads and a hammer. Gendarme Rauter held the damaged piece of furniture between his knees and placed a nail at the edge of the crack; then the brigadier, chewing his mustache, his eyes round and moist with interest in his work, would pound—blows which fell on the fingers of his subordinate.

When the postman saw them he cried out:

"Come quick; someone is murdering the tax collector. Quick! Quick!"

The two men ceased their work and raised their heads, the astonished heads of people surprised and perplexed.

Boniface, seeing more surprise than haste, repeated:

"Quick! Quick! The robbers are in the house. I heard the cries. There is no time to be lost."

The brigadier, placing his hammer on the ground, remarked: "How was it you found out about this?"

The postman answered: "I went to carry the paper and two letters, when I noticed that the door was locked and that the collector had not been out. I walked around the house, trying to account for it, when suddenly I heard someone groan as if in terrible agony— and then I started as soon as I could to get you. There's no time to be lost."

"And you didn't try to help any?"

The postman, much frightened, replied:

"I was afraid that one was too small a number."

Then the brigadier, convinced, said:

"Give me time to get into my uniform and I will follow you."

And he went into the building, followed by his subordinate who carried the chair. They reappeared almost immediately, and all three started in quick, trained step for the scene of the crime.

Arriving near the house, they slackened their pace through precaution, and the brigadier drew his revolver; then they went softly into the garden and approached the walls of the dwelling. There was nothing to indicate that the malefactors had gone away. The door remained locked, the windows closed.

"Let us wait for them," murmured the brigadier.

But Boniface, palpitating with emotion, made them pass around to the other side and showed them an opening. "Listen," he said.

The brigadier advanced alone and fixed his ear against the board. The two others waited, ready for anything, watching him closely.

He remained a long time, motionless, listening. The better to bring his head near the wooden shutter, he had removed his three-cornered hat and held it in his right hand.

What did he hear? His face revealed nothing for some time, then suddenly his mustache rose at the corners; his cheeks took on folds as in a silent laugh and, returning, he came toward the two men who were looking at him in a kind of stupor.

Walking along on the tips of his toes, he made the sign for them to follow, and when they came to the gate he advised Boniface to slip the paper and the letters under the door.

The amazed postman obeyed with perfect docility.

"And now, back to headquarters," said the brigadier.

When they had gone a little way he turned to the postman with a jocose air, his eyes upturned and shining with fun, and said in a bantering tone:

"Well, you certainly are a rascal!"

The old fellow asked: "Why? I heard groans, I tell you—groans and cries and thrashing about as if someone were being murdered!"

Then the brigadier, no longer able to restrain himself, laughed aloud. He laughed to suffocation, his two hands holding his sides, doubling himself up, his eyes full of tears.

"Ah!" he said at last. "You heard cries. And your wife, do you murder her that way, you old prankster?"

"My wife?"

And he stood reflecting a long time, then he continued:

"My wife. Yes, she cries out if I strike her—why? Was Monsieur Chapatis beating his wife?"

Then the brigadier, in a delirium of humor, turned him around by the shoulders as if he had been a puppet and whispered in his ear.

The old man murmured in astonishment:

"No! You can't mean it! You can't mean that Monsieur Chapatis and his wife were—But—but —my wife—she never utters a sound . . ."

And confused, disconcerted and ashamed, he went on his way across the fields, while the two policemen, laughing continually and calling back to him from afar with barrack-room wit, watched his black cap as it disappeared in the tranquil sea of grain.

He was sure some terrible crime was being committed.