He must surely be the culprit.

Everyone remembered his ferocious aspect, which had frightened the whole neighbourhood.

He had one evening menaced a woman, and another day beaten a child.

They could point out neither the child nor the woman; but no matter: these brutal acts were notoriously public.

M.Daburon began to despair of gaining the least enlightenment, when some one brought the wife of a grocer of Bougival, at whose shop the victim used to deal, and a child thirteen years old, who knew, it was said, something positive.
The grocer's wife first made her appearance.