He had already introduced a skeleton key into the lock, when a loud exclamation was heard from the crowd outside the gate.
"The key!" they cried.

"Here is the key!" A boy about twelve years old playing with one of his companions, had seen an enormous key in a ditch by the roadside; he had picked it up and carried it to the cottage in triumph.
"Give it to me youngster," said the corporal.

"We shall see." The key was tried, and it proved to be the key of the house.
The commissary and the locksmith exchanged glances full of sinister misgivings.

"This looks bad," muttered the corporal.

They entered the house, while the crowd, restrained with difficulty by the gendarmes, stamped with impatience, or leant over the garden wall, stretching their necks eagerly, to see or hear something of what was passing within the cottage.
Those who anticipated the discovery of a crime, were unhappily not deceived.