"I saw it come, gracious countess," he said, with obvious pride in his own importance, "and I saw it draw up outside here. There was a soldier sitting near the chauffeur."
"And he was in the driving seat?" Elza asked.
"Yes, gracious countess, the soldier was driving when I first saw the car come along the road."
"Well, gracious countess, I saw a sort of heaped-up bundle beside the chauffeur. I did not know there was another man."
"The car slowed down, gracious countess, and drew up outside here. Then the soldier jumped up; he stepped over the heaped-up bundle and got out of the car."
"He took the thing which I thought was just a bundle covered with a military coat, and pushed it into the driver's seat. After that he ran away as fast as he could."
"Where he had come from, gracious countess. There was another car waiting for him there about half a kilomètre away."
"Yes; I didn't see it come, but I heard it slow down and come to a halt. The soldier ran all the way. He jumped into that other car, and it drove away in the direction of Cluj."
After that another man stepped in from the doorway and volunteered the information that he had seen the second car standing about half a kilomètre away. He had seen the soldier running, and had seen the car drive off. He thought there was another soldier in that car.
By that time a couple of gendarmes were on the scene. They were conducting their own investigations of the case in a casual, perfunctory manner. At first they took no notice of Elza or of Rosemary, talked over their heads in a proper democratic manner; then one of them asked curtly of Elza:
Whereupon the man queried roughly: "Then what are you doing here?"
Elza's face flushed a little, but she replied quite courteously: "We all hoped at the castle to hear that the miller's two sons had arrived safely at Hódmezö, and I thought that this was the car that drove them in the night."
The man gave a sneer and a shrug of the shoulders.
"You seem mightily concerned," he said, with a harsh laugh, "about the miller's sons, to be out of your bed at this hour of the morning."
He spat on the ground, turned on his heel, and once more addressed the peasants.
"Now, then," he said, quite genially, "all of you get back to your homes. The Government will see about this affair, and it is no concern of anybody's. Understand?"