Chapter ThirteenGilbert had tried to think it all through before he took action. After he saw Valerie, his first thought was to tear home and tell his mother, so she could call the gendarmes immediately.
But as he ran home through the field he hesitated. His mother thought he was a daydreamer, always lost in the world of a book. She continually told him his head was full of cotton and outlandish ideas. She would accuse him of reading too many detective novels and fancying himself Inspector Maigret or some such.
It made Gilbert sad to realize it, but his mother was not someone he could go to and be believed.
All right, he had said to himself, I need to make a Plan B. And quickly he had come up with the idea of leaving an anonymous note for the gendarmes. It was only luck that his mother
