The former soldier, Mederic Rompel, familiarly called Mederic by the
country folks, left the post office of Roily-le-Tors at the usual hour.
After passing through the village with his long stride, he cut across
the meadows of Villaume and reached the bank of the Brindille, following
the path along the water's edge to the village of Carvelin, where he
commenced to deliver his letters. He walked quickly, following the
course of the narrow river, which frothed, murmured and boiled in its
grassy bed beneath an arch of willows.
Mederic went on without stopping, with only this thought in his mind:
“My first letter is for the Poivron family, then I have one for Monsieur
Renardet; so I must cross the wood.”
His blue blouse, fastened round his waist by a black leather belt, moved
in a quick, regular fashion above the green hedge of willow trees, and
his stout stick of holly kept time with his steady tread.
He crossed the Brindille on a bridge consisting of a tree trunk, with
a handrail of rope, fastened at either end to a stake driven into the
ground.
The wood, which belonged to Monsieur Renardet, the mayor of Carvelin
and the largest landowner in the district, consisted of huge old trees,
straight as pillars and extending for about half a league along the left
bank of the stream which served as a boundary to this immense dome of
foliage. Alongside the water large shrubs had grown up in the sunlight,
but under the trees one found nothing but moss, thick, soft and
yielding, from which arose, in the still air, an odor of dampness and of
dead wood.
Mederic slackened his pace, took off his black cap adorned with red
lace and wiped his forehead, for it was by this time hot in the meadows,
though it was not yet eight o'clock in the morning.
He had just recovered from the effects of the heat and resumed his quick
pace when he noticed at the foot of a tree a knife, a child's small
knife. When he picked it up he discovered a thimble and also a
needlecase not far away.
Having taken up these objects, he thought: “I'll entrust them to the
mayor,” and he resumed his journey, but now he kept his eyes open,
expecting to find something else.
All of a sudden he stopped short, as if he had struck against a wooden
barrier. Ten paces in front of him lay stretched on her back on the moss
a little girl, perfectly nude, her face covered with a handkerchief. She
was about twelve years old.
Meredic advanced on tiptoe, as if he apprehended some danger, and he
glanced toward the spot uneasily.
What was this? No doubt she was asleep. Then he reflected that a person
does not go to sleep naked at half-past seven in the morning under the
cool trees. So, then, she must be dead, and he must be face to face with
a crime. At this thought a cold shiver ran through his frame, although
he was an old soldier. And then a murder was such a rare thing in
the country, and, above all, the murder of a child, that he could not
believe his eyes. But she had no wound-nothing save a spot of blood on
her leg. How, then, had she been killed?
He stopped close to her and gazed at her, while he leaned on his stick.
Certainly he must know her, for he knew all the inhabitants of the
district; but, not being able to get a look at her face, he could not
guess her name. He stooped forward in order to take off the handkerchief
which covered her face, then paused, with outstretched hand, restrained
by an idea that occurred to him.
Had he the right to disarrange anything in the condition of the corpse
before the official investigation? He pictured justice to himself as a
kind of general whom nothing escapes and who attaches as much importance
to a lost button as to the stab of a knife in the stomach. Perhaps under
this handkerchief evidence could be found to sustain a charge of murder;
in fact, if such proof were there it might lose its value if touched by
an awkward hand.
Then he raised himself with the intention of hastening toward the
mayor's residence, but again another thought held him back. If the
little girl were still alive, by any chance, he could not leave her
lying there in this way. He sank on his knees very gently, a little
distance from her, through precaution, and extended his hand toward her
foot. It was icy cold, with the terrible coldness of death which leaves
us no longer in doubt. The letter carrier, as he touched her, felt his
heart in his mouth, as he said himself afterward, and his mouth parched.
Rising up abruptly, he rushed off under the trees toward Monsieur
Renardet's house.
He walked on faster than ever, with his stick under his arm, his hands
clenched and his head thrust forward, while his leathern bag, filled
with letters and newspapers, kept flapping at his side.
The mayor's residence was at the end of the wood which served as a park,
and one side of it was washed by the Brindille.
It was a big square house of gray stone, very old, and had stood many
a siege in former days, and at the end of it was a huge tower, twenty
metres high, rising out of the water.
From the top of this fortress one could formerly see all the surrounding
country. It was called the Fox's tower, without any one knowing exactly
why; and from this appellation, no doubt, had come the name Renardet,
borne by the owners of this fief, which had remained in the same family,
it was said, for more than two hundred years. For the Renardets formed
part of the upper middle class, all but noble, to be met with so often
in the province before the Revolution.
The postman dashed into the kitchen, where the servants were taking
breakfast, and exclaimed:
“Is the mayor up? I want to speak to him at once.”
Mederic was recognized as a man of standing and authority, and they
understood that something serious had happened.
As soon as word was brought to Monsieur Renardet, he ordered the postman
to be sent up to him. Pale and out of breath, with his cap in his hand,
Mederic found the mayor seated at a long table covered with scattered
papers.
He was a large, tall man, heavy and red-faced, strong as an ox, and
was greatly liked in the district, although of an excessively violent
disposition. Almost forty years old and a widower for the past six
months, he lived on his estate like a country gentleman. His choleric
temperament had often brought him into trouble from which the
magistrates of Roily-le-Tors, like indulgent and prudent friends, had
extricated him. Had he not one day thrown the conductor of the
diligence from the top of his seat because he came near running over his
retriever, Micmac? Had he not broken the ribs of a gamekeeper who abused
him for having, gun in hand, passed through a neighbor's property? Had
he not even caught by the collar the sub-prefect, who stopped over
in the village during an administrative circuit, called by Monsieur
Renardet an electioneering circuit, for he was opposed to the
government, in accordance with family traditions.
The mayor asked:
“What's the matter now, Mederic?”
“I found a little girl dead in your wood.”
Renardet rose to his feet, his face the color of brick.
“What do you say--a little girl?”
“Yes, m'sieu, a little girl, quite naked, on her back, with blood on
her, dead--quite dead!”
The mayor gave vent to an oath:
“By God, I'd make a bet it is little Louise Roque! I have just learned
that she did not go home to her mother last night. Where did you find
her?”
The postman described the spot, gave full details and offered to conduct
the mayor to the place.
But Renardet became brusque:
“No, I don't need you. Send the watchman, the mayor's secretary and the
doctor to me at once, and resume your rounds. Quick, quick, go and tell
them to meet me in the wood.”
The letter carrier, a man used to discipline, obeyed and withdrew, angry
and grieved at not being able to be present at the investigation.
The mayor, in his turn, prepared to go out, took his big soft hat and
paused for a few seconds on the threshold of his abode. In front of him
stretched a wide sward, in which were three large beds of flowers in
full bloom, one facing the house and the others at either side of it.
Farther on the outlying trees of the wood rose skyward, while at the
left, beyond the Brindille, which at that spot widened into a pond,
could be seen long meadows, an entirely green flat sweep of country,
intersected by trenches and hedges of pollard willows.
To the right, behind the stables, the outhouses and all the buildings
connected with the property, might be seen the village, which was
wealthy, being mainly inhabited by cattle breeders.
Renardet slowly descended the steps in front of his house, and, turning
to the left, gained the water's edge, which he followed at a slow pace,
his hand behind his back. He walked on, with bent head, and from time to
time glanced round in search of the persons he had sent for.
When he stood beneath the trees he stopped, took off his hat and wiped
his forehead as Mederic had done, for the burning sun was darting its
fiery rays on the earth. Then the mayor resumed his journey, stopped
once more and retraced his steps. Suddenly, stooping down, he steeped
his handkerchief in the stream that glided along at his feet and spread
it over his head, under his hat. Drops of water flowed down his temples
over his ears, which were always purple, over his strong red neck, and
made their way, one after the other, under his white shirt collar.
As nobody had appeared, he began tapping with his foot, then he called
out:
“Hello! Hello!”
A voice at his right answered:
“Hello! Hello!”
And the doctor appeared under the trees. He was a thin little man, an
ex-military surgeon, who passed in the neighborhood for a very skillful
practitioner. He limped, having been wounded while in the service, and
had to use a stick to assist him in walking.
Next came the watchman and the mayor's secretary, who, having been sent
for at the same time, arrived together. They looked scared, and hurried
forward, out of breath, walking and running alternately to hasten their
progress, and moving their arms up and down so vigorously that they
seemed to do more work with them than with their legs.
Renardet said to the doctor:
“You know what the trouble is about?”
“Yes, a child found dead in the wood by Mederic.”
“That's quite correct. Come on!”
They walked along, side by side, followed by the two men.
Their steps made no sound on the moss. Their eyes were gazing ahead in
front of them.
Suddenly the doctor, extending his arm, said:
“See, there she is!”
Far ahead of them under the trees they saw something white on which the
sun gleamed down through the branches. As they approached they gradually
distinguished a human form lying there, its head toward the river, the
face covered and the arms extended as though on a crucifix.
“I am fearfully warm,” said the mayor, and stooping down, he again
soaked his handkerchief in the water and placed it round his forehead.
The doctor hastened his steps, interested by the discovery. As soon as
they were near the corpse, he bent down to examine it without touching
it. He had put on his pince-nez, as one does in examining some curious
object, and turned round very quietly.
He said, without rising:
“Violated and murdered, as we shall prove presently. This little girl,
moreover, is almost a woman--look at her throat.”
The doctor lightly drew away the handkerchief which covered her
face, which looked black, frightful, the tongue protruding, the eyes
bloodshot. He went on:
“By heavens! She was strangled the moment the deed was done.”
He felt her neck.
“Strangled with the hands without leaving any special trace, neither
the mark of the nails nor the imprint of the fingers. Quite right. It is
little Louise Roque, sure enough!”
He carefully replaced the handkerchief.
“There's nothing for me to do. She's been dead for the last hour at
least. We must give notice of the matter to the authorities.”
Renardet, standing up, with his hands behind his back, kept staring
with a stony look at the little body exposed to view on the grass. He
murmured:
“What a wretch! We must find the clothes.”
The doctor felt the hands, the arms, the legs. He said:
“She had been bathing no doubt. They ought to be at the water's edge.”
The mayor thereupon gave directions:
“Do you, Principe,” (this was his secretary), “go and find those clothes
for me along the stream. You, Maxime,” (this was the watchman), “hurry
on toward Rouy-le-Tors and bring with you the magistrate with the
gendarmes. They must be here within an hour. You understand?”
The two men started at once, and Renardet said to the doctor:
“What miscreant could have done such a deed in this part of the
country?”
The doctor murmured:
“Who knows? Any one is capable of that. Every one in particular and
nobody in general. No matter, it must be some prowler, some workman out
of employment. Since we have become a Republic we meet only this kind of
person along the roads.”
Both of them were Bonapartists.
The mayor went on:
“Yes, it can only be a stranger, a passer-by, a vagabond without hearth
or home.”
The doctor added, with the shadow of a smile on his face:
“And without a wife. Having neither a good supper nor a good bed, he
became reckless. You can't tell how many men there may be in the world
capable of a crime at a given moment. Did you know that this little girl
had disappeared?”
And with the end of his stick he touched one after the other the
stiffened fingers of the corpse, resting on them as on the keys of a
piano.
“Yes, the mother came last night to look for me about nine o'clock, the
child not having come home at seven to supper. We looked for her along
the roads up to midnight, but we did not think of the wood. However, we
needed daylight to carry out a thorough search.”
“Will you have a cigar?” said the doctor.
“Thanks, I don't care to smoke. This thing affects me so.”
They remained standing beside the corpse of the young girl, so pale on
the dark moss. A big blue fly was walking over the body with his lively,
jerky movements. The two men kept watching this wandering speck.
The doctor said:
“How pretty it is, a fly on the skin! The ladies of the last century
had good reason to paste them on their faces. Why has this fashion gone
out?”
The mayor seemed not to hear, plunged as he was in deep thought.
But, all of a sudden, he turned round, surprised by a shrill noise. A
woman in a cap and blue apron was running toward them under the trees.
It was the mother, La Roque. As soon as she saw Renardet she began to
shriek:
“My little girl! Where's my little girl?” so distractedly that she did
not glance down at the ground. Suddenly she saw the corpse, stopped
short, clasped her hands and raised both her arms while she uttered a
sharp, heartrending cry--the cry of a wounded animal. Then she rushed
toward the body, fell on her knees and snatched away the handkerchief
that covered the face. When she saw that frightful countenance, black
and distorted, she rose to her feet with a shudder, then sinking to
the ground, face downward, she pressed her face against the ground and
uttered frightful, continuous screams on the thick moss.
Her tall, thin frame, with its close-clinging dress, was palpitating,
shaken with spasms. One could see her bony ankles and her dried-up
calves covered with coarse blue stockings shaking horribly. She was
digging the soil with her crooked fingers, as though she were trying to
make a hole in which to hide herself.
The doctor, much affected, said in a low tone:
“Poor old woman!”
Renardet felt a strange sensation. Then he gave vent to a sort of loud
sneeze, and, drawing his handkerchief from his pocket, he began to weep
internally, coughing, sobbing and blowing his nose noisily.
He stammered:
“Damn--damn--damned pig to do this! I would like to seem him
guillotined.”
Principe reappeared with his hands empty. He murmured:
“I have found nothing, M'sieu le Maire, nothing at all anywhere.”
The mayor, alarmed, replied in a thick voice, drowned in tears:
“What is that you could not find?”
“The little girl's clothes.”
“Well--well--look again, and find them--or you 'll have to answer to
me.”
The man, knowing that the mayor would not brook opposition, set forth
again with hesitating steps, casting a timid side glance at the corpse.
Distant voices were heard under the trees, a confused sound, the noise
of an approaching crowd, for Mederic had, in the course of his rounds,
carried the news from door to door. The people of the neighborhood,
dazed at first, had gossiped about it in the street, from one threshold
to another. Then they gathered together. They talked over, discussed
and commented on the event for some minutes and had now come to see for
themselves.
They arrived in groups, a little faltering and uneasy through fear of
the first impression of such a scene on their minds. When they saw the
body they stopped, not daring to advance, and speaking low. Then they
grew bolder, went on a few steps, stopped again, advanced once more,
and presently formed around the dead girl, her mother, the doctor and
Renardet a close circle, restless and noisy, which crowded forward at
the sudden impact of newcomers. And now they touched the corpse. Some of
them even bent down to feel it with their fingers. The doctor kept them
back. But the mayor, waking abruptly out of his torpor, flew into a
rage, and seizing Dr. Labarbe's stick, flung himself on his townspeople,
stammering:
“Clear out--clear out--you pack of brutes--clear out!”
And in a second the crowd of sightseers had fallen back two hundred
paces.
Mother La Roque had risen to a sitting posture and now remained weeping,
with her hands clasped over her face.
The crowd was discussing the affair, and young lads' eager eyes
curiously scrutinized this nude young form. Renardet perceived this,
and, abruptly taking off his coat, he flung it over the little girl, who
was entirely hidden from view beneath the large garment.
The secretary drew near quietly. The wood was filled with people, and a
continuous hum of voices rose up under the tangled foliage of the tall
trees.
The mayor, in his shirt sleeves, remained standing, with his stick
in his hands, in a fighting attitude. He seemed exasperated by this
curiosity on the part of the people and kept repeating:
“If one of you come nearer I'll break his head just as I would a dog's.”
The peasants were greatly afraid of him. They held back. Dr. Labarbe,
who was smoking, sat down beside La Roque and spoke to her in order to
distract her attention. The old woman at once removed her hands from her
face and replied with a flood of tearful words, emptying her grief in
copious talk. She told the whole story of her life, her marriage, the
death of her man, a cattle drover, who had been gored to death, the
infancy of her daughter, her wretched existence as a widow without
resources and with a child to support. She had only this one, her little
Louise, and the child had been killed--killed in this wood. Then she
felt anxious to see her again, and, dragging herself on her knees toward
the corpse, she raised up one corner of the garment that covered her;
then she let it fall again and began wailing once more. The crowd
remained silent, eagerly watching all the mother's gestures.
But suddenly there was a great commotion at the cry of “The gendarmes!
the gendarmes!”
Two gendarmes appeared in the distance, advancing at a rapid trot,
escorting their captain and a little gentleman with red whiskers, who
was bobbing up and down like a monkey on a big white mare.
The watchman had just found Monsieur Putoin, the magistrate, at the
moment when he was mounting his horse to take his daily ride, for he
posed as a good horseman, to the great amusement of the officers.
He dismounted, along with the captain, and pressed the hands of the
mayor and the doctor, casting a ferret-like glance on the linen coat
beneath which lay the corpse.
When he was made acquainted with all the facts, he first gave orders to
disperse the crowd, whom the gendarmes drove out of the wood, but who
soon reappeared in the meadow and formed a hedge, a big hedge of excited
and moving heads, on the other side of the stream.
The doctor, in his turn, gave explanations, which Renardet noted down
in his memorandum book. All the evidence was given, taken down and
commented on without leading to any discovery. Maxime, too, came back
without having found any trace of the clothes.
This disappearance surprised everybody; no one could explain it except
on the theory of theft, and as her rags were not worth twenty sous, even
this theory was inadmissible.
The magistrate, the mayor, the captain and the doctor set to work
searching in pairs, putting aside the smallest branch along the water.
Renardet said to the judge:
“How does it happen that this wretch has concealed or carried away the
clothes, and has thus left the body exposed, in sight of every one?”
The other, crafty and sagacious, answered:
“Ha! ha! Perhaps a dodge? This crime has been committed either by
a brute or by a sly scoundrel. In any case, we'll easily succeed in
finding him.”
The noise of wheels made them turn their heads round. It was the deputy
magistrate, the doctor and the registrar of the court who had arrived
in their turn. They resumed their search, all chatting in an animated
fashion.
Renardet said suddenly:
“Do you know that you are to take luncheon with me?”
Every one smilingly accepted the invitation, and the magistrate,
thinking that the case of little Louise Roque had occupied enough
attention for one day, turned toward the mayor.
“I can have the body brought to your house, can I not? You have a room
in which you can keep it for me till this evening?”
The other became confused and stammered:
“Yes--no--no. To tell the truth, I prefer that it should not come into
my house on account of--on account of my servants, who are already
talking about ghosts in--in my tower, in the Fox's tower. You know--I
could no longer keep a single one. No--I prefer not to have it in my
house.”
The magistrate began to smile.
“Good! I will have it taken at once to Roily for the legal examination.”
And, turning to his deputy, he said:
“I can make use of your trap, can I not?”
“Yes, certainly.”
They all came back to the place where the corpse lay. Mother La Roque,
now seated beside her daughter, was holding her hand and was staring
right before her with a wandering, listless eye.
The two doctors endeavored to lead her away, so that she might not
witness the dead girl's removal, but she understood at once what they
wanted to do, and, flinging herself on the body, she threw both arms
round it. Lying on top of the corpse, she exclaimed:
“You shall not have it--it's mine--it's mine now. They have killed her
for me, and I want to keep her--you shall not have her----”
All the men, affected and not knowing how to act, remained standing
around her. Renardet fell on his knees and said to her:
“Listen, La Roque, it is necessary, in order to find out who killed her.
Without this, we could not find out. We must make a search for the man
in order to punish him. When we have found him we'll give her up to you.
I promise you this.”
This explanation bewildered the woman, and a feeling of hatred
manifested itself in her distracted glance.
“So then they'll arrest him?”
“Yes, I promise you that.”
She rose up, deciding to let them do as they liked, but when the captain
remarked:
“It is surprising that her clothes were not found,” a new idea, which
she had not previously thought of, abruptly entered her mind, and she
asked:
“Where are her clothes? They're mine. I want them. Where have they been
put?”
They explained to her that they had not been found. Then she demanded
them persistently, crying and moaning.
“They're mine--I want them. Where are they? I want them!”
The more they tried to calm her the more she sobbed and persisted in
her demands. She no longer wanted the body, she insisted on having the
clothes, as much perhaps through the unconscious cupidity of a wretched
being to whom a piece of silver represents a fortune as through maternal
tenderness.
And when the little body, rolled up in blankets which had been brought
out from Renardet's house, had disappeared in the vehicle, the old
woman standing under the trees, sustained by the mayor and the captain,
exclaimed:
“I have nothing, nothing, nothing in the world, not even her little cap
--her little cap.”
The cure, a young priest, had just arrived. He took it on himself to
accompany the mother, and they went away together toward the village.
The mother's grief was modified by the sugary words of the clergyman,
who promised her a thousand compensations. But she kept repeating: “If I
had only her little cap.” This idea now dominated every other.
Renardet called from the distance:
“You will lunch with us, Monsieur l'Abbe--in an hour's time.”
The priest turned his head round and replied:
“With pleasure, Monsieur le Maire. I'll be with you at twelve.”
And they all directed their steps toward the house, whose gray front,
with the large tower built on the edge of the Brindille, could be seen
through the branches.
The meal lasted a long time. They talked about the crime. Everybody was
of the same opinion. It had been committed by some tramp passing there
by mere chance while the little girl was bathing.
Then the magistrates returned to Rouy, announcing that they would
return next day at an early hour. The doctor and the cure went to their
respective homes, while Renardet, after a long walk through the meadows,
returned to the wood, where he remained walking till nightfall with slow
steps, his hands behind his back.
He went to bed early and was still asleep next morning when the
magistrate entered his room. He was rubbing his hands together with a
self-satisfied air.
“Ha! ha! You are still sleeping! Well, my dear fellow, we have news this
morning.”
The mayor sat up in his bed.
“What, pray?”
“Oh! Something strange. You remember well how the mother clamored
yesterday for some memento of her daughter, especially her little cap?
Well, on opening her door this morning she found on the threshold
her child's two little wooden shoes. This proves that the crime was
perpetrated by some one from the district, some one who felt pity for
her. Besides, the postman, Mederic, brought me the thimble, the knife
and the needle case of the dead girl. So, then, the man in carrying off
the clothes to hide them must have let fall the articles which were in
the pocket. As for me, I attach special importance to the wooden shoes,
as they indicate a certain moral culture and a faculty for tenderness on
the part of the assassin. We will, therefore, if you have no objection,
go over together the principal inhabitants of your district.”
The mayor got up. He rang for his shaving water and said:
“With pleasure, but it will take some time, and we may begin at once.”