“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.