Then, he crossed the Brindelle over a bridge formed of a single tree thrown lengthwise, with a rope attached to two stakes driven into the river's banks as its only balustrade.
The wood, which belonged to M. Renardet, the Mayor of Carvelin, and the largest landowner in the district, consisted of a number 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 for this immense arch of foliage. Alongside the water there were large shrubs warmed by the sun; but under the trees you found nothing but moss, thick, soft, plastic moss, which exhaled into the stagnant air a light odor of loam with withered branches.
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 accelerated 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 needle-case not far away.
Having taken up these objects, he thought: "I'll intrust 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 drew up stiffly as if he had knocked himself against a wooden bar; for, ten paces in front of him, lay stretched on her back a little girl, quite naked, on the moss. She was about twelve years old. Her arms were hanging down, her legs parted, and her face covered with a handkerchief. There were little spots of blood on her thighs.
Mederic advanced now on tiptoe, as if he were afraid to make a noise, apprehended some danger, and he glanced towards the spot uneasily.
What was this? No doubt, she was asleep. Then, he reflected that a person does not go to sleep thus naked, at half-past seven in the morning under 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 this blood stuck on her leg. How, then, had she been killed?
He stopped quite near her; and he stared at her, while he leaned on his stick. Certainly, he knew her, as 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 magisterial 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 a stab of a knife in the stomach. Perhaps under this handkerchief evidence to support a capital charge could be found; in fact if there were sufficient proof there to secure a conviction, it might lost its value, if touched by an awkward hand.