"What, pray?"
"Oh! Something strange. You remember well how the mother yesterday clamored 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 comes and brings the thimble, the knife and the needle case of the dead girl. So then the man in carrying off the clothes in order to hide them, must have let fall the articles which were in the pocket. As for me, I attach special importance about 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 I have no objection, pass in review together the principal inhabitants of your district."
The Mayor got up. He rang for hot water to shave with, and said:
"With pleasure, but it will take rather a long time, and we may begin at once."
M. Putoin had sat astride on a chair, thus pursuing even in a room, his mania for horsemanship.
Renardet now covered his chin with a white lather while he looked at himself in the glass; then he sharpened his razor on the strop and went on:
"The principal inhabitant of Carvelin bears the name of Joseph Renardet, Mayor, a rich landowner, a rough man who beats guards and coachmen—"
The examining magistrate burst out laughing:
"That's enough; let us pass on to the next."
"The second in importance is ill. Pelledent, his deputy, a rearer of oxen, an equally rich landowner, a crafty peasant, very sly, very close-fisted on every question of money, but incapable in my opinion, of having perpetrated such a crime."