The crime was committed on a Saturday. I remember that Joseph, at about that date, went to the forest of Raillon to get some heath mould. He was absent all day, and did not return to the Priory with his load till late in the evening. Of that I am sure. And—an extraordinary coincidence—I remember certain restless movements, certain troubled looks, that he had that evening, when he came back. I took no notice of them then. Why should I have done so? But to-day these facial details come back to me forcibly. But was it on the Saturday of the crime that Joseph went to the forest of Raillon? I seek in vain to fix the date of his absence. And then, had he really the restless movements, the accusing looks, that I attribute to him, and which denounce him to me? Is it not I who am bent upon suggesting to myself the unusual strangeness of those movements and those looks? Am I not determined, without reason and against all probability, that it shall be Joseph—a pearl—who did it? It irritates me, and at the same time confirms me in my apprehensions, that I cannot reconstruct before my eyes the tragedy of the forest. If only the judicial examination had revealed fresh tracks of a cart on the dead leaves and on the heather in the neighborhood? But no; the examination revealed nothing of the kind; it revealed the outrage and murder of a little girl, and that is all. Well, it is precisely that which so excites me. This cleverness of the assassin in leaving not the slightest trace of his crime behind him, this diabolical invisibility,—I feel in it and see in it the presence of Joseph. Enervated, I make bold suddenly, after a silence, to ask him this question:
"Joseph, what day was it that you went to the forest of Raillon to get heath mould? Do you remember?"
Without haste, without a start, Joseph puts down the newspaper that he was reading. Now his soul is steeled against surprises.
"Why do you ask?" he says.
"Because I want to know."
Joseph looks at me with his heavy, searching gaze. Then, without affectation, he seems to be ransacking his memory in search of recollections that are already old. And he answers:
"Indeed, I do not remember exactly; I think, though, that it was on a Saturday."
"The Saturday when the body of the little Claire was found in the woods?" I go on, giving to this inquiry, too quickly uttered, an aggressive tone.
Joseph does not take his eyes from mine. His look has become so sharp and so terrible that, in spite of my customary effrontery, I am obliged to turn away my head.
"Possibly," he says again; "indeed, I really think that it was that Saturday."