e on end, for he felt
sure that they would find Irma's dead body the next moment. And he
really did find something; for there lay Irma's torn shoes. He knew
them. There were blood stains, too, and the grass was crushed, as if a
human being had lain there and rolled about in pain.

Baum's hand trembled as he took up the shoes, and he trembled still
more when he plucked a little flower. It was a simple leaf cup--the
so-called "our-lady's-man tie," the best mountain fodder--and in this
little flower there were drops of blood which were still moist.

If she had drowned herself, how had the blood got there? and whence the
shoes? and why should the shoes be so far from where Thomas had found
the hat? and besides, there were the footprints of larger shoes. If
Irma had been murdered, after all! If his brother--

"She's dead, that's the main point," said Baum, consoling himself, "and
I have the proofs. What good would it do to draw another being into
trouble?" He put the little blood-besprinkled plant away with the
letter addressed "To my friend."

Accompanied by the gend'arme, he went to the inn at the landing-place
where the wanderers had halted that morning.

The gend'arme again inquired about the lady in the blue riding-habit.

The manner of the hostess showed that the gend'arme's question had set
her thinking. Could it have been the crazy woman who was with the
travelers? There had been so much running hither and thither and
carrying of bundles of clothes, and she had such a queer look about
her.

"Do you know anything about it?" said the gend'arme, looking her
straight in the face, "speak out!"

"I don't know a thing," said the hostess. "Did I say a word? What do
you want of me?"

There is nothing which the country people dread so much as being called
into court in order to bear witness, and so the hostess was careful not
to utter a single word that might lead to such a result.

Baum saw that he had made a mistake in taking the gend'arme with him,
for his presence alarmed those who might really have something to tell.
He, therefore, sent him off, so that he might make further inquiries on
his own account.

Baum stood before a looking-glass, combing and brushing his dyed hair
which, that day, was unusually refractory. For the first time in his
life he was perfectly modest. He admitted to himself that, after all,
he was not the right man to follow up such an affair, and that he had
wasted too much time already.