big rake.

He was pulling at something heavier than the ordinary flotsam--something
far below the surface of the water. At last it broke through the black
surface of the turbid flood. To Walker Farr, glancing carelessly, it
seemed like a bedraggled bundle of rags with something white at the end.

"You come help, m'sieu'," called old Etienne. "It is a dead woman."

Together they pulled the rake's dread burden slowly up the bars of the
rack.

"You seem pretty cool about this," gasped the young man.

"It is no new thing. Many drown themselves--they drown in the canal so
they will be found. Women and girls, they drown themselves. So! Help me
carry her."

Farr gazed down on her after she had been laid on the canal bank. She
was young, but thin and work-worn.

"Weaver," commented old Etienne, laying back on her breast one of the
hands he had lifted. "There's the marks on the fingers where she have
tie so many knots so quick."

There was a key on her breast; it was secured by a cord that passed out
of sight between the buttons on her waist. Farr stooped and pulled on
the key. A folded paper came with the key; the other end of the cord was
tied around the paper.