"Dinner has been waiting for you ever so long, Herr Professor," called Frau Franzka to me as I entered the kitchen, but hardly had I approached her before she clasped her hands above her head with "Holy Virgin, how you look! How pale! How distressed, and how dripping with perspiration! Why, large drops are falling from your hair; no one can climb about the mountains in the hottest part of the day. The District Judge----"
"Is the District Judge at home!" I broke in.
"Yes; he came home about a quarter of an hour ago. I did not see him, but I heard him going upstairs. He is in his room and is probably dressing. The Herr Professor ought also to go to his room and dress. You will take cold in your damp clothes."
I scarcely heard the last words. I hurried up the three flights of stairs and in the passage looked about me for the door marked No. 12--the District Judge's sitting room. I knocked at the door; no answer. I knocked more loudly; there came from within, as from an adjoining room, "Who's there?"
"Professor Dollnitz. I must see you with regard to a matter of great importance, Herr Foligno."
"I pray you just wait for a few minutes. I am dressing, but I'll be ready immediately."
I had to wait. Whilst I stood motionless before the door I suddenly became conscious of the intolerable thirst which, more than half an hour before, had driven me to the Lonely House. During my great excitement I had not been conscious of any physical need, but now in the first moments of quiet it attacked me with double violence. I was perfectly exhausted--almost fainting. Fortunately on the table in the passage there stood a carafe half filled with water. It must have been there for hours; the water was lukewarm, but I drank it eagerly and it gave me the refreshment of which I stood in need. I was as one new born.
I had to wait at least five minutes. The time seemed very long to me. At last the door opened and the District Judge appeared in a new and very elegant summer suit. His thin, sallow face had not attracted me on the previous evening, and now as he received me with a forced friendly smile I liked it still less.
"Forgive me for keeping you so long, Herr Professor," he said, "but I could not open the door before; I was, to speak frankly, entirely undressed when you knocked. I was obliged to change my clothes because, in your interest, I have had quite a fatiguing walk on the mountain. I am a little of a botanist--only a layman--but I am interested in botany, and I was desirous to surprise the learned Herr Professor with some rare plants whose habitat I knew. It cost me an effort to obtain them, and even a little danger; I had a fall which gave me a slight wound in my hand, but it is very insignificant, scarcely worth mentioning, since I have procured what I desired. Here they are." With his left hand (his right was wrapped in a white handkerchief) he took some orchids from the table before the sofa and handed them to me. They were of a beautiful and rare species, and at any other time would have given me the keenest delight, but at this moment I scarcely looked at them.
"I must reserve my thanks for a time," I said gravely, "the terrible intelligence which I bring to you, Herr Foligno, as the foremost official in the town, will admit of no delay. I come directly from the Lonely House--the scene of a horrible murder and robbery."
The District Judge recoiled as from a sudden blow. Pallor as of death overspread his sallow face. His mouth twitched; his eyes became glazed and fixed on me with a look wherein gleamed downright fear and absolute dismay.
"You came from the Lonely House--a murder and robbery! Incredible!" he stammered. Terror so mastered him that he could scarcely utter these few words.
"What I tell you is only too true," I replied, and then in the fewest words I related what I had seen and how I had closed the open door and hurried to Luttach in order to make him, as the chief authority of the place, acquainted with the fearful crime.
During my short narrative he was struggling to regain his composure and succeeded. He listened with his gaze fixed gloomily upon the floor. When I finished, he cast upon me a searching, piercing glance, and his voice trembled as he said, "Did you find no trace of the murderer! Did you see no one in the neighbourhood of the Lonely House!"
On my way down the mountain it had been clear to me that it was my duty to report my meeting with Franz Schorn, but when the District Judge put this question to me, I suddenly felt a decided reluctance to inform him of it. This man was Schorn's mortal enemy. Ought I to make him a sharer of my suspicion, which had been aroused by nothing but a chance encounter?
Still more searching and still more penetrating was the glance the District Judge bestowed upon me as I hesitated to reply.
"Did you see no one in the neighbourhood of the house, or upon the path towards it!" he asked once more.
As Judge he had a right to put the question and I ought to tell him the truth. As I reflected thus, I overcame my reluctance and replied.
"I did encounter a man not far from the Lonely House in the forest, but I cannot think myself justified in suspecting him of evil." I then described accurately my meeting with Franz Schorn.
He listened in silence, his eyes still fixed on the floor. When I finished, he said with emotion, extending his left hand to me: "I thank you, Herr Professor; your report may be of the first importance for the discovery of the murderer, but it may also subject an innocent man to a horrible suspicion. As long as there is no evidence against a man except that he was seen in the neighbourhood of the scene of a murder, nothing would justify his being suspected of what, even as a mere suspicion, might darken his whole future life. Therefore, let me request you to allow me to consider your account of your meeting with Herr Franz Schorn as a matter personal to myself and confidential, not official. I shall then not be forced to include it in a short account which I must write out of your information."
"You surprise me, Herr Foligno."
"I suppose so, and I owe you an explanation of my request. Herr Franz Schorn is my bitter enemy and I have never concealed my dislike of him. You were a witness yesterday evening of my quarrel with Captain Pollenz and my clerk. Precisely on this account I do not wish to include in my official paper a suspicion which I myself hold to be entirely groundless. I promise you that I will neglect nothing that will lead to the discovery of the murderer, that I will investigate every step which Herr Schorn has taken to-day, and will have him watched by a thoroughly competent detective. If he is guilty, I shall discover his guilt; but I do not believe he is so, and because I am his foe I will not attach any suspicion to him which, while the true murderer remains undiscovered, might ruin his life, merely because at the time of the murder he had been seen near the scene of the crime. Promise me, Herr Professor, that you will tell no one at present of your meeting with Franz Schorn. Should there be other and more important grounds for suspecting him, I shall request you to give me your account officially."
I pressed the Judge's hand cordially, and joyfully gave him the promise for which he asked. How unjustly I had judged this man! How I had misunderstood him! I was ashamed of the reluctance I had felt to tell him of my meeting with Franz Schorn.
"I must now make out a short official account of your information," the District Judge continued. "You can hardly believe how difficult this is for me. Your account has agitated me so profoundly that I can scarcely control myself. I was very familiar with old Pollenz. He had indeed many disagreeable qualities. Toward others he was often hard and unyielding, but I never had anything to complain of in his behaviour to me. He has often shown me favours. He was indeed almost a friend, and now I must prepare a paper which shall show him to be the victim of a horrible crime, which I must take the first steps to investigate. It must be done. It is my duty. In spite of the pain which my right hand gives me in writing, I will do it immediately."
He took a sheet of paper; pens and ink were at hand, and seated himself on the sofa behind the large table to write. His hand could not have been very painful, for it did not prevent his writing swiftly and clearly. Now and then, without interrupting his writing, he addressed some brief, leading question to me, and in scarcely ten minutes the paper was finished. He read it aloud to me. It was wonderfully concise and clear, without saying one word too much or too little, and I signed it without an alteration. After he had added his own signature, he said, "I must now beg you, Herr Professor, to accompany me to the Lonely House. I shall immediately summon my assistant, as well as the District Physician and the captain of gendarmes, to inspect the premises. You, too, Herr Professor, must be present. You must testify that nothing in the house has been altered in your absence. This is important for further investigation. Can I count upon you!"
"Most certainly."
"Then pray hold yourself in readiness. In half an hour, at the latest, I shall have notified the other gentlemen. The time of waiting, if I may advise you, should be employed by you in strengthening yourself with food and drink. Yon may not feel the need of refreshment at present, but we have some sad hours before us."
How kind and thoughtful! I certainly had cause to ask pardon in my heart of the District Judge for the prejudice he had created.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon when Herr Foligno called for me in the dining-room, where I was sitting with the Captain. It had taken him almost an hour to assemble those who were to inspect the scene of the murder in the Lonely House. I had informed the Captain, a near relative of the murdered man, of my terrible discovery, and he had been deeply moved. He said:
"I was never intimate with old Pollenz, although he was my first cousin. He was a hard usurer and a miser. He loved no one in the world save his daughter, but that his end has been so horrible is certainly very sad. Poor child, my dear little Anna! How will she bear this fearful shock! I saw her about twelve o'clock here in Luttach with her old maid, Johanna. She had been paying a visit to an aged aunt, and she is probably still there. I must see if it be so. I do not willingly visit the malicious old gossip, but if Anna is still with her, I must go to prepare the poor child for the sad news that awaits her."
He sent Mizka to old Frau Lancic's, and in a few minutes she returned to say that Fräulein Anna had been with the widow, but that she had left about a quarter of an hour before to make some purchases in the village and then to return home.
Upon hearing this, the Captain determined to accompany the officials to the Lonely House, for which he received permission from the District Judge.
Soon after four o'clock we began our walk; not by the steep rocky path, which was rather too difficult for the old District Physician, and might prove dangerous, but in accordance with the Judge's directions, by the longer way past the village of Oberberg.
We could make but slow progress, for the heat was still oppressive. The old physician gasped and panted as we ascended the mountain. The Judge with kindly consideration, begged him to walk slowly, although he himself was trembling with impatience to reach our goal.
We met various people on the way. They greeted us politely and looked after us with surprise. Intelligence of the murder had not yet reached the village of Oberberg, and people could not imagine what so many persons, accompanied by the captain of gendarmes, could have to do in the little village. I walked first with the Captain. The Judge and his clerk followed, and, naturally, very little was said as we pursued our way; all were oppressed by a sense of what lay before them.
We had turned into the path by the crucifix leading on the left to the Lonely House, and were but a short distance from the spot to which we were tending, when the Captain suddenly stood still and said in a faltering voice, "There comes my poor little Anna."
She came towards us hurriedly from the Lonely House. She was called pretty Anna in the country round, and indeed she deserved the name. I have scarcely ever in my long life seen so beautiful a girl. Even her expression of intense anxiety could not distort her charming face. When she recognized the Captain she flew towards him.
"Oh, uncle, my dear kind uncle, thank God you are here!" she cried. "I am dying with anxiety; my father will not open the door. For a quarter of an hour Johanna and I have been knocking in vain. Something must have happened to him, or he would hear us and open the door for us."
The Captain put his arm round the lovely child and pressed a kiss upon her white forehead. "My poor little girl!" he murmured. His voice failed him; he could say no more; his eyes filled with tears; he tried to control himself, but the compassion which he felt for the girl in his arms was too intense; it mastered him; he could hardly utter a word.
"Good heavens! What has happened?" cried Anna, extricating herself from the Captain's embrace and gazing at him, her large black eyes dilated with horror. "You call me your poor girl? There are tears in your eyes. For God's sake tell me what it means! Has anything happened to my father? Oh, answer me, uncle! I would rather hear the worst than suffer such suspense."
The Judge answered instead of the Captain, who could not control his voice. "Compose yourself, Fräulein Anna," he said with grave kindliness, "you need all your courage, all your self-control to endure the misfortune which God has sent to you. Unfortunately your anxiety is justified. Something has indeed happened to your father, my lifelong friend."
"He is dead!" the girl cried, with what was almost a shriek; overcome with grief, she tottered and would have fallen to the ground if the Captain had not thrown his arms about her. The Judge took her hand with deep sympathy, but she snatched it away and pushed him from her with a gesture expressive of the most profound aversion.
"Do not touch me; I hate, I despise you!" she cried, as she cast herself again into the Captain's arms. "Uncle, my dear kind uncle, you tell me what has happened. I can hear the worst from you, but not from that man."
The Judge, thus rudely repulsed, was deeply offended, but was too magnanimous--his pity for the unfortunate girl was too profound to admit of his expressing his resentment by a harsh word.
"You do me bitter wrong, Fräulein Anna," he said gently. "I sympathize sincerely with your pain, but I will not thrust my pity upon you. I pray you, Captain, to inform her as mercifully as possible of what has happened."
It was a hard task for the Captain, but it was his duty to fulfil it. He motioned to the Judge and to myself to withdraw for a few steps, and then took Anna's arm in his and, walking on before us, spoke to her in the most sympathetic and loving way. He told me afterwards that in all his life he had never had so hard a duty to perform. He searched in vain for kindly words to soften the horror; he feared that the delicate girl could hardly endure the frightful truth which he was forced to tell her; but to his great surprise Anna showed a remarkable degree of composure. She had not succumbed, he said, to pain and grief; she had become ghastly pale and her dark eyes had gleamed with a strange flickering fire, as, almost in a whisper, not to him, but to herself, she had murmured, "Foully murdered and robbed; murdered for the sake of his wretched money. He sacrificed his soul and now has given his life for money." She shed no tear; her grief was too great, too heart-breaking; but she trembled violently; her little hand shook as it rested on her uncle's arm, and as he put his arm round her and tenderly drew her to him, he could feel the violent beating of her heart. He told her everything that he had heard from me. When he had finished, she looked at him with flaming eyes.
"The vile murderer will be discovered," she said in a hoarse voice; "I trust in God's justice."
Her composure was really remarkable, and gave great cause for anxiety. I had lingered behind with the Judge and his clerk. We slowly followed the Captain and Anna about twenty steps in the rear.
"I certainly am most unfortunately situated," said the Judge, turning to me confidentially. "You heard the harsh words which the poor girl, half crazed with pain and horror, spoke to me. I know what those words mean. I am well aware that Fräulein Anna is prejudiced against me. She thinks that the hostility which her father showed to Herr Franz Schorn was partly my fault. That she does so is well known in Luttach, and I commit no indiscretion in telling you that there is an attachment between Fräulein Anna and Herr Schorn, of which old Pollenz disapproved. Fräulein Anna knows that Herr Schorn is my bitter enemy. She has sided with him against me, but that her prejudice is as intense as the words she has just spoken testify, I confess surprises me. Never before have I seen in her the least sign of dislike. Imagine my position. My official duty compels me to play the part of a disinterested investigator. I cannot spare her pain, but I shall have to subject her, with her old maid, to an examination. I must inquire how it happened that the Lonely House was left unlocked, perhaps by herself; every child in Luttach knows that old Pollenz always locked the front door securely. I would give much, very much, to spare the young lady this examination."
"If you would depute me to make it, Judge, such an act on your part would be entirely justified by the peculiar relations in which you stand to Fräulein Anna Pollenz." The Clerk uttered these words very quietly and in a businesslike tone, but the District Judge was not pleased. He cast a sinister glance at the Clerk and asked, "What do you mean by peculiar relations, sir?"
"Nothing but what you yourself indicated, and what, to use your own words, every child in Luttach is familiar with," was the quiet reply.
"You allude to the foolish gossip which makes me the young girl's rejected suitor? There is not one word of truth in it."
"Then old Pollenz lied, for he stated this, not as a secret, but quite openly, in Luttach. At all events, such a report does exist, and it will be confirmed unless you make use of your right to depute to me the examination of the young lady."
"No, that I will not do. My standard of official duty is too exalted to permit my neglecting it out of regard for my own feelings. I might perhaps take your advice if I were forced to play the part of examiner during the entire legal process, which must ensue upon this murder, but, fortunately, that is not so; only the preliminaries are our duty. Capital crimes," the Judge said turning to me, "do not come within the domain of the District Judge. They are the business of the tribunal of the country. Subsequent investigations will take place in Laibach. The preliminary examination alone is my task, which, whatever it may cost me, I will fulfil."
The Clerk made no reply; he simply bowed in sign that he had no further remarks to offer. We now reached the goal of our wanderings. The Lonely House stood before us. The Captain and Anna were standing near the locked door, and upon a wooden bench beside it sat an old woman, old Johanna, "The only servant of the house," the Judge whispered to me. The Captain had just told her of the murder of her master. Paralyzed with horror, incapable of speech, she was gazing up at him. When she tried to rise, she sank back helplessly. The Judge opened the front door with the key which I had given him.
Scarcely had he done so when Anna released herself from the Captain's arm and would have been the first to rush into the house, had not the Judge barred her way.
"Let me go," cried Anna. "I must go to my poor father. You dare not hold me back."
She would have pressed past him, but he prevented her from doing so, and with quiet resolve, in a perfectly judicial manner, said, "You must not see your father yet, Fräulein Anna. My official duty compels me to exclude you from the room in which the crime has been committed until it has been thoroughly searched. The traces which the murderer has perhaps left behind must not be interfered with. You must either stay here outside, or, if you wish, wait in your own room until it is permitted you to see your father. Captain Pollenz, I pray you to remain with your relative and to prevent Fräulein Anna from making an attempt to disturb the investigation by going into the murdered man's room. I cannot permit it."
Anna retired. As the Judge forbade our entrance into the house, her eyes seemed to flash with anger, but she controlled herself, only bestowing upon Herr Foligno a glance of dislike and antipathy.
"I obey," she said, recovering her composure wonderfully. "I will wait in my room with Johanna and my uncle. You shall have nothing to reproach me with. I prayyou, sir," she said, turning to the Clerk; "I entreatyouto search, investigate. The blood of my poor father cries to heaven. I must doubt its justice should you not succeed in discovering the ruthless murderer."
"Rest assured, Fräulein Anna, that I shall leave nothing undone----"
"I did not address you," Anna interrupted the Judge; "I entreatyou, the assistant, to fulfil your duty; search for the murderer, whoever he may be, deliver him to the vengeance of the law. I trust you. You will not be influenced by fear or considerations of any kind. Do not answer me; I trust you; I know you will do everything to discover the criminal, even though you do not promise me. Come uncle, come Johanna, we will wait in my room."
While Anna was speaking, Herr Foligno's expression was, strangely enough, that of timidity and embarrassment; his lips moved; he seemed to wish to reply but could not. He retreated silently, as Anna, without looking in his direction, passed him. She entered the room at the left of the hall, her own apartment, and the Captain and the old maid, still half paralyzed with terror, followed her silently.
The Clerk also made no reply to Anna's strange words; he had been much astonished by them, as were all who heard them. With a keen searching look he regarded the Judge. Not until the door had closed behind Anna and the Captain did he say, whispering so softly that only I and the Judge could hear, "If you do not feel sufficiently well, Herr Foligno, to undertake the examination and will delegate me to conduct it, I am quite ready to do so."
"No, no," the Judge replied in as low a tone. Aloud he said, "Follow me, gentlemen. We must begin our melancholy task."
Among all the tragic and even terrible recollections which live in my memory, and of which my life has perhaps had more than its share, the most terrible is that of the first few days of my stay in Luttach. Even now they sometimes disturb my sleep at night. In dreams, I am once more in the spacious, dreary room of the Lonely House, with the stiffened corpse of the murdered man before me on the floor. The sunlight through the window falls upon his pale face with its distorted features. I see the terrible wound, and the hard, rasping voice of the District Physician strikes upon my ear as with professional calmness he examines the wound and with all the indifference with which he would discuss the commonest affair of business, explains that any suspicion of suicide is out of the question, coldly pointing out to us bystanders, grouped about the body, our faces pale and awed, the numerous wounds of which any one would have been mortal, and endeavouring with perfect calmness to prove that the murderer had first attacked his victim from behind, and had finally cut the throat to make sure that the deed was complete. I still hear in dreams the clear, incisive words showing that the murderer must certainly have been intimately acquainted with the murdered man's ways, and that in order to avoid any possibility of the old man's divulging his name with his dying breath, he had inflicted the last gaping wound.
Fearful as had been the impression made upon me in the morning by my discovery, it had not so curdled my blood with horror as did this examination of the body. The necessity for action, the danger which possibly threatened me from the murderer concealed in the house, had strengthened and quickened me in the morning; but now, when I was forced to stand by, an inactive spectator of this terrible scene, the whole horror of the affair for the first time presented itself to my consciousness.
The absence of all emotion, the inflexible indifference of the District Physician, who, as I learned from the Clerk, had been the friend and physician of old Pollenz, deepened the impression which rendered me almost incapable of connected thought.
I was a prey during the entire investigation to intense nervous agitation. I saw and heard everything that went on around me so clearly that the smallest detail remains stamped upon my memory, but I was incapable of connected thought, of drawing conclusions from what I heard and saw. This I was able to do only later when removed from the spell thus thrown around me. The investigation produced a most agitating effect upon the Clerk also, and in especial upon the Judge, but they could not leave, and were obliged to fulfil their official duty. The Clerk was very pale, but quiet and composed throughout; but the Judge was obliged to exert all his self-control to conquer his excitement, while the physician, still handling the body, demonstrated with great clearness, almost as if he had been a witness of it, the manner in which the murder had been committed.
But however intense his emotion, the Judge proved himself equal to the task his office imposed upon him. When the time came to search the room he displayed the greatest care and circumspection. The bloody knife lying upon the floor at some distance from the body was, of course, the first object of his notice.
"There lies the weapon with which the deed was committed," he cried. "Fortunately, the murderer has left it behind. It may afford a clue in his detection."
But this hope proved to be unfounded. The Clerk testified that the knife was the same which old Pollenz had always carried as a weapon of defense. Whereupon the Judge confirmed what he said; he had seen the knife in his friend's possession, and recognized it, but doubtless it was the weapon with which the crime was committed. "Most certainly," the Judge added, with keen observation, "the murderer must have snatched it from the old man as he tried to defend himself, and in so doing caused a struggle; the knife must have wounded the murderer in the hand, since its handle is stained with blood. We shall undoubtedly find further traces of his bleeding hand there in the cabinet which he broke open, and from which he scattered the papers lying about."
The Judged supposition proved correct. Inside the cabinet, as well as upon the open drawers, there were distinct traces of bloody fingers, and they were also found upon some of the papers strewn on the floor, which the murderer had taken from the cabinet but tossed aside as useless.
It was in this cabinet, as the Judge and the physician both testified, that old Pollenz had kept his money and papers of value. The murderer must have been familiar with this place of deposit, for he had opened only those drawers used for the purpose. The others, which contained receipted bills and worthless papers, had not been opened. The closest search failed to discover either money or papers of value, such as promissory notes or similar documents. All such had been abstracted. On the other hand, an old gold watch, a heavy gold snuffbox, both articles of value, remained untouched.
"The murderer is no common thief or burglar," the Judge said calmly. "Such an one would not have despised valuable articles like these."
"Certainly not," the physician added; "my firm belief is that he was an intimate acquaintance of old Pollenz. None other would have opened those drawers unless they knew they would reward a search."
"Unfortunately, this is the only hint we have to put us upon the trace of the criminal," the Judge said in a tone of disappointment. "Our melancholy investigation has had no result of value."
This was indeed so. The murderer had left the Lonely House without leaving any traces except those of his bleeding hand. In spite of the most careful search, nothing further was discovered. The Judge set down in his deposition all that had been done. It was as clear and well composed as that which he had written previously in his room. I confirmed his report that I had found the Lonely House and in especial the room in which the crime had been committed in the same condition in which I had left it. It now remained for the Judge to fulfil the hardest part of his task. He was obliged to examine the daughter and the old servant of the murdered man. He evidently feared to meet with difficulties caused by the aversion to him which the fair Anna had so openly expressed, but it was necessary to make this examination in order to find some explanation of the surprising fact that the Lonely House, usually so carefully locked, should have been left wide open at midday.
The Judge's fear, however, proved to be groundless. He found Anna in her room, wonderfully quiet and composed. She immediately declared herself ready to be examined, and only asked that the Captain, the Clerk and myself should be the sole witnesses present. The Judge willingly granted this request, and every difficulty was removed. She testified that she had that day had her breakfast as usual with her father at eleven o'clock, and, close upon twelve, had left the Lonely House with Johanna to make some purchases in Luttach, and at the same time to visit her old aunt. Her father, as usual, accompanied her to the front door and locked and bolted it behind her. It was his custom when left alone in the house to bolt himself into his sitting-room. Whenever any one knocked at the front door, he always first made sure of his visitor by looking out of the window, and, when he was alone, never allowed a stranger to cross his threshold. Even acquaintances in whom perchance he did not repose entire confidence were always dismissed by him from the window. He did not even open the door for them. As to her father's property in papers of value and money, Anna knew nothing. Her father had never talked with her about his pecuniary circumstances. She could not possibly tell of how much he had been robbed.
With perfect composure Anna gave her testimony, but, when in conclusion the Judge asked her if she had met any one upon her way to Luttach, the colour suddenly mounted to her cheek and as quickly left it, and her "no" was by no means so clear and decided as had been her earlier report. She blushed still more deeply when the Judge asked if her father had any special mistrust of any of his acquaintances, and assured her that what she should say would be entirely confidential, even if there should be nothing in her reply to arouse suspicion.
"I will not answer this question," Anna replied, after she had stood for a moment with downcast eyes. "No one in the world has a right to ask such a question, and you least of all."
To this declaration she adhered, and the Judge was obliged to finish his deposition without learning anything further from her. The examination of old Johanna also produced no further result.
Thus the examination ended, and the Judge could no longer refuse to allow the daughter to see her father's body. Conducted by Captain Pollenz, Anna entered the old man's sleeping-room, where the captain of gendarmes and the physician had laid the murdered man upon the bed. The Captain afterwards told me that the composure shown by the young girl at the terrible sight had filled him with genuine admiration. She kneeled beside the bed on which the corpse had been laid. She took the cold, stiff hand in hers and kissed it, while tears rolled over her cheeks. The Captain would have said a few words to comfort her, but she interrupted him.
"Let my grief have way, uncle," she said sadly; "you do not know what I have lost in him. He was harsh to every one else, but he loved me with all his heart, me only in the world, and I am perhaps the cause of his death. This it is that fills me almost with despair. The thought that I may be guilty of his death is almost unendurable."
"How can you think such a thing, my child?" the Captain asked, much startled.
"I cannot explain it to you, uncle," Anna continued, kissing the dead man's hand again and again. "It is perhaps only a foolish thought, but it arose in my mind when I heard how cruelly my father had been murdered, and I cannot banish it. I dare not share it with any one, not even with you, my dear, kind uncle. I commit an injustice perhaps in not being able to banish it. I know nothing, nothing which gives me the right to entertain it. It is only a vague, fearful foreboding, oppressing my heart all the more because I must bear it all alone and can share it with no one in the world."
The girl refused all explanation of her mysterious words. For a long while she silently knelt by the bed, holding the dead man's hand in hers, but at last she rose and followed the Captain to her room, in which we--that is, the Clerk, the Judge, the physician, and myself--were awaiting her. During Anna's absence with the Captain we had been discussing the future of the young girl. It was impossible that she should remain with the old servant and the murdered man alone in the Lonely House. We had therefore determined to take her back with us to Luttach. The physician had kindly offered to give her an asylum as a guest in his house. His wife, he told us, was very fond of the fair Anna; she would rejoice most heartily to show any loving service to the unfortunate child. Anna could not possibly live with her old, peevish Aunt Laucic, who was even a greater miser than old Pollenz. She would find none of the sympathy and love of which she stood in such need with that old dragon.
The kindness and friendliness for the unfortunate young girl which prompted the words of the physician reconciled me to him. His businesslike indifference during the investigation had made me almost hate him, but now I acknowledged to myself that I had been unjust and that he was no cold and heartless man, but, on the contrary, a very kindly, benevolent old doctor.
We had arranged everything as we thought for the best, but when Anna returned to us we found that our wise arrangements were entirely useless. She declared, with a decision remarkable in so young a girl, that she would not leave her father, but would stay beside him.
In vain did we all entreat her, the Judge alone prudently refraining from doing so. We used our most eloquent powers of persuasion.
In vain did the Captain add his voice, and in vain did the physician explain to her what an insufficient protection old Johanna would be in the Lonely House during the next night.
"If Johanna is afraid, she can go with you to Luttach," she said. "I am not afraid to remain alone with my beloved dead."
As she was immovable, we were obliged to comply. We could not force her to go with us to Luttach, but we did not leave her alone in the Lonely House, for the Captain declared he would not leave her; if she stayed, he would stay also; they could make up a bed quite comfortable enough for an old soldier.
Anna was reluctant to accept this offer, but the Captain refused to withdraw it. He said he could be quite as obstinate as Anna herself, and thus he remained in the Lonely House, while we returned to Luttach.
Both kitchen and dining-room in the "Golden Vine" were crowded with guests--a very unusual thing of a week-day. The report of the murder in the Lonely House had spread quickly, not only in the little town, but also in the surrounding villages, and, naturally, all were eager to hear further particulars, and could find no better place for gratifying this desire than in the inn, the home of the Judge, who was sure to be there in the evening.
In the spacious kitchen, which was the gathering place of guests of the lower classes, peasants and small tradesmen, there was quite a crowd. Some were even obliged to drink their wine standing; all the benches and chairs were occupied. Here not a German word was to be heard; the talk was entirely in Slavonic; even around the hearth where Frau Franzka received her intimate friends, all spoke in that tongue.
Nearly twenty men, principally petty tradesmen from Luttach, were sitting and standing around the huge hearth listening respectfully to Frau Franzka's words, who, as she cooked and broiled, was obliged to give all the details of the terrible deed which the "German fly-catcher"--such was the name that had already been bestowed upon me in Luttach--had discovered. When I passed through the kitchen to go to the dining-room, I was most politely and kindly greeted by all present, while they looked at me with undisguised curiosity.
In the dining-room there was a far larger assembly than usual. All the tables were occupied, but principally the great round one at which the Burgomaster presided. All the gentlemen to whom I had been presented on the previous evening were present, with the exception of the Captain. The District Physician, two gentlemen (strangers to me), and, oddly enough, Franz Schorn, were also there; the last sat next the Judge's assistant.
I had evidently been expected. A chair beside the District Judge had been reserved for me, and when I appeared--quite too late to suit the impatience of those present--I was cordially received. Even Franz Schorn rose from his seat, and when the other gentlemen offered me their hands, he held out his--not the right hand, but the left, like the Judge, who had protected his wounded hand with a black glove. I remarked that Franz Schorn did not use his right hand, but kept it concealed in the breast of his coat, which was closely buttoned.
The conversation was hardly interrupted by my arrival. Naturally it had been concerning the murder in the Lonely House, and it so continued after I had taken my place at the table. It was to me that all inquisitive inquiries were now addressed--to me instead of to the Judge or his assistant or to the physician. I was obliged to relate all that I had seen. I was questioned about the smallest details; the most insignificant interested every one.
The Judge, the assistant and Franz Schorn alone were silent. I could inform the two first of nothing new; there was no need for them to question me, and Franz Schorn probably did not wish to thrust himself forward with inquiries.
It was evident, however, that he listened with intense interest to everything that I related. As I spoke I narrowly observed the behaviour of the Judge and of Franz Schorn, the two rivals. Herr Foligno appeared scarcely to hear what I was saying. His eyes were fixed gloomily on his wineglass, and he seemed to take no part in what was going on, but from time to time as he looked up I could see that he heard every word that I said. Franz Schorn kept his eyes riveted upon me as I spoke. The description of my first discovery of the murdered man evidently horrified him; he was more agitated by it than any of my other hearers.
After I had ended my narrative, and it had been completed by the physician, the question of course was discussed as to who the murderer could be, whence he had come, how he had entered the locked house, whither he had fled, and what had been the amount of his robbery. In this discussion, however, the Judge and his assistant and Franz Schorn took no part, although they listened with close attention.
The physician defended with much acuteness his own theory that only an intimate acquaintance of old Pollenz could have committed the crime; on the other hand, many present maintained that the murderer must be some Italian from Trieste, for neither in Luttach nor in the surrounding country was there a man capable of such a deed.
During this discussion, to which Franz Schorn listened very attentively, the physician accidentally pushed aside the left arm of his neighbour--Franz Schorn--who dropped the cigar which he was holding in his hand and stooped to pick it up. As he did so, he instinctively drew from his bosom his right hand, which had hitherto been concealed by his coat. It was bound about with a white bandage, upon which were several spots of blood. He thrust it quickly into his breast again, but not before the physician had noticed the spots on the white linen.
"Ah, Franz! What is the matter with your hand?" he asked kindly.
"Nothing," Franz replied curtly; "a slight cut."
"Slight! That can hardly be; if you have a bandaged hand and don't use it, it must be a tolerably deep cut. Of course, you have done nothing, as usual, but wrap a rag about it. You young people are incorrigible. You never reflect that the neglect of such cuts, which you consider insignificant, may cost you the hand itself. Take off the bandage; I want to see what it is."
"It is nothing; a trifle, not worth mentioning."
"All the more readily should you show it to me. You owe obedience to an old friend of your father's, you obstinate fellow; so off with your bandage; I wish to see the wound."
"Certainly, if you insist," Franz replied, holding out his hand and unwinding the bandage. It did not come off easily, but adhered to the wound and a few drops of blood followed its removal.
"A couple of good cuts," said the physician, examining the hand; "not dangerous; they will heal without any particular care if you spare your hand a little for a couple of days; but how did you get such strange cuts! Four fingers implicated, and another gash in the palm. It looks as if you had done it with a knife."
"And so I did," Franz replied. "I was using a large knife in the vineyard to-day and laid it down upon a high wall; it fell and would have pierced my foot, if instead of shifting it, I had not foolishly grasped at the falling knife and seized the sharp blade instead of the handle. That is the whole story. Such slight cuts are not worth mentioning." He wrapped the bandage around his hand again and concealed it as before in the breast of his coat.
"Such slight cuts are not worth mentioning," the young man had said, and it was true; they were insignificant. Nevertheless they aroused in me a chain of thought which filled me with dread. Involuntarily I thought of the bloody, dagger-like knife which I had seen in the Lonely House. If the murderer in his contest with the old man had endeavoured to take the knife from him and had accidentally seized it by the blade, his hand would have been wounded precisely as was that of Franz Schorn. Schorn had hitherto kept his right hand concealed. Why so? Did he wish to conceal the wound? An involuntary motion, an accident, had compelled him to show the bandaged hand, and it was with great reluctance that he had acceded to the physician's request.
I looked at the District Judge. The same suspicion which had made me shudder had been aroused also in him. I could read it in the lowering, searching glance which he gave to the hand as Franz was wrapping it in the bandage again. When he looked up afterwards and his gaze met mine, his eyes were more eloquent than his tongue could have been. He slowly raised his hand in its black glove as if in token of our understanding each other. Strangely enough, his motion and his look had the effect of instantly banishing the dark suspicion that had been awakened within me. I had no right to entertain it. Had not the Judge himself also accidentally wounded his right hand this very day? Might I not have seen him also near the Lonely House, since he had been climbing among the rocks in search of flowers? No, it would be rank folly to found a suspicion with regard to Franz Schorn upon such accidental circumstances. That the young man seemed even more gloomy and preoccupied than on the previous evening, and that he scarcely uttered a word, furnished no grounds for any suspicion with regard to him. Must he not be deeply agitated by the terrible death of an old man with whom he stood in such close, although hostile, relations? I blamed myself for being so carried away by my indignation as to be ready to find in insignificant trifles an undue importance. Besides, with the exception of the Judge, whose duty it was to investigate all grounds of suspicion, no other member of the company had thought of connecting Franz Schorn's wounded hand with the murder. They all continued to converse freely; even the physician, so acute in piecing out evidence, who might have entertained some vague suspicion, had none at all; he had thought no possible evil of Franz, and continued to address him now from time to time as kindly and unreservedly as before. Still, this evening I was very uncomfortable among them all. Their continued talk, always of the same details, always of the horrible crime, increased my nervous agitation to an intolerable degree. It was impossible to change the subject of the conversation; it always reverted to the murder in the Lonely House.
This perpetual return to the same horrible subject stretched me upon the rack; I could no longer endure it. As soon as I had finished my trout and my wine, I rose to withdraw to my room. The Judge followed my example, and rose also. After emptying his tall glass at a draught, he said he was tired and unhinged and needed to go to bed early after so terrible a day. His clerk and the physician, with several other gentlemen, courteously entreated me to stay at least for half an hour longer, it was so early. Without positive discourtesy I could not refuse their request, and ordered myself another glass of wine. The Judge followed my example, although no one had requested him to remain. In the short time that I stayed, barely half an hour, he drank two full glasses of wine, the last at a draught just as I arose and declined to remain longer.
Together we ascended the stairs. Mizka preceded us with a candle. When we reached the landing in the first story, the Judge offered me his left hand in farewell.
"Good-night, Herr Professor," he said aloud, adding in a whisper, "I fear I shall be obliged to ask you to-morrow to give me officially an account of your meeting with Herr Franz Schorn in the neighbourhood of the Lonely House." He looked around at Mizka, who was opening the door of my room, and as she entered it he continued, "A ground of suspicion such as the wound in his right hand compels me to abandon all personal considerations."
Greatly startled, I replied, "Mere chance, Herr Foligno; you, too, have wounded your right hand to-day."
My innocent words made him start as if I had struck him a blow in the face. I could not see his features, it was too dark on the landing; a weak ray of light coming from the open door of my room was the only illumination; but the quiver in his voice as he answered me after a pause of a second, betrayed the disastrous effect of my words.
"You are perfectly right, Herr Professor; it may be 'mere chance.' I shall not proceed against Herr Schorn. I will even try to combat my suspicion of evil in him, my enemy, but it is my duty to search for further grounds of suspicion against him. That must be done in spite of my hostile feeling towards him. Good-night, Herr Professor."
He pressed my hand once more, and we parted.
Mizka was already busy in my room putting everything in order for the night. She was obliged to do this as quickly as possible, for the number of guests below in the dining-room and in the kitchen depended upon her services; but she could not forego a little gossip. She told me that before I had entered the dining-room this evening there had been quite a quarrel between the Judge and his assistant. They had been seated at the round table when Franz Schorn entered the room and looked around for a place. All the tables were full, and the Clerk had invited Schorn to sit beside him at the round table. This made the Judge violently angry, but the Clerk declared that the Judge had no more authority than any other guest in the dining-room of the inn. Franz Schorn would have retired, but the Clerk detained him, and the physician, who had been an old friend of Franz's dead father, had declared that he himself would stay only on condition of Franz's remaining, and would never again take his place at the round table if Herr Foligno denied a seat there to Franz. The Burgomaster, too, and the other gentlemen, who were not always friendly to Franz, now took his part, so that the Judge was obliged to yield, and Franz, induced by their persuasions, took his seat; but neither the Judge nor Franz after the quarrel had exchanged a word.
What strange occurrences were these in this little country town! Even here, the few cultivated people, so circumscribed in their social relations, were divided by hatred and prejudice. I undressed myself and, with a memory of the gymnastic feats of my boyhood, clambered into my lofty bed. I was sadly in need of repose. The agitations of the day had been too much for my old body. They had exhausted my strength, and yet excitement of mind conquered bodily weariness. I could not sleep. I tried in vain to banish the memory of the dreadful scenes through which I had passed. I tried to think of it all with indifference; but what I had seen in the Lonely House scared away sleep, of which I had such sore need. Hours and hours passed. The time seemed eternal before at last I closed my weary eyes.
And the Judge had the same experience; he could not sleep that night. As long as I lay awake in bed I heard the sound of his footsteps above me, as he paced his room to and fro restlessly. Surely the same memories were agitating him which denied me the blessing of slumber. The investigation at the Lonely House had not been the mere fulfilment of a duty for him, any more than it had been for the physician. The horror of it all had impressed him as profoundly as it had myself. It did not lessen my opinion of him that he should thus have preserved in the midst of his official duties a warm, sensitive heart.