The Lonely House Part 14

"Oh, Holy Virgin!" she cried, clasping her hands. "What is all this? A s.h.i.+rt, a summer suit, a silk pocket handkerchief, all spotted with blood, and oh, blessed Maria, who would have thought that Herr Foligno had so much money hid away in this old chest!"

Instantly I was possessed by a strange foreboding. There lay the money which the murderer had stolen from his victim. I sprang up from the sofa without thinking of my sprained ankle and walked hastily across the room, never heeding the pain.

Yes, there lay the stolen money. Several packages of banknotes of a hundred gulden each, and beside them a bundle of papers of value, the topmost of these showing the same dark spots, traces of the blood from the wounded hand of the murderer, who had taken no care to avoid staining them. Here, hidden away in the old chest, were the proofs of the murderer's guilt; the bloodstained clothing which he had worn when he committed the deed; and the handkerchief which I had given to him was there also. If there had been any doubt until now as to the ident.i.ty of the criminal, it vanished on the instant. Link by link in an indestructible chain the proofs were clearly here for the conviction of the District Judge. In fancy I saw him contemplating his murderous scheme, walking up the rocky path towards the Lonely House. He knew that he should find the old man alone there; he had been told this on the day before. Anna had thoughtlessly informed him that her father would be alone in the afternoon. Her account of the considerable amount of money which the old man had received by the morning's post had begotten the murderous scheme. He reaches the house, no one having seen him on the rocky pathway. He looks about him. No human being is near who could observe him. He does not dream that Anna has seen him. He knocks. The old man opens the door and conducts him to his room, where a struggle ensues, a struggle in which the murderer wounds his hand, but from which he comes forth victorious. The crime is committed. The murderer with his bleeding hand has taken the banknotes and papers from the desk which he knew so well; in his excitement he has hardly noticed that he was wounded. He is suddenly conscious of pain in his hand, and the thought occurs to him that his wound might betray him. With terror he perceives that his dress, his s.h.i.+rt, his waistcoat and trousers, all wear b.l.o.o.d.y traces of the struggle. He tries to remove them with his handkerchief, but in vain. How can he explain these stains when he returns to Luttach? He devises one means--to declare that he fell among the rocks and wounded his hand. Every one knows that he frequently climbs about among the rocks and how easily such an accident might occur. If he can bring back to the old naturalist a rare plant which usually grows upon almost inaccessible rocks, his story of a fall will be all the more credible. The _Ophrys Bertolini_ grows in the neighbourhood; except himself no one knows the locality. It is easily reached; he hastily plucks the beautiful flowers, losing his handkerchief as he does so, but without noticing it he hurries away from the neighbourhood of the Lonely House.

Fortune favours him. No one meets him; no one sees him when he reaches the inn and hastens to his chamber. There he locks himself in; he must change his clothes; but what shall he do with his bloodstained apparel?

Suddenly the old bureau occurs to him; it stands unused in his sleeping-room. He could not have a better, a more secure hiding place.

He conceals the clothes and his plunder in the top drawer, locks it, and puts the key in his pocket. Now he is safe; no suspicion can possibly fall upon him, the Judge, the most prominent official in the town. There can be no searching of his room. He himself would superintend whatever search there might be. The bloodstained clothing, the banknotes and the papers could be nowhere more safe from discovery than in the locked drawer of the old bureau. He breathes more freely.

There is a knock at the door. The old Professor asks for admission. He is obliged to receive him. This will give him an opportunity of relating the story of his fall among the rocks. He is dismayed at learning that the murder has been discovered sooner than he antic.i.p.ated, but he composes himself, and when he hears that Franz Schorn has been seen in the vicinity of the Lonely House, he devises a plan for throwing suspicion upon him, his mortal enemy, and with vindictive cunning proceeds to carry it out, using every circ.u.mstance that could lead step by step to the consummation of the crime without exposing himself at any point. Thus he feels perfectly safe, when suddenly he makes the terrible discovery that there exists a witness against him. The old Professor has found his b.l.o.o.d.y handkerchief near the Lonely House. He finds it easy to deceive the unsuspicious old man.

He succeeds in convincing him that Franz Schorn is the murderer, but as long as the Professor lives, the danger of detection hangs over his head. He induces the foolish old man to undertake expeditions among the most dangerous rocks, in the hope of his falling a victim to some accident, but when this scheme fails, he determines to efface all trace of the first murder by a second. The exploration of the cave, in which he asks to join, furnishes a means to do so. The Professor must die, but before his death he must send the official deposition which is so essential for Schorn's conviction.

Here also his murderous design fails, but he manages to cast suspicion upon Franz Schorn in the matter of cutting the rope, and the young man is arrested. The murderer triumphs.

Then by a marvellous chance the old chest is opened during his absence from home, and the clear proofs of his guilt are discovered by the very man whom he wished, as the only witness against him, to remove from his path.

I stood paralyzed before the open drawer. All the past, which it has taken minutes to relate, flashed upon my mind with the speed of lightning. The proofs of the murderer's guilt which the doctor had been so anxious to obtain were now before me. Chance had placed them in my hands. What was I to make of this chance was the next question.

"We must not touch these things," I said to Frau Franzka, who with her old husband stood speechless with astonishment, gazing at the money in the drawer. They had never in their lives seen so much at a time. "The Judge might suspect us of having taken some of his heap of money. Lock the drawer again, Frau Franzka; we will give the key to the Clerk, and the doctor shall be witness that we do so. We three, you, your husband and I, will stay here until Mizka fetches the doctor and the Clerk, and we can each testify that none of the money has been taken."

"So much money! And he owes me over five hundred gulden, with all that pile in his drawer!" exclaimed Frau Franzka, who was reluctant to lose sight of the banknotes, but on my reiterated request, she locked it up, and then called Mizka, telling her to go immediately for the Herr Einern and the doctor, begging them to come as quick as possible to the Herr Professor in the "Golden Vine."

We had not long to wait. The doctor came first. Mizka met him in the street near the house. I drew him aside and told him in a whisper of the contents of the upper drawer of the bureau. He was beside himself with joy.

"We have him! We have him!" he exclaimed aloud, with what was almost a leap in the air. Only when he saw the stare with which Frau Franzka and her husband regarded him--they might well have supposed he had lost his wits--he grew calmer, and I told him that I had sent also for the Clerk.

"Quite right," he said. "We must tell him everything. Now that we have such positive proof of the Judge's guilt, he can act, and he must act.

He is a brave and honourable man. He will fulfil the promise he once made to our little Anna. Here he comes. I hear his step on the stair."

The Clerk entered the room. He seemed surprised on finding the doctor and my host and hostess. Frau Franzka hurried towards him. She had been silent so long that she was eager to pour out her heart. In a burst of Slavonic, of which I did not understand one syllable, she talked away to the Clerk, who listened with the deepest attention. I would not interrupt her, for I could easily perceive from her gestures what she was relating. The Clerk's face grew darker and darker as Frau Franzka continued. At last she paused and delivered to him the key of the bureau. He then turned to me and said very gravely:

"Frau Franzka has told me of the remarkable discovery which she has made in that bureau. Before I examine its contents I wish to hear what you have to say, Herr Professor. I a.s.sume that you have summoned me hither, not as your friend of the evenings about the round table, but as the Clerk, the only representative of the law in the Judge's absence. I shall therefore receive what you have to say, not as the testimony of a friend, but officially. Frau Franzka, you will retire to another room with your husband, while I hear what the Herr Professor has to tell. I warn you to say not one word to any one--I repeat, to _any one_--of what you have discovered in the drawer there. You will expose yourself to grave penalties if you should refuse to follow my direction. Wait quietly until I send for you. Very shortly I will summon you and your husband to swear to whatever you have to say. Now go. Do you desire, Herr Professor, that the doctor should withdraw also?"

"No. On the contrary, I desire his presence during my deposition, which I must make to you. He can complete what I have to say."

I waited until the host and hostess had obediently withdrawn, and then I addressed the Clerk.

"On the day on which the miserable old Pollenz was murdered, it was to you that his daughter turned, enjoining upon you the duty of discovering the murderer and delivering him to justice. I heard the young girl's moving appeal and was a witness of your silent promise to her. I now desire from you the fulfilment of that promise."

"I will fulfil my duty. The guilty man, whosoever he may be, shall not escape punishment if proof sufficient can be adduced of his guilt."

"This proof I am prepared to give, and so clearly that no doubt can remain in your mind. Listen."

I had imposed a hard task upon myself--that of succinctly informing the Clerk of all the facts which sufficed to weld a chain of proof against the murderer; the part he had played towards me, arousing in me suspicions not only of Franz Schorn, but of the lovely Anna, in order to procure my signature to the deposition which he made out and sent to Laibach. I recalled as well as I could the words which the murderer had dictated to me; every one of those words seemed to form a link in the chain of proof; and, in conclusion, I described to him the contents of the old bureau, saying:

"This is the acc.u.mulated evidence which I hand over to you, and I demand that in virtue of your office the true criminal shall be delivered to the authorities in Laibach, so that an innocent man may not wear disgraceful fetters an hour longer than is absolutely necessary."

"You impose a fearful responsibility upon me, but I shall not refuse to accept it," the Clerk replied with a profound sigh. "What you have just told me confirms a horrible suspicion which I have had ever since the day of the murder. I never believed in Schorn's guilt. I always had a secret doubt of the Judge, but I dared not give expression to it; it was impossible to gather the smallest evidence against him. I take upon myself great responsibility in proceeding against my chief, in arresting him, and transferring him to Laibach, but it must be done as soon as he returns from Gorz. I will employ this day in examining all the testimony you have here given me, as well as the witnesses--yourself, Fraulein Anna Pollenz, Frau Franzka and her husband--and then I will send to Laibach all the material I have collected, with the bloodstained clothing and the banknotes. The Attorney General there will do his duty. I transcend my powers perhaps in thus forestalling my chief. I will----" he paused, listening.

A vehicle rolled through the narrow street and stopped before the house. The doctor hurried to the window.

"The Judge," he cried, "has just descended from the carriage and has entered the house."

The Clerk started and grew pale.

"He comes too early," he said. "I have no officially confirmed evidence against him. I have no right to arrest him."

"Will you give him time to escape?" cried the doctor. "If he goes to his chamber and misses the old bureau, he will know that he is found out."

"You are right. I will dare all. Let me have paper, pen and ink, Herr Professor, as quickly as possible, for at this moment I am the representative of the law in Luttach. The Judge has not yet exhausted his leave of absence; he has not yet resumed the duties of his office."

He wrote a few lines hurriedly. "This order must go immediately to the captain of the gendarmes. Will you undertake to carry it, Herr Doctor?"

"With all the pleasure in life. In five minutes I will be here again with the gendarmes. The bird shall not escape," cried the doctor, as he s.n.a.t.c.hed the order from the Clerk's hand and rushed away without a moment's delay. He could hardly have reached the front door, when from above came the voice of the Judge, calling:

"Mizka! Mizka!"

Mizka replied from below in a few Slavonic words, and a loud, brief conversation ensued in that language.

"He has missed the bureau and Mizka is telling him that it has been taken down to your room because you needed it, Herr Professor," the Clerk whispered to me.

The Judge overhead uttered a wild Slavonic curse. We heard his resounding tread as he rushed down the stairs and then, without knocking, threw open the door of my room and entered. When he found that I was not alone, but that the Clerk was with me, he started back, and remained for a moment on the threshold gazing at the Clerk and myself with a keen, searching look, which afterwards flashed round the room as if in quest of something. When it rested on the blackened, old bureau, he fell into a rage, and, coming up to me, demanded in a furious tone:

"How dared you have my furniture removed from my room in my absence and placed here for your own use?"

As he spoke these words he was ghastly to look upon; his pale lips quivered, his dark eyes glittered in his sallow face, and were again riveted with an indescribable expression upon the old bureau.

His insolence aroused my indignation, but I forced myself to reply to him calmly.

"I must beg you to speak more courteously," I answered, suppressing my detestation. "If you conceive that there has been an infringement of your rights, it is not to me that you must appeal, but to Frau Franzka.

She told me that this old bureau was never used by you, and that you would be glad to have so superfluous a piece of furniture removed from your room. Only upon her a.s.surance that this was the case did I consent to have it brought hither."

My reply seemed to quiet him somewhat. He lowered his voice as he continued:

"You see that I do use it. The upper drawer is locked."

He went up to the bureau and pulled the metal handles of the upper drawer. Upon finding that it would not open, he breathed more freely and turned to me again, with a wholly different expression of countenance.

"Excuse my rude manner," he suddenly said, in a very friendly way; "I was angry. It irritated me that the furniture of my room should be meddled with. The old bureau serves me as a receptacle for old clothes.

I must therefore beg that it be returned to me."

"It was delivered to me by its owner, Frau Franzka. I have no authority over its removal."

"You refuse?" he said, flaming up again; but he mastered himself, only giving me a sinister look, as he opened the door and called loudly into the hall:

"Frau Franzka! Frau Franzka!"

The host and hostess had been waiting in another room for the summons of the Clerk. They now appeared, Frau Franzka with a very embarra.s.sed countenance, where the consciousness of guilt was openly to be seen.

Now that the Judge was present, any command of the Clerk would avail nothing with her. She must reply to whatever the Judge should ask.