The Chief Justice Part 22

The carriage which had been going slower and slower, was now obliged to stop; it had come to the beginning of Cross Street which since the morning bore the superscription: "Sendlingen Street!" The inhabitants of this street in order to show themselves worthy of the honour, had illuminated more lavishly than anyone else, and as the Hofmann Hotel was situated here, the crowd had formed into such a dense ma.s.s at this point, that a pa.s.sage through it was not to be thought of. Sendlingen had to quit the carriage and, half deafened with the cheers, he hurried through the ranks and breathed again when he reached the shelter of the hotel.

There Berger, who had been impatiently awaiting him, met him. "Now quick into your dress clothes," he cried, "in ten minutes the procession will be here." Sendlingen had hardly finished dressing, when the sound of music and the shouts of the crowd, announced the approach of the procession. He was obliged to yield to his friend's pressure and go out on the balcony. There was a red glimmer from the direction of the river, and like a giant fire-serpent, the procession wound its way through the crowd. It stopped before the hotel, the torch-bearers formed themselves in line in the broad street. Unceasingly, endlessly, like the roar of wild waves, resounded the cheers.

Berger's eyes sparkled. "This is a moment which few men live to see,"

he said. "Know this, and be glad of it! He who has won such love is, in spite of anything that could happen, one of the favoured of this earth!"

Then they drove to the banquet at the town-hall. The large room was full to overflowing, and all agreed that this was the most brilliant a.s.sembly that had ever been gathered together within its walls, "But he deserves it," all said. "What has this man not suffered in the last few weeks through his fidelity to conviction! One can see it in his face--this agitation has broken his strength for years!" People therefore did not take it ill that his replies to the two toasts, "Our last honorary citizen" proposed by the Mayor, and the "Rock of Justice"

proposed by the chairman of the committee, were very briefly put. He thanked them for the unmerited honour that had been done him, a.s.sured them that he would never forget their kindness, and, to be brief, made only the most commonplace remarks, without fulfilling either by his style or his thoughts, the expectation with which this speech had been looked forward to. Nevertheless, after he had finished, he was greeted with wild cheering, and the same thundering applause followed him as he left the hall towards eleven o'clock.

Berger and Dernegg accompanied him to the hotel, then to the station.

The first bell had already rung when they got there; so their farewell had to be brief. Silently, with moistened eyes, Sendlingen embraced his friend before he got into the train; Franz took his place in a second-cla.s.s compartment of the same carriage. Both waved from the windows after the train had moved off and was gliding away, swifter and swifter, into the stormy night.

Next morning about nine o'clock, when Berger had just sat down at his writing-table, there was a violent knock at his door and a clerk of the Law Courts rushed in. "Dr. Berger!" he cried, breathlessly, "Herr von Werner urgently begs you to go to him at once. Victorine Lippert has escaped from the prison in the night."

Berger turned deadly pale. "Escaped?"

"Or been taken out!" continued the clerk. "Herr von Werner hopes you may be able to give some hint as to who could have interested themselves in the person."

"Very well," muttered Berger. "I know little enough about the matter, but I will come at once."

The clerk departed; Berger sat at his table a long time, staring before him, his head heavily sunk on his breast. "Unhappy wretch!" he thought.

"Now I understand all!"

Now he understood all: why Sendlingen had hesitated so long in taking the journey to Vienna, why he had taken Franz and Brigitta into his confidence, why he had spent the last two days at the hotel where he and his servant could make all preparations undisturbed, and why he had chosen the mail train which stopped at every station. The next station to Bolosch was not distant more than half an hour's drive by sleigh.

"They must both have left the train there," he thought, "and hurried back in a sleigh that was waiting for them, then released Victorine and hastened away with her, perhaps to the first station where the express stops, perhaps in the opposite direction towards Pfalicz. At this moment, very likely, she is journeying under Franz's protection to some foreign country where Brigitta awaits her, somewhere in France, or England, or Italy, while he is hurrying to Vienna, so as not to miss his appointment with the Minister of Justice!"

"Monstrous!" he groaned. And surely, the world had never before seen such a thing: such a crime committed by such a man, and on the very day when his fellow-citizens had done honour to him as the "Rock of Justice!" And such he would be for all time, in the eyes of all the world; it was not to be supposed that the very faintest suspicion would turn against him: he would go to Pfalicz and there continue to judge the crimes of others. The honest lawyer boiled over, he could no longer sit still but began to pace up and down excitedly. Bitter, grievous indignation filled his heart; the most sacred thing on earth had been sullied, Justice, and by a man whom of all men he had loved and honoured.

And then this same love stirred in his heart again. He thought of last night, of the moment when he had stood by his friend, while the thousands surged below making the air ring with their cheers. Pity incontinently possessed his soul again. "What the poor wretch must have suffered at this moment!" he thought. "It is a marvel that he did not go mad. And what he must have suffered on his journey to Vienna, and long weeks before, when the resolve first took shape in him!"

He bowed his head. "Judge not, that ye be not judged," cried a voice of admonition within him. His bitterness disappeared, and deep sorrow alone filled his heart: sin had bred other sins, crime, another crime and fresh remorse and despair. How to judge this deed, what was there to be said in condemnation, what in vindication of it: that deed of which he had once dreamed, it certainly was not; it was no great, liberating solution of these complications, but only an end of them, a hideous end! Certainly Victorine might have now suffered enough to have been granted freedom, and the opportunity of new life, and no less certainly would Sendlingen, honourable and loving justice in the extreme, carry in his conscience through life, the punishment for his crime--but Justice had been outraged, and this sacred thing would never receive the expiation that was its due. "A wrong should not be expiated by a crime!" Sendlingen had once said to him--but now he had done it himself. "Re-a.s.sure yourself," he had once exclaimed at a later date, "outraged Justice shall receive the expiation that is its due!" This would not, could not be--never--never!

Berger roused himself and went forth on his bitter errand. When he reached the Courts of Justice, old Hoche, who had entered on his retirement some weeks ago, was just coming out. Berger was going to pa.s.s him with a brief salutation, but the old gentleman b.u.t.ton-holed him.

"What do you say to this?" he cried. "Monstrous, isn't it? I am heartily glad that the misfortune has not befallen Sendlingen! But do not imagine that I wish it to Herr von Werner. On the contrary, I have just given him a piece of advice--ha! ha! ha!--that should relieve him of his perplexity. You cross-examine Dr. Berger sharply, I said to him; that is the safest way of getting to know the secret of who took her out. For the way Dr. Berger interested himself in this person, is not to be described. Me, a Judge, he called a murderer for her sake, upon my word, a murderer. Ha! ha! ha! there you have it."

Berger had turned pale. "This is not a subject of jest," he said, angrily.

"Oh, my dear Dr. Berger!" replied the old man soothingly, "I have only advised Herr von Werner--and naturally without the slightest suspicion against you--to formally examine you on oath as a witness. For anyone connected with the prisoner is likely to know best. And besides: a record of evidence can never do any harm--_ut aliquid fecisse videatur_, you know. They will see in Vienna that Werner has taken a lot of trouble. Well, good-bye, my dear doctor, good-bye."

He went. Berger strode up the steps. His face was troubled and a sudden terror shook his limbs. He had never thought of that. Supposing he should now be examined on oath? Could he then say: 'I have no suspicion who could have helped her?' Could he be guilty of perjury to save them both? "May G.o.d help them then," he hissed, "for I cannot."

He entered the corridor that led to the Chief Justice's Chambers. The examination of the prison officials had just been concluded, but a few warders were standing about and attentively listening to the crafty Hobinger's explanation of this extraordinary case. "Favouritism!"

Berger heard him say as he went by, "her lover, the young Count, has got her out." The two female warders of the Infirmary cells were there too, sobbing.

Berger entered the Chief Justice's Chambers. Baron Dernegg and the Governor of the prison were with Werner. At a side-table sat a clerk; a crucifix and two unlighted candles were beside him. "At last!"

cried Werner. "I begged you so particularly to come at once. There is not a moment to be lost. Light the candles!" he called to the clerk.

"But that may be quite useless," cried Dernegg. "Do you know anything about the matter?" he then asked Berger.

"No!" The sound came hoa.r.s.ely, almost unintelligibly, from his stifled breast.

Werner stood irresolute. "But Dr. Berger was her Counsel," he said, "and the authorities in Vienna----"

"Must see that you have taken trouble," supplemented Dernegg. "They will hardly see this from doc.u.ments with nothing in them. We have more important things to do now: the escape was discovered three hours ago, and the description of her appearance has not yet been drawn up and telegraphed to Vienna and the frontier stations."

Werner still looked irresolutely at the lighted candles for a few seconds: to Berger they seemed an eternity of bitter anguish such as his conscience had never endured before. "Put out the candles! Come, the description of her appearance!" He seized the papers relating to the trial. "Please help me!" he said turning to Dernegg. "My head is swimming! O G.o.d! that I should have lived to see this day!"

While the clerks were writing at the dictation of the two judges, Berger turned to the Governor and asked him how the escape had been effected.

"It is like magic!" he replied. "When one of the female warders was taking her breakfast to her this morning, she found the door merely latched and the cell empty. The lock must have been opened from the inside. Her course can be plainly traced: she escaped through the yard; the locks of all the doors have been forced from inside by a file used by someone with great strength. This is the first riddle. Such a thing could hardly be done by the hand of the strongest man; it is quite impossible that Victorine Lippert had sufficient strength! The doctor vouches for it, and for the matter of that you knew her yourself, Dr.

Berger."

Berger shrugged his shoulders and the Governor continued: "You see the theory of external a.s.sistance forces itself imperatively upon us, and yet it is not tenable. The help cannot have come from outside, as all the locks were forced on the inside. And in the prison she can likewise have received no a.s.sistance. There is not one of the warders capable of such a crime, besides there is only one door between the general prison and the corridor of the female patients, and that was locked and remained locked. Since any external help is not to be thought of, we are obliged, difficult as it is, to credit Victorine Lippert with sufficient strength. But there we are confronted with the second riddle: how did she come by the file? And in the face of such incomprehensibilities, it is a small thing that she should also have been aware of an exit that is known to few!"

"Mysterious in every way!" said Berger. "Most extraordinary!" To him the rationale of the thing was plain enough: Master and servant had by means of the official keys or of duplicates which they had had made, penetrated the prison, and on their return had filed the locks. By this ruse, all suspicion of external help would be removed, and at the same time, as far as Sendlingen could do so, it would be averted from the prison officials.

Meanwhile the two Judges had drawn up the description of the fugitive's appearance, and Dernegg renewed his advice to telegraph it abroad at once. Werner objected that this was "a new method" that he would not agree to. "Everything according to rule!" he said. "We will publish the description in the official paper, distribute it among the police, and send a copy to Vienna. It is inconceivable that the person has got out of the country; where would she get the money from? We will therefore not telegraph, and that is enough!"

But after the old man had roused himself to this judgment of Solomon, his self-control deserted him altogether. "What a calamity!" he moaned.

"What a beginning to my life as Chief Justice! But I am innocent! Alas!

I shall, none the less, receive a reprimand from the Minister which I shall carry about me all my life, unless Sendlingen saves me. But my friend Sendlingen, that best of colleagues, will speak for me and save me. Excuse me, gentlemen--but I shall have no peace, until I have written and asked for his help!"

He sat down to his writing-table, the others took their leave.

The next morning Berger received a letter from Vienna, the handwriting of the address was known to him and, with trembling hands, he opened the envelope. This was the letter.

"I know that you cannot forgive me and I do not ask you to do so. One favour only do I implore: do not give up hope that the time will one day come when I shall again be worthy of your regard. The first step to this I took yesterday: I have left the service of the State for ever, and I do not doubt that I shall have courage to take the second step, the step that will resolve all; when G.o.d will grant me the grace to do this, I know not. Pray with me that I may not have too long to wait.

"Farewell, George, farewell for ever!

"Victor."

Berger stared for a long while at these lines, his lips trembled--he was very sore at heart.

Then he drew a candle towards him, lit it, and held the letter in its flame until it had turned to ashes.

"Farewell, thou best and purest of men," he whispered to himself, and a sudden tear ran down his cheek.

CHAPTER XIV.

Three years had pa.s.sed, it was the summer of 1856. Bright and hot, the June sun shone upon the Valley of the Rhine ripening the vineyards that hung upon its rocky declivities. The boat steaming down the Valley from Mayence to the holy city of Cologne, had its sheltering awning carefully stretched over the deck, and all went merrily on board, merrily as ever. More beautiful landscapes there may be in the world, but none that make the heart more glad. And so thought two grave-looking men who had come aboard at Mayence that morning. They had come from Austria, and were going to London; they did not want to miss the opportunity of seeing the beautiful river, but at the beginning of the journey they made but a poor use of the favourable day. They sat there oppressed and scarcely looking up, consulting together about the weighty business that lay on their shoulders. But an hour later, when they got into Na.s.sau, they yielded to the charm of the scenery, and as they glided by Rudesheim, they began to consider whether, after all, the Rhine was not the proper place to drink Rhine-wine, and when they pa.s.sed the Castle called the Pfalz at Caub, they first saw this venerable building through their spectacles, and then through the green-gold light of the br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.ses they were holding to their eyes.