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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Case of The Pool of Blood in the
+Pastor’s Study, by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor’s Study
+
+Author: Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
+
+Posting Date: October 29, 2008 [EBook #1835]
+Release Date: July, 1999
+Last Updated: October 14, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POOL OF BLOOD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CASE OF THE POOL OF BLOOD IN THE PASTOR’S STUDY
+
+By Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO JOE MULLER
+
+Joseph Muller, Secret Service detective of the Imperial Austrian police,
+is one of the great experts in his profession. In personality he differs
+greatly from other famous detectives. He has neither the impressive
+authority of Sherlock Holmes, nor the keen brilliancy of Monsieur Lecoq.
+Muller is a small, slight, plain-looking man, of indefinite age, and of
+much humbleness of mien. A naturally retiring, modest disposition, and
+two external causes are the reasons for Muller’s humbleness of manner,
+which is his chief characteristic. One cause is the fact that in early
+youth a miscarriage of justice gave him several years in prison, an
+experience which cast a stigma on his name and which made it impossible
+for him, for many years after, to obtain honest employment. But the
+world is richer, and safer, by Muller’s early misfortune. For it was
+this experience which threw him back on his own peculiar talents for
+a livelihood, and drove him into the police force. Had he been able to
+enter any other profession, his genius might have been stunted to a mere
+pastime, instead of being, as now, utilised for the public good.
+
+Then, the red tape and bureaucratic etiquette which attaches to every
+governmental department, puts the secret service men of the Imperial
+police on a par with the lower ranks of the subordinates. Muller’s
+official rank is scarcely much higher than that of a policeman, although
+kings and councillors consult him and the Police Department realises to
+the full what a treasure it has in him. But official red tape, and his
+early misfortune... prevent the giving of any higher official standing
+to even such a genius. Born and bred to such conditions, Muller
+understands them, and his natural modesty of disposition asks for no
+outward honours, asks for nothing but an income sufficient for his
+simple needs, and for aid and opportunity to occupy himself in the way
+he most enjoys.
+
+Joseph Muller’s character is a strange mixture. The kindest-hearted man
+in the world, he is a human bloodhound when once the lure of the trail
+has caught him. He scarcely eats or sleeps when the chase is on, he does
+not seem to know human weakness nor fatigue, in spite of his frail body.
+Once put on a case his mind delves and delves until it finds a clue,
+then something awakes within him, a spirit akin to that which holds
+the bloodhound nose to trail, and he will accomplish the apparently
+impossible, he will track down his victim when the entire machinery of
+a great police department seems helpless to discover anything. The high
+chiefs and commissioners grant a condescending permission when Muller
+asks, “May I do this? ... or may I handle this case this way?”
+ both parties knowing all the while that it is a farce, and that the
+department waits helpless until this humble little man saves its honour
+by solving some problem before which its intricate machinery has stood
+dazed and puzzled.
+
+This call of the trail is something that is stronger than anything else
+in Muller’s mentality, and now and then it brings him into conflict with
+the department,... or with his own better nature. Sometimes his unerring
+instinct discovers secrets in high places, secrets which the Police
+Department is bidden to hush up and leave untouched. Muller is then
+taken off the case, and left idle for a while if he persists in his
+opinion as to the true facts. And at other times, Muller’s own warm
+heart gets him into trouble. He will track down his victim, driven by
+the power in his soul which is stronger than all volition; but when he
+has this victim in the net, he will sometimes discover him to be a
+much finer, better man than the other individual, whose wrong at this
+particular criminal’s hand set in motion the machinery of justice.
+Several times that has happened to Muller, and each time his heart got
+the better of his professional instincts, of his practical common-sense,
+too, perhaps,... at least as far as his own advancement was concerned,
+and he warned the victim, defeating his own work. This peculiarity of
+Muller’s character caused his undoing at last, his official undoing that
+is, and compelled his retirement from the force. But his advice is often
+sought unofficially by the Department, and to those who know, Muller’s
+hand can be seen in the unravelling of many a famous case.
+
+The following stories are but a few of the many interesting cases that
+have come within the experience of this great detective. But they give
+a fair portrayal of Muller’s peculiar method of working, his looking on
+himself as merely an humble member of the Department, and the comedy
+of his acting under “official orders” when the Department is in reality
+following out his directions.
+
+
+
+
+JOE MULLER: DETECTIVE
+
+
+
+
+THE CASE OF THE POOL OF BLOOD IN THE PASTOR’S STUDY
+
+
+The sun rose slowly over the great bulk of the Carpathian mountains
+lying along the horizon, weird giant shapes in the early morning mist.
+It was still very quiet in the village. A cock crowed here and there,
+and swallows flew chirping close to the ground, darting swiftly about
+preparing for their higher flight. Janci the shepherd, apparently the
+only human being already up, stood beside the brook at the point where
+the old bridge spans the streamlet, still turbulent from the mountain
+floods. Janci was cutting willows to make his Margit a new basket.
+
+Once the shepherd raised his head from his work, for he thought he heard
+a loud laugh somewhere in the near distance. But all seemed silent and
+he turned back to his willows. The beauty of the landscape about him was
+much too familiar a thing that he should have felt or seen its
+charm. The violet hue of the distant woods, the red gleaming of the
+heather-strewn moor, with its patches of swamp from which the slow
+mist arose, the pretty little village with its handsome old church and
+attractive rectory--Janci had known it so long that he never stopped to
+realise how very charming, in its gentle melancholy, it all was.
+
+Also, Janci did not know that this little village of his home had once
+been a flourishing city, and that an invasion of the Turks had razed
+it to the ground leaving, as by a miracle, only the church to tell of
+former glories.
+
+The sun rose higher and higher. And now the village awoke to its daily
+life. Voices of cattle and noises of poultry were heard about the
+houses, and men and women began their accustomed round of tasks. Janci
+found that he had gathered enough willow twigs by this time. He tied
+them in a loose bundle and started on his homeward way.
+
+His path led through wide-stretching fields and vineyards past a little
+hill, some distance from the village, on which stood a large house. It
+was not a pleasant house to look at, not a house one would care to live
+in, even if one did not know its use, for it looked bare and repellant,
+covered with its ugly yellow paint, and with all the windows secured
+with heavy iron bars. The trees that surrounded it were tall and
+thick-foliaged, casting an added gloom over the forbidding appearance
+of the house. At the foot of the hill was a high iron fence, cutting off
+what lay behind it from all the rest of the world. For this ugly yellow
+house enclosed in its walls a goodly sum of hopeless human misery and
+misfortune. It was an insane asylum.
+
+For twenty years now, the asylum had stood on its hill, a source of
+superstitious terror to the villagers, but at the same time a source of
+added income. It meant money for them, for it afforded a constant and
+ever-open market for their farm products and the output of their home
+industry. But every now and then a scream or a harsh laugh would ring
+out from behind those barred windows, and those in the village who could
+hear, would shiver and cross themselves. Shepherd Janci had little fear
+of the big house. His little hut cowered close by the high iron gates,
+and he had a personal acquaintance with most of the patients, with all
+of the attendants, and most of all, with the kind elderly physician who
+was the head of the establishment. Janci knew them all, and had a kind
+word equally for all. But otherwise he was a silent man, living much
+within himself.
+
+When the shepherd reached his little home, his wife came to meet him
+with a call to breakfast. As they sat down at the table a shadow moved
+past the little window. Janci looked up. “Who was that?” asked Margit,
+looking up from her folded hands. She had just finished her murmured
+prayer.
+
+“Pastor’s Liska,” replied Janci indifferently, beginning his meal.
+(Liska was the local abbreviation for Elizabeth.)
+
+“In such a hurry?” thought the shepherd’s wife. Her curiosity would not
+let her rest. “I hope His Reverence isn’t ill again,” she remarked after
+a while. Janci did not hear her, for he was very busy picking a fly out
+of his milk cup.
+
+“Do you think Liska was going for the old man?” began Margit again after
+a few minutes.
+
+The “old man” was the name given by the people of the village, more as
+a term of endearment than anything else, to the generally loved and
+respected physician who was the head of the insane asylum. He had become
+general mentor and oracle of all the village and was known and loved by
+man, woman and child.
+
+“It’s possible,” answered Janci.
+
+“His Reverence didn’t look very well yesterday, or maybe the old
+housekeeper has the gout again.”
+
+Janci gave a grunt which might have meant anything. The shepherd was a
+silent man. Being alone so much had taught him to find his own thoughts
+sufficient company. Ten minutes passed in silence since Margit’s last
+question, then some one went past the window. There were two people this
+time, Liska and the old doctor. They were walking very fast, running
+almost. Margit sprang up and hurried to the door to look after them.
+
+Janci sat still in his place, but he had laid aside his spoon and with
+wide eyes was staring ahead of him, murmuring, “It’s the pastor this
+time; I saw him--just as I did the others.”
+
+“Shepherd, the inn-keeper wants to see you, there’s something the matter
+with his cow.” Count ---- a young man, came from the other direction
+and pushed in at the door past Margit, who stood there staring up the
+road.
+
+Janci was so deep in his own thoughts that he apparently did not hear
+the boy’s words. At all events he did not answer them, but himself asked
+an unexpected question--a question that was not addressed to the others
+in the room, but to something out and beyond them. It was a strange
+question and it came from the lips of a man whose mind was not with his
+body at that moment--whose mind saw what others did not see.
+
+“Who will be the next to go? And who will be our pastor now?”
+
+These were Janci’s words.
+
+“What are you talking about, shepherd? Is it another one of your
+visions?” exclaimed the young fellow who stood there before him. Janci
+rubbed his hands over his eyes and seemed to come down to earth with a
+start.
+
+“Oh, is that you, Ferenz? What do you want of me?”
+
+The boy gave his message again, and Janci nodded good-humouredly and
+followed him out of the house. But both he and his young companion were
+very thoughtful as they plodded along the way. The boy did not dare
+to ask any questions, for he knew that the shepherd was not likely to
+answer. There was a silent understanding among the villagers that no one
+should annoy Janci in any way, for they stood in a strange awe of him,
+although he was the most good-natured mortal under the sun.
+
+While the shepherd and the boy walked toward the inn, the old doctor and
+Liska had hurried onward to the rectory. They were met at the door by
+the aged housekeeper, who staggered down the path wringing her hands,
+unable to give voice to anything but inarticulate expressions of grief
+and terror. The rest of the household and the farm hands were gathered
+in a frightened group in the great courtyard of the stately rectory
+which had once been a convent building. The physician hurried up the
+stairs into the pastor’s apartments. These were high sunny and airy
+rooms with arched ceilings, deep window seats, great heavy doors and
+handsomely ornamented stoves. The simple modern furniture appeared still
+more plain and common-place by contrast with the huge spaces of the
+building.
+
+In one of the rooms a gendarme was standing beside the window. The man
+saluted the physician, then shrugged his shoulders with an expression of
+hopelessness. The doctor returned a silent greeting and passed through
+into the next apartment. The old man was paler than usual and his face
+bore an expression of pain and surprise, the same expression that showed
+in the faces of those gathered downstairs. The room he now entered was
+large like the others, the walls handsomely decorated, and every corner
+of it was flooded with sunshine. There were two men in this room, the
+village magistrate and the notary. Their expression, as they held out
+their hands to the doctor, showed that his coming brought great relief.
+And there was something else in the room, something that drew the eyes
+of all three of the men immediately after their silent greeting.
+
+This was a great pool of blood which lay as a hideous stain on the
+otherwise clean yellow-painted floor. The blood must have flowed from
+a dreadful wound, from a severed artery even, the doctor thought, there
+was such a quantity of it. It had already dried and darkened, making its
+terrifying ugliness the more apparent.
+
+“This is the third murder in two years,” said the magistrate in a low
+voice.
+
+“And the most mysterious of all of them,” added the clerk.
+
+“Yes, it is,” said the doctor. “And there is not a trace of the body,
+you say?--or a clue as to where they might have taken the dead--or dying
+man?”
+
+With these words he looked carefully around the room, but there was no
+more blood to be seen anywhere. Any spot would have been clearly visible
+on the light-coloured floor. There was nothing else to tell of the
+horrible crime that had been committed here, nothing but the great,
+hideous, brown-red spot in the middle of the room.
+
+“Have you made a thorough search for the body?” asked the doctor.
+
+The magistrate shook his head. “No, I have done nothing to speak of yet.
+We have been waiting for you. There is a gendarme at the gate; no one
+can go in or out without being seen.”
+
+“Very well, then, let us begin our search now.”
+
+The magistrate and his companion turned towards the door of the room but
+the doctor motioned them to come back. “I see you do not know the house
+as well as I do,” he said, and led the way towards a niche in the side
+of the wall, which was partially filled by a high bookcase.
+
+“Ah--that is the entrance of the passage to the church?” asked the
+magistrate in surprise.
+
+“Yes, this is it. The door is not locked.”
+
+“You mean you believe--”
+
+“That the murderers came in from the church? Why not? It is quite
+possible.”
+
+“To think of such a thing!” exclaimed the notary with a shake of his
+head.
+
+The doctor laughed bitterly. “To those who are planning a murder, a
+church is no more than any other place. There is a bolt here as you see.
+I will close this bolt now. Then we can leave the room knowing that no
+one can enter it without being seen.”
+
+The simple furniture of the study, a desk, a sofa, a couple of chairs
+and several bookcases, gave no chance of any hiding place either for the
+body of the victim or for the murderers. When the men left the room
+the magistrate locked the door and put the key in his own pocket. The
+gendarme in the neighbouring apartment was sent down to stand in the
+courtyard at the entrance to the house. The sexton, a little hunchback,
+was ordered to remain in the vestry at the other end of the passage from
+the church to the house.
+
+Then the thorough search of the house began. Every room in both stories,
+every corner of the attic and the cellar, was looked over thoroughly.
+The stable, the barns, the garden and even the well underwent a close
+examination. There was no trace of a body anywhere, not even a trail
+of blood, nothing which would give the slightest clue as to how the
+murderers had entered, how they had fled, or what they had done with
+their victim.
+
+The great gate of the courtyard was closed. The men, reinforced by the
+farm hands, entered the church, while Liska and the dairy-maids huddled
+in the servants’ dining-room in a trembling group around the old
+housekeeper. The search in the church as well as in the vestry was
+equally in vain. There was no trace to be found there any more than in
+the house.
+
+Meanwhile, during these hours of anxious seeking, the rumour of another
+terrible crime had spread through the village, and a crowd that grew
+from minute to minute gathered in front of the closed gates to the
+rectory, in front of the church, the closed doors of which did not open
+although it was a high feast day. The utter silence from the steeple,
+where the bells hung mute, added to the spreading terror. Finally the
+doctor came out from the rectory, accompanied by the magistrate, and
+announced to the waiting villagers that their venerable pastor had
+disappeared under circumstances which left no doubt that he had met his
+death at the hand of a murderer. The peasants listened in shuddering
+silence, the men pale-faced, the women sobbing aloud with frightened
+children hanging to their skirts. Then at the magistrate’s order, the
+crowd dispersed slowly, going to their homes, while a messenger set off
+to the near-by county seat.
+
+It was a weird, sad Easter Monday. Even nature seemed to feel the
+pressure of the brooding horror, for heavy clouds piled up towards noon
+and a chill wind blew fitfully from the north, bending the young corn
+and the creaking tree-tops, and moaning about the straw-covered roofs.
+Then an icy cold rain descended on the village, sending the children,
+the only humans still unconscious of the fear that had come on them all,
+into the houses to play quietly in the corner by the hearth.
+
+There was nothing else spoken of wherever two or three met together
+throughout the village except this dreadful, unexplainable thing
+that had happened in the rectory. The little village inn was full
+to overflowing and the hum of voices within was like the noise of an
+excited beehive. Everyone had some new explanation, some new guess, and
+it was not until the notary arrived, looking even more important than
+usual, that silence fell upon the excited throng. But the expectations
+aroused by his coming were not fulfilled. The notary knew no more than
+the others although he had been one of the searchers in the rectory.
+But he was in no haste to disclose his ignorance, and sat wrapped in a
+dignified silence until some one found courage to question him.
+
+“Was there nothing stolen?” he was asked.
+
+“No, nothing as far as we can tell yet. But if it was the gypsies--as
+may be likely--they are content with so little that it would not be
+noticed.”
+
+“Gypsies?” exclaimed one man scornfully. “It doesn’t have to be gypsies,
+we’ve got enough tramps and vagabonds of our own. Didn’t they kill the
+pedlar for the sake of a bag of tobacco, and old Katiza for a couple of
+hens?”
+
+“Why do you rake up things that happened twenty years ago?” cried
+another over the table. “You’d better tell us rather who killed Red
+Betty, and pulled Janos, the smith’s farm hand, down into the swamp?”
+
+“Yes, or who cut the bridge supports, when the brook was in flood, so
+that two good cows broke through and drowned?”
+
+“Yes, indeed, if we only knew what band of robbers and villains it is
+that is ravaging our village.”
+
+“And they haven’t stopped yet, evidently.”
+
+“This is the worst misfortune of all! What will our poor do now that
+they have murdered our good pastor, who cared for us all like a father?”
+
+“He gave all he had to the poor, he kept nothing for himself.”
+
+“Yes, indeed, that’s how it was. And now we can’t even give this good
+man Christian burial.”
+
+“Shepherd Janci knew this morning early that we were going to have a new
+pastor,” whispered the landlord in the notary’s ear. The latter looked
+up astonished. “Who said so?” he asked.
+
+“My boy Ferenz, who went to fetch him about seven o’clock. One of my
+cows was sick.”
+
+Ferenz was sent for and told his story. The men listened with
+great interest, and the smith, a broad-shouldered elderly man, was
+particularly eager to hear, as he had always believed in the shepherd’s
+power of second sight. The tailor, who was more modern-minded, laughed
+and made his jokes at this. But the smith laid one mighty hand on the
+other’s shoulder, almost crushing the tailor’s slight form under its
+weight, and said gravely: “Friend, do you be silent in this matter.
+You’ve come from other parts and you do not know of things that have
+happened here in days gone by. Janci can do more than take care of his
+sheep. One day, when my little girl was playing in the street, he said
+to me, ‘Have a care of Maruschka, smith!’ and three days later the child
+was dead. The evening before Red Betty was murdered he saw her in a
+vision lying in a coffin in front of her door. He told it to the sexton,
+whom he met in the fields; and next morning they found Betty dead. And
+there are many more things that I could tell you, but what’s the use;
+when a man won’t believe it’s only lost talk to try to make him. But
+one thing you should know: when Janci stares ahead of him without seeing
+what’s in front of him, then the whole village begins to wonder what’s
+going to happen, for Janci knows far more than all the rest of us put
+together.”
+
+The smith’s grave, deep voice filled the room and the others listened
+in a silence that gave assent to his words. He had scarcely finished
+speaking, however, when there was a noise of galloping hoofs and rapidly
+rolling wagon wheels. A tall brake drawn by four handsome horses dashed
+past in a whirlwind.
+
+“It’s the Count--the Count and the district judge,” said the landlord
+in a tone of respect. The notary made a grab at his hat and umbrella and
+hurried from the room. “That shows how much they thought of our pastor,”
+ continued the landlord proudly. “For the Count himself has come and
+with four horses, too, to get here the more quickly. His Reverence was a
+great friend of the Countess.”
+
+“They didn’t make so much fuss over the pedlar and Betty,” murmured
+the cobbler, who suffered from a perpetual grouch. But he followed the
+others, who paid their scores hastily and went out into the streets
+that they might watch from a distance at least what was going on in
+the rectory. The landlord bustled about the inn to have everything in
+readiness in case the gentlemen should honour him by taking a meal,
+and perhaps even lodgings, at his house. At the gate of the rectory the
+coachman and the maid Liska stood to receive the newcomers, just as five
+o’clock was striking from the steeple.
+
+It should have been still quite light, but it was already dusk, for the
+clouds hung heavy. The rain had ceased, but a heavy wind came up which
+tore the delicate petals of the blossoms from the fruit trees and
+strewed them like snow on the ground beneath. The Count, who was the
+head of one of the richest and most aristocratic families in Hungary,
+threw off his heavy fur coat and hastened up the stairs at the top of
+which his old friend and confidant, the venerable pastor, usually came
+to meet him. To-day it was only the local magistrate who stood there,
+bowing deeply.
+
+“This is incredible, incredible!” exclaimed the Count.
+
+“It is, indeed, sir,” said the man, leading the magnate through the
+dining-room into the pastor’s study, where, as far as could be seen, the
+murder had been committed. They were joined by the district judge, who
+had remained behind to give an order sending a carriage to the nearest
+railway station. The judge, too, was serious and deeply shocked, for he
+also had greatly admired and revered the old pastor. The stately rectory
+had been the scene of many a jovial gathering when the lord of the manor
+had made it a centre for a day’s hunting with his friends. The bearers
+of some of the proudest names in all Hungary had gathered in the
+high-arched rooms to laugh with the venerable pastor and to sample
+the excellent wines in his cellar. These wines, which the gentlemen
+themselves would send in as presents to the master of the rectory, would
+be carefully preserved for their own enjoyment. Not a landed proprietor
+for many leagues around but knew and loved the old pastor, who had now
+so strangely disappeared under such terrifying circumstances.
+
+“Well, we might as well begin our examination,” remarked the Count.
+“Although if Dr. Orszay’s sharp eyes did not find anything, I doubt very
+much if we will. You have asked the doctor to come here again, haven’t
+you?”
+
+“Yes, your Grace! As soon as I saw you coming I sent the sexton to the
+asylum.” Then the men went in again into the room which had been the
+scene of the mysterious crime. The wind rattled the open window and blew
+out its white curtains. It was already dark in the corners of the room,
+one could see but indistinctly the carvings of the wainscoting. The
+light backs of the books, or the gold letters on the darker bindings,
+made spots of brightness in the gloom. The hideous pool of blood in the
+centre of the floor was still plainly to be seen.
+
+“Judging by the loss of blood, death must have come quickly.”
+
+“There was no struggle, evidently, for everything in the room was in
+perfect order when we entered it.”
+
+“There is not even a chair misplaced. His Bible is there on the desk, he
+may have been preparing for to-day’s sermon.”
+
+“Yes, that is the case; because see, here are some notes in his
+handwriting.”
+
+The Count and Judge von Kormendy spoke these sentences at intervals as
+they made their examination of the room. The local magistrate was able
+to answer one or two simpler questions, but for the most part he could
+only shrug his shoulders in helplessness. Nothing had been seen or heard
+that was at all unusual during the night in the rectory. When the old
+housekeeper was called up she could say nothing more than this. Indeed,
+it was almost impossible for the old woman to say anything, her voice
+choked with sobs at every second word. None of the household force had
+noticed anything unusual, or could remember anything at all that would
+throw light on this mystery.
+
+“Well, then, sir, we might just as well sit down and wait for the
+detective’s arrival,” said the judge.
+
+“You are waiting for some one besides the doctor?” asked the local
+magistrate timidly.
+
+“Yes, His Grace telegraphed to Budapest,” answered the district judge,
+looking at his watch. “And if the train is on time, the man we are
+waiting for ought to be here in an hour. You sent the carriage to the
+station, didn’t you? Is the driver reliable?”
+
+“Yes, sir, he is a dependable man,” said the old housekeeper.
+
+Dr. Orszay entered the room just then and the Count introduced him to
+the district judge, who was still a stranger to him.
+
+“I fear, Count, that our eyes will serve but little in discovering the
+truth of this mystery,” said the doctor.
+
+The nobleman nodded. “I agree with you,” he replied. “And I have sent
+for sharper eyes than either yours or mine.”
+
+The doctor looked his question, and the Count continued: “When the news
+came to me I telegraphed to Pest for a police detective, telling them
+that the case was peculiar and urgent. I received an answer as I stopped
+at the station on my way here. This is it: ‘Detective Joseph Muller from
+Vienna in Budapest by chance. Have sent him to take your case.’”
+
+“Muller?” exclaimed Dr. Orszay. “Can it be the celebrated Muller, the
+most famous detective of the Austrian police? That would indeed be a
+blessing.”
+
+“I hope and believe that it is,” said the Count gravely. “I have heard
+of this man and we need such a one here that we may find the source of
+these many misfortunes which have overwhelmed our peaceful village for
+two years past. It is indeed a stroke of good luck that has led a man
+of such gifts into our neighbourhood at a time when he is so greatly
+needed. I believe personally that it is the same person or persons who
+have been the perpetrators of all these outrages and I intend once for
+all to put a stop to it, let it cost what it may.”
+
+“If any one can discover the truth it will be Muller,” said the district
+judge. “It was I who told the Count how fortunate we were that this man,
+who is known to the police throughout Austria and far beyond the borders
+of our kingdom, should have chanced to be in Budapest and free to come
+to us when we called. You and I”--he turned with a smile to the local
+magistrate--“you and I can get away with the usual cases of local
+brutality hereabouts. But the cunning that is at the bottom of these
+crimes is one too many for us.”
+
+The men had taken their places around the great dining-table. The old
+housekeeper had crept out again, her terror making her forget her usual
+hospitality. And indeed it would not have occurred to the guests to ask
+or even to wish for any refreshment. The maid brought a lamp, which sent
+its weak rays scarcely beyond the edges of the big table. The four men
+sat in silence for some time.
+
+“I suppose it would be useless to ask who has been coming and going from
+the rectory the last few days?” began the Count.
+
+“Oh, yes, indeed, sir,” said the district judge with a sigh. “For if
+this murderer is the same who committed the other crimes he must live
+here in or near the village, and therefore must be known to all and not
+likely to excite suspicion.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, sir,” put in the doctor. “There must be at least two
+of them. One man alone could not have carried off the farm hand who was
+killed to the swamp where his body was found. Nor could one man alone
+have taken away the bloody body of the pastor. Our venerable friend was
+a man of size and weight, as you know, and one man alone could not have
+dragged his body from the room without leaving an easily seen trail.”
+
+The judge blushed, but he nodded in affirmation to the doctor’s words.
+This thought had not occurred to him before. In fact, the judge was more
+notable for his good will and his love of justice rather than for his
+keen intelligence. He was as well aware of this as was any one else,
+and he was heartily glad that the Count had sent to the capital for
+reinforcements.
+
+Some time more passed in deep silence. Each of the men was occupied with
+his own thoughts. A sigh broke the silence now and then, and a slight
+movement when one or the other drew out his watch or raised his head to
+look at the door. Finally, the sound of a carriage outside was heard.
+The men sprang up.
+
+The driver’s voice was heard, then steps which ascended the stairs lowly
+and lightly, audible only because the stillness was so great.
+
+The door opened and a small, slight, smooth-shaven man with a gentle
+face and keen grey eyes stood on the threshold. “I am Joseph Muller,” he
+said with a low, soft voice.
+
+The four men in the room looked at him in astonishment.
+
+“This simple-looking individual is the man that every one is afraid of?”
+ thought the Count, as he walked forward and held out his hand to the
+stranger.
+
+“I sent for you, Mr. Muller,” said the magnate, conscious of his stately
+size and appearance, as well as of his importance in the presence of a
+personage who so little looked what his great fame might have led one to
+expect.
+
+“Then you are Count ----?” answered Muller gently. “I was in Budapest,
+having just finished a difficult case which took me there. They told me
+that a mysterious crime had happened in your neighbourhood, and sent me
+here to take charge of it. You will pardon any ignorance I may show as a
+stranger to this locality. I will do my best and it may be possible that
+I can help you.”
+
+The Count introduced the other gentlemen in order and they sat down
+again at the table.
+
+“And now what is it you want me for, Count?” asked Muller.
+
+“There was a murder committed in this house,” answered the Count.
+
+“When?”
+
+“Last night.”
+
+“Who is the victim?”
+
+“Our pastor.”
+
+“How was he killed?”
+
+“We do not know.”
+
+“You are not a physician, then?” asked Muller, turning to Orszay.
+
+“Yes, I am,” answered the latter.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“The body is missing,” said Orszay, somewhat sharply.
+
+“Missing?” Muller became greatly interested. “Will you please lead me to
+the scene of the crime?” he said, rising from his chair.
+
+The others led him into the next room, the magistrate going ahead with
+a lamp. The judge called for more lights and the group stood around the
+pool of blood on the floor of the study. Muller’s arms were crossed on
+his breast as he stood looking down at the hideous spot. There was no
+terror in his eyes, as in those of the others, but only a keen attention
+and a lively interest.
+
+“Who has been in this room since the discovery?” he asked.
+
+The doctor replied that only the servants of the immediate household,
+the notary, the magistrate, and himself, then later the Count and the
+district judge entered the room.
+
+“You are quite certain that no one else has been in here?”
+
+“No, no one else.”
+
+“Will you kindly send for the three servants?” The magistrate left the
+room.
+
+“Who else lives in the house?”
+
+“The sexton and the dairymaid.”
+
+“And no one else has left the house to-day or has entered it?”
+
+“No one. The main door has been watched all day by a gendarme.”
+
+“Is there but one door out of this room?”
+
+“No, there is a small door beside that bookcase.”
+
+“Where does it lead to?”
+
+“It leads to a passageway at the end of which there is a stair down into
+the vestry.”
+
+Muller gave an exclamation of surprise.
+
+“The vestry as well as the church have neither of them been opened on
+the side toward the street.”
+
+“The church or the vestry, you mean,” corrected Muller. “How many doors
+have they on the street side?”
+
+“One each.”
+
+“The locks on these doors were in good condition?”
+
+“Yes, they were untouched.”
+
+“Was there anything stolen from the church?”
+
+“No, nothing that we could see.”
+
+“Was the pastor rich?”
+
+“No, he was almost a poor man, for he gave away all that he had.”
+
+“But you were his patron, Count.”
+
+“I was his friend. He was the confidential adviser of myself and
+family.”
+
+“This would mean rich presents now and then, would it not?”
+
+“No, that is not the case. Our venerable pastor would take nothing for
+himself. He would accept no presents but gifts of money for his poor.”
+
+“Then you do not believe this to have been a murder for the sake of
+robbery?”
+
+“No. There was nothing disturbed in any part of the house, no drawers or
+cupboards broken open at all.”
+
+Muller smiled. “I have heard it said that your romantic Hungarian
+bandits will often be satisfied with the small booty they may find in
+the pocket or on the person of their victim.”
+
+“You are right, Mr. Muller. But that is only when they can find nothing
+else.”
+
+“Or perhaps if it is a case of revenge.
+
+“It cannot be revenge in this case!”
+
+“The pastor was greatly loved?”
+
+“He was loved and revered.”
+
+“By every one?”
+
+“By every one!” the four men answered at once.
+
+Muller was still a while. His eyes were veiled and his face thoughtful.
+Finally he raised his head. “There has been nothing moved or changed in
+this room?”
+
+“No--neither here nor anywhere else in the house or the church,”
+ answered the local magistrate.
+
+“That is good. Now I would like to question the servants.”
+
+Muller had already started for the door, then he turned back into
+the room and pointing toward the second door he asked: “Is that door
+locked?”
+
+“Yes,” answered the Count. “I found it locked when I examined it myself
+a short time ago.”
+
+“It was locked on the inside?”
+
+“Yes, locked on the inside.”
+
+“Very well. Then we have nothing more to do here for the time being. Let
+us go back into the dining-room.”
+
+The men returned to the dining-room, Muller last, for he stopped to lock
+the door of the study and put the key in his pocket. Then he began his
+examination of the servants.
+
+The old housekeeper, who, as usual, was the first to rise in the
+household, had also, as usual, rung the bell to waken the other
+servants. Then when Liska came downstairs she had sent her up to the
+pastor’s room. His bedroom was to the right of the dining-room.
+Liska had, as usual, knocked on the door exactly at seven o’clock and
+continued knocking for some few minutes without receiving any answer.
+Slightly alarmed, the girl had gone back and told the housekeeper that
+the pastor did not answer.
+
+Then the old woman asked the coachman to go up and see if anything
+was the matter with the reverend gentleman. The man returned in a few
+moments, pale and trembling in every limb and apparently struck dumb by
+fright. He motioned the women to follow him, and all three crept up
+the stairs. The coachman led them first to the pastor’s bed, which was
+untouched, and then to the pool of blood in his study. The sight of the
+latter frightened the servants so much that they did not notice at first
+that there was no sign of the pastor himself, whom they now knew must
+have been murdered. When they finally came to themselves sufficiently to
+take some action, the man hurried off to call the magistrate, and Liska
+ran to the asylum to fetch the old doctor; the pastor’s intimate friend.
+The aged housekeeper, trembling in fear, crept back to her own room and
+sat there waiting the return of the others.
+
+This was the story of the early morning as told by the three servants,
+who had already given their report in much the same words to the Count
+on his arrival and also to the magistrate. There was no reason to doubt
+the words of either the old housekeeper or of Janos, the coachman, who
+had served for more than twenty years in the rectory and whose fidelity
+was known. The girl Liska was scarcely eighteen, and her round childish
+face and big eyes dimmed with tears, corroborated her story. When they
+had told Muller all they knew, the detective sat stroking his chin, and
+looking thoughtfully at the floor. Then he raised his head and said,
+in a tone of calm friendliness: “Well, good friends, this will do for
+to-night. Now, if you will kindly give me a bite to eat and a glass of
+some light wine, I’d be very thankful. I have had no food since early
+this morning.”
+
+The housekeeper and the maid disappeared, and Janos went to the stable
+to harness the Count’s trap.
+
+The magnate turned to the detective. “I thank you once more that you
+have come to us. I appreciate it greatly that a stranger to our part of
+the country, like yourself, should give his time and strength to this
+problem of our obscure little village.”
+
+“There is nothing else calling me, sir,” answered Muller. “And the
+Budapest police will explain to headquarters at Vienna if I do not
+return at once.”
+
+“Do you understand our tongue sufficiently to deal with these people
+here?”
+
+“Oh, yes; there will be no difficulty about that. I have hunted
+criminals in Hungary before. And a case of this kind does not usually
+call for disguises in which any accent would betray one.”
+
+“It is a strange profession,” said the doctor.
+
+“One gets used to it--like everything else,” answered Muller, with a
+gentle smile. “And now I have to thank you gentlemen for your confidence
+in me.”
+
+“Which I know you will justify,” said the Count.
+
+Muller shrugged his shoulders: “I haven’t felt anything yet--but it will
+come--there’s something in the air.”
+
+The Count smiled at his manner of expressing himself, but all four
+of the men had already begun to feel sympathy and respect for this
+quiet-mannered little person whose words were so few and whose voice was
+so gentle. Something in his grey eyes and in the quiet determination of
+his manner made them realise that he had won his fame honestly. With the
+enthusiasm of his race the Hungarian Count pressed the detective’s hand
+in a warm grasp as he said: “I know that we can trust in you. You will
+avenge the death of my old friend and of those others who were killed
+here. The doctor and the magistrate will tell you about them to-morrow.
+We two will go home now. Telegraph us as soon as anything has happened.
+Every one in the village will be ready to help you and of course you can
+call on me for funds. Here is something to begin on.” With these words
+the Count laid a silk purse full of gold pieces on the table. One more
+pressure of the hand and he was gone. The other men also left the room,
+following the Count’s lead in a cordial farewell of the detective. They
+also shared the nobleman’s feeling that now indeed, with this man to
+help them, could the cloud of horror that had hung over the village for
+two years, and had culminated in the present catastrophe, be lifted.
+
+The excitement of the Count’s departure had died away and the steps of
+the other men on their way to the village had faded in the distance.
+There was nothing now to be heard but the rustling of the leaves and the
+creaking of the boughs as the trees bent before the onrush of the wind.
+Muller stood alone, with folded arms, in the middle of the large room,
+letting his sharp eyes wander about the circle of light thrown by the
+lamps. He was glad to be alone--for only when he was alone could his
+brain do its best work. He took up one of the lamps and opened the door
+to the room in which, as far as could be known, the murder had been
+committed. He walked in carefully and, setting the lamp on the desk,
+examined the articles lying about on it. There was nothing of importance
+to be found there. An open Bible and a sheet of paper with notes for the
+day’s sermon lay on top of the desk. In the drawers, none of which were
+locked, were official papers, books, manuscripts of former sermons, and
+a few unimportant personal notes.
+
+The flame of the lamp flickered in the breeze that came from the open
+window. But Muller did not close the casement. He wanted to leave
+everything just as he had found it until daylight. When he saw that it
+was impossible to leave the lamp there he took it up again and left the
+room.
+
+“What is the use of being impatient?” he said to himself. “If I move
+about in this poor light I will be sure to ruin some possible clue. For
+there must be some clue left here. It is impossible for even the most
+practiced criminal not to leave some trace of his presence.”
+
+The detective returned to the dining-room, locking the study door
+carefully behind him. The maid and the coachman returned, bringing in
+an abundant supper, and Muller sat down to do justice to the many good
+things on the tray. When the maid returned to take away the dishes
+she inquired whether she should put the guest chamber in order for the
+detective. He told her not to go to any trouble for his sake, that he
+would sleep in the bed in the neighbouring room.
+
+“You going to sleep in there?” said the girl, horrified.
+
+“Yes, my child, and I think I will sleep well to-night. I feel very
+tired.” Liska carried the things out, shaking her head in surprise at
+this thin little man who did not seem to know what it was to be afraid.
+Half an hour later the rectory was in darkness. Before he retired,
+Muller had made a careful examination of the pastor’s bedroom. Nothing
+was disturbed anywhere, and it was evident that the priest had not made
+any preparations for the night, but was still at work at his desk in
+the study when death overtook him. When he came to this conclusion, the
+detective went to bed and soon fell asleep.
+
+In his little hut near the asylum gates, shepherd Janci slept as sound
+as usual. But he was dreaming and he spoke in his sleep. There was no
+one to hear him, for his faithful Margit was snoring loudly. Snatches
+of sentences and broken words came from Janci’s lips: “The hand--the big
+hand--I see it--at his throat--the face--the yellow face--it laughs--”
+
+Next morning the children on their way to school crept past the rectory
+with wide eyes and open mouths. And the grown people spoke in lower
+tones when their work led them past the handsome old house. It had once
+been their pride, but now it was a place of horror to them. The old
+housekeeper had succumbed to her fright and was very ill. Liska went
+about her work silently, and the farm servants walked more heavily and
+chattered less than they had before. The hump-backed sexton, who had not
+been allowed to enter the church and therefore had nothing to do, made
+an early start for the inn, where he spent most of the day telling what
+little he knew to the many who made an excuse to follow him there.
+
+The only calm and undisturbed person in the rectory household was
+Muller. He had made a thorough examination of the entire scene of the
+murder, but had not found anything at all. Of one thing alone was he
+certain: the murderer had come through the hidden passageway from the
+church. There were two reasons to believe this, one of which might
+possibly not be sufficient, but the other was conclusive.
+
+The heavy armchair before the desk, the chair on which the pastor was
+presumably sitting when the murderer entered, was half turned around,
+turned in just such a way as it would have been had the man who was
+sitting there suddenly sprung up in excitement or surprise. The chair
+was pushed back a step from the desk and turned towards the entrance
+to the passageway. Those who had been in the room during the day had
+reported that they had not touched any one of the articles of furniture,
+therefore the position of the chair was the same that had been given it
+by the man who had sat in it, by the murdered pastor himself.
+
+Of course there was always the possibility that some one had moved the
+chair without realising it. This clue, therefore, could not be looked
+upon as an absolutely certain one had it stood alone. But there was
+other evidence far more important. The great pool of blood was just
+half-way between the door of the passage and the armchair. It was here,
+therefore, that the attack had taken place. The pastor could not have
+turned in this direction in the hope of flight, for there was nothing
+here to give him shelter, no weapon that he could grasp, not even
+a cane. He must have turned in this direction to meet and greet the
+invader who had entered his room in this unusual manner. Turned to meet
+him as a brave man would, with no other weapon than the sacredness of
+his calling and his age.
+
+But this had not been enough to protect the venerable priest. The
+murderer must have made his thrust at once and his victim had sunk down
+dying on the floor of the room in which he had spent so many hours of
+quiet study, in which he had brought comfort and given advice to so many
+anxious hearts; for dying he must have been--it would be impossible for
+a man to lose so much blood and live.
+
+“The struggle,” thought the detective, “but was there a struggle?” He
+looked about the room again, but could see nothing that showed disorder
+anywhere in its immaculate neatness. No, there could have been no
+struggle. It must have been a quick knife thrust and death at once. “Not
+a shot?” No, a shot would have been heard by the night watchman walking
+the streets near the church. The night was quiet, the window open. Some
+one in the village would have heard the noise of a shot. And it was not
+likely that the old housekeeper who slept in the room immediately below,
+slept the light sleep of the aged would have failed to have heard the
+firing of a pistol.
+
+Muller took a chair and sat down directly in front of the pool of blood,
+looking at it carefully. Suddenly he bowed his head deeper. He had
+caught sight of a fine thread of the red fluid which had been drawn
+out for about a foot or two in the direction towards the door to the
+dining-room. What did that mean? Did it mean that the murderer went out
+through that door, dragging something after him that made this delicate
+line? Muller bent down still deeper. The sun shone brightly on the
+floor, sending its clear rays obliquely through the window. The sharp
+eyes which now covered every inch of the yellow-painted floor discovered
+something else. They discovered that this red thread curved slightly and
+had a continuation in a fine scratch in the paint of the floor. Muller
+followed up this scratch and it led him over towards the window and then
+back again in wide curves, then out again under the desk and finally,
+growing weaker and weaker, it came back to the neighbourhood of the pool
+of blood, but on the opposite side of it. Muller got down on his hands
+and knees to follow up the scratch. He did not notice the discomfort of
+his position, his eyes shone in excitement and a deep flush glowed in
+his cheeks. Also, he began to whistle softly.
+
+Joseph Muller, the bloodhound of the Austrian police, had found a clue,
+a clue that soon would bring him to the trail he was seeking. He did not
+know yet what he could do with his clue. But this much he knew; sooner
+or later this scratch in the floor would lead him to the murderer. The
+trail might be long and devious; but he would follow it and at its end
+would be success. He knew that this scratch had been made after the
+murder was committed; this was proved by the blood that marked its
+beginning. And it could not have been made by any of those who entered
+the room during the day because by that time the blood had dried. This
+strange streak in the floor, with its weird curves and spirals, could
+have been made only by the murderer. But how? With what instrument?
+There was the riddle which must be solved.
+
+And now Muller, making another careful examination of the floor, found
+something else. It was something that might be utterly unimportant or
+might be of great value. It was a tiny bit of hardened lacquer which he
+found on the floor beside one of the legs of the desk. It was rounded
+out, with sharp edges, and coloured grey with a tiny zigzag of yellow
+on its surface. Muller lifted it carefully and looked at it keenly.
+This tiny bit of lacquer had evidently been knocked off from some convex
+object, but it was impossible to tell at the moment just what sort of an
+object it might have been. There are so many different things which are
+customarily covered with lacquer. However, further examination brought
+him down to a narrower range of subjects. For on the inside of the
+lacquer he found a shred of reddish wood fibre. It must have been a
+wooden object, therefore, from which the lacquer came, and the wood had
+been of reddish tinge.
+
+Muller pondered the matter for a little while longer. Then he placed his
+discovery carefully in the pastor’s emptied tobacco-box, and dropped
+the box in his own pocket. He closed the window and the door to the
+dining-room, lit a lamp, and entered the passageway leading to the
+vestry. It was a short passageway, scarcely more than a dozen paces
+long.
+
+The walls were whitewashed, the floor tiled and the entire passage shone
+in neatness. Muller held the light of his lamp to every inch of it, but
+there was nothing to show that the criminal had gone through here with
+the body of his victim.
+
+“The criminal”--Muller still thought of only one. His long experience
+had taught him that the most intricate crimes were usually committed by
+one man only. The strength necessary for such a crime as this did not
+deceive him either. He knew that in extraordinary moments extraordinary
+strength will come to the one who needs it.
+
+He now passed down the steps leading into the vestry. There was no trace
+of any kind here either. The door into the vestry was not locked. It was
+seldom locked, they had told him, for the vestry itself was closed by
+a huge carved portal with a heavy ornamented iron lock that could be
+opened only with the greatest noise and trouble. This door was locked
+and closed as it had been since yesterday morning. Everything in the
+vestry was in perfect order; the priest’s garments and the censers
+all in their places. Muller assured himself of this before he left the
+little room. He then opened the glass door that led down by a few steps
+into the church.
+
+It was a beautiful old church, and it was a rich church also. It was
+built in the older Gothic style, and its heavy, broad-arched walls, its
+massive columns would have made it look cold and bare had not handsome
+tapestries, the gift of the lady of the manor, covered the walls. Fine
+old pictures hung here and there above the altars, and handsome stained
+glass windows broke the light that fell into the high vaulted interior.
+There were three great altars in the church, all of them richly
+decorated. The main altar stood isolated in the choir. In the open space
+behind it was the entrance to the crypt, now veiled in a mysterious
+twilight. Heavy silver candlesticks, three on a side, stood on the
+altar. The pale gold of the tabernacle door gleamed between them.
+
+Muller walked through the silent church, in which even his light
+steps resounded uncannily. He looked into each of the pews, into the
+confessionals, he walked around all the columns, he climbed up into the
+pulpit, he did everything that the others had done before him yesterday.
+And as with them, he found nothing that would indicate that the murderer
+had spent any time in the church. Finally he turned back once more to
+the main altar on his way out. But he did not leave the church as he
+intended. His last look at the altar had showed him something that
+attracted his attention and he walked up the three steps to examine it
+more closely.
+
+What he had seen was something unusual about one of the silver
+candlesticks. These candlesticks had three feet, and five of them were
+placed in such a way that the two front feet were turned toward the
+spectator. But on the end candlestick nearest Muller the single foot
+projected out to the front of the altar. This candlestick therefore had
+been set down hastily, not placed carefully in the order of things as
+were the others.
+
+And not only this. The heavy wax candle which was in the candlestick
+was burned down about a finger’s breadth more than the others, for
+these were all exactly of a height. Muller bent still nearer to the
+candlestick, but he saw that the dim light in the church was not
+sufficient. He went to one of the smaller side altars, took a candle
+from there, lit it with one of the matches that he found in his own
+pocket and returned with the burning candle to the main altar. The steps
+leading up to this altar were covered by a large rug with a white ground
+and a pattern of flowers. Looking carefully at it the detective saw a
+tiny brown spot, the mark of a burn, upon one of the white surfaces.
+Beside it lay a half used match.
+
+Walking around this carefully, Muller approached the candlestick that
+interested him and holding up his light he examined every inch of its
+surface. He found what he was looking for. There were dark red spots
+between the rough edges of the silver ornamentation.
+
+“Then the body is somewhere around here,” thought the detective and came
+down from the steps, still holding the burning candle.
+
+He walked slowly to the back of the altar. There was a little table
+there such as held the sacred dishes for the communion service, and the
+little carpet-covered steps which the sexton put out for the pastor when
+he took the monstrance from the high-built tabernacle. That was all that
+was to be seen in the dark corner behind the altar. Holding his candle
+close to the floor Muller discovered an iron ring fastened to one of the
+big stone flags. This must be the entrance to the crypt.
+
+Muller tried to raise the flag and was astonished to find how easily
+it came up. It was a square of reddish marble, the same with which the
+entire floor of the church was tiled. This flag was very thin and could
+easily be raised and placed back against the wall. Muller took up his
+candle, too greatly excited to stop to get a stick for it. He felt
+assured that now he would soon be able to solve at least a part of the
+mystery. He climbed down the steps carefully and found that they led
+into the crypt as he supposed. They were kept spotlessly clean, as
+was the entire crypt as far as he could see it by the light of his
+flickering candle. He was not surprised to discover that the air was
+perfectly pure here. There must be windows or ventilators somewhere,
+this he knew from the way his candle behaved.
+
+The ancient vault had a high arched ceiling and heavy massive pillars.
+It was a subterranean repetition of the church above. There had
+evidently been a convent attached to this church at one time; for here
+stood a row of simple wooden coffins all exactly alike, bearing each one
+upon its lid a roughly painted cross surrounded by a wreath. Thus were
+buried the monks of days long past.
+
+Muller walked slowly through the rows of coffins looking eagerly to each
+side. Suddenly he stopped and stood still. His hand did not tremble but
+his thin face was pale--pale as that face which looked up at him out of
+one of the coffins. The lid of the coffin stood up against the wall and
+Muller saw that there were several other empty ones further on, waiting
+for their silent occupants.
+
+The body in the open coffin before which Muller stood was the body of
+the man who had been missing since the day previous. He lay there quite
+peacefully, his hands crossed over his breast, his eyes closed, a line
+of pain about his lips. In the crossed fingers was a little bunch of
+dark yellow roses. At the first glance one might almost have thought
+that loving hands had laid the old pastor in his coffin. But the red
+stain on the white cloth about his throat, and the bloody disorder of
+his snow-white hair contrasted sadly with the look of peace on the dead
+face. Under his head was a white silk cushion, one of the cushions from
+the altar.
+
+Muller stood looking down for some time at this poor victim of a strange
+crime, then he turned to go.
+
+He wanted to know one thing more: how the murderer had left the crypt.
+The flame of his candle told him, for it nearly went out in a gust of
+wind that came down the opening right above him. This was a window about
+three or four feet from the floor, protected by rusty iron bars which
+had been sawed through, leaving the opening free. It was a small window,
+but it was large enough to allow a man of much greater size than Muller
+to pass through it. The detective blew out his candle and climbed up
+onto the window sill. He found himself outside, in a corner of the
+churchyard. A thicket of heavy bushes grown up over neglected graves
+completely hid the opening through which he had come. There were thorns
+on these bushes and also a few scattered roses, dark yellow roses.
+
+Muller walked thoughtfully through the churchyard. The sexton sat
+huddled in an unhappy heap at the gate. He looked up in alarm as he saw
+the detective walking towards him. Something in the stranger’s face told
+the little hunchback that he had made a discovery. The sexton sprang up,
+his lips did not dare utter the question that his eyes asked.
+
+“I have found him,” said the detective gravely.
+
+The hunchback sexton staggered, then recovered himself, and hurried away
+to fetch the magistrate and the doctor.
+
+An hour later the murdered pastor lay in state in the chief apartment
+of his home, surrounded by burning candles and high-heaped masses of
+flowers. But he still lay in the simple convent coffin and the little
+bunch of roses which his murderer had placed between his stiffening
+fingers had not been touched.
+
+Two days later the pastor was buried. The Count and his family led the
+train of numerous mourners and among the last was Muller.
+
+A day or two after the funeral the detective sauntered slowly through
+the main street of the village. He was not in a very good humour, his
+answer to the greeting of those who passed him was short. The children
+avoided him, for with the keenness of their kind they recognised the
+fact that this usually gentle little man was not in possession of his
+habitual calm temper. One group of boys, playing with a top, did not
+notice his coming and Muller stopped behind them to look on. Suddenly
+a sharp whistle was heard and the boys looked up from their play,
+surprised at seeing the stranger behind them. His eyes were gleaming,
+and his cheeks were flushed, and a few bars of a merry tune came in
+a keen whistle from his lips as he watched the spirals made by the
+spinning top.
+
+Before the boys could stop their play the detective had left the group
+and hastened onward to the little shop. He left it again in eager haste
+after having made his purchase, and hurried back to the rectory. The
+shop-keeper stood in the doorway looking in surprise at this grown man
+who came to buy a top. And at home in the rectory the old housekeeper
+listened in equal surprise to the humming noise over her head. She
+thought at first it might be a bee that had got in somehow. Then she
+realised that it was not quite the same noise, and having already
+concluded that it was of no use to be surprised at anything this strange
+guest might do, she continued reading her scriptures.
+
+Upstairs in the pastor’s study, Muller sat in the armchair attentively
+watching the gyrations of a spinning top. The little toy, started at a
+certain point, drew a line exactly parallel to the scratch on the floor
+that had excited his thoughts and absorbed them day and night.
+
+“It was a top--a top” repeated the detective to himself again and again.
+“I don’t see why I didn’t think of that right away. Why, of course,
+nothing else could have drawn such a perfect curve around the room,
+unhindered by the legs of the desk. Only I don’t see how a toy like that
+could have any connection with this cruel and purposeless murder. Why,
+only a fool--or a madman--”
+
+Muller sprang up from his chair and again a sharp shrill whistle came
+from his lips. “A madman!--” he repeated, beating his own forehead. “It
+could only have been a madman who committed this murder! And the
+pastor was not the first, there were two other murders here within a
+comparatively short time. I think I will take advantage of Dr. Orszay’s
+invitation.”
+
+Half an hour later Muller and the doctor sat together in a summer-house,
+from the windows of which one could see the park surrounding the asylum
+to almost its entire extent. The park was arranged with due regard to
+its purpose. The eye could sweep through it unhindered. There were no
+bushes except immediately along the high wall. Otherwise there were
+beautiful lawns, flower beds and groups of fine old trees with tall
+trunks.
+
+As would be natural in visiting such a place Muller had induced the
+doctor to talk about his patients. Dr. Orszay was an excellent talker
+and possessed the power of painting a personality for his listeners.
+He was pleased and flattered by the evident interest with which the
+detective listened to his remarks.
+
+“Then your patients are all quite harmless?” asked Muller thoughtfully,
+when the doctor came to a pause.
+
+“Yes, all quite harmless. Of course, there is the man who strangely
+enough considers himself the reincarnation of the famous French
+murderer, the goldsmith Cardillac, who, as you remember, kept all Paris
+in a fervour of excitement by his crimes during the reign of Louis XIV.
+But in spite of his weird mania this man is the most good-natured of
+any. He has been shut up in his room for several days now. He was a
+mechanician by trade, living in Budapest, and an unsuccessful invention
+turned his mind.”
+
+“Is he a large, powerful man?” asked Muller.
+
+Dr. Orszay looked a bit surprised. “Why do you ask that? He does happen
+to be a large man of considerable strength, but in spite of it I have no
+fear of him. I have an attendant who is invaluable to me, a man of such
+strength that even the fiercest of them cannot overcome him, and yet
+with a mind and a personal magnetism which they cannot resist. He can
+always master our patients mentally and physically--most of them are
+afraid of him and they know that they must do as he says. There is
+something in his very glance which has the power to paralyse even
+healthy nerves, for it shows the strength of will possessed by this
+man.”
+
+“And what is the name of this invaluable attendant?” asked Muller with a
+strange smile which the doctor took to be slightly ironical.
+
+“Gyuri Kovacz. You are amused at my enthusiasm? But consider my position
+here. I am an old man and have never been a strong man. At my age I
+would not have strength enough to force that little woman there--she
+thinks herself possessed and is quite cranky at times--to go to her own
+room when she doesn’t want to. And do you see that man over there in the
+blue blouse? He is an excellent gardener but he believes himself to
+be Napoleon, and when he has his acute attacks I would be helpless to
+control him were it not for Gyuri.”
+
+“And you are not afraid of Cardillac?” interrupted Muller.
+
+“Not in the least. He is as good-natured as a child and as confiding. I
+can let him walk around here as much as he likes. If it were not for the
+absurd nonsense that he talks when he has one of his attacks, and which
+frightens those who do not understand him, I could let him go free
+altogether.”
+
+“Then you never let him leave the asylum grounds?
+
+“Oh, yes. I take him out with me very frequently. He is a man of
+considerable education and a very clever talker. It is quite a pleasure
+to be with him. That was the opinion of my poor friend also, my poor
+murdered friend.”
+
+“The pastor?”
+
+“The pastor. He often invited Cardillac to come to the rectory with me.”
+
+“Indeed. Then Cardillac knew the inside of the rectory?”
+
+“Yes. The pastor used to lend him books and let him choose them himself
+from the library shelves. The people in the village are very kind to my
+poor patients here. I have long since had the habit of taking some of
+the quieter ones with me down into the village and letting the people
+become acquainted with them. It is good for both parties. It gives
+the patients some little diversion, and it takes away the worst of
+the senseless fear these peasants had at first of the asylum and its
+inmates. Cardillac in particular is always welcome when he comes, for he
+brings the children all sorts of toys that he makes in his cell.”
+
+The detective had listened attentively and once his eyes flashed and his
+lips shut tight as if to keep in the betraying whistle. Then he asked
+calmly: “But the patients are only allowed to go out when you accompany
+them, I suppose?”
+
+“Oh, no; the attendants take them out sometimes. I prefer, however, to
+let them go only with Gyuri, for I can depend upon him more than upon
+any of the others.”
+
+“Then he and Cardillac have been out together occasionally?”
+
+“Oh, yes, quite frequently. But--pardon me--this is almost like a
+cross-examination.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, doctor, it’s a bad habit of mine. One gets so
+accustomed to it in my profession.”
+
+“What is it you want?” asked Doctor Orszay, turning to a fine-looking
+young man of superb build, who entered just then and stood by the door.
+
+“I just wanted to announce, sir, that No. 302 is quiet again!
+
+“302 is Cardillac himself, Mr. Muller, or to give him his right name,
+Lajos Varna,” explained the doctor turning to his guest. “He is the
+302nd patient who has been received here in these twenty years. Then
+Cardillac is quiet again?” he asked, looking up at the young giant. “I
+am glad of that. You can announce our visit to him. This gentleman wants
+to inspect the asylum.”
+
+Muller realised that this was the attendant Gyuri, and he looked at
+him attentively. He was soon clear in his own mind that this remarkably
+handsome man did not please him, in fact awoke in him a feeling of
+repulsion. The attendant’s quiet, almost cat-like movements were in
+strange contrast to the massivity of his superb frame, and his large
+round eyes, shaped for open, honest glances, were shifty and cunning.
+They seemed to be asking “Are you trying to discover anything about me?”
+ coupled with a threat. “For your own sake you had better not do it.”
+
+When the young man had left the room Muller rose hastily and walked up
+and down several times. His face was flushed and his lips tight set.
+Suddenly he exclaimed: “I do not like this Gyuri.”
+
+Dr. Orszay looked up astonished. “There are many others who do not like
+him--most of his fellow-warders for instance, and all of the patients.
+I think there must be something in the contrast of such quiet movements
+with such a big body that gets on people’s nerves. But consider, Mr.
+Muller, that the man’s work would naturally make him a little different
+from other people. I have known Gyuri for five years as a faithful
+and unassuming servant, always willing and ready for any duty,
+however difficult or dangerous. He has but one fault--if I may call it
+such--that is that he has a mistress who is known to be mercenary and
+hard-hearted. She lives in a neighbouring village.”
+
+“For five years, you say? And how long has Cardillac been here?”
+
+“Cardillac? He has been here for almost three years.”
+
+“For almost three years, and is it not almost three years--” Muller
+interrupted himself. “Are we quite alone? Is no one listening?” The
+doctor nodded, greatly surprised, and the detective continued almost in
+a whisper, “and it is just about three years now that there have
+been committed, at intervals, three terrible crimes notable from
+the cleverness with which they were carried out, and from the utter
+impossibility, apparently, of discovering the perpetrator.”
+
+Orszay sprang up. His face flushed and then grew livid, and he put his
+hand to his forehead. Then he forced a smile and said in a voice
+that trembled in spite of himself: “Mr. Muller, your imagination is
+wonderful. And which of these two do you think it is that has committed
+these crimes--the perpetrator of which you have come here to find?”
+
+“I will tell you that later. I must speak to No. 302 first, and I must
+speak to him in the presence of yourself and Gyuri.”
+
+The detective’s deep gravity was contagious. Dr. Orszay had sufficiently
+controlled himself to remember what he had heard in former days, and
+just now recently from the district judge about this man’s marvellous
+deeds. He realised that when Muller said a thing, no matter how
+extravagant it might sound, it was worth taking seriously. This
+realisation brought great uneasiness and grief to the doctor’s heart,
+for he had grown fond of both of the men on whom terrible suspicion was
+cast by such an authority.
+
+Muller himself was uneasy, but the gloom that had hung over him for
+the past day or two had vanished. The impenetrable darkness that had
+surrounded the mystery of the pastor’s murder had gotten on his nerves.
+He was not accustomed to work so long over a problem without getting
+some light on it. But now, since the chance watching of the spinning
+top in the street had given him his first inkling of the trail, he was
+following it up to a clear issue. The eagerness, the blissful vibrating
+of every nerve that he always felt at this stage of the game, was on him
+again. He knew that from now on what was still to be done would be easy.
+Hitherto his mind had been made up on one point; that one man alone was
+concerned in the crime. Now he understood the possibility that there
+might have been two, the harmless mechanician who fancied himself a
+dangerous murderer, and the handsome young giant with the evil eyes.
+
+The two men stood looking at each other in a silence that was almost
+hostile. Had this stranger come to disturb the peace of the refuge for
+the unfortunate and to prove that Dr. Orszay, the friend of all the
+village, had unwittingly been giving shelter to such criminals?
+
+“Shall we go now?” asked the detective finally.
+
+“If you wish it, sir,” answered the doctor in a tone that was decidedly
+cool.
+
+Muller held out his hand. “Don’t let us be foolish, doctor. If you
+should find yourself terribly deceived, and I should have been the means
+of proving it, promise me that you will not be angry with me.”
+
+Orszay pressed the offered hand with a deep sigh. He realised the
+other’s position and knew it was his duty to give him every possible
+assistance. “What is there for me to do now?” he asked sadly.
+
+“You must see that all the patients are shut up in their cells so that
+the other attendants are at our disposal if we need them. Varna’s room
+has barred windows, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And I suppose also that it has but one door. I believe you told me that
+your asylum was built on the cell system.”
+
+“Yes, there is but one door to the room.”
+
+“Let the four other attendants stand outside this door. Gyuri will be
+inside with us. Tell the men outside that they are to seize and hold
+whomever I shall designate to them. I will call them in by a whistle.
+You can trust your people?”
+
+“Yes, I think I can.”
+
+“Well, I have my revolver,” said Muller calmly, “and now we can go.”
+
+They left the room together, and found Gyuri waiting for them a little
+further along the corridor. “Aren’t you well, sir?” the attendant asked
+the doctor, with an anxious note in his voice.
+
+The man’s anxiety was not feigned. He was really a faithful servant in
+his devotion to the old doctor, although Muller had not misjudged him
+when he decided that this young giant was capable of anything. Good and
+evil often lie so close together in the human heart.
+
+The doctor’s emotion prevented him from speaking, and the detective
+answered in his place. “It is a sudden indisposition,” he said. “Lead
+me to No. 302, who is waiting for us, I suppose. The doctor wants to lie
+down a moment in his own room.”
+
+Gyuri glanced distrustfully at this man whom he had met for the first
+time to-day, but who was no stranger to him--for he had already learned
+the identity of the guest in the rectory. Then he turned his eyes on his
+master. The latter nodded and said: “Take the gentleman to Varna’s room.
+I will follow shortly.”
+
+The cell to which they went was the first one at the head of the
+staircase. “Extremely convenient,” thought Muller to himself. It was a
+large room, comfortably furnished and filled now with the red glow of
+the setting sun. A turning-lathe stood by the window and an elderly man
+was at work at it. Gyuri called to him and he turned and rose when he
+saw a stranger.
+
+Lajos Varna was a tall, loose-jointed man with sallow skin and tired
+eyes. He gave only a hasty glance at his visitor, then looked at Gyuri.
+The expression in his eyes as he turned them on those of the warder
+was like the look in the eyes of a well-trained dog when it watches its
+master’s face. Gyuri’s brows were drawn close together and his mouth
+set tight to a narrow line. His eyes fairly bored themselves into the
+patient’s eyes with an expression like that of a hypnotiser.
+
+Muller knew now what he wanted to know. This young man understood how
+to bend the will of others, even the will of a sick mind, to his own
+desires. The little silent scene he had watched had lasted just the
+length of time it had taken the detective to walk through the room and
+hold out his hand to the patient.
+
+“I don’t want to disturb you, Mr. Varna,” he said in a friendly tone,
+with a motion towards the bench from which the mechanician had just
+arisen. Varna sat down again, obedient as a child. He was not always so
+apparently, for Muller saw a red mark over the fingers of one hand
+that was evidently the mark of a blow. Gyuri was not very choice in the
+methods by which he controlled the patients confided to his care.
+
+“May I sit down also?” asked Muller.
+
+Varna pushed forward a chair. His movements were like those of an
+automaton.
+
+“And now tell me how you like it here?” began the detective. Varna
+answered with a low soft voice, “Oh, I like it very much, sir.” As he
+spoke he looked up at Gyuri, whose eyes still bore their commanding
+expression.
+
+“They treat you kindly here?”
+
+“Oh, yes.”
+
+“The doctor is very good to you?”
+
+“Ah, the doctor is so good!” Varna’s dull eyes brightened.
+
+“And the others are good to you also?”
+
+“Oh, yes.” The momentary gleam in the sad eye had vanished again.
+
+“Where did you get this red scar?”
+
+The patient became uneasy, he moved anxiously on his chair and looked up
+at Gyuri. It was evident that he realised there would be more red marks
+if he told the truth to this stranger.
+
+Muller did not insist upon an answer. “You are uneasy and nervous
+sometimes, aren’t you?”
+
+“Yes, sir, I have been--nervous--lately.”
+
+“And they don’t let you go out at such times?”
+
+“Why, I--no, I may not go out at such times.”
+
+“But the doctor takes you with him sometimes--the doctor or Gyuri?”
+ asked the detective.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I haven’t had him out with me for weeks,” interrupted the attendant.
+He seemed particularly anxious to have the “for weeks” clearly heard by
+this inconvenient questioner.
+
+Muller dropped this subject and took up another. “They tell me you are
+very fond of children, and I can see that you are making toys for them
+here.”
+
+“Yes, I love children, and I am so glad they are not afraid of me.”
+ These words were spoken with more warmth and greater interest than
+anything the man had yet said.
+
+“And they tell me that you take gifts with you for the children every
+time you go down to the village. This is pretty work here, and it must
+be a pleasant diversion for you.” Muller had taken up a dainty little
+spinning-wheel which was almost completed. “Isn’t it made from the wood
+of a red yew tree?”
+
+“Yes, the doctor gave me a whole tree that had been cut down in the
+park.”
+
+“And that gave you wood for a long time?”
+
+“Yes, indeed; I have been making toys from it for months.” Varna had
+become quite eager and interested as he handed his visitor a number of
+pretty trifles. The two had risen from their chairs and were leaning
+over the wide window seat which served as a store-house for the wares
+turned out by the busy workman. They were toys, mostly, all sorts
+of little pots and plates, dolls’ furniture, balls of various sizes,
+miniature bowling pins, and tops. Muller took up one of the latter.
+
+“How very clever you are, and how industrious,” he exclaimed, sitting
+down again and turning the top in his hands. It was covered with grey
+varnish with tiny little yellow stripes painted on it. Towards the lower
+point a little bit of the varnish had been broken off and the reddish
+wood underneath was visible. The top was much better constructed than
+the cheap toys sold in the village. It was hollow and contained in its
+interior a mechanism started by a pressure on the upper end. Once set in
+motion the little top spun about the room for some time.
+
+“Oh, isn’t that pretty! Is this mechanism your own invention?” asked
+Muller smiling. Gyuri watched the top with drawn brows and murmured
+something about “childish foolishness.”
+
+“Yes, it is my own invention,” said the patient, flattered. He started
+out on an absolutely technical explanation of the mechanism of tops in
+general and of his own in particular, an explanation so lucid and so
+well put that no one would have believed the man who was speaking was
+not in possession of the full powers of his mind.
+
+Muller listened very attentively with unfeigned interest.
+
+“But you have made more important inventions than this, haven’t you?” he
+asked when the other stopped talking. Varna’s eyes flashed and his voice
+dropped to a tone of mystery as he answered: “Yes indeed I have. But I
+did not have time to finish them. For I had become some one else.”
+
+“Some one else?”
+
+“Cardillac,” whispered Varna, whose mania was now getting the best of
+him again.
+
+“Cardillac? You mean the notorious goldsmith who lived in Paris 200
+years ago? Why, he’s dead.”
+
+Varna’s pale lips curled in a superior smile. “Oh, yes--that’s
+what people think, but it’s a mistake. He is still alive--I am--I
+have--although of course there isn’t much opportunity here--”
+
+Gyuri cleared his throat with a rasping noise.
+
+“What were you saying, friend Cardillac?” asked Muller with a great show
+of interest.
+
+“I have done things here that nobody has found out. It gives me great
+pleasure to see the authorities so helpless over the riddles I have
+given them to solve. Oh, indeed, sir, you would never imagine how stupid
+they are here.”
+
+“In other words, friend Cardillac, you are too clever for the
+authorities here?
+
+“Yes, that’s it,” said the insane man greatly flattered. He raised his
+head proudly and smiled down at his guest. At this moment the doctor
+came into the room and Gyuri walked forward to the group at the window.
+
+“You are making him nervous, sir,” he said to Muller in a tone that was
+almost harsh.
+
+“You can leave that to me,” answered the detective calmly. “And you will
+please place yourself behind Mr. Varna’s chair, not behind mine. It is
+your eyes that are making him uneasy.”
+
+The attendant was alarmed and lost control of himself for a moment.
+“Sir!” he exclaimed in an outburst.
+
+“My name is Muller, in case you do not know it already, Joseph Muller,
+detective. Gyuri Kovacz, you will do what I tell you to! I am master
+here just now. Is it not so, doctor?”
+
+“Yes, it is so,” said the doctor.
+
+“What does this mean?” murmured Gyuri, turning pale.
+
+“It means that the best thing for you to do is to stand up against that
+wall and fold your arms on your breast,” said Muller firmly. He took a
+revolver from his pocket and laid it beside him on the turning-lathe.
+The young giant, cowed by the sight of the weapon, obeyed the commands
+of this little man whom he could have easily crushed with a single blow.
+
+Dr. Orszay sank down on the chair beside the door. Muller, now
+completely master of the situation, turned to the insane man who stood
+looking at him in a surprise which was mingled with admiration.
+
+“And now, my dear Cardillac, you must tell us of your great deeds here,”
+ said the detective in a friendly tone.
+
+The unfortunate man bent over him with shining eyes and whispered: “But
+you’ll shoot him first, won’t you?”
+
+“Why should I shoot him?”
+
+“Because he won’t let me say a word without beating me. He is so cruel.
+He sticks pins into me if I don’t do what he wants.”
+
+“Why didn’t you tell the doctor?”
+
+“Gyuri would have treated me worse than ever then. I am a coward, sir,
+I’m so afraid of pain and he knew that--he knew that I was afraid of
+being hurt and that I’d always do what he asked of me. And because I
+don’t like to be hurt myself I always finished them off quickly.”
+
+“Finished who?”
+
+“Why, there was Red Betty, he wanted her money.”
+
+“Who wanted it?”
+
+“Gyuri.”
+
+The man at the wall moved when he heard this terrible accusation. But
+the detective took up his revolver again. “Be quiet there!” he called,
+with a look such as he might have thrown at an angry dog. Gyuri stood
+quiet again but his eyes shot flames and great drops stood out on his
+forehead.
+
+“Now go on, friend Cardillac,” continued the detective. “We were talking
+about Red Betty.”
+
+“I strangled her. She did not even know she was dying. She was such a
+weak old woman, it really couldn’t have hurt her.”
+
+“No, certainly not,” said Muller soothingly, for he saw that the thought
+that his victim might have suffered was beginning to make the madman
+uneasy. “You needn’t worry about that. Old Betty died a quiet death. But
+tell me, how did Gyuri know that she had money?”
+
+“The whole village knew it. She laid cards for people and earned a lot
+of money that way. She was very stingy and saved every bit. Somebody saw
+her counting out her money once, she had it in a big stocking under her
+bed. People in the village talked about it. That’s how Gyuri heard of
+it.”
+
+“And so he commanded you to kill Betty and steal her money?”
+
+“Yes. He knew that I loved to give them riddles to guess, just as I did
+in Paris so long ago.”
+
+“Oh, yes, you’re Cardillac, aren’t you? And now tell us about the
+smith’s swineherd.”
+
+“You mean Janos? Oh, he was a stupid lout,” answered Varna scornfully.
+
+“He had cast an eye on the beautiful Julcsi, Gyuri’s mistress, so of
+course I had to kill him.”
+
+“Did you do that alone?”
+
+“No, Gyuri helped me.”
+
+“Why did you cut the bridge supports?”
+
+“Because I enjoy giving people riddles, as I told you. But Gyuri forbade
+me to kill people uselessly. I liked the chance of getting out though.
+The doctor’s so good to me and the others too. Gyuri is good to me
+when I have done what he wanted. But you see, Mr. Muller, I am like a
+prisoner here and that makes me angry. I made Gyuri let me out nights
+sometimes.”
+
+“You mean he let you out alone, all alone?”
+
+“Yes, of course, for I threatened to tell the doctor everything if he
+didn’t.”
+
+“You wouldn’t have dared do that.”
+
+“No, that’s true,” smiled Varna slyly. “But Gyuri was afraid I might
+do it, for he isn’t always strong enough to frighten me with his
+eyes. Those were the hours when I could make him afraid--I liked those
+hours--”
+
+“What did you do when you were out alone at night?”
+
+“I just walked about. I set fire to a tree in the woods once, then the
+rain came and put it out. Once I killed a dog and another time I cut
+through the bridge supports. That took me several hours to do and made
+me very tired. But it was such fun to know that people would be worrying
+and fussing about who did it.”
+
+Varna rubbed his hands gleefully. He did not look the least bit
+malicious but only very much amused. The doctor groaned. Gyuri’s great
+body trembled, his arms shook, but he did not make a single voluntary
+movement. He saw the revolver in Muller’s hand and felt the keen grey
+eyes resting on him in pitiless calm.
+
+“And now tell us about the pastor?” said the detective in a firm clear
+voice.
+
+“Oh, he was a dear, good gentleman,” said No. 302 with an expression of
+pitying sorrow on his face. “I owed him much gratitude; that’s why I put
+the roses in his hand.”
+
+“Yes, but you murdered him first.”
+
+“Of course, Gyuri told me to.”
+
+“And why?”
+
+“He hated the pastor, for the old gentleman had no confidence in him.”
+
+“Is this true?” Muller turned to the doctor.
+
+“I did not notice it,” said Orszay with a voice that showed deep sorrow.
+
+“And you?” Muller’s eyes bored themselves into the orbs of the young
+giant, now dulled with fear.
+
+Gyuri started and shivered. “He looked at me sharply every now and
+then,” he murmured.
+
+“And that was why he was killed?”
+
+The warder’s head sank on his breast.
+
+“No, not only for that reason,” continued No. 302. “Gyuri needed money
+again. He ordered me to bring him the silver candlesticks off the
+altar.”
+
+“Murder and sacrilege,” said the detective calmly.
+
+“No, I did not rob the church. When I had buried the reverend gentleman
+I heard the cock crowing. I was afraid I might get home here too late
+and I forgot the candlesticks. I had to stop to wash my hands in the
+brook. While I was there I saw shepherd Janci coming along and I hid
+behind the willows. He almost discovered me once, but Janci’s a
+dreamer, he sees things nobody else sees--and he doesn’t see things that
+everybody else does see. I couldn’t help laughing at his sleepy face.
+But I didn’t laugh when I came back to the asylum. Gyuri was waiting for
+me at the door. When he saw that I hadn’t brought the candlesticks he
+beat me and tortured me worse than he’d ever done before.”
+
+“And you didn’t tell anyone?”
+
+“Why, no; because I was afraid that if I told on him, I’d never be able
+to go out again.”
+
+“And you, quite alone, could carry the pastor’s body out of his room?”
+
+“I am very strong.”
+
+“How did you arrange it that there should be no traces of blood to
+betray you?”
+
+“I waited until the body had stiffened, then I tied up the wound and
+carried him down into the crypt.”
+
+“Why did you do that?”
+
+“I didn’t want to leave him in that horrid pool of blood.”
+
+“You were sorry for him then?”
+
+“Why, yes; it looked so horrid to see him lying there--and he had
+always been so good to me. He was so good to me that very evening when I
+entered his study.
+
+“He recognised you?
+
+“Certainly. He sprang up from his chair when I came in through the
+passage from the church. I saw that he was startled, but he smiled at me
+and reached out his hand to me and said: ‘What brings you here, my dear
+Cardillac?’ And then I struck. I wanted him to die with that smile on
+his lips. It is beautiful to see a man die smiling, it shows that he has
+not been afraid of death. He was dead at once. I always kill that way--I
+know just how to strike and where. I killed more than a hundred people
+years ago in Paris, and I didn’t leave one of them the time for even a
+sigh. I was renowned for that--I had a kind heart and a sure hand.”
+
+Muller interrupted the dreadful imaginings of the madman with a
+question. “You got into the house through the crypt?”
+
+“Yes, through the crypt. I found the window one night when I was
+prowling around in the churchyard. When I knew that the pastor was to be
+the next, I cut through the window bars. Gyuri went into the church one
+day when nobody was there and found out that it was easy to lift the
+stone over the entrance to the crypt. He also learned that the doors
+from the church to the vestry were never locked. I knew how to find the
+passageway, because I had been through it several times on my visits to
+the rectory. But it was a mere chance that the door into the pastor’s
+study was unlocked.”
+
+“A chance that cost the life of a worthy man,” said the detective
+gravely.
+
+Varna nodded sadly. “But he didn’t suffer, he was dead at once.”
+
+“And now tell me what this top was doing there?” No. 302 looked at the
+detective in great surprise, and then laid his hand on the latter’s arm.
+“How did you know that I had the top there?” he asked with a show of
+interest.
+
+“I found its traces in the room, and it was those traces that led me
+here to you,” answered Muller.
+
+“How strange!” remarked Varna. “Are you like shepherd Janci that you can
+see the things others don’t see?”
+
+“No, I have not Janci’s gift. It would be a great comfort to me and a
+help to the others perhaps if I had. I can only see things after they
+have happened.”
+
+“But you can see more than others--the others did not see the traces of
+the top?”
+
+“My business is to see more than others see,” said Muller. “But you have
+not told me yet what the top was doing there. Why did you take a toy
+like that with you when you went out on such an errand?”
+
+“It was in my pocket by chance. When I reached for my handkerchief to
+quench the flow of blood the top came out with it. I must have touched
+the spring without knowing it, for the top began to spin. I stood still
+and watched it, then I ran after it. It spun around the room and finally
+came back to the body. So did I. The pastor was quite still and dead by
+that time.”
+
+“You have heard everything, Dr. Orszay?” asked the detective, rising
+from his chair.
+
+“Yes, I have heard everything,” answered the venerable head of the
+asylum. He was utterly crushed by the realisation that all this tragedy
+and horror had gone out from his house.
+
+Varna rose also. He understood perfectly that now Gyuri’s power was
+at an end and he was as pleased as a child that has just received a
+present. “And now you’re going to shoot him?” he asked, in the tone a
+boy would use if asking when the fireworks were to begin.
+
+Muller shook his head. “No, my dear Cardillac,” he replied gravely. “He
+will not be shot--that is a death for a brave soldier--but this man has
+deserved--” He did not finish the sentence, for the warder sank to the
+floor unconscious.
+
+“What a coward!” murmured the detective scornfully, looking down at the
+giant frame that lay prostrate before him. Even in his wide experience
+he had known of no case of a man of such strength and such bestial
+cruelty, combined with such utter cowardice.
+
+Varna also stood looking down at the unconscious warder. Then he glanced
+up with a cunning smile at the other two men who stood there. The
+doctor, pale and trembling with horror, covered his face with his hands.
+Muller turned to the door to call in the attendants waiting outside.
+During the moment’s pause that ensued the madman bent over his
+worktable, seized a knife that lay there and dropped on one knee beside
+the prostrate form. His hand was raised to strike when a calm voice
+said: “Fie! Cardillac, for shame! Do not belittle yourself. This man
+here is not worthy of your knife, the hangman will look after him.”
+
+Varna raised his loose-jointed frame and looked about with glistening
+eyes and trembling lips. His mind was completely darkened once more.
+“I must kill him--I must have his blood--there is no one to see me,” he
+murmured. “I am a hangman too--he has made a hangman of me,” and again
+he bent with uplifted hand over the man who had utilised his terrible
+misfortune to make a criminal of him. But two of the waiting attendants
+seized his arms and threw him back on the floor, while the other two
+carted Gyuri out. Both unfortunates were soon securely guarded.
+
+“Do not be angry with me, doctor,” said Muller gravely, as he walked
+through the garden accompanied by Orszay.
+
+Doctor Orszay laughed bitterly. “Why should I be angry with you--you
+who have discovered my inexcusable credulity?”
+
+“Inexcusable? Oh, no, doctor; it was quite natural that you should have
+believed a man who had himself so well in hand, and who knew so well
+how to play his part. When we come to think of it, we realise that
+most crimes have been made possible through some one’s credulity, or
+over-confidence, a credulity which, in the light of subsequent events,
+seems quite incomprehensible. Do not reproach yourself and do not lose
+heart. Your only fault was that you did not recognise the heart of the
+beast of prey in this admirable human form.”
+
+“What course will the law take?” asked Orszay. “The poor unfortunate
+madman--whose knife took all these lives--cannot be held responsible,
+can he?”
+
+“Oh, no; his misfortune protects him. But as for the other, though his
+hands bear no actual bloodstains, he is more truly a murderer than the
+unhappy man who was his tool. Hanging is too good for him. There are
+times when even I could wish that we were back in the Middle Ages, when
+it was possible to torture a prisoner.
+
+“You do not look like that sort of a man,” smiled the doctor through his
+sadness.
+
+“No, I am the most good-natured of men usually, I think--the meekest
+anyway,” answered Muller. “But a case like this--. However, as I said
+before, keep a stout heart, doctor, and do not waste time in unnecessary
+self-reproachings.” The detective pressed the doctor’s hand warmly and
+walked down the hill towards the village.
+
+He went at once to the office of the magistrate and made his report,
+then returned to the rectory and packed his grip. He arranged for its
+transport to the railway station, as he himself preferred to walk the
+inconsiderable distance. He passed through the village and had just
+entered the open fields when he met Janci with his flock. The shepherd
+hastened his steps when he saw the detective approaching.
+
+“You have found him, sir?” he exclaimed as he came up to Muller. The men
+had come to be friends by this time. The silent shepherd with the power
+of second sight had won Muller’s interest at once.
+
+“Yes, I found him. It is Gyuri, the warder at the asylum.”
+
+“No, sir, it is not Gyuri--Gyuri did not do it.”
+
+“But when I tell you that he did?”
+
+“But I tell you, sir, that Gyuri did not do it. The man who did it--he
+has yellowish hands--I saw them--I saw big yellowish hands. Gyuri’s
+hands are big, but they are brown.”
+
+“Janci, you are right. I was only trying to test you. Gyuri did not do
+it; that is, he did not do it with his own hands. The man who held the
+knife that struck down the pastor was Varna, the crazy mechanician.”
+
+Janci beat his forehead. “Oh, I am a foolish and useless dreamer!” he
+exclaimed; “of course it was Varna’s hands that I saw. I have seen them
+a hundred times when he came down into the village, and yet when I saw
+them in the vision I did not recognise them.”
+
+“We’re all dreamers, Janci--and our dreams are very useless generally.”
+
+“Yours are not useless, sir,” said the shepherd. “If I had as much
+brains as you have, my dreams might be of some good.”
+
+Muller smiled. “And if I had your visions, Janci, it would be a powerful
+aid to me in my profession.”
+
+“I don’t think you need them, sir. You can find out the hidden things
+without them. You are going to leave us?”
+
+“Yes, Janci, I must go back to Budapest, and from there to Vienna. They
+need me on another case.”
+
+“It’s a sad work, this bringing people to the gallows, isn’t it?”
+
+“Yes, Janci, it is sometimes. But it’s a good thing to be able to avenge
+crime and bring justice to the injured. Good-bye, Janci.”
+
+“Good-bye, sir, and God speed you.”
+
+The shepherd stood looking after the small, slight figure of the man
+who walked on rapidly through the heather. “He’s the right one for the
+work,” murmured Janci as he turned slowly back towards the village.
+
+An hour later Muller stood in the little waiting-room of the railway
+station writing a telegram. It was addressed to Count ----.
+
+  “Do you know the shepherd Janci?  It would be a good thing to
+  make him the official detective for the village.  He has high
+  qualifications for the profession.  If I had his gifts combined
+  with my own, not one could escape me.  I have found this one
+  however.  The guards are already taking him to you.  My work
+  here is done.  If I should be needed again I can be found at
+  Police Headquarters, Vienna.
+                                                  “Respectfully,
+                                                  “JOSEPH MULLER.”
+
+While the detective was writing his message--it was one of the rare
+moments of humour that Muller allowed himself, and he wondered mildly
+what the stately Hungarian nobleman would think of it--a heavy farm
+wagon jolted over the country roads towards the little county seat.
+Sitting beside the driver and riding about the wagon were armed
+peasants. The figure of a man, securely bound, his face distorted by
+rage and fear, lay in the wagon. It was Gyuri Kovacz, who had murdered
+by the hands of another, and who was now on his way to meet the death
+that was his due.
+
+And at one of the barred windows in the big yellow house stood a
+sallow-faced man, looking out at the rising moon with sad, tired eyes.
+His lips were parted in a smile like that of a dreaming child, and he
+hummed a gentle lullaby.
+
+In his compartment of the express from Budapest to Vienna, Joseph Muller
+sat thinking over the strange events that had called him to the obscure
+little Hungarian village. He had met with many strange cases in his long
+career, but this particular case had some features which were unique.
+Muller’s lips set hard and his hands tightened to fists as he murmured:
+“I’ve met with criminals who used strange tools, but never before have
+I met with one who had the cunning and the incredible cruelty to utilise
+the mania of an unhinged human mind. It is a thousand times worse than
+those criminals who, now and then throughout the ages, have trained
+brute beasts to murder for them. Truly, this Hungarian peasant, Gyuri
+Kovacz, deserves a high place in the infamous roll-call of the great
+criminals of history. A student of crime might almost be led to think
+that it is a pity his career has been cut short so soon. He might have
+gone far.
+
+“But for humanity’s sake” (Muller’s eyes gleamed), “I am thankful that I
+was able to discover this beast in human form and render him innocuous;
+he had done quite enough.”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Case of The Pool of Blood in the
+Pastor’s Study, by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
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