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Page 15
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.
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