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Page 7
"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.
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