Next morning Nuremberg was agitated with a horror such as can
seldom have disturbed its quiet; a young and lovely girl had been
murdered. Her corpse was discovered at daybreak under the archway
leading to the old fortifications. She had been stabbed to the
heart. No other signs of violence were visible; no robbery had
been attempted.
In great cities, necessarily great centers of crime, we daily hear
of murders; their frequency and remoteness leave us undisturbed.
Our sympathies can only be deeply moved either by some scenic
peculiarities investing the crime with unusual romance or unusual
atrocity, or else by the more immediate appeal of direct neighborly
interest. The murder which is read of in the Times as having
occurred in Westminster, has seldom any special horror to the
inhabitants of Islington or Oxford Street; but to the inhabitants
of Westminster, and especially to the inhabitants of the particular
street in which it was perpetrated, the crime assumes heart-shaking
proportions. Every detail is asked for, and every surmise listened
to, with feverish eagerness is repeated and diffused through the
crowd with growing interest. The family of the victim; the
antecedents of the assassin, if he is known; or the conjectures
pointing to the unknown assassin,--are eagerly discussed. All the
trivial details of household care or domestic fortunes, all the
items of personal gossip, become invested with a solemn and
affecting interest. Pity for the victim and survivors mingle and
alternate with fierce cries for vengeance on the guilty. The whole
street becomes one family, commingled by an energetic sympathy,
united by one common feeling of compassion and wrath.
In villages, and in cities so small as Nuremberg, the same
community of feeling is manifested. The town became as one street.
The horror spread like a conflagration, the sympathy surged and
swelled like a tide. Everyone felt a personal interest in the
event, as if the murder had been committed at his own door. Never
shall I forget that wail of passionate pity, and that cry for the
vengeance of justice, which rose from all sides of the startled
city. Never shall I forget the hurry, the agitation, the feverish
restlessness, the universal communicativeness, the volunteered
services, the eager suggestion, surging round the house of the
unhappy parents. Herr Lehfeldt, the father of the unhappy girl,
was a respected burgher known to almost every one. His mercer's
shop was the leading one of the city. A worthy, pious man,
somewhat strict, but of irreproachable character; his virtues, no
less than those of his wife, and of his only daughter, Lieschen--
now, alas; for ever snatched from their yearning eyes--were
canvassed everywhere, and served to intensify the general grief.
That such a calamity should have fallen on a household so
estimable, seemed to add fuel to the people's wrath. Poor
Lieschen! her pretty, playful ways--her opening prospects, as the
only daughter of parents so well to do and so kind--her youth and
abounding life--these were detailed with impassioned fervor by
friends, and repeated by strangers who caught the tone of friends,
as if they, too, had known and loved her. But amidst the surging
uproar of this sea of many voices no one clear voice of direction
could be heard; no clue given to the clamorous bloodhounds to run
down the assassin.
Cries had been heard in the streets that night at various parts of
the town, which, although then interpreted as the quarrels of
drunken brawlers, and the conflicts of cats, were now confidently
asserted to have proceeded from the unhappy girl in her death-
struggle. But none of these cries had been heard in the immediate
neighborhood of the archway. All the inhabitants of that part of
the town agreed that in their waking hours the streets had been
perfectly still. Nor were there any traces visible of a struggle
having taken place. Lieschen might have been murdered elsewhere,
and her corpse quietly deposited where it was found, as far as any
evidence went.
Wild and vague were the conjectures. All were baffled in the
attempt to give them a definite direction. The crime was
apparently prompted by revenge--certainly not by lust, or desire of
money. But she was not known to stand in any one's way. In this
utter blank as to the assignable motive, I, perhaps alone among the
furious crowd, had a distinct suspicion of the assassin. No sooner
had the news reached me, than with the specification of the theater
of the crime there at once flashed upon me the intellectual vision
of the criminal: the stranger with the dark beard and startled eyes
stood confessed before me! I held my breath for a few moments, and
then there came a tide of objections rushing over my mind,
revealing the inadequacy of the grounds on which rested my
suspicions. What were the grounds? I had seen a man in a
particular spot, not an unfrequented spot, on the evening of the
night when the crime had been committed there; that man had seemed
to recognize me, and wished to avoid being recognized. Obviously
these grounds were too slender to bear any weight of construction
such as I had based on them. Mere presence on the spot could no
more inculpate him than it could inculpate me; if I had met him
there, equally had he met me there. Nor even if my suspicion were
correct that he knew me, and refused to recognize me, could that be
any argument tending to criminate him in an affair wholly
disconnected with me. Besides, he was walking peaceably, openly,
and he looked like a gentleman. All these objections pressed
themselves upon me, and kept me silent. But in spite of their
force I could not prevent the suspicion from continually arising.
Ashamed to mention it, because it may have sounded too absurd, I
could not prevent my constructive imagination indulging in its
vagaries, and with this secret conviction I resolved to await
events, and in case suspicion from other quarters should ever
designate the probable assassin, I might then come forward with my
bit of corroborative evidence, should the suspected assassin be the
stranger of the archway.
By twelve o'clock a new direction was given to rumor. Hitherto the
stories, when carefully sifted of all exaggerations of flying
conjecture, had settled themselves into something like this: The
Lehfeldts had retired to rest at a quarter before ten, as was their
custom. They had seen Lieschen go into her bedroom for the night,
and had themselves gone to sleep with unclouded minds. From this
peaceful security they were startled early in the morning by the
appalling news of the calamity which had fallen on them.
Incredulous at first, as well they might be, and incapable of
believing in a ruin so unexpected and so overwhelming, they
imagined some mistake, asserting that Lieschen was in her own room.
Into that room they rushed, and there the undisturbed bed, and the
open window, but a few feet from the garden, silently and
pathetically disclosed the fatal truth. The bereaved parents
turned a revealing look upon each other's whitened faces, and then
slowly retired from the room, followed in affecting silence by the
others. Back into their own room they went. The father knelt
beside the bed, and, sobbing, prayed. The mother sat staring with
a stupefied stare, her lips faintly moving. In a short while the
flood of grief, awakened to a thorough consciousness, burst from
their laboring hearts. When the first paroxysms were over they
questioned others, and gave incoherent replies to the questions
addressed to them. From all which it resulted that Lieschen's
absence, though obviously voluntary, was wholly inexplicable to
them; and no clew whatever could be given as to the motives of the
crime. When these details became known, conjecture naturally
interpreted Lieschen's absence at night as an assignation. But
with whom? She was not known to have a lover. Her father, on
being questioned, passionately affirmed that she had none; she
loved no one but her parents, poor child! Her mother, on being
questioned, told the same story--adding, however, that about
seventeen months before, she had fancied that Lieschen was a little
disposed to favor Franz Kerkel, their shopman; but on being spoken
to on the subject with some seriousness, and warned of the distance
between them, she had laughed heartily at the idea, and since then
had treated Franz with so much indifference that only a week ago
she had drawn from her mother a reproof on the subject.
"I told her Franz was a good lad, though not good enough for her,
and that she ought to treat him kindly. But she said my lecture
had given her an alarm, lest Franz should have got the same maggot
into his head."
This was the story now passing through the curious crowds in every
street. After hearing it I had turned into a tobacconist's in the
Adlergrasse, to restock my cigar-case, and found there, as
everywhere, a group discussing the one topic of the hour. Herr
Fischer, the tobacconist, with a long porcelain pipe pendent from
his screwed-up lips, was solemnly listening to the particulars
volubly communicated by a stout Bavarian priest; while behind the
counter, in a corner, swiftly knitting, sat his wife, her black
bead-like eyes also fixed on the orator. Of course I was dragged
into the conversation. Instead of attending to commercial
interests, they looked upon me as the possible bearer of fresh
news. Nor was it without a secret satisfaction that I found I
could gratify them in that respect. They had not heard of Franz
Kerkel in the matter. No sooner had I told what I had heard than
the knitting-needles of the vivacious little woman were at once
suspended.
"Ach Je!" she exclaimed, "I see it all. He's the wretch!"
"Who?" we all simultaneously inquired.
"Who? Why, Kerkel, of course. If she changed, and treated him
with indifference, it was because she loved him; and he has
murdered the poor thing."
"How you run on, wife!" remonstrated Fischer; while the priest
shook a dubious head.
"I tell you it is so. I'm positive."
"If she loved him."
"She did, I tell you. Trust a woman for seeing through such
things."
"Well, say she did," continued Fischer, "and I won't deny that it
may be so; but then that makes against the idea of his having done
her any harm."
"Don't tell me," retorted the convinced woman. "She loved him.
She went out to meet him in secret, and he murdered her--the
villain did. I'm as sure of it as if these eyes had seen him do
it."
The husband winked at us, as much as to say, "You hear these
women!" and the priest and I endeavored to reason her out of her
illogical position. But she was immovable. Kerkel had murdered
her; she knew it; she couldn't tell why, but she knew it. Perhaps
he was jealous, who knows? At any rate, he ought to be arrested.
And by twelve o'clock, as I said, a new rumor ran through the
crowd, which seemed to confirm the little woman in her rash logic.
Kerkel had been arrested, and a waistcoat stained with blood had
been found in his room! By half-past twelve the rumor ran that he
had confessed the crime. This, however, proved on inquiry to be
the hasty anticipation of public indignation. He had been
arrested; the waistcoat had been found: so much was authentic; and
the suspicions gathered ominously over him.
When first Frau Fischer had started the suggestion it flew like
wildfire. Then people suddenly noticed, as very surprising, that
Kerkel had not that day made his appearance at the shop. His
absence had not been noticed in the tumult of grief and inquiry;
but it became suddenly invested with a dreadful significance, now
that it was rumored that he had been Lieschen's lover. Of all men
he would be the most affected by the tragic news; of all men he
would have been the first to tender sympathy and aid to the
afflicted parents, and the most clamorous in the search for the
undiscovered culprit. Yet, while all Nuremberg was crowding round
the house of sorrow, which was also his house of business, he alone
remained away. This naturally pointed suspicion at him. When the
messengers had gone to seek him, his mother refused them admission,
declaring in incoherent phrases, betraying great agitation, that
her son was gone distracted with grief and could see no one. On
this it was determined to order his arrest. The police went, the
house was searched, and the waistcoat found.
The testimony of the girl who lived as servant in Kerkel's house
was also criminatory. She deposed that on the night in question
she awoke about half-past eleven with a violent toothache; she was
certain as to the hour, because she heard the clock afterwards
strike twelve. She felt some alarm at hearing voices in the rooms
at an hour when her mistress and young master must long ago have
gone to bed; but as the voices were seemingly in quiet
conversation, her alarm subsided, and she concluded that instead of
having gone to bed her mistress was still up. In her pain she
heard the door gently open, and then she heard footsteps in the
garden. This surprised her very much. She couldn't think what the
young master could want going out at that hour. She became
terrified without knowing exactly at what. Fear quite drove away
the toothache, which had not since returned. After lying there
quaking for some time, again she heard footsteps in the garden; the
door opened and closed gently; voices were heard; and she at last
distinctly heard her mistress say, "Be a man, Franz. Good-night--
sleep well;" upon which Franz replied in a tone of great agony,
"There's no chance of sleep for me." Then all was silent. Next
morning her mistress seemed "very queer." Her young master went
out very early, but soon came back again; and there were dreadful
scenes going on in his room, as she heard, but she didn't know what
it was all about. She heard of the murder from a neighbor, but
never thought of its having any particular interest for Mr. Franz,
though, of course, he would be very sorry for the Lehfeldts.
The facts testified to by the servant, especially the going out at
that late hour, and the "dreadful scenes" of the morning, seemed to
bear but one interpretation. Moreover, she identified the
waistcoat as the one worn by Franz on the day preceding the fatal
night.