AN ARREST.
I had to undergo a long examination. The investigating Judge and the
Attorney General came from Laibach. Immediately after receiving Herr
Foligno's deposition, they determined to take the very uncomfortable
journey to Luttach to hear for themselves from witnesses on the spot
all that was known regarding Franz Schorn's actions and whereabouts
during the last few weeks. The investigating Judge told me of this with
all the courtesy of an Austrian official. With entire lack of reserve,
he informed me that although Herr Foligno's carefully prepared paper
was quite sufficient to attach suspicion to Schorn, it did not at all
suffice to convince him of the young man's guilt. He requested me to
tell everything that I knew of Schorn and to hold back nothing out of
regard for the man who, as he had already heard in Adelsberg, had saved
my life. It was my duty to tell not only the truth, but the whole
truth.
The Judge was a handsome, kindly man, so courteous that he would not
have me summoned for my examination to the court house, but took down
my deposition in my room. Yet with all his amiability and in spite of
the sympathy which he apparently felt for Franz Schorn, his inquiries
were frightfully searching; he forced me to tell him more than I wished
to.
I had intended at this hearing to confine myself to what I had dictated
in the Judge's deposition, but I could not keep my resolution. When the
Judge asked me if Franz Schorn, of whom I had seen much in the last few
weeks, had never told me his reason for avoiding me in the forest, I
could not reply in the negative, and I was forced to assent, and to
relate the conversation I had had with Franz and his betrothed. I could
not conceal that each had requested me to say nothing of the meeting in
the forest. Such an interview as this of mine with the Judge is very
curious. The witness knows that every word he utters is upon his oath,
and also that it may decide the fate of a fellow mortal. Every
consideration vanishes before such a responsibility, and I could have
none for the Judge. I had to acknowledge to my examiner that Anna and
Franz had given as a reason of the request for my silence that the
Judge's hatred of the young man was so intense that he would surely use
my meeting with Franz as evidence against him.
The Judge shook his head thoughtfully on hearing this; he evidently did
not credit their explanation. Had I cherished no suspicion? Had it
never occurred to me as odd that Franz Schorn should have wounded his
hand? I could not deny that such a suspicion had occurred to me, but I
could declare with a good conscience that it had vanished entirely
after I had come to know Schorn better.
What was the reason that after this first awakening of suspicion I had
not informed the authorities of my meeting with the young man in the
neighborhood? Why had I withheld this information until the day before
yesterday? This keen questioning forced me to an exact reply. I told of
how I had desired to give information immediately of my meeting with
Schorn, and I gave Herr Foligno's reason for begging me not to insert
it in an official deposition, and as a natural consequence I related
the reasoning by which he had induced me to render to him my official
statement.
"Strange; very strange," said the Judge, more to himself than to me.
"Herr Foligno has allowed personal considerations, personal feelings to
influence his official action. Very unjustifiable!"
He was silent for a while and then questioned me further with continued
and frightful thoroughness. I did not wish to speak of the adventure in
the cave, but when the interview was over, I had told everything that I
knew about my fall, my rescue, and the accusations made by Schorn and
the Judge with regard to the cut ends of rope. After the official paper
had been read to me and I had signed it, the Judge offered me his hand.
"Your testimony has been of the greatest importance, Herr Professor,"
he said gravely. "You have so far confirmed suspicion against Schorn
that the young man's arrest is an unavoidable necessity, but at the
same time you have proved to me that an influence has been at work in
this unfortunate affair which I must investigate further. Whatever may
be the true history of the strange adventure in the cave, Schorn
undoubtedly saved your life and you owe him gratitude for it. If you
wish to testify this, you can do so by preserving profound silence with
regard to your testimony of to-day as well towards the friends as to
the foes of Herr Schorn, and, of course, to Judge Foligno. He has
nothing to do further with the official investigation; he must in his
turn appear as a witness, and it is especially desirable for the
establishment of the truth that your testimony with regard to him
should remain unknown. May I hope that you will promise me inviolable
secrecy towards Herr Foligno, Herr Professor?"
"Certainly, most willingly; but what am I to reply when Herr Foligno
questions me? He wanted to send you an account of the adventure in the
cave, and only desisted at my express desire."
"Do not let this consideration influence you. It is of the greatest
importance in the investigation that the Judge should know nothing of
your testimony with regard to the adventure in the cave. If he asks
you, tell him the simple truth; it is unlawful for witnesses to discuss
together their testimony, and he is henceforth a witness like yourself.
Tell him that I told you this, and that I enjoined it upon you to
refuse even the slightest information with regard to your testimony."
With this counsel, which I determined to follow implicitly, the Judge
took his leave. He left me in an indescribable agitation, which
increased when the District Judge paid me a visit immediately after. He
came, as he told me frankly, to learn how the investigating Judge had
received my testimony. When I told him of the promise which I had
given, he was greatly surprised.
"I! A witness like all the rest?" he cried indignantly. "These
government officials are so puffed up with pride and self-conceit that
they don't know what they are about. They owe to me, to my activity, to
my research, every ray of light cast upon the darkness of the crime,
and now they push me aside, rob me of the reward of my discovery, and
regard me as a simple witness; but they shall not succeed; I will not
submit; and you, too, Herr Professor, you need not feel yourself bound
by a promise which no one had a right to exact from you; you may
without fear tell me anything that you desire."
"I do not know whether I should be justified in doing so or not," I
replied, shrugging my shoulders. "I do not know the Austrian laws, but
I am well aware that if I have undertaken no legal responsibility, a
moral one rests upon me not to speak of my testimony after the promise
which I have given. You must pardon me, Herr Foligno, if I preserve
absolute silence."
He looked at me angrily and evilly. "As you please; I shall make no
further request of you," he said after a little pause. "One thing I
have a right to demand of you in a matter which concerns me personally.
Have you----"
"I regret that I can make no reply to any question, whatever it may be.
My promise to be silent was given unconditionally."
He cast at me a glance full of rage and left the room without saying
farewell. I had deeply offended him by my persistent refusal. I sat
alone with a heavy heart, discontented with myself. I had offended the
man who had been so kind and courteous to me during my stay in Luttach,
and I had also placed him in a perilous position by my testimony to his
superior. This was a very disagreeable thought. He was not aware of it,
but when he learned it, would he not have a right to be angry with me
and to accuse me of a breach of confidence? I had strengthened
suspicion against Franz Schorn, the saviour of my life. It was my fault
that the young man was now threatened with the loss of his liberty. I
was provoked with myself for my imprudent and frank expressions, and
yet again, when I reflected on the late examination and the questioning
I had undergone, I could not have answered differently in accordance
with the truth. I had surely only fulfilled my duty as a witness. In
the deepest anxiety and with torturing impatience I awaited further
developments. It was desperately hard to lie there and have cold
bandages on my sprained ankle. I would have given anything to be able
to do something, or that the visitors whom I had found so tiresome
yesterday would return to-day, but I was, and remained, alone, confined
to my bed.
Two hours passed. At last quick footsteps approached my door. Mizka
entered breathless, her cheeks crimson, her eyes glowing, to tell me of
what was the talk at present of all Luttach. Franz Schorn was the
murderer of old Pollenz. The gentlemen from Laibach had been searching
Schorn's house at his farm outside the town, and had found quantities
of money, banknotes, and stock, and government bonds and other papers
of value, all the wealth of the murdered man. Nevertheless Franz had
denied everything, declaring that he was innocent, but his brazen
falsehood had done him no good; he had been arrested, his hands
fettered, and thus manacled had been brought between two gendarmes to
Luttach. As he passed the house of the doctor, his betrothed was
sitting at the window. She had seen him and had rushed down into the
street. She had embraced him before everybody--he, the murderer of her
father! The gendarmes were obliged to unclasp her arms. She had not
wept a tear; she had looked up at him with sparkling eyes when the
gendarmes bore him away.
"Do not despair, Franz," she had called after him. "God will not suffer
the innocent to be condemned."
Then she had quietly gone with the doctor, who led her back into the
house. Franz, however, had walked on between the gendarmes, his eyes
cast gloomily on the ground. He had replied not a word to the abuse
which was showered on him from all sides.
"Murderer!" "Dog of a German!" and other insulting epithets had been
hurled after him by an increasing crowd of common people. He did not
seem even to hear them. The people were so excited against him, so
infuriated that the gendarmes had the greatest trouble in shielding him
from their attack, and could hardly have succeeded in doing so if the
Judge himself had not protected him from a couple of savage fellows,
two labourers who had been dismissed from Schorn's farm and would
gladly have revenged themselves upon their former master for their
dismissal. By earnest admonition and threats of punishment the Judge
had succeeded in quieting the mob, assuring the people that the
murderer would not escape justice. He accompanied the prisoner to the
court house, receiving no thanks from him for his protection. Not a
word did Franz address to him.
Upon an order from Herr Foligno, Herr Gunther provided a vehicle and
horses, and, accompanied by the two gendarmes, bore off the manacled
prisoner. The Judge said he would be taken to prison in Laibach and
kept there until the court assembled, when he would be certainly tried
as a murderer and hanged.
All this Mizka detailed to me in the greatest agitation. Evidently she
felt much satisfaction in the discovery of the murderer, and that it
should be precisely Franz Schorn, whom every one hated, who was now
delivered over to the law. Not a word of sympathy did the girl, usually
so good-humoured, have for the unfortunate man; not a doubt of his
guilt stirred within her; with a triumphant smile she left me after she
had told her news.
"The voice of the people is the voice of God," the Judge had once said.
The doctor had replied, "The people's gossip is the voice of the
devil." Was the Judge now proved to be right? The proof of Schorn's
guilt seemed to grow clearer, and yet, strangely enough, my doubt of it
grew stronger with every hour. My reason told me that there could be no
room for doubt, now that upon searching his house the booty had been
discovered, but my heart rebelled against even this proof. I felt for
the first time that I had taken more than a fleeting interest in the
young man, that there had been between us a heartfelt sympathy which
forbade me in the face of all proof yet adduced, to believe in the
possibility of his guilt.
I was not long left to my melancholy reflections. A visitor interrupted
them. The Burgomaster came, not only to inquire after my welfare, but
to tell me of the discoveries made with regard to Schorn and of all
that had been going on in the town while I lay bedridden. He had not
yet left me before another visitor appeared, and he was followed by a
third and a fourth. All the evening cronies of the round table made up
for their absence in the morning, and through the entire afternoon I
was not again alone. All my visitors brought melancholy confirmation of
what Mizka had told me. Even the Captain and the Burgomaster were now
convinced of Schorn's guilt, and acknowledged their conviction openly.
The search in his house had brought much to light; so much money had
been found that it was impossible to believe Franz had come by it
honestly. His very conduct told against him--his bare-faced denial, as
well as his unbroken silence when no credit was given to his words.
There was but one opinion as to his guilt, and also as to the behaviour
of the Judge. Even the Judge's opponents declared that Franz owed his
escape from the indignant mob to his magnanimous protection. There was
also but one voice with regard to the conduct of the Laibach court. It
had been admirable, particularly that of the investigating Judge, who
in a single day had discovered every particular concerning Schorn's
life during the last few weeks. Almost all the gentlemen and a number
of other people besides, as well as Bela and Rassak, had been examined
by him. The officials had said nothing of the result of their evidence,
and had enjoined the strictest silence upon the witnesses, who,
however, were at liberty to declare that they considered Franz Schorn
guilty, and they did so. The Clerk alone, Herr von Einern, prudently
withheld his opinion in the matter.
Did the doctor also believe in Franz Schorn's guilt? He and the Judge
were the only ones who paid me no visit on this day. The Judge probably
could not forget my refusal to answer his questions, and was still
offended. I was at heart very glad that he did not come. His visit
could have given rise only to unpleasant discussions; but the doctor I
should like to have seen, partly to obtain medical advice for the
night, and partly to learn his opinion of the discoveries concerning
Schorn. My wish was fulfilled late in the evening, when it was nearly
nine o'clock. The doctor came, but he was not alone. To my great
surprise he was accompanied by Anna Pollenz. My astonishment when I saw
the lovely Anna enter the room on the arm of her old friend must have
been mirrored in my face, for Anna blushed, and the doctor, with his
characteristic short laugh, which I was always glad to hear, said:
"You wonder at this strange visit so late in the evening, Herr
Professor. Well, you are right. This little girl might as well have
come to you to-morrow morning, at a more fitting time; but she gave me
no rest until I complied with her wish and brought her to you. If I had
not consented she might perhaps have come all alone, and have given
occasion for all sorts of gossip in Luttach. The entire population of
the town has run mad; even the most sensible are infected with the
nonsense which is heard on all sides. I could not have believed it, but
since Franz's arrest and removal to Laibach, even the Captain and the
Burgomaster have lost faith in him and consider him guilty, and yet
everything adduced against him is thorough, unmitigated bosh. Not a
word of it is true. The gentlemen from Laibach are principally to
blame, with their arrest. They would hardly have proceeded to such
extremities if the Judge had not taken care that they should hear from
all sides the falsehoods invented by himself. This poor little girl has
had a frightful day. Not only has her Franz been arrested--that is not
the worst, for he will very soon be free again--but all the world, with
the exception of the Clerk and myself, believe in Franz's guilt, and
people are not ashamed to declare this openly. This makes my little
Anna desperate. 'The Herr Professor, who loves Franz so much, cannot
think him guilty,' she said, and insisted upon coming to you. I could
not but do as she asked, and here we are. Well, perhaps it is all
right; the poor child will not speak here to deaf ears, and will be
soothed to see that every one does not consider Franz a murderer and
thief. Sit down, my child, here in this chair, and pour out your heart
to the Herr Professor. He will listen to you kindly."
I had been observing Anna during this long introduction. Her colour
changed from red to pale and then to red again as the old doctor
continued. Her eyes sparkled as she turned to me, and she gazed at me
with an imploring expression in them. She was wonderfully lovely. My
heart gave a throb. Was I altogether free from blame?
Anna seated herself at her old friend's bidding beside my bed and gazed
at me with a long, searching look in her dark eyes, as if to read in my
face the possibility of my thinking her Franz guilty.
"You cannot mistrust him, Herr Professor," she said, "he has such a
regard for you, and he saved your life."
There was not much logic in these words, but they made me ashamed of
myself nevertheless. Franz could not be guilty unless she were his
accomplice, and I had almost believed in his guilt. I could not endure
the look of those pure, clear eyes; my own dropped before them. I was
ashamed.
"If all the rest think him guilty," she continued in a tone of firm
conviction, "you cannot. You believe in him, and you must feel it your
duty to do everything you can to prove his innocence, for he saved
your life. Therefore I come to you; I wished to speak to you before
to-morrow. I shall sleep quietly, for I know that you will stand by me.
Franz told me yesterday evening that the Judge had tried to take your
life; that he is your worst enemy. You will counsel me truly when I
have confided to you a secret which I have kept until now, a suspicion
which I have not ventured to utter even to my dearest friend and
relative."
"Speak, dear child," I replied, taking her hand and pressing it
cordially. "I assure you that I have no dearer wish than to establish
the innocence of the saviour of my life."
"I know it and will trust you," she replied frankly. "You and my kind
friend, the doctor, both of you shall counsel me," she continued,
clasping my hand in one of hers and extending the other to the doctor.
"What do you mean, you strange child?" the doctor cried. "If you have a
secret upon your soul, you ought to have told me of it long ago. If you
needed counsel, you could always have had it from me."
"I did not dare to. Franz forbade me. Franz himself did not believe me
until yesterday evening. He is innocent. He always said that my fear of
Herr Foligno and my detestation of him misled me."
"Of whom are you speaking, child!" asked the doctor.
Instead of answering, Anna turned to me.
"When you reached the Lonely House on that terrible day, Herr
Professor, did you not see in its neighbourhood another man beside
Franz?" she asked.
"No. No one."
"I did not mean near the house itself, but on the upper path, the one
leading along the rocks to Luttach?"
"I saw no one there either."
"You did not see him? I am sorry. Franz was sure yesterday that you
did."
"But who in all the world should the Professor have seen!" asked the
doctor curiously.
"The Judge," Anna replied. "I was sure I saw him, but I would not say
so decidedly, and Franz, until yesterday, thought I might be mistaken
and would not allow me to found an unjust suspicion upon an uncertain
fact."
The doctor was as astonished and startled as was I by Anna's words. He
desired to know more from her, and when I begged the young girl to give
us her full confidence and to tell us all that she knew and believed,
she yielded to our request and related what had lain so long upon her
heart.
When on that dreadful day Anna had left home and was going down the
path with her old Johanna to Luttach, she looked up by chance where the
oaks grew thin and saw on the upper pathway a man approaching the
Lonely House. She thought she recognized the Judge, but she could not
be certain, for she had seen the figure only for a moment and had taken
no trouble to recognize it, since she attached no importance to what
she saw. The Judge had often gone to her father and had usually taken
the upper pathway, wherefore she did not think of it again. Only upon
hearing the terrible news of the murder of her father was the strange
suspicion suddenly aroused within her that the Judge was the murderer,
and this suspicion had been gradually confirmed. To hardly one other
human being except to his friend the Judge, would her father have
opened the locked front door. While he was alone he would have admitted
no other. The Judge had known that her father had large sums of money
in the house and was quite familiar with the place where they would be
found.
"But had I a right upon such slight grounds to found a suspicion of a
respectable man? I asked myself," Anna proceeded. "I answered no, but
in spite of this 'no' I could not combat my thoughts, and it was most
terrible for me that I myself was partly to blame for my father's death
if my suspicion were correct. The day before the Judge had come to
visit my father, and had not found him at home. My father had left
word, however, that he would soon return, and I thought I ought to tell
this to the visitor because it might have provoked my father to know
that I had turned away his friend. The Judge then begged my permission
to wait, and when I gave it reluctantly, he sat down by me in my room
and began a conversation. During this conversation I told him that my
father had gone to Luttach to get papers of value from the post. He
would not send old Johanna because the sum in question was too large to
be entrusted to so old a woman. The Judge knew also from me that my
father had much money in the house, and that I was going on the
following day to visit my Aunt Laucic in Luttach, when Johanna would
accompany me, so that after eleven o'clock he might see my father
alone. All this I told him, and it all recurred to my mind. I had
myself told the murderer when his victim would be alone and when he
could commit the deed."
In her distress Anna went on to say that she did not venture to mention
her suspicion to the Captain--he was a friend of the Judge's--and only
to her betrothed, from whom she kept no secrets, did she tell what was
in her mind. He begged her, however, not to confide in any other human
being. Franz declared that the Judge was not capable of such villainy.
He tried to prove to her that her suspicions were groundless. "Does not
he often climb about the rocks?" he asked. "Even had he been in the
neighbourhood of the Lonely House, that ought to be no ground of
suspicion against him, for I myself was met by the Herr Professor in
the forest, as I was prowling about in hopes of meeting you." When her
lover said this, Anna was seized with a dreadful anxiety lest he might
really be suspected, and Franz, too, could understand that he was in
peril. He knew how he was disliked, and how any opportunity would be
seized to do him harm.
Franz had insisted, however, that the Judge was incapable of the
murder, and he had forbidden Anna to say one word further upon the
subject. "Because he is my enemy," he told her; "because he is always
circulating damaging reports of me behind my back, we must take care
not to be unjust towards him." He had spoken thus until yesterday, but
when he returned from the expedition to the cave and told Anna of his
adventure there, he had suddenly changed his opinion with regard to
what she had always thought. "It is beyond doubt," he said, "that the
Judge cut the rope. What reason could he have for such an act! He
wished to plunge the Professor into the abyss. I am now convinced that
the Professor saw him also in the neighbourhood of the Lonely House.
You were not deceived when you recognized him on the upper pathway. He
fears that the Professor may betray him, and wishes to put so dangerous
a witness out of the way. There could be no other reason for his
infamous attempt upon the life of the kind old man, whose friend he
pretends to be. He planned a murder, and now I can believe also that he
is the murderer of your father. Let him take care; I shall speak to the
Professor. I will tell him of your suspicion; he will tell me whether
he saw the Judge that day." But Franz soon after was arrested and Anna
felt it her duty to do what he had wished to do.
"That is why I am come to you, Herr Professor," she concluded; "you
must counsel me. You must help me to discover the real criminal and to
set an innocent man at liberty."
While Anna had been speaking, the doctor, who had also seated himself
beside my bed, had been continually getting up and sitting down again,
possessed by a feverish restlessness, although listening in silence to
every word spoken by the young girl. Now that Anna had finished, he
exclaimed:
"Do you want to drive two old men crazy with your deuce of a story?
Child, have you had such thoughts in your head and heart for weeks and
never said a word of them? Think of what might have been done in those
weeks! Think of how suspicion might have been turned in other
directions! You are sure, Herr Professor, that you did not see the
Judge on the rocky pathway?"
"I am sure of it."
"But may he not have been there without your seeing him, or are you
sure that he was not there?"
"I believe that he was there."
[Illustration: "You must help me!"]
"And what reason have you for your belief? Out with it, Herr Professor!
The scales are falling from my eyes. I begin to see clearly. This deuce
of a girl has enlightened my stupidity, but what is the use of my
seeing? Franz and the child have both shown confidence in you, and you
must justify it. Out with what you know without any reserve!"
He was right; I could not be silent. The half promise which I had once
given to the Judge to protect him from any chaffing to which he might
be subjected with regard to the pocket handkerchief found where it had
been could not bind me. I told of my finding the bloody handkerchief
and of the Judge's explanation.
"It is he! It is he and no other!" exclaimed the doctor, quite beside
himself. "Did I not always say that the murderer must have been an
intimate friend of the old man? Oh, blind fool that I have been! Why
did I not think of him, when for two weeks he wore a black glove on his
right hand? He had good reason to wish to see you vanish in the abyss.
You, who could bring such evidence against him. And you fell into his
trap, and have been silent all this while, without harbouring any
suspicion of him! For shame, Herr Professor! No, you need not be
ashamed of yourself, you kind, old, unsuspicious man; but I could tear
my hair for being such a fool and letting him lead me by the nose as he
has done."
"Are you sure now that you are not deceiving yourself?" I asked very
gravely. My heart was beating violently. There is something fearful in
such a suspicion. Suddenly as it had arisen, it had now entire
possession of me; but had I not entertained the same, and perhaps with
more reason, of Franz Schorn? Could I trust myself since I had once
deceived myself?
No such reflections troubled the doctor:
"I am so convinced," he said, clapping his hands as if in triumph,
"that I would myself condemn the fellow to be hanged, if it lay in my
province to do so. Hanged he shall be, I promise you, little girl, and
we will take your Franz in triumph from the prison in Laibach and carry
him home. How it is to be done, I do not see at present; but, rely upon
it, I will do it. I will follow the murderer's tracks like a
bloodhound. He has no idea that he is suspected, and that I have
discovered his plots. He shall find it out, but only when we are taking
Franz from prison in Laibach. Until then not a word to anybody, Herr
Professor."
"Is it not our duty to inform the court in Laibach of what we suspect
and of our grounds for doing so?"
"Not a word in that quarter. With all due reverence for the gentlemen
in Laibach, the Judges and the Attorney General; before they can make
up their minds to believe that a colleague, a District Judge, is a
common murderer and thief, the proofs must be as clear as daylight.
Only when we deliver him over to them, and they must do their part, can
we be sure of them. I would sooner confide in our Clerk; he would throw
all forbearance to the winds; but should we admit him to our confidence
now, we should be placing him in a very embarrassing position, for the
District Judge is, after all, his chief. Therefore, not a word, Herr
Professor, until we have further proofs against the scoundrel. Now that
we are on the scent, it will, I hope, not be long."
I was obliged to admit that the doctor's plan was the right one, and my
admission flattered him.
"Do you not remember how day before yesterday evening the Judge said
with a sneer, 'A great criminal lawyer is lost in you, doctor'? I will
prove to him that he was right. Only trust me, Herr Professor; you
shall not repent it. But be sure to follow a piece of advice which I
must give you. Remember that it is to the Judge's interest to be rid of
you; therefore, beware of him. It will do no harm to have your revolver
where you can reach it in a moment, day or night."
I promised to follow his advice. We talked on for half an hour very
pleasantly. The doctor was in the best humour in the world, and the
charming little Anna was now so full of hope for a speedy reunion with
her Franz that she almost forgot her grief at his imprisonment. She was
indeed a lovely child, and as she talked on so heart-free and
confidentially with us two old men, I was really in love with her
myself. Upon their departure the doctor promised me that he would allow
me to leave my bed on the following day, and Anna promised to pay me
repeated visits so long as I was confined to my room. Thus we parted in
the most friendly manner. The doctor turned as he was about to close
the door behind him and said:
"Do you know, Herr Professor, what comforts me in this cursed affair?"
"What?"
"That Foligno is no Slav, but an Italian. Believe me, a Slav would be
incapable of such villainy. Good-night, Herr Professor."