Part 3 (2/2)
”You do me bitter wrong, Fraulein Anna,” he said gently. ”I sympathize sincerely with your pain, but I will not thrust my pity upon you. I pray you, Captain, to inform her as mercifully as possible of what has happened.”
It was a hard task for the Captain, but it was his duty to fulfil it.
He motioned to the Judge and to myself to withdraw for a few steps, and then took Anna's arm in his and, walking on before us, spoke to her in the most sympathetic and loving way. He told me afterwards that in all his life he had never had so hard a duty to perform. He searched in vain for kindly words to soften the horror; he feared that the delicate girl could hardly endure the frightful truth which he was forced to tell her; but to his great surprise Anna showed a remarkable degree of composure. She had not succ.u.mbed, he said, to pain and grief; she had become ghastly pale and her dark eyes had gleamed with a strange flickering fire, as, almost in a whisper, not to him, but to herself, she had murmured, ”Foully murdered and robbed; murdered for the sake of his wretched money. He sacrificed his soul and now has given his life for money.” She shed no tear; her grief was too great, too heart-breaking; but she trembled violently; her little hand shook as it rested on her uncle's arm, and as he put his arm round her and tenderly drew her to him, he could feel the violent beating of her heart. He told her everything that he had heard from me. When he had finished, she looked at him with flaming eyes.
”The vile murderer will be discovered,” she said in a hoa.r.s.e voice; ”I trust in G.o.d's justice.”
Her composure was really remarkable, and gave great cause for anxiety.
I had lingered behind with the Judge and his clerk. We slowly followed the Captain and Anna about twenty steps in the rear.
”I certainly am most unfortunately situated,” said the Judge, turning to me confidentially. ”You heard the harsh words which the poor girl, half crazed with pain and horror, spoke to me. I know what those words mean. I am well aware that Fraulein Anna is prejudiced against me. She thinks that the hostility which her father showed to Herr Franz Schorn was partly my fault. That she does so is well known in Luttach, and I commit no indiscretion in telling you that there is an attachment between Fraulein Anna and Herr Schorn, of which old Pollenz disapproved. Fraulein Anna knows that Herr Schorn is my bitter enemy.
She has sided with him against me, but that her prejudice is as intense as the words she has just spoken testify, I confess surprises me. Never before have I seen in her the least sign of dislike. Imagine my position. My official duty compels me to play the part of a disinterested investigator. I cannot spare her pain, but I shall have to subject her, with her old maid, to an examination. I must inquire how it happened that the Lonely House was left unlocked, perhaps by herself; every child in Luttach knows that old Pollenz always locked the front door securely. I would give much, very much, to spare the young lady this examination.”
”If you would depute me to make it, Judge, such an act on your part would be entirely justified by the peculiar relations in which you stand to Fraulein Anna Pollenz.” The Clerk uttered these words very quietly and in a businesslike tone, but the District Judge was not pleased. He cast a sinister glance at the Clerk and asked, ”What do you mean by peculiar relations, sir?”
”Nothing but what you yourself indicated, and what, to use your own words, every child in Luttach is familiar with,” was the quiet reply.
”You allude to the foolish gossip which makes me the young girl's rejected suitor? There is not one word of truth in it.”
”Then old Pollenz lied, for he stated this, not as a secret, but quite openly, in Luttach. At all events, such a report does exist, and it will be confirmed unless you make use of your right to depute to me the examination of the young lady.”
”No, that I will not do. My standard of official duty is too exalted to permit my neglecting it out of regard for my own feelings. I might perhaps take your advice if I were forced to play the part of examiner during the entire legal process, which must ensue upon this murder, but, fortunately, that is not so; only the preliminaries are our duty.
Capital crimes,” the Judge said turning to me, ”do not come within the domain of the District Judge. They are the business of the tribunal of the country. Subsequent investigations will take place in Laibach. The preliminary examination alone is my task, which, whatever it may cost me, I will fulfil.”
The Clerk made no reply; he simply bowed in sign that he had no further remarks to offer. We now reached the goal of our wanderings. The Lonely House stood before us. The Captain and Anna were standing near the locked door, and upon a wooden bench beside it sat an old woman, old Johanna, ”The only servant of the house,” the Judge whispered to me.
The Captain had just told her of the murder of her master. Paralyzed with horror, incapable of speech, she was gazing up at him. When she tried to rise, she sank back helplessly. The Judge opened the front door with the key which I had given him.
Scarcely had he done so when Anna released herself from the Captain's arm and would have been the first to rush into the house, had not the Judge barred her way.
”Let me go,” cried Anna. ”I must go to my poor father. You dare not hold me back.”
She would have pressed past him, but he prevented her from doing so, and with quiet resolve, in a perfectly judicial manner, said, ”You must not see your father yet, Fraulein Anna. My official duty compels me to exclude you from the room in which the crime has been committed until it has been thoroughly searched. The traces which the murderer has perhaps left behind must not be interfered with. You must either stay here outside, or, if you wish, wait in your own room until it is permitted you to see your father. Captain Pollenz, I pray you to remain with your relative and to prevent Fraulein Anna from making an attempt to disturb the investigation by going into the murdered man's room. I cannot permit it.”
Anna retired. As the Judge forbade our entrance into the house, her eyes seemed to flash with anger, but she controlled herself, only bestowing upon Herr Foligno a glance of dislike and antipathy.
”I obey,” she said, recovering her composure wonderfully. ”I will wait in my room with Johanna and my uncle. You shall have nothing to reproach me with. I pray _you_, sir,” she said, turning to the Clerk; ”I entreat _you_ to search, investigate. The blood of my poor father cries to heaven. I must doubt its justice should you not succeed in discovering the ruthless murderer.”
”Rest a.s.sured, Fraulein Anna, that I shall leave nothing undone----”
”I did not address you,” Anna interrupted the Judge; ”I entreat _you_, the a.s.sistant, to fulfil your duty; search for the murderer, whoever he may be, deliver him to the vengeance of the law. I trust you. You will not be influenced by fear or considerations of any kind. Do not answer me; I trust you; I know you will do everything to discover the criminal, even though you do not promise me. Come uncle, come Johanna, we will wait in my room.”
While Anna was speaking, Herr Foligno's expression was, strangely enough, that of timidity and embarra.s.sment; his lips moved; he seemed to wish to reply but could not. He retreated silently, as Anna, without looking in his direction, pa.s.sed him. She entered the room at the left of the hall, her own apartment, and the Captain and the old maid, still half paralyzed with terror, followed her silently.
The Clerk also made no reply to Anna's strange words; he had been much astonished by them, as were all who heard them. With a keen searching look he regarded the Judge. Not until the door had closed behind Anna and the Captain did he say, whispering so softly that only I and the Judge could hear, ”If you do not feel sufficiently well, Herr Foligno, to undertake the examination and will delegate me to conduct it, I am quite ready to do so.”
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