Part 5 (1/2)
During this discussion, to which Franz Schorn listened very attentively, the physician accidentally pushed aside the left arm of his neighbour--Franz Schorn--who dropped the cigar which he was holding in his hand and stooped to pick it up. As he did so, he instinctively drew from his bosom his right hand, which had hitherto been concealed by his coat. It was bound about with a white bandage, upon which were several spots of blood. He thrust it quickly into his breast again, but not before the physician had noticed the spots on the white linen.
”Ah, Franz! What is the matter with your hand?” he asked kindly.
”Nothing,” Franz replied curtly; ”a slight cut.”
”Slight! That can hardly be; if you have a bandaged hand and don't use it, it must be a tolerably deep cut. Of course, you have done nothing, as usual, but wrap a rag about it. You young people are incorrigible.
You never reflect that the neglect of such cuts, which you consider insignificant, may cost you the hand itself. Take off the bandage; I want to see what it is.”
”It is nothing; a trifle, not worth mentioning.”
”All the more readily should you show it to me. You owe obedience to an old friend of your father's, you obstinate fellow; so off with your bandage; I wish to see the wound.”
”Certainly, if you insist,” Franz replied, holding out his hand and unwinding the bandage. It did not come off easily, but adhered to the wound and a few drops of blood followed its removal.
”A couple of good cuts,” said the physician, examining the hand; ”not dangerous; they will heal without any particular care if you spare your hand a little for a couple of days; but how did you get such strange cuts! Four fingers implicated, and another gash in the palm. It looks as if you had done it with a knife.”
”And so I did,” Franz replied. ”I was using a large knife in the vineyard to-day and laid it down upon a high wall; it fell and would have pierced my foot, if instead of s.h.i.+fting it, I had not foolishly grasped at the falling knife and seized the sharp blade instead of the handle. That is the whole story. Such slight cuts are not worth mentioning.” He wrapped the bandage around his hand again and concealed it as before in the breast of his coat.
”Such slight cuts are not worth mentioning,” the young man had said, and it was true; they were insignificant. Nevertheless they aroused in me a chain of thought which filled me with dread. Involuntarily I thought of the b.l.o.o.d.y, dagger-like knife which I had seen in the Lonely House. If the murderer in his contest with the old man had endeavoured to take the knife from him and had accidentally seized it by the blade, his hand would have been wounded precisely as was that of Franz Schorn.
Schorn had hitherto kept his right hand concealed. Why so? Did he wish to conceal the wound? An involuntary motion, an accident, had compelled him to show the bandaged hand, and it was with great reluctance that he had acceded to the physician's request.
I looked at the District Judge. The same suspicion which had made me shudder had been aroused also in him. I could read it in the lowering, searching glance which he gave to the hand as Franz was wrapping it in the bandage again. When he looked up afterwards and his gaze met mine, his eyes were more eloquent than his tongue could have been. He slowly raised his hand in its black glove as if in token of our understanding each other. Strangely enough, his motion and his look had the effect of instantly banis.h.i.+ng the dark suspicion that had been awakened within me. I had no right to entertain it. Had not the Judge himself also accidentally wounded his right hand this very day? Might I not have seen him also near the Lonely House, since he had been climbing among the rocks in search of flowers? No, it would be rank folly to found a suspicion with regard to Franz Schorn upon such accidental circ.u.mstances. That the young man seemed even more gloomy and preoccupied than on the previous evening, and that he scarcely uttered a word, furnished no grounds for any suspicion with regard to him. Must he not be deeply agitated by the terrible death of an old man with whom he stood in such close, although hostile, relations? I blamed myself for being so carried away by my indignation as to be ready to find in insignificant trifles an undue importance. Besides, with the exception of the Judge, whose duty it was to investigate all grounds of suspicion, no other member of the company had thought of connecting Franz Schorn's wounded hand with the murder. They all continued to converse freely; even the physician, so acute in piecing out evidence, who might have entertained some vague suspicion, had none at all; he had thought no possible evil of Franz, and continued to address him now from time to time as kindly and unreservedly as before. Still, this evening I was very uncomfortable among them all. Their continued talk, always of the same details, always of the horrible crime, increased my nervous agitation to an intolerable degree. It was impossible to change the subject of the conversation; it always reverted to the murder in the Lonely House.
This perpetual return to the same horrible subject stretched me upon the rack; I could no longer endure it. As soon as I had finished my trout and my wine, I rose to withdraw to my room. The Judge followed my example, and rose also. After emptying his tall gla.s.s at a draught, he said he was tired and unhinged and needed to go to bed early after so terrible a day. His clerk and the physician, with several other gentlemen, courteously entreated me to stay at least for half an hour longer, it was so early. Without positive discourtesy I could not refuse their request, and ordered myself another gla.s.s of wine. The Judge followed my example, although no one had requested him to remain.
In the short time that I stayed, barely half an hour, he drank two full gla.s.ses of wine, the last at a draught just as I arose and declined to remain longer.
Together we ascended the stairs. Mizka preceded us with a candle. When we reached the landing in the first story, the Judge offered me his left hand in farewell.
”Good-night, Herr Professor,” he said aloud, adding in a whisper, ”I fear I shall be obliged to ask you to-morrow to give me officially an account of your meeting with Herr Franz Schorn in the neighbourhood of the Lonely House.” He looked around at Mizka, who was opening the door of my room, and as she entered it he continued, ”A ground of suspicion such as the wound in his right hand compels me to abandon all personal considerations.”
Greatly startled, I replied, ”Mere chance, Herr Foligno; you, too, have wounded your right hand to-day.”
My innocent words made him start as if I had struck him a blow in the face. I could not see his features, it was too dark on the landing; a weak ray of light coming from the open door of my room was the only illumination; but the quiver in his voice as he answered me after a pause of a second, betrayed the disastrous effect of my words.
”You are perfectly right, Herr Professor; it may be 'mere chance.' I shall not proceed against Herr Schorn. I will even try to combat my suspicion of evil in him, my enemy, but it is my duty to search for further grounds of suspicion against him. That must be done in spite of my hostile feeling towards him. Good-night, Herr Professor.”
He pressed my hand once more, and we parted.
Mizka was already busy in my room putting everything in order for the night. She was obliged to do this as quickly as possible, for the number of guests below in the dining-room and in the kitchen depended upon her services; but she could not forego a little gossip. She told me that before I had entered the dining-room this evening there had been quite a quarrel between the Judge and his a.s.sistant. They had been seated at the round table when Franz Schorn entered the room and looked around for a place. All the tables were full, and the Clerk had invited Schorn to sit beside him at the round table. This made the Judge violently angry, but the Clerk declared that the Judge had no more authority than any other guest in the dining-room of the inn. Franz Schorn would have retired, but the Clerk detained him, and the physician, who had been an old friend of Franz's dead father, had declared that he himself would stay only on condition of Franz's remaining, and would never again take his place at the round table if Herr Foligno denied a seat there to Franz. The Burgomaster, too, and the other gentlemen, who were not always friendly to Franz, now took his part, so that the Judge was obliged to yield, and Franz, induced by their persuasions, took his seat; but neither the Judge nor Franz after the quarrel had exchanged a word.
What strange occurrences were these in this little country town! Even here, the few cultivated people, so circ.u.mscribed in their social relations, were divided by hatred and prejudice. I undressed myself and, with a memory of the gymnastic feats of my boyhood, clambered into my lofty bed. I was sadly in need of repose. The agitations of the day had been too much for my old body. They had exhausted my strength, and yet excitement of mind conquered bodily weariness. I could not sleep. I tried in vain to banish the memory of the dreadful scenes through which I had pa.s.sed. I tried to think of it all with indifference; but what I had seen in the Lonely House scared away sleep, of which I had such sore need. Hours and hours pa.s.sed. The time seemed eternal before at last I closed my weary eyes.
And the Judge had the same experience; he could not sleep that night.
As long as I lay awake in bed I heard the sound of his footsteps above me, as he paced his room to and fro restlessly. Surely the same memories were agitating him which denied me the blessing of slumber.
The investigation at the Lonely House had not been the mere fulfilment of a duty for him, any more than it had been for the physician. The horror of it all had impressed him as profoundly as it had myself. It did not lessen my opinion of him that he should thus have preserved in the midst of his official duties a warm, sensitive heart.
CHAPTER VII.