Part 6 (1/2)
”Why do you wish me not to mention our meeting?” I asked in reply.
”Because I begged Franz to ask you this,” Anna replied for the young man, whose features as I spoke resumed their wonted gloomy expression.
”Franz told me that yesterday he turned away from you because he wished to avoid any meeting with you. He feared it might cause you annoyance, if you had happened to be seen by any chance pa.s.ser-by walking with him. He had been waiting for me a long time in vain beneath the old oak where we are used to meet every day at noon. I could not come because my father had sent me down to Luttach. Franz was in a very bad humour when he met you, and so, to avoid greeting you, he turned away into the forest.”
Anna's words had a peculiar effect upon me. They strengthened my suspicions. If he were not guilty, would Franz have thought it necessary to have the young girl explain to me why he was in the neighbourhood of the Lonely House at noon, and why he had turned away from me with such sullen looks?
”You have not yet told me why I should not mention my meeting with Herr Schorn,” I replied.
”I will explain that to you myself,” Franz said hurriedly, ”my betrothed thinks that if Foligno should learn that I was seen yesterday here in the neighbourhood of the Lonely House, the malice and hatred with which he regards me would find expression in vile suspicion of me.”
”It would certainly be so. I entreat you, dear Herr Professor, do not tell a human being that you met Franz yesterday.”
As she spoke the young girl looked up at me with such entreaty in her beautiful eyes that my heart was softened. I was in an awkward position. Ought I to tell her that I could not comply with her request, because I had already informed the Judge of my meeting Franz? This I could not do. I could not warn Franz without perhaps injuring the investigation; but, on the other hand, I certainly could not make a promise which it was already impossible to keep.
”I can promise nothing,” I replied guardedly; ”in an official examination one is bound to conceal nothing.”
”Oh, Herr Professor, I beg, I entreat you----”
Franz interrupted her, and, casting at me a look which was almost menacing, exclaimed, ”Do not say another word, Anna; the Herr Professor is right; it was folly, yes, wrong, for me to yield to your desire and make this request of the Herr Professor, who ought not to comply with it. If that scoundrel, Foligno, suspects me, I know how to meet his suspicion. Come, Anna, we ought not to detain the gentleman any longer.”
He lifted his hat by way of farewell, and walked towards the forest with the young girl. My mind was filled with contradictory thoughts.
Can that proud, self-a.s.sertive young man be a miserable criminal! I would so gladly have banished all suspicion of him, but--how terrible it was that so lovely and charming a girl had perhaps bestowed the wealth of her affection upon her father's murderer!
I walked slowly towards the Lonely House, where the Captain, sitting before the door, was awaiting me. He handed me the letter for his brother, gave me various verbal commissions, and I left with a promise to visit him shortly in the Lonely House.
”Shall I bring the Herr Professor's lunch into the garden?” Mizka asked me as I entered the kitchen of the Golden Vine on my return from my excursion. ”The Judge has been lunching in the garden, and is sitting with his coffee beneath the great linden.”
The _Ophrys Bertolini_ occurred to me. I smiled at the remembrance of the Judge's boast and was pleased at the idea of teasing him. Of course I ordered my lunch in the garden and betook myself thither.
The Judge was sipping his coffee and smoking his long cigar at the round table beneath the spreading linden. He seemed sunk in a profound reverie, leaning his head upon his hand and with downcast eyes. I was struck with his pallor and with the sallowness and the drawn look of his features. At my first words he started violently, and for a moment gazed at me with terror, almost as if awaking from an oppressive dream, but in an instant he recovered his self-control, and greeted me with a smile.
”I think I was dozing,” he said; ”the terrible heat makes me sleepy.”
Why should he have told such an untruth? He had not been dozing; just before he started he had raised his hand to his cigar and had taken a long whiff.
”I admire you, Herr Professor,” he said, ”for being able to climb about in such heat. I suffer from it even here in the shade of the linden. I trust you were richly rewarded for your trouble.”
”I was indeed,” I replied smiling. ”I have had great luck. I have been so fortunate as even to discover the place where, yesterday, you plucked for me the charming _Ophrys Bertolini_.”
My jesting words produced a strange effect. Herr Foligno stared at me blankly; his sallow face grew ashy pale; his mouth twitched convulsively as he said brokenly, ”No, impossible! How--how--could you--how could you get there?”
”In the easiest way in the world,” I replied, tickled that the discovery of his boast had so startled the worthy gentleman. ”The spot, so difficult and even dangerous to attain, in reaching which you fell on the rocks and wounded your hand, I found right on the road to the Lonely House and most easy of attainment. From the path I saw the _Ophrys_ blooming, and mounted without any difficulty to where it grew.”
”Then you have had the good fortune to discover a new home for it which I had not known,” Herr Foligno replied, having regained his self-control with surprising celerity. ”I found the orchid on an overhanging rock in quite a distant part of the country.”
”Indeed, that is very remarkable. Did you, by chance, lose your pocket handkerchief there? I found it in my spot--or is it not yours? Look, the yellow silk shows some spots of blood, probably from a wounded hand.”
With a laugh I drew out the handkerchief and handed it to him; the black gloved hand with which he took it trembled. He examined it quite attentively for some time, and then said quietly, ”This certainly is a remarkable coincidence. The handkerchief actually belongs to me, and I probably lost it yesterday in climbing about the rocks, but certainly not where you found it, for I was not even in the neighbourhood of the Lonely House. Probably one of the young goatherds here who scramble about everywhere in the mountains found it, and lost it again where you discovered it.”
With the greatest calmness he put the handkerchief in his pocket. I could not refuse him my admiration, for his barefaced explanation struck me as quite brilliant. Whether I believed him or not, I must pretend to do so. Laughing heartily, I replied: ”I congratulate you, Herr Foligno, on the happy chance which led the little goatherd and the old Professor to the same place, one losing, the other finding your handkerchief to restore it to you.”