Part 29 (2/2)
”Let us recapitulate. Brandow, who on the day of the accident was known to be dest.i.tute of money, and received only two thousand thalers the following morning, pays Herr Redebas, at noon, five thousand at one stroke; and among this money is the hundred-thaler note which was in the package that disappeared at the time of the accident.
”Disappeared! Why not lost, found, but not restored to its owner?
”Then it would still have been stolen. But from the beginning it was both a theft and robbery.
”Remember that you felt the package in the a.s.sessor's coat-pocket after you left Dollan; that you no longer felt it at the smithy, and yet the coat you had b.u.t.toned was still fastened. This, to be sure, is no positive proof--nay, the latter circ.u.mstance at first even seems to be against my supposition. Why, it might be said, should a thief so cunning in all other respects intentionally incur an additional risk?
But people may try to be too cunning; and it certainly was not known that you had kept your eye on the package all the evening, and afterwards, when you b.u.t.toned the a.s.sessor's coat, even had it under your hand. The defender of the accused will, of course, doubt the correctness of this statement, will--but we are not in a court of justice. To me the fact is plain: the a.s.sessor had the money with him at the time of the fall; afterwards, when the two Prebrows raised the poor fellow, while Henrich Scheel stood by with the lantern, he no longer had it--that is, it had been stolen during the interval.
”By whom?
”Undoubtedly by this very Hinrich Scheel, but very, very probably not by him alone.
”Can Brandow have been present at the time?
”He has taken no little trouble to prove his alibi, even before any proof was asked, and evidently began the affair cunningly enough. He rode here by the way of Neuenhof, Lankenitz, and Faschwitz--that is a fact; the people in the villages heard him dash through; he even took time to talk to several persons he met. If he rode the whole way he cannot have been present at the time the deed was committed; even the best rider on the fastest horse could not do that. But suppose he did not ride the whole way--suppose he turned into the road just above Neuenhof--suppose the spectral horseman whom you saw in your vision das.h.i.+ng across the mora.s.s had been a veritable rider of flesh and blood, and this rider had been Carl Brandow.
”You say that is impossible. What is impossible to a man pursued by the furies, if he has a horse under him like the much-praised Brownlock?
”Brandow rode Brownlock that night; the groom at the Furstenhof swore it, after he saw the racer, day before yesterday, on his way to Sundin.
And when a man like Brandow rides a horse which in itself represents a small fortune, and on which, moreover, he has bet thousands, on such a night, over such roads, at such a pace, he must have been in a great hurry.
”He must have been in a very great hurry, or, my dear friend, you would not have escaped with your life; you certainly would not have been spared. A man whom people dash headlong over a precipice sixty feet high they silence entirely, if they are not in too great a hurry.
”Yet, as I said before, this will probably remain a mystery, even to a wiser judge than Justizrath von Zadenig. One of those who were there will never betray it, and the other can no longer do so.
”As I returned from B. I met Brandow; he may easily have learned from my coachman that I had been talking to the Justizrath for an hour. He rode towards home at full gallop; an hour after the lawyer arrived with the gendarme, but did not find Hinrich Scheel, although people had seen him about all the forenoon; and he even took his master's horse when he came home. The master was very, very anxious that the missing man should be found; he even directed the search himself; he--”
”I will not protract this horrible supposition farther; it is the only one which occurs in my story, all the others are facts--facts which cry aloud to heaven--which ought not, must not remain unpunished. I know, my dearest friend, you'll think as I do, though every fibre of your heart must quiver at the thought that you--you--
”I shall come to Sundin with my wife day after to-morrow. We will then discuss, not what is to be done--there can be no doubt about that; but the how is certainly to be considered.”
Gotthold put the letter back in his pocket, and gazed out into the cheerless, rain-blurred landscape so fixedly, that he scarcely heard a carriage, which, coming from Prora, pa.s.sed by on the other side of the road. It was still a half hour's ride to Prora, but it seemed an eternity to the impatient traveller. At last the carriage stopped before Wollnow's house.
CHAPTER XXVI.
”I am so sorry to have you go,” said Ottilie; ”my husband must certainly return before evening. He will be very angry with me for not keeping you. And then, confess it frankly, my dear friend, you are going without any definite plan--any fixed purpose--and in this way intend to meet a man like Brandow--that is, to lose the game before it is begun.”
Ottilie had seized Gotthold's hands as if to draw him back from the door into the room. Gotthold shook his head.
”You are right,” said he, ”but there are cases where the one who is not right, or at least cannot prove that he is, must act according to his own opinions. That is my case. I cannot put Brandow in prison or drag him to the scaffold; I can't--”
”Even if he must otherwise still remain Cecilia's husband? You cannot permit that either.”
”Certainly not, and therefore a third plan must be found.”
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