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 assured, Fräulein Anna, that I shall leave nothing undone----"
"I did not address you," Anna interrupted the Judge; "I entreat you, the assistant, 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 embarrassment; his lips moved; he seemed to wish to reply but could not. He retreated silently, as Anna, without looking in his direction, passed 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."
"No, no," the Judge replied in as low a tone. Aloud he said, "Follow me, gentlemen. We must begin our melancholy task."
CHAPTER V.
[THE INVESTIGATION CONTINUED].
Among all the tragic and even terrible recollections which live in my memory, and of which my life has perhaps had more than its share, the most terrible is that of the first few days of my stay in Luttach. Even now they sometimes disturb my sleep at night. In dreams, I am once more in the spacious, dreary room of the Lonely House, with the stiffened corpse of the murdered man before me on the floor. The sunlight through the window falls upon his pale face with its distorted features. I see the terrible wound, and the hard, rasping voice of the District Physician strikes upon my ear as with professional calmness he examines the wound and with all the indifference with which he would discuss the commonest affair of business, explains that any suspicion of suicide is out of the question, coldly pointing out to us bystanders, grouped about the body, our faces pale and awed, the numerous wounds of which any one would have been mortal, and endeavouring with perfect calmness to prove that the murderer had first attacked his victim from behind, and had finally cut the throat to make sure that the deed was complete. I still hear in dreams the clear, incisive words showing that the murderer must certainly have been intimately acquainted with the murdered man's ways, and that in order to avoid any possibility of the old man's divulging his name with his dying breath, he had inflicted the last gaping wound.