She tried to draw out the topmost drawer by its metal handles, but it would not open.
"That is strange," she said. "The wood must have swelled so that the drawer sticks."
"Perhaps it is locked," I remarked.
"Oh, no, certainly not. The Judge never locks his chests; he always leaves them open, and, besides, I do not know whether he had any key, but we can soon see. There is just such another chest in our sleeping-room; my husband has the key and we can see if it will open it."
She said several words in Slavonic to her husband, and he took a queer little key out of his pocket and handed it to her.
The key fitted in the lock and turned. Frau Franzka then opened the topmost drawer without difficulty. She glanced inside it and recoiled with a slight scream.
"Oh, Holy Virgin!" she cried, clasping her hands. "What is all this? A shirt, a summer suit, a silk pocket handkerchief, all spotted with blood, and oh, blessed Maria, who would have thought that Herr Foligno had so much money hid away in this old chest!"
Instantly I was possessed by a strange foreboding. There lay the money which the murderer had stolen from his victim. I sprang up from the sofa without thinking of my sprained ankle and walked hastily across the room, never heeding the pain.
Yes, there lay the stolen money. Several packages of banknotes of a hundred gulden each, and beside them a bundle of papers of value, the topmost of these showing the same dark spots, traces of the blood from the wounded hand of the murderer, who had taken no care to avoid staining them. Here, hidden away in the old chest, were the proofs of the murderer's guilt; the bloodstained clothing which he had worn when he committed the deed; and the handkerchief which I had given to him was there also. If there had been any doubt until now as to the identity of the criminal, it vanished on the instant. Link by link in an indestructible chain the proofs were clearly here for the conviction of the District Judge. In fancy I saw him contemplating his murderous scheme, walking up the rocky path towards the Lonely House. He knew that he should find the old man alone there; he had been told this on the day before. Anna had thoughtlessly informed him that her father would be alone in the afternoon. Her account of the considerable amount of money which the old man had received by the morning's post had begotten the murderous scheme. He reaches the house, no one having seen him on the rocky pathway. He looks about him. No human being is near who could observe him. He does not dream that Anna has seen him. He knocks. The old man opens the door and conducts him to his room, where a struggle ensues, a struggle in which the murderer wounds his hand, but from which he comes forth victorious. The crime is committed. The murderer with his bleeding hand has taken the banknotes and papers from the desk which he knew so well; in his excitement he has hardly noticed that he was wounded. He is suddenly conscious of pain in his hand, and the thought occurs to him that his wound might betray him. With terror he perceives that his dress, his shirt, his waistcoat and trousers, all wear bloody traces of the struggle. He tries to remove them with his handkerchief, but in vain. How can he explain these stains when he returns to Luttach? He devises one means--to declare that he fell among the rocks and wounded his hand. Every one knows that he frequently climbs about among the rocks and how easily such an accident might occur. If he can bring back to the old naturalist a rare plant which usually grows upon almost inaccessible rocks, his story of a fall will be all the more credible. The Ophrys Bertolini grows in the neighbourhood; except himself no one knows the locality. It is easily reached; he hastily plucks the beautiful flowers, losing his handkerchief as he does so, but without noticing it he hurries away from the neighbourhood of the Lonely House.
Fortune favours him. No one meets him; no one sees him when he reaches the inn and hastens to his chamber. There he locks himself in; he must change his clothes; but what shall he do with his bloodstained apparel? Suddenly the old bureau occurs to him; it stands unused in his sleeping-room. He could not have a better, a more secure hiding place. He conceals the clothes and his plunder in the top drawer, locks it, and puts the key in his pocket. Now he is safe; no suspicion can possibly fall upon him, the Judge, the most prominent official in the town. There can be no searching of his room. He himself would superintend whatever search there might be. The bloodstained clothing, the banknotes and the papers could be nowhere more safe from discovery than in the locked drawer of the old bureau. He breathes more freely. There is a knock at the door. The old Professor asks for admission. He is obliged to receive him. This will give him an opportunity of relating the story of his fall among the rocks. He is dismayed at learning that the murder has been discovered sooner than he anticipated, but he composes himself, and when he hears that Franz Schorn has been seen in the vicinity of the Lonely House, he devises a plan for throwing suspicion upon him, his mortal enemy, and with vindictive cunning proceeds to carry it out, using every circumstance that could lead step by step to the consummation of the crime without exposing himself at any point. Thus he feels perfectly safe, when suddenly he makes the terrible discovery that there exists a witness against him. The old Professor has found his bloody handkerchief near the Lonely House. He finds it easy to deceive the unsuspicious old man. He succeeds in convincing him that Franz Schorn is the murderer, but as long as the Professor lives, the danger of detection hangs over his head. He induces the foolish old man to undertake expeditions among the most dangerous rocks, in the hope of his falling a victim to some accident, but when this scheme fails, he determines to efface all trace of the first murder by a second. The exploration of the cave, in which he asks to join, furnishes a means to do so. The Professor must die, but before his death he must send the official deposition which is so essential for Schorn's conviction.