Here also his murderous design fails, but he manages to cast suspicion upon Franz Schorn in the matter of cutting the rope, and the young man is arrested. The murderer triumphs.
Then by a marvellous chance the old chest is opened during his absence from home, and the clear proofs of his guilt are discovered by the very man whom he wished, as the only witness against him, to remove from his path.
I stood paralyzed before the open drawer. All the past, which it has taken minutes to relate, flashed upon my mind with the speed of lightning. The proofs of the murderer's guilt which the doctor had been so anxious to obtain were now before me. Chance had placed them in my hands. What was I to make of this chance was the next question.
"We must not touch these things," I said to Frau Franzka, who with her old husband stood speechless with astonishment, gazing at the money in the drawer. They had never in their lives seen so much at a time. "The Judge might suspect us of having taken some of his heap of money. Lock the drawer again, Frau Franzka; we will give the key to the Clerk, and the doctor shall be witness that we do so. We three, you, your husband and I, will stay here until Mizka fetches the doctor and the Clerk, and we can each testify that none of the money has been taken."
"So much money! And he owes me over five hundred gulden, with all that pile in his drawer!" exclaimed Frau Franzka, who was reluctant to lose sight of the banknotes, but on my reiterated request, she locked it up, and then called Mizka, telling her to go immediately for the Herr Einern and the doctor, begging them to come as quick as possible to the Herr Professor in the "Golden Vine."
We had not long to wait. The doctor came first. Mizka met him in the street near the house. I drew him aside and told him in a whisper of the contents of the upper drawer of the bureau. He was beside himself with joy.
"We have him! We have him!" he exclaimed aloud, with what was almost a leap in the air. Only when he saw the stare with which Frau Franzka and her husband regarded him--they might well have supposed he had lost his wits--he grew calmer, and I told him that I had sent also for the Clerk.
"Quite right," he said. "We must tell him everything. Now that we have such positive proof of the Judge's guilt, he can act, and he must act. He is a brave and honourable man. He will fulfil the promise he once made to our little Anna. Here he comes. I hear his step on the stair."
The Clerk entered the room. He seemed surprised on finding the doctor and my host and hostess. Frau Franzka hurried towards him. She had been silent so long that she was eager to pour out her heart. In a burst of Slavonic, of which I did not understand one syllable, she talked away to the Clerk, who listened with the deepest attention. I would not interrupt her, for I could easily perceive from her gestures what she was relating. The Clerk's face grew darker and darker as Frau Franzka continued. At last she paused and delivered to him the key of the bureau. He then turned to me and said very gravely:
"Frau Franzka has told me of the remarkable discovery which she has made in that bureau. Before I examine its contents I wish to hear what you have to say, Herr Professor. I assume that you have summoned me hither, not as your friend of the evenings about the round table, but as the Clerk, the only representative of the law in the Judge's absence. I shall therefore receive what you have to say, not as the testimony of a friend, but officially. Frau Franzka, you will retire to another room with your husband, while I hear what the Herr Professor has to tell. I warn you to say not one word to any one--I repeat, to any one--of what you have discovered in the drawer there. You will expose yourself to grave penalties if you should refuse to follow my direction. Wait quietly until I send for you. Very shortly I will summon you and your husband to swear to whatever you have to say. Now go. Do you desire, Herr Professor, that the doctor should withdraw also?"