The Clerk started and grew pale.
"He comes too early," he said. "I have no officially confirmed evidence against him. I have no right to arrest him."
"Will you give him time to escape?" cried the doctor. "If he goes to his chamber and misses the old bureau, he will know that he is found out."
"You are right. I will dare all. Let me have paper, pen and ink, Herr Professor, as quickly as possible, for at this moment I am the representative of the law in Luttach. The Judge has not yet exhausted his leave of absence; he has not yet resumed the duties of his office." He wrote a few lines hurriedly. "This order must go immediately to the captain of the gendarmes. Will you undertake to carry it, Herr Doctor?"
"With all the pleasure in life. In five minutes I will be here again with the gendarmes. The bird shall not escape," cried the doctor, as he snatched the order from the Clerk's hand and rushed away without a moment's delay. He could hardly have reached the front door, when from above came the voice of the Judge, calling:
"Mizka! Mizka!"
Mizka replied from below in a few Slavonic words, and a loud, brief conversation ensued in that language.
"He has missed the bureau and Mizka is telling him that it has been taken down to your room because you needed it, Herr Professor," the Clerk whispered to me.
The Judge overhead uttered a wild Slavonic curse. We heard his resounding tread as he rushed down the stairs and then, without knocking, threw open the door of my room and entered. When he found that I was not alone, but that the Clerk was with me, he started back, and remained for a moment on the threshold gazing at the Clerk and myself with a keen, searching look, which afterwards flashed round the room as if in quest of something. When it rested on the blackened, old bureau, he fell into a rage, and, coming up to me, demanded in a furious tone:
"How dared you have my furniture removed from my room in my absence and placed here for your own use?"