“You have rendered yourself liable to a strong suspicion of having committed the other murders which have disgraced our city.”
“No, no, indeed!” said Von Schlegel, earnestly. “God forbid!”
“At least you are guilty of attempting the life of Herr Leopold Strauss.”
“The dearest friend I have in the world,” groaned the student. “Oh, how could I! How could I!”
“His being your friend makes your crime ten times more heinous,” said the inspector, severely. “Remove him for the remainder of the night to the—— But steady! Who comes here?”
The door was pushed open and a man came into the room, so haggard and careworn that he looked more like a ghost than a human being. He tottered as he walked, and had to clutch at the backs of the chairs as he approached the inspector’s desk. It was hard to recognize in this miserable looking object the once cheerful and rubicund sub-Curator of the Museum and Privat-docent of Chemistry, Herr Wilhelm Schlessinger. The practised eye of Baumgarten, however, was not to be baffled by any change.
“Good morning, mein herr,” he said; “you are up early. No doubt the reason is that you have heard that one of your students, Von Schlegel, is arrested for attempting the life of Leopold Strauss?”
“No; I have come for myself,” said Schlessinger, speaking huskily, and putting his hand up to his throat. “I have come to ease my soul of the weight of a great sin, though, God knows, an unmeditated one. It was I who—— But, merciful heavens! there it is—the horrid thing! Oh, that I had never seen it!”
He shrank back in a paroxysm of terror, glaring at the silver hatchet where it lay upon the floor, and pointing at it with his emaciated hand.
“There it lies!” he yelled. “Look at it! It has come to condemn me. See that brown rust on it! Do you know what that is? That is the blood of my dearest, best friend, Professor von Hopstein. I saw it gush over the very handle as I drove the blade through his brain. Mein Gott, I see it now!”