The judge asked for his son Peter. Landolin shrugged his shoulders. Nobody cared whether Peter was at home or not. He was an obstinate, insignificant boy.
Nevertheless, though no one knew it, at this hour Peter had become an important personage.
No one dreamed that the little sliding window, between the living-room and the kitchen, was half-open, and that Peter lurked behind it. When he heard his father's answer, he quickly pulled off his boots, sprang noiselessly down the steps to the barn where Tobias was, and said:
"We now know how it happened. The stone did not hit Vetturi. Do you hear? And you too?" turning to the hostler Fidelis. Tobias nodded understandingly. Fidelis, on the other hand, made no answer.
There was no time to say anything more, for the two servants were called into the house. Before Tobias left the yard he threw a stone down near the gate.
Tobias was first reprimanded for having swept away the marks of blood. He took it all quietly, and said, in a firm voice, that he had plainly seen that Vetturi, who was always shaky, had not been hit by the stone, but had fallen down himself on the paving-stones. When the head-servant began speaking, Landolin had closed his eyes, but he now looked up triumphantly. His elbow rested on the chair; he held his hand over his mouth, and pressed his lips tightly together when Tobias concluded with:
"The stone that Vetturi threw, lies down there yet, scarcely a step from where the master stood."
Landolin raised himself to his full height. "That's the thing! Self-defense! I must justify myself on that ground." Landolin grasped the arm of the chair, as a drowning man, battling with the waves, grasps the rope thrown out to save him; and, just so, his soul clung to the thought of self-defense.
Fidelis said quite as positively that he had seen his master pick up a paving-stone with both hands, lean back, draw a long breath, and throw it. It had struck Vetturi on the head, and he had not seen Vetturi throw anything.
Landolin started up with an angry exclamation. He was told to be silent. The judge arose and said, evidently with forced calmness, that he was sorry, but, in order to prevent any tampering with the witnesses, he was compelled to place Landolin in confinement for the present.