"Get along with you!" one of the policemen shouted, putting his hand on my shoulder. "Walk, damn you!"
Imagine my sense of dread when, at the end of this passage, I saw the courtyard I had drawn the night before with its walls furnished with hooks, its heaps of scrap metal, its hencoop and its rabbit hutch…. Not one skylight big or small, high or low, not one cracked pane of glass, not a single detail in my drawing had been left out!
I was transfixed by this bizarre turn of events.
Near the well were the two judges, Van Spreckdal and Richter. At their feet lay the old woman, supine…her long grey hair dishevelled… her face blue…her eyes open inordinately wide…and her tongue caught in her teeth.
It was horrendous!
"Well," Van Spreckdal said to me solemnly, "what have you got to say for yourself?"
I chose not to answer.
"Do you admit to having thrown this woman, Theresa Becker, down this well after strangling her to steal her money?"
"No!" I shouted. "No! I don't know this woman! I've never seen her before! As God is my witness!"
"You've said enough," he retorted drily.