The good people of Uselin did not usually fasten their street-doors until they went to bed; but whether it was that the recent disturbances so energetically and successfully contended with by the officers Luz and Bolljahn had rendered greater precautions advisable; or whether the justizrath, in his double capacity of wealthy man and officer of the law, insisted upon a stricter rule in this matter--in any case his door was fastened, and it was some time before my repeated ringing was answered by a female voice that called through the keyhole in rather a quavering tone to know who was there. My reply, "one who wishes urgently to speak with the Herr Justizrath," did not seem by any means entirely to satisfy the portress, who could be none other than the pretty housemaid Jette. A whispering followed, from which I inferred that Jette had brought the cook with her; then a giggling, and finally the answer that she would tell her master.
I was patrolling up and down before the house in my impatience, when a window opened in the sitting-room above, and the Herr Justizrath in person, putting out his head a very little way indeed, repeated the question of the housemaid, and received the same answer.
"What is your business?" asked the cautious man.
"I come from the island," I replied at a venture.
"Aha!" cried he, and closed the window.
For some days the justizrath had done nothing but give audience to people who professed to be able to throw some light upon the great mystery. A sailor or fisherman just from the island, and who urgently desired to speak with him at ten o'clock at night, could come with but one object: to make some important communication which might bring some illumination into the obscurity of this mysterious affair. I for my part believed that the justizrath had recognized me by my voice, and that his exclamation meant: "So! here you are at last!" I was soon to learn how greatly I was mistaken.
The door was opened, and I hastily entered. Scarcely had the light of the candle which Jette was holding up in her hand, fallen upon my face, when she gave a loud scream, dropped candlestick and all, and ran off as hard as she could, while the cook followed her example, at least so far as screaming and running went. The cook, who was an elderly female, ought to have had more sense; but still she only knew me by sight, and for a long time had heard nothing but horrors about me, so I cannot blame her. But the conduct of the pretty Jette admitted of no defence. I had always been very friendly to her, partly on her mistress's account, and partly on her own; and she had always freely acknowledged it, coquettishly smiling whenever I met her, saluting me with her deepest curtsey whenever I entered the house, and now--but I had now something else to think of than the ingratitude of a housemaid. I passed through the dark hall, ascended the stair I knew so well, and knocked at the door of the justizrath's study, which adjoined the sitting-room, and to which he had doubtless betaken himself to receive his late visitor.
"Come in!" said the justizrath, and I entered.
There he stood, just as I expected to find him, a tall, broad-shouldered figure, wrapped in his loose flowered dressing-gown, his long pipe in his hand, his low, narrow forehead wrinkled into deep folds as he fixed his little stupid eyes with a look of curiosity upon me at my entrance.
"Well, my friend, and what do you bring?" he asked.