He had scarcely hung up the receiver when Judith entered. She had on a négligée of dark-green velvet trimmed with fur. The garment had a long train. Her hair was carefully dressed, a cheerful smile was on her lips, and she stretched out both hands to Lorm.
He was happy, and took her hands and kissed them.
She put her arms about his neck and her lips close to his ear: “Everything is all right. The doctor is a donkey. I did you wrong. Everything is nice now, so be nice!”
“If only you are satisfied,” said Lorm, “nothing else matters.”
She nestled closer to him, and coaxed with eyes and mouth and hands: “How about the antique candlestick, darling, and the frock by Worth? Are you going to get them for me? And am I not to have my set of Dresden china?”
Lorm laughed. “Since you admit that you wronged me, the price of reconciliation is a trifle high,” he mocked. “But don’t worry. You shall have everything.”
He breathed a kiss upon her forehead. That disembodied tenderness was the symbol of the ultimate paralysis of his energy before her and men and the world. And from day to day this paralysis grew more noticeable, and bore all the physical symptoms of an affection of the heart.
II
An identical account in all newspapers gave the first public notification that a murder had been committed:
“At six o’clock yesterday a foreman and a workman from Brenner’s factory found the headless body of a girl in a shed on Bornholmer Street. The body was held by ropes in an unnatural position, and was so tightly wedged in among beams, boards, ladders, barrows, and refuse, that the police officers who were immediately summoned had the greatest difficulty in disentangling their gruesome find. The news spread rapidly through the neighbourhood, and a rumour that increased in definiteness pointed to the body of the murdered girl as that of the sixteen-year-old Ruth Hofmann residing in Stolpische Street. A notification of her disappearance had been lodged at police headquarters several days ago. The theory that it was she who was the victim of a murder of unparalleled bestiality became a certainty some hours later. A mason’s wife found in the mortar-pit of a building lot on Bellermann Street the severed head, which proved to belong to the body and was identified by several inhabitants of the house on Stolpische Street as that of Ruth Hofmann. Except for stockings and shoes, the body was entirely naked, and its mutilations indicated felonious assault. There is at present no trace of the murderer. But the investigations are being present with all possible care and energy, and it is warmly to be desired that the inhuman brute may soon be turned over to the ministers of justice.”