This conversation then had mentioned the loss of one of Mr. Doblana's works. The name of the work was not stated, nor how it had been lost. A musical work may be lost otherwise than by the actual disappearance or destruction of its manuscript. A hostile report may mean its definite ruin. But once the idea had struck me that Mr. Doblana's strange calamity was indeed the loss of his manuscript, the recollection of that colloquy with the Herr Graf strengthened my opinion. So I tried to make sure whether Griseldis really had disappeared.
After I had made an hour's careful search, and inspected every paper, leaf by leaf, without finding the slightest trace of the manuscript, I decided that I was right. I further concluded that the horn-player was convinced of its having been stolen, and this with the help of his own daughter.
As it had a considerable monetary value, he must have been very sore about the disappearance of his work. The simplest thing would of course have been to communicate with the police. But tied to a collaborator of so high a position as the Herr Graf he could not well take such a step without consulting him. Clearly Doblana had not obtained his support, a prominent member of the Court having probably no desire for any business with the police. Thus the matter was at an end for my poor host. He had to remain quiet, and despair was his only consolation.
But I at least was not compelled to have any consideration, and I wanted badly to free Mitzi from the suspicion which lay upon her. From what I knew, it was absolutely unjust. She had been lured into a journey, and her absence had been misused.
By whom?
Who was the thief?
An examining magistrate must sometimes have a very uncomfortable feeling. For, if one has a preconceived idea in such a case, it is difficult to free oneself from it. I experienced this. In my mind Giulay was the main hinge on which the whole business turned. From the beginning I had conceived it so, and hard as I tried to get rid of this idea, it always came back to me: Giulay had sent the wire, in spite of his denial, knowing quite well that it would decide Mitzi to go to Salzburg. And Giulay did not like Mr. Doblana, as he had shown by attacking him in a tactless and violent way, without apparent reason, in the course of the evening at the Tobacco Pipe.
The great difficulty for me consisted in the impossibility of talking about the whole affair to Mitzi. I held the man to be capable of any villainy. But there was no probability of getting Mitzi to divest herself of the prejudice she had in favour of the ugly Hungarian. If I had expressed but a little of my thoughts she would at once have accused me of wronging him, she would have resented it as an annoyance; and for no consideration would I wish to annoy her.
So I kept my suppositions to myself. One point above all seemed to me important. The thief must have known not only that, on receipt of the telegram, Mitzi would hurry off to Salzburg, but also that Fanny was absent on a holiday. At one moment I suspected the plump servant girl of being Giulay's accomplice. What if her going to visit her dying mother had only been a feint? Suppose that she had returned in order to admit Giulay? However, I soon set aside this theory; Fanny was altogether devoted to Mitzi, and no consideration could have decided her to do such a treacherous thing.
I asked both of them, Mitzi as well as Fanny, whether anybody had known that the latter would have a three days' holiday. As I did not want to tell them why I asked the question, they did not think as hard as I should have liked. They could not remember. And Mitzi who, of course, guessed that my inquiry was somehow connected with the great mystery, only wondered why I still worried over that old, half-forgotten affair.