Frederick was called in. He entered with a manner in no respect different from his usual one, neither strained nor bold. His hearing lasted some time, and some of the questions were rather shrewdly framed; however, he answered them frankly and decisively and related the incident between himself and the forester truthfully, on the whole, except the end, which he deemed expedient to keep to himself. His alibi at the time of the murder was easily proved. The forester lay at the end of the Mast forest more than three-quarters of an hour's walk from the ravine where he had spoken with Frederick at four o'clock, and whence the latter had driven his cows only ten minutes later. Every one had seen this; all the peasants present did their utmost to confirm it; to this one he had spoken, to that one, nodded.
The court clerk sat ill-humored and embarrassed. Suddenly he reached behind him and, presenting something gleaming to Frederick's gaze, cried: "To whom does this belong?" Frederick jumped back three paces, exclaiming, "Lord Jesus! I thought you were going to brain me."
His eyes had quickly passed across the deadly tool and seemed to fix themselves for a moment on a splinter broken out of the handle. "I do not know," he added firmly. It was the axe which they had found plunged in the head-forester's skull.
"Look at it carefully," continued the clerk. Frederick took it in his hand, looked at the top, the bottom, turned it over. "One axe looks like another," he then said, and laid it unconcernedly on the table. A blood-stain was visible; he seemed to shudder, but he repeated once more with decision: "I do not know it." The clerk of the court sighed with displeasure. He himself knew of nothing more, and had only sought to bring about a possible disclosure through surprise. There was nothing left to do but to close the hearing.
To those who are perhaps interested in the outcome of this affair, I must say that the story was never cleared up, although much effort was made to throw light upon it and several other judicial examinations followed. The sensation which the incident had caused and the more stringent measures adopted in consequence of it, seemed to have broken the courage of the "Blue Smocks"; from now on it looked as though they had entirely disappeared, and although many a wood-thief was caught after that, they never found cause to connect him with the notorious band. Twenty years afterwards the axe lay as a useless corpus delicti in the archives of the court, where it is probably resting yet with its rust spots. In a made-up story it would be wrong thus to disappoint the curiosity of the reader, but all this actually happened; I can add or detract nothing. The next Sunday Frederick rose very early to go to confession. It was the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and the parish priests were in the confessionals before dawn. He dressed in the dark, and as quietly as possible left the narrow closet which had been consigned to him in Simon's house. His prayer-book, he thought, would be lying on the mantelpiece in the kitchen, and he hoped to find it with the help of the faint moonlight. It was not there. He glanced searchingly around, and started; at the bedroom door stood Simon, half-dressed; his rough figure, his uncombed, tangled hair, and the paleness of his face in the moonlight, gave him a horribly changed appearance. "Can he possibly be walking in his sleep?" thought Frederick, and kept quite still. "Frederick, where are you going?" whispered the old man.
"Uncle, is that you? I am on my way to confession."
"That's what I thought; go, in the name of God, but confess like a good
Christian."
"That I will," said Frederick.
Think of the Ten Commandments: 'Thou shalt not bear witness against thy neighbor.'"
"Not false witness!"