The Case of the Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study Page 2

  THE CASE OF THE POOL OF BLOOD IN THE PASTOR'S STUDY

  The sun rose slowly over the great bulk of the Carpathian mountainslying along the horizon, weird giant shapes in the early morning mist.It was still very quiet in the village. A cock crowed here and there,and swallows flew chirping close to the ground, darting swiftly aboutpreparing for their higher flight. Janci the shepherd, apparently theonly human being already up, stood beside the brook at the point wherethe old bridge spans the streamlet, still turbulent from the mountainfloods. Janci was cutting willows to make his Margit a new basket.

  Once the shepherd raised his head from his work, for he thought he hearda loud laugh somewhere in the near distance. But all seemed silent andhe turned back to his willows. The beauty of the landscape about him wasmuch too familiar a thing that he should have felt or seen itscharm. The violet hue of the distant woods, the red gleaming of theheather-strewn moor, with its patches of swamp from which the slowmist arose, the pretty little village with its handsome old church andattractive rectory--Janci had known it so long that he never stopped torealise how very charming, in its gentle melancholy, it all was.

  Also, Janci did not know that this little village of his home had oncebeen a flourishing city, and that an invasion of the Turks had razedit to the ground leaving, as by a miracle, only the church to tell offormer glories.

  The sun rose higher and higher. And now the village awoke to its dailylife. Voices of cattle and noises of poultry were heard about thehouses, and men and women began their accustomed round of tasks. Jancifound that he had gathered enough willow twigs by this time. He tiedthem in a loose bundle and started on his homeward way.

  His path led through wide-stretching fields and vineyards past a littlehill, some distance from the village, on which stood a large house. Itwas not a pleasant house to look at, not a house one would care to livein, even if one did not know its use, for it looked bare and repellant,covered with its ugly yellow paint, and with all the windows securedwith heavy iron bars. The trees that surrounded it were tall andthick-foliaged, casting an added gloom over the forbidding appearanceof the house. At the foot of the hill was a high iron fence, cutting offwhat lay behind it from all the rest of the world. For this ugly yellowhouse enclosed in its walls a goodly sum of hopeless human misery andmisfortune. It was an insane asylum.

  For twenty years now, the asylum had stood on its hill, a source ofsuperstitious terror to the villagers, but at the same time a source ofadded income. It meant money for them, for it afforded a constant andever-open market for their farm products and the output of their homeindustry. But every now and then a scream or a harsh laugh would ringout from behind those barred windows, and those in the village who couldhear, would shiver and cross themselves. Shepherd Janci had little fearof the big house. His little hut cowered close by the high iron gates,and he had a personal acquaintance with most of the patients, with allof the attendants, and most of all, with the kind elderly physician whowas the head of the establishment. Janci knew them all, and had a kindword equally for all. But otherwise he was a silent man, living muchwithin himself.

  When the shepherd reached his little home, his wife came to meet himwith a call to breakfast. As they sat down at the table a shadow movedpast the little window. Janci looked up. "Who was that?" asked Margit,looking up from her folded hands. She had just finished her murmuredprayer.

  "Pastor's Liska," replied Janci indifferently, beginning his meal.(Liska was the local abbreviation for Elizabeth.)

  "In such a hurry?" thought the shepherd's wife. Her curiosity would notlet her rest. "I hope His Reverence isn't ill again," she remarked aftera while. Janci did not hear her, for he was very busy picking a fly outof his milk cup.

  "Do you think Liska was going for the old man?" began Margit again aftera few minutes.

  The "old man" was the name given by the people of the village, more asa term of endearment than anything else, to the generally loved andrespected physician who was the head of the insane asylum. He had becomegeneral mentor and oracle of all the village and was known and loved byman, woman and child.

  "It's possible," answered Janci.

  "His Reverence didn't look very well yesterday, or maybe the oldhousekeeper has the gout again."

  Janci gave a grunt which might have meant anything. The shepherd was asilent man. Being alone so much had taught him to find his own thoughtssufficient company. Ten minutes passed in silence since Margit's lastquestion, then some one went past the window. There were two people thistime, Liska and the old doctor. They were walking very fast, runningalmost. Margit sprang up and hurried to the door to look after them.

  Janci sat still in his place, but he had laid aside his spoon and withwide eyes was staring ahead of him, murmuring, "It's the pastor thistime; I saw him--just as I did the others."

  "Shepherd, the inn-keeper wants to see you, there's something the matterwith his cow." Count ---- a young man, came from the other directionand pushed in at the door past Margit, who stood there staring up theroad.

  Janci was so deep in his own thoughts that he apparently did not hearthe boy's words. At all events he did not answer them, but himself askedan unexpected question--a question that was not addressed to the othersin the room, but to something out and beyond them. It was a strangequestion and it came from the lips of a man whose mind was not with hisbody at that moment--whose mind saw what others did not see.

  "Who will be the next to go? And who will be our pastor now?"

  These were Janci's words.

  "What are you talking about, shepherd? Is it another one of yourvisions?" exclaimed the young fellow who stood there before him. Jancirubbed his hands over his eyes and seemed to come down to earth with astart.

  "Oh, is that you, Ferenz? What do you want of me?"

  The boy gave his message again, and Janci nodded good-humouredly andfollowed him out of the house. But both he and his young companion werevery thoughtful as they plodded along the way. The boy did not dareto ask any questions, for he knew that the shepherd was not likely toanswer. There was a silent understanding among the villagers that no oneshould annoy Janci in any way, for they stood in a strange awe of him,although he was the most good-natured mortal under the sun.

  While the shepherd and the boy walked toward the inn, the old doctor andLiska had hurried onward to the rectory. They were met at the door bythe aged housekeeper, who staggered down the path wringing her hands,unable to give voice to anything but inarticulate expressions of griefand terror. The rest of the household and the farm hands were gatheredin a frightened group in the great courtyard of the stately rectorywhich had once been a convent building. The physician hurried up thestairs into the pastor's apartments. These were high sunny and airyrooms with arched ceilings, deep window seats, great heavy doors andhandsomely ornamented stoves. The simple modern furniture appeared stillmore plain and common-place by contrast with the huge spaces of thebuilding.

  In one of the rooms a gendarme was standing beside the window. The mansaluted the physician, then shrugged his shoulders with an expression ofhopelessness. The doctor returned a silent greeting and passed throughinto the next apartment. The old man was paler than usual and his facebore an expression of pain and surprise, the same expression that showedin the faces of those gathered downstairs. The room he now entered waslarge like the others, the walls handsomely decorated, and every cornerof it was flooded with sunshine. There were two men in this room, thevillage magistrate and the notary. Their expression, as they held outtheir hands to the doctor, showed that his coming brought great relief.And there was something else in the room, something that drew the eyesof all three of the men immediately after their silent greeting.

  This was a great pool of blood which lay as a hideous stain on theotherwise clean yellow-painted floor. The blood must have flowed froma dreadful wound, from a severed artery even, the doctor thought, therewas such a quantity of it. It had already dried and darkened, making itsterrifying ugliness the more apparent.

  "T
his is the third murder in two years," said the magistrate in a lowvoice.

  "And the most mysterious of all of them," added the clerk.

  "Yes, it is," said the doctor. "And there is not a trace of the body,you say?--or a clue as to where they might have taken the dead--or dyingman?"

  With these words he looked carefully around the room, but there was nomore blood to be seen anywhere. Any spot would have been clearly visibleon the light-coloured floor. There was nothing else to tell of thehorrible crime that had been committed here, nothing but the great,hideous, brown-red spot in the middle of the room.

  "Have you made a thorough search for the body?" asked the doctor.

  The magistrate shook his head. "No, I have done nothing to speak of yet.We have been waiting for you. There is a gendarme at the gate; no onecan go in or out without being seen."

  "Very well, then, let us begin our search now."

  The magistrate and his companion turned towards the door of the room butthe doctor motioned them to come back. "I see you do not know the houseas well as I do," he said, and led the way towards a niche in the sideof the wall, which was partially filled by a high bookcase.

  "Ah--that is the entrance of the passage to the church?" asked themagistrate in surprise.

  "Yes, this is it. The door is not locked."

  "You mean you believe--"

  "That the murderers came in from the church? Why not? It is quitepossible."

  "To think of such a thing!" exclaimed the notary with a shake of hishead.

  The doctor laughed bitterly. "To those who are planning a murder, achurch is no more than any other place. There is a bolt here as you see.I will close this bolt now. Then we can leave the room knowing that noone can enter it without being seen."

  The simple furniture of the study, a desk, a sofa, a couple of chairsand several bookcases, gave no chance of any hiding place either for thebody of the victim or for the murderers. When the men left the roomthe magistrate locked the door and put the key in his own pocket. Thegendarme in the neighbouring apartment was sent down to stand in thecourtyard at the entrance to the house. The sexton, a little hunchback,was ordered to remain in the vestry at the other end of the passage fromthe church to the house.

  Then the thorough search of the house began. Every room in both stories,every corner of the attic and the cellar, was looked over thoroughly.The stable, the barns, the garden and even the well underwent a closeexamination. There was no trace of a body anywhere, not even a trailof blood, nothing which would give the slightest clue as to how themurderers had entered, how they had fled, or what they had done withtheir victim.

  The great gate of the courtyard was closed. The men, reinforced by thefarm hands, entered the church, while Liska and the dairy-maids huddledin the servants' dining-room in a trembling group around the oldhousekeeper. The search in the church as well as in the vestry wasequally in vain. There was no trace to be found there any more than inthe house.

  Meanwhile, during these hours of anxious seeking, the rumour of anotherterrible crime had spread through the village, and a crowd that grewfrom minute to minute gathered in front of the closed gates to therectory, in front of the church, the closed doors of which did not openalthough it was a high feast day. The utter silence from the steeple,where the bells hung mute, added to the spreading terror. Finally thedoctor came out from the rectory, accompanied by the magistrate, andannounced to the waiting villagers that their venerable pastor haddisappeared under circumstances which left no doubt that he had met hisdeath at the hand of a murderer. The peasants listened in shudderingsilence, the men pale-faced, the women sobbing aloud with frightenedchildren hanging to their skirts. Then at the magistrate's order, thecrowd dispersed slowly, going to their homes, while a messenger set offto the near-by county seat.

  It was a weird, sad Easter Monday. Even nature seemed to feel thepressure of the brooding horror, for heavy clouds piled up towards noonand a chill wind blew fitfully from the north, bending the young cornand the creaking tree-tops, and moaning about the straw-covered roofs.Then an icy cold rain descended on the village, sending the children,the only humans still unconscious of the fear that had come on them all,into the houses to play quietly in the corner by the hearth.

  There was nothing else spoken of wherever two or three met togetherthroughout the village except this dreadful, unexplainable thingthat had happened in the rectory. The little village inn was fullto overflowing and the hum of voices within was like the noise of anexcited beehive. Everyone had some new explanation, some new guess, andit was not until the notary arrived, looking even more important thanusual, that silence fell upon the excited throng. But the expectationsaroused by his coming were not fulfilled. The notary knew no more thanthe others although he had been one of the searchers in the rectory.But he was in no haste to disclose his ignorance, and sat wrapped in adignified silence until some one found courage to question him.

  "Was there nothing stolen?" he was asked.

  "No, nothing as far as we can tell yet. But if it was the gypsies--asmay be likely--they are content with so little that it would not benoticed."

  "Gypsies?" exclaimed one man scornfully. "It doesn't have to be gypsies,we've got enough tramps and vagabonds of our own. Didn't they kill thepedlar for the sake of a bag of tobacco, and old Katiza for a couple ofhens?"

  "Why do you rake up things that happened twenty years ago?" criedanother over the table. "You'd better tell us rather who killed RedBetty, and pulled Janos, the smith's farm hand, down into the swamp?"

  "Yes, or who cut the bridge supports, when the brook was in flood, sothat two good cows broke through and drowned?"

  "Yes, indeed, if we only knew what band of robbers and villains it isthat is ravaging our village."

  "And they haven't stopped yet, evidently."

  "This is the worst misfortune of all! What will our poor do now thatthey have murdered our good pastor, who cared for us all like a father?"

  "He gave all he had to the poor, he kept nothing for himself."

  "Yes, indeed, that's how it was. And now we can't even give this goodman Christian burial."

  "Shepherd Janci knew this morning early that we were going to have a newpastor," whispered the landlord in the notary's ear. The latter lookedup astonished. "Who said so?" he asked.

  "My boy Ferenz, who went to fetch him about seven o'clock. One of mycows was sick."

  Ferenz was sent for and told his story. The men listened withgreat interest, and the smith, a broad-shouldered elderly man, wasparticularly eager to hear, as he had always believed in the shepherd'spower of second sight. The tailor, who was more modern-minded, laughedand made his jokes at this. But the smith laid one mighty hand on theother's shoulder, almost crushing the tailor's slight form under itsweight, and said gravely: "Friend, do you be silent in this matter.You've come from other parts and you do not know of things that havehappened here in days gone by. Janci can do more than take care of hissheep. One day, when my little girl was playing in the street, he saidto me, 'Have a care of Maruschka, smith!' and three days later the childwas dead. The evening before Red Betty was murdered he saw her in avision lying in a coffin in front of her door. He told it to the sexton,whom he met in the fields; and next morning they found Betty dead. Andthere are many more things that I could tell you, but what's the use;when a man won't believe it's only lost talk to try to make him. Butone thing you should know: when Janci stares ahead of him without seeingwhat's in front of him, then the whole village begins to wonder what'sgoing to happen, for Janci knows far more than all the rest of us puttogether."

  The smith's grave, deep voice filled the room and the others listenedin a silence that gave assent to his words. He had scarcely finishedspeaking, however, when there was a noise of galloping hoofs and rapidlyrolling wagon wheels. A tall brake drawn by four handsome horses dashedpast in a whirlwind.

  "It's the Count--the Count and the district judge," said the landlordin a tone of respect. The notary made a grab at his hat and umbrella
andhurried from the room. "That shows how much they thought of our pastor,"continued the landlord proudly. "For the Count himself has come andwith four horses, too, to get here the more quickly. His Reverence was agreat friend of the Countess."

  "They didn't make so much fuss over the pedlar and Betty," murmuredthe cobbler, who suffered from a perpetual grouch. But he followed theothers, who paid their scores hastily and went out into the streetsthat they might watch from a distance at least what was going on inthe rectory. The landlord bustled about the inn to have everything inreadiness in case the gentlemen should honour him by taking a meal,and perhaps even lodgings, at his house. At the gate of the rectory thecoachman and the maid Liska stood to receive the newcomers, just as fiveo'clock was striking from the steeple.

  It should have been still quite light, but it was already dusk, for theclouds hung heavy. The rain had ceased, but a heavy wind came up whichtore the delicate petals of the blossoms from the fruit trees andstrewed them like snow on the ground beneath. The Count, who was thehead of one of the richest and most aristocratic families in Hungary,threw off his heavy fur coat and hastened up the stairs at the top ofwhich his old friend and confidant, the venerable pastor, usually cameto meet him. To-day it was only the local magistrate who stood there,bowing deeply.

  "This is incredible, incredible!" exclaimed the Count.

  "It is, indeed, sir," said the man, leading the magnate through thedining-room into the pastor's study, where, as far as could be seen, themurder had been committed. They were