Shivers for Christmas (46 page)

‘Ah,' I thought, ‘if I had but a chance to point out the real murderer, my comrades would be saved.'

With my eyes I followed the tracks, which stretched out so clearly to the wall of the neighbouring house.

At that moment I heard some one putting questions. They had opened the door in order to get fresh air. I listened.

‘Do you acknowledge having taken part in the murder of the sacristan Ulmet Elias, on the twentieth of this month?'

Then followed some indistinct words.

‘Close the door, Madoc,' said the magistrate; ‘close the door, madam is unwell.'

I heard no more.

As I leant my head upon the banister, a great conflict took place within me.

‘I am able to save my friends,' said I. ‘God has pointed out to me the way to render them back to their families. If I fail to do my duty I shall be their murderer—my peace, my honour, will be for ever lost. I shall always look upon myself as the most cowardly, the vilest of mankind!'

For a long time, however, I hesitated, but all of a sudden I resolved. Going down the stairs, I went into the kitchen.

‘Have you ever seen that watch?' asked the magistrate of Mother Gredel. ‘Remember yourself, madam.'

Without waiting for her to reply, I advanced into the room, and in a firm voice, said—

‘That watch, M. Magistrate, I myself have seen in the very hands of the murderer. I identify it. As to the man himself, I can deliver him to you, if you will listen to me.'

There was complete silence around. The police-officers looked at one another astounded. My poor comrades seemed to take courage.

‘Who are you, sir?' asked the magistrate.

‘I am the friend of these unfortunate prisoners, and I am not ashamed to say it, for all of them, M. Magistrate, all of them, are honest folk, not one of whom is capable of committing such a crime as is laid to their charge.'

Again there was silence. Bertha began to weep. The magistrate appeared to collect himself. Then looking fixedly at me, he said—

‘Where do you say we can find the murderer?'

‘Here, here, M. Magistrate, in this very house. In order to convince you of the truth of what I say, I only beg a minute's private conversation.'

‘Very well,' he said, rising.

He made a sign to Madoc, the chief of the police, to follow us, and for the rest to stay behind. We went out.

I rapidly ascended the stairs and they followed me closely. On the third landing I stopped before the window and showed them the tracks of the man in the snow.

‘Those are the assassin's tracks,' I said, ‘He comes along there each night. He went along there at two o'clock yesterday morning. He returned last night, and without doubt he will come again tonight.'

The magistrate and Madoc looked at the marks for some minutes without uttering a word.

‘And what grounds have you for saying that those are the tracks of the murderer?' asked the magistrate incredulously.

I told them all about the apparition of the man in our garret, I showed them the window from which I had seen him as he fled in the moonlight, which Wilfred had not witnessed as he had remained in bed, and I confessed to them that it was fear alone which had restrained me from telling them all this on the previous night.

‘It is strange,' muttered the magistrate. ‘This modifies the position of the prisoners very much. But how do you account for the murderer being hidden in the cellar of the inn?'

‘That man was myself.'

And I told him all that had passed on the preceding day, from the time my comrades were arrested to the moment of my flight.

‘That is enough,' he said.

Turning towards the chief of the police—

‘I confess, Madoc,' said he, ‘the declarations of these musicians never appeared to me to be conclusive, they were far from satisfying me that they were guilty. Then their papers, at least those of some of them, would establish an alibi such as it would be very difficult to overcome. In the meantime, young man, notwithstanding the apparent truth of your statement, you must remain in our custody until the truth is established. Do not let him out of your sight, Madoc, and take such measures as you think fit.'

The magistrate descended the stairs very thoughtfully, and folded up his papers, without asking another question.

‘Conduct the accused back to their prison,' said he, and throwing a contemptuous glance on the fat old innkeeper, he went away, followed by his secretary.

Madoc alone remained with two officers.

‘Madam,' said Madoc, ‘you must be silent respecting all that has occurred. For the rest, let this young fellow have the room he had yesterday.'

Madoc's look, and the tone in which he spoke, did not admit of reply. Mother Gredel declared she would do whatever he required, so long as he preserved her from the robbers.

‘Do not trouble yourself about robbers,' said Madoc. ‘We shall remain here all day and all night to keep you safe. Look after your affairs without fear, and to begin with, let us have something to eat. Young man, may I have the pleasure of your company to dinner?'

My position did not admit of my declining his offer, so I accepted the invitation.

We seated ourselves before a ham and a flask of Rhine wine. Some people came in as usual, and tried to obtain information from Mother Gredel and Annette, but they took good care not to speak in our presence, and were very reserved, a matter in them which was very meritorious.

We spent the afternoon in smoking our pipes and in drinking. No one paid us any attention.

The chief of the police, in spite of his extremely upright figure, his piercing eye, his pale lips, and his great eagle nose, was not a bad fellow when he had had something to drink. He told us some tales with much happiness and fluency. He wanted to kiss Annette in the passage. At every joke of his his followers burst out in loud laughter, but as for myself, I was sad and silent.

‘Well, young man,' said he to me, laughing, ‘cannot you forget the death of your worthy grandmother? What the deuce! We are all mortal. Empty your glass and drive off these miserable thoughts.'

The others joined in, and time passed on amidst a cloud of tobacco smoke, the clinking of glasses, and the tinkling of pewter pots.

At nine o'clock, however, when the watchman had been round, a sudden change came over the scene. Madoc rose and said—

‘Ah, then, let us see to our little business; close the door and put the shutters to. Be brisk. As for you, madam and mademoiselle, you had better go to bed.'

These three men, so abominably shabby, looked more like robbers themselves than the preservers of peace and justice. They drew out of their pockets iron bars, at the end of which was a leaden ball, and Madoc, tapping on the pocket of his riding-coat, assured himself that his pistol was there. The next minute he drew it out to put a cap under the hammer.

All this they did with the greatest calmness, and then the chief ordered me to lead them to my garret.

We went up. When we arrived there we found that Annette had taken the trouble to light a fire there. Madoc, muttering curses between his teeth, hastened to throw water over it and extinguish it. Then pointing to the pallet, he said—

‘If you have the heart, you may sleep!'

He sat down with his men at the end of the room near to the wall, and one of them blew out the light.

And I lay there praying to heaven to send the murderer to us.

After a minute or two the silence was so profound that no one could have imagined that there were three men in the room, watching, listening to the slightest noise, like hunters on the track of some timorous beast. I could not sleep, for a thousand horrible thoughts occurred to me. I listened to the clock striking one, two. Nothing happened; no one came.

At three o'clock one of the police-officers moved, and then I thought my man must have come, but all became quiet again. Then I began to think that Madoc must regard me as an impostor; to think how put out he would be, and how he would revenge himself on me the next day; how, wishing to assist my comrades, I had myself run into the toils.

When three o'clock had struck, the time seemed to me to go very quickly. I should have liked the night to have been much longer; time might afford me a loophole of escape.

As I was thinking thus for the hundredth time, all of a sudden, without the least noise, the window opened, and two eyes shone in at the aperture. All was still in the garret.

‘The others have gone to sleep,' I thought.

The face stopped there for a moment. Did he suspect something? How my heart beat! The blood ran fast through my veins, but my brow, nevertheless, was cold with fear. I could not breathe.

The face remained there for some seconds, and then he seemed suddenly to make up his mind, and glided into the garret as quietly as of old.

A terrible cry, sharp, ringing, broke the stillness. ‘Seize him!'

All the house seemed to ring with the noise of cries, of stamping feet, of husky exclamations, making me shiver with dread. The man shouted, the others panted with the struggle. Then I heard a crash which made the floor creak, the grinding of teeth, the clinking of handcuffs.

‘Light,' cried Madoc.

When the light was in, throwing around a blue glare, I could dimly see the police-officers bent over a man in his shirt sleeves. One held him by the throat, the other knelt on his breast. Madoc held his handcuffed hands with a grip which seemed to crush the very bones. The man seemed insensible, save that one of his feet from time to time lifted itself and fell upon the floor again with a convulsive motion. His eyes were almost out of his head, and the froth was on his lips. Hardly had I lighted the candle when the police-officers exclaimed, astonished—

‘The citizen!'

All three rose, and I saw them look at one another pale with fright.

The man's eye turned itself to Madoc. He seemed about to speak. In a little while I heard him murmur—

‘What a dream! Oh heaven! what a dream!'

Then he drew a long breath, and remained quite still.

I drew near to look on him. It was certainly he, the man who had given us good advice as we were on our way to Heidelberg. Did he know that we should be his ruin; had he some terrible presentiment? He remained perfectly still. The blood trickled from his side over the white floor, and Madoc, recovering himself, bent down beside him and tore his shirt aside from his breast. Then we saw that he had stabbed himself to the heart.

‘Ah,' said Madoc, with a sour smile, ‘the citizen has cheated the gibbet. He did not let the opportunity slip. You others, stop here while I go and fetch the magistrate.'

He put on his hat, which had fallen off in the struggle, and went out without saying another word.

I remained in the room with the man and the two officers.

At eight o'clock the next day all Heidelberg was acquainted with the wonderful news. It was a strange event in its history. Who would have suspected Daniel van den Berg, the chief woollen-draper, a man of wealthy position, had these tastes for blood?

The affair was discussed in a thousand different styles. Some said that the rich citizen must have been a somnambulist and irresponsible for his actions—others that he murdered from a mere love of it, for he could not intend to gain anything by his crimes. Perhaps he was both a somnambulist and an assassin also. It is an incontestable fact that the moral being, the will, the soul, whatever you like to name it, does not dominate the somnambulist, but the animal nature, abandoned to itself in such a state, follows naturally the impulse of its instincts whether they be peaceful or sanguinary, and the appearance of Daniel van den Berg, his flat head bulging out behind the ears, his long bristling moustaches, his yellow eyes, all seemed to say that he belonged to the cat tribe—a terrible race, killing for the sake of killing.

However that might be, my comrades were freed.

For five days Annette was famous as a model of devotedness. The son of the burgomaster, Trungott, the plague of his family, even came and asked her to marry him. As for me, I hastened to get back again to the Black Forest, where since that time I have filled the position of leader of the orchestra in the tavern of the Sabre-Vert, on the Tubingian road. If you should happen to pass that way, and if my story has interested you, look in and see me. We will have a bottle or two together, and I will tell you a story which will make your hair stand on end.

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This atmospheric tale of murder and mystery by the master storyteller Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was first published in the Christmas Number of
The Illustrated London
News
in 1881.

T
he genial Justice of the Peace—now, alas, no more—who made himself responsible for the facts of this story, used to begin in the good old-fashioned way with a bright moonlight night and a mysterious figure, an excellent stroke for an opening, even to this day, if well followed up.

The Christmas moon (he would say) was showing her cold face to the upland, the upland reflecting the radiance in frost-sparkles so minute as only to be discernible by an eye near at hand. This eye, he said, was the eye of a shepherd lad, young for his occupation, who stood within a wheeled hut of the kind commonly in use among sheep-keepers during the early lambing season, and was abstractedly looking through the loophole at the scene without.

The spot was called Lambing Corner, and it was a sheltered portion of that wide expanse of rough pastureland known as the Marlbury Downs, which you directly traverse when following the turnpike-road across Mid-Wessex from London, through Aldbrickham, in the direction of Bath and Bristol. Here, where the hut stood, the land was high and dry, open, except to the north, and commanding an undulating view for miles. On the north side grew a tall belt of coarse furze, with enormous stalks, a clump of the same standing detached in front of the general mass. The clump was hollow, and the interior had been ingeniously taken advantage of as a position for the before-mentioned hut, which was thus completely screened from winds, and almost invisible, except through the narrow approach. But the furze twigs had been cut away from the two little windows of the hut, that the occupier might keep his eye on his sheep.