I went straight to the office of the magistrate, a small building of four rooms on the ground floor, the two in front being used as the magistrate's private room and court, the two in the rear as cells, not at all uncomfortable, for aggressors of the law. It was but rarely that they were occupied. At the door of the court I encountered Father Daniel. He was pale, and much shaken. During his lifetime no such crime had been perpetrated in the village, and his only comfort was that the actors in it were strangers. But that did not lessen his horror of the deed, and his large heart overflowed with pity both for the guilty man and the victim.
"So sudden a death!" he said, in a voice broken by tears. "No time for repentance! Thrust before the Eternal Presence weighed down by sin! I have been praying by his side for mercy, and for mercy upon his murderer. Poor sinners! poor sinners!"
I could not sympathise with his sentiments, and I told him so sternly. He made no attempt to convert me to his views, but simply said, "All men should pray that they may never be tempted."
And so he left me, and turned in the direction of his little chapel to offer up prayers for the dead and the living sinners.
Doctor Louis was with the magistrate; they had been discussing theories, and had heard from the landlord of the Three Black Crows my own ideas of the movements of the strangers on the previous night.
"In certain respects you may be right in your speculations," the magistrate said; "but on one important point you are in error."
"I have already discovered," I said, "that my theory is wrong, and not in accordance with fact; but we will speak of that presently. What is the point you refer to?"
"As to the weapon with which the murder was done," replied the magistrate, a shrewd man, whose judicial perceptions fitted him for a larger sphere of duties than he was called upon to perform in Nerac. "No knife was used."
"A club of some sort," said the magistrate, "with which the dead man was suddenly attacked from behind."
"No, but a search is being made for it and also for the murderer."
"On that point we are agreed. There is no shadow of doubt that the missing man is guilty."
"There can be none," said the magistrate.
