PRIVATE PROPERTY

At the police station the prisoners were subjected to an inquiry. The caretaker bellowed: 'Friends and colleagues, I am innocent!' Thérèse, trying to do him harm, cried: I ask you, he's retired!' Her words dispelled the bad impression which his familiarity had made on his colleagues. The factual explanation that he was retired made it conceivable that he really had been a policeman. He certainly had the brutal manner; but the suspicion that die real prisoner had apparently practised on him a robbery in the grand style somewhat contradicted this. They questioned him. He bellowed: 'I'm no criminal!'

Thérèse pointed to Kien, whom they had forgotten and said: 'If you please, he robbed us!' The self-possessed bearing of the redhead gave the policeman pause. They were still in ignorance whom they had arrested. Therese's hint was welcome. Three of them hurled themselves on Kien and without more ado searched his pockets. A bundle of crumpled banknotes emerged; the count revealed eighteen notes of a hundred schillings each. 'Is this your money?' they asked Thérèse. "Was my money all crumpled? Six times as much, there ought to be!' She counted on the whole sum the bankbook had contained. They asked Kien for the rest; he said nothing. Propped up against a chair, angular and ravaged, he stood just as they had put him. Anyone looking at him would have been convinced that he must fall down at any moment. But no one looked at him.

Out of hatred for Thérèse, his guard brought him a glass of water and held it close to his mouth. Neither the glass nor the kindly action received any recognition and one more enemy joined those who now once again went through his pockets. Apart from a little small change in his purse, they drew blank. Some of them shook their heads. "What have you done with the money, you?' asked the Inspector. Thérèse grinned: 'What did I say, a thief! 'My good woman,' said the officer, for whom her clothes were too old-fashioned, 'turn round a moment! We must undress him. No peeping.' He smiled derisively; he didn't care whether the old thing peeped or not. He knew that the sum would be found, and was annoyed because a common woman oossessed so much. Thérèse said: 'What kind of a man is he? He's not a man!' and stayed where she was. The caretaker bellowed: 'I'm innocent!' and gave Kien a look as though he were respectfully requesting his tip. He was emphasizing his innocence, not of the death of nis daughter, but of the painful search to which his Professor was now to submit.

Three policemen, who had just withdrawn their fingers from the thief's pockets, immediately, as at a word of command, stepped back two paces. Not one had any inclination for the job of undressing this repulsive person. He was so thin. At that moment Kien fell to the ground. Thérèse shouted: 'He's lying!' 'But he never said a word,' a policeman interrupted her. 'Said? Anyone can say,' she retorted. The caretaker threw himself on Kien to lift him up. 'Cowardly brute,' said the Inspector, 'hitting a man when he's down.' They all thought the redhead wanted to assault the prostrate victim. Not that anyone would have minded; the helpless skeleton on the floor was exasperating. They only defended themselves against this usurpation of their own rights: before he could reach Kien, the redhead was seized and dragged back. Then they picked up the prostrate object. They didn't even make the usual jokes about his weight, so repulsive was he to them. One tried to push him on to a chair. 'Let htm stand, malingerer!' said the Inspector. He was proving to the woman, the sharpness of whose perception put him to shame, that he too could see through the play-acting. The policemen hoisted the lanky nothing; the one who had been in favour of sitting him in a chair now pushed the delinquent's feet apart so as to increase the breadth at the base. Higher up, another let go. Kien crumpled up again and remained hanging in the arms of a third. Thérèse said: 'There's a dirty trick for you! He's dying!' She was looking forward to his beautiful punishment. 'Professor,' bellowed the caretaker, 'don't do that!' He was glad no one showed any interest in his daughter, but he was counting on Kien's good word for him.

The Inspector saw an opportunity at hand to teach this presumptuous woman that here a man was master. Violently he plucked at his minuscule nose, his great grief. (On duty and off duty, at every free moment he would contemplate and sigh over it in his pocket mirror. When he was in difficulties it would swell. Before he set himself to overcome them, he would convince himself quickly of his nose's existence, because it was so delightful, three minutes later, to have forgotten all about it.) Now he decided to have the criminal properly stripped. 'Idiots, all of you,' he began. The next sentence, which referred only to himself, he merely thought. 'Dead men's eyes arc open. Otherwise why do you have to close them? You can't sham dead. Open your eyes, they don't glaze. Close your eyes, you don't look dead, because, just as I say, dead men's eyes are open. A corpse without glazed eyes and without open eyes isn't worth a song. It simply means death has not supervened. I'd like to see anyone take me in. Watch carefully gentlemen! I put it to you, with regard to the prisoner, direct your attention to his eyes!'

He stood up, pushed the table, behind which he was sitting, to one side —another obstacle surmounted, not evaded — strode over to the arrestee, who was still hanging over the arm of an official, and violently flicked first one then the other eyelid with his fat, white middle finger. The policemen felt relieved. They had been afraid lest the creature had been beaten to death by the mob. They had intervened too late. There might be a stink, one had to think of everything. The mob can perpetrate excesses, the organ of the law must keep a clear head. The eye test was completely convincing. The Inspector was a fine fellow. Thérèse tossed her head; a welcome to the punishment which was still to come. The caretaker felt his fists tingle, as they always did when he was well. With a witness like that on his side, he'd be in clover. Kien's lids quivered under the Inspector's hard finger-nails. He repeated his onslaught, thinking to make the creature alive to various things, to his stupidity, for instance, in shamming dead without glazed eyes. To prove these dead eyes were a sham he must first break them open. But they stayed closed. 'Let him go!' the Inspector ordered die merciful policeman who was not yet tired of his load. At the same moment he grasped the recalcitrant rascal by the collar and shook him. His lightness exasperated him. 'Call yourself a thief!' he said, contemptuously. Thérèse grinned at him. He began to please her. He was a man. Only his nose wasn't right. The caretaker was turning over in his mind (relieved because nobody was asking him any questions, worried because nobody was taking any notice of him) how he could best explain the crime. He had always had a mind of his own: the Professor was not the diicf. He believed what he knew, not what others said. No one ever died of being shaken. As soon as the Professor came alive he'd talk, and then there'd be a row.

The Inspector was still a little repelled by the object before him, then he began to pull its clothes off himself. He tossed the jacket on to the table. The waistcoat followed. The shirt was old, but of good material. He unbuttoned it and directed a piercing eye between the creature's ribs. There was really nothing there. Disgust rose within him. He had had much experience. His profession brought him into contact with every form of human life. He had never come across anything so thin before. Its place was in a show, not a police station. Did they take him for a Barnum, or what? 'Shoes and trousers I leave to you, he said to the others. Crestfallen he withdrew. His nose occurred to him. He clutched at it. It was too short. If only he could forget it! Sullenly he sat down behind his table. It was in the wrong position again. Someone had pushed it. 'Can't you leave my table straight, for the hundredth time! Idiots!' The policemen busied over the shoes and trousers of the thief grinned to themselves; the others stood to attention. Yes, he thought, creatures like that ought to be put away. They're a public nuisance. They make you ill to look at. The healthiest stomach would be turned. And where would you be without a stomach. There's no patience with them. This was a case for torture. In the middle ages the police had a better time. A creature like that ought to drown itself. It wouldn't affect the suicide rate; it wouldn't weigh enough to count. Instead of making away with itself it shams dead. Shameless, creatures like him. Some people are ashamed of their noses, only because they're a wee bit on the short side. Others live happily on, and steal, what's more. He'll pay for it. It takes all sorts to make a world. Some have industry, common sense, intelligence and subtlety, others haven't a scrap of flesh on their bones. It follows, you've got your work cut out; some people may just have pulled out a pocket mirror, they'd better put it away again.

Kien trembled with cold. He opened his eyes and turned them on Thérèse. She stood close to him, wagging her head and shoulders. She was proud because he recognized her, she was the most important person in the room. 'Your papers are stolen!' declared the Inspector again; his voice sounded calmer than before. The open eyes did not focus him, but he for his part focused them clearly. He had won the first round. As soon as initial resistance is overcome, the rest follows naturally. The eyes of the criminal remained fixed on the woman, bored themselves into her and grew strangely rigid. This fragment of a man was a Peeping Tom just the same. 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself!' shouted the Inspector, 'you're half naked!' The thief's pupils expanded, his teeth chattered. His head remained motionless at the same angle. Was this the genuine death-glaze? the Inspector asked himself and was a little afraid.

Then Kien lifted an arm and extended it until he touched Therese's skirt. He compressed a fold of it between two fingers, let it go, pressed it again, let it go, and reached for the next fold. He drew a step closer; he seemed not wholly to trust his eyes and fingers, and approached his ear towards the noise which lüs hand drew from the starched folds; his nostrils quivered. 'That's enough, you dirty swine!' screamed the Inspector; the scornful movement of the prisoner's nose had not escaped him. 'Are you guilty or not?' 'What's that!' bellowed the caretaker; no one reprimanded him for the disturbance, they were all on tiptoe for the criminal's reply. Kien opened his mouth, possibly with the intention of tasting the skirt, but when it was open, he said: 'I confess my guilt. Yet part of the blame must redound to her. It is true, I locked her in. But was it necessary for her to devour her own body? She merited her death. One point I would beg you to clarify, for I feel a certain confusion. How do you explain die presence here of the murdered woman? I know her by her skirt.'

He spoke very low. The spectators drew close round him, they wanted to catch what he said. His face was tense, as that of a dying man confessing his most torturing secret. 'Louder!' shouted the Inspector; he avoided the usual police words of command, he was acting radier as if he were in a theatre. The quiet of the others was reverential and tenacious. Instead of emphasizing his commands, he was now a lamb among lambs. The caretaker stood before him, leaning on the shoulders of two colleagues; both his arms rested, full length, on them. A circle formed about Kien and Thérèse. It closed in, no one would yield his place; one said: 'Bats in the belfry!' and tapped his own forehead. But he was ashamed at once and lowered his head; his words clashed with the general curiosity, he got black looks. Thérèse breathed: 'I ask you!' She was mistress here, everything revolved round her, she was consumed with curiosity, but she'd let that man have his lie out, then it would be her turn to speak, and everyone else would have to hold their tongues.

The spectators began to make words of his sounds. They became accustomed to his manner, and listened perplexed; one clutched at another in order to hear better. He spoke like an educated man, he was confessing a murder. As a body they could not believe in his murder, though each of them singly would have taken it to be true. Against whom did he want protection? In his shirt they let him alone; he was afraid. Even the Inspector felt powerless; he preferred to say nothing, his phrases would not have sounded literary enough. The criminal was well-connected. Perhaps he was not a criminal at all. Thérèse was astonished that she had never noticed anything. So he'd been married when she came into his service, and she'd always thought he was a bachelor; she'd known there was a mystery, the mystery was his first wife, he'd murdered her, still waters are murderers, so that was why he never spoke, and because his first wife had had a skirt like hers, he'd married her for love. She cast about for proofs; between six and seven in the morning he was busy all by himself, everything was hidden away until he had smuggled all the bits out of the house, the very idea, she could remember it all. So that was why he'd run off and left her, he'd been afraid she'd tell the whole story. Thieves are murderers, she always said; Mr. Brute would be surprised.

The caretaker was seized with terror; the shoulders, on which he was leaning, swayed. The Professor was taking deferred vengeance on him, when everybody had forgotten all about his daughter. The Professor was talking about a wife, but he meant his daughter. The caretaker kept seeing her too, but she wasn't there, was she? The Professor wanted to make a fool of him, but the others didn't fall for the trick. The heart of gold was letting him down; what's that! how mistaken one can be in people! In his sorrow he restrained himself. The Professor's accusations were too insubstantial; he knew his colleagues. He hadn't yet remembered that it was he who had promoted Kien Professor and he contemplated his degradation only as a final measure.

After his repeated appeal for help — he had spoken calmly but it was a despairing entreaty — Kien waited. The dead silence was agreeable to him. Even Thérèse was silent. He wished she would vanish. Perhaps she would vanish now she was silent. She did not. Since no one came to meet him, he assumed the initiative himself, to cure himself of his hallucination. He was well aware of his duty to learning. He sighed, deeply he sighed, for who would not feel shame at having to call in the help of others? Murder was comprehensible; that murder he could defend; only its consequence, this hallucination, he feared so deeply. If the court declared him not responsible for his actions, he would commit suicide on the spot. He smiled, so as to ingratiate himself with his listeners; later on they would certainly be called as witnesses. The more friendly and sensible his words to them, the less important would his hallucination appear. He elevated them to the rank of educated men.

'Psychology to-day is part of every profession pursued by — educated men.' Polite as he was, he prefaced these 'educated men' with a brief pause. 'I have not fallen a victim to a woman as you, perhaps, are thinking. My acquittal is a foregone conclusion. You see in me, almost certainly, the greatest living authority on sinology. But even greater men have suffered from hallucinations. The peculiarity of men of critical temperament consists in the energy with which they concentrate on the object of their choice. For the last hour I have been thinking so intensely and so exclusively of this figment of my brain, that I cannot now expel it. Convince yourselves, gentlemen, how reasonably I myself judge of it! May I earnestly request you to take thé following measures: Withdraw a few steps, all of you! Form up in single file! Let each approach me singly in a straight line! I hope hereby to convince myself that you will find no obstacle in the way, here, here, or here. Here I myself come into contact with a skirt, the woman inside it has been murdered, she is so like the murdered woman as to be mistaken for her, at present she is silent, but earlier she had the voice of the murdered woman too; this baffles me. I need a clear head. I shall conduct my own defence. I need no one. Lawyers are criminals; they lie. I live for truth. I know, this truth is a lie; help me; I know she must vanish. Help me, this skirt disturbs me. I hated her skirt even before the bloodhound ate it, and must I see it again now?'

He had seized on Thérèse; not tentatively, but with all his strength he clutched at her skirt, he pushed her from him, he drew her to him, he enclosed her in his long, lean arms. She let him have his way. He only wanted to embrace her. Before they are hanged, murderers are allowed a last meal. Murder, she wouldn't have guessed. Now she knew: so thin and all those books with everything in them. He turned her round once on her axis and forewent the embrace. This made her angry. He glared at her from an inch off. He stroked her dress with all ten fingers. He put out his tongue and snuffled with his nose. Tears came into his eyes with the effort. 'I suffer from this hallucination!' he admitted, gasping. The listeners inferred sobs from his tears.

'Don't cry, sir!' said one: he was a father himself, his eldest boy brought home top marks in German composition every day. The Inspector felt envious. The man in the shirt, whom he had undressed himself, suddenly seemed to him very well-dressed. 'All right, all right,' he grumbled. He thought of ways for transposing into a sterner key. To ease his task, he threw a glance at the shabby clothes on the table. The policeman with a memory asked: "Why didn't you say something before?' He had not forgotten all that had happened. His question was purely rhetorical; he only asked it so as to remind people of his genius, as his colleagues called it, from time to time, particularly when things w;re quiet. The remaining, less developed characters, were still either listening or laughing. They were divided between curiosity and satisfaction. They felt happy, but did not know it. At these rare moments they forgot their duty, even their dignity, like many people at a theatre of established reputation. The playing-time was short. They would have liked more for their money. Kien spoke and performed, he took great pains. It was clear how seriously he took his profession. He earned his money with the sweat of his brow. No actor could have done better. In forty years he had not said so much about himself, as now in twenty minutes. His gestures were convincing. Almost, the spectators applauded. When he began to handle the woman, they were all benevolently willing to credit him with the murder. For a street performer he seemed too well-connected; for the theatre, his calves were too wretched. They would have been ready to argue that he was a decayed star, but they were too busy watching him and enjoying the mingled feelings which his art induced in diem.

Thérèse was annoyed with him. As she imagined that the greedy eyes of the men, all of them, men, were intended for her, she accepted his flatteries for a while. He himself was repulsive to her. What good was he to her? He was feeble and thin, couldn't play the man, men don't do such things. He was a murderer of course, but she wasn't afraid, she knew him, he was a coward. But she felt that the murderer's blissful interlude was becoming to her; he was under her spell and she kept quiet. The caretaker's shrewdness had vanished. He noticed that his daughter was not the pivot of the Professor's tale, and became absorbed in the movement of his legs. If only a beggar like that would pass within focus of his peep-hole! He would snap his legs like matchsticks. A man should have calves, or be ashamed. What did he go dangling round that old bitch for? She wasn't worth courting. She ought to leave him in peace and pull no more pretty faces. She'd put a spell on the poor Professor all right! Writhing in the toils of love, as the saying is. A gentleman too! His colleagues in the force ought to help him put on his trousers again. A stranger might come in at any moment and see he had no calves. That'd be a shame for the whole force. He ought to stop talking, no one here can understand such clever stuff; he always talks too clever. Mostly he doesn't talk at all. To-day he's got the bit between his teeth. What's it all in aid of Suddenly Kien drew himself up. He swarmed up Thérèse to his full height Scarcely had he overtopped her — he was a head taller — than he began to laugh. 'She hasn't grown!' he said and laughed, 'she hasn't grown!'

He had in fact decided to rid himself of this mirage by measuring himself against it. How could he reach the head of the pseudo-Therese? He saw her, a gigantic size, before him. He would stretch himself, he would stand on tiptoe and if she was still taller then he could say with absolute justification: 'In reality she was always a head smaller during the whole of her lifetime; therefore this object is a mirage!'

But just as he had shot up, as agile as an ape, his cunning experiment dwindled to Therese's old size. He did not worry; on the contrary, could there have been a better proof of his famous accuracy; Even his imagination was accurate! He laughed. A scholar of his stamp was not lost. Humanity suffers from inaccuracy. Several milliards of ordinary human beings had lived without meaning and died without meaning. A thousand accurate ones, at the outside a thousand, had built up knowledge. To let one of the upper thousand die before his time, would be little less than race-suicide. He laughed heartily. He imagined the hallucinations of ordinary fellows, like those surrounding him. Thérèse would have been too tall for any of them; in all probability she would have touched the ceiling. They would have cried with terror and turned to others for help. They lived among hallucinations; they did not even know how to form a lucid sentence. It was necessary to guess what they were thinking of, if it interested you; far better not to trouble your head with it. Among them, you felt as in a madhouse. Whether they laughed or cried, they were always grotesquely masked; they were incurable, one as cowardly as another; not one of diem would have murdered Thérèse; they would have let themselves be plagued to death by her. They were even afraid of helping him because he was a murderer?, Who but he knew the motives he had had for the deed? At his trial, after his great speech, this miserable species would acquit him. He had reason to laugh, who else had been born with a memory like his? Memory was the pre-condition of scientific accuracy. He would examine this mirage until he had convinced himself of what it really was. He had followed trails no less dangerous, imperfect texts, missing lines. He could recall no occasion on which he had failed. No problem he had undertaken had ever been left unsolved. Even this murder he must needs regard as a task accomplished. It took more than a mere hallucination to shatter Kien; the hallucination ran the greater risk, even if it were of flesh and blood. He was hard. Thérèse had not spoken for a long time. He had his laugh out. Then he set to work again.

'Clown!' yelled the Inspector. He trusted himself again to intervene, but he pronounced the word in English: the educated impression Kien had made on him was indestructible. He looked round him, to see if he was understood. The man with a memory transposed the word into the German pronunciation. He knew what it meant, but declared that the Inspector's was the correct form. From this moment he was under suspicion of secretly knowing English. The Inspector waited a moment to see the effect of his clown on the prisoner. He feared another sentence straight out of a book and was constructing an answer of the same kind. 'You seem to think that none of the servants of the state here present have devoted themselves to high studies.' It was a good sentence. He clutched at his nose. But Kien prevented him from bringing it out; he grew furious and screeched: 'You seem to think, that none of the servants here present have had any relations with Matric.'

"What's that?' bellowed the caretaker. They were getting at him, at his daughter; they all thought they could say what they liked about her; couldn't leave the poor kid in peace in her grave. Kien was too deeply stricken even to move his lips. The difficulties of the trial were increasing. Murder is always murder. Did not these monsters burn Giordano Bruno? He was fighting in vain against hallucination — who would give him the power to convince an uneducated jury of his importance?

"Who are you then, sir?' shouted the Inspector. 'Speak up if you please!' With two fingers he pulled at Kien s shirt-sleeve. He would ave liked to squash him between two finger-nails. What kind of an education is this, which can only produce a couple of sentences and then not a word in answer to a reasonable question? True education reveals itself in a man's bearing, in his immaculate appearance and in the art of interrogation. Gravely, and ever more confident of his superiority, the Inspector retired behind his table. The wooden seat of the chair on which he usually sat was covered by a soft cushion, the only one in the sub-station, on which, in letters of scarlet embroidery, was clearly to be read: PRIVATE PROPERTY. These words were intended to remind his inferiors that — even in his absence — they had no right to it. The fellows had a reprehensible tendency to slide the cushion under their own bodies. With a few deft movements he set it to rights; before he seated himself, the words PRIVATE PROPERTY must be precisely parallel with his eyes, which overlooked no opportunity of drawing strength from the phrase. He turned his back on the chair. It was hard to tear himself from contemplation of the cushion, even harder so to seat himself that the cushion should not be disturbed. Slowly he lowered himself; for a few seconds he restrained his backside. Only when this part of his person had PRIVATE PROPERTY in its proper place he allowed himself to put pressure on it. As soon as he was sitting, no thief in the world — even if he had passed Matric and more — could have imposed on him. Swiftly he took a last peep at his little mirror. His tie, like himself, sat firmly but with elegance. His hair, brushed back, was disciplined with grease, not a hair out of place. His nose was too short. It gave him the spur he needed; he flung himself into the inquiry.

His people supported him. He had said 'clown'; they found the word apt. Since the prisoner had grown boring, they were thinking of their own dignity. The man with a memory burnt with zeal. He had agreed with himself on fourteen points. Scarcely had the Inspector's contemptuous finger-nails let go of Kien, than he was conducted, in his shirt, to the table. There they let him go. He stood up by himself. It was just as well. If he had fallen now, no one would have helped him. They knew he had strength of his own. They took him for an obstinate play-actor. Even his thinness was no longer convincing. He was certainly not under-nourished. The proud father grew anxious at his son's good German composition. This was what book-learning led to.

'Do you recognize these clothes?' asked the Inspector, and pointed to the jacket, waistcoat, trousers, socks and shoes which were strewed over the table. As he spoke he looked him sharply in the eye to notice the effect of his words. His determination was rocklike, to proceed systematically and so to entrap the criminal. Kien nodded. He was holding tightly on to the table edge with both hands. The mirage, he knew, was behind him. He overcame the desire to turn round and see whether it was still there. He thought it wiser to answer. So as not to annoy the magistrate — for this must be the magistrate — he would answer his questions. He would have preferred to give a description of the murder in a connected speech. He disliked dialogues; he was accustomed to develop his views in lengthy dissertations. But he recognized that every craftsman has his own methods and submitted himself. Secretly he hoped that in die absorbing interplay of question and answer he would re-live Theresc's death with such vigour that the mirage would dissolve itself. As long as he could he would spin out the matter with this magistrate, and prove to him that Therese's death was essential. When the report was drawn up in all its detail, and every doubt of his complicity had vanished, when with the help of unmistakable proofs he had been persuaded of her end, then, and on no account before, he would permit himself to turn round, and far behind where she had stood laugh into the empty air. Surely she must already be far behind me, he said to himself, for he felt her to be very close. The more violently he drove his fingers into the table, the further would she vanish from his sight. But she might at any moment touch him from behind. He counted on a photograph of the skeleton, as it had been found. The caretaker's description alone seemed insufficient. Human beings are fallible. Dogs, unfortunately, cannot talk. The most reliable witness would have been the bloodhound, which had bitten her dress into tiny fragments and eaten it up.

But a man in the Inspector's position was not to be satisfied with a mere nod. 'Answer Yes or No!' he commanded. 'I shall repeat the question.'

Kien said: 'Yes.'

'Wait until I repeat the question! Do you recognize these clothes?'

'Yes.' He assumed they were talking of the murdered woman's clothes and did not even look.

'You admit that these clothes belong to you?'

'No, to her.'

The Inspector saw through him; it was child's play. So as to dissociate himself from the money and the stolen papers found in his clothes, the shameless scoundrel actually dared to make the assertion that the clothes belonged to the woman over there, whom he had robbed. The Inspector remained calm, although he had undressed him with his own hands, and in all his long years of experience had never before encountered a comparable insolence. With a fleeting smile he reached for the trousers, and held them up: 'Even these trousers !'

Kien observed them. 'Those are men's trousers,' he said, unpleasantly disturbed, because this object had nothing to do with Thérèse.

'You admit then, men's trousers.'

'Naturally. '

"Whose trousers do you suppose these to be?'

'I can hardly know that. Were they found with the dead woman?'

The Inspector made a point of ignoring his sentence. He intended to nip the murder story and any other red-herrings in the bud as soon as they made their appearance.

'Indeed; you can hardly know that.'

Quick as lightning he pulled out his pocket mirror and held it out towards Kien, not so near but that he could see himself almost full-length.

'Do you know who that is?' he asked. Every muscle of his face was taut to breaking.

'It is... I, myself,' stammered Kien, and clutched at his shirt. 'Where ... where are my trousers?' He was utterly astounded to see himself in this guise; even his shoes and socks were missing.

'Aha!' the Inspector jubilated. 'Now put on your trousers again!'

He handed them to him, on the alert for a new trick. Kien received them and hastily pulled them on. Before the Inspector put his mirror away, he took a hasty peep into it, an impulse which in the interests of surprise he had previously suppressed. He knew how to control himself. His bearing was faultless. He felt a particular delight in the ease with which this examination was developing. The criminal meanwhile spontaneously put on all the rest of the clothes. It would have been superfluous to prove his ownership of each separate article. The Inspector understood what kind of criminal he had to reckon with, and husbanded his resources. The opening phase had not lasted three minutes. He would like to see anyone else try to do as well. He was so happy that he would gladly have stopped there. To be able to proceed, he took one more peep in his mirror, was exasperated by his nose and asked with renewed energy —just as the thief slipped on his jacket:

'And now what's your name?'

'Dr. Peter Kien.'

'Why not indeed! Your profession?'

'Scholar and librarian.'

The Inspector had the impression that he had heard both these claims before. In spite of his memory, which was as short as his nose, he grabbed at one of the stolen papers and read aloud: 'Dr. Peter Kien. Scholar and librarian.' This new trick on the part of the criminal threw him a little out of his plan. He had recognized the clothes as his own and now he was pretending that the papers were genuine. His situation must indeed seem desperate for him to clutch at so crazy a straw. In cases like this a single surprise question often leads at one stroke to the goal.

'And how much money had you when you left home this morning, Dr. Kien?'

'I am in no position to say. I am not in the habit of counting my money.'

'As long as you haven't got it, no doubt!'

He watched for the effect of this stroke. Even during preliminary examinations, he let it be seen that he knew everything, though he still behaved courteously. The criminal's face fell. His disappointment spoke whole documents. The Inspector decided on an immediate second attack, at a no less vulnerable part of the guilty man, the question of domicile. Unobtrusively, hesitatively and almost dreaming, his left hand slid over the papers — until he had found a certain entry and had covered it over completely. It was the address. High-class criminals can read upside down. So the Inspector took up his last position. Then he held out his right arm, invitingly and imploringly and said, quite by the way:

"Where did you sleep last night?'

'At an hotel — I am uncertain of the name,' replied Kien.

The Inspector lifted his left hand and read: '24 Ehrlich Strasse.'

'That was where they found the body,' explained Kien, and breathed a sigh of relief. At last they were getting to the murder.

'Found, you say? Do you know what we call it here?'

'You are, admittedly, right. If we are to take the matter literally, there was nothing of her left.'

'Take? Let us say straight out, steal!'

Kien started. What was stolen? Not the skirt? On the skirt, and its subsequent destruction by the bloodhound, rested the whole of his defence against the mirage. 'The skirt was found at the scene of the crime!' he asserted in a firm voice.

'The scene of the crime? You recognize what you are admitting?' A confirmatory nod passed through the surrounding police. 'I take you for an educated man. You admit, presumably, that a scene of* a crime presupposes a crime? You are at liberty to withdraw your statement. But it is my duty to call your attention to the unfortunate impression it would make. I am advising you for your own good. You will do better to admit everything. Let's admit everything, my good man! Confess. We know all! Denying will do you no good. You've let the scene of the crime slip out. Admit everything and I'll put in a good word for you! Admit everything in order! We have made our own investigations. How can you hope to escape? You walked into the trap yourself! The scene of the crime presupposes a crime. I take it I am right, gentlemen?'

When he said 'gentlemen' the gentlemen knew that he had victory in the palm of his hand, and overwhelmed him with admiring glances. Each hastened to do better than the other. The man with a memory saw that there was going to be nothing for him, and abandoned Ins old plan. He darted forward, seized the lucky hand of the Inspector and shouted: 'Inspector, permit me to congratulate you!'

The Inspector knew well what an incomparable feat he had just achieved. A modest man, he avoided honours as much as possible. But to-day it was too much for him. Pale and excited he rose to his feet, bowed to left and right, sought for words and at length expressed his deep emotion in a simple phrase: 'Thank you, gentlemen.'

'Moved almost to tears,' thought the happy father; he had a taste for affecting scenes.

Kien was about to speak. He had been challenged to tell the whole story in order. What oetter fortune could he have hoped for? Repeatedly he tried to begin. But the applause interrupted him. He cursed the bowing and scraping of the police, which he thought was directed to him. These people put him off before he could even begin. Their strange behaviour seemed an attempt to influence him. Although he suspected movements behind his back, he would not look round. The whole truth was before him. The mirage may have vanished already. He might describe the whole of his married life with the incontrovertibly dead Thérèse. His position at the trial would be very much ameliorated by this, but he cares little for such amelioration. Rather would he describe the details of her death, with which he had himself been concerned in the most decisive fashion. It was essential to understand the art of interesting even the police; they will listen gladly to anything in their own routine. Murders are the common routine of mankind. Is there anyone who takes no pleasure in murder?

At long last the Inspector sat down again; he forgot what he was sitting on and did not once look round to see how Private Property was arranged. Since he had outwitted the criminal, he hated him less. He thought it best to let him say his fill. His success had altered his whole life. His nose was a normal size. Deep in its pocket lay the mirror, utterly forgotten; it served no purpose. Why do people worry soi Life is elegant. New designs for ties appear daily. You must know how to wear them. Most people look like monkeys in them. He needs no looking-glass. He ties by touch. His success justifies his action. He is unassuming. Often he bows to people. His men respect him. His good reputation makes hard work a pleasure to him. He does not stop at regulations. Regulations are for criminals. He makes them confess spontaneously, for his technique is faultless.

'Hardly had the door closed behind her,' Kien began, 'when I was aware of my good fortune.' He began with a wide sweep, but it was within himself, in the depths of his determined soul. He knew exactly what things in fact led up to the event. Who should know the motives for his crime better than the perpetrator? He saw from alpha to omega, every link of the coil in which he had bound Thérèse. With a certain irony, he set forth the facts for this audience of man — and sensation — hunters. He could have spoken of more interesting things. It was a pity; but they were none of them men of learning. He treated them like men of normal education. Very probably they had not even that. He avoided quotations from the Chinese. They might interrupt him to ask who Mong Tse might be. Fundamentally, it gave him pleasure to speak of simple facts simply, and in a way to be understood by all. In his story were combined the acuteness and the sobriety which he owed to the writers of classical China. While Thérèse died again, his thoughts went back to the library, whence had flowed forth such great services to learning. Soon the flow would be resumed. His acquittal was a foregone conclusion. All the same, he planned a very different appearance before his judges. There he would unfold the ample splendour of his learning. The whole world would listen when probably the greatest sinologist of his time spoke his Defence of Learning. In this place, he spoke more modestly. He falsified nothing, he made no concessions, but he simplified.

'For weeks I left her alone. Convinced that she must die of hunger, I passed night after night at hotels. Bitterly did I miss my library, believe me; I had to content myself with a small substitute library, which, for essential needs, I kept always at hand. The locks on my door are strong — I was not tormented by the fear that burglars might release her. Imagine for yourselves her condition: all provisions are consumed. Enfeebled and full of hatred she lies on the floor, in front of that very desk in which she had so often looked for money. Her only thoughts were of money. In nothing did she resemble a flower. Of the thoughts which came into my head when I sat at that writing desk, at the time when I still shared my dwelling with her, I will not tell you to-day. For weeks I had to live, for fear that she should steal my manuscripts, petrified into a guardian-statue. This was the period or my deepest humiliation. When my head glowed for work, I had to say to myself: you are made of stone, and to remain motionless, I believed it myself. Those of you who have ever had to watch over a treasure, will readily be able to put yourselves in my place. I do not believe in fate; but she hastened towards hers. Instead of me — for by many a secret assault she brought me near to death — she now lay there, devoured by her own mad hunger. She did not know how to help herself. She had not sufficient self-control. She devoured herself. Piece by piece of her body fell a prey to her greed. Day by day she grew thinner. She was too weak to stand, but lay there in her own faith. Perhaps I seem thin to you. Compared to me she was the shadow of a being, pitiful and despicable; had she stood up a breath of wind could have snapped her in two, I verily believe even a child. I cannot particularize further. The blue skirt, which she always wore, covered her skeleton. It was starched, and thanks to this peculiarity held the repulsive remains of her body together. One day she breathed her last. Even this expression appears to me corrupt, for very probably she had no lungs left. No one was with her in her last hour; who could have remained week in, week out, with that skeleton? She was deep in filth. The flesh which she had torn off in strips from her body stank to heaven. Corruption set in before she was dead. All this happened in my library, in the presence of the books. I shall have the place cleaned. She shortened this process by no suicide. There was nothing sacred about her; she was very cruel. She pretended a hypocritical love of books as long as she thought I would make a will in her favour. Day and night she spoke ofthat will. She nursed me to sickness and left me alive only because she was uncertain of the will. I am telling you the plain truth. I have very grave doubts as to whether she could read and write fluently. Believe me, learning has made truth a duty with me. Her origins were obscure. She locked up the flat, she permitted me the use of one room, and even that she took from me. And she came to a bad end. The caretaker broke into the flat. A retired policeman, he was able to achieve what burglars had tried in vain. I regard him as a trustworthy person. He found her in her skirt, a repellent, evil-smelling, hideous skeleton, dead, completely dead, not for one moment did he doubt her death. He called in the neighbours; the joy in the entire block was universal. It was no longer possible to state the precise time when death had occurred; but it had occurred, and it was generally agreed that this was the essential fact. Not less than fifty tenants of the block filed past the body. Not one uttered a doubt; each acquiesced in a fact which could not be recalled.

Cases of apparent, but not actual, death are on record; no scholar would deny this. But I know of no occasion where apparent, but not actual death has been proved in the case of a skeleton. From the remotest times popular superstition has represented ghosts in the form of skeletons. This conception is at once profound and significant; it is also important evidence. Why is a ghost to be feared? Because it is an apparition of the dead, the undeniably dead, the decayed and buried. Would the same apprehensions be experienced if the apparition were to materialize in its old and familiar bodily shape? No! For such a sight would call up no thoughts of death; the living person, nothing else, would stand revealed. But if the ghost takes the form of a skeleton, two things are at once brought to the spectator's mind: the living person as he once was, and the dead, as he now is. The skeleton, as the conception of the ghost, became for countless peoples the symbol of death. The evidence is therefore overwhelming; the skeleton is the most irrecoverably dead of all the forms we know. Ancient burial places suffuse us with a shudder of disgust if they contain skeletons; when they are empty, we hardly think of them as burial places. And if we apply the term 'skeleton' to a living being, we mean no less than that he is near to death.

She, however, was completely dead; all the tenants of the block had convinced themselves of that and a huge disgust at her avaricious end spread among them. They feared her still. She was very dangerous. The only one masterful enough for her, the caretaker, flung her into her coffin. Immediately afterwards he washed his hands, but I greatly fear they will be stained for ever. Nevertheless, I take this occasion publicly to express my thanks to him for his brave deed. He was not afraid to accompany her on her last journey. Out of loyalty to me he called on some of the tenants to assist him in this hateful office. Not one was willing to do so. For these simple and decent pepple the mere sight of her corpse had sufficed to reveal her character. But I had lived for months on end at her side. When the coffin — far too white and glossy — trundled through the streets on a decrepit handcart, everyone guessed what was concealed within it. The few street urchins, whom my faithful servant had engaged to protect the procession from the onslaught of an enraged populace, ran away; trembling with terror and wailing loudly they spread the news through the whole town. There arose in the streets a wild howling. Indignant men left their work, women had hysterics, schools spewed forth their children, thousands streamed together, demanding the right to kill the corpse. Not since the Revolution of 1848 had there been such a riot. Clenched fists, curses, the streets themselves seemed to sob and pant, and from a great chorus of voices came the cry: Death to the corpse! Death to the corpse! I understand it all too well. Humanity is fickle. In general, I do not love it. Yet how gladly at that moment would I have joined with them. The mob brooks no jesting. Fearful is its vengeance — give it the right object and it will act justly. When they tore off the coffin lid they saw not a real corpse, but a repulsive skeleton. At that their frenzy evaporated. No man can harm a skeleton; the mob dispersed. Only a bloodhound would not let go. He sought for flesh, but found none. Enraged, he tore the coffin to the ground and bit the blue skirt into small fragments. These he devoured, without pity, to the last morsel. Thus it is that the skirt no longer exists. You will seek it in vain. So as to lessen your labours, I am informing you of all the details. You must seek out the remains on a rubbish dump outside the town. Bones, wretched bones; I doubt whether you will now be able to distinguish them from other refuse. Perhaps you will be lucky. So vile a beast deserved no honourable grave. Since she is now, on reliable evidence, dead I will not speak ill of her. The blue peril is at an end. Only fools would be afraid of a yellow one. China is the land of all lands, the Holiest Land. We must believe in death! From my earliest childhood I have doubted the existence of the soul. I regard the doctrine of transmigration as a mere impertinence and am ready to cast it in the teeth of any Indian. When they found her, on the floor before the writing desk, she was a skeleton; not a soul.

The police had long grown restive. They were only listening out of deference to the Inspector; he, however, found it difficult to return to the sober business of the interrogation. With the prize of victory already in his experienced hands, he cared nothing for prose. He would have liked to riot among new ties — innumerable patterns, guaranteed pure silk — and choose himself out the most beautiful of all, for he was a man of taste. Every Gents Outfitter knew him. He could wander among the counters for hours; he knew how to look at ties without creasing them. That was why they trusted their goods in his hands. Many would even send them on approval. But he didn't care for that. He could stand in a shop all day conversing with the proprietor. When he entered they left the other customers standing. His profession gave him a fund of interesting stories, and he recounted them. People always liked to listen to that kind of thing. Time, he only wanted time to be a smart fellow. To-morrow he'd take a walk. A pity today wasn't to-morrow. He was expected to listen to every interrogation. On principle he didn't because he knew it all. He'd trapped this one all right; there was no getting round him. His nerves were all to pieces, from too much work. All the same he had a right to feel satisfied. He'd achieved something; and could look forward to a new tie.

The caretaker pricked up his ears. He had not been mistaken in the Professor. He was telling them what kind of a man he was. He wasn't a servant. True; that was right; if he wanted to he could call up all the tenants of all the flats; they'd have come running. He could bellow loud enough for all the town to hear. He didn't know what fear was; he was a policeman. He could break into any flat. Not a lock would hold him up; he could smash the door in; with one fist. He didn't wear out shoe-leather; he didn't need to kick. Others would start kicking right away. He had strength — at his fingers' ends.

Thérèse kept close by Kien. Painstakingly she swallowed each one of his words. Under her skirt she described a circle first with one foot then with the other, without moving from her place. Such meaningless movements, with her, indicated fear. She was afraid of this man. For eight years she had lived with him in the flat. From moment to moment he grew more like a murderer. Earlier, he never used to utter a word. Now he talked nothing but murders. A dangerous man ! When he spoke of the skeleton before the writing desk, she said quickly to herself: he means his first wife. She too had wanted a will; she was a sensible woman, but the cowardly creature grudged every penny. The skirt was an insult. Do bloodhounds eat skirts? He'd murder anyone. The more you beat him the better he was, but he didn't get enough of it. Thinking up stories! He gave her the three rooms all on his own. What should she want with manuscripts? She wants his bankbook. The books smell of corpses? That was the first she'd heard of it. Eight years, day in, day out, she dusted those books. People screamed at the coffin in the streets. The very idea, screaming at a corpse. First he married for love, then he did you in. Hanging was too good for him. She wouldn't do anyone in. She didn't marry for love either. Let him try coming back to her at the flat ! She was afraid. He thinks of money because he grudges every penny. It's not true about the blue skirt. He's doing it to annoy her. There won't be any more murders. The police are here. She could cry with rage. The creature thinks women are just animals. He has her on his conscience. From six to seven he was all alone. That was when he did his murders. He'd better leave the writing desk alone. Had she found anything in it? The caretaker is such a masterful man. She wants a beautiful hearse. A coffin must be black. Horses go with it.

Quicker and quicker came Therese's fears. Sometimes he had murdered his first wife, sometimes he had murdered her. She thought the skirt away from the corpse; the skirt confused her more than anything; she was sorry for the first wife, because he'd treated her skirt so badly. She was ashamed of the wretched funeral. She hated the bloodhound. People have no manners and school children don't get the cane often enough. Men ought to work more and woman can't cook these days. She could give them a piece of her mind. What's it got to do with the tenants? They all come and peep.

She devoured his words: a starving man with a piece of bread. She listened so as not to be afraid. In a twinkling she fitted her own ideas to his sentences. So much thinking made her giddy. She wasn't used to such haste. She'd be proud of her cleverness, if she weren't half dead with fear. Ten times she nearly spoke out and said what he was: her fear of his thoughts forced her to remain silent. She tried to guess what was coming next: he took her by surprise. He was strangling her. She defended herself, she wasn't such a fool, was she, to wait till he'd choked the breath out of her? No, she'd got plenty of time; not till she was eighty she wouldn't die, in fifty years' time. Not before, Mr. Brute wanted it that way.

With a magniloquent gesture Kien concluded die peroration. He flung his arm aloft, a flagstaff without a flag. His body stretched itself, his joints jingled; sharp and clear he gathered his voice for the finale: 'Long live death!'

At this cry the Inspector woke up. Unwillingly he pushed the ties to one side, a whole trayful; he had selected the best. When would he find time to hoard them? He let them vanish, for happier hours.

'My friend,' he said, 'if I understand you rightly, you have got to death already. Would you mind repeating your story?'

The policemen nudged each other. He was in one of his moods. Thérèse s foot overstepped her circle. She must say something. The man with a memory saw his goal in sight. Not one word had he forgotten. He intended to repeat the whole story in place of the accused. 'He's tired already,' he said and shrugged a contemptuous shoulder at Kien, TU tell you quicker!' Thérèse burst out: 'I ask you, he's murdering me.' In her fear, she spoke low. Kien heard her; he disallowed her. He would not turn round. Never! for what purpose? She was dead. Thérèse shouted: 'I ask you, I'm afraid!' The man with a memory, annoyed at the interruption, challenged her: 'What's biting you?' The father spoke soothingly: 'Nature has created women the weaker sex,' a motto he had derived from his son's last German composition. The Inspector drew out his mirror, gaped at himself and sighed: 'I'm tired too.' His nose eluded him; nothing interested him any longer. Thérèse screamed: 'I ask you, he must be put away!' Once again Kien resisted her voice; he would not turn round. But he groaned loud. The caretaker was sick of all the fuss. 'Professor!' he bellowed from behind, 'It's not so bad. We're all still alive. And no bones broken!' He couldn't relish death. That's how he was. With ponderous steps he strode forward. He intervened.

The Professor was a clever man. He had got it all out of those books. He knew how to string sentences. A famous man and a heart of gold, what's more; but don't you believe a word he says. He's got no murder on no conscience. Where would he have the strength for it? He only says it because his wife's not up to him. Things like that are in books. He knows everything. He's frightened of a darning needle. His wife had soured him. She s a wicked old soul, the filthy bitch. She'd go with anyone. Fall on her back before you can say knife. He'll take his oath on it. The Professor hadn't been gone a week when she seduced him. He was a policeman, a caretaker as well, and retired. Name: Benedikt Pfaff. As long as he can remember, his house has been No. 24 Ehrlich Strasse. As for stealing, that woman had better shut her trap. The Professor married her out of pity, because she was the maid. Another man would have bashed her head in. Her mother died in the gutter. She'd been cautioned for begging. She hadn't a crust to her name. He knows because her daughter said so. Told him in bed. Talks enough for fifty. The Professor is innocent, as true as he's a retired policeman. He'll take it on himself. An organ of the law can take responsibility. At home in his little lodge he's got a real police station; his colleagues would be surprised: canaries and a peep-hole. Everyone ought to work; those who don't work come on the rates.

Astounded, they listened. His bellowing penetrated every brain. Even the proud father understood him. This was his own language, however much he admired his son's German composition. In the Inspector, too, the ashes of interest were rekindled. He conceded that the redhead might once have been in the police. No ordinary man would have stood forth, loud-voiced and unabashed, in this place. Again and again Thérèse sought to protest. Her words sounded feeble. She glided now to the left, now to the right, until she managed to lay hold of Kien's jacket. She tugged at it; he must turn round; he must tell them, was she a maid, or a housekeeper? She sought his help, she relied on him to indemnify her for her other man's abuse. He'd married her for love. Where was his love now? He may be a murderer, but at least he can speak. She won't be a maid. Thirty-four years she'd been a housekeeper. For a whole year she's been a respectable housewife. He must say something! He must be quick! Or she'll tell them his secret between six and seven!

Privately she had determined to tell on him, as soon as he had paid her her due, his love. He was the only one who heard her words. Against the colossal din, he heard her voice behind him, low, but as ever indignant. He felt her horny hand on his coat. Cautiously, he hardly knew how, he drew in his backbone, twisted and turned his shoulders, slipped out of the sleeves, tweaked them softly down with his fingers and suddenly, after one last jerk, stood there without either his coat or Thérèse. Now he felt her no longer. If she clutched at his waistcoat he would do the same. In his thoughts he named neither Thérèse nor her mirage. He avoided her name and avoided the vision of her; but he knew what he was defending himself against.

When the caretaker decided it was time to get a move on and affectionately took the Professor by the arm, he shook his head and clutched with astonishing strength at the table. They sought to disengage him, but the table came too. Then Benedikt Pfaff bellowed at Thcrese: 'Clear out, you filthy bitch! He can't relish that woman!' he added, turning to his colleagues. The father seized Thérèse, and pushed her out amid a shower of jokes. She was furious and whispered: ater on he shouldn't give her a moment's rest. On the threshold she gathered what remained of her voice and shouted: 'A murder's nothing, I suppose! A murder's nothing!' Someone fetched her one on the mouth and she glided home at top speed. She would let in no murderer. Quickly she bolted the door, two bolts below, two bolts above, two in the middle; then she looked carefully to see if there were any burglars. 

But ten policemen could not dislodge the Professor. 'She's gone,' the caretaker encouraged him, and tipped his square head in the direction of the door. Kien said nothing. The Inspector looked hard at his fingers. They were insistent; they were moving his table. If this went on he would soon be in an empty room. He stood up; his cushion had been moved too. 'Gentlemen! he said,'this won't do!' Around dozen policemen surrounded Kien and persuaded him kindly to let go of the table. 'The saints help those who help themselves, one told him. The father promised him to drive all the bees out of his wife's bonnet that very night. 'You should only marry better-class people!' the man with a memory reassured him. He himself was only going to marry a wife with money, which was why he had none yet. The Inspector directed operations and thought: what do I get out of it? He yawned, and despised them all. 'Don t put me to shame, Professor!' bellowed Benedikt Pfaff, 'Come nice and quiet! We're going home now!' Kien stood firm.

But the Inspector had had enough of it. He commanded 'Out with him!' The twelve, until this moment merely persuasive, hurled themselves on the table and shook Kien off it, like a withered leaf. He did not fall. He remained alert. He would not be defeated. Instead of uttering useless words he pulled out his handkerchief and himself fastened it over his eyes. He drew the knots tight, until it hurt. His friend guided him by the arm, out into the street.

As soon as the doors had closed, the man with the memory laid a finger on his forehead and asserted: 'The real criminal was the fourth!' The sub-station decided from now on to keep a sharp eye on the lift-attendant of the Theresianum.

In the street the caretaker offered the Professor the hospitality of his little room. In his flat he might suffer annoyance; why expose himself to wrangling? He needed rest. 'Yes,' said Kien, 'I do not like the smell.' He would avail himself of the caretaker's offer until the flat had been cleaned.