Read Online The Master of the Day of Judgment by Leo Perutz - Free Book Online

here it is."
    He had a shiny, reddish-brown object in his bandaged hand. I went nearer, not recognising it at once, and then, horror- stricken, I felt in my jacket pocket for my small English pipe which I always had with me. The pocket was empty.
    "It was on the table," Felix went on. "It was there when Dr Gorski and I came in. Look out, doctor!"
    Everything started going round and round. Inside me it was dark. It rose in my mind like a long-forgotten memory, as if it had happened years ago. I saw myself walking through the garden, along the gravel path, past the fuchsia beds. Where did the path lead? What did I want in the pavilion? The door creaked when I opened it. How pale Eugen Bischoff went at the first words I whispered, how he looked at the newspaper in dismay and leapt to his feet and then sank back again. And the frightened look that followed me as I left the pavilion and carefully closed the creaking door behind me. There was light on the terrace — that was Dina — I must go up to her — but then — a cry — a shot — down below there was death, and I had summoned it.
    "Look out, doctor, he's falling."
    No, I was not. I shut my eyes and sat in the armchair.
    "It's your pipe, isn't it?"
    I nodded. He slowly lowered his white-bandaged hand.
    I rose to my feet.
    "You want to go, baron?" Felix said. "Well, yes, the matter's settled, and I mustn't take any more of your time. A word of honour, an officer's word of honour, is not one of the things on which we differ and, as we are hardly likely to meet again, I just want to tell you that basically I have never felt hostility to you — never, not even today. I have always had a certain feeling for you, baron. In a strange way I have always felt attracted to you. Liking? No, that would not be the right word. It was more than that — I really am my sister's brother. You are entitled to ask why in spite of such feelings I have put you in a situation in which, as matters stand at present, there is only one way out for you. Well, one can gaze in fascination at a wild cat or a pine-marten, one can be captivated by the grace of the creature's posture and movements and the boldness of its leaps, and yet shoot it down in cold blood because it is a beast of prey. It remains for me to assure you that you are under no obligation whatever to carry out in the next twenty-four hours the decision that you have no doubt already made. I shall in no circumstances inform the court of honour of your regiment of this business, should that step turn out to be necessary, before the end of the week. That is the only thing I still wanted to tell you."
     
     
    I heard all this, but my mind was on the dark muzzle of the revolver that lay on the table. I saw it with two big round eyes staring into my own, coming closer and closer and getting bigger and bigger and swallowing up the whole room, and I could see nothing else at all.
    Suddenly I heard the engineer's voice. "You are doing the baron a grave wrong," he said. "He had as little to do with the murder as you or I had."

EIGHT
    I have only an indistinct memory of the moment when my head cleared again. I heard myself sighing deeply; it was the first sound that broke the silence of the room. Then I became aware of a slight gnawing sensation in my head. It was not really painful, and the discomfort soon went away.
    The first feeling I can describe was one of amazement. What had I landed myself in? What was it, what madness had seized me and held me in its grip? Then a feeling of depression took over.
    How is it possible, I asked myself in astonishment and alarm. I had seen myself walking into this room, heard myself whispering words I never spoke. I myself believed in my own guilt. How can that be possible? A hallucination, a waking dream had led me astray. A strange will had tried to force me to confess a crime I did not commit. No, I had not been here, I did not talk to Eugen Bischoff, I am not a murderer. All that had been dream and