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

illusion that had risen from hell and had now been banished.
    I breathed again in liberation and relief. I had not given in, but had fought back. The inexplicable power that had weighed down on me had been broken. Inside me and all round me everything had changed, and I had returned to the world of reality.
    I looked up and saw Felix towering over me. The same obstinate hostility was still on his lips. He seemed determined not to be deprived of his victory, and he turned and angrily faced the engineer as if he were a new and dangerous enemy. He glared at him irritably from beneath knitted brows as if ready to assault him, and he raised his bandaged hand in a gesture of furious surprise that failed to intimidate the engineer.
    "Calm yourself, Felix," said he. "I know exactly what I'm saying. I have considered it very carefully, and have come to the conclusion that the baron is innocent. You have done him a grave wrong, and all I ask is that you should listen to me, that's all."
    The assurance with which he spoke had a calming effect on my nerves. I had, a feeling of liberation, the nightmare that had oppressed me a moment before had been dissipated. The idea that I had been seriously accused of murder now struck me as fantastic and absurd. Now that broad daylight, the light of reality, had begun to illuminate things, what I felt was merely a kind of tension that might be felt by an uninvolved spectator. All I felt was curiosity. How would it all turn out, I wondered. Who drove Eugen Bischoff to his death? Who is the guilty party? And by what strange concatenation of circumstances did that silent witness, my pipe, arrive in the room and end up on the table? At whom did it point the finger of suspicion?
    That was what I wanted to know, that was what I had to find out, and I kept my eyes on the engineer, as if he knew the way out of this maze of unsolved riddles.
    I don't know what was uppermost in my enemy's mind at that moment. Anger? Impatience? Irritation? Indignation or disappointment? Whatever it was, he managed to hide it. His face and manner expressed the same courtesy and cordiality as before, and the angry movement of his hand turned into a moderate, challenging gesture.
    "You intrigue me, Waldemar," he said. "Let us hear what you have to say. But you'll be brief, won't you, because I think I can hear the police commission car."
    Sure enough, there was honking outside in the street, but the engineer took no notice, and when he began speaking I remembered for a brief moment that my honour and my life were at stake. But the feeling of calm and confidence and complete non-involvement promptly returned, together with the conviction that the whole thing would turn out to have its natural explanation. It had become inconceivable to me that this dreadful suspicion could stick to me.
    "When the shots rang out, Baron von Yosch was up in the house, wasn't he?" the engineer said. "Did you know that? He was on the terrace, talking to your sister. That must be our starting point."
    "That may well be," Felix said in the tone in which one discusses trivialities. He was still listening to what was going on outside, but the honking had faded into the distance.
    "It is an important point which we must bear in mind," the engineer went on, "for I have reason to believe that Eugen Bischoff's unknown visitor was still in the room here when the two shots were fired."
    "Two shots? I heard only one."
    "There were two. I haven't examined the revolver yet, but you will find that I am right."
    He went over to the wall and pointed to the pale blue flowers and leaves and scrollwork of the pattern of the wallpaper.
    "That's where the bullet went in," he said. "He tried to defend himself, Felix. He fired at his adversary and then turned the weapon against himself. That is what happened. At the critical moment the baron was up on the terrace. When we look for the unknown visitor he won't come into it, that's certain."
    Dr Gorski bent over to the hole in