Chapter 9 Chapter nine

Mr. Stapler detoured north of the city, and the detectives, in teams of two, made their way through the city center.Captain Haralan and I walked to the end of the Ottierne Street and continued along the banks of the Danube. It was gloomy.Great gray clouds were pouring down the valley from the east.With the cold wind blowing, the boat split the yellowed river and drove forward rapidly.Pairs of storks and storks screeched in the wind.Although it hasn't rained yet, there are clouds and fog in the sky, and a storm is brewing. During this time, except for the crowded business district, pedestrians in other urban areas are relatively rare.But if the Chief of Police and his men are with us, the target is too obvious, so after leaving City Hall, it's best to split up.

Along the way, Captain Haralan remained silent.I was always afraid that if he ran into William Storitz he would lose control of himself and be violent.I almost regret that Mr. Stapler asked us to go together. A quarter of an hour later we came to the end of the Batiani Embankment, where the Rötlichs lived. The windows on the ground floor were still closed, and the rooms of Mrs. Rothlich and Myra were even more so.Compared with the hustle and bustle of the previous night, how bleak is the scene in front of me! The captain sighed deeply, made an indignant gesture, and remained silent. We turned the corner, took the sidewalk on the right, climbed up the Deckelier Street, and stopped a hundred paces from Storitz's house.On the opposite side was a person walking leisurely with his hands in his pockets.

That was the Chief of Police.Captain Haralan and I went up to meet him as agreed in advance. A few moments later, six plainclothes detectives arrived.Mr. Staplek ordered them to form a line at the fence. A locksmith came with them, and if the master was not at home, or refused to open the door, we asked the locksmith to do his magic. The windows were closed as usual.The windows of the landing were curtained from the inside, obscuring everything within. "There's probably no one in the house," I said to Mr. Stapler. "We'll find out in a minute," he raged. "I'd be surprised that the house is empty. . . . Look to your left, that wisp of smoke is coming out of the chimney!"

Sure enough, green smoke coiled around the top of the chimney. "If the master isn't there," Mr. Staplek went on, "the servant may be at home . . . whoever he is if he can open the door." From my side, because of the presence of Captain Haralan, I would prefer that the master is not at home, and even hope that he has already left the city of Raz. The Chief of Police struck the knocking hammer on the gate. We waited for someone to come out, for the door inside to open. A minute passed and no one came out.Knock again... still no one comes out. "The people in there are deaf!" muttered Mr. Storitz, and then he turned to the locksmith:

"Open the door," he ordered. The locksmith selected a skeleton key from a large bunch of keys, and as soon as the deadbolt was inserted into the crosshead, the door opened instantly. Two detectives stood outside the door, and the Chief of Police, Captain Haralan, myself, and four other detectives entered the courtyard. At the end of the yard, three steps led to the gate, which was shut as tightly as the gate of the gate. Mr. Stapler tapped twice with his cane. No reply.There was no sound in the house. The locksmith ran up the steps and inserted a key into the lock.If William Storitz had spotted the police and tried to keep them out, the door might have had several locks on it, and it might have been bolted on the inside.

However that didn't happen and the lock came loose and the door opened. The police search went unnoticed.Occasionally only two or three pedestrians stopped.On such a foggy morning, relatively few people came out for a walk on Dai Kaili Street. "Get in!" ordered Mr. Stapley. Light came in from the iron-barred lintel above the first door and from the glass door at the end of the corridor leading to the rear garden, illuminating the corridor. The chief of police took a few steps and shouted: "Hi! . . . Is anyone there?" No one answered, called again, still no answer.The house was silent, but it seemed that someone had slipped into the next room.

Mr. Staplek walked to the end of the corridor, and I followed, with Captain Haralan walking behind me. A police detective stood guard on the steps of the courtyard. Through the open door, you can see the whole garden.It is surrounded by walls and covers an area of ​​about two or three hundred yards.The lawn in the middle has not been mowed for a long time, overgrown with weeds, and it is a withered, yellow and decaying scene.There are five or six trees planted beside the high wall, and the tops of the trees are higher than the dilapidated wind and fire wall. Everything presents a disorganized and uninhabited desolation.

The gardens had been searched carefully, and no trace of human beings had been found, although there were recent footprints on the path. The shutters outside the side windows were all closed except for the last one on the second floor, to let light in to illuminate the staircase. "The people in the house should be back soon," speculated the chief of police, "because the door is simply locked...unless they get wind of it first." "You think they know about this police operation?" I asked. "No, I'd rather believe they'll be back any minute!"

But Mr. Stapler disagreed and shook his head. "Besides," I added, "the smoke in the chimney proves that..." "Proves that there is a fire somewhere... we are going to find the source of the fire," replied the Chief of Police. As a result of the search, it was found that the garden was as deserted as the courtyard, and that most of the people in the house were probably hidden in the garden. Mr. Staplek called us into the house, and the corridor door was closed behind us. This corridor leads to four rooms.Next to the garden is the kitchen and another compartment that is actually a staircase from which it is possible to ascend to the second floor and the attic.

The search begins with the kitchen.A detective opened the window and pushed back the shutter, which had a narrow diamond-shaped slit that didn't let in too much light. The kitchen was poorly furnished: a cast-iron stove with its pipes concealed under the slope of a huge fireplace.A cupboard stood on each side, and a tablecloth was spread on the table in the middle.Two straw-wrapped chairs, two wooden stools, various kitchen utensils are hung on the wall, and a clock is hung in the corner, ticking away, and the rusty swing of the clock shows that it was fully wound up the day before. Several coals were burning in the stove, and the smoke seen outside was rising from here.

"This is the kitchen," I said, "but where's the cook?" "Is there a master?" Captain Haralan continued to ask. "Keep searching," Mr. Staplek replied. The other two rooms on the ground floor facing the courtyard were also searched.One of them was the living room, with some old furniture and old German carpets on the floor, which were dilapidated in several places.On the mantel-shelf with its rough iron frame stood a rococo-style clock.On the wall facing the palace hangs a portrait in an oval frame with "Odo Storitz" written in red letters on the frame. We stared at this oil painting. The brushes are powerful and the colors are bright. Although it is signed by an unknown artist, it is indeed a masterpiece. Captain Haralan couldn't take his eyes off the portrait. Otto Storitz's face made a deep impression on me.Shake my soul?Or am I unknowingly being influenced by my environment?In this deserted living room, the scholar seemed to me like a ghost, like those mysterious and strange characters in Hoffman's novels!His head was huge, his white hair was disheveled, his forehead was broad, his eyes were piercing, and his lips trembled slightly.In my eyes, the person in the painting seems to be resurrected. He is about to step off the frame and roar with a voice from another world: "What are you doing here... Get out!" The shutters in the living room were closed, and light filtered in through the slits.There is no need to open the window, and perhaps it is the semi-darkness of the living room that makes the portrait so eccentric and impressive to us? To the surprise of the Chief of Police, he discovered that Otto and William Stolitz looked very much alike. "If it weren't for the difference in age," he said to me, "this painting could be of Lao Tzu or of his son—same eyes, same forehead, same head on broad shoulders, same vicious It looks like... people will throw them both out as devils..." "Yeah," I said, "it's a real resemblance!" Captain Haralan stood motionless in front of the oil painting, the soles of his feet seemed to have taken root, as if Storitz himself was standing in front of him. "Are you coming, Captain?" I asked him. He turned and followed us. We left the living room, walked down the corridor, and went into the next room.This is a studio, and it's cluttered.The white wooden bookshelves are full of books, most of which are not bound, mainly works on mathematics, chemistry, and physics.There are a lot of tools piled up in one corner, including some instruments, machinery, short-necked jars, a portable stove, a dry battery, coils, an electric radiation energy source, which can generate high temperatures of four or five degrees, and several curved necks. Retorts and stills, as well as samples of various metals, collectively known as "rare earth", a gas storage tank, which can be used to fill gas lamps hanging on the wall.In the middle of the room there was a table, covered with a mess of papers and office supplies, and three or four volumes of the complete works of Otto Storitz, the chapter on the study of optics was opening. A search of the studio has not yielded us any useful leads.As we were leaving, Mr. Staplek suddenly discovered on the fireplace a strangely shaped small blue glass bottle, with a label attached to it, the cork inserted into the neck, and the openings around it blocked up with cotton. Whether it was curiosity or police instinct, Mr. Stapler reached out for the vial so that he could examine it more closely.But he probably missed it because he was about to grab the bottle that was sitting on the edge of the countertop when the glass bottle fell to the floor and shattered. A light yellow liquid immediately overflowed and evaporated into a gas, exuding a strange, indescribable smell, very faint, pervading the whole room. "My God," sighed Mr. Stapley, "what a time..." "The bottle probably contains some kind of substance invented by Otto Storitz," I said. "His son must have the recipe, and he can reconstitute it!" replied Mr. Staplek. He goes to the door: "Up to the second floor," he said. Before leaving the first floor, he ordered two policemen to stand guard in the corridor. Across the kitchen was a stairwell with wooden banisters, and we climbed the stairs with a crunching sound under our feet. There were two adjoining rooms on the landing, and the doors were unlocked, accessible only by turning the handle. The one above the living room was supposed to be William Storitz's bedroom.There was an iron bed, a bedside table, an oak chest, a washstand with brass legs, a divan, a coarse velvet armchair, and two chairs.There was no gauze curtain on the bed, and no curtains on the windows—it could be seen that the furnishings in the room were extremely simple, and they were all necessities of life.There were no papers on the fireplace or on the little round table in the corner.At this hour of the morning, the quilt on the bed was very disheveled, and it could be seen that someone had slept in the night before, so we can only guess. Mr. Staplek went to the wash-stand and found the basin full of water with soap bubbles floating on the surface. "If someone had washed their face with water 24 hours ago, the suds would have disappeared ... So I can be sure that the person we are looking for washed himself here this morning before going out," he said. "It's also possible he's back," I went on, "unless he finds the police in the house..." "If he finds my men, my men will find him, and they will be ordered to bring him to me. But I don't expect to be able to catch him!" At this time, there seemed to be movement outside the house. It seemed that someone was walking on the wooden boards, and the decayed wooden boards made creaking sounds.The sound came from the room above the studio. There is a door between the bedroom and the next room, so that you don't have to go around the landing of the stairs to get in. Captain Haralan was ahead of the chief, rushed to the door, and slammed it open. Empty, empty! The sound may have come from the roof, in the attic leading to the terrace. This room was even more modestly furnished than the first: a canvas hammock, flattened mattress, large balled-up sheet, wool quilt, two mismatched chairs, a jug on the fireplace, a There was an enamelled wash-basin, there was not a speck of ash in the hearth, some pea coats hung on the coat rack, a wardrobe, which was really an oak chest, which served as both a wardrobe and a chest of drawers, in which Mr. A lot of laundry. This room was obviously occupied by the servant Hailemen.The police chief learned from the reports of his subordinates that the master's bedroom window was occasionally opened for ventilation, and that the servant's room also faced the courtyard, but the windows were always tightly closed.Look at the hard-to-turn latches of the windows, and the rusty hinges of the shutters. In short, in the whole house: the room mentioned above, the attic, the terrace, and the wine cellar under the kitchen, no one was found hiding in it. Obviously, the master and servant have already left, and they probably don't plan to come back. "Do you still think that William Storitz had no prior knowledge of this search?" I asked Mr. Stapler. "Yes...unless he's hiding in my office, Mr. Vidal, or in the Governor's mansion while I'm discussing the matter with the Governor." "He may have spotted us when we came to De Carey Street..." "Even so...but how did they slip out?" "From the field behind the house..." "The garden wall is very high, and there is still a moat outside, so it is not easy to climb over..." The chief of police thought they were out of the house before we came. We left this room, climbed the steps, turned a corner, and soon reached the third floor. On the third floor, there is only an attic surrounded by two gabled walls, and the light comes in through the narrow transom on the top. We took a quick look, but there was no one inside. There is a very steep ladder in the middle of the attic, and there is a flap valve on the top of which is a counterweight switch. Open it, walk up, and you will reach the platform on the roof. "The flap is open," I said to Mr. Staplek, who had just put his foot on the ladder. "Mr. Vidal, in fact, a draft came in from the trap door, so we heard the sound... It's very windy today! The weather beacon on the roof creaked and turned!" "But," I retorted, "it sounded like footsteps..." "Since there is no one there, there is no sound of footsteps." "Unless it's up there . . . Mr. Stapley?" "In that little place? . . . No, like everywhere else, there must be no one." Captain Haralan listened to the conversation between the director and me, pointed to the platform, and said simply: "Go up." Grabbing a thick rope dangling from the floor, Mr. Staplek was the first to climb up the ladder.Then the captain, me.Three people were enough to fill the narrow lantern-like skylight. In fact, the top is just a pigeon cage eight feet square and ten feet high.It was dark inside, despite the pane of glass over the beam.Because thick woolen curtains shut the windows as well as we can see from the outside.With the curtains drawn, a piece of sunlight streams in through the glass windows. From the surroundings of the platform, one can overlook the horizon surrounding the entire city of Raz.The view was wider than from the terrace of the Rothlich house, but not as good as the tower of St. Michael and the castle tower.I saw the Danube at the end of the boulevard again, stepping on the bell tower of the city hall, the spire of the cathedral, and the main castle of Volgang on the top of the city. grassland. I have to tell everyone quickly that the platform is the same as inside the house, and there is no one to be found!Mr. Staplek had to give up; the police search ended in vain, and Storitz's house remained a mystery. I originally thought that this platform was used for astronomical observation, and there would be some instruments on it for studying the starry sky.But I was wrong, there was only a table and a wooden chair on the platform. There were several sheets of paper on the table, including a newspaper with an article I had read on the anniversary of the birth of Otto Stolitz. This place may be the place where William Storitz came to rest after leaving the studio, or rather the laboratory.At any rate, he had read the article and crossed it in a red pencil, apparently in his own handwriting. Suddenly there was a loud exclamation, mixed with surprise and anger. Captain Haralan found a cardboard box on a shelf fastened to a pillar, opened it... What did he take out of it? The bride's wedding wreath, the one that was stolen from the Rothlichs at the engagement party!