Muller smiled.  “I have heard it said that your romantic Hungarian bandits will often be satisfied with the small booty they may find in the pocket or on the person of their victim.”

“You are right, Mr. Muller.  But that is only when they can find nothing else.”

“Or perhaps if it is a case of revenge.

“It cannot be revenge in this case!”

“The pastor was greatly loved?”

“He was loved and revered.”

“By every one?”

“By every one!” the four men answered at once.

Muller was still a while.  His eyes were veiled and his face thoughtful.  Finally he raised his head.  “There has been nothing moved or changed in this room?”

“No—­neither here nor anywhere else in the house or the church,” answered the local magistrate.

“That is good.  Now I would like to question the servants.”

Muller had already started for the door, then he turned back into the room and pointing toward the second door he asked:  “Is that door locked?”

“Yes,” answered the Count.  “I found it locked when I examined it myself a short time ago.”

“It was locked on the inside?”

“Yes, locked on the inside.”

“Very well.  Then we have nothing more to do here for the time being.  Let us go back into the dining-room.”

The men returned to the dining-room, Muller last, for he stopped to lock the door of the study and put the key in his pocket.  Then he began his examination of the servants.

The old housekeeper, who, as usual, was the first to rise in the household, had also, as usual, rung the bell to waken the other servants.  Then when Liska came downstairs she had sent her up to the pastor’s room.  His bedroom was to the right of the dining-room.  Liska had, as usual, knocked on the door exactly at seven o’clock and continued knocking for some few minutes without receiving any answer.  Slightly alarmed, the girl had gone back and told the housekeeper that the pastor did not answer.

Then the old woman asked the coachman to go up and see if anything was the matter with the reverend gentleman.  The man returned in a few moments, pale and trembling in every limb and apparently struck dumb by fright.  He motioned the women to follow him, and all three crept up the stairs.  The coachman led them first to the pastor’s bed, which was untouched, and then to the pool of blood in his study.  The sight of the latter frightened the servants so much that they did not notice at first that there was no sign of the pastor himself, whom they now knew must have been murdered.  When they finally came to themselves sufficiently to take some action, the man hurried off to call the magistrate, and Liska ran to the asylum to fetch the old doctor; the pastor’s intimate friend.  The aged housekeeper, trembling in fear, crept back to her own room and sat there waiting the return of the others.