Muller tried to raise the flag and was astonished to find how easily it came up.  It was a square of reddish marble, the same with which the entire floor of the church was tiled.  This flag was very thin and could easily be raised and placed back against the wall.  Muller took up his candle, too greatly excited to stop to get a stick for it.  He felt assured that now he would soon be able to solve at least a part of the mystery.  He climbed down the steps carefully and found that they led into the crypt as he supposed.  They were kept spotlessly clean, as was the entire crypt as far as he could see it by the light of his flickering candle.  He was not surprised to discover that the air was perfectly pure here.  There must be windows or ventilators somewhere, this he knew from the way his candle behaved.

The ancient vault had a high arched ceiling and heavy massive pillars.  It was a subterranean repetition of the church above.  There had evidently been a convent attached to this church at one time; for here stood a row of simple wooden coffins all exactly alike, bearing each one upon its lid a roughly painted cross surrounded by a wreath.  Thus were buried the monks of days long past.

Muller walked slowly through the rows of coffins looking eagerly to each side.  Suddenly he stopped and stood still.  His hand did not tremble but his thin face was pale—­pale as that face which looked up at him out of one of the coffins.  The lid of the coffin stood up against the wall and Muller saw that there were several other empty ones further on, waiting for their silent occupants.

The body in the open coffin before which Muller stood was the body of the man who had been missing since the day previous.  He lay there quite peacefully, his hands crossed over his breast, his eyes closed, a line of pain about his lips.  In the crossed fingers was a little bunch of dark yellow roses.  At the first glance one might almost have thought that loving hands had laid the old pastor in his coffin.  But the red stain on the white cloth about his throat, and the bloody disorder of his snow-white hair contrasted sadly with the look of peace on the dead face.  Under his head was a white silk cushion, one of the cushions from the altar.

Muller stood looking down for some time at this poor victim of a strange crime, then he turned to go.

He wanted to know one thing more:  how the murderer had left the crypt.  The flame of his candle told him, for it nearly went out in a gust of wind that came down the opening right above him.  This was a window about three or four feet from the floor, protected by rusty iron bars which had been sawed through, leaving the opening free.  It was a small window, but it was large enough to allow a man of much greater size than Muller to pass through it.  The detective blew out his candle and climbed up onto the window sill.  He found himself outside, in a corner of the churchyard.  A thicket of heavy bushes grown up over neglected graves completely hid the opening through which he had come.  There were thorns on these bushes and also a few scattered roses, dark yellow roses.