Muller walked thoughtfully through the churchyard.  The sexton sat huddled in an unhappy heap at the gate.  He looked up in alarm as he saw the detective walking towards him.  Something in the stranger’s face told the little hunchback that he had made a discovery.  The sexton sprang up, his lips did not dare utter the question that his eyes asked.

“I have found him,” said the detective gravely.

The hunchback sexton staggered, then recovered himself, and hurried away to fetch the magistrate and the doctor.

An hour later the murdered pastor lay in state in the chief apartment of his home, surrounded by burning candles and high-heaped masses of flowers.  But he still lay in the simple convent coffin and the little bunch of roses which his murderer had placed between his stiffening fingers had not been touched.

Two days later the pastor was buried.  The Count and his family led the train of numerous mourners and among the last was Muller.

A day or two after the funeral the detective sauntered slowly through the main street of the village.  He was not in a very good humour, his answer to the greeting of those who passed him was short.  The children avoided him, for with the keenness of their kind they recognised the fact that this usually gentle little man was not in possession of his habitual calm temper.  One group of boys, playing with a top, did not notice his coming and Muller stopped behind them to look on.  Suddenly a sharp whistle was heard and the boys looked up from their play, surprised at seeing the stranger behind them.  His eyes were gleaming, and his cheeks were flushed, and a few bars of a merry tune came in a keen whistle from his lips as he watched the spirals made by the spinning top.

Before the boys could stop their play the detective had left the group and hastened onward to the little shop.  He left it again in eager haste after having made his purchase, and hurried back to the rectory.  The shop-keeper stood in the doorway looking in surprise at this grown man who came to buy a top.  And at home in the rectory the old housekeeper listened in equal surprise to the humming noise over her head.  She thought at first it might be a bee that had got in somehow.  Then she realised that it was not quite the same noise, and having already concluded that it was of no use to be surprised at anything this strange guest might do, she continued reading her scriptures.

Upstairs in the pastor’s study, Muller sat in the armchair attentively watching the gyrations of a spinning top.  The little toy, started at a certain point, drew a line exactly parallel to the scratch on the floor that had excited his thoughts and absorbed them day and night.

“It was a top—­a top” repeated the detective to himself again and again.  “I don’t see why I didn’t think of that right away.  Why, of course, nothing else could have drawn such a perfect curve around the room, unhindered by the legs of the desk.  Only I don’t see how a toy like that could have any connection with this cruel and purposeless murder.  Why, only a fool—­or a madman—­”