“Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t want to leave him in that horrid pool of blood.”

“You were sorry for him then?”

“Why, yes; it looked so horrid to see him lying there—­and he had always been so good to me.  He was so good to me that very evening when I entered his study.

“He recognised you?

“Certainly.  He sprang up from his chair when I came in through the passage from the church.  I saw that he was startled, but he smiled at me and reached out his hand to me and said:  ’What brings you here, my dear Cardillac?’ And then I struck.  I wanted him to die with that smile on his lips.  It is beautiful to see a man die smiling, it shows that he has not been afraid of death.  He was dead at once.  I always kill that way—­I know just how to strike and where.  I killed more than a hundred people years ago in Paris, and I didn’t leave one of them the time for even a sigh.  I was renowned for that—­I had a kind heart and a sure hand.”

Muller interrupted the dreadful imaginings of the madman with a question.  “You got into the house through the crypt?”

“Yes, through the crypt.  I found the window one night when I was prowling around in the churchyard.  When I knew that the pastor was to be the next, I cut through the window bars.  Gyuri went into the church one day when nobody was there and found out that it was easy to lift the stone over the entrance to the crypt.  He also learned that the doors from the church to the vestry were never locked.  I knew how to find the passageway, because I had been through it several times on my visits to the rectory.  But it was a mere chance that the door into the pastor’s study was unlocked.”

“A chance that cost the life of a worthy man,” said the detective gravely.

Varna nodded sadly.  “But he didn’t suffer, he was dead at once.”

“And now tell me what this top was doing there?” No. 302 looked at the detective in great surprise, and then laid his hand on the latter’s arm.  “How did you know that I had the top there?” he asked with a show of interest.

“I found its traces in the room, and it was those traces that led me here to you,” answered Muller.

“How strange!” remarked Varna.  “Are you like shepherd Janci that you can see the things others don’t see?”

“No, I have not Janci’s gift.  It would be a great comfort to me and a help to the others perhaps if I had.  I can only see things after they have happened.”

“But you can see more than others—­the others did not see the traces of the top?”

“My business is to see more than others see,” said Muller.  “But you have not told me yet what the top was doing there.  Why did you take a toy like that with you when you went out on such an errand?”

“It was in my pocket by chance.  When I reached for my handkerchief to quench the flow of blood the top came out with it.  I must have touched the spring without knowing it, for the top began to spin.  I stood still and watched it, then I ran after it.  It spun around the room and finally came back to the body.  So did I. The pastor was quite still and dead by that time.”