Niels Heinrich advanced a single step. His jaw shook. He felt as though a rain of burning stones were falling on him. A dark astonishment and horror were revealed in his face. He wanted to be silent, to jeer, to go; he wanted to seem cold and unconscious of any knowledge or understanding. For danger was upon him, the ultimate danger of vengeance, of the sword, the rope, the axe. He saw them all. Yet he was not capable of self-control; something within was stronger than he. “Man alive....” The words came clucking from his throat on fire. “Man alive....” Then came a wild terror of increasing the danger by his behaviour. He couldn’t stand that; it was too much for his nerves. What had that man to do with it? And again he fell silent before Christian’s slightly blinking glance, and became tense with staring and waiting. He’d have to watch this man now; the business was getting bad; it was necessary now to guard his life. God, what wouldn’t that accursed mouth utter? Christian walked to the window and returned. He walked around the table and returned. He had become aware of the stirring in Niels Heinrich; and he had the impression of having witnessed the bursting of some taut vessel and felt the flick of flying slime. But this impression was not tangible at once. Only he had the curious feeling of having received a confirmation of thoughts and visions of which he was himself still faintly doubtful; and these he wanted to develop and fortify. He said: “To lure Ruth to the spot where she was killed needed a certain cunning. Careful preparations were necessary, and guarded plans; and these were skilfully made, as their success illustrates. But all witnesses who know Heinzen agree that he is incapable of such activities. He is described as so stupid that he cannot remember names or numbers; and then it is assumed that he could have committed the murder with the brutal, merciless violence of a degraded debauchee. The experts in criminology assert that precisely this mixture of the cunning and the brutal is characteristic of such types and such crimes. That may be true; but it proves nothing in this case, which was not so simple. Ruth went another path from that to Joachim Heinzen.” “Another, eh? What one, eh? Well, well,” Niels Heinrich croaked. “Ain’t it enough to give you a belly-ache? Ain’t it enough to----” He took his hat, which he had hung up at the beginning of the conversation, put it on at a dashing angle, and prepared to go. But Christian knew that Niels Heinrich would not go, and followed him with a passionately inquiring glance. He was terribly moved. Niels Heinrich got as far as the door. There he turned around, and with a peering, repressed look drew from his pocket, with apparent indifference, a little revolver. He held it in one hand. With the other hand he played, still indifferently and as though to amuse himself, with the trigger and the barrel.