"Oh! nothing, except that Brandow has been telling everywhere that one of the horses which broke away from the carriage and tried to make its escape across the morass was drowned in the attempt." "Then that is surely the best proof of the impossibility." "Certainly," replied Wollnow; "and now you must have perfect quiet, or Lauterbach will be very angry. I will come back again in two hours; until then you must sleep undisturbed." Wollnow spent the two hours in a restless, impatient mood, of which the calm, self-possessed man would not have believed himself capable. He was expecting the young lawyer, who had promised to stop in Prora on his return from Dollan and tell him the result of his investigations. Herr von Pahlen had left B. two hours before him, and might surely have executed his commission by this time. The expected visitor arrived at last, but without the gendarme Herr von Zadenig had ordered to attend him to give a suitable coloring to the affair. "This is a very strange business," said Herr von Pahlen. "You know I went ostensibly to take the deposition of the man who drove the gentlemen, Hinrich Scheel; at least he was the principal person, and now would you believe it--" "The man had disappeared," said Wollnow. "How did you know?" "I only thought so; but go on." "Had actually disappeared," continued Herr von Pahlen, "although half an hour before our arrival he had been seen by the laborers on the estate, and also by Herr Brandow, who had just returned home. He had disappeared and could not be found, although Herr Brandow was kind enough to send men in every direction, who as Herr Brandow himself said, must have found him if--" "The man had wanted to be found." "Exactly, but how stupid in the fellow, who, after all, is not to blame, except for having taken for the journey the two worst beasts among the many good ones, in order to spare the carriage-horses. It is from this cause Brandow says, as he now looks at the matter, that the whole misfortune arose. To be sure, if the fellow has really fled--I have left Rueterbusch there for the present, who will arrest him if he makes his appearance--the case assumes a very different aspect. The fellow will suggest the inference that he either found the money, God knows how, or took it out of the Assessor's pocket while he was senseless, and now, being conscious of his guilt, fled when he saw us coming--and one can see a long distance over the moor. Brandow, who was very much astonished, said that he should have attributed such a crime to any one rather than this man, who had always been highly esteemed by his father, and since his death had served him faithfully and honestly, but admitted that the sudden disappearance was very mysterious; and after all everything was possible; at any rate, the possibility could not now be denied that the poor devil might have yielded to the great temptation of becoming a rich man at one stroke."