carefully and looked at it keenly. This tiny bit of lacquer had
evidently been knocked off from some convex object, but it was
impossible to tell at the moment just what sort of an object it
might have been. There are so many different things which are
customarily covered with lacquer. However, further examination
brought him down to a narrower range of subjects. For on the inside
of the lacquer he found a shred of reddish wood fibre. It must have
been a wooden object, therefore, from which the lacquer came, and
the wood had been of reddish tinge.

Muller pondered the matter for a little while longer. Then he
placed his discovery carefully in the pastor's emptied tobacco-box,
and dropped the box in his own pocket. He closed the window and the
door to the dining-room, lit a lamp, and entered the passageway
leading to the vestry. It was a short passageway, scarcely more
than a dozen paces long.

The walls were whitewashed, the floor tiled and the entire passage
shone in neatness. Muller held the light of his lamp to every inch
of it, but there was nothing to show that the criminal had gone
through here with the body of his victim.

"The criminal"--Muller still thought of only one. His long
experience had taught him that the most intricate crimes were
usually committed by one man only. The strength necessary for such
a crime as this did not deceive him either. He knew that in
extraordinary moments extraordinary strength will come to the one
who needs it.

He now passed down the steps leading into the vestry. There was no