trace of any kind here either. The door into the vestry was not
locked. It was seldom locked, they had told him, for the vestry
itself was closed by a huge carved portal with a heavy ornamented
iron lock that could be opened only with the greatest noise and
trouble. This door was locked and closed as it had been since
yesterday morning. Everything in the vestry was in perfect order;
the priest's garments and the censers all in their places. Muller
assured himself of this before he left the little room. He then
opened the glass door that led down by a few steps into the church.

It was a beautiful old church, and it was a rich church also. It
was built in the older Gothic style, and its heavy, broad-arched
walls, its massive columns would have made it look cold and bare
had not handsome tapestries, the gift of the lady of the manor,
covered the walls. Fine old pictures hung here and there above the
altars, and handsome stained glass windows broke the light that fell
into the high vaulted interior. There were three great altars in
the church, all of them richly decorated. The main altar stood
isolated in the choir. In the open space behind it was the
entrance to the crypt, now veiled in a mysterious twilight. Heavy
silver candlesticks, three on a side, stood on the altar. The pale
gold of the tabernacle door gleamed between them.

Muller walked through the silent church, in which even his light
steps resounded uncannily. He looked into each of the pews, into
the confessionals, he walked around all the columns, he climbed up
into the pulpit, he did everything that the others had done before
him yesterday. And as with them, he found nothing that would
indicate that the murderer had spent any time in the church.
Finally he turned back once more to the main altar on his way out.