The Master of the Day of Judgment by Leo Perutz Read Free Book Online

are you doing here?"
    Something glided over my forehead like a light, warm hand. I seized it — it was only a withered chestnut leaf falling to the ground.
    "I was looking for my dog Zamor," I said quietly, meaning that I had been thinking about old times.
    There was a long silence.
    Then at last she spoke, quietly and sadly.
    "If there's a spark of decency in you," she said, "you will go now, you will go at once."

SIX
    I watched her go, and stood there for minutes with nothing in my ears but the sound of the voice that I loved. Not till long after she had gone did I realise the full meaning of what she had said.
    At first I was utterly bewildered and dismayed, but this gave way to fury and bitter revolt against the implication of her words, the wrong that was being inflicted on me. Was I to go now? Oh, no, now that was out of the question. My weariness and feverishness had vanished. I was entitled to an explanation, I told myself indignantly, and Felix and Dr Gorski must give me one. Lord knows I had done nothing to her. I had done nothing to her, had I?
    Certainly, a misfortune had happened, a terrible misfortune which might perhaps have been prevented. But I was not responsible for it, not I, for heaven's sake. He shouldn't have been left alone, he shouldn't have been left alone for a single minute, how did he get hold of that revolver? And now they seemed to be wanting to put the blame on me. I could understand someone being unfair and not weighing his words at such a moment. But that was just the reason why I must stay, I was entitled to an explanation, I must . . .
    Something suddenly occurred to me, something so obvious that it made my agitation seem absurd. Obviously there had been a misunderstanding, it couldn't possibly have been anything else. I had misunderstood what Dina had said, what she had meant had been quite different. All she had meant was that I was to go home, because there was no more that I could do there, that was all, it was as clear as daylight. No-one thought of blaming me in any way. My strained nerves had played a trick on me. Dr Gorski had been there, and had heard everything. I would wait for him, and he would confirm that the whole thing had been merely a misunderstanding.
    It won't be long now, I shan't have much longer to wait, I said to myself, Felix and Dr Gorski will soon be back. After all, poor Eugen can't be — they can't leave him alone lying on the floor all night.
    I crept to the window as stealthily as a thief in the night and looked into the room. He was still lying on the floor, but he had been covered with a tartan rug. I had seen him once as Macbeth, I couldn't help remembering it. Lady Macbeth's words rang in my ear: "Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia ..."
    My teeth started chattering again, and the weariness and the cold sweat and the feverishness came back, but I fought them and drove them away. Rubbish, I said to myself, that quotation was really not appropriate here, and I firmly opened the door and walked in, but this burst of energy promptly faded and gave way to a nervous dread, for now for the first time I was alone with the dead man.
    There he lay, completely covered with the rug except for his right hand, which no longer held the revolver. Someone had taken it and put it on the small table in the middle of the room. I went closer to have a look at it, and only then did I notice that I was not alone.
    The engineer was standing behind the desk, bending over something I could not see, he seemed to be absorbed in contemplation of the pattern of the wallpaper. He turned when he heard my footsteps.
    "So it's you, baron," he said. "What do you look like! Well, this ghastly business has affected you badly."
    He stood there, square-shouldered and solidly self-assured, with his hands in his trouser pockets, the very personification of nonchalance, with a cigarette between his lips in a room in which a dead man lay.
    "It's the first time you've