The Village Notary: A Romance of Hungarian Life

"Succeed!" said the justice, casting a contemptuous look at the cook. "Not succeed with a miserable Jew! I have done twenty years' service in the county, and never failed in any thing I wished to accomplish!"

"Yes, sir, everybody knows that," replied the cook, with great humility; "but Hebrews are sometimes very stubborn."

"Well, if he won't confess, he'll squeak!" said Mr. Skinner, pushing his empty coffee-cup aside.

"He will have Skinner before him, a haiduk in the rear, and me at the table; we'll show you sport, my boy!" said Mr. Kenihazy, with great glee. "And once in the midst of us, he'll confess, I'll answer for it."

The breakfast was over; and Kenihazy, wondering how any one could have the bad taste to drink coffee when such delicious wine and brandy could be got in Hungary, drank off a glass of brandy to wash the coffee down.

The justice rose and lighted his pipe, which he had laid aside during breakfast. He stalked up and down the room, trying the condition of his voice. He ordered the haiduks to be ready, and the prisoner to be brought before him at once.

The cook, to whom these orders were given, very curious to see the examination of the Jew, lost no time in executing the justice's mandate.

Mr. Kenihazy sat mending some pens; and his face was radiant with joy at having picked up a piece of coarse paper, on which he thought to take down the evidence, and by this means save the better paper allowed him by the county.

Mr. Skinner's manner of treating persons whom he suspected, was simple in the extreme. His inquisitorial powers vented themselves in abuse, imprecations, and kicks. Peti, the gipsy, and the treatment which he received at the justice's hands on the Turk's Hill, are by no means an unfavourable specimen of that worthy functionary's summary mode of dealing with the lowly and unprotected; and in the present instance, the poor Jew learned to his cost, that the worthy magistrate's jokes had lost nothing of their pungency, and that his kicks retained their pristine vigour. But if the justice was violent, the Jew was stubborn. Neither Mr. Skinner's stunning rejoinders, nor the striking arguments of the haiduk, whose stick played no mean part in court, could convince the culprit of the propriety of making (as Mr. Kenihazy said) "a clean breast of it." Nothing can equal Mr. Skinner's disgust and fury. He stamped and swore – as indeed he always did – but to no purpose.

"Dog!" cried he; "I'll have you thrown into the wolf-pit. I'll have you killed!" And kicking the Jew, he sent him staggering and stammering out his innocence against the wall. "Innocent!" cried the justice, with a savage laugh, "Does that fellow look as if he were innocent?"

Mr. Kenihazy and the cook stood laughing at the culprit, while the big tears ran down his cheek from his one eye.

There was nothing, however, in the Jew's appearance that could impress one with an idea of his innocence. His red hair, matted and wet from the damp of the cellar, hung longer and straighter down his forehead than usual. His dress and beard were in great filth and disorder. His ugly features were wild and haggard from the pain of his bonds, and the ill-treatment he had received from the justice and Mr. Kenihazy; in short, he looked like one of the coarse woodcuts of Cain in the story-books.

"I am innocent – I am not guilty!" blubbered the Jew. "I implore you! I intreat you, Mr. Skinner, and Mr. Kenihazy, and Mister Cook, who knows well – "

"Yes; I know you, you villain!" said the cook. "You have always robbed me when I employed you – "

"Oh, I humbly entreat you! Oh, no, I never cheated any one!" sobbed the Jew. "The panes of glass in the saloon were very dear, and I – "

"You dirty dog!" cried the justice. "You want to shift the question, do you? I ask you again, and for the last time, why you murdered the attorney?"

"I did not kill him," answered the Jew, sobbing; "what should I have killed him for? He was my best friend; and if he were living now, he would not see me used thus."

"Very possible, if you had not killed him!" quoth Paul Skinner.

"I never killed him," persisted the Jew. "When Mister Cook took me to the attorney, and asked him if I had stabbed him, he shook his head, you know he did, Mister Cook."

"That's true!" said the other, turning to the justice. "When I took the knave to the bed-side, and asked the attorney if he had done it, he shook his head."

"But who knows? Perhaps he didn't understand me, or he had lost his senses, or he was so disgusted!"

"Oh, no!" said the prisoner, eagerly. "He hadn't lost his senses, or he wouldn't have shaken his head twice again afterwards, when you asked him if I had stabbed him."

"That's what Mrs. Cizmeasz said, I'm sure," said Mr. Kenihazy.

"Yes," said the Jew; "Mrs. Cook and everybody in the house were in the room, and saw how poor dear Mr. Catspaw shook his head when I was brought in. He did nothing but shake his head while I was in the room."

"Call the cook!" said Mr. Skinner, recollecting her extraordinary and energetic behaviour on his arrival.

"It's a great pity," protested the cook, "that your worship should fatigue yourself with the gibberish of that woman, who is as blind as a bat in the matter. It was the Jew, and nobody but the Jew, that committed the murder."

"I know all that," said the justice, with dignity; "but it's necessary to observe certain forms." And again he desired the haiduk to call the cook.

Catharine Cismeasz, or Mrs. Kata, as she was usually called, (for who, as she often and justly remarked, will give a poor widow her due? and even her Christian name is shortened, as if she were a mere kitchen-maid), – Mrs. Kata, I say, had meanwhile addressed her own partizans, to whom she complained of the stupidity of the judge, who would not condescend to listen to a reasonable woman. "I am sure," said she, "that fellow, the cook, will lead him astray; he's a treacherous knave, so he is, and he's always getting my lady out of temper with everybody; and I'm sure, sirs, he'll say it was the Jew, and yet he's as innocent as an unborn babe, for when they took him to Mr. Catspaw's bed, he – "

Here she was interrupted by a haiduk, who informed her that she was wanted; whereupon her complaint was suddenly changed into high praise and admiration of the justice, who, she said, was a proper man indeed.

After Mrs. Cizmeasz had spent a short time in dressing her head and making herself spruce before a piece of glass which hung at the window, she set off, with great consequence, to see the justice; declaring, at the same time, that the truth should and would now be known.

She had never been in a court of justice. When Mr. Skinner asked her what her name and occupation were, two things she thought the whole world knew, she became much embarrassed; and when the judge inquired her age, the cook could not refrain from tittering. "Forty-two," said she, in so low a voice that it could scarcely be heard. And when the justice warned her, in a very solemn manner, to speak the truth, for that what she was about to say would all be taken down, and that, if she deviated from the truth, a severe punishment would be inflicted upon her, she was induced to believe that the whole was planned and got up by the cook to pique her. In order, therefore, to thwart him, and in reply to Mr. Skinner's exhortation, she said she really could not say exactly how old she was, as she had lost the certificate of her birth; but she believed she was younger than forty-two. The cook and Mr. Kenihazy laughed outright; and the justice assured her, with a smile, that he was not particular about the truth on that point, but he hoped she would be more accurate in her evidence; upon which she took the opportunity of assuring him that she always gave people to understand she was older than she really was.

The questions, Whether she had known Mr. Catspaw? If she had ever seen the culprit before? What she knew of him? &c. &c. put Mrs. Cizmeasz in better spirits, and indemnified her for the disagreeable impression which the first part of the examination had made on her mind.

She was one of those women who will neither hide in the earth nor wrap in a napkin the loquacious talent with which Nature has endowed them.

Mrs. Cizmeasz had, all her life, talked with ease from morning till night; and it could not be expected that now, perhaps for the first time in her life that she spoke from duty, she should stint her hearers, especially since Mr. Skinner had particularly cautioned her to tell all she knew.

Mrs. Cizmeasz had a powerful memory at times, and, on this occasion, remembered everything. She told where she had formerly lived; how she had come to the Castle; what had happened since her first quarrel with the cook; how the Jew (pointing to him) had stolen a florin and twenty-four kreutzers from her when she sent him to the Debrezin fair to buy twelve yards of calico: in short, the good woman left nothing untold that she could remember.

At length the justice jumped up, and paced the room in a state of great perplexity; and the clerk, who did not mean to write a book, laid his pen aside. The cook cast a triumphant glance first at the justice, and then at Mr. Kenihazy; as much as to say, "There, was I not right? Did I not say it was no use to examine this woman?"

Paul Skinner could restrain his impatience no longer; he exclaimed, "What, in the name of God, woman, do you mean by all this? Do you take me to be your confessor, or your fool, that you pester me with your d – d history?"

"I humbly beg your pardon," said Mrs. Kata, greatly astonished that any one should not take an interest in what she had related; "but your worship told me to tell everything and forget nothing, and that it would all be written down, because a man's life depended upon it – "

"That you should forget nothing relating to the murder, were my words."

"Exactly," resumed the lady; "but when you ask me about my name and occupation, and I answer that I am a widow, I must also mention my husband, and how long we lived together, and I assure you, your worship, we were very happy together, and when he died, and of what he died, and – "

"Well, well," interposed the justice, heartily wishing her eloquence anywhere but there; "now tell us, in a word, is it true that when the cook took the Jew to the death-bed of Mr. Catspaw, he shook his head?"

"It is true, your worship," answered she, with a glance of defiance at the cook; "he did shake his head; if your worship could only have seen how he shook his head! Since I stood at the death-bed of my husband – poor man! God rest his soul, he was a cook – "

"Yes, we know all about it," said the justice, interrupting her; "he died of dropsy. But tell us, young woman, is it true that my poor friend, Mr. Catspaw, shook his head the second time when the cook asked him?"

"He did shake his head! Your worship cannot think how he shook his head! for all the world like my poor dead husband! God rest him! The last fourteen days I never left him, day or night – "

"Who knows," observed the cook, "but perhaps he shook it with disgust?"

"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Cizmeasz, "my husband shaking with disgust? My husband was happy to the last moment. He lost his speech, poor man; he understood no one but me, and whatever he wished – "

"Who the devil speaks of your husband?" interposed the justice; "God give him peace! he must have had little in this world. The question is, whether Mr. Catspaw was in his senses or not when he shook his head?"

"Out of his senses!" said Mrs. Cizmeasz. "I beg your worship's pardon, nobody can say that but such a fool as – " here she darted a look at the cook that left no doubt of its meaning – "he who doesn't understand a man unless he speaks. When the water came into my husband's breast he couldn't speak, but I understood him to the last; and he used to throw such sweet melancholy looks at me, as if he would say, 'Thank you, my sweet dove!'"

But here she came back to the point, seeing the justice get very impatient. "How could poor Mr. Catspaw be wandering in his mind when he answered questions which were put to him?"

"He spoke? and what did he say?" inquired the justice, very eagerly.

"He didn't say much, it is true, but it was distinct," answered the woman. "Everybody in the room heard him say 'Tengelyi,' when he was asked who had stabbed him; and then the rattles came into his throat."

"Tengelyi?" cried the justice and Kenihazy, in utter astonishment. "Most extraordinary!"

"Why does your worship listen to such nonsense?" interposed the cook, impatiently; "this woman would bring her father to the gallows!"

"Nonsense, is it?" cried Mrs. Cizmeasz; "then why does the justice listen to it, and why does Mr. Kenihazy write it down? Well, I don't care! I don't want to speak; if I had not been asked I would have said nothing; I never would have spoken to any one about it."

Mr. Skinner shouted at the top of his voice that she must not confound the evidence, but tell him if her memory was quite clear – if she was quite sure that Mr. Catspaw had mentioned the name of Tengelyi?

"Why should I not remember!" cried she, amidst a clamour of voices. "The attorney spoke as well as we do now. Everybody was in the room, and everybody heard him say, 'Tengelyi.'"

"Nobody heard it!" shouted the cook, in spite of all admonitions to keep silence. "When did he say it? What reason could he have for saying it? I say – "

"When did he say it? When you took the Jew to his bed-side, and asked him if that was the man who had murdered him," screamed Mrs. Cizmeasz, getting into a generous passion; "first he shook his head, and – "

"It's not true!" bawled the cook, trying to drown her voice. "It's a lie! He first said Tengelyi, and afterwards shook his head."

"I say he first shook his head, and then said Tengelyi; and everybody who speaks the truth will say so too!" screamed the other.

"It's a lie, I say! and everybody that says it is a liar, though he swore it a thousand times!" shouted the cook, in a voice of thunder, and darting looks of the fiercest lightning at Mrs. Cizmeasz.

"I'll call the whole house to prove it," said Mrs. Kata, with a face as red as scarlet.

At length the justice interfered, and said, "To set this matter right, we must have another examination of witnesses."

While the haiduk was absent to call all the people together who had witnessed the last moments of Mr. Catspaw, the two cooks were engrossed in dispute, and Mr. Skinner warned Mr. Kenihazy to take particular notice of that part of the woman's evidence relating to the attorney's last words.

The messenger found the remainder of the witnesses jabbering away all together in the kitchen. He brought them at once to the justice; but never was a man more deceived than Mr. Skinner was when he thought to remove the veil from the mystery by the multiplicity of witnesses.

He had now got six instead of two. The steward and boots took Mrs. Kata's part; the kitchen-maid and scullery-maid that of the man cook; the cooks were equally backed. For a quarter of an hour after the witnesses had entered the room the noise and confusion were pitiable. At length the justice, shrugging his shoulders impatiently, said, "It doesn't signify a jot whether he shook his head before or afterwards. The principal thing is, that the attorney was distinctly heard to pronounce the name of Tengelyi. On that much depends. I hope you have taken that down?" inquired he, turning to Mr. Kenihazy, who nodded in the affirmative, without raising his head from the paper.

The contending parties looked at each other with astonishment. Mrs. Kata Cizmeasz, who had not the least intention of throwing suspicion on the notary, and who simply wished to prove her assertion that the attorney first shook his head and afterwards said "Tengelyi!" was now horrified at the justice's words. The cook alone had the presence of mind to remind Mr. Skinner that he had not corroborated this assertion, and also deposed that the dying man had certainly mentioned Tengelyi, but not when it was a question of his murderer. Everybody affirmed this with a nod, but particularly Mrs. Kata, who, when she saw the consequences of her evidence, burst into tears, and, sobbing, said, "I am a poor lone widow, and Mister Cook must know better than I do. I was so terrified when I saw the bleeding breast of Mr. Catspaw that I knew not what I did, or what I saw, or what I heard."

As the unfortunate witnesses endeavoured to retract what they had said, the justice was induced to assure them that everything they had said had been taken down: "And," added he, "if any of the witnesses endeavour to revoke or explain away what they have said in their evidence against Tengelyi, they shall see and feel the consequences of telling lies in a court of justice!"

Mrs. Kata, under the shock of these words, shrunk terrified into a corner of the room.

The cook, who had a profound veneration for the notary, was much afflicted, and, in spite of his respect for a justice, he could not suppress his indignation. "I cannot see, sir," said he, "what cause you can find in the evidence to suspect Mr. Tengelyi."

"What cause?" rejoined the justice, darting a look of wrath at the cook. "What cause? That's a question on which your decision will not be required. Moreover, I think it cause enough, when this woman and two other witnesses affirm that the dying man (the simple assertion of a dying man is worth a thousand oaths of another person) named Tengelyi as his murderer."

"I did not say that," sighed Mrs. Kata, stepping forward; "I only said that the attorney shook his head, and then said 'Tengelyi.' I never thought these words could throw suspicion on the notary."

"It's quite certain," said the cook, who, being a freeman, felt himself insulted by the manner in which the justice had spoken to him, – "every man can have his suspicions if he likes; but when it's a question of murder, I think it a great shame that the mere prattle of a silly woman should throw suspicion on a man of Tengelyi's respectability."

"But did you not say yourself that Mr. Catspaw mentioned the notary?" said the justice, in a cutting tone. "Moreover, it's well known that Mr. Catspaw and the notary have been enemies all their life, and it is thought that the notary has not behaved to him as he ought to have done. Even yesterday they had a violent dispute; and who knows but what the attorney had to repent it in his last moments? And what is still more suspicious is, that they quarrelled again yesterday evening. The cook himself has said so. Make a note of that!" said the justice, turning to Mr. Kenihazy.

The cook could not deny this; and Mrs. Kata, thinking to benefit the notary, and make amends for her former imprudence, related the quarrel of the previous evening, with the addition of all the scandal and tittle-tattle of the village.

"Most strange! most suspicious!" exclaimed the justice, turning to Mr. Kenihazy; "that my friend should be found murdered in his bed the very night on which he had had a deadly quarrel with the notary. This woman's evidence proves beyond a doubt that my friend died by the notary's hand. I hope you have taken down every word," said he, still addressing his clerk.

The cook wished to speak; but, finding the justice would not listen to him, he said to Mr. Kenihazy, in a subdued voice, "If the Jew didn't do it, what business had he in the chimney?"

Mr. Skinner, instead of replying to the cook, addressed the Jew: "Who has bribed you to this horrid act? Who are your accomplices, you scurvy hound? For it's you who struck the blow, you vagabond!" continued the justice. "Confess this instant! Say who employed you to murder the attorney! If you are candid, and tell everything, you may do yourself some good; but if you hesitate, I'll – " Here he raised his hand in such a way as made the Jew instinctively throw his arm over his head to protect it; and no doubt he would have suited the blow to the attitude, had not a carriage at that instant driven up to the door.

The arrival of the sheriff and his family changed the scene at the Castle entirely.

Mr. and Lady Rety proceeded directly from the carriage to the room where the witnesses were examined. The justice gave them the full details of the murder, the news of which had reached them during the night. The sheriff and his wife seemed much afflicted.

"It is atrocious!" exclaimed Lady Rety, when the justice had finished, "that such a murder should take place in my house, and under the eyes and ears of so many people!"

"My poor wife is quite overwhelmed!" said the sheriff; "she had a presentiment of something dreadful all day yesterday; I never saw her so excited and feverish in my life!"

"Do not talk so," said Lady Rety, whose lip was pale and quivering; "people will take me for a lunatic. I only felt indisposed, as, indeed, I do to-day."

The justice endeavoured to condole with her ladyship, while Dr. Sherer hastened to feel her pulse; but the Jew, whose eye encountered Lady Rety's, looked at her with a glance full of meaning.

"It's quite certain," remarked the sheriff, "that he who committed the crime is well acquainted with the ways of the house, but, what is most strange, nothing is stolen!"

"We are not quite sure of that yet," said the justice; "the servants say that they found Mr. Catspaw's watch and pocket-book in his room. I should have had a closer search of the premises; but as Mr. Catspaw was your attorney, I thought it probable that he had in his possession papers and documents which you would not like interfered with, and I therefore resolved to seal the door, and wait your decision."

"You did quite right, sir," interposed Lady Rety; "Mr. Catspaw had in his possession many documents and law papers belonging to me. I'll go myself and look after them."

"My lady!" exclaimed the doctor, "you would not think of such a thing in your present delicate state of health?"

"It is my pleasure to do it," said the lady.

"Your ladyship had better not go," interposed the cook, with humility; "the body is in the room, and – "

"The body?" said Lady Rety, striving to suppress a shudder; "you must take it away. I know better than any one else where the attorney kept my papers, and I cannot be easy until I have satisfied myself that they are safe."

In obedience to her ladyship's commands, Dr. Sherer and Mr. Kenihazy left the room with some servants. Lady Rety was in deep thought, when Mr. Skinner, who stood just by her, said, "Thank God! we have at least the man who committed the deed in our hands;" and, dragging the Jew forward, he continued: "We found this fellow in the chimney immediately after the act was perpetrated."

"What, Jantshi the glazier!" exclaimed Lady Rety; "impossible! Mr. Catspaw was his best friend, and – "

"My love!" interposed the sheriff, "that doesn't prove any thing; unfortunately, there are many instances wherein men have committed the vilest acts against their benefactors."

"There can be no doubt," said the justice, "that this Jew is the instrument of some vile person."

Lady Rety turned ghastly pale at these words, and Mr. Rety and the justice asked at the same moment if she was ill; but, instead of answering them, she inquired if the Jew had confessed his crime.

"No!" replied the justice; "not exactly confessed; but that doesn't signify. This fellow is devilish stiff-necked, but I'll bring it out of him. Moreover, the circumstances are of such a nature, that not a doubt can be entertained that – " Then he went on to relate, with great self-satisfaction, his suspicions against Tengelyi.

The effect Mr. Skinner's information had upon the sheriff and his wife was extraordinary. "No!" said he, shaking his head; "one cannot think him capable of such a thing!" while Lady Rety, who was now more composed, remarked that "One could not say what a man of the notary's passionate character would not do, with such feelings of hatred as had always existed between him and the attorney."

"Oh, we shall soon know all about it!" said the justice, with self-complacency. "I would bring it out of this fellow if he were twice the vagabond he is."

Here the culprit fixed his eye upon Lady Rety, and said, in a threatening tone of voice, "If I am to be dealt with in this way, I'll confess everything."

"Dealt with, you rascal!" said Mr. Skinner; "if you don't speak out the truth freely, the haiduk shall deal his stick across your head!"