was, however, one circumstance, a purely fortuitous one, and which need not now be mentioned, which aroused my suspicions.  From these reports and accidental circumstances, the same conclusion became evolved for me.  I make this statement in all sincerity, for it was I who first implicated you with the matter.  I do not in any way notice the particulars notified on the articles found at the old woman’s.  That, and several others of a similar nature, are of no kind of importance.  At the same time, I was aware of the incident which had happened at the police office.  What occurred there has been told me with the utmost accuracy by some one who had been closely connected with it, and who, most unwittingly, had brought things to a head.  Very well, then, how, under such circumstances, could a man help becoming biased?  ‘One swallow does not make a summer,’ as the English proverb says:  a hundred suppositions do not constitute one single proof.  Reason speaks in that way, I admit, but let a man try to subject prejudice to reason.  An examining magistrate, after all, is only a man—­hence given to prejudice.

“I also remembered, on the occasion in question, the article you had published in some review.  That virgin effort of yours, I assure you, I greatly enjoyed—­as an amateur, however, be it understood.  It was redolent of sincere conviction, of genuine enthusiasm.  The article was evidently written some sleepless night under feverish conditions.  That author, I said to myself, while reading it, will do better things than that.  How now, I ask you, could I avoid connecting that with what followed upon it?  Such a tendency was but a natural one.  Am I saying anything I should not?  Am I at this moment committing myself to any definite statement?  I do no more than give utterance to a thought which struck me at the time.  What may I be thinking about now?  Nothing—­or, at all events, what is tantamount to it.  For the time being, I have to deal with Mikolka; there are facts which implicate him—­what are facts, after all?  If I tell you all this now, as I am doing, I do so, I assure you, most emphatically, so that your mind and conscience may absolve me from my behavior on the day of our interview.  ‘Why,’ you will ask, ’did you not come on that occasion and have my place searched?’ I did so, hah! hah!  I went when you were ill in bed—­but, let me tell you, not officially, not in my magisterial capacity; but go I did.  We had your rooms turned topsy-turvy at our very first suspicions, but umsonst!  Then I said to myself:  ’That man will make me a call, he will come of his own accord, and that before very long!  If he is guilty, he will be bound to come.  Other kinds of men would not do so, but this one will.’