LITMIR.BIZ

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road is one of the most charming, and, therefore, the most frequented outside the capital. On the evening in question the Easter moon was shining.

      Kügelgen did not return home. His wife sent his son, the just confirmed boy, aged 17 years, to the new house, to inquire for her husband. The boy learned there that he had left some hours before. He returned home, and found that still his father had not come in. The police were communicated with, and the night was spent in inquiries and search, but all in vain. On the following morning, at 9 a.m., as the boy was traversing the same road, along with a gensdarme, he deemed it well to explore a footpath beside the river, which was overflown by the Elbe, and there, finally, amongst some reeds they discovered the dead body of the artist, stripped of his clothes to his shirt and drawers, lying on his face.

      Gerhard von Kügelgen had been murdered. His features were cut and bruised, his left temple and jaw were broken. Footsteps, as of two persons, were traceable through the river mud and across a field to the highway. Apparently the artist had been murdered on the road, then carried or dragged to the path, stripped there, and then cast among the rushes. About twenty-four paces from where he lay, between him and the highway, his cap was found.

      The excitement, the alarm, aroused in Dresden was immense. Not only was Kügelgen universally respected, but everyone was in dismay at the thought that his own safety was jeopardised, if a murder such as this could be perpetrated on the open road, within a few paces of the gates. Indeed, the place where the crime was committed was but a hundred strides from the Linkes Bad, one of the most popular resorts of the Dresdeners.

      It was now remembered that only a few months before, near the same spot, another murder had been committed, that had remained undiscovered. In that case the victim had been a poor carpenter's apprentice.

      On the same day as the body of Kügelgen was found, the Government offered a sum equal to £150 for the discovery of the murderer. A little later, some children found among the rubbish, outside the Black Gate of the Dresdener Vorstadt, a blue cloth cloak, folded up and buried under some stones. It was recognised as having belonged to Kügelgen. Moreover, in the pocket was the little "Thomas-à-Kempis" he always carried about with him.

      It was concluded that the murderer had not ventured to bring all the clothing of Kügelgen into the town, through the gate, and had, therefore, hidden portions in places whence he could remove them one by one, unobserved. The murderer was, undoubtedly, an inhabitant of the city.

      From March 29th to April 4th the police remained without any clue, although a description of the garments worn by the murdered man, and of his watch, was posted up at every corner, and sent round to the nearest towns and villages.

      The workmen who had been engaged on Kügelgen's house were brought before the police. They had left after his departure, and had received money from him; but they were discharged, as there was no evidence against them.

      As no light seemed to fall on this mysterious case, the police looked up the circumstances of the previous murder. On December 29th, 1819, a carrier on the highroad had found a body on the way. It was ascertained to be that of a carpenter's apprentice, named Winter. His skull had been broken in. Not a trace of the murderer was found; not even footprints had been observed. However, it was learned that the wife of a labourer had been attacked almost at the same spot, on the 28th December, by a man wearing a military cap and cloak; and she had only escaped him by the approach of a carriage, the sound of the wheels having alarmed him, and induced him to fly. He had fled in the direction of the Black Gate and the barracks.

      The anxiety of the Dresdeners seemed justified. There was some murderous ruffian inhabiting the Vorstadt, who hovered about the gates, waylaying, not wealthy men only, but poor charwomen and apprentices.

      The military cloak and cap, the direction taken by the assailant in his flight, gave a sort of clue – and the police suspected that the murderer must be sought among the soldiers.

      On April 4th two Jewish pawnbrokers appeared before the police, and handed over a silver watch which had been left with them at 9 a.m. on the 20th March – that is to say on the morning after the murder of Kügelgen – and which agreed with the advertised description of the artist's lost watch. It was identified at once. The man who had pawned it, the Jews said, wore the uniform of an artillery soldier.

      At the request of the civil authorities, the military officers held an inquisition in the barracks. All the artillery soldiers were made to pass before the Jew brokers, but they were unable to identify the man who had deposited the watch with them. Somewhat later in the day one of these Jews, as he was going through the street, saw a man in civil dress, whom he thought he recognised as the fellow who had given him the watch. He went up to him at once and spoke about the watch. The man at first acknowledged that he had pawned one, then denied, and threatened the Jew when he persevered in clinging to him. A gendarme came up, and hearing what the controversy was about, arrested the man, who gave his name as Fischer, a gunner.

      Fischer was at once examined, and he doggedly refused to allow that he had given up a watch to the Jew.

      Suspicion against him was deepened by his declaring that he had heard nothing of the murder – a matter of general talk in Dresden – and that he had not seen the notices with the offer of reward for the discovery of the murderer. On the following day, April 5th, however, he admitted having pawned the watch, which he pretended to have found outside the Black Gate. A few hours later he withdrew this confession, saying that he was so bewildered with the questions put to him, and so alarmed at his arrest, that he did not well know what he said. It was observed that Fischer was a man of very low intellectual power.

      The same day he was invested in his uniform, and presented before the pawnbrokers. Both unanimously declared that he was not the man who had entered their shop and deposited the watch with them. They both declared that though Fischer had the same height and general build as the man in question, and the same fair hair, yet that the face was different.

      With this, the case against Fischer broke down; nevertheless, though he had been handed over by the military authorities to the civil power, he remained under arrest. The public was convinced of his guilt, and the police hoped by keeping him in prison to draw from him later some information which might prove serviceable.

      And, in fact, after he had been a fortnight under arrest, he volunteered a statement. He was conducted at once before the magistrate, and confessed that he had murdered Von Kügelgen. He, however, stoutly denied having laid hands on the carpenter Winter. Nevertheless, on the way back to his cell he told his gaoler that he had committed this murder as well. Next day he was again brought before the magistrate, and confessed to both murders. He was taken to the spots where the two corpses had been found, and there he renewed his confession, though without entering into any details.

      But on the next morning, April 21, he begged to be again heard, and he then asserted that his former confessions were false. He had confessed merely because he was weary of his imprisonment and the poor food he was given, and decided to die. When spoken to by the magistrates seriously, and remonstrated with for his contradictions, he cried out that he was innocent. Let them torture him as much as they pleased, he wished to die.

      But hardly was he back in his prison than he told the gaoler that it was true that he was the murderer of both Kügelgen and Winter. Again he confessed before the magistrate, and again, on the 27th, withdrew his confession and protested his innocence.

      On the 21st April a new element in the case came to light, that perplexed the question not a little.

      A Jewish pawnbroker, Löbel Graff, announced that on February 3, 1820, he had received from the gunner Kaltofen, a green coat, and on the 4th April a dark-blue cloth coat, stained with spots of oil, also a pair of cloth trousers. As both coats seemed to him suspicious, and to resemble those described in the advertisements, he had questioned Kaltofen about them, but had received equivocal answers, and Kaltofen at last admitted that he had bought them from the gunner Fischer.

      John Gottfried Kaltofen was a young man of 24 years, servant to one of the officers, and therefore did not live in the barracks. He was now taken up. His manner and appearance were in his favour. He was frank, and at once admitted that he had disposed of the two coats to Graff, and that he had bought them of Fischer. On confrontation with the latter he repeated what

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