Just in front of the village green there’s a big house that belongs to the Mayor. One of those handsome old places, all carved wood and big wide eaves, and what was more, there was a light in one of the windows. This light shone out into his front garden and lit up a bit of the house next door. Between the two houses there was a narrow little alley, and from where I was standing on the bridge, shivering and wondering whether it might be worth having a scout around over the other side of the river, I could see a movement down that alley.

It looked as if someone had just slipped into it, quietly—just the tail end of a movement, like that. There he is! I thought. That’s the doctor all right. So I went after him. But I kept quiet, all the same. I’ve got a police record now; if you’re a known criminal, even if it’s just a matter of missing britches, you’d better not get caught or else it’s the maximum sentence and no arguing. So I went very quietly—and it’s a good thing I did.

I got to the Mayor’s garden and I was about to turn in to the alley when I heard whispering. It was a still night—you couldn’t mistake it. And it wasn’t Cadaverezzi at all.

I lowered myself with great care behind a bush, and listened. What I heard was this:

The first bloke said, “I never saw such a fool in my life. All you had to do was hold on to her—you had her in your hand, and you let go!”

The second bloke said, “I’m sorry, Count Karlstein, sir, I deeply and truly and humbly beg your pardon, sir, but—” (then he sneezed)—“but someone tipped a mug of beer down my back, sir, and—” (another sneeze)—“and as I have already suffered one drowning today, sir, my mind was momentarily filled with panic at the thought of another one, and I let go of the girl purely in order to preserve my life—an instinctive reaction, your grace, purely instinctive, quite uncontrollable.”

So this was the oily-looking fellow from the Jolly Huntsman that the sensible-looking fellow had told me about! And the other one—he’d called him Count Karlstein! My ears were straining so hard to listen, they must have looked as if they were on tiptoe.

“We’ll have to get her back, Snivelwurst,” said the first bloke. “And, by the devil himself, if you have her in your hand again, you’d better not let her go, not even if an avalanche descends down your neck. D’you understand?”