Only about four pages of paper had been set alight, if Steefel could be believed. From the remaining pieces it looked as if the perpetrator had crumpled those sheets into a loose ball, placed them in the center of the desk and set them on fire, but why? How?

Mendel looked for evidence of a burnt match, or some other lighting device, but found none. He shrugged, perhaps the criminal had taken that piece of evidence away with him, but again, why? Nothing was making sense. Why only four pages? If, as everyone suspected, the motive for the arson was to destroy the conscription lists and thus prevent innocent Czechs from being killed in the upcoming war, why go to all this trouble to destroy only the names beginning with the letter 'S', it made no sense.

Perhaps he had used the first pages of the remaining list just to start the fire, and he had intended to add other pages as the fire got going. But in that case, why leave right away? Why not wait and see the job to completion?

The only other damage done by the fire was to the antique reading glass. Brother Gregory picked it up, looked briefly at the blackened wood of the frame and arm, but, perhaps because of his recent lessons in optics, looked more closely at the lens. It was a very old one, as evidenced by the small bubble of air right in it's center. Once upon a time, lenses of this size were first 'spun' from a blob of molten glass, a process that left the imperfection at the center.

Mostly this did not matter and the air bubble was too small to affect the properties of the lens, which Mendel now tested by adjusting the holding frame and arm so that he could see the desk top through the lens. A moment or two of testing gave him the approximate value of three for the magnification of the lens, not bad for a piece of glass that old.

But he was not getting anywhere. He looked for more of the burnt paper on the floor, and got his next new piece of evidence; heavy indentations in the carpet showed that the desk had recently been moved. For years the desk had stood about 1 to two klafter from the window, and the bottoms of the legs had been pressed permanently into the carpet. But in the last few days the desk had been moved much closer to the window.

In it's self there was nothing suspicious about moving the desk, but it must have taken some effort, and if the motive was to get more light, it had not been worth that effort, as the southern exposure of the room ensured that plenty of afternoon sunlight flooded into the room. Moving the desk that short distance could hardly have made any difference.

Then there was the question, why burn the papers on the desk at all? It seemed a foolish course of action, and one almost certain to fail. As had happened, smoke and fire in the window of the room had brought instant attention and detection. If it had not, the whole room, and possibly the whole wing of the monastery could have gone up in flames. Was that the reason for the fire?

It would have been much smarter and much safer to have taken all the papers to the fireplace and set them alight there. Such thoughts once again directed his attention to the only other damage the arsonist had committed; the breaking of a valuable antique beaker. Were the two connected?

Brother Gregory moved to the fireplace. No one had yet tried to clean up the thousands of tiny shards of glass, which were scattered all over the tiles, inside the heavy wooden base frame. They were in such small pieces that it was hard to tell what they had been originally. Idly he picked up one or two of the larger remaining pieces and put them into his handkerchief; evidence, he said to himself.

Even here there were many unanswered questions. Why break the glass beaker at all, no other act of vandalism had been performed? Had it been an accident? Not likely, the beaker had been smashed against the floor tiles of the fireplace with some force; it had been thrown down and then crushed under foot. Hah!

There, slightly hidden next to the wooden retaining frame was a small, dark object. Bending down and looking closer Mendel saw a piece of mud, dry now on the outside but still slightly damp on the inside. It was an unusual shape. It was long and thin, about the size of half a small cigar, but two of it's sides were quite flat and formed a right angle with one another.

With infinite care, Mendel picked up the dried mud, took it into the light, and looked at it again. With better illumination he could see from where it had come. This was a piece of mud from the bottom of a man's boot. After walking in mud, some of it had become lodged in the space between the sole of the boot and the raised heel, something that happened to Mendel all the time, which is why he recognized it.

When the boot had later stepped into the fireplace, the mud had been dislodged and fallen off. But whose boot, the Oberst's, or someone else who had been in the room later when the fire had been detected? Also, when had it happened; before or after the fire?

Out came the handkerchief and the mud was added to the pieces of glass. All this evidence needed more investigating, but first he had some questions to ask.