The girl and the guard are not there.

It takes Siegfried a moment to come to his senses, to process what he sees in front of him, to piece together a story. The chairs and table have been toppled, evidence of a struggle. Ash and dirt mingle with water at the foot of the freshly-extinguished hearth. He finds his poker nestled between two charred logs, as though someone had thrown it into the fire. But that is not all. His eyes follow a trail of half-burned pieces of wood from the hearth to his open reckoning cabinet. Half of the items on the first shelf are gone.

Panicked, Siegfried first tries the marshal’s house next door to his own but no one is there. He rushes down the street towards the church, which is obscured by scaffolding crowded with masons and carpenters still finishing its tall, pointed roof. Near the end of the street, midway down the slope of the small hillock, is a little stone house, exceedingly plain. The door, not fully closed, anticipates a visitor. Siegfried enters without knocking.