Read in English · with German
Read The hand of God in English, with German beside it
by Murray Leinster · 1896–1975
The hand of God by Murray Leinster is a crime-mystery short story written in the early 20th century. It centers on a small-town sheriff confronting a lynch mob while sifting clues to uncover the true killer, probing the tension between mob justice, lawful procedure, and what people call “the hand of God.” On a sweltering night, a mob gathers to hang Sam Blake for shooting Kittinger outside a country store, where “open-and-shut” evidence seems to damn him: he’s found unconscious in a nearby blacksmith shop with a recently fired rifle and a clear motive. Determined to uphold the law, the sheriff stalls the crowd and notices a crucial inconsistency—there are two spent shells tied to a single heard shot. Inviting only two men inside, he catches Pete Brown, Kittinger’s nephew, in a lie about seeing the victim from a blocked vantage point, proving Pete watched from the actual murder site and had framed the drunken Sam earlier by firing Sam’s gun and planting him. After a brief struggle the sheriff arrests Pete, faces down the mob by laying out the facts, and disperses it, with the supposed “hand of God” revealed as a small human oversight exposed by stubborn, level-headed policing.
Summary generated automatically by Project Gutenberg.
- Read time
- 24 min
- Words
- 5,376
- Chapters
- 1
- Paragraphs
- 139
- Price
- Free
- Murder -- Fiction
- Sheriffs -- Fiction
- Short stories
- Western stories
The sheriff had been down in Bethel serving a summons and complaint.
Der Sheriff war unten in Bethel, um eine Klageschrift und eine Vorladung zuzustellen.
He’d heard the shot as a thin, muted, distant pop!
Er hatte den Schuss als einen dünnen, gedämpften, entfernten Plopp gehört.
They’d sent a man racing after him, and he got to the spot within five minutes of the killing.
Man hatte einen Mann in eiliger Hast zu ihm geschickt, und er war innerhalb von fünf Minuten nach der Tötung am Tatort.
Kittinger’s body was still warm, still flaccid.
Kittingers Leiche war noch warm, noch schlaff.
His face still wore that expression of blank astonishment that would never be wiped off it.
Sein Gesicht trug noch immer jenen Ausdruck blanken Erstaunens, der sich nie verwischen ließ.
Never.
Nie.
The sheriff had been peculiarly shocked by the fact that a dead man’s hand should slip from his own and drop with a sickening, loose-jointed thud in the soft dust.
Der Sheriff war besonders schockiert von der Tatsache, dass die Hand eines Toten von seiner eigenen rutschte und mit einem übel erregenden, gelenklosen Klatschen in den weichen Staub fiel.
And they’d found Sam Blake in the disused blacksmith shop just across the road from Bethel store.
Und sie hatten Sam Blake in der stillgelegten Schmiede gefunden, die genau gegenüber dem Laden in Bethel lag.
With a gun lying beside him, and his toe caught on a discarded metal wagon tire half buried in the earthen floor.
Mit einer Waffe neben sich und seinem Zeh, der in einem verlassenen Metallwagenreifen hängen geblieben war, der halb in den Erdboden eingegraben war.
He’d fired his shot and turned to run away, and he’d stumbled over that unimportant obstacle.
Er hatte seinen Schuss abgegeben und sich umgedreht, um zu fliehen, und war über dieses unbedeutende Hindernis gestolpert.
His head had hit a mass of brickwork as he fell.
Sein Kopf war beim Sturz gegen eine Mauer aus Ziegelsteinen geschlagen.
There was a great welt on his forehead where he’d struck.
Dort, wo er aufgeschlagen war, befand sich eine große Quaddel auf seiner Stirn.
About the author
Murray Leinster1896–1975
Murray Leinster was the pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an American writer born in Norfolk in 1896 and died in Gloucester County in 1975.
All 2 Murray Leinster books, easiest first →Questions about The hand of God
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How long does The hand of God take to read?
About 24 min at a normal pace, longer if you stop to look at the alignment, which is rather the point.
Book details
- Original language
- English
- Translation
- German, machine translation
- Source text
- Project Gutenberg #78088
- Licence
- Public domain in the United States
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