The second examination of the prisoner brought nothing new. Johann
Knoll refused to speak at all, or else simply repeated what he had said
before. This second examination took place early the next morning, but
Muller was not present. He was taking a walk in Hietzing.
When they took Johann Knoll in the police wagon to the City Prison,
Muller was just sauntering slowly through the street where the murder
had been committed. And as the door of the cell shut clangingly behind
the man whose face was distorted in impotent rage and despair, Joseph
Muller was standing in deep thought before the broken willow twig, which
now hung brown and dry across the planks of the fence. He looked at it
for a long time. That is, he seemed to be looking at it, but in reality
his eyes were looking out and beyond the willow twig, out into the
unknown, where the unknown murderer was still at large. Leopold
Winkler’s body had already been committed to the earth. How long will
it be before his death is avenged? Or perhaps how long may it even be
before it is discovered from what motive this murder was committed. Was
it a murder for robbery, or a murder for personal revenge perhaps? Were
the two crimes committed here by one and the same person, or were there
two people concerned? And if two, did they work as accomplices? Or is it
possible that Knoll’s story was true? Did he really only rob the body,
not realising that it was a dead man and not merely an intoxicated
sleeper as he had supposed? These and many more thoughts rushed
tumultuously through Muller’s brain until he sighed despairingly under
the pressure. Then he smiled in amusement at the wish that had crossed
his brain, the wish that this case might seem as simple to him as it
apparently did to the commissioner. It would certainly have saved him a
lot of work and trouble if he could believe the obvious as most people
did. What was this devil that rode him and spurred him on to delve
into the hidden facts concerning matters that seemed so simple on the
surface? The devil that spurred him on to understand that there always
was some hidden side to every case? Then the sigh and the smile passed,
and Muller raised his head in one of the rare moments of pride in his
own gifts that this shy unassuming little man ever allowed himself. This
was the work that he was intended by Providence to do or he wouldn’t
have been fitted for it, and it was work for the common good, for the
public safety. Thinking back over the troubles of his early youth,
Muller’s heart rejoiced and he was glad in his own genius. Then the
moment of unwonted elation passed and he bent his mind again to the
problem before him.
He sauntered slowly through the quiet street in the direction of the
four houses. To reach them he passed the fence that enclosed this end of
the Thorne property. Muller had already known, for the last twenty-four
hours at least, that the owner of the fine old estate was an artist by
the name of Herbert Thorne. His own landlady had informed him of
this. He himself was new to the neighbourhood, having moved out there
recently, and he had verified her statements by the city directory. As
he was now passing the Thorne property, in his slow, sauntering walk,
he had just come within a dozen paces of the little wooden gate in the
fence when this gate opened. Muller’s naturally soft tread was made
still more noiseless by the fact that he wore wide soft shoes. Years
before he had acquired a bad case of chilblains, in fact had been in
imminent danger of having his feet frozen by standing for five hours
in the snow in front of a house, to intercept several aristocratic
gentlemen who sooner or later would be obliged to leave that house. The
police had long suspected the existence of this high-class gambling den;
but it was not until they had put Muller in charge of the case, that
there were any results attained. The arrests were made at the risk of
permanent injury to the celebrated detective. Since then, Muller’s step
was more noiseless than usual, and now the woman who opened the gate
and peered out cautiously did not hear his approach nor did she see him
standing in the shadow of the fence. She looked towards the other end
of the street, then turned and spoke to somebody behind her. “There’s
nobody coming from that direction,” he said. Then she turned her head
the other way and saw Muller. She looked at him for a moment and slammed
the gate shut, disappearing behind it. Muller heard the lock click and
heard the beat of running feet hastening rapidly over the gravel path
through the garden.
The detective stood immediately in front of the gate, shaking his head.
“What was the matter with the woman? What was it that she wanted to see
or do in the street? Why should she run away when she saw me?” These
were his thoughts. But he didn’t waste time in merely thinking. Muller
never did. Action followed thought with him very quickly. He saw a
knot-hole in the fence just beside the gate and he applied his eyes
to this knot-hole. And through the knot-hole he saw something that
interested and surprised him.
The woman whose face had appeared so suddenly at the gate, and
disappeared still more suddenly, was the same woman whom he had seen
bidding farewell to Mr. Thorne and his wife on the Tuesday morning
previous, the woman whom he took to be the housekeeper. The old butler
stood beside her. It was undoubtedly the same man, although he had worn
a livery then and was now dressed in a comfortable old house coat.
He stood beside the woman, shaking his head and asking her just the
questions that Muller was asking himself at the moment.
“Why, what is the matter with you, Mrs. Bernauer? You’re so nervous
since yesterday. Are you ill? Everything seems to frighten you? Why did
you run away from that gate so suddenly? I thought you wanted me to show
you the place?”
Mrs. Bernauer raised her head and Muller saw that her face looked pale
and haggard and that her eyes shone with an uneasy feverish light. She
did not answer the old man’s questions, but made a gesture of farewell
and then turned and walked slowly towards the house. She realised,
apparently, and feared, perhaps, that the man who was passing the gate
might have noticed her sudden change of demeanour and that he was
listening to what she might say. She did not think of the knot-hole
in the board fence, or she might have been more careful in hiding her
distraught face from possible observers.
Muller stood watching through this knot-hole for some little time. He
took a careful observation of the garden, and from his point of vantage
he could easily see the little house which was apparently the dwelling
of the gardener, as well as the mansard roof of the main building. There
was considerable distance between the two houses. The detective decided
that it might interest him to know something more about this garden,
this house and the people who lived there. And when Muller made such a
decision it was usually not very long before he carried it out.
The other street, upon which the main front of the mansard house opened,
contained a few isolated dwellings surrounded by gardens and a number of
newly built apartment houses. On the ground floor of these latter houses
were a number of stores and immediately opposite the Thorne mansion was
a little cafe. This suited Muller exactly, for he had been there before
and he remembered that from one of the windows there was an excellent
view of the gate and the front entrance of the mansion opposite. It was
a very modest little cafe, but there was a fairly good wine to be had
there and the detective made it an excuse to sit down by the window,
as if enjoying his bottle while admiring the changing colours of the
foliage in the gardens opposite.
Another rather good chance, he discovered, was the fact that the
landlord belonged to the talkative sort, and believed that the
refreshments he had to sell were rendered doubly agreeable when spiced
by conversation. In this case the good man was not mistaken. It was
scarcely ten o’clock in the forenoon and there were very few people in
the cafe. The landlord was quite at leisure to devote himself to this
stranger in the window seat, whom he did not remember to have seen
before, and who was therefore doubly interesting to him. Several
subjects of conversation usual in such cases, such as politics and
the weather, seemed to arouse no particular enthusiasm in his patron’s
manner. Finally the portly landlord decided that he would touch upon the
theme which was still absorbing all Hietzing.
“Oh, by the way, sir, do you know that you are in the immediate vicinity
of the place where the murder of Monday evening was committed? People
are still talking about it around here. And I see by the papers that the
murderer was arrested in Pressburg yesterday and brought to Vienna last
night.”
“Indeed, is that so? I haven’t seen a paper to-day,” replied Muller,
awakening from his apparent indifference.
The landlord was flattered by the success of the new subject, and stood
ready to unloose the floodgates of his eloquence. His customer sat up
and asked the question for which the landlord was waiting.
“So it was around here that the man was shot?”
“Yes. His name was Leopold Winkler, that was in the papers to-day too.
You see that pretty house opposite? Well, right behind this house is the
garden that belongs to it and back of that, an old garden which has
been neglected for some time. It was at the end of this garden where
it touches the other street, that they found the man under a big
elder-tree, early Tuesday morning, day before yesterday.”
“Oh, indeed!” said. Muller, greatly interested, as if this was the first
he had heard of it. The landlord took a deep breath and was about to
begin again when his customer, who decided to keep the talkative man
to a certain phase of the subject, now took command of the conversation
himself.
“I should think that the people opposite, who live so near the place
where the murder was committed, wouldn’t be very much pleased,” he said.
“I shouldn’t care to look out on such a spot every time I went to my
window.”
“There aren’t any windows there,” exclaimed the landlord, “for there
aren’t any houses there. There’s only the old garden, and then the large
garden and the park belonging to Mr. Thorne’s house, that fine old house
you see just opposite here. It’s a good thing that Mr. Thorne and his
wife went away before the murder became known. The lady hasn’t been well
for some weeks, she’s very nervous and frail, and it probably would have
frightened her to think that such things were happening right close to
her home.”
“The lady is sick? What’s the matter with her?”
“Goodness knows, nerves, heart trouble, something like that. The things
these fine ladies are always having. But she wasn’t always that way, not
until about a year ago. She was fresh and blooming and very pretty to
look at before that.”
“She is a young lady then?”
“Yes, indeed, sir; she’s very young still and very pretty. It makes you
feel sorry to see her so miserable, and you feel sorry for her husband.
Now there’s a young couple with everything in the world to make them
happy and so fond of each other, and the poor little lady has to be so
sick.”
“They are very happy, you say?” asked Muller carelessly. He had no
particular set purpose in following up this inquiry, none but his usual
understanding of the fact that a man in his business can never amass too
much knowledge, and that it will sometimes happen that a chance bit of
information comes in very handy.
The landlord was pleased at the encouragement and continued: “Indeed
they are very happy. They’ve only been married two years. The lady comes
from a distance, from Graz. Her father is an army officer I believe, and
I don’t think she was over-rich. But she’s a very sweet-looking lady and
her rich husband is very fond of her, any one can see that.”
“You said just now that they had gone away, where have they gone to?”
“They’ve gone to Italy, sir. Mrs. Thorne was one of the few people who
do not know Venice. Franz, that’s the butler, sir, told me yesterday
evening that he had received a telegram saying that the lady and
gentleman had arrived safely and were very comfortably fixed in the
Hotel Danieli. You know Danieli’s?”
“Yes, I do. I also was one of the few people who did not know Venice,
that is I was until two years ago. Then, however, I had the pleasure of
riding over the Bridge of Mestre,” answered Muller. He did not add that
he was not alone at the time, but had ridden across the long bridge in
company with a pale haggard-faced man who did not dare to look to the
right or to the left because of the revolver which he knew was held in
the detective’s hand under his loose overcoat. Muller’s visit to Venice,
like most of his journeyings, had been one of business. This time to
capture and bring home a notorious and long sought embezzler. He did
not volunteer any of this information, however, but merely asked in
a politely interested manner whether the landlord himself had been to
Venice.
“Yes, indeed,” replied the latter proudly. “I was head waiter at Baner’s
for two years.”
“Then you must make me some Italian dishes soon,” said Muller. Further
conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Franz, the old butler of
the house opposite.
“Excuse me, sir; I must get him his glass of wine,” said the landlord,
hurrying away to the bar. He returned in a moment with a small bottle
and a glass and set it down on Muller’s table.
“You don’t mind, sir, if he sits down here?” he asked. “He usually sits
here at this table because then he can see if he is needed over at the
house.”
“Oh, please let him come here. He has prior rights to this table
undoubtedly,” said the stranger politely. The old butler sat down
with an embarrassed murmur, as the voluble landlord explained that the
stranger had no objection. Then the boniface hurried off to attend to
some newly entered customers and the detective, greatly pleased at the
prospect, found himself alone with the old servant.
“You come here frequently?” he began, to open the conversation.
“Yes, sir, since my master and myself have settled down here--we
travelled most of the time until several years ago--I find this place
very convenient. It’s a cosy little room, the wine is good and not
expensive, I’m near home and yet I can see some new faces occasionally.”
“I hope the faces that you see about you at home are not so unpleasant
that you are glad to get away from them?” asked Muller with a smile.
The old man gave a start of alarm. “Oh, dear, no, sir,” he exclaimed
eagerly; “that wasn’t what I meant. Indeed I’m fond of everybody in the
house from our dear lady down to the poor little dog.”
Here Muller gained another little bit of knowledge, the fact that the
lady of the house was the favourite of her servants, or that she seemed
to them even more an object of adoration than the master.
“Then you evidently have a very good place, since you seem so fond of
every one.”
“Indeed I have a good place, sir.”
“You’ve had this place a long time?”
“More than twenty years. My master was only eleven years old when I took
service with the family.”
“Ah, indeed! then you must be a person of importance in the house if you
have been there so long?”
“Well more or less I might say I am,” the old man smiled and looked
flattered, then added: “But the housekeeper, Mrs. Bernauer, is even more
important than I am, to tell you the truth. She was nurse to our present
young master, and she’s been in the house ever since. When his
parents died, it’s some years ago now, she took entire charge of the
housekeeping. She was a fine active woman then, and now the young master
and mistress couldn’t get along without her. They treat her as if she
was one of the family.”
“And she is ill also? I say also,” explained Muller, “because the
landlord has just been telling me that your mistress is ill.”
“Yes, indeed, more’s the pity! our poor dear young lady has been
miserable for nearly a year now. It’s a shame to see such a sweet angel
as she is suffer like that and the master’s quite heart-broken over it.
But there’s nothing the matter with Mrs. Bernauer. How did you come to
think that she was sick?”
Muller did not intend to explain that the change in the housekeeper’s
appearance, a change which had come about between Tuesday morning and
Thursday morning, might easily have made any one think that she was
ill. He gave as excuse for his question the old man’s own words: “Why,
I thought that she might be ill also because you said yourself that the
housekeeper--what did you say her name was?”
“Bernauer, Mrs. Adele Bernauer. She was a widow when she came to take
care of the master. Her husband was a sergeant of artillery.”
“Well, I mean,” continued Muller, “you said yourself that when the
gentleman’s parents died, Mrs. Bernauer was a fine active woman,
therefore I supposed she was no longer so.”
Franz thought the matter over for a while. “I don’t know just why I put
it that way. Indeed she’s still as active as ever and always fresh and
well. It’s true that for the last two or three days she’s been very
nervous and since yesterday it is as if she was a changed woman. She
must be ill, I don’t know how to explain it otherwise.”
“What seems to be the matter with her?” asked Muller and then to explain
his interest in the housekeeper’s health, he fabricated a story: “I
studied medicine at one time and although I didn’t finish my course
or get a diploma, I’ve always had a great interest in such things, and
every now and then I’ll take a case, particularly nervous diseases. That
was my specialty.” Muller took up his glass and turned away from the
window, for he felt a slow flush rising to his cheeks. It was another
of Muller’s peculiarities that he always felt an inward embarrassment at
the lies he was obliged to tell in his profession.
The butler did not seem to have noticed it however, and appeared eager
to tell of what concerned him in the housekeeper’s appearance and
demeanour. “Why, yesterday at dinner time was the first that we began
to notice anything wrong with Mrs. Bernauer. The rest of us, that is,
Lizzie the upstairs girl, the cook and myself. She began to eat her
dinner with a good appetite, then suddenly, when we got as far as the
pudding, she let her fork fall and turned deathly white. She got up
without saying a word and left the room. Lizzie ran after her to ask if
anything was the matter, but she said no, it was nothing of importance.
After dinner, she went right out, saying she was doing some errands.
She brought in a lot of newspapers, which was quite unusual, for she
sometimes does not look at a newspaper once a week even. I wouldn’t have
noticed it but Lizzie’s the kind that sees and hears everything and
she told us about it.” Franz stopped to take a drink, and Muller said
indifferently, “I suppose Mrs. Bernauer was interested in the murder
case. The whole neighbourhood seems to be aroused about it.”
“No, I don’t think that was it,” answered the old servant, “because then
she would have sent for a paper this morning too.”
“And she didn’t do that?”
“No, unless she might have gone out for it herself. There’s a news stand
right next door here. But I don’t think she did because I would have
seen the paper around the house then.”
“And is that all that’s the matter with her?” asked Muller in a tone of
disappointment. “Why, I thought you’d have something really interesting
to tell me.”
“Oh, no, that isn’t all, sir,” exclaimed the old man eagerly.
Muller leaned forward, really interested now, while Franz continued:
“She was uneasy all the afternoon yesterday. She walked up and down
stairs and through the halls--I remember Lizzie making some joke about
it--and then in the evening to our surprise she suddenly began a great
rummaging in the first story.”
“Is that where she lives?”
“Oh, no; her room is in the wing out towards the garden. The rooms on
the first floor all belong to the master and mistress. This morning we
found out that Mrs. Bernauer’s cleaning up of the evening before had
been done because she remembered that the master wanted to take some
papers with him but couldn’t find them and had asked her to look for
them and send them right on.”
“Well, I shouldn’t call that a sign of any particular nervousness, but
rather an evidence of Mrs. Bernauer’s devotion to her duty.”
“Oh, yes, sir--but it certainly is queer that she should go into
the garden at four o’clock this morning and appear to be looking for
something along the paths and under the bushes. Even if a few of the
papers blew out of the window, or blew away from the summer house, where
the master writes sometimes, they couldn’t have scattered all over the
garden like that.”
Muller didn’t follow up this subject any longer. There might come a
time when he would be interested in finding out the reason for the
housekeeper’s search in the garden, but just at present he wanted
something else. He remembered some remark of the old man’s about the
“poor little dog,” and on this he built his plan.
“Oh, well,” he said carelessly, “almost everybody is nervous and
impatient now-a-days. I suppose Mrs. Bernauer felt uneasy because
she couldn’t find the paper right away. There’s nothing particularly
interesting or noticeable about that. Anyway, I’ve been occupying myself
much more these last years with sick animals rather than with sick
people. I’ve had some very successful cures there.”
“No, really, have you? Then you could do us a great favour,” exclaimed
Franz in apparent eagerness. Muller’s heart rejoiced. He had apparently
hit it right this time. He knew that in a house like that “a poor dog”
could only mean a “sick dog.” But his voice was quite calm as he asked:
“How can I do you a favour?”
“Why, you see, sir, we’ve got a little terrier,” explained the old man,
who had quite forgotten the fact that he had mentioned the dog before.
“And there’s been something the matter with the poor little chap for
several days. He won’t eat or drink, he bites at the grass and rolls
around on his stomach and cries--it’s a pity to see him. If you’re fond
of animals and know how to take care of them, you may be able to help us
there.”
“You want me to look at the little dog? Why, yes, I suppose I can.”
“We’ll appreciate it,” said the old man with an embarrassed smile. But
Muller shook his head and continued: “No, never mind the payment, I
wouldn’t take any money for it. But I’ll tell you what you can do
for me. I’m very fond of flowers. If you think you can take the
responsibility of letting me walk around in the garden for a little
while, and pick a rose or two, I will be greatly pleased.”
“Why, of course you may,” said Franz. “Take any of the roses you see
there that please you. They’re nearly over for the season now and it’s
better they should be picked rather than left to fade on the bush.
We don’t use so many flowers in the house now when the family are not
there.”
“All right, then, it’s a bargain,” laughed Muller, signalling to the
landlord. “Are you, going already?” asked the old servant.
“Yes, I must be going if I am to spend any time with the little dog.”
“I suppose I ought to be at home myself,” said Franz. “Something’s the
matter with the electric wiring in our place. The bell in the master’s
room keeps ringing. I wrote to Siemens & Halske to send us a man out
to fix it. He’s likely to come any minute now.” The two men rose, paid
their checks, and went out together. Outside the cafe Muller hesitated
a moment. “You go on ahead,” he said to Franz. “I want to go in here and
get a cigar.”
While buying his cigar and lighting it, he asked for several newspapers,
choosing those which his quick eye had told him were no longer among the
piles on the counter. “I’m very sorry, sir,” said the clerk; “we have
only a few of those papers, just two or three more than we need for our
regular customers, and this morning they are all sold. The housekeeper
from the Thorne mansion took the very last ones.”
This was exactly what Muller wanted to know. He left the store and
caught up with the old butler as the latter was opening the handsome
iron gate that led from the Thorne property out onto the street.
“Well, where’s our little patient?” asked the detective as he walked
through the courtyard with Franz.
“You’ll see him in a minute,” answered the old servant. He led the way
through a light roomy corridor furnished with handsome old pieces in
empire style, and opened a door at its further end.
“This is my room.”
It was a large light room with two windows opening on the garden. Muller
was not at all pleased that the journey through the hall had been such a
short one. However he was in the house, that was something, and he could
afford to trust to chance for the rest. Meanwhile he would look at the
dog. The little terrier lay in a corner by the stove and it did not take
Muller more than two or three minutes to discover that there was nothing
the matter with the small patient but a simple case of over-eating.
But he put on a very wise expression as he handled the little dog and
looking up, asked if he could get some chamomile tea.
“I’ll go for it, I think there’s some in the house. Do you want it made
fresh?” said Franz.
“Yes, that will be better, about a cupful will do,” was Muller’s answer.
He knew that this harmless remedy would be likely to do the dog good and
at the present moment he wanted to be left alone in the room. As soon
as Franz had gone, the detective hastened to the window, placing himself
behind the curtain so that he could not be seen from outside. He himself
could see first a wide courtyard lying between the two wings of the
house, then beyond it the garden, an immense square plot of ground
beautifully cultivated. The left wing of the house was about six windows
longer than the other, and from the first story of it it would be quite
easy to look out over the vacant lot where the old shed stood which had
served as a night’s lodging for Johann Knoll.
There was not the slightest doubt in Muller’s mind that this part of the
tramp’s story was true, for by a natural process of elimination he knew
there was nothing to be gained by inventing any such tale. Besides
which the detective himself had been to look at the shed. His well-known
pedantic thoroughness would not permit him to take any one’s word for
anything that he might find out for himself. In his investigations on
Tuesday morning he had already seen the half-ruined shed, now he knew
that it contained a broken bench.
Thus far, therefore, Knoll’s story was proved to be true--but there was
something that didn’t quite hitch in another way. The tramp had said
that he had seen first a woman and then a man come from the main house
and go in the direction of the smaller house which he took to be the
gardener’s dwelling. This Muller discovered now was quite impossible.
A tall hedge, fully seven or eight feet high and very thick, stretched
from the courtyard far down into the garden past the gardener’s little
house. There was a broad path on the right and the left of this green
wall. From his position in the shed, Knoll could have seen people
passing only when they were on the right side of the hedge. But to reach
the gardener’s house from the main dwelling, the shortest way would be
on the left side of the hedge. This much Muller saw, then he heard the
butler’s steps along the hall and he went back to the corner where the
dog lay.
Franz was not alone. There was some one else with him, the housekeeper,
Mrs. Bernauer. Just as they opened the door, Muller heard her say:
“If the gentleman is a veterinary, then we’d better ask him about the
parrot--”
The sentence was never finished. Muller never found out what was the
matter with the parrot, for as he looked up with a polite smile of
interest, he looked into a pale face, into a pair of eyes that opened
wide in terror, and heard trembling lips frame the words: “There he is
again!”
A moment later Mrs. Bernauer would have been glad to have recalled her
exclamation, but it was too late.
Muller bowed before her and asked: “‘There he is again,’ you said; have
you ever seen me before?”
The woman looked at him as if hypnotised and answered almost in a
whisper: “I saw you Tuesday morning for the first time, Tuesday morning
when the family were going away. Then I saw you pass through our street
twice again that same day. This morning you went past the garden gate
and now I find you here. What-what is it you want of us?”
“I will tell you what I want, Mrs. Bernauer, but first I want to speak
to you alone. Mr. Franz doesn’t mind leaving us for a while, does he?”
“But why?” said the old man hesitatingly. He didn’t understand at all
what was going on and he would much rather have remained.
“Because I came here for the special purpose of speaking to Mrs.
Bernauer,” replied Muller calmly.
“Then you didn’t come on account of the dog?”
“No, I didn’t come on account of the dog.”
“Then you--you lied to me?”
“Partly.”
“And you’re no veterinary?”
“No--I can help your dog, but I am not a veterinary and never have
been.”
“What are you then?”
“I will tell Mrs. Bernauer who and what I am when you are
outside--outside in the courtyard there. You can walk about in the
garden if you want to, or else go and get some simple purgative for this
dog. That is all he needs; he has been over-fed.”
Franz was quite bewildered. These new developments promised to be
interesting and he was torn between his desire to know more, and his
doubts as to the propriety of leaving the housekeeper with this queer
stranger. He hesitated until the woman herself motioned to him to go. He
went out into the hall, then into the courtyard, watched by the two in
the room who stood silently in the window until they saw the butler pass
down into the garden. Then they looked at each other.
“You belong to the police?” asked Adele Bernauer finally with a deep
sigh.
“That was a good guess,” replied Muller with an ironic smile, adding:
“All who have any reason to fear us are very quick in recognising us.”
“What do you mean by that?” she exclaimed with a start. “What are you
thinking of?”
“I am thinking about the same thing that you are thinking of--that I
have proved you are thinking of--the same thing that drove you out into
the street yesterday and this morning to buy the papers. These papers
print news which is interesting many people just now, and some people a
great deal. I am thinking of the same thing that was evidently in your
thoughts as you peered out of the garden gate this morning, although you
would not come out into the street. I know that you do not read even one
newspaper regularly. I know also that yesterday and today you bought
a great many papers, apparently to get every possible detail about a
certain subject. Do you deny this?”
She did not deny it, she did not answer at all. She sank down on
a chair, her wide staring eyes looking straight ahead of her, and
trembling so that the old chair cracked underneath her weight. But this
condition did not last long. The woman had herself well under control.
Muller’s coming, or something else, perhaps, may have overwhelmed her
for a moment, but she soon regained her usual self-possession.
“Still you have not told me what you want here,” she began coldly,
and as he did not answer she continued: “I have a feeling that you
are watching us. I had this feeling when I saw you the first time and
noticed then--pardon my frankness--that you stared at us sharply while
we were saying goodbye to our master and mistress. Then I saw you pass
twice again through the street and look up at our windows. This morning
I find you at our garden gate and now--you will pardon me if I tell the
exact truth--now you have wormed yourself in here under false pretenses
because you have no right whatever to force an entrance into this house.
And I ask you again, what do you want here?”
Muller was embarrassed. That did not happen very often. Also it did not
happen very often that he was in the wrong as he was now. The woman
was absolutely right. He had wormed himself into the house under false
pretenses to follow up the new clue which almost unconsciously as yet
was leading him on with a stronger and stronger attraction. He could not
have explained it and he certainly was not ready to say anything about
it at police headquarters, even at the risk of being obliged to continue
to enter this mysterious house under false pretenses and to be told
that he was doing so. Of course this sort of thing was necessary in his
business, it was the only way in which he could follow up the criminals.
But there was something in this woman’s words that cut into a sensitive
spot and drove the blood to his cheeks. There was something in the
bearing and manner of this one-time nurse that impressed him, although
he was not a man to be lightly impressed. He had a feeling that he had
made a fool of himself and it bothered him. For a moment he did not know
what he should say to this woman who stood before him with so much quiet
energy in her bearing. But the something in his brain, the something
that made him what he was, whispered to him that he had done right, and
that he must follow up the trail he had found. That gave him back his
usual calm.
He took up his hat, and standing before the pale-faced woman, looking
her firmly in the eyes, he said: “It is true that I have no right as yet
to force my way into your house, therefore I have been obliged to enter
it as best I could. I have done this often in my work, but I do it
for the safety of society. And those who reproach me for doing it are
generally those whom I have been obliged to persecute in the name of
the law. Mrs. Bernauer, I will confess that there are moments in which I
feel ashamed that I have chosen this profession that compels me to
hunt down human beings. But I do not believe that this is one of those
moments. You have read this morning’s papers; you must know, therefore,
that a man has been arrested and accused of the murder which interests
you so much; you must be able to realise the terror and anxiety which
are now filling this man’s heart. For to-day’s papers--I have read them
myself--expressed the public sentiment that the police may succeed in
convicting this man of the crime, that the death may be avenged and
justice have her due. Several of these papers, the papers I know you
have bought and presumably read, do not doubt that Johann Knoll is the
murderer of Leopold Winkler.
“Now there are at least two people who do not believe that Knoll is the
murderer. I am one of them, and you, Mrs. Bernauer, you are the other.
I am going now and when I come again, as I doubtless will come again,
I will come with full right to enter this house. I acknowledge frankly
that I have no justification in causing your arrest as yet, but you are
quite clever enough to know that if I had the faintest justification I
would not leave here alone. And one thing more I have to say. You may
not know that I have had the most extraordinary luck in my profession,
that in more than a hundred cases there have been but two where the
criminal I was hunting escaped me. And now, Mrs. Bernauer, I will bid
you good day.”
Muller stepped towards the window and motioned to Franz, who was walking
up and down outside. The old man ran to the door and met the detective
in the hall.
“You’d better go in and look after Mrs. Bernauer,” said the latter, “I
can find my way out alone.”
Franz looked after him, shaking his head in bewilderment and then
entered his own room. “Merciful God!” he exclaimed, bending down in
terror over the housekeeper, who lay on the floor. In his shock and
bewilderment he imagined that she too had been murdered, until he
realised that it was only a swoon from which she recovered in a moment.
He helped her regain her feet and she looked about as if still dazed,
stammering: “Has he gone?”
“The strange man? ... Yes, he went some time ago. But what happened to
you? Did he give you something to make you faint? Do you think he was a
thief?”
Mrs. Bernauer shook her head and murmured: “Oh, no, quite the contrary.”
A remark which did not enlighten Franz particularly as to the status
of the man who had just left them. There was a note of fear in the
housekeepers’s voice and she added hastily: “Does any one besides
ourselves know that he was here?”
“No, Lizzie and the cook are in the kitchen talking about the murder.”
Mrs. Bernauer shivered again and went slowly out of the room and up the
stairs.
If Franz believed that the stranger had left the house by the front
entrance he was very much mistaken. When Muller found himself alone in
the corridor he turned quickly and hurried out into the garden. None
of the servants had seen him. Lizzie and the cook were engaged in an
earnest conversation in the kitchen and Franz was fully occupied with
Mrs. Bernauer. The gardener was away and his wife busy at her wash
tubs. No one was aware, therefore, that Muller spent about ten minutes
wandering about the garden, and ten minutes were quite sufficient for
him to become so well acquainted with the place that he could have drawn
a map of it. He left the garden through the rear gate, the latch of
which he was obliged to leave open. The gardener’s wife found it that
way several hours later and was rather surprised thereat. Muller walked
down the street rapidly and caught a passing tramway. His mood was
not of the best, for he could not make up his mind whether or no this
morning had been a lost one. His mind sorted and rearranged all that
he knew or could imagine concerning Mrs. Bernauer. But there was hardly
enough of these facts to reassure him that he was not on a false trail,
that he had not allowed himself to waste precious hours all because he
had seen a woman’s haggard face appear for a moment at the little gate
in the quiet street.