When Muller reached the house where Mrs. Klingmayer lived he ordered the
cabman to wait and hurried up to the widow’s little apartment. He had
the key to Leopold Winkler’s room in his own pocket, for Mrs. Klingmayer
had given this key to Commissioner von Riedau at the latter’s request
and the commissioner had given it to Muller. The detective told the good
woman not to bother about him as he wanted to make an examination of the
place alone. Left to himself in the little room, Muller made a thorough
search of it, opening the cupboard, the bureau drawers, every possible
receptacle where any article could be kept or hidden. What he wanted
to find was some letter, some bit of paper, some memoranda perhaps,
anything that would show any connection existing between the murdered
man and Mrs. Bernauer, who lived so near the place where this man had
died and who was so greatly interested in his murder.
The detective’s search was not quite in vain, although he could not tell
yet whether what he had found would be of any value. Leopold Winkler had
had very little correspondence, or else he had had no reason to keep
the letters he received. Muller found only about a half dozen letters in
all. Three of them were from women of the half-world, giving dates for
meetings. Another was written by a man and signed “Theo.” This “Theo”
appeared to be the same sort of a cheap rounder that Winkler was. And he
seemed to have sunk one grade deeper than the dead man, in spite of the
latter’s bad reputation. For this other addressed Winkler as his
“Dear Friend” and pleaded with him for “greater discretion,” alluding
evidently to something which made this discretion necessary.
“I wonder what rascality it was that made these two friends?” murmured
Muller, putting Theo’s letter with the three he had already read.
But before he slipped it in his pocket he glanced at the postmark. The
letters of the three women had all been posted from different quarters
of the city some months ago. Theo’s letter was postmarked “Marburg,” and
dated on the 1st of September of the present year.
Then Muller looked at the postmark of the two remaining letters which
he had not yet read, and whistled softly to himself. Both these letters
were posted from a certain station in Hietzing, the station which was
nearest his own lodgings and also nearest the Thorne house. He looked at
the postmark more sharply. They both bore the dates of the present year,
one of them being stamped “March 17th,” the other “September 24th.” This
last letter interested the detective most.
Muller was not of a nervous disposition, but his hand trembled slightly
as he took the letter from its envelope. It was clear that this letter
had been torn open hastily, for the edges of the opening were jagged and
uneven.
When the detective had read the letter--it contained but a few lines and
bore neither address nor signature--he glanced over it once more as if
to memorise the words. They were as follows: “Do not come again. In a
day or two I will be able to do what I have to do. I will send you later
news to your office. Impatience will not help you.”--These words were
written hastily on a piece of paper that looked as if it had been torn
from a pad. In spite of the haste the writer had been at some pains to
disguise the handwriting. But it was a clumsy disguise, done by one not
accustomed to such tricks, and it was evidently done by a woman. All she
had known how to do to disguise her writing had been to twist and turn
the paper while writing, so that every letter had a different position.
The letters were also made unusually long. This peculiarity of the
writing was seen on both letters and both envelopes. The earlier letter
was still shorter and seemed to have been written with the same haste,
and with the same disgust, or perhaps even hatred, for the man to whom
it was written.
“Come to-morrow, but not before eight o’clock. He has gone away. God
forgive him and you.” This was the contents of the letter of the 17th of
March. That is, the writer had penned the letter this way. But the last
two words, “and you,” had evidently not come from her heart, for she had
annulled them by a heavy stroke of the pen. A stroke that seemed like a
knife thrust, so full of rage and hate it was.
“So he was called to a rendezvous in Hietzing, too,” murmured Muller,
then he added after a few moments: “But this rendezvous had nothing
whatever to do with love.”
There was nothing else in Winkler’s room which could be of any value to
Muller in the problem that was now before him. And yet he was very well
satisfied with the result of his errand.
He entered his cab again, ordering the driver to take him to Hietzing.
Just before he had reached the corner where he had told the man to stop,
another cab passed them, a coupe, in which was a solitary woman. Muller
had just time enough to recognise this woman as Adele Bernauer, and to
see that she looked even more haggard and miserable than she had that
morning. She did not look up as the other cab passed her carriage,
therefore she did not see Muller. The detective looked at his watch and
saw that it was almost half-past four. The unexpected meeting changed,
his plans for the afternoon. He had decided that he must enter the
Thorne mansion again that very day, for he must find out the meaning of
the red-shaded lamp. And now that the housekeeper was away it would be
easier for him to get into the house, therefore it must be done at once.
His excuse was all ready, for he had been weighing possibilities.
He dismissed his cab a block from his own home and entered his house
cautiously.
Muller’s lodgings consisted of two large rooms, really much too large
for a lone man who was at home so little. But Muller had engaged them
at first sight, for the apartment possessed one qualification which was
absolutely necessary for him. Its situation and the arrangement of its
doors made it possible for him to enter and leave his rooms without
being seen either by his own landlady or by the other lodgers in the
house. The little apartment was on the ground floor, and Muller’s own
rooms had a separate entrance opening on to the main corridor almost
immediately behind the door. Nine times out of ten, he could come and go
without being seen by any one in the house. To-day was the first
time, however, that Muller had had occasion to try this particular
qualification of his new lodgings.
He opened the street door and slipped into his own room without having
seen or been seen by any one.
Fifteen minutes later he left the apartment again, but left it such a
changed man that nobody who had seen him go in would have recognised
him. Before he came out, however, he looked about carefully to see
whether there was any one in sight He came out unseen and was just
closing the main door behind him, when he met the janitress.
“Were you looking for anybody in the house?” said the woman, glancing
sharply at the stranger, who answered in a slightly veiled voice: “No,
I made a mistake in the number. The place I am looking for is two houses
further down.”
He walked down the street and the woman looked after him until she saw
him turn into the doorway of the second house. Then she went into her
own rooms. The house Muller entered happened to be a corner house with
an entrance on the other street, through which the detective passed
and went on his way. He was quite satisfied with the security of his
disguise, for the woman who knew him well had not recognised him at all.
If his own janitress did not know him, the people in the Thorne house
would never imagine it was he.
And indeed Muller was entirely changed. In actuality small and thin,
with sparse brown hair and smooth shaven face, he was now an inch or two
taller and very much stouter. He wore thick curly blond hair, a little
pointed blond beard and moustache. His eyes were hidden by heavy-rimmed
spectacles.
It was just half-past five when he rang the bell at the entrance gate to
the Thorne property. He had spent the intervening time in the cafe,
as he was in no hurry to enter the house. Franz came down the path and
opened the door. “‘What do you want?” he asked.
“I come from Siemens & Halske; I was to ask whether the other man--”
“Has been here already?” interrupted Franz, adding in an irritated tone,
“No, he hasn’t been here at all.”
“Well, I guess he didn’t get through at the other place in time. I’ll
see what the trouble is,” said the stranger, whom Franz naturally
supposed to be the electrician, he opened the gate and asked the other
to come in, leading him into the house. Under a cloudy sky the day
was fading rapidly. Muller knew that it would not occur to the real
electrician to begin any work as late as this, and that he was perfectly
safe in the examination he wanted to make.
“Well, what’s the trouble here? Why did you write to our firm?” asked
the supposed electrician.
“The wires must cross somewhere, or there’s something wrong with the
bells. When the housekeeper touches the button in her room to ring for
the cook or the upstairs girl, the bell rings in Mr. Thorne’s room. It
starts ringing and it keeps up with a deuce of a noise. Fortunately the
family are away.”
“Well, we’ll fix it all right for you. First of all I want to look at
the button in the housekeeper’s room.”
“I’ll take you up there,” said Franz.
They walked through the wide corridor, then turned into a shorter,
darker hall and went up a narrow winding stairway. Franz halted before
a door in the second story. It was the last of the three doors in
the hall. Muller took off his hat as the door opened and murmured a
“good-evening.”
“There’s no one there; Mrs. Bernauer’s out.”
“Has she gone away, too?” asked the electrician hastily.
Franz did not notice that there was a slight change in the stranger’s
voice at this question, and he answered calmly as ever: “Oh, no; she’s
just driven to town. I think she went to see the doctor who lives quite
a distance away. She hasn’t been feeling at all well. She took a cab
to-day. I told her she ought to, as she wasn’t well enough to go by the
tram. She ought to be home any moment now.”
“Well, I’ll hurry up with the job so that I’ll be out of the way when
the lady comes,” said Muller, as Franz led him to the misbehaving bell.
It was in the wall immediately above a large table which filled the
window niche so completely that there was but scant space left for the
comfortable armchair that stood in front of it. The window was open and
Muller leaned out, looking down at the garden below.
“What a fine old garden!” he exclaimed aloud. To himself he said: “This
is the last window in the left wing. It is the window where Johann Knoll
saw the red light.”
And when he turned back into the room again he found the source of this
light right at his hand on the handsome old table at which Mrs. Bernauer
evidently spent many of her hours. A row of books stood against the
wall, framing the back of the table. Well-worn volumes of the classics
among them gave proof that the one-time nurse was a woman of education.
A sewing basket and neat piles of house linen, awaiting repairs, covered
a large part of the table-top, and beside them stood a gracefully shaped
lamp, covered by a shade of soft red silk.
It took Muller but a few seconds to see all this. Then he set about
his investigation of the electric button. He unscrewed the plate and
examined the wires meeting under it. While doing so he cast another
glance at the table and saw a letter lying there, an open letter half
out of its envelope. This envelope was of unusual shape, long and
narrow, and the paper was heavy and high-glossed.
“Your housekeeper evidently has no secrets from the rest of you,” Muller
remarked with a laugh, still busy at the wires, “or she wouldn’t leave
her letters lying about like that.”
“Oh, we’ve all heard what’s in that letter,” replied Franz. “She read it
to us when it came this morning. It’s from the Madam. She sent messages
to all of us and orders, so Mrs. Bernauer read us the whole letter.
There’s no secrets in that.”
“The button has been pressed in too far and caught down. That seems to
be the main trouble,” said Muller, readjusting the little knob. “I’d
like a candle here if I may have one.”
“I’ll get you a light at once,” said Franz. But his intentions, however
excellent, seemed difficult of fulfilment. It was rapidly growing dark,
and the old butler peered about uncertainly. “Stupid,” he muttered. “I
don’t know where she keeps the matches. I can’t find them anywhere. I’m
not a smoker, so I haven’t any in my pocket.”
“Nor I,” said Muller calmly, letting his hand close protectingly over a
new full box of them in his own pocket.
“I’ll get you some from my own room,” and Franz hurried away, his loose
slippers clattering down the stairs. He was no sooner well out of the
room than Muller had the letter in his hand and was standing close by
the window to catch the fading light. But on the old servant’s return
the supposed electrician stood calmly awaiting the coming of the light,
and the letter was back on the table half hidden by a piece of linen.
Franz did not notice that the envelope was missing. And the housekeeper,
whose mind was so upset by the events of the day, and whose thoughts
were on other more absorbing matters, would hardly be likely to remember
whether she had returned this quite unimportant letter to its envelope
or not.
Franz brought a lighted candle with him, and Muller, who really did
possess a creditable knowledge of electricity, saw that the wires in
the room were all in good condition. As he had seen at first, there was
really nothing the matter except with the position of the button. But it
did not suit his purpose to enlighten Franz on the matter just yet.
“Now I’d better look at the wires in the gentleman’s room,” he said,
when he had returned plate and button to their place.
“Just as you say,” replied Franz, taking up his candle and leading the
way out into the hall and down the winding stair. They crossed the lower
corridor, mounted another staircase and entered a large, handsomely
furnished room, half studio, half library. The wall was covered with
pictures and sketches, several easels stood piled up in the corner, and
a broad table beside them held paint boxes, colour tubes, brushes, all
the paraphernalia of the painter, now carefully ordered and covered for
a term of idleness. Great bookcases towered to the ceiling, and a huge
flat top desk, a costly piece of furniture, was covered with books and
papers. It was the room of a man of brains and breeding, a man of talent
and ability, possessing, furthermore, the means to indulge his tastes
freely. Even now, with its master absent, the handsome apartment bore
the impress of his personality. The detective’s quick imagination called
up the attractive, sympathetic figure of the man he had seen at the
gate, as his quick eye took in the details of the room. All the charm of
Herbert Thorne’s personality, which the keen-sensed Muller had felt so
strongly even in that fleeting glimpse of him, came back again here
in the room which was his own little kingdom and the expression of his
mentality.
“Well, what’s the trouble here? Where are the wires?” asked the
detective, after the momentary pause which had followed his entrance
into the room. Franz led him to a spot on the wall hidden by a marquetry
cabinet. “Here’s the bell, it rings for several minutes before it
stops.”
The light of the candle which the butler held fell upon a portrait
hanging above the cabinet. It was a sketch in water-colours, the
life-sized head of a man who may have been about thirty years old,
perhaps, but who had none of the freshness and vigour of youth. The
scanty hair, the sunken temples, and the faded skin, emphasised the look
of dissipation given by the lines about the sensual mouth and the shifty
eyes.
“Well, say, can’t your master find anything better to paint than a face
like that?” Muller asked with a laugh.
“Goodness me! you mustn’t say such things!” exclaimed Franz in alarm;
“that’s the Madam’s brother. He’s an officer, I’d have you know. It’s
true, he doesn’t look like much there, but that’s because he’s not in
uniform. It makes such a difference.”
“Is the lady anything like her brother?” asked the detective
indifferently, bending to examine the wiring.
“Oh, dear, no, not a bit; they’re as different as day and night. He’s
only her half-brother anyway. She was the daughter of the Colonel’s
second wife. Our Madam is the sweetest, gentlest lady you can imagine,
an angel of goodness. But the Lieutenant here has always been a care
to his family, they say. I guess he’s quieted down a bit now, for his
father--he’s Colonel Leining, retired--made him get exchanged from the
city to a small garrison town. There’s nothing much to do in Marburg,
I dare say--well! you are a merry sort, aren’t you?” These last words,
spoken in a tone of surprise, were called forth by a sudden sharp
whistle from the detective, a whistle which went off into a few merry
bars.
A sudden whistle like that from Muller’s lips was something that made
the Imperial Police Force sit up and take notice, for it meant that
things were happening, and that the happenings were likely to become
exciting. It was a habit he could control only by the severest effort of
the will, an effort which he kept for occasions when it was absolutely
necessary. Here, alone with the harmless old man, he was not so much
on his guard, and the sudden vibrating of every nerve at the word
“Marburg,” found vent in the whistle which surprised old Franz. One
young police commissioner with a fancy for metaphor had likened this
sudden involuntary whistle of Muller’s to the bay of the hound when he
strikes the trail; which was about what it was.
“Yes, I am merry sometimes,” he said with a laugh. “It’s a habit I have.
Something occurred to me just then, something I had forgotten. Hope you
don’t mind.”
“Oh, no, there’s no one here now, whistle all you like.”
But Muller’s whistle was not a continuous performance, and he had now
completely mastered the excitation of his nerves which had called it
forth. He threw another sharp look at the picture of the man who lived
in Marburg, and then asked: “And now where is the button?”
“By the window there, beside the desk.” Franz led the way with his
candle.
“Why, how funny! What are those mirrors there for?” asked the
electrician in a tone of surprise, pointing to two small mirrors hanging
in the window niche. They were placed at a height and at such a peculiar
angle that no one could possibly see his face in them.
“Something the master is experimenting with, I guess. He’s always making
queer experiments; he knows a lot about scientific things.”
Muller shook his head as if in wonderment, and bent to investigate the
button which was fastened into the wall beneath the window sill. His
quick ear heard a carriage stopping in front of the house, and heard the
closing of the front door a moment later. To facilitate his examination
of the button, the detective had seated himself in the armchair which
stood beside the desk. He half raised himself now to let the light
of the candle fall more clearly on the wiring--then he started up
altogether and threw a hasty glance at the mirrors above his head. A ray
of light had suddenly flashed down upon him--a ray of red light, and it
came reflected from the mirrors. Muller bit his lips to keep back the
betraying whistle.
“What’s the matter?” asked the butler. “Did you drop anything?”
“Yes, the wooden rim of the button,” replied Muller, telling the truth
this time. For he had held the little wooden circlet in his hands at the
moment when the red light, reflected down from the mirrors, struck full
upon his eyes. He had dropped it in his surprise and excitement. Franz
found the little ring in the centre of the room where it had rolled,
and the supposed electrician replaced it and rose to his feet, saying:
“There, I’ve finished now.”
Franz did not recognise the double meaning in the words. “Yes, it’s all
right! I’ve finished here now,” Muller repeated to himself. For now he
knew beyond a doubt that the red light was a signal--and he knew
also for whom this signal was intended. It was a signal for Herbert
Thorne!--Herbert Thorne, whom no single thought or suspicion of Muller’s
had yet connected with the murder of Leopold Winkler.
The detective was very much surprised and greatly excited. But Franz did
not notice it, and indeed a far keener observer than the slow-witted old
butler might have failed to see the sudden gleam which shot up in the
grey eyes behind the heavy spectacles, might have failed to notice the
tightening of the lips beneath the blond moustache, or the tenseness of
the slight frame under the assumed embonpoint. Muller’s every nerve was
tingling, but he had himself completely in hand.
“What do we owe you?” asked Franz.
“They’ll send you a bill from the office. It won’t amount to much. I
must be getting on now.”
Muller hastened out of the door and down the street to the nearest cab
stand. There were not very many cab stands in this vicinity, and the
detective reasoned that Mrs. Bernauer would naturally have taken her
cab from the nearest station. He had heard her return in her carriage,
presumably the same in which she had started out.
There was but one cab at the stand. Muller walked to it and laid his
hand on the door.
“Oh, Jimmy! must I go out again?” asked the driver hoarsely. “Can’t you
see the poor beast is all wet from the last ride? We’ve just come in.”
He pointed with his whip to the tired-looking animal under his blanket.
“Why, he does look warm. You must have been making a tour out into the
country,” said the blond gentleman in a friendly tone.
“No, sir, not quite so far as that. I’ve just taken a woman to the main
telegraph office in the city and back again. But she was in a hurry and
he’s not a young horse, sir.”
“Well, never mind, then; I can get another cab across the bridge,”
replied the stout blond man, turning away and strolling off leisurely
in the direction of the bridge. It was now quite dark, and a few
steps further on Muller could safely turn and take the road to his own
lodging. No one saw him go in, and in a few moments the real Muller,
slight, smooth-shaven, sat down at his desk, looking at the papers that
lay before him. They were three letters and an empty envelope.
He took up the last, and compared it carefully with the envelope of one
of the letters found in Winkler’s room--the unsigned letter postmarked
Hietzing, September 24th. The two envelopes were exactly alike. They
were of the same size and shape, made of the same cream-tinted, heavy,
glossy paper, and the address was written by the same hand. This any
keen observer, who need not necessarily be an expert, could see. The
same hand which had addressed the envelope to Mrs. Adele Bernauer on
the letter which was postmarked “Venice,” about thirty-six hours
previous--this hand had, in an awkward and childish attempt at disguise,
written Winkler’s address on the envelope which bore the date of
September 24th.
The writer of the harmless letter to Mrs. Bernauer, a letter which
chatted of household topics and touched lightly on the beauties of
Venice, was Mrs. Thorne. It was Mrs. Thorne, therefore, who, reluctantly
and in anger and distaste, had called Leopold Winkler to Hietzing, to
his death.
And whose hand had fired the shot that caused his death? The question,
at this stage in Muller’s meditation, could hardly be called a question
any more. It was all too sadly clear to him now. Winkler met his death
at the hand of the husband, who, discovering the planned rendezvous, had
misunderstood its motive.
For truly this had been no lovers’ meeting. It had been a meeting to
which the woman was driven by fear and hate; the man by greed of gain.
This was clearly proved by the 300 guldens found in the dead man’s
pocket, money enclosed in a delicate little envelope, sealed hastily,
and crumpled as if it had been carried in a hot and trembling hand.
It was already known that Winkler never had any money except at certain
irregular intervals, when he appeared to have come into possession
of considerable sums. During these days he indulged in extravagant
pleasures and spent his money with a recklessness which proved that he
had not earned it by honest work.
Leopold Winkler was a blackmailer.
Colonel Leining, retired, the father of two such widely different
children, was doubtless a man of stern principles, and an army officer
as well, therefore a man with a doubly sensitive code of honour and a
social position to maintain; and this man, morbidly sensitive probably,
had a daughter who had inherited his sensitiveness and his high ideals
of honour, a daughter married to a rich husband. But he had another
child, a son without any sense of honour at all, who, although also an
officer, failed to live in a manner worthy his position. This son was
now in Marburg, where there were no expensive pleasures, no all-night
cafes and gambling dens, for a man to lose his time in, his money, and
his honour also.
For such must have been the case with Colonel Leining’s son before his
exile to Marburg. The old butler had hinted at the truth. The portrait
drawn by Herbert Thorne, a picture of such technical excellence that it
was doubtless a good likeness also, had given an ugly illustration to
Franz’s remarks. And there was something even more tangible to prove it:
“Theo’s” letter from Marburg pleading with Winkler for “discretion and
silence,” not knowing (“let us hope he did not know!” murmured Muller
between set teeth) that the man who held him in his power because of
some rascality, was being paid for his silence by the Lieutenant’s
sister.
It is easy to frighten a sensitive woman, so easy to make her believe
the worst! And there is little such a tender-hearted woman will not do
to save her aging father from pain and sorrow, perhaps even disgrace!
It must have been in this way that Mrs. Thorne came into the power of
the scoundrel who paid with his life for his last attempt at blackmail.
When Muller reached this point in his chain of thought, he closed his
eyes and covered his face with his hands, letting two pictures stand out
clear before his mental vision.
He saw the little anxious group around the carriage in front of the
Thorne mansion. He saw the pale, frail woman leaning back on the
cushions, and the husband bending over her in tender care. And then he
saw Johann Knoll in his cell, a man with little manhood left in him, a
man sunk to the level of the brutes, a man who had already committed
one crime against society, and who could never rise to the mental or
spiritual standard of even the most mediocre of decent citizens.
If Herbert Thorne were to suffer the just punishment for his deed of
doubly blind jealousy, then it was not only his own life, a life full
of gracious promise, that would be ruined, but the happiness of his
delicate, sweet-faced wife, who was doubtless still in blessed ignorance
of what had happened. And still one other would be dragged down by this
tragedy; a respected, upright man would bow his white hairs in disgrace.
Thorne’s father-in-law could not escape the scandal and his own share
in the responsibility for it. And to a veteran officer, bred in the
exaggerated social ethics of his profession, such a disgrace means ruin,
sometimes even voluntary death.
“Oh, dear, if it had only been Knoll who did it,” said Muller with a
sigh that was almost a groan.
Then he rose slowly and heavily, and slowly and heavily, as if borne
down by the weight of great weariness, he reached for his hat and coat
and left the house.
Whether he wished it or not, he knew it was his duty to go on to the
bitter end on this trail he had followed up all day from the moment that
he caught that fleeting glimpse of Mrs. Bernauer’s haggard face at the
garden gate. He was almost angry with the woman, because she chanced to
look out of the gate at just that moment, showing him her face distorted
with anxiety. For it was her face that had drawn Muller to the trail, a
trail at the end of which misery awaited those for whom this woman had
worked for years, those whom she loved and who treated her as one of the
family.
Muller knew now that the one-time nurse was in league with her former
charge; that Thorne and Adele Bernauer were in each other’s confidence;
that the man sat waiting for the signal which she was to give him, a
signal bringing so much disgrace and sorrow in its train.
If the woman had not spied upon and betrayed her mistress, this terrible
event, which now weighed upon her own soul, would not have happened.
“A faithful servant, indeed,” said Muller, with a harsh laugh.
Then maturer consideration came and forced him to acknowledge that it
was indeed devotion that had swayed Adele Bernauer, devotion to her
master more than to her mistress. This was hardly to be wondered at. But
she had not thought what might come from her revelations, what had come
of them. For now her pet, the baby who had once lain in her arms, the
handsome, gifted man whom she adored with more than the love of many a
mother for the child of her own blood, was under the shadow of hideous
disgrace and doom, was the just prey of the law for open trial and
condemnation as a murderer.
Muller sighed deeply once more and then came one of those moments
which he had spoken of to the unhappy woman that very day. He felt like
cursing the fatal gift that was his, the gift to see what was hidden
from others, this something within him that forced him relentlessly
onward until he had uncovered the truth, and brought misery to many.
Muller need not do anything, he need simply do nothing. Not a soul
besides himself suspected the dwellers in the Thorne mansion of any
connection with the murder. If he were silent, nothing could be proven
against Knoll after all, except the robbery which he himself had
confessed. Then the memory of the terror in the tramp’s little reddened
eyes came back to the detective’s mind.
“A human soul after all, and a soul trembling in the shadow of a great
fear. And even he’s a better man than the blackmailer who was killed. A
miscarriage of justice will often make a criminal of a poor fellow whose
worst fault is idleness.” Muller’s face darkened as the things of the
past, shut down in the depths of his own soul, rose up again. “No;
that’s why I took up this work. Justice must be done--but it’s bitter
hard sometimes. I could almost wish now that I hadn’t seen that face at
the gate.”