Joseph Muller, Secret Service detective of the Imperial Austrian police,
is one of the great experts in his profession. In personality he differs
greatly from other famous detectives. He has neither the impressive
authority of Sherlock Holmes, nor the keen brilliancy of Monsieur Lecoq.
Muller is a small, slight, plain-looking man, of indefinite age, and of
much humbleness of mien. A naturally retiring, modest disposition, and
two external causes are the reasons for Muller’s humbleness of manner,
which is his chief characteristic. One cause is the fact that in early
youth a miscarriage of justice gave him several years in prison, an
experience which cast a stigma on his name and which made it impossible
for him, for many years after, to obtain honest employment. But the
world is richer, and safer, by Muller’s early misfortune. For it was
this experience which threw him back on his own peculiar talents for
a livelihood, and drove him into the police force. Had he been able to
enter any other profession, his genius might have been stunted to a mere
pastime, instead of being, as now, utilised for the public good.
Then, the red tape and bureaucratic etiquette which attaches to every
governmental department, puts the secret service men of the Imperial
police on a par with the lower ranks of the subordinates. Muller’s
official rank is scarcely much higher than that of a policeman, although
kings and councillors consult him and the Police Department realises to
the full what a treasure it has in him. But official red tape, and his
early misfortune... prevent the giving of any higher official standing
to even such a genius. Born and bred to such conditions, Muller
understands them, and his natural modesty of disposition asks for no
outward honours, asks for nothing but an income sufficient for his
simple needs, and for aid and opportunity to occupy himself in the way
he most enjoys.
Joseph Muller’s character is a strange mixture. The kindest-hearted man
in the world, he is a human bloodhound when once the lure of the trail
has caught him. He scarcely eats or sleeps when the chase is on, he does
not seem to know human weakness nor fatigue, in spite of his frail body.
Once put on a case his mind delves and delves until it finds a clue,
then something awakes within him, a spirit akin to that which holds
the bloodhound nose to trail, and he will accomplish the apparently
impossible, he will track down his victim when the entire machinery of
a great police department seems helpless to discover anything. The high
chiefs and commissioners grant a condescending permission when Muller
asks, “May I do this? ... or may I handle this case this way?”
both parties knowing all the while that it is a farce, and that the
department waits helpless until this humble little man saves its honour
by solving some problem before which its intricate machinery has stood
dazed and puzzled.
This call of the trail is something that is stronger than anything else
in Muller’s mentality, and now and then it brings him into conflict with
the department,... or with his own better nature. Sometimes his unerring
instinct discovers secrets in high places, secrets which the Police
Department is bidden to hush up and leave untouched. Muller is then
taken off the case, and left idle for a while if he persists in his
opinion as to the true facts. And at other times, Muller’s own warm
heart gets him into trouble. He will track down his victim, driven by
the power in his soul which is stronger than all volition; but when he
has this victim in the net, he will sometimes discover him to be a
much finer, better man than the other individual, whose wrong at this
particular criminal’s hand set in motion the machinery of justice.
Several times that has happened to Muller, and each time his heart got
the better of his professional instincts, of his practical common-sense,
too, perhaps,... at least as far as his own advancement was concerned,
and he warned the victim, defeating his own work. This peculiarity of
Muller’s character caused his undoing at last, his official undoing that
is, and compelled his retirement from the force. But his advice is often
sought unofficially by the Department, and to those who know, Muller’s
hand can be seen in the unravelling of many a famous case.
The following stories are but a few of the many interesting cases that
have come within the experience of this great detective. But they give
a fair portrayal of Muller’s peculiar method of working, his looking on
himself as merely an humble member of the Department, and the comedy
of his acting under “official orders” when the Department is in reality
following out his directions.