“Oh, what does it all mean?” asked Eleonora, dropping the letter in her
lap.
“It is as I thought,” replied Muller. “John Siders took his own life,
but made every arrangement to have suspicion fall upon Graumann.”
“But why? oh, why?”
“It was a terrible revenge. But perhaps--perhaps it was just
retribution. Graumaun would not understand that Siders could have been
suspected of, and imprisoned for, a theft he had not committed. He must
know now that it is quite possible for a man to be in danger of sentence
of death even, for a crime of which he is innocent.”
“Oh, my God! It is terrible.” The girl’s head fell across her folded
arms on the table. Deep shuddering sobs shook her frame.
Muller waited quietly until the first shock had passed. Finally her sobs
died away and she raised her head again. “What am I to do?” she asked.
“You must open this letter to-morrow in the presence of the Police
Commissioner and Graumaun.”
“But this promise? This promise that he asks of me--that I should wait
until the trial?”
“You have not given this promise. Would you take it upon yourself to
endanger your guardian’s life still more? Every further day spent in his
prison, in this anxiety, might be fatal.”
“But this promise? The promise demanded of me by the man to whom I had
given my love? Is it not my duty to keep it?”
Muller rose from his chair. His slight figure seemed to grow taller,
and the gentleness in his voice gave way to a commanding tone of firm
decision.
“Our duty is to the living, not to the dead. The dead have no right to
drag down others after them. Believe me, Miss Roemer, the purpose
that was in your betrothed’s mind when he ended his own life, has been
fulfilled. Albert Graumann knows now what are the feelings of a man
who bears the prison stigma unjustly. He will never again judge his
fellow-men as harshly as he has done until now. His soul has been
purged in these terrible days; have you the right to endanger his life
needlessly?”
“Oh, I do not know! I do not know what to do.”
“I have no choice,” said Muller firmly. “It is my duty to make known
the fact to the Police Commissioner that there is such a letter in
existence. The Police Commissioner will then have to follow his duty in
demanding the letter from you. Mr. Pernburg, Sider’s friend, saw this
argument at once. Although he also had a letter from the dead man,
asking him to send the enclosure to you, registered, on a certain date,
he knew that it was his duty to give all the papers to the authorities.
Would it not be better for you to give them up of your own free will?”
Muller took a step nearer the girl and whispered: “And would it not be
a noble revenge on your part? You would be indeed returning good for
evil.”
Eleonora clasped her hands and her lips moved as if in silent prayer.
Then she rose slowly and held out the letters to Muller. “Do what you
will with them,” she said. “My strength is at an end.”
The next day, in the presence of Commissioner Lange and of the accused
Albert Graumann, Muller opened the letter which he had received from
Miss Roemer and read it aloud. The girl herself, by her own request, was
not present. Both Muller and Graumann understood that the strain of this
message from the dead would be too much for her to bear. This was the
letter:
G-------- September 21st.
My beloved:
When you put this letter in the hands of the Judge, I will have found in
death the peace that I could never find on earth. There was no chance
of happiness for me since I have realised that I love you, that you love
me, and that I must give you up if I am to remain what I have always
been--in spite of everything--a man of honour.
Albert Graumann would keep his word, this I know. Wherever you might
follow me as my wife, there his will would have been before us, blasting
my reputation, blackening the flame which you were to bear.
I could not have endured it. My soul was sick of all this secrecy, sick
at the injustice of mankind. In spite of worldly success, my life was
cold and barren in the strange land to which I had fled. My home called
to me and I came back to it.
I kissed the earth of my own country, and I wept at my mother’s grave. I
was happy again under the skies which had domed above my childhood. For
I am an honest man, beloved, and I always have been.
One day I sat at table beside the man--the Judge who condemned me, here
in G-------- in those terrible days. He naturally did not know me again.
I, myself, brought the conversation around to a professional subject.
I asked him if it were not possible that circumstantial evidence could
lie; if the entire past, the reputation of the accused would not be a
factor in his favour. The Judge denied it. It was his opinion, beyond a
doubt, that circumstantial evidence was sufficient to convict anyone.
My soul rose within me. This infallibility, this legal arrogance,
aroused my blood. “That man should have a lesson!” I said to myself.
But I had forgotten it all--all my anger, all my hatred and bitterness,
when I met you. I dare not trust myself to think of you too much, now
that everything is arranged for the one last step. It takes all my
control to keep my decision unwavering while I sit here and tell you how
much your love, your great tenderness, your sweet trust in me, meant to
me.
Let me talk rather of Albert Graumann. I will forgive him for believing
in my guilt, but I cannot forgive him that he, the man of cultivation
and mental grasp, could not believe it possible for a convicted thief
to have repented and to have lived an honest life after the atonement of
his crime. I still cannot believe that this was Graumann’s opinion. I
am forced to think that it was an excuse only on his part, an excuse to
keep us apart, an excuse to keep you for himself.
You are lost to me now. There is nothing more in life for me. If the
injustice of mankind has stained my honour beyond repair, has robbed me
of every chance of happiness at any time and in any place, then I die
easily, beloved, for there is little charm in such a life as would be
mine after this.
But I do not wish to die quite in vain. There are two men who have
touched my life, who need the lesson my death can teach them. These men
are Albert Graumann and the prosecuting attorney Gustav Schmidt, the man
who once condemned me so cruelly. His present position would make
him the representative of the state in a murder trial, and I know his
opinions too well not to foresee that he would declare Graumann guilty
because of the circumstantial evidence which will be against him. My
letter, given to the Presiding Judge after the Attorney has made his
speech, will cause him humiliation, will ruin his brilliant arguments
and cast ridicule upon him.
Do not think me hard or revengeful. I do not hate anyone now that death
is so near. But is it inhuman that I should want to teach these two men
a lesson? a lesson which they need, believe me, and it is such a slight
compensation for the torture these last eight years have been to me!
And now I will explain in detail all the circumstances. I have arranged
that Albert Graumann shall come to me on the evening of September 23rd
between 7 and 8 o’clock. I asked him to do so by letter, asking him
also to keep the fact of his visit to me a secret. To-night, the 22nd of
September, I received his answer promising that he would come. Therefore
I can look upon everything that is to happen, as having already
happened, for now there need be no further change in my plans. I will
send this letter this evening to my friend Pernburg in Frankfurt am
Main. In case anything should happen that would render impossible for
me to carry out my plans, I will send Pernburg another letter asking him
not to carry out the instructions of the first.
I can now proceed to tell you what will happen here to-morrow evening,
the 23rd of September.
Albert Graumann will come to me, unknown to his family or friends, as I
have asked him to come. I will so arrange it that the old servant will
see him come in but will not see him go out. My landlady will not be in
my way, for she has already told me that she will spend the night of
the 23rd with her mother, in another part of the city. It is to be a
birthday celebration I believe, so that I can be certain her plans will
not be changed.
Graumann and I will be alone, therefore, with no reliable witnesses
near. I will keep him there for a little while with commonplace
conversation, for I have nothing to say to him. If he moves near the
desk I will upset the inkbottle. The spots on his clothes will be
another evidence against him. I will endeavour to get him to keep my
jewelry which is, as you know, of considerable value. I will tell him
that I am going away for a while and ask him to take charge of it for
me. I, myself, will take him down to the door and let him out, when I
have satisfied myself that the old servant is in bed or at least at the
back of the house. The revolver which shall end my misery is Graumann’s
property. I took it from its place without his knowledge.
The 10,000 gulden which I told my landlady were still in the house,
and which would therefore be thought missing after my death, I have
deposited in a bank in Frankfort in your name. Here is the certificate
of deposit.
I will endeavour not to hold the revolver sufficiently close to have the
powder burn my clothes. And I will exert every effort of mind and body
to throw it far from me after I have fired the fatal shot. I think that
I will be able to do this, for I am a very good shot and I have no
fear of death. One thing more I will do, to turn aside all suspicion
of suicide. I will write a letter to some person who does not exist, a
letter which will make it appear as if I were in excellent humour and
planning for the future.
And now, good-bye to life. People have called me eccentric, they may be
right. This last deed of mine at least, is out of the ordinary. No one
will say now that ended my life in a moment of darkened mind, in a rush
of despair. My brain is perfectly clear, my heart beats calmly, now that
I have arranged everything for my departure from this world of falsehood
and unreality. My last deed shall go to prove to the world how little
actual, apparent facts can be trusted.
The one thing real, the one thing true in all this world of falsehood
was your love and your trust. I thank you for it.
THEODOR BELLMANN,
known as
JOHN SIDERS.
Joseph Muller refuses to take any particular credit for this case. The
letter would have come in time to prevent Graumann’s conviction without
his assistance, he says. The only person whose gratitude he has a right
to is Prosecuting Attorney Gustav Schmidt. He managed to have the Police
Commissioner in G-------- read the letter in detail to the attorney. But
Muller himself knows that it failed of its effect, so far as that
dignitary was concerned. For nothing but open ridicule could ever
convince a man of such decided opinions that he is not the one
infallible person in the world.
But Albert Graumann had learned his lesson. And he told Muller himself
that the few days of life which might remain to him were a gift to him
from the detective. He felt that his weak heart would not have stood the
strain and the disgrace of an open trial, even if that trial ended in
acquittal. Two months later he was found dead in his bed, a calm smile
on his lips.
Before he died he had learned that it was the undaunted courage of his
timid little old aunt that had brought Muller to take charge of the case
and to free her beloved nephew from the dreaded prison. And the last
days that these two passed together were very happy.
But as aforesaid, Muller refuses to have this case included in the
list of his successes. He did not change the ultimate result, he merely
anticipated it, he says.