The Case Of The Lamp That Went Out Part 11

But the face grew ugly again as Knoll opened his eyes and looked up. He shook off the clouds of slumber as he felt Muller's hand on his shoulder and raised himself to a sitting position, grumbling: "Can't I have any rest? Are they going to question me again? I'm getting tired of this.

I've said everything I know anyhow."

"Perhaps not everything. Perhaps you will answer a few of my questions when I tell you that I believe the story you told us yesterday, and that I want to be your friend and help you."

Knoll's little eyes glanced up without embarra.s.sment at the man who spoke to him. They were sharp eyes and had a certain spark of intelligence in them. Muller had noticed that yesterday, and he saw it again now. But he saw also the gleam of distrust in these eyes, a distrust which found expression in Knoll's next words. "You think you can catch me with your good words, but you're makin' a mistake. I've got nothin' new to say. And you needn't think that you can blind me, I know you're one of the police, and I'm not going to say anything at all."

"Just as you like. I was trying to help you, I believe I really could help you. I have just come from Hietzing--but of course if you don't want to talk to me--" Muller shrugged his shoulders and turned toward the door.

But before he reached it Knoll stood at his side. "You really mean to help me?" he gasped.

"I do," said the detective calmly.

"Then swear, on your mother's soul--or is your mother still alive?"

"No, she has been dead some time."

"Well, then, will you swear it?"

"Would you believe an oath like that?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"With the life you've been leading?"

"My life's no worse than a lot of others. Stealing those things on Monday was the worst thing I've done yet. Will you swear?"

"Is it something so very important you have to tell me?"

"No, I ain't got nothin' at all new to tell you. But I'd just like to know--in this black hole I've got into--I'd just like to know that there's one human being who means well with me--I'd like to know that there's one man in the world who don't think I'm quite good-for-nothin'."

The tramp covered his face with his hands and gave a heart-rending sob.

Deep pity moved the detective's breast. He led Knoll back to his cot, and put both hands on his shoulders, saying gravely: "I believe that this theft was the worst thing you have done. By my mother's salvation, Knoll, I believe your words and I will try to help you."

Knoll raised his head, looking up at Muller with a glance of unspeakable grat.i.tude. With trembling lips he kissed the hand which a moment before had pressed kindly on his shoulder, clinging fast to it as if he could not bear to let it go. Muller was almost embarra.s.sed. "Oh, come now, Knoll, don't be foolish. Pull yourself together and answer my questions carefully, for I am asking you these questions more for your own sake than for anything else."

The tramp nodded and wiped the tears from his face. He looked almost happy again, and there was a softness in his eyes that showed there was something in the man which might be saved and which was worth saving.

Muller sat beside him on the cot and began: "There was one mistake in your story yesterday. I want you to think it over carefully. You said that you saw first a woman and then a man going through the neighbouring garden. I believe that one or both of these people is the criminal for whom we are looking. Therefore, I want you to try and remember everything that you can connect with them, every slightest detail.

Anything that you can tell us may be of the greatest importance.

Therefore, think very carefully."

Knoll sat still a few moments, evidently trying hard to put his hazy recollections into useful form and shape. But it was also evident that orderly thinking was an unusual work for him, and he found it almost too difficult. "I guess you 'better ask me questions, maybe that'll go," he said after a pause.

Then Muller began to question. With his usual thoroughness he began at the very beginning: "When was it that you climbed the fence to get into the shed?"

"It just struck nine o'clock when I put my foot on the lowest bar."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Quite sure. I counted every stroke. You see, I wanted to know how long the night was going to be, seein' I'd have to sleep in that shed. I was in the garden just exactly an hour. I came out of the shed as it struck ten and it wasn't but a few minutes before I was in the street again."

"And when was it that you saw the woman in the garden next door?"

"H'm, I don't just know when that was. I'd been in on the bench quite a while."

"And the man? When did you see the man?"

"He came past a few minutes after the woman had gone towards the little house in the garden."

"Ah! there you see, that's where you made your mistake. It is more than likely that these two did not go to the little house, but that they went somewhere else. Did they walk slowly and quietly?"

"Not a bit of it. They ran almost... Went past as quick as a bat in the night."

"Then they both appeared to be in a hurry?"

"Yes indeed they did."

"Ah, ha, you see! Now when any one's in a hurry he doesn't go the longest way round, as a rule. And it would have been the longest way round for these two people to go from the big house to the gardener's cottage--for the little house you saw was the gardener's cottage. There is tall thick hedge that starts from the main building and goes right down through the garden, quite a distance past the gardener's cottage.

The vegetable garden is on the left side of this hedge and in the middle of the vegetable garden is the gardener's cottage. But you could have seen the man and the woman only because they pa.s.sed down the right side of the hedge, and this would have given them a detour of fifty paces or more to reach the gardener's house. Nov do you think that two people who were very much in a hurry would have gone down the right side of the hedge, to reach a place which they could have gotten to much quicker on the left side?"

"No, that would have been a fool thing to do."

"And you are quite sure that these people were in a hurry?"

"That's dead sure. I scarcely saw them before they'd gone again."

"And you didn't see them come back?"

"No, at least I didn't pay any further attention to them. When I thought it wouldn't be any good to look about in there I turned around and dozed off."

"And it was during this dozing that you thought you heard the shot?"

"Yes, sir, that's right."

"And you didn't notice anything else? You didn't hear anything else."

"No, nothin' at all, there was so much noise anyway. There was a high wind that night and the trees were rattling and creaking."

"And you didn't see anything else, anything that attracted your attention?"

"No, nothing--" Knoll did not finish his sentence, but began another instead. He had suddenly remembered something which had seemed to him of no importance before. "There was a light that went out suddenly."

"Where?"

"In the side of the house that I could see from my place. There was a lamp in the last window of the second story, a lamp with a red shade.

That lamp went out all at once."

"Was the window open?"