The Case Of The Lamp That Went Out Part 12

"Yes."

"There was a strong wind that night, might not the wind have blown the lamp out?"

"No, that wasn't it," said Knoll, rising hastily.

"Well, how was it?" asked Muller calmly.

"A hand put out the lamp."

"Whose hand?"

"I couldn't see that. The light was so low on account of the shade that I couldn't see the person who stood there."

"And you don't know whether it was a man or a woman?"

"No, I just saw a hand, more like a shadow it was."

"Well, it doesn't matter much anyway. It was after nine o'clock and many people go to bed about that time," said Muller, who did not see much value in this incident.

But Knoll shook his head. "The person who put out that light didn't go to bed, at least not right away," he said eagerly. "I looked over after a while to the place where the red light was and I saw something else."

"Well, what was it you saw?"

"The window had been closed."

"Who closed it? Didn't you see the person that time? The moonlight lay full on the house."

"Yes, when there weren't any clouds. But there was a heavy cloud over the moon just then and when it came out again the window was shut and there was a white curtain drawn in front of it."

"How could you see that?"

"I could see it when the lamp was lit again."

"Then the lamp was lit again?"

"Yes, I could see the red light behind the curtain."

"And what happened then?"

"Nothing more then, except that the man went through the garden."

Muller rose now and took up his hat. He was evidently excited and Knoll looked at him uneasily. "You're goin' already?" he asked.

"Yes, I have a great deal to do to-day," replied the detective and nodded to the prisoner as he knocked on the door. "I am glad you remembered that," he added, "it will be of use to us, I think."

The warder opened the door, let Muller out, and the heavy iron portal clanged again between Knoll and freedom.

Muller was quite satisfied with the result of his visit to the accused.

He hurried to the nearest cab stand and entered one of the carriages waiting there. He gave the driver Mrs. Klingmayer's address. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon now and Muller had had nothing to eat yet. But he was quite unaware of the fact as his mind was so busy that no mere physical sensation could divert his attention for a moment.

Muller never seemed to need sleep or food when he was on the trail, particularly not in the fascinating first stages of the case when it was his imagination alone, catching at trifles unnoticed by others, combining them in masterly fas.h.i.+on to an ordered whole, that first led the seekers to the truth. Now he went over once more all the little apparently trivial incidents that had caused him first to watch the Thorne household and then had drawn his attention, and his suspicion, to Adele Bernauer. It was the broken willow twig that had first drawn his attention to the old garden next the Thorne property. This twig, this garden, and perhaps some one who could reach his home again, unseen and unendangered through this garden--might not this have something to do with the murder?

The breaking of the twig was already explained. It was Johann Knoll who had stepped on it. But he had not climbed the wall at all, had only crept along it looking for a night's shelter. And there was no connection between Knoll and the people who lived in the Thorne house.

Muller had not the slightest doubt that the tramp had told the entire truth that day and the day preceding.

Then the detective's mind went back to the happenings of Tuesday morning. The little twig had first drawn his attention to the Thorne estate and the people who lived there. He had seen the departure of the young couple and had pa.s.sed the house again that afternoon and the following day, drawn to it as if by a magnet. He had not been able then to explain what it was that attracted him; there had been nothing definite in his mind as he strolled past the old mansion. But his repeated appearance had been noticed by some one--by one person only--the housekeeper. Why should she have noticed it? Had she any reason for believing that she might be watched? People with an uneasy conscience are very apt to connect even perfectly natural trivial circ.u.mstances with their own doings. Adele Bernauer had evidently connected Muller's repeated pa.s.sing with something that concerned herself even before the detective had thought of her at all.

Muller had not noticed her until he had seen her peculiar conduct that very morning. When he heard Franz's words and saw how disturbed the woman was, he asked himself: "Why did this woman want to be shown the spot of the murder? Didn't she know that place, living so near it, as well as any of the many who stood there staring in morbid curiosity?

Did she ask to have it shown her that the others might believe she had nothing whatever to do with the occurrences that had happened there? Or was she drawn thither by that queer attraction that brings the criminal back to the scene of his crime?"

The sudden vision of Mrs. Bernauer's head at the garden gate, and its equally sudden disappearance had attracted Muller's attention and his thoughts to the woman. What he had been able to learn about her had increased his suspicions and her involuntary exclamation when she met him face to face in the house had proved beyond a doubt that there was something on her mind. His open accusation, her demeanour, and finally her swoon, were all links in the chain of evidence that this woman knew something about the murder in the quiet lane.

With this suspicion in his mind what Muller had learned from Knoll was of great value to him, at all events of great interest. Was it the housekeeper who had put out the light? For now Muller did not doubt for a moment that this sudden extinguis.h.i.+ng of the lamp was a signal. He believed that Knoll had seen clearly and that he had told truly what he had seen. A lamp that is blown out by the wind flickers uneasily before going out. A sudden extinguis.h.i.+ng of the light means human agency. And the lamp was lit again a few moments afterward and burned on steadily as before. A short time after the lamp had been put out the man had been seen going through the garden. And it could not have been much later before the shot was heard. This shot had been fired between the hours of nine and ten, for it was during this hour only that Knoll was in the garden house and heard the shot. But it was not necessary to depend upon the tramp's evidence alone to determine the exact hour of the shot. It must have been before half past nine, or otherwise the janitor of No.1, who came home at that hour and lay awake so long, would undoubtedly have heard a shot fired so near his domicile, in spite of the noise occasioned by the high wind. There would have been sufficient time for Mrs. Bernauer to have reached the place of the murder between the putting out of the lamp and the firing of the shot. But perhaps she may have rested quietly in her room; she may have been only the inciter or the accomplice of the deed. But at all events, she knew something about it, she was in some way connected with it.

Muller drew a deep breath. He felt much easier now that he had arranged his thoughts and marshalled in orderly array all the facts he had already gathered. There was nothing to do now but to follow up a given path step by step and he could no longer reproach himself that he might have cast suspicion on an innocent soul. No, his bearing towards Mrs.

Bernauer had not been sheer brutality. His instinct, which had led him so unerringly so many times, had again shown him the right way when he had thrust the accusation in her face.

Now that his mind was easier he realised that he was very hungry. He drove to a restaurant and ordered a hasty meal.

"Beer, sir?' asked the waiter for the third time.

"No," answered Muller, also for the third time.

"Then you'll take wine, sir?" asked the insistent Ganymede.

"Oh, go to the devil! When I want anything I'll ask for it," growled the detective, this time effectively scaring the waiter. It did not often happen that a customer refused drinks, but then there were not many customers who needed as clear, a head as Muller knew he would have to have to-day. Always a light drinker, it was one of his rules never to touch a drop of liquor during this first stage of the mental working out of any new problem which presented itself. But soft-hearted as he was, he repented of his irritation a moment later and soothed the waiter's wounded feelings by a rich tip. The boy ran out to open the cab door for his strange customer and looked after him, wondering whether the man was a cranky millionaire or merely a poet. For Joseph Muller, by name and by reputation one of the best known men in Vienna, was by sight unknown to all except the few with whom he had to do on the police force. His appearance, in every way inconspicuous, and the fact that he never sought acquaintance with any one, was indeed of the greatest possible a.s.sistance to him in his work. Many of those who saw him several times in a day would pa.s.s him or look him full in the face without recognising him. It was only, as in the case of Mrs. Bernauer, the guilty conscience that remembered face and figure of this quiet-looking man who was one of the most-feared servants of the law in Austria.

CHAPTER IX. THE ELECTRICIAN

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. G.o.d 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.