"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."



CHAPTER X. MULLER RETURNS TO THE THORNE MANSION

It was striking eight as Muller came out of a cafe in the heart of the city. He had been in there but a few moments, for his purpose was merely to look through the Army lists of the current year. The result of his search proved the correctness of his conclusions.

There was a Lieutenant Theobald Leining in the single infantry regiment stationed at Marburg.

Muller took a cab and drove to the main telegraph office. He asked for the original of the telegram which had been sent that afternoon to the address; "Herbert Thorne, Hotel Danieli, Venice." This closed the circle of the chain.

The detective re-entered his waiting cab and drove back to Hietzing. He told the driver to halt at the corner of the street on which fronted the Thorne mansion and to wait for him there. He himself walked slowly down the quiet Street and rang the bell at the iron gate.

"You come to this house again?" asked Franz, starting back in alarm when he saw who it was that had called him to the door.

"Yes, my good friend; I want to get into this house again. But not on false pretenses this time. And before you let me in you can go upstairs and ask Mrs. Bernauer if she will receive me in her own room—in her own room, mind. But make haste; I am in a hurry." The detective's tone was calm and he strolled slowly up and down in front of the gate when he had finished speaking.

The old butler hesitated a moment, then walked into the house. When he returned, rather more quickly, he looked alarmed and his tone was very humble as he asked Muller to follow him.

When the detective entered Mrs. Bernauer's room the housekeeper rose slowly from the large armchair in front of her table. She was very pale and her eyes were full of terror. She made no move to speak, so Muller began the conversation. He put down his hat, brought up a chair and placed it near the window at which the housekeeper had been sitting. Then he sat down and motioned to her to do the same.

"You are a faithful servant, all too faithful," he began. "But you are faithful only to your master. You have no devotion for his wife."

"You are mistaken," replied the woman in a low tone.

"Perhaps, but I do not think so. One does not betray the people to whom one is devoted."

Mrs. Bernauer looked up in surprise. "What—what do you know?" she stammered.

Muller did not answer the question directly, but continued: "Mrs. Thorne had a meeting recently with a strange man. It was not their first meeting, and somehow you discovered it. But before this last meeting occurred you spoke to the lady's husband about it, and it was arranged between you that you should give him a signal which would mean to him, 'Your wife is going to the meeting.' Mrs. Thorne did go to the meeting. This happened on Monday evening at about quarter past nine. Some one, who was in the neighbourhood by chance, saw a woman's figure hurrying through the garden, down to the other street, and a moment after this, the light of this lamp in your window was seen to go out. A hand had turned down the wick—it was your hand.

"This was the signal to Mr. Thorne. The mirrors over his desk reflected in his eyes the light he could not otherwise have seen as he sat by his own window. The signal, therefore, told him that the time had come to act. This same chance watcher, who had seen the woman going through the garden, had seen the lamp go out, and now saw a man's figure hurrying down the path the woman had taken. The man as well as the woman came from this house and went in the direction of the lower end of the garden.

"A little while later a shot was heard, and the next morning Leopold Winkler was found with a bullet in his back. The crime was generally taken to be a murder for the sake of robbery. But you and I, and Mr. Herbert Thorne, know very well that it was not.

"You know this since Wednesday noon. Then it was that the idea suddenly came to you, falling like a heavy weight on your soul, the idea that Winkler might not have been killed for the sake of robbery, but because of the hatred that some one bore him. Then it was that you lost your appetite suddenly, that you drove into the city with the excuse of errands to do, in order to read the papers without being seen by any one who knew you. When you came home you searched everywhere in your master's room: you made an excuse for this search, but what you wanted to find out was whether he had left anything that could betray him. Your fright had already confused your mind. You were searching probably for the weapon from which he had fired the bullet. You did not realise that he would naturally have taken it with him and thrown it somewhere into a ravine or river beside the railway track between here and Venice. How could you think for a moment that he would leave it behind him, here in his room, or dropped in the garden? But this was doubtless due to the confusion owing to your sudden alarm and anxiety—a confusion which prevented you from realising the danger of the two peculiarly hung mirrors in Mr. Thorne's room. These should have been taken away at once. This morning my sudden appearance at the garden gate prevented you from making an examination of the place of the murder. Your swoon, after I had spoken to you in the butler's room, showed me that you were carrying a burden too heavy for your strength. Finally, this afternoon, you drove to the main telegraph office in the city, as you thought that it would be safer to telegraph Mr. Thorne from there. Your telegram was very cleverly written. But you might have spared the last sentence, the request that Mr. Thorne should get the Viennese papers of these last days. Believe me, he has already read these papers. Who could be more interested in what they have to tell than he?"

The housekeeper had sat as if frozen to stone during Muller's long speech. Her face was ashen and her eyes wild with horror. When the detective ceased speaking, there was dead silence in the room for some time. Finally Muller asked: "Is this what happened?" His voice was cutting and the glance of his eyes keen and sharp.

Mrs. Bernauer trembled. Her head sank on her breast. Muller waited a moment more and then he said quietly: "Then it is true."

"Yes, it is true," came the answer in a low hoarse tone.

Again there was silence for an appreciable interval.

"If you had been faithful to your mistress as well, if you had not spied upon her and betrayed her to her husband, all this might not have happened," continued the detective pitilessly, adding with a bitter smile: "And it was not even a case of sinful love. Your mistress had no such relations with this Winkler as you—I say this to excuse you—seemed to believe."

Adele Bernauer sprang up. "I do not need this excuse," she cried, trembling in excitement. "I do not need any excuse. What I have done I did after due consideration and in the realisation that it was absolutely necessary to do it. Never for one moment did I believe that my mistress was untrue to her husband. Never for one moment could I believe such an evil thing of her, for I knew her to be an angel of goodness. A woman who is deceiving her husband is not as unhappy as this poor lady has been for months. A woman does not write to a successful lover with so much sorrow, with so many tears. I had long suspected these meetings before I discovered them, but I knew that these meetings had nothing whatever to do with love. Because I knew this, and only because I knew it, did I tell my master about them. I wanted him to protect his wife, to free her from the wretch who had obtained some power over her, I knew not how."

"Ah! then that was it?" exclaimed Muller, and his eyes softened as he looked at the sobbing woman who had sunk back into her chair. He laid his hand on her cold fingers and continued gently: "Then you have really done right, you have done only what was your duty. I pity you deeply that you—"

"That I have brought suspicion upon my master by my own foolishness?" she finished the sentence with a pitifully sad smile. "If I could have controlled myself, could have kept calm, nobody would have had a thought or a suspicion that he—my pet, my darling—that it was he who was forced, through some terrible circumstance of which I do not know, to free his wife, in this manner, from the wretch who persecuted her."

Mrs. Bernauer wrung her hands and gazed with despairing eyes at the man who sat before her, himself deeply moved.

Again there was a long silence. Muller could not find a word to comfort the weeping woman. There was no longer anger in his heart, nothing but the deepest pity. He took out his handkerchief and wiped away the drops that were dimming his own eyes.

"You know that I will have to go to Venice?" he asked.

Mrs. Bernauer sprang up. "Officially?" she gasped, pale to her lips.

He nodded. "Yes, officially of course. I must make a report at once to headquarters about what I have learned. You can imagine yourself what the next steps will be."

Her deep sigh showed him that she knew as well as he. In the same second, however, a thought shot through her brain, changing her whole king. Her pale face glowed, her dulled eyes shot fire, and the fingers with which she held Muller's hand tightly clasped, were suddenly feverishly hot.

"And you—you are still the only person who knows the truth?" she gasped in his ear.

The detective nodded. "And you thought you might silence me?" he asked calmly. "That will not be easy—for you can imagine that I did not come unarmed."

Adele Bernauer smiled sadly. "I would take even this way to save Herbert Thorne from disgrace, if I thought that it could be successful, and if I had not thought of a milder way to silence a man who cannot be a millionaire. I have served in this house for thirty-two years, I have been treated with such generosity that I have been able to save almost every cent of my wages for my old age. With the interest that has rolled up, my little fortune must amount to nearly eight thousand gulden. I will gladly give it to you, if you will but keep silence, if you will not tell what you have discovered." She spoke gaspingly and sank down on her knees before she had finished.

"And Mr. Thorne also—" she continued hastily, as she saw no sign of interest in Muller's calm face. Then her voice failed her.

The detective looked down kindly on her grey hairs and answered: "No, no, my good woman; that won't do. One cannot conceal one crime by committing another. I myself would naturally not listen to your suggestion for a moment, but I am also convinced that Mr. Thorne, to whom you are so devoted, and who, I acknowledge, pleased me the very first sight I had of him—I am convinced that he would not agree for a moment to any such solution of the problem."

"Then I can only hope that you will not find him in Venice," replied Mrs. Bernauer, with utter despair in her voice and eyes.

"I am not at all certain that I will find him in Venice when I leave here to-morrow morning," said Muller calmly.

"Oh! then you don't want to find him! Oh God! how good, how inexpressibly good you are," stammered the woman, seizing at some vague hope in her distraught heart.

"No, you are mistaken again, Mrs. Bernauer. I will find Mr. Thorne wherever he may be. But I may arrive in Venice too late to meet him there. He may already be on his way home."

"On his way home?" cried the housekeeper in terror, staggering where she stood.

Muller led her gently to a chair. "Sit down here and listen to me calmly. This is what I mean. If Mr. Thorne has seen in the papers that a man has been arrested and accused of the murder of Leopold Winkler, then he will take the next train back and give himself up to the authorities. That he makes no such move as long as he thinks there is no suspicion on any one else, no possibility that any one else could suffer the consequences of his deed—is quite comprehensible—it is only natural and human."

Adele Bernauer sighed deeply again and heavy tears ran down her cheeks, in strange contrast to the ghost of a smile that parted her lips and shone in her dimmed eyes.

"You know him better than I do," she murmured almost inaudibly, "you know him better than I do, and I have known him for so long."

A moment later Muller had parted from the housekeeper with a warm, sincere pressure of the hand.

"Lieutenant Theobald Leining was here on a visit to his sister last March, wasn't he?" the detective asked as Franz led him out of the gate.

"Yes, sir; the Lieutenant was here just about that time," answered the old man.

"And he left here on the 16th of March?"

"On the 16th? Why, it may have been—yes, it was the 16th—that is our lady's birthday. He went away that day." Franz bowed a farewell to this stranger who began to appear uncanny in his eyes, and shutting the gate carefully he returned to the house.

"What does the man want anyway?" he murmured to himself, shivering involuntarily. Without knowing why he turned his steps towards Mrs. Bernauer's room. He opened the door hesitatingly as if afraid of what he might see there. He would not have been at all surprised if he had found the housekeeper fainting on the floor as before.

But she was not fainting this time. She was very much alive, for, to Franz's great astonishment, she was busied at the packing of a valise.

"Are you going away too?" asked Franz. Mrs. Bernauer answered in a voice that was dull with weariness: "Yes, Franz, I am going away. Will you please look up the time-tables of the Southern railroad and let me know when the morning express leaves? And please order a cab in time for it. I will depend upon you to look after the house in my absence. You can imagine that it must be something very important that takes me to Venice."

"To Venice? Why, what are you going to Venice for?"

"Never mind about that, Franz, but help me to pray that I may get there in time."

She almost pushed the old man out of the door with these last words and shut and locked it behind him.

She wanted to be alone with this hideous fear that was clutching at her heart. For it was not to Franz that she could tell the thoughts that came to her lips now as she sank down, wringing her hands, before a picture of the Madonna: "Oh Holy Virgin, Mother of our Lord, plead for me! let me be with my dear mistress when the terrible time comes and they take her husband away from her, or, if preferring death to disgrace, he ends his life by his own hand!"



CHAPTER XI. IN THE POLICE COURT

Commissioner Von Riedau sat at his desk late that evening, finishing up some important papers. The quiet of an undisturbed night watch had settled down on the busy police station. An occasional low murmur of whispering voices floated up from the guardroom below, but otherwise the stillness was broken only by the scratching of the commissioner's pen and the rustle of the paper as he turned the leaves. It was a silence so complete that a light step on the stair outside and the gentle turning of the doorknob was heard distinctly and the commissioner looked up with almost a start to see who was coming to his room so late. Joseph Muller stood in the open door, awaiting his chief's official recognition.

"Oh! it's you, Muller. So late? Come in. Anything new?" asked the commissioner. "Have you succeeded in drawing a confession from that stubborn tramp yet? You've been interviewing him, I take it?"

"Yes, I had a long talk with Johann Knoll to-day."

"Well, that ought to help matters along. Has he confessed? What could you get out of him?"

"Nothing, or almost nothing more than he told us here in the station, sir.

"The man's incredibly stubborn," said the commissioner. "If he could only be made to understand that a free confession would benefit him more than any one else! Well, don't look so down-cast about it, Muller. This thing is going to take longer than we thought at first for such a simple affair. But it's only a question of time until the man comes to his senses. You'll get him to talk soon. You always do. And even if you should fail here, this matter is not so very important, when we think of all the other things you have done." Muller, standing front of the desk, shook his head sadly.

"But I haven't failed here, sir. More's the pity, I had almost said."

"What!" The commissioner looked up in surprise. "I thought you just said that you couldn't get anything more out of the accused."

"Knoll has told us all he knows, sir. He did not murder Leopold Winkler."

"Hmph!" The commissioner's exclamation had a touch of acidity in it. "Then, if he didn't murder him, who did?"

"Herbert Thorne, painter, living in the Thorne mansion in B. Street, Hietzing, now in Venice, Hotel Danieli. I ask for a warrant for his arrest, sir, and orders to start for Venice on the early morning express to-morrow."

"Muller!... what the deuce does all this mean?" The commissioner sprang up, his face flushing deeply as he leaned over the desk staring at the sad quiet face of the little man opposite. "What are you talking about? What does all this mean?"

"It means, sir, that we now know who committed the murder in Hietzing. Johann Knoll is innocent of anything more than the theft confessed by himself. He took the purse and watch from the senseless form of the just murdered man. The body was warm and still supple and the tramp supposed the victim to be merely intoxicated. His story was in every respect true, sir."

The commissioner flushed still deeper. "And who do you say murdered this man?"

"Herbert Thorne, sir.

"But Thome! I know of him... have even a slight personal acquaintance with him. Thorne is a rich man, of excellent family. Why should he murder and rob an obscure clerk like this Winkler?"

"He did not rob him sir, Knoll did that."

"Oh, yes. But why should Thorne commit murder on this man who scarcely touched his life at any point... It's incredible! Muller! Muller! are you sure you are not letting your imagination run away with you again? It is a serious thing to make such an accusation against any man, much less against a man in Thorne's position. Are you sure of what you are saying?" The commissioner's excitement rendered him almost inarticulate. The shock of the surprise occasioned by the detective's words produced a feeling of irritation... a phenomenon not unusual in the minds of worthy but pedantic men of affairs when confronted by a startling new thought.

"I am quite sure of what I am saying, sir. I have just heard the confession of one who might be called an accomplice of the murderer."

"It is incredible... incredible! An accomplice you say?... who is this accomplice? Might it not be some one who has a grudge against Thorne—some one who is trying to purposely mislead you?"

"I am not so easily deceived or misled, sir. Every evidence points to Thorne, and the confession I have just heard was made by a woman who loves him, who has loved and cared for him from his babyhood. There is not the slightest doubt of it, sir."

Muller moved a step nearer the desk, gazing firmly in the eyes of the excited commissioner. The sadness on the detective's face had given way to a gleam of pride that flushed his sallow cheek and brightened his grey eyes. It was one of those rare moments when Muller allowed himself a feeling of triumph in his own power, in spite of official subordination and years of habit. His slight frame seemed to grow taller and broader as he faced the Chief with an air of quiet determination that made him at once master of the situation. His voice was as low as ever but it took on a keen incisive note that compelled attention, as he continued: "Herbert Thorne is the murderer of Leopold Winkler. Now that he knows an innocent man is under accusation for his deed it is only a question of time before he will come himself to confess. He will doubtless make this confession to me, if I go to Venice to see him, and to bring him back to trial."

The commissioner could doubt no longer. Pedantic though he was, Commissioner von Riedau possessed sufficient insight to know the truth when it was presented to him with such conviction, and also sufficient insight to have recognised the gifts of the man before him. "But why... why?" he murmured, sinking back into his chair, and shaking his head in bewilderment.

"Winkler was a miserable scoundrel, sir, a blackmailer. Thorne did only what any decent man would have felt like doing in his place. But justice must be done."

Muller's elation vanished and a deep sigh welled up from his heart. The commissioner nodded slowly, and glanced across the desk almost timidly. This case had appeared to be so simple, and suddenly the hidden deeps of a dark mystery had opened before him, deeps already sounded by the little man here who had gone so quietly about his work while the official police, represented in this case by Commissioner von Riedau himself, had sat calmly waiting for an innocent man to confess to a crime he had not committed! It was humiliating. The commissioner flushed again and his eyes sank to the floor.

"Tell me what you know, Muller," he said finally.

Muller told the story of his experiences in the Thorne mansion, told of the slight clues which led him to take an interest in the house and its inmates, until finally the truth began to glimmer up out of the depths. The commissioner listened with eager interest. "Then you believed this elaborate yarn told by the tramp?" he interrupted once, at the beginning of the narrative.

"Why, yes, sir, just because it was so elaborate. A man like Knoll would not have had the mind to invent such a story. It must have been true, on the face of it."

The commissioner's eyes sank again, and he did not speak until the detective had reached the end of his story. Then he opened a drawer in his desk and took out a bundle of official blank-forms.

"It is wonderful! Wonderful! Muller, this case will go on record as one of your finest achievements—and we thought it was so simple."

"Oh, indeed, sir, chance favoured me at every turn," replied Muller modestly.

"There is no such thing as chance," said the commissioner. "We might as well be honest with ourselves. Any one might have seen, doubtless did see, all the things you saw, but no one else had the insight to recognise their value, nor the skill to follow them up to such a conclusion. But it's a sad case, a sad case. I never wrote a warrant with a heavier heart. Thorne is a true-hearted gentleman, while the scoundrel he killed..."

"Yes, sir, I feel that way about it myself. I can confess now that there was one moment when I was ready to-well, just to say nothing.

"And let us blunder on in our official stupidity and blindness?" interrupted the commissioner, a faint smile breaking the gravity of his face. "We certainly gave you every opportunity."

"But there's an innocent man accused—suffering fear of death—justice must be done. But, sir," Muller took the warrant the commissioner handed across the table to him. "May I not make it as easy as I can for Mr. Thorne—I mean, bring him here with as little publicity as possible? His wife is with him in Venice."

"Poor little woman, it's terrible! Do whatever you think best, Muller. You're a queer mixture. Here you've hounded this man down, followed hot on his trail when not a soul but yourself connected him in any way with the murder. And now you're sorry for him! A soft heart like yours is a dangerous possession for a police detective, Muller. It's no aid to our business."

"No, sir, I know that."

"Well take care it doesn't run away with you this time. Don't let Herbert Thorne escape, however much pity you may feel for him."

"I doubt if he'll want to sir, as long as another is in prison for his crime.

"But he may make his confession and then try to escape the disgrace."

"Yes, sir, I've thought of that. That's why I want to go to Venice myself. And then, there's the poor young wife, he must think of her when the desire comes to end his own life..."

"Yes! Yes! This terrible thing has shaken us both up more than a little. I feel exhausted. You look tired yourself, Muller. Go home now, and get some rest for your early start. Good-night."

"Good-night, sir."



CHAPTER XII. ON THE LIDO

A Wonderfully beautiful night lay over the fair old city of Venice when the Northern Express thundered over the long bridge to the railway station. A passenger who was alone in a second-class compartment stood up to collect his few belongings. Suddenly he looked up as he heard a voice, a voice which he had learned to know only very recently, calling to him from the door of the compartment.

"Why! you were in the train too? You have come to Venice?" exclaimed Joseph Muller in astonishment as he saw Mrs. Bernauer standing there before him.

"Yes, I have come to Venice too. I must be with my dear lady—when—when Herbert—" She had begun quite calmly, but she did not finish her sentence, for loud sobs drowned the words.

"You were in the next compartment? Why didn't you come in here with me? It would have made this journey shorter for both of us."

"I had to be alone," said the pale woman and then she added: "I only came to you now to ask you where I must go."

"I think we two had better go to the Hotel Bauer. Let me arrange things for you. Mrs. Thorne must not see you until she has been prepared for your coming. I will arrange that with her husband."

The two took each other's hands. They had won respect and sympathy for each other, this quiet man who went so relentlessly and yet so pityingly about his duty in the interest of justice—and the devoted woman whose faithfulness had brought about such a tragedy.

The train had now entered the railway station. Muller and Mrs. Bernauer stood a few minutes later on the banks of the Grand Canal and entered, one of the many gondolas waiting there. The moon glanced back from the surface of the water broken into ripples under the oars of the gondoliers; it shone with a magic charm on the old palaces that stood knee-deep in the lagoons, and threw heavy shadows over the narrow water-roads on which the little dark boats glided silently forward. In most of the gondolas coming from the station excited voices and exclamations of delight broke the calm of the moonlit evening as the tourists rejoiced in the beauty that is Venice.

But in the gondola in which Muller and Mrs. Bernauer sat there was deep silence, silence broken only by a sobbing sigh that now and then burst from the heart of the haggard woman. There were few travellers entering Venice on one of its world-famous moonlit nights who were so sad at heart as were these two.

And there were few travellers in Venice as heavy hearted as was the man who next morning took one of the earliest boats out to the Lido.

Muller and Mrs. Bernauer were on the same boat watching him from a hidden corner. The woman's sad eyes gazed yearningly at the haggard face of the tall man who stood looking over the railing of the little steamer. Her own tears came as she saw the gloom in the once shining grey eyes she loved so well.

Muller stood beside Mrs. Bernauer. His eyes too, keen and quick, followed Herbert Thorne as he stood by the rail or paced restlessly up and down; his face too showed pity and concern. He also saw that Thorne held in his hand a bundle of newspapers which were still enclosed in their mailing wrappers. The papers were pressed in a convulsive grip of the artist's long slender fingers.

Muller knew then that Thorne had not yet learned of the arrest of Johann Knoll. At the very earliest, Thursday's papers, which brought the news, could not reach him before Friday morning. But these newspapers (Muller saw that they were German papers) were still in their wrappings. They were probably Viennese papers for which he had telegraphed and which had just arrived. His anxiety had not allowed him to read them in the presence of his wife. He had sought the solitude of early morning on the Lido, that he might learn, unobserved, what terrors fate had in store for him.

It was doubtless Mrs. Bernauer's telegram which caused his present anxiety, a telegram which had reached him only the night before when he returned with his wife from an excursion to Torcello. It had caused him a sleepless night, for it had brought the realisation that his faithful nurse suspected the truth about the murder in the quiet lane. The telegram had read as follows: "Have drawn money and send it at once. Further journey probably necessary, visitor in house to-day. Connected with occurrence in — Street. Please read Viennese papers. News and orders for me please send to address A.B. General Postoffice."

This telegram told Herbert Thorne the truth. And the papers which arrived this morning were to tell him more—what he did not yet know. But his heart was drawn with terrors which threw lines in his face and made him look ten years older than on that Tuesday morning when the detective saw him setting out on his journey with his wife.

When the boat landed at the Lido, Thorne walked off down the road which led to the ocean side. Muller and Mrs. Bernauer entered the waiting tramway that took them in the same direction. They dismounted in front of the bathing establishment, stepped behind a group of bushes and waited there for Thorne. In about ten minutes they saw his tall figure passing on the other side of the road. He was walking down to the beach, holding the still unopened papers in his hand.

A narrow strip of park runs along parallel to the beach in the direction towards Mala Mocco. Muller and Mrs Bernauer walked along through this park on the path which was nearest the water. The detective watched the rapidly moving figure ahead of them, while the woman's tear-dimmed eyes veiled everything else to her but the path along which her weary feet hastened. Thorne halted about half way between the bathing establishment and the customs barracks, looked around to see if he were alone and threw himself down on the sand.

He had chosen a good place. To the right and to the left were high sand dunes, before him was the broad surface of the ocean, and at his back was rising ground, bare sand with here and there a scraggly bush or a group of high thistles. Herbert Thorne believed himself to be alone here... as far as a man can be alone over whom hangs the shadow of a crime. He groaned aloud and hid his pale face in his hands.

In his own distress he did not hear the deep sigh—which, just above him on the edge of the knoll, broke from the breast of a woman who was suffering scarcely less than he; he did not know that two pair of sad eyes looked down upon him. And now into the eyes of the watching woman there shot a gleam of terror. For Herbert Thorne had taken a revolver from his pocket and laid it quietly beside him. Then he took out a notebook and a pencil and placed them beside the weapon. Then slowly, reluctantly, he opened one of the papers.

A light breeze from the shining sea before him carried off the wrapping. The paper which he opened shook in his trembling hands, as his eyes sought the reports of the murder. He gave a sudden start and a tremor ran through his frame. He had come to the spot which told of the arrest of another man, who was under shadow of punishment for the crime which he himself had committed. When he had read this report through, he turned to the other papers. He was quite calm now, outwardly calm at least.

When he had finished reading the papers he laid them in a heap beside him and reached out for his notebook. As he opened it the two watchers saw that between its first pages there was a sealed and addressed letter. Two other envelopes were contained in the notebook, envelopes which were also addressed although still open. Muller's sharp eyes could read the addresses as Thorne took them up in turn, looking long at each of them. One envelope was addressed in Italian to the Chief of Police of Venice, the other to the Chief of Police in Vienna.

The two watchers leaned forward, scarcely three yards above the man in whom they were interested. Thorne tore out two leaves of his notebook and wrote several lines on each of them. One note, he placed in the envelope addressed to the Viennese police and sealed it carefully. Then he put the sealed letter with the second note in the other envelope, the one addressed to the Italian police. He put all the letters back in his notebook, holding it together with a rubber strap, and replaced it in his pocket.

Then he stretched out his hand toward the revolver.

The sand came rattling down upon him, the thistles bent over creakingly and two figures appeared beside him.

"There's time enough for that yet, Mr. Thorne," said the man at whom the painter gazed up in bewilderment. And then this man took the revolver quietly from his hand and hid it in his own pocket.

Thorne pressed his teeth down on his lips until the blood came. He could not speak; he looked first at the stranger who had mastered him so completely, and then, in dazed astonishment, at the woman who had sunk down beside him in the sand, clasping his hand in both of hers.

"Adele! Adele! 'Why are you here?" he stammered finally.

"I want to be with you—in this hour," she answered, looking at him with eyes of worship. "I want to be with my dear lady—to comfort her—to protect her when—when—"

"When they arrest me?" Thorne finished the sentence himself. Then turning to Muller he continued: "And that is why you are here?"

"Yes, Mr. Thorne. I have a warrant for your arrest in my pocket. But I think it will be unnecessary to make use of it in the customary official way through the authorities here. I see that you have written to both police stations—confessing your deed. This will amount to a voluntary giving up of yourself to the authorities, therefore all that is necessary is that I return with you in the same train which takes you to Vienna. But I must ask you for those two letters, for until you yourself give them to the police authorities in my presence, it is my duty to keep them."

Muller had seldom found his official duty as difficult as it was now. His words came haltingly and great drops stood out on his forehead.

The painter rose from the sand and he too wiped his face, which was drawn in agony.

"Herbert, Herbert!" cried Adele Bernauer suddenly. "Oh, Herbert, you will live, you will! Promise me, you will not think of suicide, it would kill your wife—"

She lay on her knees before him in the sand. He looked down at her gently and with a gesture which seemed to be a familiar one of days long past, he stroked the face that had grown old and worn in these hours of fear for him.

"Yes, you dear good soul, I will live on, I will take upon myself my punishment for killing a scoundrel. The poor man whom they have arrested in my place must not linger in the fear of death. I am ready, sir.

"My name is Muller—detective Muller."

"Joseph Muller, the famous detective Muller?" asked Thorne with a sad smile. "I have had little to do with the police but by chance I have heard of your fame. I might have known; they tell me you are one from whom the truth can never remain hidden."

"My duty is not always an easy one," said Muller.

"Thank you. Dispose of me as you will. I do not wish any privileges that others would not have, Mr. Muller. Here is my written confession and here am I myself. Shall we go now?" Herbert Thorne handed the detective his notebook with its important contents and then walked slowly back along the road he had come.

Muller walked a little behind him, while Mrs. Bernauer was at his side. As in days long past, they walked hand in hand.

With eyes full of pity Muller watched them, and he heard Thorne give his old nurse orders for the care of his wife. She was to take Mrs. Thorne to Graz to her father, then to return herself to Vienna and take care of the house as usual, until his attorney could settle up his affairs and sell the property. For Thorne said that neither he nor his wife would ever want to set foot in the house again. He spoke calmly, he thought of everything—he thought even of the possibility that he might have to pay the death penalty for his deed.

For who could tell how the authorities would judge this murder?

It had indeed been a murder by merest chance only. Thorne told his old nurse all about it. When she had given him the signal he had hurried down into the garden, and walking quietly along the path, he had found his wife at the garden gate in conversation with a man who was a stranger to him. That part of their talk which he overheard told him that the man was a blackmailer, and that he was making money on the fact that he had caught Theobald Leining cheating at cards.

This chance had put the officer into Winkler's power. The clerk knew that he could get nothing from the guilty man himself, so he had turned to the latter's sister, who was rich, and had threatened to bring about a disgraceful scandal if she did not pay for his silence. For more than a year he had been getting money from her by means of these threats. All this was clear from the conversation. The man spoke in tones of impertinence, or sneering obsequiousness, the woman s voice showed contempt and hatred.

Thorne's blood began to boil. His fingers tightened about the revolver which he had brought with him to be ready for any emergency, and he stepped designedly upon a twig which broke under his feet with a noise. He wanted to frighten his wife and send her back to the house. This was what did occur. But the blackmailer was alarmed as well and fled hastily from the garden when he realised that he was not alone with his victim. Thorne followed the man's disappearing figure, calling him to halt. He did not call loudly for he too wanted to avoid a scandal. His intention was to force the man to follow him into the house, to get his written confession of blackmail—then to finish him off with a large sum once for all and kick him out of the place.

In this manner Herbert Thorne thought to free himself and his wife from the persecutions of the rascal. His heart was filled with hatred towards the man. For since Mrs. Bernauer had told him what she had discovered, he knew that it was because of this wretch that his once so happy wife was losing her strength, her health and her peace of mind.

He followed the fleeing man and called to him several times to halt. Finally Winkler half turned and called out over his shoulder: "You'd better leave me alone! Do you want all Vienna to know that your brother-in-law ought to be in jail?"

These words robbed Thorne of all control. He pressed the trigger under his finger and the bullet struck the man before him, who had turned to continue his flight, full in the back. "And that is how I became a murderer." With these words Herbert Thorne concluded his narrative. He appeared quite calm now. He was really calmer, for the strain of the deed, which was justified in his eyes, was not so great upon his conscience as had been the strain of the secret of it.

In his own eyes he had only killed a beast who chanced to bear the form of a man. But of course in the eyes of the world this was a murder like any other, and the man who had committed it knew that he was under the ban of the law, that it was only a chance that the arm of justice had not yet reached out for him. And now this arm had reached out for him, although it was no longer necessary. For Herbert Thorne was not the man to allow another to suffer in his stead.

As soon as he knew that another had been arrested and was under suspicion of the murder, he knew that there was nothing more for him but open confession. But he wished to avoid a scandal even now. If he died by his own hand, then the first cause of all this trouble, his brother-in-law's rascality, could still be hidden.

But now his care was all in vain and Herbert Thorne knew that he must submit to the inevitable. Side by side with his old friend he sat on the deck of the boat that took them back to the Riva dei Schiavoni. Muller sat at some distance from them. The pale sad-faced woman, and the pale sad-faced man had much to say to each other that a stranger might not hear.

When the little boat reached the landing stage, there were but a few steps more to the door of the Hotel Danieli. From a balcony on the first floor a young woman stood looking down onto the canal. She too was pale and her eyes were heavy with anxiety. She had been pale and anxious even then, the day when she left the beautiful old house in the quiet street, to start on this pleasure trip to Venice.

It had been no pleasure trip to her. She had seen the change in her husband, a change that struck deep into his very being and altered him in everything except in his love and tender care for her. "Oh, why is it? what is the matter?" she asked her self a thousand times a day. Could it be possible that he had discovered the secret which tortured her, the only secret she had ever had from him, the secret she had longed to confess to him a hundred times but had lacked courage to do it.

For she had sinned deeply against her husband, she knew. Her fear and her confusion had driven her deeper and deeper into the waters of deceit until it was impossible for her to find the words that would have brought help and comfort from the man whom she loved more than anything else in the world. In the very earliest stages of Winkler's persecution she had lost her head completely and instead of confessing to her husband and asking for his aid and protection, she had pawned the rich jewels which had been his wedding present to get the money demanded by the blackmailer. In her ignorance she had thought that this one sum would satisfy him.

But he came again and again, demanding money which she saved from her pin money, from her household allowance, thus taking what she had intended to use to redeem her jewels. The pledge was lost, and her jewels gone forever. From now on, Mrs. Thorne lived in a terror which sapped her strength and drank her life blood drop by drop. Any hour might bring discovery, a discovery which she feared would shake her husband's love for her. The poor weak little woman grew pale and ill. She wrote finally to her step-brother, but he could think of no way out; he wrote only that if the matter came to a scandal there would be nothing for him to do but to kill himself. This was one reason more for her silence, and Mrs. Thome faded to a wan shadow of her former sunny self.

As she looked down from the balcony, she was like a woman suffering from a deathly illness. A new terror had come to her heart because her husband had gone away so early without telling her why or whither he had gone. When she saw him coming towards the door of the hotel, pale and drooping, and when she saw Mrs. Bernauer beside him, her heart seemed to stand still. She crept back from the window and stood in the middle of the room as Herbert Thorne and his former nurse entered.

"What has happened?" This was all she could say as she looked into the distraught face of the housekeeper, into her husband's sad eyes.

He led her to a chair, then knelt beside her and told her all.

"Outside the door stands the man who will take me back to Vienna—and you, my dearest, you must go to your father." He concluded his story with these words.

She bent down over him and kissed him. "'No, I am going with you," she said softly, strangely calm; "why should I leave you now? Is it not I who am the cause of this dreadful thing?"

And then she made her confession, much too late. And she went with him, back to the city of their home. It seemed to them both quite natural that she should do so.

When the Northern Express rolled out of Venice that afternoon, three people sat together in a compartment, the curtains of which were drawn close. They were the unhappy couple and their faithful servant. And outside in the corridor of the railway carriage, a small, slight man walked up and down—up and down. He had pressed a gold coin into the conductor's hand, with the words: "The party in there do not wish to be disturbed; the lady is ill."

Herbert Thorne's trial took place several weeks later. Every possible extenuating circumstance was brought to bear upon his sentence. Five years only was to be the term of his imprisonment, his punishment for the crime of a single moment of anger.

His wife waited for him in patient love. She did not go to Graz, but continued to live in the old mansion with the mansard roof. Her father was with her. The brother Theobald, the cause of all this suffering to those who had shielded him at the expense of their own happiness, had at last done the only good deed of his life—had put an end to his useless existence with his own hand.

Father and daughter waited patiently for the return of the man who had sinned and suffered for their sake. They spoke of him only in terms of the tenderest affection and respect.

And indeed, seldom has any condemned murderer met with the respect of the entire community as Herbert Thorne did. The tone of the newspapers, and public opinion, evinced by hundreds of letters from friends, acquaintances, and from strangers, was a great boon to the solitary man in his cell, and to the three loving hearts in the old house. And at the end of two years the clemency of the Monarch ended his term of imprisonment, and Herbert Thorne was set free, a step which met with the approval of the entire city.

He returned to the home where love and affection awaited him, ready to make him forget what he had suffered. But the silver threads in his dark hair and a certain quiet seriousness in his manner, and in the hearts of all the dwellers in the old mansion, showed that the occurrence of that fatal 27th of September had thrown a shadow over them all which was not to be shaken off.

Joseph Muller brought many other cases to a successful solution. But for years after this particular case had been won, he was followed, as by a shadow, by a man who watched over him, and who, whenever danger threatened, stood over the frail detective as if to take the blow upon himself. He is a clever assistant, too, and no one who had seen Johann Knoll the day that he was put into the cell on suspicion of murder would have believed that the idle tramp could become again such a useful member of society. These are the victories that Joseph Muller considers his greatest.

THE END