Part 2 (1/2)

The maid hastened down with the rug and spread it over her mistress's knees, as the gentleman exclaimed nervously: ”Do hurry with that! Do you want us to miss the train?”

The butler closed the door of the carriage, the coachman gathered up the reins and raised his whip. The housekeeper bowed low and murmured a few words in farewell and the other servants followed her example with tears in their eyes. ”You'll see us again in six weeks,” the lady called out and her husband added: ”If all goes well.” Then he motioned to the waiting driver and the carriage moved off swiftly, turning the corner in a few moments.

The little group of servants returned to the courtyard behind the high gates. Muller, whom they had not noticed, was about to resume his walk, when he halted again. The courtyard of the house led back through a flagged walk to the park-like garden that surrounded it on the sides and rear. Down this walk came a young woman. She came so quickly that one might almost call it running. She was evidently excited about something.

Muller imagined what this something might be, and he remained to hear what she had to say. He was not mistaken. The woman, it was Mrs.

Schmiedler, the gardener's wife, began her story at once. ”Haven't you heard yet?” she said breathlessly. ”No, you can't have heard it yet or you wouldn't stand there so quietly, Mrs. Bernauer.”

”What's the matter?” asked the woman whom Muller took to be the housekeeper.

”They killed a man last night out here! They found his body just now in the lane back of our garden. The janitor from No.1 told me as I was going to the store, so I went right back to look at the place, and I came to tell you, as I didn't think you'd heard it yet.”

Mrs. Bernauer was evidently a woman of strong const.i.tution and of an equable mind. The other three servants broke out into an excited hubbub of talk while she remained quite indifferent and calm. ”One more poor fellow who had to leave the world before he was ready,” she remarked calmly, with just the natural touch of pity in her voice that would come to any warm-hearted human being upon hearing of such an occurrence. She did not seem at all excited or alarmed to think that the scene of the crime had been so near.

The other servants were very much more excited and had already rushed off, under the guidance of the gardener's wife, to look at the dreadful spot. Franz, the butler, had quite forgotten to close the front gate in his excitement, and the housekeeper turned to do it now.

”The fools, see them run,” she exclaimed half aloud. ”As if there was anything for them to do there.”

The gate closed, Mrs. Bernauer turned and walked slowly to the house.

Muller walked on also, going first to the police station to report what he had discovered. Then he went to his own rooms and slept until nearly noon. On his return to the police station he found that notices of the occurrence had already been sent out to the papers.

CHAPTER III. THE EVENING PAPER

The autopsy proved beyond a doubt that the murdered man had been dead for many hours before the discovery of his body. The bullet which had struck him in the back had pierced the trachea and death had occurred within a few minutes. The only marks for identification of the body were the initials L. W. on his underwear. The evening paper printed an exact description of the man's appearance and his clothing.

It was about ten o'clock next morning when Mrs. Klingmayer, a widow living in a quiet street at the opposite end of the city from Hietzing, returned from her morning marketing. It was only a few little bundles that she brought with her and she set about preparing her simple dinner.

Her packages were wrapped in newspapers, which she carefully smoothed out and laid on the dresser.

Mrs. Klingmayer was the widow of a street-car conductor and the little pension which she received from the company, as well as the money she could earn for herself, did not permit of the indulgence in a daily newspaper. And yet the reading of the papers was the one luxury for which the simple woman longed. Her grocer, who was a friend of years, knew this and would wrap up her purchases in papers of recent date, knowing that she could then enjoy them in her few moments of leisure.

To-day this leisure came unexpectedly early, for Mrs. Klingmayer had less work than usual to attend to.

Her little flat consisted of two rooms and a kitchen with a large closet opening out from it. She lived in the kitchen and rented the front rooms. Her tenants were a middle-aged man, inspector in a factory, who had the larger room; and a younger man who was bookkeeper in an importing house in the city. But this young man had not been at home for forty-eight hours, a fact, however, which did not greatly worry his landlady. The gentleman in question lived a rather dissipated life and it was not the first time that he had remained away from home over night. It is true that it was the first time that he had not been home for two successive nights. But as Mrs. Klingmayer thought, everything has to happen the first time sometime. ”It's not likely to be the last time,” the worthy woman thought.

At all events she was rather glad of it to-day, for she suffered from rheumatism and it was difficult for her to get about. The young man's absence saved her the work of fixing up his room that morning and allowed her to get to her reading earlier than usual. When she had put the pot of soup on the fire, she sat down by the window, adjusted her big spectacles and began to read. To her great delight she discovered that the paper she held in her hand bore the date of the previous afternoon. In spite of the good intentions of her friend the grocer, it was not always that she could get a paper of so recent date, and she began to read with doubled antic.i.p.ation of pleasure.

She did not waste time on the leading articles, for she understood little about politics. The serial stories were a great delight to her, or would have been, if she had ever been able to follow them consecutively. But her princ.i.p.al joy were the everyday happenings of varied interest which she found in the news columns. To-day she was so absorbed in the reading of them that the soup pot began to boil over and send out rivulets down onto the stove. Ordinarily this would have shocked Mrs. Klingmayer, for the neatness of her pots and pans was the one great care of her life. But now, strange to relate, she paid no attention to the soup, nor to the smell and the smoke that arose from the stove. She had just come upon a notice in the paper which took her entire attention. She read it through three times, and each time with growing excitement. This is what she read:

MURDER IN HIETZING

This morning at six o'clock the body of a man about 30 years old was discovered in a lane in Hietzing. The man must have been dead many hours. He had been shot from behind. The dead man was tall and thin, with brown eyes, brown hair and moustache.

The letters L. W. were embroidered in his underwear. There was nothing else discovered on him that could reveal his ident.i.ty.

His watch and purse were not in his pockets: presumably they had been taken by the murderer. A strange fact is that in one of his pockets--a hidden pocket it is true--there was the sum of 300 guldens in bills.

This was the notice which made Mrs. Klingmayer neglect the soup pot.