Part 3 (1/2)
”We will soon find that out. I should like to go to the police station myself with this woman; she is Winkler's landlady--but I think it will be better for you to accompany her. They will ask questions about the man which you will be better able to answer than I.”
Pokorny bowed and left the room. Mrs. Klingmayer rose and was about to follow, when the merchant asked her to wait a moment and inquired whether Winkler owed her anything. ”I am sorry that you should have had this shock and the annoyances and trouble which will come of it, but I don't want you to be out of pocket by it.”
”No, he doesn't owe me anything,” replied the honest old woman, shaking her head. A few big tears rolled down over her withered cheeks, possibly the only tears that were shed for the dead man under the elder-tree. But even this sympathetic soul could find nothing to say in his praise. She could feel pity for his dreadful death, but she could not a.s.sert that the world had lost anything by his going out of it. As if saddened by the impossibility of finding a single good word to say about the dead man, she left the office with drooping head and lagging step.
Pokorny helped her into the cab that was already waiting before the door. The office force had got wind of the fact that something unusual had occurred and were all at the windows to see them drive off. The three clerks who worked in the department to which Winkler belonged gathered together to talk the matter over. They were none of them particularly hit by it, but naturally they were interested in the discovery in Hietzing, and equally naturally, they tried to find a few good words to say about the man whose life had ended so suddenly.
The youngest of them, Fritz Bormann, said some kind words and was about to wax more enthusiastic, when Degenhart, the eldest clerk, cut in with the words: ”Oh, don't trouble yourself. n.o.body ever liked Winkler here.
'He was not a good man--he was not even a good worker. This is the first time that he has a reasonable excuse for neglecting his duties.”
”Oh, come, see here! how can you talk about the poor man that way when he's scarcely cold in death yet,” said Fritz indignantly.
Degenhart laughed harshly.
”Did I ever say anything else about him while he was warm and alive?
Death is no reason for changing one's opinion about a man who was good-for-nothing in life. And his death was a stroke of good luck that he scarcely deserved. He died without a moment's pain, with a merry thought in his head, perhaps, while many another better man has to linger in torture for weeks. No, Bormann, the best I can say about Winkler is that his death makes one nonent.i.ty the less on earth.”
The older man turned to his desk again and the two younger clerks continued the conversation: ”Degenhart appears to be a hard man,” said Fritz, ”but he's the best and kindest person I know, and he's dead right in what he says. It was simply a case of conventional superst.i.tion. I never did like that Winkler.”
”No, you're right,” said the other. ”Neither did I and I don't know why, for the matter of that. He seemed just like a thousand others. I never heard of anything particularly wrong that he did.”
”No, no more did I,” continued Bormann, ”but I never heard of anything good about him either. And don't you think that it's worse for a man to seem to repel people by his very personality, rather than by any particular bad thing that he does?”
”Yes. I don't know how to explain it, but that's just how I feel about it. I had an instinctive feeling that there was something wrong about Winkler, the sort of a creepy, crawly feeling that a snake gives you.”
CHAPTER IV. SPEAK WELL OF THE DEAD
Meanwhile Pokomy and Mrs. Klingmayer had reached the police station and were going upstairs to the rooms of the commissioner on service for the day. Like all people of her cla.s.s, Mrs. Klingmayer stood in great awe and terror of anything connected with the police or the law generally.
She crept slowly and tremblingly up the stairs behind the head bookkeeper and was very glad when she was left alone for a few minutes while Pokorny went in to see the commissioner. But as soon as his errand was known, both the bookkeeper and his companion were led into the office of Head Commissioner Dr. von Riedau, who had charge of the Hietzing murder case.
When Dr. von Riedau heard the reason of their coming, his interest was immediately aroused, and he pulled a chair to his side for the little thin man with whom he had been talking when the two strangers were ushered in.
”Then you believe you could identify the murdered man?” asked the commissioner.
”From the general description and the initials on his linen, I believe it must be Leopold Winkler,” answered Pokorny. ”Mrs. Klingmayer has not seen him since Monday morning, nor has she had any message from him. He left the office Monday afternoon at 6 o'clock and that was the last time that we saw him. The only thing that makes me doubt his ident.i.ty is that the paper reports that three hundred gulden were found in his pocket.
Winkler never seemed to have money, and I do not understand how he should have been in possession of such a sum.”
”The money was found in the dead man's pockets,” said the commissioner.
”And yet it may be Winkler, the man you know. Muller, will you order a cab, please?”
”I have a cab waiting for me. But it only holds two,” volunteered Pokorny.
”That doesn't matter, I'll sit on the box,” answered the man addressed as Muller.
”You are going with us?” asked Pokorny.