"Why, what is the matter with you, Mrs. Bernaner? You're so nervous since yesterday. Are you ill? Everything seems to frighten you? Why did you run away from that gate so suddenly? Ithought you wanted me to show you the place?"Mrs. Bernauer raised her head and Muller saw that her face looked pale and haggard and that her eyes shone with an uneasy feverish light. She did not answer the old man's questions, but made a gesture of farewell and then turned and walked slowly towards the house. She realised, apparently, and feared, perhaps, that the man who was passing the gate might have, noticed her sudden change of demeanour and that he was listening to what she might say. She did not think of the knot-hole in the board fence, or she might have been more careful in hiding her distraught face from possible observers.
Muller stood watching through this knot-hole for some little time.
He took a careful observation of the garden, and from his point of vantage he could easily see the little house which was apparently the dwelling of the gardener, as well as the mansard roof of the main building. There was considerable distance between the two houses. The detective decided that it might interest him to know something more about this garden, this house and the people who lived there. And when Muller made such a decision it was usually not very long before he carried it out.
The other street, upon which the main front of the mansard house opened, contained a few isolated dwellings surrounded by gardens and a number of newly built apartment houses. On the ground floor of these latter houses were a number of stores and immediately opposite the Thorne mansion was a little caf? This suited Muller exactly, for he had been there before and he remembered that from one of the windows there was an excellent view of the gate and the front entrance of the mansion opposite. It was a very modest little caf? but there was a fairly good wine to be had there and the detective made it an excuse to sit down by the window, as if enjoying his bottle while admiring the changing colours of the foliage in the gardens opposite.
Another rather good chance, he discovered, was the fact that the landlord belonged to the talkative sort, and believed that the refreshments he had to sell were rendered doubly agreeable when spiced by conversation. In this case the good man was not mistaken.
It was scarcely ten o'clock in the forenoon and there were very few people in the caf? The landlord was quite at leisure to devote himself to this stranger in the window seat, whom he did not remember to have seen before, and who was therefore doubly interesting to him. Several subjects of conversation usual in such cases, such as politics and the weather, seemed to arouse no particular enthusiasm in his patron's manner. Finally the portly landlord decided that he would touch upon the theme which was still absorbing all Hietzing.
"Oh, by the way, sir, do you know that you are in the immediate vicinity of the place where the murder of Monday evening was committed? People are still talking about it around here. And Isee by the papers that the murderer was arrested in Pressburg yesterday and brought to Vienna last night.""Indeed, is that so? I haven't seen a paper to-day," replied Muller, awakening from his apparent indifference.
The landlord was flattered by the success of the new subject, and stood ready to unloose the floodgates of his eloquence. His customer sat up and asked the question for which the landlord was waiting.
"So it was around here that the man was shot?""Yes. His name was Leopold Winkler, that was in the papers to-day too. You see that pretty house opposite? Well, right behind this house is the garden that belongs to it and back of that, an old garden which has been neglected for some time. It was at the end of this garden where it touches the other street, that they found the man under a big elder-tree, early Tuesday morning, day before yesterday.""Oh, indeed!" said. Muller, greatly interested, as if this was the first he had heard of it. The landlord took a deep breath and was about to begin again when his customer, who decided to keep the talkative man to a certain phase of the subject, now took command of the conversation himself.
"I should think that the people opposite, who live so near the place where the murder was committed, wouldn't be very much pleased,"he said. "I shouldn't care to look out on such a spot every time I went to my window.""There aren't any windows there," exclaimed the landlord, "for there aren't any houses there. There's only the old garden, and then the large garden and the park belonging to Mr. Thorne's house, that fine old house you see just opposite here. It's a good thing that Mr. Thorne and his wife went away before the murder became known. The lady hasn't been well for some weeks, she's very nervous and frail, and it probably would have frightened her to think that such things were happening right close to her home.""The lady is sick? What's the matter with her?""Goodness knows, nerves, heart trouble, something like that. The things these fine ladies are always having. But she wasn't always that way, not until about a year ago. She was fresh and blooming and very pretty to look at before that.""She is a young lady then?"
"Yes, indeed, sir; she's very young still and very pretty. It makes you feel sorry to see her so miserable, and you feel sorry for her husband. Now there's a young couple with everything in the world to make them happy and so fond of each other, and the poor little lady has to be so sick.""They are very happy, you say?" asked Muller carelessly. He had no particular set purpose in following up this inquiry, none but his usual understanding of the fact that a man in his business can never amass too much knowledge, and that it will sometimes happen that a chance bit of information comes in very handy.
