Chapter 3

An old peddler was trying to find shelter from the rapidly increasing storm under the lea of the castle wall. He crouched so close to the stones that he could scarcely be seen at all, in spite of the light from the snow. Finally he disappeared altogether behind one of the heavy columns which sprang out at intervals from the magnificent wall. Only his head peeped out occasionally as if looking for something. His dark, thoughtful eyes glanced over the little village spread out on one side of the castle, and over the railway station, its most imposing building. Then they would turn back again to the entrance gate in the wall near where he stood. It was a heavy iron-barred gate, its handsome ornamentation outlined in snow, and behind it the body of a large dog could be occasionally seen. This dog was an enormous grey Ulmer hound.

The peddler stood for a long time motionless behind the pillar, then he looked at his watch. “It’s nearly time,” he murmured, and looked over towards the station again, where lights and figures were gathering.

At the same time the noise of an opening door was heard, and steps creaked over the snow. A man, evidently a servant, opened the little door beside the great gate and held it for another man to pass out. “You’ll come back by the night train as usual, sir?” he asked respectfully.

“Yes,” replied the other, pushing back the dog, which fawned upon him.

“Come back here, Tristan,” called the servant, pulling the dog in by his collar, as he closed the door and re-entered the house.

The Councillor took the path to the station. He walked slowly, with bowed head and uneven step. He did not look like a man who was in the mood to join a merry crowd, and yet he was evidently going to his Club. “He wants to show himself; he doesn’t want to let people think that he has anything to be afraid of,” murmured the peddler, looking after him sharply. Then his eyes suddenly dimmed and a light sigh was heard, with another murmur, “Poor man.” The Councillor reached the station and disappeared within its door. The train arrived and departed a few moments later. Kniepp must have really gone to the city, for although the man behind the pillar waited for some little time, the Councillor did not return--a contingency that the peddler had not deemed improbable.

About half an hour after the departure of the train the watcher came out of his hiding place and walked noisily past the gate. What he expected, happened. The dog rushed up to the bars, barking loudly, but when the peddler had taken a silk muffler from the pack on his back and held it out to the animal, the noise ceased and the dog’s anger turned to friendliness. Tristan was quite gentle, put his huge head up to the bars to let the stranger pat it, and seemed not at all alarmed when the latter rang the bell.

The young man who had opened the door for the Councillor came out from a wing of the castle. The peddler looked so frozen and yet so venerable that the youth had not the heart to turn him away. Possibly he was glad of a little diversion for his own sake.

“Who do you want to see?” he asked.

“I want to speak to the maid, the one who attended your dead mistress.”

“Oh, then you know--?”

“I know of the misfortune that has happened here.”

“And you think that Nanette might have something to sell to you?”

“Yes, that’s it; that’s why I came. For I don’t suppose there’s much chance for any business with my cigar holders and other trifles here so near the city.”

“Cigar holders? Why, I don’t know; perhaps we can make a trade. Come in with me. Why, just see how gentle the dog is with you!”

“Isn’t he that way with everybody? I supposed he was no watchdog.”

“Oh, indeed he is. He usually won’t allow anybody to touch him, except those whom he knows well. I’m astonished that he lets you come to the house at all.”

They had reached the door by this time. The peddler laid his hand on the servant’s arm and halted a moment. “Where was it that she threw herself out?”

“From the last window upstairs there.”

“And did it kill her at once?”

“Yes. Anyway she was unconscious when we came down.”

“Was the master at home?”

“Why, yes, it happened in the middle of the night.”

“She had a fever, didn’t she? Had she been ill long?”

“No. She was in bed that day, but we thought it was nothing of importance.”

“These fevers come on quickly sometimes,” remarked the old man wisely, and added: “This case interests the entire neighbourhood and I will show you that I can be grateful for anything you may tell me--of course, only what a faithful servant could tell. It will interest my customers very much.”

“You know all there is to know,” said the valet, evidently disappointed that he had nothing to tell which could win the peddler’s gratitude. “There are no secrets about it. Everybody knows that they were a very happy couple, and even if there was a little talk between them on that day, why it was pure accident and had nothing to do with the mistress’ excitement.”

“Then there was a quarrel between them?”

“Are people talking about it?”

“I’ve heard some things said. They even say that this quarrel was the reason for--her death.”

“It’s stupid nonsense!” exclaimed the servant. The old peddler seemed to like the young man’s honest indignation.

While they were talking, they had passed through a long corridor and the young man laid his hand on one of the doors as the peddler asked, “Can I see Miss Nanette alone?”

“Alone? Oho, she’s engaged to me!”

“I know that,” said the stranger, who seemed to be initiated into all the doings of this household. “And I am an old man--all I meant was that I would rather not have any of the other servants about.”

“I’ll keep the cook out of the way if you want me to.”

“That would be a good idea. It isn’t easy to talk business before others,” remarked the old man as they entered the room. It was a comfortably furnished and cozily warm apartment. Only two people were there, an old woman and a pretty young girl, who both looked up in astonishment as the men came in.

“Who’s this you’re bringing in, George?” asked Nanette.

“He’s a peddler and he’s got some trifles here you might like to look at.”

“Why, yes, you wanted a thimble, didn’t you, Lena?” asked Nanette, and the cook beckoned to the peddler. “Let’s see what you’ve got there,” she said in a friendly tone. The old man pulled out his wares from his pack; thimbles and scissors, coloured ribbons, silks, brushes and combs, and many other trifles. When the women had made their several selections they noticed that the old man was shivering with the cold, as he leaned against the stove. Their sympathies were aroused in a moment. “Why don’t you sit down?” asked Nanette, pushing a chair towards him, and Lena rose to get him something warm from the kitchen.

The peddler threw a look at George, who nodded in answer. “He said he’d like to see the things they gave you after Mrs. Kniepp’s death,” the young man remarked,

“Do you buy things like that?” Nanette turned to the peddler.

“I’d just like to look at them first, if you’ll let me.”

“I’d be glad to get rid of them. But I won’t go upstairs, I’m afraid there.”

“Well, I’ll get the things for you if you want me to,” offered George and turned to leave the room. The door had scarcely closed behind him when a change came over the peddler. His old head rose from its drooping position, his bowed figure started up with youthful elasticity.

“Are you really fond of him?” he asked of the astonished Nanette, who stepped back a pace, stammering in answer: “Yes. Why do you ask? and who are you?”

“Never mind that, my dear child, but just answer the questions I have to ask, and answer truthfully, or it might occur to me to let your George know that he is not the first man you have loved.”

“What do you know?” she breathed in alarm.

The peddler laughed. “Oho, then he’s jealous! All the better for me--the Councillor was jealous too, wasn’t he?” Nanette looked at him in horror.

“The truth, therefore, you must tell me the truth, and get the others away, so I can speak to you alone. You must do this--or else I’ll tell George about the handsome carpenter in Church street, or about Franz Schmid, or--”

“For God’s sake, stop--stop--I’ll do anything you say.”

The girl sank back on her chair pale and trembling, while the peddler resumed his pose of a tired old man leaning against the stove. When George returned with a large basket, Nanette had calmed herself sufficiently to go about the unpacking of the articles in the hamper.

“George, won’t you please keep Lena out in the kitchen. Ask her to make some tea for us,” asked Nanette with well feigned assurance. George smiled a meaning smile and disappeared.

“I am particularly interested in the dead lady’s gloves,” said the peddler when they were alone again.

Nanette looked at him in surprise but was still too frightened to offer any remarks. She opened several boxes and packages and laid a number of pairs of gloves on the table. The old man looked through them, turning them over carefully. Then he shook his head: “There must be some more somewhere,” he said. Nanette was no longer astonished at anything he might say or do, so she obediently went through the basket again and found a little box in which were several pair of grey suede gloves, fastened by bluish mother-of-pearl buttons. One of the pairs had been worn, and a button was missing.

“These are the ones I was looking for,” said the peddler, putting the gloves in his pocket. Then he continued: “Your mistress was rather fond of taking long walks by herself, wasn’t she?”

The girl’s pale face flushed hotly and she stammered: “You know--about it?”

“You know about it also, I see. And did you know everything?”

“Yes, everything,” murmured Nanette.

“Then it was you and Tristan who accompanied the lady on her walks?”

“Yes.”

“I supposed she must have taken some one into her confidence. Well, and what do you think about the murder?”

“The Professor?” replied Nanette hastily. “Why, what should I know about it?”

“The Councillor was greatly excited and very unhappy when he discovered this affair, I suppose?”

“He is still.”

“And how did he act after the--let us call it the accident?”

“He was like a crazy man.”

“They tell me that he went about his duties just the same--that he went away on business.”

“It wasn’t business this time, at least not professional business. But before that he did have to go away frequently for weeks at a time.”

“And it was then that your mistress was most interested in her lonely walks, eh?”

“Yes.” Nanette’s voice was so low as to be scarcely heard.

“Well, and this time?” continued the peddler. “Why did he go away this time?”

“He went to the capital on private business of his own.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Quite sure. He went two different times. I thought it was because he couldn’t stand it here and wanted to see something different. He went to his club this evening, too.”

“And when did he go away?”

“The first time was the day after his wife was buried.”

“And the second time?”

“Two or three days after his return.”

“How long did he stay away the first time?”

“Only one day.”

“Good! Pull yourself together now. I’ll send your George in to you and tell him you haven’t been feeling well. Don’t tell any one about our conversation. Where is the kitchen?”

“The last door to the right down the hall.”

The peddler left the room and Nanette sank down dazed and trembling on the nearest chair. George found her still pale, but he seemed to think it quite natural that she should have been overcome by the recollection of the terrible death of her mistress. He gave the old man a most cordial invitation to return during the next few days. The cook brought the peddler a cup of steaming tea, and purchased several trifles from him, before he left the house.

When the old man had reached a lonely spot on the road, about half way between the hunting castle and the city, he halted, set down his pack, divested himself of his beard and his wig and washed the wrinkles from his face with a handful of snow from the wayside. A quarter of an hour later, Detective Muller entered the railway station of the city, burdened with a large grip. He took a seat in the night express which rolled out from the station a few moments later.

As he was alone in his compartment, Muller gave way to his excitement, sometimes even murmuring half-aloud the thoughts that rushed through his brain. “Yes, I am convinced of it, but can I find the proofs?” the words came again and again, and in spite of the comfortable warmth in the compartment, in spite of his tired and half-frozen condition, he could not sleep.

He reached the capital at midnight and took a room in a small hotel in a quiet street. When he went out next morning, the servants looked after him with suspicion, as in their opinion a man who spent most of the night pacing up and down his room must surely have a guilty conscience.

Muller went to police headquarters and looked through the arrivals at the hotels on the 21st of November. The burial of Mrs. Kniepp had taken place on the 20th. Muller soon found the name he was looking for, “Forest Councillor Leo Kniepp,” in the list of guests at the Hotel Imperial. The detective went at once to the Hotel Imperial, where he was already well known. It cost him little time and trouble to discover what he wished to know, the reason for the Councillor’s visit to the capital.

Kniepp had asked for the address of a goldsmith, and had been directed to one of the shops which had the best reputation in the city. He had been in the capital altogether for about twenty-four hours. He had the manner and appearance of a man suffering under some terrible blow.

Muller himself was deep in thought as he entered the train to return to his home, after a visit to the goldsmith in question. He had a short interview with Chief of Police Bauer, who finally gave him the golden bullet and the keys to the apartment of the murdered man. Then the two went out together.

An hour later, the chief of police and Muller stood in the garden of the house in which the murder had occurred. Bauer had entered from the Promenade after Muller had shown him how to work the lock of the little gate. Together they went up into the apartment, which was icy cold and uncanny in its loneliness. But the two men did not appear to notice this, so greatly were they interested in the task that had brought them there. First of all, they made a most minute examination of the two doors which had been locked. The keys were still in both locks on the inside. They were big heavy keys, suitable for the tall massive heavily-panelled and iron-ornamented doors. The entire villa was built in this heavy old German style, the favourite fashion of the last few years.

When they had looked the locks over carefully, Muller lit the lamp that hung over the desk in the study and closed the window shutters tight. Bauer had smiled at first as he watched his protege’s actions, but his smile changed to a look of keen interest as he suddenly understood. Muller took his place in the chair before the desk and looked over at the door of the vestibule, which was directly opposite him. “Yes, that’s all right,” he said with a deep breath.

Bauer had sat down on the sofa to watch the proceedings, now he sprang up with an exclamation: “Through the keyhole?”

“Through the keyhole,” answered Muller.

“It is scarcely possible.”

“Shall we try it?”

“Yes, yes, you do it.” Even the usually indifferent old chief of police was breathing more hastily now. Muller took a roll of paper and a small pistol out of his pocket. He unrolled the paper, which represented the figure of a French soldier with a marked target on the breast. The detective pinned the paper on the back of the chair in which Professor Fellner had been seated when he met his death.

“But the key was in the hole,” objected Bauer suddenly.

“Yes, but it was turned so that the lower part of the hole was free. Johann saw the light streaming through and could look into the room. If the murderer put the barrel of his pistol to this open part of the keyhole, the bullet would have to strike exactly where the dead man sat. There would be no need to take any particular aim.” Muller gazed into space like a seer before whose mental eye a vision has arisen, and continued in level tones: “Fellner had refused the duel and the murderer was crazed by his desire for revenge. He came here to the house, he must have known just how to enter the place, how to reach the rooms, and he must have known also, that the Professor, coward as he was--”

“Coward? Is a man a coward when he refuses to stand up to a maniac?” interrupted Bauer.

Muller came back to the present with a start and said calmly, “Fellner was a coward.”

“Then you know more than you are telling me now?”

Muller nodded. “Yes, I do,” he answered with a smile. “But I will tell you more only when I have all the proofs in my own hand.”

“And the criminal will escape us in the meantime.”

“He has no idea that he is suspected.”

“But--you’ll promise to be sensible this time, Muller?”

“Yes. But you will pardon me my present reticence, even towards you? I--I don’t want to be thought a dreamer again.”

“As in the Kniepp case?”

“As in the Kniepp case,” repeated the little man with a strange smile. “So please allow me to go about it in my own way. I will tell you all you want to know to-morrow.”

“To-morrow, then.”

“May I now continue to unfold my theories?” Bauer nodded and Muller continued: “The criminal wanted Fellner’s blood, no matter how.”

“Even if it meant murder,” said Bauer.

Muller nodded calmly. “It would have been nobler, perhaps, to have warned his victim of his approach, but it might have all come to nothing then. The other could have called for help, could have barricaded himself in his room, one crime might have been prevented, and another, more shameful one, would have gone unavenged.”

“Another crime? Fellner a criminal?”

“To-morrow you shall know everything, my kind friend. And now, let us make the trial. Please lock the door behind me as it was locked then.”

Muller left the room, taking the pistol with him. Bauer locked the door. “Is this right?” he asked.

“Yes, I can see a wide curve of the room, taking in the entire desk. Please stand to one side now.”

There was deep silence for a moment, then a slight sound as of metal on metal, then a report, and Muller re-entered the study through the bedroom. He found Bauer stooping over the picture of the French soldier. There was a hole in the left breast, where the bullet, passing through, had buried itself in the back of the chair.

“Yes, it was all just as you said,” began the chief of police, holding out his hand to Muller. “But--why the golden bullet?”

“To-morrow, to-morrow,” replied the detective, looking up at his superior with a glance of pleading.

They left the house together and in less than an hour’s time Muller was again in the train rolling towards the capital.

He went to the goldsmith’s shop as soon as he arrived. The proprietor received him with eager interest and Muller handed him the golden bullet. “Here is the golden object of which I spoke,” said the detective, paying no heed to the other’s astonishment. The goldsmith opened a small locked drawer, took a ring from it and set about an examination of the two little objects. When he turned to his visitor again, he was evidently satisfied with what he had discovered. “These two objects are made of exactly the same sort of gold, of a peculiar old French composition, which can no longer be produced in the same richness. The weight of the gold in the bullet is exactly the same as in the ring.”

“Would you be willing to take an oath on that if you were called in as an expert?”

“I am willing to stand up for my judgment.”

“Good. And now will you read this over please, it contains the substance of what you told me yesterday. Should I have made any mistakes, please correct them, for I will ask you to set your signature to it.”

Muller handed several sheets of close writing to the goldsmith and the latter read aloud as follows: “On the 22nd of November, a gentleman came into my shop and handed me a wedding ring with the request that I should make another one exactly like it. He was particularly anxious that the work should be done in two days at the very latest, and also that the new ring, in form, colour, and in the engraving on the inside, should be a perfect counterpart of the first. He explained his order by saying that his wife was ill, and that she was grieving over the loss of her wedding ring which had somehow disappeared. The new ring could be found somewhere as if by chance and the sick woman’s anxiety would be over. Two days later, as arranged, the same gentleman appeared again and I handed him the two rings.

“He left the shop, greatly satisfied with my work and apparently much relieved in his mind. But he left me uneasy in spirit because I had deceived him. It had not been possible for me to reproduce exactly the composition of the original ring, and as I believed that the work was to be done in order to comfort an invalid, and I was getting no profit, but on the contrary a little extra work out of it, I made two new rings, lettered them according to the original and gave them to my customer. The original ring I am now, on this seventh day of December, giving to Mr. Joseph Mullet, who has shown me his legitimation as a member of the Secret Police. I am willing to put myself at the service of the authorities if I am called for.”

“You are willing to do this, aren’t you?” asked Muller when the goldsmith had arrived at the end of the notice.

“Of course.”

“Have you anything to add to this?”

“No, it is quite complete. I will sign it at once.”

Several hours later, Muller re-entered the police station in his home town and saw the windows of the chief’s apartment brilliantly lighted. “What’s going on,” he asked of Bauer’s servant who was just hurrying up the stairs.

“The mistress’ birthday, we’ve got company.”

Muller grumbled something and went on up to his own room. He knew it would not be pleasant for his patron to be disturbed in the midst of entertaining his guests, but the matter was important and could not wait.

The detective laid off his outer garments, made a few changes in his toilet and putting the goldsmith’s declaration, with the ring and the bullet in his pocketbook, he went down to the first floor of the building, in one wing of which was the apartment occupied by the Chief. He sent in his name and was told to wait in the little study. He sat down quietly in a corner of the comfortable little room beyond which, in a handsomely furnished smoking room, a number of guests sat playing cards. From the drawing rooms beyond, there was the sound of music and many voices.

It was all very attractive and comfortable, and the solitary man sat there enjoying once more the pleasant sensation of triumph, of joy at the victory that was his alone and that would win him back all his old friends and prestige. He was looking forward in agreeable anticipation to the explanations he had to give, when he suddenly started and grew pale. His eyes dimmed a moment, then he pulled himself together and murmured: “No, no, not this time. I will not be weak this time.”

Just then the Chief entered the room, accompanied by Councillor Kniepp.