CHAPTER X. MULLER RETURNS TO THE THORNE MANSION
It was striking eight as Muller came out of a cafe in the heart of thecity. He had been in there but a few moments, for his purpose was merelyto look through the Army lists of the current year. The result of hissearch proved the correctness of his conclusions.
There was a Lieutenant Theobald Leining in the single infantry regimentstationed at Marburg.
Muller took a cab and drove to the main telegraph office. He asked forthe original of the telegram which had been sent that afternoon to theaddress; "Herbert Thorne, Hotel Danieli, Venice." This closed the circleof the chain.
The detective re-entered his waiting cab and drove back to Hietzing. Hetold the driver to halt at the corner of the street on which fronted theThorne mansion and to wait for him there. He himself walked slowly downthe quiet Street and rang the bell at the iron gate.
"You come to this house again?" asked Franz, starting back in alarm whenhe 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 onfalse pretenses this time. And before you let me in you can go upstairsand ask Mrs. Bernauer if she will receive me in her own room--in her ownroom, mind. But make haste; I am in a hurry." The detective's tone wascalm and he strolled slowly up and down in front of the gate when he hadfinished speaking.
The old butler hesitated a moment, then walked into the house. When hereturned, rather more quickly, he looked alarmed and his tone was veryhumble as he asked Muller to follow him.
When the detective entered Mrs. Bernauer's room the housekeeper roseslowly from the large armchair in front of her table. She was very paleand her eyes were full of terror. She made no move to speak, so Mullerbegan the conversation. He put down his hat, brought up a chair andplaced 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 arefaithful 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 whomone is devoted."
Mrs. Bernauer looked up in surprise. "What--what do you know?" shestammered.
Muller did not answer the question directly, but continued: "Mrs.Thorne had a meeting recently with a strange man. It was not their firstmeeting, and somehow you discovered it. But before this last meetingoccurred you spoke to the lady's husband about it, and it was arrangedbetween 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 hurryingthrough 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 hadturned down the wick--it was your hand.
"This was the signal to Mr. Thorne. The mirrors over his desk reflectedin his eyes the light he could not otherwise have seen as he sat by hisown window. The signal, therefore, told him that the time had come toact. This same chance watcher, who had seen the woman going through thegarden, had seen the lamp go out, and now saw a man's figure hurryingdown the path the woman had taken. The man as well as the woman camefrom this house and went in the direction of the lower end of thegarden.
"A little while later a shot was heard, and the next morning LeopoldWinkler was found with a bullet in his back. The crime was generallytaken 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 suddenlycame to you, falling like a heavy weight on your soul, the idea thatWinkler might not have been killed for the sake of robbery, but becauseof the hatred that some one bore him. Then it was that you lost yourappetite suddenly, that you drove into the city with the excuse oferrands to do, in order to read the papers without being seen by anyone who knew you. When you came home you searched everywhere in yourmaster's room: you made an excuse for this search, but what you wantedto find out was whether he had left anything that could betray him. Yourfright had already confused your mind. You were searching probably forthe weapon from which he had fired the bullet. You did not realise thathe would naturally have taken it with him and thrown it somewhere intoa ravine or river beside the railway track between here and Venice. Howcould you think for a moment that he would leave it behind him, here inhis room, or dropped in the garden? But this was doubtless due to theconfusion owing to your sudden alarm and anxiety--a confusion whichprevented you from realising the danger of the two peculiarly hungmirrors in Mr. Thorne's room. These should have been taken away at once.This morning my sudden appearance at the garden gate prevented you frommaking an examination of the place of the murder. Your swoon, after Ihad spoken to you in the butler's room, showed me that you were carryinga burden too heavy for your strength. Finally, this afternoon, you droveto the main telegraph office in the city, as you thought that it wouldbe safer to telegraph Mr. Thorne from there. Your telegram was verycleverly written. But you might have spared the last sentence, therequest that Mr. Thorne should get the Viennese papers of these lastdays. Believe me, he has already read these papers. Who could be moreinterested in what they have to tell than he?"
The housekeeper had sat as if frozen to stone during Muller's longspeech. Her face was ashen and her eyes wild with horror. When thedetective ceased speaking, there was dead silence in the room for sometime. Finally Muller asked: "Is this what happened?" His voice wascutting and the glance of his eyes keen and sharp.
Mrs. Bernauer trembled. Her head sank on her breast. Muller waited amoment 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 notspied upon her and betrayed her to her husband, all this might not havehappened," continued the detective pitilessly, adding with a bittersmile: "And it was not even a case of sinful love. Your mistress hadno such relations with this Winkler as you--I say this to excuseyou--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 doneI did after due consideration and in the realisation that it wasabsolutely necessary to do it. Never for one moment did I believe thatmy mistress was untrue to her husband. Never for one moment could Ibelieve such an evil thing of her, for I knew her to be an angel ofgoodness. A woman who is deceiving her husband is not as unhappy as thispoor lady has been for months. A woman does not write to a successfullover with so much sorrow, with so many tears. I had long suspectedthese meetings before I discovered them, but I knew that these meetingshad nothing whatever to do with love. Because I knew this, and onlybecause I knew it, did I tell my master about them. I wanted him toprotect his wife, to free her from the wretch who had obtained somepower over her, I knew not how."
"Ah! then that was it?" exclaimed Muller, and his eyes softened as helooked at the sobbing woman who had sunk back into her chair. He laidhis hand on her cold fingers and continued gently: "Then you have reallydone right, you have done only what was your duty. I pity you deeplythat 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 havecontrolled myself, could have kept calm, nobody would have had a thoughtor a suspicion that he--my pet, my darling--that it was he who wasforced, through some terrible circumstance of which I do not know, tofree his wife, in this manner, from the wretch who persecuted her."
Mrs. Bernauer wrung her hands and gazed with despairing eyes at the manwho sat before her, himself deeply moved.
Again there was a long silence. Muller could not find a word to comfortthe weeping woman. There was no longer anger in hi
s heart, nothing butthe deepest pity. He took out his handkerchief and wiped away the dropsthat 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 toheadquarters about what I have learned. You can imagine yourself whatthe next steps will be."
Her deep sigh showed him that she knew as well as he. In the samesecond, however, a thought shot through her brain, changing her wholebeing. Her pale face glowed, her dulled eyes shot fire, and the fingerswith which she held Muller's hand tightly clasped, were suddenlyfeverishly hot.
"And you--you are still the only person who knows the truth?" she gaspedin his ear.
The detective nodded. "And you thought you might silence me?" he askedcalmly. "That will not be easy--for you can imagine that I did not comeunarmed."
Adele Bernauer smiled sadly. "I would take even this way to save HerbertThorne from disgrace, if I thought that it could be successful, and ifI had not thought of a milder way to silence a man who cannot be amillionaire. I have served in this house for thirty-two years, I havebeen treated with such generosity that I have been able to save almostevery cent of my wages for my old age. With the interest that has rolledup, my little fortune must amount to nearly eight thousand gulden. Iwill gladly give it to you, if you will but keep silence, if you willnot tell what you have discovered." She spoke gaspingly and sank down onher knees before she had finished.
"And Mr. Thorne also--" she continued hastily, as she saw no sign ofinterest 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 bycommitting another. I myself would naturally not listen to yoursuggestion for a moment, but I am also convinced that Mr. Thorne, towhom you are so devoted, and who, I acknowledge, pleased me the veryfirst sight I had of him--I am convinced that he would not agree for amoment to any such solution of the problem."
"Then I can only hope that you will not find him in Venice," repliedMrs. Bernauer, with utter despair in her voice and eyes.
"I am not at all certain that I will find him in Venice when I leavehere to-morrow morning," said Muller calmly.
"Oh! then you don't want to find him! Oh God! how good, howinexpressibly good you are," stammered the woman, seizing at some vaguehope in her distraught heart.
"No, you are mistaken again, Mrs. Bernauer. I will find Mr. Thornewherever he may be. But I may arrive in Venice too late to meet himthere. He may already be on his way home."
"On his way home?" cried the housekeeper in terror, staggering where shestood.
Muller led her gently to a chair. "Sit down here and listen to mecalmly. This is what I mean. If Mr. Thorne has seen in the papers that aman has been arrested and accused of the murder of Leopold Winkler, thenhe 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 suspicionon any one else, no possibility that any one else could suffer theconsequences of his deed--is quite comprehensible--it is only naturaland 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 andshone in her dimmed eyes.
"You know him better than I do," she murmured almost inaudibly, "youknow 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 lastMarch, 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 theold 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 ourlady's birthday. He went away that day." Franz bowed a farewell to thisstranger who began to appear uncanny in his eyes, and shutting the gatecarefully he returned to the house.
"What does the man want anyway?" he murmured to himself, shiveringinvoluntarily. Without knowing why he turned his steps towards Mrs.Bernauer's room. He opened the door hesitatingly as if afraid of what hemight see there. He would not have been at all surprised if he had foundthe housekeeper fainting on the floor as before.
But she was not fainting this time. She was very much alive, for, toFranz's great astonishment, she was busied at the packing of a valise.
"Are you going away too?" asked Franz. Mrs. Bernauer answered in a voicethat was dull with weariness: "Yes, Franz, I am going away. Will youplease look up the time-tables of the Southern railroad and let me knowwhen 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. Youcan imagine that it must be something very important that takes me toVenice."
"To Venice? Why, what are you going to Venice for?"
"Never mind about that, Franz, but help me to pray that I may get therein time."
She almost pushed the old man out of the door with these last words andshut and locked it behind him.
She wanted to be alone with this hideous fear that was clutching at herheart. For it was not to Franz that she could tell the thoughts thatcame to her lips now as she sank down, wringing her hands, before apicture of the Madonna: "Oh Holy Virgin, Mother of our Lord, plead forme! let me be with my dear mistress when the terrible time comesand they take her husband away from her, or, if preferring death todisgrace, he ends his life by his own hand!"