CHAPTER III. THE EVENING PAPER
The autopsy proved beyond a doubt that the murdered man had been deadfor many hours before the discovery of his body. The bullet which hadstruck him in the back had pierced the trachea and death had occurredwithin a few minutes. The only marks for identification of the body werethe initials L. W. on his underwear. The evening paper printed an exactdescription of the man's appearance and his clothing.
It was about ten o'clock next morning when Mrs. Klingmayer, a widowliving in a quiet street at the opposite end of the city from Hietzing,returned from her morning marketing. It was only a few little bundlesthat she brought with her and she set about preparing her simple dinner.Her packages were wrapped in newspapers, which she carefully smoothedout and laid on the dresser.
Mrs. Klingmayer was the widow of a street-car conductor and the littlepension which she received from the company, as well as the money shecould earn for herself, did not permit of the indulgence in a dailynewspaper. And yet the reading of the papers was the one luxury forwhich 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 hadless work than usual to attend to.
Her little flat consisted of two rooms and a kitchen with a large closetopening out from it. She lived in the kitchen and rented the frontrooms. Her tenants were a middle-aged man, inspector in a factory,who had the larger room; and a younger man who was bookkeeper in animporting house in the city. But this young man had not been at homefor forty-eight hours, a fact, however, which did not greatly worry hislandlady. The gentleman in question lived a rather dissipated lifeand it was not the first time that he had remained away from home overnight. It is true that it was the first time that he had not been homefor two successive nights. But as Mrs. Klingmayer thought, everythinghas to happen the first time sometime. "It's not likely to be the lasttime," the worthy woman thought.
At all events she was rather glad of it to-day, for she suffered fromrheumatism and it was difficult for her to get about. The young man'sabsence saved her the work of fixing up his room that morning andallowed her to get to her reading earlier than usual. When she had putthe pot of soup on the fire, she sat down by the window, adjusted herbig spectacles and began to read. To her great delight she discoveredthat the paper she held in her hand bore the date of the previousafternoon. 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 shebegan to read with doubled anticipation of pleasure.
She did not waste time on the leading articles, for she understoodlittle about politics. The serial stories were a great delight toher, or would have been, if she had ever been able to follow themconsecutively. But her principal joy were the everyday happenings ofvaried interest which she found in the news columns. To-day she was soabsorbed in the reading of them that the soup pot began to boil overand send out rivulets down onto the stove. Ordinarily this would haveshocked Mrs. Klingmayer, for the neatness of her pots and pans was theone great care of her life. But now, strange to relate, she paid noattention to the soup, nor to the smell and the smoke that arose fromthe stove. She had just come upon a notice in the paper which took herentire attention. She read it through three times, and each time withgrowing 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 identity. 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.
Finally the old woman stood up very slowly, threw a glance at the stoveand opened the window mechanically. Then she lifted the pots from thefire and set them on the outer edge of the range. And then she didsomething that ordinarily would have shocked her economical soul--shepoured water on the fire to put it out.
When she saw that there was not a spark left in the stove, she went intoher own little room and prepared to go out. Her excitement caused her toforget her rheumatism entirely. One more look around her little kitchen,then she locked it up and set out for the centre of the city.
She went to the office of the importing house where her tenant, LeopoldWinkler, was employed as bookkeeper. The clerk at the door noticed thewoman's excitement and asked her kindly what the trouble was.
"I'd like to speak to Mr. Winkler," she said eagerly.
"Mr. Winkler hasn't come in yet," answered the young man. "Is anythingthe matter? You look so white! Winkler will probably show up soon, he'snever very punctual. But it's after eleven o'clock now and he's neverbeen as late as this before."
"I don't believe he'll ever come again," said the old woman, sinkingdown on a bench beside the door.
"Why, what do you mean?" asked the clerk. "Why shouldn't he come again?"
"Is the head of the firm here?" asked Mrs. Klingmayer, wiping herforehead with her handkerchief. The clerk nodded and hurried away totell his employer about the woman with the white face who came to askfor a man who, as she expressed it, "would never come there again."
"I don't think she's quite right in the head," he volunteered. The headof the firm told him to bring the woman into the inner office.
"Who are you, my good woman?" he asked kindly, softened by the evidentagitation of this poorly though neatly dressed woman.
"I am Mr. Winkler's landlady," she answered.
"Ah! and he wants you to tell me that he's sick? I'm afraid I can'tbelieve all that this gentleman says. I hope he's not asking your helpto lie to me. Are you sure that his illness is anything else but a caseof being up late?"
"I don't think that he'll ever be sick again--I didn't come with anymessage from him, sir; please read this, sir." And she handed him thenewspaper, showing him the notice. While the gentleman was reading sheadded: "Mr. Winkler didn't come home last night either."
Winkler's employer read the few lines, then laid the paper aside with avery serious face. "When did you see him last?" he asked of the woman.
"Day before yesterday in the morning. He went away about half-past eightas he usually does," she replied. And then she added a question of herown: "Was he here day before yesterday?"
The merchant nodded and pressed an electric bell. Then he rose from hisseat and pulled up a chair for his visitor. "Sit down here. This thinghas frightened you and you are no longer young." When the servantentered, the merchant told him to ask the head bookkeeper to come to theinner office.
When this official appeared, his employer inquired: "When did Winklerleave here day before yesterday?"
"At six o'clock, sir, as usual."
"He was here all day without interruption?"
"Yes, sir, with the exception of the usual luncheon hour."
"Did he have the handling of any money Monday?"
"No, sir."
"Thank you, Mr. Pokorny," said the merchant, handing his employee theevening paper and pointing to the notice which had so interested him.
Pokorny read it, his face, like his employer's, growing more serious."It looks almost as if it must be Winkler, sir," he said, in a fewmoments.
"We will soon find that out. I should like to go to the police stationmyself with this woman; she is Winkler's landlady--but I think it willbe better for you to accompany her. They will ask questions about theman which you will be better able to answer than I."
Pokorny bowed and left the room. Mrs. Klingmayer rose and was aboutto follow, when the merchant asked her to
wait a moment and inquiredwhether Winkler owed her anything. "I am sorry that you should have hadthis shock and the annoyances and trouble which will come of it, but Idon't want you to be out of pocket by it."
"No, he doesn't owe me anything," replied the honest old woman, shakingher head. A few big tears rolled down over her withered cheeks, possiblythe only tears that were shed for the dead man under the elder-tree. Buteven this sympathetic soul could find nothing to say in his praise. Shecould feel pity for his dreadful death, but she could not assert thatthe world had lost anything by his going out of it. As if saddened bythe impossibility of finding a single good word to say about the deadman, she left the office with drooping head and lagging step.
Pokorny helped her into the cab that was already waiting before thedoor. The office force had got wind of the fact that something unusualhad occurred and were all at the windows to see them drive off. Thethree clerks who worked in the department to which Winkler belongedgathered together to talk the matter over. They were none of themparticularly hit by it, but naturally they were interested in thediscovery in Hietzing, and equally naturally, they tried to find a fewgood words to say about the man whose life had ended so suddenly.
The youngest of them, Fritz Bormann, said some kind words and was aboutto wax more enthusiastic, when Degenhart, the eldest clerk, cut in withthe words: "Oh, don't trouble yourself. Nobody ever liked Winkler here.He was not a good man--he was not even a good worker. This is the firsttime that he has a reasonable excuse for neglecting his duties."
"Oh, come, see here! how can you talk about the poor man that way whenhe'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 wasgood-for-nothing in life. And his death was a stroke of good luck thathe scarcely deserved. He died without a moment's pain, with a merrythought in his head, perhaps, while many another better man has tolinger in torture for weeks. No, Bormann, the best I can say aboutWinkler is that his death makes one nonentity the less on earth."
The older man turned to his desk again and the two younger clerkscontinued the conversation: "Degenhart appears to be a hard man," saidFritz, "but he's the best and kindest person I know, and he's dead rightin what he says. It was simply a case of conventional superstition. Inever 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 neverheard of anything particularly wrong that he did."
"No, no more did I," continued Bormann, "but I never heard of anythinggood about him either. And don't you think that it's worse for a manto seem to repel people by his very personality, rather than by anyparticular bad thing that he does?"
"Yes. I don't know how to explain it, but that's just how I feel aboutit. I had an instinctive feeling that there was something wrong aboutWinkler, the sort of a creepy, crawly feeling that a snake gives you."