But Muller shook his head and continued: "No, never mind the payment, I wouldn't take any money for it. But I'll tell you what you can do for me. I'm very fond of flowers. If you think you can take the responsibility of letting me walk around in the garden for a little while, and pick a rose or two, I will be greatly pleased.""Why, of course you may," said Franz. "Take any of the roses you see there that please you. They're nearly over for the season now and it's better they should be picked rather than left to fade on the bush. We don't use so many flowers in the house now when the family are not there.""All right, then, it's a bargain," laughed Muller, signalling to the landlord. "Are you, going already?" asked the old servant.
"Yes, I must be going if I am to spend any time with the little dog.""I suppose I ought to be at home myself," said Franz. "Something's the matter with the electric wiring in our place. The bell in the master's room keeps ringing. I wrote to Siemens & Halske to send us a man out to fix it. He's likely to come any minute now." The two men rose, paid their checks, and went out together. Outside the caf?Muller hesitated a moment. "You go on ahead," he said to Franz.
"I want to go in here and get a cigar."
While buying his cigar and lighting it, he asked for several newspapers, choosing those which his quick eye had told him were no longer among the piles on the counter. "I'm very sorry, sir," said the clerk; "we have only a few of those papers, just two or three more than we need for our regular customers, and this morning they are all sold. The housekeeper from the Thorne mansion took the very last ones."This was exactly what Muller wanted to know. He left the store and caught up with the old butler as the latter was opening the handsome iron gate that led from the Thorne property out onto the street.
"Well, where's our little patient?" asked the detective as he walked through the courtyard with Franz.
"You'll see him in a minute," answered the old servant. He led the way through a light roomy corridor furnished with handsome old pieces in empire style, and opened a door at its further end.
"This is my room."
It was a large light room with two windows opening on the garden.
Muller was not at all pleased that the journey through the hall had been such a short one. However he was in the house, that was something, and he could afford to trust to chance for the rest.
Meanwhile he would look at the dog. The little terrier lay in a corner by the stove and it did not take Muller more than two or three minutes to discover that there was nothing the matter with the small patient but a simple case of over-eating. But he put on a very wise expression as he handled the little dog and looking up, asked if he could get some chamomile tea.
"I'll go for it, I think there's some in the house. Do you want it made fresh?" said Franz.
"Yes, that will be better, about a cupful will do," was Muller's answer. He knew that this harmless remedy would be likely to do the dog good and at the present moment he wanted to be left alone in the room. As soon as Franz had gone, the detective hastened to the window, placing himself behind the curtain so that he could not be seen from outside. He himself could see first a wide courtyard lying between the two wings of the house, then beyond it the garden, an immense square plot of ground beautifully cultivated.
The left wing of the house was about six windows longer than the other, and from the first story of it it would be quite easy to look out over the vacant lot where the old shed stood which had served as a night's lodging for Johann Knoll.
There was not the slightest doubt in Muller's mind that this part of the tramp's story was true, for by a natural process of elimination he knew there was nothing to be gained by inventing any such tale. Besides which the detective himself had been to look at the shed. His well-known pedantic thoroughness would not permit him to take any one's word for anything that he might find out for himself, In his investigations on Tuesday morning he had already seen the half-ruined shed, now he knew that it contained a broken bench.
Thus far, therefore, Knoll's story was proved to be true-but there was something that didn't quite hitch in another way. The tramp had said that he had seen first a woman and then a man come from the main house and go in the direction of the smaller house which he took to be the gardener's dwelling. This Muller discovered now was quite impossible. A tall hedge, fully seven or eight feet high and very thick, stretched from the courtyard far down into the garden past the gardener's little house. There was a broad path on the right and the left of this green wall. From his position in the shed, Knoll could have seen people passing only when they were on the right side of the hedge. But to reach the gardener's house from the main dwelling, the shortest way would be on the left side of the hedge. This much Muller saw, then he heard the butler's steps along the hall and he went back to the corner where the dog lay.
Franz was not alone. There was some one else with him, the housekeeper, Mrs. Bernauer. Just as they opened the door, Muller heard her say: "If the gentleman is a veterinary, then we'd better ask him about the parrot- "The sentence was never finished. Muller never found out what was the matter with the parrot, for as he looked up with a polite smile of interest, he looked into a pale face, into a pair of eyes that opened wide in terror, and heard trembling lips frame the words:
"There he is again!"
A moment later Mrs. Bernauer would have been glad to have recalled her exclamation, but it was too late.
Muller bowed before her and asked: "'There he is again,' you said;have you ever seen me before?"
