A Wonderfully beautiful night lay over the fair old city of Venice when the Northern Express thundered over the long bridge to the railway station. A passenger who was alone in a second-class compartment stood up to collect his few belongings. Suddenly he looked up as he heard a voice, a voice which he had learned to know only very recently, calling to him from the door of the compartment.
"Why! you were in the train too? You have come to Venice?"exclaimed Joseph Muller in astonishment as he saw Mrs. Bernauer standing there before him.
"Yes, I have come to Venice too. I must be with my dear lady - when - when Herbert - " She had begun quite calmly, but she did not finish her sentence, for loud sobs drowned the words.
"You were in the next compartment? Why didn't you come in here with me? It would have made this journey shorter for both of us.""I had to be alone," said the pale woman and then she added: "Ionly came to you now to ask you where I must go.""I think we two had better go to the Hotel Bauer. Let me arrange things for you. Mrs. Thorne must not see you until she has been prepared for your coming. I will arrange that with her husband."The two took each other's hands. They had won respect and sympathy for each other, this quiet man who went so relentlessly and yet so pityingly about his duty in the interest of justice - and the devoted woman whose faithfulness had brought about such a tragedy.
The train had now entered the railway station. Muller and Mrs.
Bernauer stood a few minutes later on the banks of the Grand Canal and entered, one of the many gondolas waiting there. The moon glanced back from the surface of the water broken into ripples under the oars of the gondoliers; it shone with a magic charm on the old palaces that stood knee-deep in the lagoons, and threw heavy shadows over the narrow water-roads on which the little dark boats glided silently forward. In most of the gondolas coming from the station excited voices and exclamations of delight broke the calm of the moonlit evening as the tourists rejoiced in the beauty that is Venice.
But in the gondola in which Muller and Mrs. Bernauer sat there was deep silence, silence broken only by a sobbing sigh that now and then burst from the heart of the haggard woman. There were few travellers entering Venice on one of its world-famous moonlit nights who were so sad at heart as were these two.
And there were few travellers in Venice as heavy hearted as was the man who next morning took one of the earliest boats out to the Lido.
Muller and Mrs. Bernauer were on the same boat watching him from a hidden corner. The woman's sad eyes gazed yearningly at the haggard face of the tall man who stood looking over the railing of the little steamer. Her own tears came as she saw the gloom in the once shining grey eyes she loved so well.
Muller stood beside Mrs. Bernauer. His eyes too, keen and quick, followed Herbert Thorne as he stood by the rail or paced restlessly up and down; his face too showed pity and concern. He also saw that Thorne held in his hand a bundle of newspapers which were still enclosed in their mailing wrappers. The papers were pressed in a convulsive grip of the artist's long slender fingers.
Muller knew then that Thorne had not yet learned of the arrest of Johann Knoll. At the very earliest, Thursday's papers, which brought the news, could not reach him before Friday morning. But these newspapers (Muller saw that they were German papers) were still in their wrappings. They were probably Viennese papers for which he had telegraphed and which had just arrived. His anxiety had not allowed him to read them in the presence of his wife. He had sought the solitude of early morning on the Lido, that he might learn, unobserved, what terrors fate had in store for him.
It was doubtless Mrs. Bernauer's telegram which caused his present anxiety, a telegram which had reached him only the night before when he returned with his wife from an excursion to Torcello. It had caused him a sleepless night, for it had brought the realisation that his faithful nurse suspected the truth about the murder in the quiet lane. The telegram had read as follows: "Have drawn money and send it at once. Further journey probably necessary, visitor in house to-day. Connected with occurrence in -Street. Please read Viennese papers. News and orders for me please send to address A.B.
General Postoffice."
This telegram told Herbert Thorne the truth. And the papers which arrived this morning were to tell him more - what he did not yet know. But his heart was drawn with terrors which threw lines in his face and made him look ten years older than on that Tuesday morning when the detective saw him setting out on his journey with his wife.
When the boat landed at the Lido, Thorne walked off down the road which led to the ocean side. Muller and Mrs. Bernauer entered the waiting tramway that took them in the same direction. They dismounted in front of the bathing establishment, stepped behind a group of bushes and waited there for Thorne. In about ten minutes they saw his tall figure passing on the other side of the road. He was walking down to the beach, holding the still unopened papers in his hand.
A narrow strip of park runs along parallel to the beach in the direction towards Mala Mocco. Muller and Mrs Bernauer walked along through this park on the path which was nearest the water. The detective watched the rapidly moving figure ahead of them, while the woman's tear-dimmed eyes veiled everything else to her but the path along which her weary feet hastened. Thorne halted about half way between the bathing establishment and the customs barracks, looked around to see if he were alone and threw himself down on the sand.
