“Then I can only hope that you will not find him in Venice,” replied Mrs. Bernauer, with utter despair in her voice and eyes.
“I am not at all certain that I will find him in Venice when I leave here to-morrow morning,” said Muller calmly.
“Oh! then you don’t want to find him! Oh God! how good, how inexpressibly good you are,” stammered the woman, seizing at some vague hope in her distraught heart.
“No, you are mistaken again, Mrs. Bernauer. I will find Mr. Thorne wherever he may be. But I may arrive in Venice too late to meet him there. He may already be on his way home.”
“On his way home?” cried the housekeeper in terror, staggering where she stood.
Muller led her gently to a chair. “Sit down here and listen to me calmly. This is what I mean. If Mr. Thorne has seen in the papers that a man has been arrested and accused of the murder of Leopold Winkler, then he 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 suspicion on any one else, no possibility that any one else could suffer the consequences of his deed--is quite comprehensible--it is only natural and 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 and shone in her dimmed eyes.
“You know him better than I do,” she murmured almost inaudibly, “you know 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 last March, 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 the old man.
“On the 16th? Why, it may have been--yes, it was the 16th--that is our lady’s birthday. He went away that day.” Franz bowed a farewell to this stranger who began to appear uncanny in his eyes, and shutting the gate carefully he returned to the house.
“What does the man want anyway?” he murmured to himself, shivering involuntarily. Without knowing why he turned his steps towards Mrs. Bernauer’s room. He opened the door hesitatingly as if afraid of what he might see there. He would not have been at all surprised if he had found the housekeeper fainting on the floor as before.