"And Mr. Thorne also - " she continued hastily, as she saw no sign of interest 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 by committing another. I myself would naturally not listen to your suggestion for a moment, but I am also convinced that Mr. Thorne, to whom you are so devoted, and who, I acknowledge, pleased me the very first sight I had of him - I am convinced that he would not agree for a moment to any such solution of the problem.""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 Ileave 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.
And he left here on the 16th of March?"
"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.
But she was not fainting this time. She was very much alive, for, to Franz's great astonishment, she was busied at the packing of a valise.
"Are you going away too?" asked Franz. Mrs. Bernauer answered in a voice that was dull with weariness: "Yes, Franz, I am going away.
Will you please look up the time-tables of the Southern railroad and let me know when 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. You can imagine that it must be something very important that takes me to Venice.""To Venice? Why, what are you going to Venice for?""Never mind about that, Franz, but help me to pray that I may get there in time."She almost pushed the old man out of the door with these last words and shut and locked it behind him.
She wanted to be alone with this hideous fear that was clutching at her heart. For it was not to Franz that she could tell the thoughts that came to her lips now as she sank down, wringing her hands, before a picture of the Madonna: "Oh Holy Virgin, Mother of our Lord, plead for me! let me be with my dear mistress when the terrible time comes and they take her husband away from her, or, if preferring death to disgrace, he ends his life by his own hand!"
