s head in bewilderment and then
entered his own room. "Merciful God!" he exclaimed, bending down in
terror over the housekeeper, who lay on the floor. In his shock and
bewilderment he imagined that she too had been murdered, until he
realised that it was only a swoon from which she recovered in a moment.
He helped her regain her feet and she looked about as if still dazed,
stammering: "Has he gone?"

"The strange man? ... Yes, he went some time ago. But what happened to
you? Did he give you something to make you faint? Do you think he was a
thief?"

Mrs. Bernauer shook her head and murmured: "Oh, no, quite the contrary."
A remark which did not enlighten Franz particularly as to the status
of the man who had just left them. There was a note of fear in the
housekeepers's voice and she added hastily: "Does any one besides
ourselves know that he was here?"

"No, Lizzie and the cook are in the kitchen talking about the murder."

Mrs. Bernauer shivered again and went slowly out of the room and up the
stairs.

If Franz believed that the stranger had left the house by the front
entrance he was very much mistaken. When Muller found himself alone in
the corridor he turned quickly and hurried out into the garden. None
of the servants had seen him. Lizzie and the cook were engaged in an
earnest conversation in the kitchen and Franz was fully occupied with
Mrs. Bernauer. The gardener was away and his wife busy at her wash
tubs. No one was aware, therefore, that Muller spent about ten minutes
wandering about the garden, and ten minutes were quite sufficient for
him to become so well acquainted with the place that he could have drawn
a map of it. He left the garden through the rear gate, the latch of
which he was obliged to leave open. The gardener's wife found it that
way several hours later and was rather surprised thereat. Muller walked
down the street rapidly and caught a passing tramway. His mood was
not of the best, for he could not make up his mind whether or no this
morning had been a lost one. His mind sorted and rearranged all that
he knew or could imagine concerning Mrs. Bernaner. But there was hardly
enough of these facts to reassure him that he was not on a false trail,
that he had not allowed himself to waste precious hours all because he
had seen a woman's haggard face appear for a moment at the little gate
in the quiet street.

CHAPTER VIII. JOHANN KNOLL REMEMBERS SOMETHING ELSE

Muller's goal was the