n actuality small and thin,
with sparse brown hair and smooth shaven face, he was now an inch or two
taller and very much stouter. He wore thick curly blond hair, a little
pointed blond beard and moustache. His eyes were hidden by heavy-rimmed
spectacles.

It was just half-past five when he rang the bell at the entrance gate to
the Thorne property. He had spent the intervening time in the cafe,
as he was in no hurry to enter the house. Franz came down the path and
opened the door. "'What do you want?" he asked.

"I come from Siemens & Halske; I was to ask whether the other man--"

"Has been here already?" interrupted Franz, adding in an irritated tone,
"No, he hasn't been here at all."

"Well, I guess he didn't get through at the other place in time. I'll
see what the trouble is," said the stranger, whom Franz naturally
supposed to be the electrician, lie opened the gate and asked the other
to come in, leading him into the house. Under a cloudy sky the day
was fading rapidly. Muller knew that it would not occur to the real
electrician to begin any work as late as this, and that he was perfectly
safe in the examination he wanted to make.

"Well, what's the trouble here? Why did you write to our firm?" asked
the supposed electrician.

"The wires must cross somewhere, or there's something wrong with the
bells. When the housekeeper touches the button in her room to ring for
the cook or the upstairs girl, the bell rings in Mr. Thorne's room. It
starts ringing and it keeps up with a deuce of a noise. Fortunately the
family are away."

"Well, we'll fix it all right for you. First of all I want to look at
the button in the housekeeper's room."

"I'll take you up there," said Franz.

They walked through the wide corridor, then turned into a shorter,
darker hall and went up a narrow winding stairway. Franz halted before
a door in the second story. It was the last of the three doors in
the hall. Muller took off his hat as the door opened and murmured a
"good-evening."

"There's no one there; Mrs. Bernaner's out."

"Has she gone away, too?" asked the electrician hastily.

Franz did not notice that there was a slight change in the stranger's
voice at this question, and he answered calmly as ever: "Oh, no; she's
just driven to town. I think she went to see the doctor who lives quite
a distance away. She hasn't been feeling at all well. She took a cab
to-day. I told her she ought to, as she wasn't well enough to go by t