The Case of the Lamp That Went Out
   feverishly and that his lips were trembling under his drooping moustache.     

       The maid hastened down with the rug and spread it over her mistress’s knees, as the gentleman exclaimed nervously: “Do hurry with that! Do you want us to miss the train?”      

       The butler closed the door of the carriage, the coachman gathered up the reins and raised his whip. The housekeeper bowed low and murmured a few words in farewell and the other servants followed her example with tears in their eyes. “You’ll see us again in six weeks,” the lady called out and       her husband added: “If all goes well.” Then he motioned to the waiting driver and the carriage moved off swiftly, turning the corner in a few moments.     

       The little group of servants returned to the courtyard behind the high gates. Muller, whom they had not noticed, was about to resume his walk, when he halted again. The courtyard of the house led back through a flagged walk to the park-like garden that surrounded it on the sides and rear. Down this walk came a young woman. She came so quickly that one might almost call it running. She was evidently excited about something. Muller imagined what this something might be, and he remained to hear what she had to say. He was not mistaken. The woman, it was Mrs. Schmiedler, the gardener’s wife, began her story at once. “Haven’t you heard yet?” she said breathlessly. “No, you can’t have heard it yet or you wouldn’t stand there so quietly, Mrs. Bernauer.”      

       “What’s the matter?” asked the woman whom Muller took to be the housekeeper.     

       “They killed a man last night out here! They found his body just now in the lane back of our garden. The janitor from No.1 told me as I was going       to the store, so I went right back to look at the place, and I came to tell you, as I didn’t think you’d heard it yet.”      

       Mrs. Bernauer was evidently a woman of strong constitution and of an equable mind. The other three servants broke out into an excited hubbub of talk while she remained quite indifferent and calm. “One more poor fellow who had to leave the world before he was ready,” she remarked calmly, with just the natural touch of pity in her voice that would come to any warm-hearted human being upon hearing of such an occurrence. She did not seem at all excited or alarmed to think that 
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