building. There was considerable distance between the two houses. The detective decided that it might interest him to know something more about this garden, this house and the people who lived there. And when Muller made such a decision it was usually not very long before he carried it out.     

       The other street, upon which the main front of the mansard house opened, contained a few isolated dwellings surrounded by gardens and a number of newly built apartment houses. On the ground floor of these latter houses were a number of stores and immediately opposite the Thorne mansion was a little cafe. This suited Muller exactly, for he had been there before and he remembered that from one of the windows there was an excellent view of the gate and the front entrance of the mansion opposite. It was a very modest little cafe, but there was a fairly good wine to be had there and the detective made it an excuse to sit down by the window, as if enjoying his bottle while admiring the changing colours of the foliage in the gardens opposite.     

       Another rather good chance, he discovered, was the fact that the landlord belonged to the talkative sort, and believed that the refreshments he had       to sell were rendered doubly agreeable when spiced by conversation. In this case the good man was not mistaken. It was scarcely ten o’clock in the forenoon and there were very few people in the cafe. The landlord was quite at leisure to devote himself to this stranger in the window seat, whom he did not remember to have seen before, and who was therefore doubly interesting to him. Several subjects of conversation usual in such cases, such as politics and the weather, seemed to arouse no particular enthusiasm in his patron’s manner. Finally the portly landlord decided that he would touch upon the theme which was still absorbing all Hietzing.     

       “Oh, by the way, sir, do you know that you are in the immediate vicinity of the place where the murder of Monday evening was committed? People are still talking about it around here. And I see by the papers that the murderer was arrested in Pressburg yesterday and brought to Vienna last night.”      

       “Indeed, is that so? I haven’t seen a paper to-day,” replied Muller, awakening from his apparent indifference.     

       The landlord was flattered by the success of the new subject, and stood ready to 

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