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. Bernauer. 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 prison where Johann Knoll was awaiting his fate. The detective had permission to see the man as often as he wished to. Knoll had been proven a thief, but the accusation of murder against him had not been strengthened by anything but the most superficial circumstantial evidence, therefore it was necessary that Muller should talk with him in the hope of discovering something more definite.     

       Knoll lay asleep on his cot as the detective and the warder entered the cell. Muller motioned the attendant to leave him alone with the prisoner and he stood beside the cot looking down at the man. The face on the hard pillow was not a very pleasant one to look at. The skin was roughened and swollen and had that brown-purple tinge which comes from being constantly in the open air, and from habitual drinking. The weather-beaten look may be seen often in the faces of men whose honest work keeps them out of doors; but this man had not earned his colouring honestly, for he was one       of the sort who worked only from time to time when it was absolutely necessary and there was no other way of getting a penny. His hands proved this, for although soiled and grimy they had soft, slender fingers which showed no signs of a life of toil. But even a man who has spent forty years in useless idling need not be all bad. There must have been some good left in this man or he could not have lain there so quietly, breathing easily, wrapped in a slumber as undisturbed as that of a child. It did not seem possible that any man could lie there like that with the guilt of murder on his conscience, or even with the knowledge in his soul     

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