The tramp nodded and wiped the tears from his face. He looked almost happy again, and there was a softness in his eyes that showed there was something in the man which might be saved and which was worth saving.
Muller sat beside him on the cot and began: “There was one mistake in your story yesterday. I want you to think it over carefully. You said that you saw first a woman and then a man going through the neighbouring garden. I believe that one or both of these people is the criminal for whom we are looking. Therefore, I want you to try and remember everything that you can connect with them, every slightest detail. Anything that you can tell us may be of the greatest importance. Therefore, think very carefully.”
Knoll sat still a few moments, evidently trying hard to put his hazy recollections into useful form and shape. But it was also evident that orderly thinking was an unusual work for him, and he found it almost too difficult. “I guess you better ask me questions, maybe that’ll go,” he said after a pause.
Then Muller began to question. With his usual thoroughness he began at the very beginning: “When was it that you climbed the fence to get into the shed?”
“It just struck nine o’clock when I put my foot on the lowest bar.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Quite sure. I counted every stroke. You see, I wanted to know how long the night was going to be, seein’ I’d have to sleep in that shed. I was in the garden just exactly an hour. I came out of the shed as it struck ten and it wasn’t but a few minutes before I was in the street again.”
“And when was it that you saw the woman in the garden next door?”
“H’m, I don’t just know when that was. I’d been in on the bench quite a while.”
“And the man? When did you see the man?”
“He came past a few minutes after the woman had gone towards the little house in the garden.”
“Ah! there you see, that’s where you made your mistake. It is more than likely that these two did not go to the little house, but that they went somewhere
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