time to do it and nobody hurried him. For nobody ever hurried Muller; his well-known and almost laughable thoroughness and pedantry were too valuable in their results. It was a tradition in the police that Muller was to have all the time he wanted for everything. It paid in the end, for Muller made few mistakes. Therefore, his superior the police commissioner, and the coroner waited quietly while the little man made his inspection of the corpse.     

       “Thank you,” said Muller finally, with a polite bow to the commissioner, before he bent to brush away the dust on his knees.     

       “Well?” asked Commissioner Holzer.     

       Muller smiled an embarrassed smile as he replied:     

       “Well... I haven’t found out anything yet except that he is dead, and that he has been shot in the back. His pockets may tell us something more.”      

       “Yes, we can examine them at once,” said the commissioner. “I have been delaying that for I wanted you here; but I had no idea that you would come so soon. I told them to fetch you if you were awake, but doubted you would be, for I know you have had no sleep for forty-eight hours.”      

       “Oh, I can sleep, at least with one eye, when I’m on the chase,” answered the detective. “So it’s really only twenty-four hours, you see.” Muller had just returned from tracking down an aristocratic swindler whom he had found finally in a little French city and had brought back to a Viennese prison. He had returned well along in the past night and Holzer knew that the tired man would need his rest. Still he had sent for Muller, who lived near the police station, for the girl’s report had warned him that this was a serious case. And in serious cases the police did not like to do without Muller’s help.     

       And as usual when his work called him, Muller was as wide awake as if he had had a good night’s sleep behind him. The interest of a new case robbed him of every trace of fatigue. It was he alone—at his own request—who raised the body and laid it on its back before he stepped aside to make way for the doctor.     

       The physician opened the dead man’s vest to see whether the bullet had passed completely through the body. But it had not; there was not the slightest trace of blood upon the shirt.     

 Prev. P 7/107 next