right way when he had thrust the accusation in her face.     

       Now that his mind was easier he realised that he was very hungry. He drove to a restaurant and ordered a hasty meal.     

       “Beer, sir?” asked the waiter for the third time.     

       “No,” answered Muller, also for the third time.     

       “Then you’ll take wine, sir?” asked the insistent Ganymede.     

       “Oh, go to the devil! When I want anything I’ll ask for it,” growled the detective, this time effectively scaring the waiter. It did not often happen that a customer refused drinks, but then there were not many customers who needed as clear a head as Muller knew he would have to have to-day. Always a light drinker, it was one of his rules never to touch a drop of liquor during this first stage of the mental working out of any new problem which presented itself. But soft-hearted as he was, he repented of his irritation a moment later and soothed the waiter’s wounded feelings by a rich tip. The boy ran out to open the cab door for his       strange customer and looked after him, wondering whether the man was a cranky millionaire or merely a poet. For Joseph Muller, by name and by reputation one of the best known men in Vienna, was by sight unknown to all except the few with whom he had to do on the police force. His appearance, in every way inconspicuous, and the fact that he never sought acquaintance with any one, was indeed of the greatest possible assistance to him in his work. Many of those who saw him several times in a day would pass him or look him full in the face without recognising him. It was only, as in the case of Mrs. Bernauer, the guilty conscience that       remembered face and figure of this quiet-looking man who was one of the most-feared servants of the law in Austria.     

  

       CHAPTER IX. THE ELECTRICIAN     

       When Muller reached the house where Mrs. Klingmayer lived he ordered the cabman to wait and hurried up to the widow’s little apartment. He had the key to Leopold Winkler’s room in his own pocket, for Mrs. Klingmayer had given this key to Commissioner von Riedau at the latter’s request and the commissioner had given it to Muller. The detective told the 

 Prev. P 72/107 next