The woman looked at him as if hypnotised and answered almost in a whisper: "I saw you Tuesday morning for the first time, Tuesday morning when the family were going away. Then I saw you pass through our street twice again that same day. This morning you went past the garden gate and now I find you here. What-what is it you want of us?""I will tell you what I want, Mrs. Bernauer, but first I want to speak to you alone. Mr. Franz doesn't mind leaving us for a while, does he?""But why?" said the old man hesitatingly. He didn't understand at all what was going on and he would much rather have remained.
"Because I came here for the special purpose of speaking to Mrs.
Bernauer," replied Muller calmly.
"Then you didn't come on account of the dog?""No, I didn't come on account of the dog."
"Then you - you lied to me?"
"Partly."
"And you're no veterinary?"
"No - I can help your dog, but I am not a veterinary and never have been.""What are you then?"
"I will tell Mrs. Bernauer who and what I am when you are outside - outside in the courtyard there. You can walk about in the garden if you want to, or else go and get some simple purgative for this dog. That is all he needs; he has been over-fed."Franz was quite bewildered. These new developments promised to be interesting and he was torn between his desire to know more, and his doubts as to the propriety of leaving the housekeeper with this queer stranger. He hesitated until the woman herself motioned to him to go. He went out into the hall, then into the courtyard, watched by the two in the room who stood silently in the window until they saw the butler pass down into the garden. Then they looked at each other.
"You belong to the police?" asked Adele Bernauer finally with a deep sigh.
"That was a good guess," replied Muller with an ironic smile, adding: "All who have any reason to fear us are very quick in recognising us.""What do you mean by that?" she exclaimed with a start. "What are you thinking of?""I am thinking about the same thing that you are thinking of - that I have proved you are thinking of - the same thing that drove you out into the street yesterday and this morning to buy the papers.
These papers print news which is interesting many people just now, and some people a great deals. I am thinking of the same thing that was evidently in your thoughts as you peered out of the garden gate this morning, although you would not come out into the street.
I know that you do not read even one newspaper regularly. I know also that yesterday and today you bought a great many papers, apparently to get every possible detail about a certain subject.
Do you deny this?"
She did not deny it, she did not answer at all. She sank down on a chair, her wide staring eyes looking straight ahead of her, and trembling so that the old chair cracked underneath her weight. But this condition did not last long. The woman had herself well under control. Muller's coming, or something else, perhaps, may have overwhelmed her for a moment, but she soon regained her usual self-possession.
"Still you have not told me what you want here," she began coldly, and as he did not answer she continued: "I have a feeling that you are watching us. I had this feeling when I saw you the first time and noticed then - pardon my frankness - that you stared at us sharply while we were saying goodbye to our master and mistress.
Then I saw you pass twice again through the street and look up at our windows. This morning I find you at our garden gate and now - you will pardon me if I tell the exact truth - now you have wormed yourself in here under false pretenses because you have no right whatever to force an entrance into this house. And I ask you again, what do you want here?"Muller was embarrassed. That did not happen very often. Also it did not happen very often that he was in the wrong as he was now.
The woman was absolutely right. He had wormed himself into the house under false pretenses to follow up the new clue which almost unconsciously as yet was leading him on with a stronger and stronger attraction. He could not have explained it and he certainly was not ready to say anything about it at police headquarters, even at the risk of being obliged to continue to enter this mysterious house under false pretenses and to be told that he was doing so. Of course this sort of thing was necessary in his business, it was the only way in which he could follow up the criminals.
But there was something in this woman's words that cut into a sensitive spot and drove the blood to his cheeks. There was something in the bearing and manner of this one-time nurse that impressed him, although he was not a man to be lightly impressed.
