The Case of the Registered Letter

askedMuller quickly.

  "Yes, I believe it is so. Is it not an irony that this man, the only onewhom John really hated, should be the one to avenge him now?"

  "H'm! yes. But did you know of any friends in G------?"

  "No, none at all."

  "No friends whom he might have made while he was in America and then metagain in Germany?"

  "No, he never spoke of any such to me. He told me that he made fewfriends. He did not seek them for he was afraid that they might find outwhat had happened and turn from him. He was morbidly sensitive and couldnot bear the disappointment."

  "Why did he return to Germany?"

  "He was lonely and wanted to come home again. He had made money inAmerica--John was very clever and highly educated--but his heart longedfor his own tongue and his own people."

  Muller took a folded piece of paper from his pocket. "Do you know thishandwriting?"

  Miss Roemer read the few lines hastily and her voice trembled as shesaid: "This is John's handwriting. I know it well. This is the letterthat was found on the table?"

  "Yes, this letter appears to be the last he had written in life. Do youknow to whom it could have been written? The envelope, as I suppose youknow from the newspaper reports, was not addressed. Do you know of anyfriends with whom he could have been on terms of sufficient intimacy towrite such a letter? Do you know what these plans for the future couldhave been? It would certainly be natural that he should have spoken toyou first about them."

  "No; I cannot understand this letter at all," replied the girl. "I havethought of it frequently these terrible days. I have wondered why it wasthat if he had friends in the city, he did not speak to me of them. Herepeatedly told me that he had no friends there at all, that his lifeshould begin anew after we were married."

  "And did he have any particular plans, in a business way, perhaps?"

  "No; he had a comfortable little income and need have no fear for thefuture. John was, of course, too young a man to settle down and donothing. But the only definite plans he had made were that we shouldtravel a little at first, and then he would look about him for acongenial occupation. I always thought it likely he would resume a lawpractice somewhere. I cannot understand in the slightest what the plansare to which the letter referred."

  "And do you think, from what you know of his state of mind when you sawhim last, that he would be likely so soon to be planning pleasures likethis?"

  "No, no indeed! John was terribly crushed when my guardian insisted onbreaking off our engagement. Until my twenty-fourth birthday I amstill bound to do as my guardian says, you know. John's life and earlymisfortune made him, as I have already said, morbidly sensitive and thethought that it would be a bar to anything we might plan in the future,had rendered him so depressed that--and it was not the least of myanxieties and my troubles--that I feared... I feared anything mighthappen."

  "You feared he might take his own life, do you mean?"

  "Yes, yes, that is what I feared. But is it not terrible to think thathe should have died this way--by the hand of a murderer?"

  "H'm! And you cannot remember any possible friend he may havefound--some schoolboy friend of his youth, perhaps, with whom he hadagain struck up an acquaintance."

  "Oh, no, no, I am positive of that. John could not bear to hear thenames even of the people he had known before his misfortune. Still, I doremember his once having spoken of a man, a German he had met in Chicagoand rather taken a fancy to, and who had also returned to Germany."

  "Could this possibly have been the man to whom the letter is addressed?"

  "No, no. This friend of John's was not married; I remember hissaying that. And he lived in Germany somewhere--let me think--yes, inFrankfort-on-Main."

  "And do you remember the man's name?"

  "No, I cannot, I am sorry to say. John only mentioned it once. It wasonly by a great effort that I could remember the incident at all."

  "And has it not struck you as rather peculiar that this friend, the oneto whom the cordial letter was addressed, did not come forward and makehis identity known? G-------- is a city, it is true, but it is not a verylarge city, and any man being on terms of intimate acquaintance with onewho was murdered would be apt to come forward in the hope of throwingsome light on the mystery."

  "Why, yes, I had not thought of that. It is peculiar, is it not? Butsome people are so foolishly afraid of having anything to do with thepolice, you know."

  "That is very true, Miss Roemer. Still it is a queer incident andsomething that I must look into."

  "What do you believe?" asked the girl tensely.

  "I am not in a position to say as yet. When I am, I will come to you andtell you."

  "Then you do not think that my guardian killed John--that there was aquarrel between the men?"

  "There is, of course, a possibility that it may have been so. You knowyour guardian better than I do, naturally. Our knowledge of a man'scharacter is often a far better guide than any circumstantial evidence."

  "My guardian is a man of the greatest uprightness of character. But hecan be very hard and pitiless sometimes. And he has a violent temperwhich his weak heart has forced him to keep in control of late years."

  "All this speaks for the possibility that there may have been a quarrelending in the fatal shot. But what I want to know from you is this--doyou think it possible, that, this having happened, Albert Graumann wouldnot have been the first to confess his unpremeditated crime? Is notthis the most likely thing for a man of his character to do? Would he sostubbornly deny it, if it had happened?"

  The girl started. "I had not thought of that! Why, why, of course, hemight have killed John in a moment of temper, but he was never a man toconceal a fault. He is as pitiless towards his own weakness, as towardsthat of others. You are right, oh, you must be right. Oh, if you couldtake this awful fear from my heart! Even my grief for John would beeasier to bear then."

  Muller rose from his chair. "I think I can promise you that this loadwill be lifted from your heart, Miss Roemer."

  "Then you believe--that it was just a case of murder for robbery? Forthe money? And John had some valuable jewelry, I know that."

  "I do not know yet," replied Muller slowly, "but I will find out, Igenerally do."

  "Oh, to think that I should have done that poor man such an injustice!It is terrible, terrible! This house has been ghastly these days.His poor aunt knows that he is innocent--she could never believeotherwise--she has felt the hideous suspicion in my mind--it has madeher suffering worse--will they ever forgive me?"

  "Her joy, if I can free her nephew, will make her forget everything. Goto her now, Miss Roemer, comfort her with the assurance that you alsobelieve him to be innocent. I must hasten back to G-------- and go on withthis quest."

  The girl stood at the doorway shaded by the overhanging branches oftwo great trees, looking down the street after the slight figure of thedetective. "Oh, it is all easier to hear, hard as it is, easier now thatthis horrible suspicion has gone from my mind--why did I not think ofthat before?"

  Alone in the corner of the smoking compartment in the train to G------,Muller arranged in his mind the facts he had already gathered. He hadquestioned the servants of John Siders' former household, had foundthat the dead man received very few letters, only an occasional businesscommunication from his bank. Of the few others, the servants knewnothing except that he had always thrown the envelopes carelessly in thewaste paper basket and had never seemed to have any correspondence whichhe cared to conceal. No friend from elsewhere had ever visited him inGrunau, and he had made few friends there except the Graumann family.

  The facts of the case, as he knew them now, were such as to make itextremely doubtful that Graumann was the murderer. Muller himself hadbeen inclined to believe in the possibility of a quarrel between the twomen, particularly when he had heard that Graumann himself was in lovewith his handsome ward. But the second thought that came to him then,impelled by the unerring instinct that so often guided him to the truth,was
the assurance that in a case of this kind, in a case of a quarrelterminating fatally, a man like Albert Graumann would be the very firstto give himself up to the police and to tell the facts of the case.Albert Graumann was a man of honour and unimpeachable integrity. Sucha man would not persist in a foolish denial of the deed which he hadcommitted in a moment of temper. There would be nothing to gain from it,and his own conscience would be his severest judge. "The disorder in theroom?" thought Muller. "It'll be too late for that now. I suppose theyhave rearranged the place. I can only go by what the local detectiveshave seen, by the police reports. But I do not understand this extremedisorder. There is no reason why there should be a struggle when therobber was