The Lamp That Went Out | Page 3

answered the girl, gasping for breath.
"A dead man?" repeated the policeman gravely, looking at the girl. "Are you sure he's dead?"
Anna nodded. "His eyes are all glassy and I saw blood on his back."
"Well, you're evidently very much frightened, and I suppose you don't want to go down there again. I'll look into the matter, if you will go to the police station and make the announcement. Will you do it?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right, then, that will gain time for us. Good-bye, Miss Anna."
The man walked quickly down the street, while the girl hurried off in the opposite direction, to the nearest police station, where she told what she had seen.
The policeman reached his goal even earlier. The first glance told him that the man lying there by the wayside was indeed lifeless. And the icy stiffness of the hand which he touched showed him that life must have fled many hours back. Anna had been right about the blood also. The dead man lay on the farther side of the ditch, half down into it. His right arm was bent under his body, his left arm was stretched out, and the stiffened fingers ... they were slender white fingers ... had sought for something to break his fall. All they had found was a tall stem of wild aster with its purple blossoms, which they were holding fast in the death grip. On the dead man's back was a small bullet-wound and around the edges of it his light grey coat was stained with blood. His face was distorted in pain and terror. It was a nice face, or would have been, did it not show all too plainly the marks of dissipation in spite of the fact that the man could not have been much past thirty years old. He was a stranger to the policeman, although the latter had been on this beat for over three years.
When the guardian of the law had convinced himself that there was nothing more to do for the man who lay there, he rose from his stooping position and stepped back. His gaze wandered up and down the quiet lane, which was still absolutely empty of human life. He stood there quietly waiting, watching over the ghastly discovery. In about ten minutes the police commissioner and the coroner, followed by two roundsmen with a litter, joined the solitary watcher, and the latter could return to his post.
The policemen set down their litter and waited for orders, while the coroner and the commissioner bent over the corpse. There was nothing for the physician to do but to declare that the unfortunate man had been dead for many hours. The bullet which struck him in the back had killed him at once. The commissioner examined the ground immediately around the corpse, but could find nothing that pointed to a struggle. There remained only to prove whether there had been a robbery as well as a murder.
"Judging from the man's position the bullet must have come from that direction," said the commissioner, pointing towards the cottages down the lane.
"People who are killed by bullets may turn several times before they fall," said a gentle voice behind the police officer. The voice seemed to suit the thin little man who stood there meekly, his hat in his hand.
The commissioner turned quickly. "Ah, are you there already, Muller?" he said, as if greatly pleased, while the physician broke in with the remark:
"That's just what I was about to observe. This man did not die so quickly that he could not have made a voluntary or involuntary movement before life fled. The shot that killed him might have come from any direction."
The commissioner nodded thoughtfully and there was silence for a few moments. Muller - for the little thin man was none other than the celebrated Joseph Muller, one of the most brilliant detectives in the service of the Austrian police - looked down at the corpse carefully.. He took plenty of 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