The Lamp That Went Out | Page 2

great detective. But they give a
fair portrayal of Muller's peculiar method of working, his looking on
himself as merely an humble member of the Department, and the
comedy of his acting under "official orders" when the Department is in
reality following out his directions.

THE CASE OF THE LAMP THAT WENT OUT
by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
CHAPTER I
THE DISCOVERY
The radiance of a clear September morning lay over Vienna. The air
was so pure that the sky shone in brightest azure even where the city's
buildings clustered thickest. On the outskirts of the town the rays of the
awakening sun danced in crystalline ether and struck answering gleams
from the dew on grass and shrub in the myriad gardens of the suburban
streets.
It was still very early. The old-fashioned steeple clock on the church of

the Holy Virgin in Hietzing had boomed out six slow strokes but a
short time back. Anna, the pretty blonde girl who carried out the milk
for the dwellers in several streets of this aristocratic residential suburb,
was just coming around the corner of the main street into a quiet lane.
This lane could hardly be dignified by the name of street as yet, it was
so very quiet. It had been opened and named scarcely a year back and it
was bordered mostly by open gardens or fenced-in building lots. There
were four houses in this street, two by two opposite each other, and
another, an old-fashioned manor house, lying almost hidden in its great
garden. But the quiet street could not presume to ownership of this last
house, for the front of it opened on a parallel street, which gave it its
number. Only the garden had a gate as outlet onto our quiet lane.
Anna stopped in front of this gate and pulled the bell. She had to wait
for some little time until the gardener's wife, who acted as janitress,
could open the door. But Anna was not impatient, for she knew that it
was quite a distance from the gardener's house in the centre of the great
stretch of park to the little gate where she waited. In a few moments,
however, the door was opened and a pleasant-faced woman exchanged
a friendly greeting with the girl and took the cans from her.
Anna hastened onward with her usual energetic step. The four houses
in that street were already served and she was now bound for the homes
of customers several squares away. Then her step slowed just a bit. She
was a quiet, thoughtful girl and the lovely peace of this bright morning
sank into her heart and made her rejoice in its beauty. All around her
the foliage was turning gently to its autumn glory of colouring and the
dewdrops on the rich-hued leaves sparkled with an unusual radiance. A
thrush looked down at her from a bough and began its morning song.
Anna smiled up at the little bird and began herself to sing a merry tune.
But suddenly her voice died away, the colour faded from her flushed
cheeks, her eyes opened wide and she stood as if riveted to the ground.
With a deep breath as of unconscious terror she let the burden of the
milk cans drop gently from her shoulder to the ground. In following the
bird's flight her eyes had wandered to the side of the street, to the edge
of one of the vacant lots, there where a shallow ditch separated it from

the roadway. An elder-tree, the great size of which attested its age,
hung its berry-laden branches over the ditch. And in front of this tree
the bird had stopped suddenly, then fluttered off with the quick
movement of the wild creature surprised by fright. What the bird had
seen was the same vision that halted the song on Anna's lips and
arrested her foot. It was the body of a man - a young and well-dressed
man, who lay there with his face turned toward the street. And his face
was the white frozen face of a corpse.
Anna stood still, looking down at him for a few moments, in wide-eyed
terror: then she walked on slowly as if trying to pull herself together
again. A few steps and then she turned and broke into a run. When she
reached the end of the street, breathless from haste and excitement, she
found herself in one of the main arteries of traffic of the suburb, but
owing to the early hour this street was almost as quiet as the lane she
had just left. Finally the frightened girl's eyes caught sight of the figure
of a policeman coming around the next corner. She flew to meet him
and recognised him as the officer of