prison where Johann Knoll was awaiting his fate.
The detective had permission to see the man as often as he wished to.
Knoll had been proven a thief, but the accusation of murder against
him had not been strengthened by anything but the most superficial
circumstantial evidence, therefore it was necessary that Muller should
talk with him in the hope of discovering something more definite.

Knoll lay asleep on his cot as the detective and the warder entered the
cell. Muller motioned the attendant to leave him alone with the prisoner
and he stood beside the cot looking down at the man. The face on
the hard pillow was not a very pleasant one to look at. The skin was
roughened and swollen and had that brown-purple tinge which comes
from being constantly in the open air, and from habitual drinking. The
weather-beaten look may be seen often in the faces of men whose honest
work keeps them out of doors; but this man had not earned his colouring
honestly, for he was one of the sort who worked only from time to time
when it was absolutely necessary and there was no other way of getting
a penny. His hands proved this, for although soiled and grimy they had
soft, slender fingers which showed no signs of a life of toil. But even
a man who has spent forty years in useless idling need not be all bad.
There must have been some good left in this man or he could not have
lain there so quietly, breathing easily, wrapped in a slumber as
undisturbed as that of a child. It did not seem possible that any man
could lie there like that with the guilt of murder on his conscience, or
even with the knowledge in his soul that he had plundered a corpse.

Muller had never believed the first to be the case, but he had thought
it possible that Knoll knew perfectly well that it was a lifeless body
he was robbing. He had believed it at least until the moment when he
stood looking down at the sleeping tramp. Now, with the deep knowledge
of the human heart which was his by instinct and which his profession
had increased a thousand-fold, Muller knew that this man before him
had no heavy crime upon his conscience--that it was really as he had
said--that he had taken the watch and purse from one whom he believed
to be intoxicated only. Of course it was not a very commendable deed for
which the tramp was now in prison, but it was slight in comparison to
the crimes of which he was suspected.

Muller bent lower over the unconscious form and was surprised to see