?
Did she ask to have it shown her that the others might believe she had
nothing whatever to do with the occurrences that had happened there? Or
was she drawn thither by that queer attraction that brings the criminal
back to the scene of his crime?"

The sudden vision of Mrs. Bernauer's head at the garden gate, and its
equally sudden disappearance had attracted Muller's attention and his
thoughts to the woman. What he had been able to learn about her had
increased his suspicions and her involuntary exclamation when she met
him face to face in the house had proved beyond a doubt that there was
something on her mind. His open accusation, her demeanour, and finally
her swoon, were all links in the chain of evidence that this woman knew
something about the murder in the quiet lane.

With this suspicion in his mind what Muller had learned from Knoll
was of great value to him, at all events of great interest. Was it the
housekeeper who had put out the light? For now Muller did not doubt for
a moment that this sudden extinguishing of the lamp was a signal. He
believed that Knoll had seen clearly and that he had told truly what he
had seen. A lamp that is blown out by the wind flickers uneasily before
going out. A sudden extinguishing of the light means human agency. And
the lamp was lit again a few moments afterward and burned on steadily
as before. A short time after the lamp had been put out the man had been
seen going through the garden. And it could not have been much later
before the shot was heard. This shot had been fired between the hours
of nine and ten, for it was during this hour only that Knoll was in the
garden house and heard the shot. But it was not necessary to depend upon
the tramp's evidence alone to determine the exact hour of the shot. It
must have been before half past nine, or otherwise the janitor of No.1,
who came home at that hour and lay awake so long, would undoubtedly
have heard a shot fired so near his domicile, in spite of the noise
occasioned by the high wind. There would have been sufficient time
for Mrs. Bernauer to have reached the place of the murder between the
putting out of the lamp and the firing of the shot. But perhaps she may
have rested quietly in her room; she may have been only the inciter or
the accomplice of the deed. But at all events, she knew something about
it, she was in some way connected with it.

Muller drew a deep breath. He felt much easier now that he had arranged
hi