Horn turned to the servant again. “How many times have you been out of the apartment since last night?”
“Once only, sir, to go to the police station to fetch you.”
“Why, yes, sir. You saw that I had to turn the key twice to let you in.”
Horn and Muller both looked the young man over very carefully. He seemed perfectly innocent, and their suspicion that he might have turned the key in pretense only, soon vanished. It would have been a foolish suspicion anyway. If he were in league with the murderer, he could have let the latter escape with much more safety during the night. Horn let his eyes wander about the rooms again, and said slowly: “Then the murderer is still here--or else--”
“Or else we have a strange riddle to solve.”
Johann had laid the pistol down again. Muller stretched forth his hand and took it up. He looked at it a moment, then handed it to the commissioner. “We have to do with a murder here. There was not a shot fired from this revolver, for every chamber is still loaded. And there is no other weapon in sight,” said the detective quietly.
“Yes, he was murdered. This revolver is fully loaded. Let us begin the search at once.” Horn was more excited than he cared to show.
Johann looked about in alarm, but when he saw the others beginning to peer into every corner and every cupboard, he himself joined in the man-hunt. A quarter of an hour later, the four men relinquished their fruitless efforts and gathered beside the corpse again.
“Doctor, will you have the kindness to report to the head Commissioner of Police, and to order the taking away of the body? We will look about for some motive for this murder in the meantime,” said Horn, as he held out his hand to the physician.
Muller walked out to the door of the house with the doctor.
“Do you think this valet did it?” asked the physician softly.
“He? Oh, dear, no,” replied the detective scornfully.
“You think he’s too stupid? But this stupidity might be feigned.”
“But what do you think about it--you, who have the gift of seeing more than other people see, even if it does bring you into disfavour with the Powers that Be?”
“You mean about the beautiful Mrs. Kniepp?
“And yet I tell you I am right. It was an intentional suicide.”