With best greetings for both of you,
Your old friend,
          
                                           John
G—­, Friday, Sept. 23rd.

An envelope, not yet addressed, lay beside this letter.  It was clear that the man who penned these words had no thought of suicide.  On the contrary, he was looking forward to a day of pleasure in the near future, and laying plans for the time to come.  The murderer’s bullet had pierced a heart pulsing with the joy of life.

This was the gist of the account in the evening paper.  Muller read it through carefully, lingering over several points which seemed to interest him particularly.  Then he turned to Miss Babette Graumann.  “And then what happened?” he asked.

“Then the Police Commissioner came to Grunau and questioned my nephew.  They had found out that Albert was Mr. Siders’ only friend here.  And late that evening the Mayor and the Commissioner came to our house with the revolver they had found in the room in G—­, and they—­they—­” her voice trembled again, “they arrested my dear boy and took him away.”

“Have you visited him in prison?  What does he say about it himself?”

“He seems quite hopeless.  He says that he is innocent—­oh, I know he is—­but everything is against him.  He acknowledges that it was he who was in Mr. Siders’ room the evening before the murder.  He went there because Siders wrote him to come.  He says he left early, and that John acted queerly.  He knows they will not believe his story.  This worry and anxiety will kill him.  He has a serious heart trouble; he has suffered from it for years, and it has been growing steadily worse.  I dare not think what this excitement may do for him.”  Miss Graumann broke down again and sobbed aloud.  Muller laid his hands soothingly on the little old fingers that gripped the arm of the chair.

“Did your nephew send you here to ask for help?” he inquired very gently.

“Oh, no” The old lady looked up at him through her tears.  “No, he would not have done that.  I’m afraid that he’ll be angry if he knows that I have come.  He seemed so hopeless, so dazed.  I just couldn’t stand it.  It seemed to me that the police in G—­ were taking things for granted, and just sitting there waiting for an innocent man to confess, instead of looking for the real murderer, who may be gone, the Lord knows where, by now!” Miss Graumann’s faded cheeks flushed a delicate pink, and she straightened up in her chair again, while her eyes snapped defiance through the tears that hung on their lashes.

A faint gleam twinkled up in Muller’s eyes, and he did not look at his chief.  Doctor von Riedau’s own face glowed in a slowly mounting flush, and his eyes drooped in a moment of conscious embarrassment at some recollection, the sting of which was evidently made worse by Muller’s presence.  But Commissioner von Riedau had brains enough to acknowledge his mistakes and to learn from them.  He looked across the desk at Miss Graumann.  “You are right, Madam, the police have made that mistake more than once.  And a man with a clear record deserves the benefit of the doubt.  We will take up this case.  Detective Muller will be put in charge of it.  And that means, Madam, that we are giving you the very best assistance the Imperial Police Force affords.”