Muller began: "Why did you wait so long before committing the murder?

and why did you drag your victim from place to place when you could have killed her easily in the compartment of the railway train?"

"The windows of the compartment were open, my honoured friend, and it was a fine warm evening for the season, because of which the windows in the other compartment were also open. There was nothing else I could do at that time then, except to offer Asta a cup of tea when she felt a little faint upon leaving the train. I am a physician and I know how to use the right drugs at the right time. When Asta had taken the tea, she knew nothing more until she woke up a day later in a room in the city."

"And the piece of paper with the threat on it? and the revolver you left so handy for her? oh, but I forgot, the old woman took the weapon away before the lady could use it in her despair," said Muller.

"Quite right. I see you know every detail."

"But why didn't you complete your crime in the room in the old house?"

persisted Muller.

"Because I lost my false beard one day upon the staircase, and I feared the old woman might have seen my face enough to recognise me again. I thought it better to look for another place."

"And then you found this house."

"Yes, but several days later."

"And you hired it in the name of Miss Asta Langen? Who would then have been found dead here several days after you had entered the house?"

"Several days, several weeks perhaps. I preferred to wait until the woman who rented the house had read in the papers that Asta Langen had disappeared and was being sought for. Somebody would have found her here, and her ident.i.ty would have easily been established, for I knew that she had some important family doc.u.ments with her."

Muller was silent a moment, with an expression of deep pity on his face.

Then he continued: "Yes, someone would have found her, and her suicide would have been a dark mystery, unless, of course, malicious tongues would have found ugly reasons enough why a beautiful young lady should hide herself in a lonely cottage to take her own life."

Muller had spoken as if to himself. Egon Langen's lips, parted in a smile so evil that Amster clenched his fists.

"And you would not have regretted this ruining the reputation as well as taking the life of an innocent girl?" asked the detective low and tense.

"No, for I hated her."

"You hated her because she was rich and innocent. She was very charitable and would gladly have helped you if you were in need. Beside this, you were ent.i.tled to a portion of your father's estate. It is almost thirty thousand guldens, as Mr. Fellner tells me. Why did you not take that?"

"Fellner did not know that I had already received twenty thousand of this when my father turned me out. He probably would have heard of it later, for Berner was the witness. I did not care for the remaining ten thousand because I would have the entire fortune after Asta's death. I would have seen the official notice and the call for heirs in Australia, and would have written from there, announcing that I was still alive. If you had come several days later I should have been a rich man within a year."

His clenched fist resting on his knee, the rascal stared out ahead of him when he ended his shameless confession. In his rage and disappointment he had not noticed that Muller's hand dropped gently to the desk and softly took a little bottle from under the handkerchief.

Langen came out of his dark thoughts only when Muller's voice broke the silence. "But you miscalculated, if you expected to inherit from your sister. She is still a minor and your father's will would have given you only ten thousand guldens.

"But you forget that Asta will be twenty-four on the third of December."

"Ah, then you would have kept her alive until then."

"You understand quickly," said Langen with a mocking smile.

"But she disappeared on the eighteenth of November. How could you prove that she died after her birthday, therefore in full possession of her fortune and without leaving any will?"

"That is very simple. I buy several newspapers every day. I would have taken them up to the fourth and fifth of December and left them here with the body."

"You are more clever even than I thought," said the detective dryly as he heard the commissioner's steps behind him. Muller put a whistle to his lips and its shrill tone ran through the house, calling up the policeman who stood by the door.

Egon Langen's face was grey with pallor, his features were distorted, and yet there was the ghost of a smile on his lips as he saw his captors enter the door. He put his hand out, raised his handkerchief hastily and then a wild scream echoed through the room, a scream that ended in a ghastly groan.

"I have taken your bottle, you might as well give yourself up quietly,"

said Muller calmly, holding his revolver near Langen's face. The prisoner threw himself at the detective but was caught and overpowered by Amster and the policeman.

A quarter of an hour later the cabs drove back toward the city. Inside one cowered Egon Langen, watched by the policeman and Amster. Berner was on the box beside the driver, telling the now interested man the story of what had happened to his dear young lady. In the other cab sat Asta Langen with Kurt von Mayringen and Muller.

"Do you feel better now?" asked the young commissioner in sincere sympathy that was mingled with admiration for the delicate beauty of the girl beside him, an admiration heightened by her romantic story and marvelous escape.

Asta nodded and answered gently: "I feel as if some terrible weight were lifted from my heart and brain. But I doubt if I will ever forget these horrible days, when I had already come to accept it as a fact that--that I was to be murdered."

"This is the man to whom you owe your escape," said the commissioner, laying his hand on Muller's knee. Asta did not speak, but she reached out in the darkness of the cab, caught Muller's hand and would have raised it to her lips, had not the little man drawn it away hastily. "It was only my duty, dear young lady," he said. "A duty that is not onerous when it means the rescue of innocence and the preventing of crime. It is not always so, unfortunately--nor am I always so fortunate as in this case."

This indeed is what Muller calls a "case with a happy ending," for scarcely a year later, to his own great embarra.s.sment, he found himself the most honoured guest, and a centre of attraction equally with the bridal couple, at the marriage of Kurt von Mayringen and Asta Langen.

Muller a.s.serts, however, that he is not a success in society, and that he would rather unravel fifty difficult cases than again be the "lion"

at a fashionable function.