In the Shadow of Agatha Christie

by Leslie S. Klinger

  “Then I discovered—when confronted suddenly with my own revolver which had been found on the floor of the room, some distance from the body of the dead man, that this same revolver had been identified as mine by my ward, Eleonora Roemer, who had been to the police station at G— in the early afternoon hours. Some impulse of loyalty to her dead lover, some foolish feminine fear that I might have spoken against him in my earlier interviews with the commissioner had driven the girl to this step. A few questions sufficed to draw from her the story of her secret engagement, of its ending, and of my quarrel with John. I will say for her that I am certain she did not realise that all these things were calculated to cast suspicion on me. The poor girl is too unused to the ways of police courts, to the devious ways of the law, to realise what she was doing. The sight of my revolver broke her down completely and she acknowledged that it was mine. That is all. Except that I was arrested and brought here as you see. I told the commissioner the story of my visit to John Siders exactly as I told it to you, but it was plain to be seen that he did not believe me. It is plain to be seen also, that he is firmly convinced of my guilt and that he is greatly satisfied with himself at having traced the criminal so soon.”

  “And yet he was not quite satisfied,” said Muller gently. “You see that he has sent to the Capital for assistance on the case.” Muller felt this little untruth to be justified for the sake of the honour of the police force.

  “Yes, I’m surprised at that,” said Graumann in his former tone of weariness. “What do you think you will be able to do about it?”

  “I must ask questions here and there before I can form a plan of campaign,” replied Muller. “What do you think about it yourself? Who do you think killed Siders?”

  “How can I know who it was? I only know it is not I,” answered Graumann.

  “Did he have any enemies?”

  “No, none that I knew of, and he had few friends either.”

  “You knew there was a sum of money missing from his rooms?”

  “Yes, the sum they named to me was just about the price that he had received for the sale of his property here. They did me the honour to believe that if I had taken the money at all, I had done so merely as a blind. At least they did not take me for a thief as well as a murderer. If the money is really missing, it was for its sake he was murdered I suppose.”

  “Yes, that would be natural,” said Muller. “And you know nothing of any other relations or connections that the man may have had? Anything that might give us a clue to the truth?”

  “No, nothing. He stood so alone here, as far as I knew. Of course, as I told you, his actions of the evening before having been so peculiar—and as I knew that he was not in the happiest frame of mind—I naturally thought of suicide at once, when they told me that he had been found shot dead. Then they told me that the appearance of the room and many other things, proved suicide to have been out of the question. I know nothing more about it. I cannot think any more about it. I know only that I am here in danger of being sentenced for the crime that I never committed—that is enough to keep any man’s mind busy.” He leaned back with an intense fatigue in every line of his face and figure.

  Muller rose from his seat. “I am afraid I have tired you, Mr. Graumann,” he said, “but it was necessary that I should know all that you had to tell me. Try and rest a little now and meanwhile be assured that I am doing all I can to find out the truth of this matter. As far as I can tell now I do not believe that you have killed John Siders. But I must find some further proofs that will convince others as well as myself. If it is of any comfort to you, I can tell you that during a long career as police detective I have been most astonishingly fortunate in the cases I have undertaken. I am hoping that my usual good luck will follow me here also. I am hoping it for your sake.”

  The man on the cot took the hand the detective offered him and pressed it firmly. “You will let me know as soon as you have found anything—anything that gives me hope?”

  “I will indeed. And now save your strength and do not worry. I will help you if it is in my power.”

  After leaving the prison, Muller took the train for the village of Grunau, about half an hour distant from the city. He found his way easily to Graumann’s home, an attractive old house set in a large garden amid groups of beautiful old trees. When he sent up his card to Miss Graumann, the old lady tripped down stairs in a flutter of excitement.

  “Did you see him?” she asked. “You have been to the prison? What do you think? How does he seem?”

  “He seems calm today,” replied Muller, “although the confinement and the anxiety are evidently wearing on him.”

  “And you heard his story? And you believe him innocent?”

  “I am inclined to do so. But there is more yet for me to investigate in this matter. It is certainly not as simple as the police here seem to believe. May I speak to your ward, Miss Roemer? She is at home now?”

  “Yes, Lora is at home. If you will wait here a moment I will send her in.”

  Muller paced up and down the large sunny room, casting a glance over the handsome old pieces of furniture and the family portraits on the wall. It was evidently the home of generations of well-to-do, well-bred people, the narrow circle of whose life was made rich by congenial duties and a comfortable feeling of their standing in the community.

  While he was studying one of the portraits more carefully, he became aware that there was some one in the room. He turned and saw a tall blond girl standing by the door. She had entered so softly that even Muller’s quick ear had not heard the opening of the door.

  “Do you wish to speak to me?” she said, coming down into the room. “I am Eleonora Roemer.”

  Her face, which could be called handsome in its even regularity of feature and delicate skin, was very pale now, and around her eyes were dark rings that spoke of sleepless nights. Grief and mental shock were preying upon this girl’s mind. “She is not the one to make a confidant of those around her,” thought Muller to himself. Then he added aloud: “If it does not distress you too much to talk about this sad affair, I will be very grateful if you will answer a few questions.”

  “I will tell you whatever I can,” said the girl in the same low even tone in which she had first spoken. “Miss Graumann tells me that you have come from Vienna to take up this case. It is only natural that we should want to give you every assistance in our power.”

  “What is your opinion about it?” was Muller’s next remark, made rather suddenly after a moment’s pause.

  The directness of the question seemed to shake the girl out of her enforced calm. A slow flush mounted into her pale cheeks and then died away, again leaving them whiter than before. “I do not know—oh, I do not know what to believe.”

  “But you do not think Mr. Graumann capable of such a crime, do you?”

  “Not of the robbery, of course not; that would be absurd! But has it been clearly proven that there is a robbery? Might it not have been—might they not have—”

  “You mean, might they not have quarreled? Of course there is that possibility. And that is why I wanted to speak to you. You are the one person who could possibly throw light on this subject. Was there any other reason beyond the dead man’s past that would render your guardian unwilling to have you marry him?”

  Again the slow flush mounted to Eleonora Roemer’s cheeks and her head drooped.

  “I fear it may be painful for you to answer this,” said Muller gently, “and yet I must insist on it in the interest of justice.”

  “He—my guardian—wished to marry me himself,” the girl’s words came slowly and painfully.

  Muller drew in his breath so sharply that it was almost like a whistle. “He did not tell me that; it might make a difference.”

  “That . . . that is . . . what I fear,” said the girl, her eyes looking keenly into those of the man who sat opposite. “And then, it was his revolver.”

  “Then you do believe him guilty?”

  �
�It would be horrible, horrible—and yet I do not know what to think.”

  There was silence in the room for a moment. Miss Roemer’s head drooped again and her hands twisted nervously in her lap. Muller’s brain was very busy with this new phase of the problem. Finally he spoke.

  “Let us dismiss this side of the question and talk of another phase of it, a phase of which it is necessary for me to know something. You would naturally be the person nearest the dead man, the one, the only one, perhaps, to whom he had given his confidence. Do you know of any enemies he might have had in the city?”

  “No, I do not know of any enemies, or even of any friends he had there. When the terrible thing happened that clouded his past, when he had regained his freedom, after his term of imprisonment, there was no one left whom he cared to see again. He does not seem to have borne any malice towards the banker who accused him of the theft. The evidence was so strong against him that he felt the suspicion was justified. But there was hatred in his heart for one man, for the Justice who sentenced him, Justice Schmidt, who is now Attorney General in G—.”

  “The man who, in the name of the State, will conduct this case?” asked Muller quickly.

  “Yes, I believe it is so. Is it not an irony that this man, the only one whom John really hated, should be the one to avenge him now?”

  “H’m! yes. But did you know of any friends in G—?”

  “No, none at all.”

  “No friends whom he might have made while he was in America and then met again in Germany?”

  “No, he never spoke of any such to me. He told me that he made few friends. He did not seek them for he was afraid that they might find out what had happened and turn from him. He was morbidly sensitive and could not bear the disappointment.”

  “Why did he return to Germany?”

  “He was lonely and wanted to come home again. He had made money in America—John was very clever and highly educated—but his heart longed for his own tongue and his own people.”

  Muller took a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “Do you know this handwriting?”

  Miss Roemer read the few lines hastily and her voice trembled as she said: “This is John’s handwriting. I know it well. This is the letter that was found on the table?”

  “Yes, this letter appears to be the last he had written in life. Do you know to whom it could have been written? The envelope, as I suppose you know from the newspaper reports, was not addressed. Do you know of any friends with whom he could have been on terms of sufficient intimacy to write such a letter? Do you know what these plans for the future could have been? It would certainly be natural that he should have spoken to you first about them.”

  “No; I cannot understand this letter at all,” replied the girl. “I have thought of it frequently these terrible days. I have wondered why it was that if he had friends in the city, he did not speak to me of them. He repeatedly told me that he had no friends there at all, that his life should begin anew after we were married.”

  “And did he have any particular plans, in a business way, perhaps?”

  “No; he had a comfortable little income and need have no fear for the future. John was, of course, too young a man to settle down and do nothing. But the only definite plans he had made were that we should travel a little at first, and then he would look about him for a congenial occupation. I always thought it likely he would resume a law practice somewhere. I cannot understand in the slightest what the plans are to which the letter referred.”

  “And do you think, from what you know of his state of mind when you saw him last, that he would be likely so soon to be planning pleasures like this?”

  “No, no indeed! John was terribly crushed when my guardian insisted on breaking off our engagement. Until my twenty-fourth birthday I am still bound to do as my guardian says, you know. John’s life and early misfortune made him, as I have already said, morbidly sensitive and the thought that it would be a bar to anything we might plan in the future, had rendered him so depressed that—and it was not the least of my anxieties and my troubles—that I feared . . . I feared anything might happen.”

  “You feared he might take his own life, do you mean?”

  “Yes, yes, that is what I feared. But is it not terrible to think that he should have died this way—by the hand of a murderer?”

  “H’m! And you cannot remember any possible friend he may have found—some schoolboy friend of his youth, perhaps, with whom he had again struck up an acquaintance.”

  “Oh, no, no, I am positive of that. John could not bear to hear the names even of the people he had known before his misfortune. Still, I do remember his once having spoken of a man, a German he had met in Chicago and rather taken a fancy to, and who had also returned to Germany.”

  “Could this possibly have been the man to whom the letter is addressed?”

  “No, no. This friend of John’s was not married; I remember his saying that. And he lived in Germany somewhere—let me think—yes, in Frankfort-on-Main.”

  “And do you remember the man’s name?”

  “No, I cannot, I am sorry to say. John only mentioned it once. It was only by a great effort that I could remember the incident at all.”

  “And has it not struck you as rather peculiar that this friend, the one to whom the cordial letter was addressed, did not come forward and make his identity known? G— is a city, it is true, but it is not a very large city, and any man being on terms of intimate acquaintance with one who was murdered would be apt to come forward in the hope of throwing some light on the mystery.”

  “Why, yes, I had not thought of that. It is peculiar, is it not? But some people are so foolishly afraid of having anything to do with the police, you know.”

  “That is very true, Miss Roemer. Still it is a queer incident and something that I must look into.”

  “What do you believe?” asked the girl tensely.

  “I am not in a position to say as yet. When I am, I will come to you and tell you.”

  “Then you do not think that my guardian killed John—that there was a quarrel between the men?”

  “There is, of course, a possibility that it may have been so. You know your guardian better than I do, naturally. Our knowledge of a man’s character is often a far better guide than any circumstantial evidence.”

  “My guardian is a man of the greatest uprightness of character. But he can be very hard and pitiless sometimes. And he has a violent temper which his weak heart has forced him to keep in control of late years.”

  “All this speaks for the possibility that there may have been a quarrel ending in the fatal shot. But what I want to know from you is this—do you think it possible, that, this having happened, Albert Graumann would not have been the first to confess his unpremeditated crime? Is not this the most likely thing for a man of his character to do? Would he so stubbornly deny it, if it had happened?”

  The girl started. “I had not thought of that! Why, why, of course, he might have killed John in a moment of temper, but he was never a man to conceal a fault. He is as pitiless towards his own weakness, as towards that of others. You are right, oh, you must be right. Oh, if you could take this awful fear from my heart! Even my grief for John would be easier to bear then.”

  Muller rose from his chair. “I think I can promise you that this load will be lifted from your heart, Miss Roemer.”

  “Then you believe—that it was just a case of murder for robbery? For the money? And John had some valuable jewelry, I know that.”

  “I do not know yet,” replied Muller slowly, “but I will find out, I generally do.”

  “Oh, to think that I should have done that poor man such an injustice! It is terrible, terrible! This house has been ghastly these days. His poor aunt knows that he is innocent—she could never believe otherwise—she has felt the hideous suspicion in my mind—it has made her suffering worse—will they ever forgive me?”

  “Her joy, if I can free her nephew, will make her forget every
thing. Go to her now, Miss Roemer, comfort her with the assurance that you also believe him to be innocent. I must hasten back to G— and go on with this quest.”