“Muller,” shot out Winters, “we have just found Mr. Schloss dead!”
“D-dead!” he stammered.
The man seemed speechless with horror.
“Yes, and with his grips packed as if to run away.”
Muller looked dazedly from one of us to the other, but shut up like a clam.
“I think you had better come along with us as a material witness,” burst out Winters roughly.
Kennedy said nothing, leaving that sort of third degree work to the detective. But he was not idle, as Winters tried to extract more than the monosyllables, “I don’t know,” in answer to every inquiry of Muller about his employer’s life and business.
A low exclamation from Craig attracted my attention from Winters. In a corner he had discovered a small box and had opened it. Inside was a dry battery and a most peculiar instrument, something like a little flat telephone transmitter yet attached by wires to earpieces that fitted over the head after the manner of those of a wireless detector.
“What’s this?” asked Kennedy, dangling it before Muller.
He looked at it phlegmatically. “A deaf instrument I have been working on,” replied the jeweler. “My hearing is getting poor.”