“To-morrow you shall know everything, my kind friend. And now, let us make the trial. Please lock the door behind me as it was locked then.”
Muller left the room, taking the pistol with him. Bauer locked the door. “Is this right?” he asked.
“Yes, I can see a wide curve of the room, taking in the entire desk. Please stand to one side now.”
There was deep silence for a moment, then a slight sound as of metal on metal, then a report, and Muller re-entered the study through the bedroom. He found Bauer stooping over the picture of the French soldier. There was a hole in the left breast, where the bullet, passing through, had buried itself in the back of the chair.
“Yes, it was all just as you said,” began the chief of police, holding out his hand to Muller. “But—why the golden bullet?”
“To-morrow, to-morrow,” replied the detective, looking up at his superior with a glance of pleading.
They left the house together and in less than an hour’s time Muller was again in the train rolling towards the capital.
He went to the goldsmith’s shop as soon as he arrived. The proprietor received him with eager interest and Muller handed him the golden bullet. “Here is the golden object of which I spoke,” said the detective, paying no heed to the other’s astonishment. The goldsmith opened a small locked drawer, took a ring from it and set about an examination of the two little objects. When he turned to his visitor again, he was evidently satisfied with what he had discovered. “These two objects are made of exactly the same sort of gold, of a peculiar old French composition, which can no longer be produced in the same richness. The weight of the gold in the bullet is exactly the same as in the ring.”
“Would you be willing to take an oath on that if you were called in as an expert?”
“I am willing to stand up for my judgment.”