The Case of the Lamp That Went Out

by Auguste Groner

Knoll’s hands, clenched to fists and his eyes glowed in hate and defiance. Then he dropped them to the floor again and began to talk slowly in a monotonous tone that sounded as if he were repeating a lesson. His manner was rather unfortunate and did not tend to induce belief in the truth of his story. The gist of what he said was as follows:

He had reached Hietzing on Monday evening about 8 o’clock. He was thirsty, as usual, and had about two gulden in his possession, his wages for the last day’s work. He turned into a tavern in Hietzing and ate and drank until his money was all gone, and he had not even enough left to pay for a night’s lodging. But Knoll was not worried about that. He was accustomed to sleeping out of doors, and as this was a particularly fine evening, there was nothing in the prospect to alarm him. He set about finding a suitable place where he would not be disturbed by the guardians of the law. His search led him by chance into a newly opened street. This suited him exactly. The fences were easy to climb, and there were several little summer houses in sight which made much more agreeable lodgings than the ground under a bush. And above all, the street was so quiet and deserted that he knew it was just the place for him. He had never been in the street before, and did not know its name. He passed the four houses at the end of the street—he was on the left sidewalk—and then he came to two fenced-in building lots. These interested him. He was very agile, raised himself up on the fences easily and took stock of the situation. One of the lots did not appeal to him particularly, but the second one did. It bordered on a large garden, in the middle of which he could see a little house of some kind. It was after sunset but he could see things quite plainly yet for the air was clear and the moon was just rising. He saw also that in the vacant lot adjoining the garden, a lot which appeared to have been a garden itself once, there was a sort of shed. It looked very much damaged but appeared to offer shelter sufficient for a fine night.

The shed stood on a little raise of the ground near the high iron fence that protected the large garden. Knoll decided that the shed would make a good place to spend the night. He climbed the fence easily and walked across the lot. When he was just settling himself for his nap, he heard the clock on a near-by church strike nine. The various drinks he had had for supper put him in a mood that would not allow him to get to sleep at once. The bench in the old shed was decidedly rickety and very uncomfortable, and as he was tossing about to find a good position, a thought came into his mind which he acknowledged was not a commendable one. It occurred to him that if he pursued his investigations in the neighbourhood a little further, he might be able to pick up something that would be of advantage to him on his wanderings. His eyes and his thoughts were directed towards the handsome house which he could see beyond the trees of the old garden.

The moon was now well up in the sky and it shone brightly on the mansard roof of the fine old mansion. The windows of the long wing which stretched out towards the garden glistened in the moonbeams, and the light coloured wall of the house made a bright background for the dark mask of trees waving gently in the night breeze. Knoll’s little shed was sufficiently raised on its hillock for him to have a good view of the garden. There was no door to the shed and he could see the neighbouring property clearly from where he lay on his bench. While he lay there watching, he saw a woman walking through the garden. He could see her only when she passed back of or between the lower shrubs and bushes. As far as he could see, she came from the main building and was walking towards a pretty little house which lay in the centre of the garden. Knoll had imagined this house to be the gardener’s dwelling and as it lay quite dark he supposed the inmates were either asleep or out for the evening. It had been this house which he was intending to honour by a visit. But seeing the woman walking towards it, he decided it would not be safe to carry out his plan just yet awhile.

A few moments later he was certain that this last decision had been a wise one, for he saw a man come from the main building and walk along the path the woman had taken. “No, nothing doing there,” thought Knoll, and concluded he had better go to sleep. He could not remember just how long he may have dozed but it seemed to him that during that time he had heard a shot. It did not interest him much. He supposed some one was shooting at a thieving cat or at some small night animal. He did not even remember whether he had been really sound asleep, before he was aroused by the breaking down of the bench on which he lay. The noise of it more than the shock of the short fall, awoke him and he sprang up in alarm and listened intently to hear whether any one had been attracted by it. His first glance was towards the building behind the garden. There was no sound nor no light in the garden house but there was a light in the main building. While the tramp was wondering what hour it might be, the church clock answered him by ten loud strokes.

His head was already aching from the wine and he did not feel comfortable in the drafty old building. He came out from it, crept along to the spot where he had climbed the fence before, and after listening carefully and hearing nothing on either side, he climbed back to the road. The Street lay silent and empty, which was just what he was hoping for. He held carefully to the shadow thrown by the high board fence over which he had climbed until he came to its end. Then he remembered that he hadn’t done anything wrong and stepped out boldly into the moonlight. The moon was well up now and the street was almost as light as day. Knoll was attracted by the queer shadows thrown by a big elder tree, waving its long branches in the wind. As he came nearer he saw that part of the shadow was no shadow at all but was the body of a man lying in the street near the bush. “I thought sure he was drunk” was the way Knoll described it. “I’ve been like that myself often until somebody came along and found me.”

When he came to this spot in his story, he halted and drew a long breath. Commissioner von Riedau had begun to make some figures on the paper in front of him, then changed the lines until the head of a pretty woman in a fur hat took shape under his fingers.

“Well, go on,” he said, looking with interest at his drawing and improving it with several quick strokes.

Johann Knoll continued:

“Then the devil came over me and I thought I better take this good opportunity—well—I did. The man was lying on his back and I saw a watch chain on his dark vest. I bent over him and took his watch and chain. Then I felt around in his pocket and found his purse. And then—well then I felt sorry for him lying out in the open road like that, and I thought I’d lift him up and put him somewhere where he could sleep it off more convenient. But I didn’t see there was a little ditch there and I stumbled over it and dropped him. ‘It’s a good thing he’s so drunk that even this don’t wake him up,’ I thought, and ran off. Then I thought I heard something moving and I was scared stiff, but there was nothing in the street at all. I thought I had better take to the fields though and I crossed through some corn and then out onto another street. Finally I walked into the city, stayed there till this morning, sold the watch, then went to Pressburg.”