“What!” The commissioner looked up in surprise. “I thought you just said that you couldn’t get anything more out of the accused.”
“Knoll has told us all he knows, sir. He did not murder Leopold Winkler.”
“Hmph!” The commissioner’s exclamation had a touch of acidity in it. “Then, if he didn’t murder him, who did?”
“Herbert Thorne, painter, living in the Thorne mansion in B. Street, Hietzing, now in Venice, Hotel Danieli. I ask for a warrant for his arrest, sir, and orders to start for Venice on the early morning express to-morrow.”
“Muller!... what the deuce does all this mean?” The commissioner sprang up, his face flushing deeply as he leaned over the desk staring at the sad quiet face of the little man opposite. “What are you talking about? What does all this mean?”
“It means, sir, that we now know who committed the murder in Hietzing. Johann Knoll is innocent of anything more than the theft confessed by himself. He took the purse and watch from the senseless form of the just murdered man. The body was warm and still supple and the tramp supposed the victim to be merely intoxicated. His story was in every respect true, sir.”
The commissioner flushed still deeper. “And who do you say murdered this man?”
“Herbert Thorne, sir.
“But Thorne! I know of him... have even a slight personal acquaintance with him. Thorne is a rich man, of excellent family. Why should he murder and rob an obscure clerk like this Winkler?”
“He did not rob him sir, Knoll did that.”