"Did you question him?" asked the magistrate.
"No," replied the captain humbly. And Casey and O'Rourke shook their big, hard-looking heads to indicate that they had not questioned him.
"I am curious to know what you HAVE done in this case," said the magistrate sternly. "It is a serious matter to take a young girl like this into custody. You police seem unable to learn that you are not the rulers, but the servants of the people."
"Your Honor—" began Hanlon.
"Silence!" interrupted the magistrate, rapping on the desk with his gavel. "Proceed, Wielert. What kind of knife was it?"
"The knife in his throat afterward," answered Wielert. "And I hear a sound like steam out a pipe—and I go in and see a lady at the street door. She peep through the crack and her face all yellow and her eye big. And she go away."
Hilda was looking at him calmly. She was the only person in the room who was not intensely agitated. All eyes were upon her. There was absolute silence.
"Is that lady here?" asked the magistrate. His voice seemed loud and strained.
"Yes," said Wielert. "I see her."
Otto instinctively put his arm about Hilda. Her father was like a leaf in the wind.