"That is true, yes! Do you know who lives there? Well, we can soon find out," and he touched the bell. The waiting-maid came in.
"Fika, who lives in the back part of the house with Kräuger the butcher?"
"Eh, Herr, widow Kählert lives there, and then Schmidt the weaver," said Fika.
"Schmidt? Schmidt? Is that the weaver Schmidt, who is divorced from his wife?"
"Yes, Herr, and people say he is going to be married again, to the widow Kählert."
"So? so? Do people say that? Well, you may go;" and the burgomeister walked up and down, thinking and thinking, and then stopped before Habermann, and said, "It is really a remarkable coincidence; that is the divorced husband of the woman, whom we took up once for examination; you know, she claimed to have found the Danish double louis-d'ors."
Habermann said nothing, fear and hope were struggling too powerfully in his breast.
The burgomeister touched the bell again; Fika came: "Fika, go round to butcher Kräuger's, and tell him I want him to come here, in a quarter of an hour."
Fika went; and the burgomeister said to Habermann, "Herr Inspector, these are very significant indications; yet it is possible we may come to a dead halt; I can give you very little encouragement. But even if we arrive at no certainty, what does it matter? No reasonable being can have any suspicion of you. I have been really troubled to see that you have taken such utterly groundless suspicions so much to heart. But I must ask you to go now; people will certainly think you are concerned in the matter. Say nothing about it, and take care that Kurz and Bräsig are silent also. Yes--and--yes, that will do! You can send Inspector Bräsig to me, to-morrow morning at nine o'clock."
Habermann went, and Kräuger the butcher came.