The voice could be heard all over the house and, finally ended in an hysterical scream; every door was opened and people were heard coming up from the lower rooms. In two strides Murner was at the top of the stairs where he found the porter's wife, white with fear and shaking from head to foot, standing at the studio door.
"Quick, tell me what has occurred and who it is that must not be allowed to escape?"
"The girl in the grey dress," stammered the woman, "she came out of here."
"Out of the studio? Well, and what then?"
"She murdered Mr. Dreyel."
For a second Tom stood as if paralyzed, but the next moment he dashed through the waiting-room into the studio. On the floor right in front of the bookshelf lay Dreyel, face downward, his shoulders convulsively drawn up, his head and the upper part of the body turned on one side and both arms stretched out. Murner sank on his knees and put out his hands to turn the dead man over, but quickly drew back. Victor Dreyel was past human aid; a knife had penetrated through his clothes between the shoulder blades; his coat had been considerably crumpled by the fall.
The porter's wife suddenly burst into loud and uncontrollable weeping, but the young man strove to keep cool. From the woman's disconnected account he gathered that she was on her usual round, locking the doors, and extinguishing the lights; finding the studio door ajar she had gone in; struck by the unusual quiet she had proceeded to the other end, and, to her indescribable horror had found Dreyel lying dead on the floor.
"Well now, about the girl?" asked Murner impatiently, "the girl in grey?"
"She stood hidden behind that screen there, and when I screamed and was about to run away, she ran out of the door just in front of me and slammed it after her."
"What was she like?"