“WHERE do you live?” asked Freyberger when they were on the road.

“We shall pass the place, and I will show you,” replied the other.

They turned to the left towards the village and walked for a moment in silence.

The stranger, despite his age and apparent infirmity, walked with a brisk step. Freyberger did not lag behind.

Then this conversation began between them, Freyberger speaking first:

“So you have had a murder here?”

“Is that so?”

“It is so, and I have come down here to arrest the murderer.”

“You are——”

“I am Gustave Freyberger.”

“Indeed!”

“When I was talking to you in the bar, I fancied that some one was listening to me, and so I told you of my aunt—in Bremen was it? and of my sister in Düsseldorf.”

Freyberger, as they walked, took side glances at the terrible profile of his companion rigid as the profile of the Sphinx; at a sign or movement indicative of guilt he was prepared to act. He was waiting for the psychological moment.

But the stranger made neither sign nor movement, and they passed through the little village, past the post office, past the cottage, which serves as a police station. Then they turned a corner, and a lonely country road lay before them.

Lonely-looking would, perhaps, be a better term, for the roads about here are by no means destitute of travellers on a summer’s day.

“You do not live in the village, then?” said Freyberger.

“No,” replied the other, “I live a little way down this road.”

“That is convenient,” said Freyberger, “for if I am not mistaken we are going t............