This was the story now passing through the curious crowds in every street.  After hearing it I had turned into a tobacconist’s in the Adlergrasse, to restock my cigar-case, and found there, as everywhere, a group discussing the one topic of the hour.  Herr Fischer, the tobacconist, with a long porcelain pipe pendent from his screwed-up lips, was solemnly listening to the particulars volubly communicated by a stout Bavarian priest; while behind the counter, in a corner, swiftly knitting, sat his wife, her black bead-like eyes also fixed on the orator.  Of course I was dragged into the conversation.  Instead of attending to commercial interests, they looked upon me as the possible bearer of fresh news.  Nor was it without a secret satisfaction that I found I could gratify them in that respect.  They had not heard of Franz Kerkel in the matter.  No sooner had I told what I had heard than the knitting-needles of the vivacious little woman were at once suspended.

“Ach Je!” she exclaimed, “I see it all.  He’s the wretch!”

“Who?” we all simultaneously inquired.

“Who?  Why, Kerkel, of course.  If she changed, and treated him with indifference, it was because she loved him; and he has murdered the poor thing.”

“How you run on, wife!” remonstrated Fischer; while the priest shook a dubious head.

“I tell you it is so.  I’m positive.”

“If she loved him.”

“She did, I tell you.  Trust a woman for seeing through such things.”

“Well, say she did,” continued Fischer, “and I won’t deny that it may be so; but then that makes against the idea of his having done her any harm.”

“Don’t tell me,” retorted the convinced woman.  “She loved him.  She went out to meet him in secret, and he murdered her—­the villain did.  I’m as sure of it as if these eyes had seen him do it.”

The husband winked at us, as much as to say, “You hear these women!” and the priest and I endeavored to reason her out of her illogical position.  But she was immovable.  Kerkel had murdered her; she knew it; she couldn’t tell why, but she knew it.  Perhaps he was jealous, who knows?  At any rate, he ought to be arrested.

And by twelve o’clock, as I said, a new rumor ran through the crowd, which seemed to confirm the little woman in her rash logic.  Kerkel had been arrested, and a waistcoat stained with blood had been found in his room!  By half-past twelve the rumor ran that he had confessed the crime.  This, however, proved on inquiry to be the hasty anticipation of public indignation.  He had been arrested; the waistcoat had been found:  so much was authentic; and the suspicions gathered ominously over him.