At a most unconventional hour this morning I find you at her
door. Then I learn that you are on your way to look into the details
of a murder that you had just heard of--somehow. Now I hear that Allan
Morris, Edyth's fiance, has been, in rather an odd way, upon familiar
terms with the murdered man."
He paused as he checked this last count, still regarding his friend
fixedly.
"I don't claim," he went on, after a moment, "that these things have
anything to do with each other. But, somehow, they've got together in
my mind, and I can't--"
Here the door re-opened and Stillman entered, followed by the big
German.
"Just take a chair, Mr. Berg," said the coroner, seating himself at
the desk and affixing his eyeglasses.
The German lowered his form into the chair indicated and folded his
fat hands across his monstrous paunch.
"Your name in full--is what?" asked Stillman with formality.
"Franz Berg. I sell me delicatessen at 478 Christie Place. I haf been
there for fifteen years."
"You were acquainted with the murdered man?"
The delicatessen dealer unfolded his hands and waved them
significantly.
"I was aguainted with him--yes. But I was not friendly with him--no.
He is dead, ain't it? Und it's not right to say someding about the
dead.
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