He was a
quiet man and made few friends, but he seemed to take to Albert and
came to see us frequently. Albert had spent some years in America,
in Chicago, and Siders liked to talk to him about things and people
there. But one day Siders suddenly sold his property and moved to G--.
Two weeks later he was found dead in his lodgings in the city,
murdered, and now--now they have accused Albert of the crime."
"On what grounds?--oh, I beg your pardon, sir; I did not mean--"
"That's all right, Muller," said the commissioner. "As you may
have to undertake the case, you might as well begin to do the
questioning now."
"They say"--Miss Graumann's voice quavered--"they say that Albert
was the last person known to have been in Siders' room; they say that
it was his revolver, found in the room. That is the dreadful part
of it--it was his revolver. He acknowledges it, but he did not
know, until the police showed it to him, that the weapon was not in
its usual place in his study. They tell me that everything speaks
for his guilt, but I cannot believe it--I cannot. He says he is
innocent in spite of everything. I believe him. I brought him up,
sir; I was like his own mother to him. He never knew any other
mother. He never lied to me, not once, when he was a little boy,
and I don't believe he'd lie to me now, now that he's a man of
forty-five. He says he did not kill John Siders. Oh, I know, even
without his saying it, that he would not do such a thing.
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