“At six o’clock yesterday a foreman and a workman from Brenner’s factory found the headless body of a girl in a shed on Bornholmer Street. The body was held by ropes in an unnatural position, and was so tightly wedged in among beams, boards, ladders, barrows, and refuse, that the police officers who were immediately summoned had the greatest difficulty in disentangling their gruesome find. The news spread rapidly through the neighbourhood, and a rumour that increased in definiteness pointed to the body of the murdered girl as that of the sixteen-year-old Ruth Hofmann residing in Stolpische Street. A notification of her disappearance had been lodged at police headquarters several days ago. The theory that it was she who was the victim of a murder of unparalleled bestiality became a certainty some hours later. A mason’s wife found in the mortar-pit of a building lot on Bellermann Street the severed head, which proved to belong to the body and was identified by several inhabitants of the house on Stolpische Street as that of Ruth Hofmann. Except for stockings and shoes, the body was entirely naked, and its mutilations indicated felonious assault. There is at present no trace of the murderer. But the investigations are being present with all possible care and energy, and it is warmly to be desired that the inhuman brute may soon be turned over to the ministers of justice.” III In the little rear room he had now been sleeping for fourteen hours. The widow Engelschall determined to go to him. She passed through the half-dark passage-way in which the supplies were stored. Hams and smoked sausages dangled from the ceiling. On the floor stood kegs with sardines, herrings, and pickled gherkins. There were shelves filled with glasses of preserved fruit. The place smelled like a shop. She stopped, took a little gherkin out of an open keg, and swallowed it without chewing. The bell of the front-door rang. A sluttish creature, broom in hand, became visible at the end of the passage, and called out to the widow Engelschall that Isolde Schirmacher had come with an important message. “Let her wait,” the widow Engelschall growled. Softly she went into the small room in which Niels Heinrich was sleeping. He lay on a mattress. A bluish flannel coverlet was over him. His hairy chest was bare; his naked feet protruded. The room was so small that not even a chest of drawers could have been squeezed in. Heaps of malodorous, soiled linen lay in the corners. Tools were scattered about the floor--a plane, a hammer, a saw. Old newspapers increased the litter, and on nails in the wall hung dirty clothes, ties, and a couple of overcoats. On the walls red splotches showed where bedbugs had been killed. On the table stood a candlestick with a piece of candle, an empty beer bottle, and a half empty whiskey bottle.