CHAPTER XVI1
Pretzel. Macdonald remembered the name all right: while he was worrying out the complexities of this case, he had wondered if Pretzel would appear again. In Macdonald’s experience, the supers in a case did often make another and inglorious entry before the case was finally finished off. Herr Pretzel was the patient who had been to see Dr. Franz Natzler before his keys had disappeared and Macdonald had wondered whether he himself, Dr. Natzler’s guest, had provided reason for the theft of the key-ring. “Did somebody think life would be simpler if I were removed and that possession of the keys of the Natzlers’ house might facilitate my removal?” he had thought. But it was Pretzel himself who got “removed.” Even before Macdonald and Nauheim had had time to go out to Gaudensdorff
