The Case of the Pocket Diary Found in the Snow - by Auguste Gruner

I am a great fan of Sherlock Holmes and having read the entire “Canon,” as fans call the body of work by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I looked about for something similar to read.  I was surprised to find:

Joseph Muller, Secret Service detective of the Imperial Austrian police, is one of the great experts in his profession. In personality he differs greatly from other famous detectives. He has neither the impressive authority of Sherlock Holmes, nor the keen brilliancy of Monsieur Lecoq. Muller is a small, slight, plain-looking man, of indefinite age, and of much humbleness of mien.

He has his own canon apparently, but I have selected the enticingly titled THE CASE OF THE POCKET DIARY FOUND IN THE SNOW, by Auguste Groner. (£6.29 UK Edition) (EUR 8,50 DE Edition) -- I am outraged at the UK & DE prices!  This book is free in the States. 

It is actually a bit difficult to find the publication date of this book, but I can tell you the author is a woman, born 1850, died 1929.

He had been walking about half an hour, perhaps, when he came to a cross street. Here he noticed the tracks of a wagon, the trace still quite fresh, as the slowly falling flakes did not yet cover it. The tracks led out towards the north, out on to the hilly, open fields.

Amster was somewhat astonished. It was very seldom that a carriage came into this neighbourhood, and yet these narrow wheel-tracks could have been made only by an equipage of that character. The heavy trucks which passed these roads occasionally had much wider wheels. But Amster was to find still more to astonish him.

In one corner near the cross-roads stood a solitary lamp-post. The light of the lamp fell sharply on the snow, on the wagon tracks, and—on something else besides.

Amster halted, bent down to look at it, and shook his head as if in doubt.

A number of small pieces of glass gleamed up at him and between them, like tiny roses, red drops of blood shone on the white snow. All this was a few steps to one side of the wagon tracks.

"What can have happened here—here in this weird spot, where a cry for help would never be heard? where there would be no one to bring help?"

 The game is afoot!

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