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Title: Dr. Mabuse
Master of mystery
Author: Norbert Jacques
Translator: Lilian A. Clare
Release date: April 27, 2025 [eBook #75967]
Language: English
Original publication: London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1923
Credits: David E. Brown and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. MABUSE ***
DR. MABUSE
DR. MABUSE
MASTER OF MYSTERY
_A NOVEL_
BY
NORBERT JACQUES
AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION
BY
LILIAN A. CLARE
[Illustration]
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1.
_First published in 1923_
(_All rights reserved_)
_Printed in Great Britain by_
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, LONDON AND WOKING
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
Since there is no actual equivalent of the position of “Staatsanwalt”
it is almost impossible to find an English rendering that conveys
its full meaning. In part the duties assimilate those of the Public
Prosecutor, but in England we can hardly conceive of an official of
high judicial status personally identifying himself with his cases to
the extent of disguising himself and playing the part of a detective.
Wenk’s position appears to combine some of the offices which would here
be delegated to various individuals acting more or less independently
as subordinates to a higher and single authority. He was a barrister
and an LL.D., and a person of some influence, however, as his threat
to the governor of the women’s prison, and his treatment of the night
editor prove.
In accordance with modern German usage I have adhered to the original
in dropping the “von,” when intimates of the same social class are
speaking to or of each other, maintaining it in the more formal
intercourse and the reports tendered by social inferiors.
Readers should note that in the currency now prevailing, the amounts
staked by Hull and his friends would be tens of thousands, and his
total losses would run into many millions.
DR. MABUSE
I
The distinguished-looking elderly gentleman introduced himself and,
as usual, nobody caught the name. He wore a suit of fashionable and
well-cut clothes, however, and his scarf-pin was a single white
pearl in a somewhat quaint setting, its dazzling purity recalling
the whiteness of a lovely blonde’s shoulders, as Karstens remarked.
Moreover, he at once placed a sum of twenty thousand marks upon the
table in front of him.
He had been brought to the club by young Hull, the heir to an
industrial concern worth millions, into which his father allowed him to
dip freely. Play was started immediately, and the stranger courteously
agreed to the game proposed, which was vingt-et-un. The stakes were
unlimited, and the first one to hold the bank was Ritter.
At first there was nothing unusual about the game. Gains and losses
alternated, but soon it was noticed that Hull was losing, and this
began just at the time when it was the elderly gentleman’s turn to play
banker. At the start it was hundred-mark notes that Hull lost, but he
played on calmly, resigned to his ill-luck. Notes of smaller value
were now mingled with the piles of thousands the visitor had put in
front of him.
It was only outwardly, however, that Hull appeared undisturbed. He felt
a good deal of excitement within, and a veil seemed to be obscuring his
mental vision. His bank-notes fluttered across to the stranger without
his appearing aware of the fact. His senses seemed to be imprisoned in
a delicate, invisible web, pressing ever more and more closely upon him.
He drank a brandy and soda, and then ordered a bottle of champagne. The
only effect of that was to make him open another compartment of his
pocket-book and bring out the thousand-mark notes which he had procured
from the bank that morning. His bad luck became really fantastic. Even
when he held good cards it seemed as if in some obscure region of his
mind a mysterious warning sealed his lips, and instead of staking a
substantial sum, he wagered a trifling amount merely.
It was now the visitor’s turn to pass on the office of banker, but he
volunteered to continue to hold it on account of Hull. He said: “If you
gentlemen do not object, I will remain banker for a few more rounds.
You see how the money seems to cling to me. I am the guest of your
hospitable club, so please consider how difficult my position is with
regard to Herr von Hull, and grant my request.” His speech was polite,
and carefully enunciated, yet there was a masterful ring about the
words, as if the speaker would brook no refusal.
The club attendant eyed the guest suspiciously, but he was using the
cards provided by the club and fresh packs were opened every time. The
play grew more animated. A good deal had been drunk, and several round
the table were slightly intoxicated. The guest did not refrain from
drinking, and his behaviour was in no way peculiar. He had a steady
and lingering glance for everyone who looked at him, and his large
grey eyes seemed to have something dominating about them, hardly in
accordance with a mere game. His hands were large and fleshy, and as
steady as if carved out of wood, while the fingers of the other men,
far younger than he, were already quivering with excitement.
Hull continued playing, though his pocket-book grew lighter and
lighter. “What is the matter with me?” he continually asked himself. He
wanted to rise from the table and miss a round, so that he could get a
mouthful of fresh air at the window and gain a little calm from looking
into the silent night. But he sat as if glued to his chair, pressing
his elbows down on the crimson cloth, and his thoughts escaped his
control, falling into a void like that of deep slumber.
And yet he was not really a reckless player. He was accustomed to
reflect and to follow the run of luck, making use of chances that were
favourable to him, and reducing his stakes when he saw that the odds
were against him.
This evening, however, he seemed to know no bounds. No amount seemed
of any value in his eyes, and it appeared as if he were almost glad
to lose, and saw his notes change hands with a kind of satisfaction.
Something would be sure to happen ere long. The players seemed far too
slow in dealing, he thought; they took an endless time in declaring
their stakes, and the notes crawled round the table at a snail’s pace.
He drank freely, moreover, and the fancies which he could no longer
control were like fiery steeds escaping the driver’s restraining hand
and running away into a trackless wilderness. The very air seemed to
have been exhausted, and nothing existed for him but the game.
Folks began to discuss his bad luck. He certainly drew unlucky cards,
but he was playing his hand badly, and taking unreasonable risks. His
friends wanted to restrict the stakes and talk of the final round.
At first Hull did not take in what they were saying, and they had to
explain their words; then he drew himself up and became furiously
angry, shouting in his wrath and beating his fist on the table.
Then the stranger’s big eyes seemed to withdraw a little from him
and the rest; their glance appeared to be directed inward and some
of their lustre vanished. He laid down his cards and put his money
into his pocket, doing it carelessly, however, as if it were merely
a handkerchief. There was one more round to finish. Hull called out,
“I’ll play the bank,” and the stranger dealt him the cards. He glanced
at them quickly. His total was twenty-one.... Then something happened,
something strange and inexplicable. He threw his cards face downwards
upon the heap, saying, “I have lost again.”
The guest immediately showed _his_ cards. His eyes regained their
glitter, he counted his points, named the total, and threw his cards
down on the table.
It seemed to Hull as if he were falling from an unsteady foothold
down into an abyss below. “What have I been doing?” he asked himself
in stupefaction and despair. Now at last he began to see everything
as clearly as if he had just come into the room: the three glowing
electric globes under their protecting dome, the red-covered, lighted
table, his friends, the elderly stranger, the scattered cards and the
piles of notes.
“Where have I been? What have I been doing?” he stammered.
His brain grew alert again, and the thoughts that had been so confused
and obscure now became suddenly clear: it was as if he had drawn
aside the curtains and let in the light of day. Then he felt a sudden
distrust of himself, which made him uneasy. He held his head in his
hands awhile, striving to free it from the weight that seemed to
encircle it, and then raising himself erect, he said, “What have I been
doing? I held twenty-one in my hand, and then someone called out, in my
voice, ‘I have lost again.’ Look there!” He snatched the cards he had
thrown away from the heap where they lay, and turned them over. They
were an ace, a ten, and a knave--twenty-one!
The elderly stranger’s large grey eyes contracted until the pupils were
quite small and seemed to be gazing at a far-distant spot. A shudder
went through his body; it was perceptible, though hastily subdued. Then
his breast expanded and his breath came slowly and with difficulty, as
if he were having to pump the air direct into himself.
“Too late!” said he, briefly and decisively.
Hull made a slight gesture.
“My remark had nothing to do with you,” he said quietly; “it concerned
myself only. How much do I owe you?” he asked in a friendly tone.
“Thirty thousand marks!”
Hull emptied his pocket-book.
“You must content yourself till to-morrow afternoon with ten thousand
and, of course, an I O U for the rest. Will you be so good as to write
the amount and your address in this notebook?”
When Hull got his little notebook back, he read in it:
BALLING,
ROOM 15, EXCELSIOR HOTEL.
He passed over his I O U, smiling pleasantly as he did so.
“I am ready to give you your revenge, Herr von Hull,” said Balling,
as he rose. “Gentlemen, may I offer you my thanks for the evening’s
hospitality? Good-night!”
He said this almost abruptly, but in so decisive a tone that it brought
the others to their feet. Karstens offered him his car.
“No, thank you; my own is waiting for me.”
He walked away somewhat stiffly, as though tired out, and vouchsafed no
further farewell of any sort. The club attendant conducted him to the
outer door.
“Hull, you are off your head,” said Karstens, when the stranger had
left the room.
“What did really happen?” asked Hull quietly.
“Ask your purse!”
“My pocket-book is empty. Who won all my money?”
“Your friend there,” said Karstens, pointing to the door.
“My friend! I never set eyes on him before! How did he get here?”
“Hull, you certainly are needing the services of a good physician.
Emil, bring the telephone directory.” Karstens turned over the
leaves. “Here we are: Dr. Schramm, Psychopathological treatment, 35,
Ludwigstrasse....”
“I don’t understand your joke, my dear Karstens.”
“Well, who brought this fine vingt-et-un player here but you?”
“That is not true, Karstens.”
“Go to No. 35, Ludwigstrasse, my dear fellow, and quickly too.”
“Of course it was you who brought him, Hull,” said another.
“_I?_ _I_ brought him? At any rate, I don’t remember a thing about it,
but it may be so.”
Hull then withdrew, exhausted and stupefied, brooding over the problem
which had so strangely and suddenly opened up before him that evening.
When he awoke, towards morning, he had a dim and fleeting remembrance,
and he seemed to recall the stranger sitting at the same table with
him in the Café Bastin. He had an idea that they had been talking
together, and that it was about the theatre, but what they had said,
and which theatre it was about, he had not the slightest idea. In
the dim recesses of his mind he recalled merely the sensation of a
dazzling reflector that seemed to throw its beams upon him during the
conversation. Sleep was no longer possible, but, try as he would to
pierce these elusive fragments of memory and penetrate to the reality
behind them, he was quite unable to make anything out of them.
* * * * *
The next afternoon brought him no enlightenment either. By four o’clock
he had obtained the twenty thousand marks, and he made his way to the
Excelsior Hotel. At his request a telephone message was sent to Room
15. Herr Balling was there, he was told, and requested the gentleman to
send up his card. This Hull did, following close upon it.
In the middle of Room 15 he found a man whom he had never seen in his
life before. He was a short, stout, clean-shaven man, apparently an
American. He made a very stiff bow.
“I beg your pardon,” said Hull. “I must have been directed wrongly. I
wanted Room 15.”
“This is it,” said the other.
“Then Herr Balling must have given me the wrong number.”
“My name is Balling.”
“This time I am _not_ dreaming, I am in full possession of my senses,”
said Hull to himself, and then aloud, he continued: “But the mystery
can soon be explained. Did you write this?” and he extended the
notebook in which the stranger of the previous night had written his
name and address.
“Certainly not,” replied the stout man.
“Then I am not in your debt to the tune of twenty thousand marks?”
“My time is very limited, and I am expecting a friend on business,”
said the other, looking at his watch.
“I will make way for your friend, sir, at once, and will only put one
more question to you. It is not my fault that I am bothering you; I
have been misled in some way.”
The other nodded.
“Possibly you are acquainted,” Hull went on, “with a gentleman of about
sixty, with large grey eyes, a big nose and white whiskers. He wears
good and well-cut clothes and a tall grey hat, and his name is also
Balling.”
“I can only repeat that I know nothing about him,” said the Balling of
No. 15.
Hull thereupon took his leave. Downstairs he asked whether there were
a second Herr Balling in the hotel, but the answer was “No.” Had Room
15 been occupied by any Herr Balling who had just left? “No.” Was the
writing in the pocket-book known? Again there was a negative reply.
“For the first time in my life,” thought Hull, “I find myself unable to
pay a debt of honour.”
Gradually he became uneasy. What a mysterious affair this was! Nothing
of the kind had ever occurred before. He had won money and lost it
again ... sometimes much, and at other times little. He had been in
financial straits. He had had some trouble about a girl he cared for.
Once, indeed, he had been seriously wounded in a duel. Yet all that was
comprehensible and straightforward, so to speak. But this tale of Herr
Balling and the twenty thousand marks had some mystery or other behind
it. He had forgotten that it was he who introduced the stranger to the
club. He had played as if he had lost his head. He had incurred a debt
of twenty thousand marks, and his creditor had furnished a name and
address which did actually exist but were not his, and, moreover, he
would not have the money....
If it had not happened that Hull had no mistress at the moment, he
could have talked this affair over. He pondered over it alone while he
walked along Lenbach Square and the Promenade, looking everybody in the
face in the hope that he might encounter the distinguished stranger
among them. He went to the Café Bastin and scanned all the faces there.
He sat down at a table and waited to see whether the _genius loci_
would be favourable to him and recall the vanished recollections;
but nothing came of it, and he stood up again, a prey to increasing
uneasiness. It seemed as if in the invisible depths behind him another
power, extraneous to himself, was pursuing him, pressing down upon him,
trying to jump on his back as a monkey might do, and lead him into
unlucky adventures of some kind or another.
Hull forced himself to return to his lonely bachelor chambers. There he
met Karstens, and greeted him with relief. But Karstens at once asked:
“Well, has your memory returned?”
“My dear fellow, there’s something wrong with me!”
“With the twenty thousand marks?”
“No, there they are!” and he tapped his breast-pocket. “Nobody
wants them, it appears. There is a Herr Balling in Room 15 at the
‘Excelsior,’ but he isn’t my man, and we’ve never met before. He has
never played vingt-et-un, and nobody owes _him_ twenty thousand marks.
I can’t get rid of the money, and it makes me feel creepy! Something
is going to happen to me. Who _is_ there near me whom I cannot see?
There’s certainly something wrong with me!”
“Come to the club! Perhaps your Herr Balling will go there to fetch the
money himself.”
“Yes, but what about the real Balling in No. 15?”
“Well, that’s certainly odd, I grant you. Come along.”
“All right. Perhaps he’ll be there.”
In the club that night there was no play. The curious circumstance
had so worked upon the members’ imagination that no one felt the need
of trying his luck. Hull was overwhelmed with well-meaning or obtuse
advice.
“Emil,” said one of them to the attendant, “what did his car look like?”
“An excellent one, Herr Baron, a twenty-horsepower at the least--a
closed car with a body like a royal cradle, if one may use such a
comparison nowadays ... so smooth and well rounded and polished. It
started off with a great bound, and soon vanished. It was a first-class
car. I kept a close eye on the gentleman, and I saw that he had the
devil’s own luck when he played against Herr von Hull. He played quite
straight, however.”
They learnt nothing more about the stranger. Nobody came either to the
club or to Hull’s rooms to ask for the twenty thousand marks or to
offer him his revenge.
A few days afterwards Hull made acquaintance with a girl who was
performing jazz dances in the Bonbonnière. She was partly Mexican, she
told him. She soon effected a diversion in his thoughts, and in her
company he rapidly got rid of the twenty thousand marks which he could
not pay over to the stranger.
“It seems as if you were meant to give the money to a woman instead of
to a man,” remarked Karstens, when he told him that he was now free of
his worries once more.
II
About a fortnight later the circles to whom the life of the day is
only a wearisome burden till the hour of play arrives, when the
nerve-tension is once more excited, were all agog with the stories of
a stranger who simply loaded himself with money wherever he chanced to
play. The tales varied constantly. At one time the stranger was a young
sportsman, at another a worthy provincial; now he was a fair-bearded
man looking like an artist, and again a robber and murderer who had
escaped from justice. Some said he was a dethroned prince, others that
he was a Frenchman. Another time they declared him to be a citizen of
Leipzig, who was smuggling pit-coal from the Saar into Bavaria by way
of Switzerland, or profiteering on the money exchange with New York and
Rio de Janeiro. There was endless variety in the descriptions, but the
imagination put the various forms together and made one personality out
of them.
Circles that were exclusive had ceased to exist. Money was a key that
opened all doors, the wearing of a fur coat could conceal any calling,
and a diamond scarf-pin shed lustre on any character. A man could go
into whatsoever company he desired.
There was no longer any sense of security, and the mysterious gambler
might turn up in any place, at any time. He might be anybody’s
neighbour. The authorities were constantly notified of swindling
players, and though in no case could their swindles be proved, their
luck was so continuous that it did not seem possible for it to be due
to ordinary play.
Through the Bonbonnière lady Hull frequently spent his evenings in
places where gambling was indulged in. He heard much about this
swindler at play, and from many different quarters, for theatrical
folk are always particularly interested in anything out of the common,
especially where masquerading is concerned. But Hull’s brain was of a
matter-of-fact and ordinary kind. He did, indeed, still think about
the twenty thousand marks, but mostly with the comfortable reflection
that they had been used in a very different way from that for which
they were destined. Now that the story of his forgetfulness had ceased
to haunt him he had become quite convinced that his friends had played
an elaborate trick upon him, that his I O U and the twenty thousand
marks had been discharged, and the only disreputable part in the affair
had been played by Balling, who, on account of Emil’s watch upon him,
had not felt himself secure. His astonishment was all the greater,
therefore, when a certain Herr von Wenk was announced and the story of
that night’s escapade was brought up once more.
Hull refused to discuss the matter, but the visitor told him he was
a State Attorney and showed his credentials. In the most polite way
possible he continued to question him, saying that his official status
obliged him to pursue the inquiry. Had Hull been able to communicate
with Cara Carozza, his _chère amie_ from the Bonbonnière, instead of
having to face this man by himself, he would have known what to say and
how much to conceal. He was greatly enamoured of Cara Carozza, and by
no means inclined to go into this matter and rake up bygones for the
sake of the country’s morals.
“You will pardon my introducing a personal note, but I understand that
you are very intimate with Mdlle. Cara Carozza, of the Bonbonnière?”
“Good Lord! He knows that, does he?” ejaculated Hull to himself.
“Can you make me acquainted with this lady? It would further the task
which the State has laid upon me, but I would ask you to introduce
me to her as a private individual. It is unnecessary to assure you
that I take you for a man of irreproachable character and quite above
suspicion. Nothing is known to the detriment of the lady, either.
You will be able to render a service to the country and perhaps to
yourself as well. Henceforward you are under the direct protection
of the police. Do not be uneasy; it is possibly quite an unnecessary
precaution. You can rest assured that you will not suffer in any way
through the services you may be able to render to the general public
and the State.”
“What am I to gather from all this, sir?” said Hull hesitatingly.
“You must have come to some conclusion about your extraordinarily lucky
opponent?”
“To be quite candid, I did feel uneasy for a time, Herr von Wenk.
There seemed to be something very mysterious about the affair. Finally,
I imagined that my forgetting that I had brought the stranger to the
club was a feeble joke on the part of my friends.”
“But the Herr Balling in the hotel, who was quite different from the
Balling at the club?”
“That certainly is a mystery to me still, but a false address is often
given for the purpose of evading payment. In this case, however, it
occurred in order to avoid receiving twenty thousand marks.”
“May it not be explained,” continued the State Attorney, “by the fact
that this elderly gentleman had been cheating in some way? He was set
on his guard by some fact unknown to you, and contented himself with
the money he had already won. He gave a name which occurred to him, and
of which he had some knowledge. Unless, of course, the Balling in the
‘Excelsior’ was the Balling from your club, disguised. But you say that
the one was short and stout and the other of rather imposing presence.
Do you still play, Herr von Hull?”
“A little, now and again.”
“With Mdlle. Carozza, perhaps? I am on friendly terms with one of your
intimates, with Karstens. He will introduce me to you, and we shall be
able to renew our acquaintance socially. You must not be prejudiced by
the fact that it has had an official beginning. I hope to be able to
count you on my side.”
The barrister took his leave, and returned to his official chambers.
A month previous to this occurrence, in a lawsuit in which he was
professionally engaged, Wenk had first noted the extent to which
the gambling fever possessed the city. He himself liked the nervous
excitement and the appeal to the imagination afforded by the relations
between judge, counsel and accused in the course of his calling.
In earlier years he had been a regular card-player. He was not a
passionate lover of games of chance, but he enjoyed the opportunity of
testing the effect of play upon his own self-control, of observing his
fellows and noting the enticement afforded by the devious course of
luck.
During the lawsuit above mentioned he realized what a danger to the
people lay in gambling. The change from war conditions to a state of
affairs which afforded the nation little relief from tension had not
sobered its imagination, but rather excited it yet more strongly.
Perhaps, in the first instance, the war news was largely responsible
for extravagant phantasies. For a week, sometimes a month, at a time
the reports were like a lottery for the whole nation. Then a fateful
movement was set on foot by which whole districts of people were seized
with a passion for gambling, a movement designed by the military
authorities to induce them to replete the army coffers. Increased wages
were offered to the war workers and money was flung into manufacturing
concerns. Commerce of all kinds was affected ere long, and everywhere
the flood-gates were opened. When goods grew more and more scarce,
money overflowed all its channels. Wenk saw clearly that the folks
in high places who had believed they could purchase the soul of a
nation for money were to blame for the tragic outcome of the war as
far as Germany was concerned, and so, too, were they responsible for
the political development. Instead of the ideal of an immortal soul
prepared for any and every renunciation as long as it fulfilled its
duty to the community, they had set up an idol--money--and the whole
nation was worshipping it.
Then the war came to an end. Money decreased in value and the idea
of it played a yet more dominant part in the life of a nation now
deprived of its success and brilliance in the world outside. Hundreds
of thousands had become accustomed to a life of inaction, and for many
years now it had been nothing but pure chance whether they lived or
died. Their only preoccupation had been to exercise authority over
others and to live entirely on their nerves. They brought with them
to the more stable conditions of life the gambling spirit born of
their war experience. They had grown accustomed to taking risks, and
they continued to rely on luck. They resumed their former mode of
life, but brought to it the atmosphere of their recent experiences,
transferring the nerve-racking and hazardous existence of those days to
the conditions which now obtained. To some extent this was inevitable,
but those who looked beyond the present and wanted to see a new era
of prosperity dawn must strain every nerve and exercise the strictest
self-denial. Thus only could there be hope of recovery.
The great lawsuit had afforded Wenk one example after another of the
development of this spirit of gambling, and in its course had taken
him frequently into the company of those who lived but for, and by,
games of chance. His convictions were well grounded and his recognition
of the national danger constantly confirmed to an alarming extent. In
the attics and basements folks were gambling for five-mark pieces,
and on the first floors for five-thousand. They laid their wagers
in the streets and the lanes, at home and abroad. They gambled with
cards, with goods, with ideas and with enjoyments, with power and with
weakness, with themselves and with their nearest and dearest.
At this period, too, people who were not naturally given to hazardous
risks, who were habitually calm and self-reliant, were wont to be
guided by chance conditions and circumstances, instead of combating
them where necessary.
Wenk was an official who had reached his thirty-eighth year in a
peaceful and well-ordered career. During the war he had volunteered
for the Flying Corps, because he had a love of sport and remembered
the fascination which the element of danger had held for him in early
youth. The experience had fired his imagination, and he returned to
his career with more impetuous feelings than had been his when he
quitted it. The lawsuit against the gamblers, and all he had learned
in the course of it, had excited him considerably. He had gone at once
to the head of the Police Department, had described what he had seen
and experienced, and represented to him that this new disease must be
combated if the whole body were not to be destroyed. As money lost
its value and the necessities of life increased, the nation could do
nothing but seek to augment its mass of paper currency by trying first
one speculation and then another. The connection between supply and
demand required both time and work before it could become normal again,
and so by degrees it had come about that the pulsations of commercial
life were regulated merely by chance.
The Minister smiled; he was new to his office. He said, “The nation is
sound enough; you are a pessimist!”
But Wenk replied, “It is diseased and rotten! How can it be healthy,
after such years and such a life?”
Then the Minister, who felt his position somewhat insecure and was
willing to try anything that might lead to stability, yielded the
point, and created a new post, which Wenk at once took over.
The erstwhile State Attorney and official was at once caught up in
the vortex of his new office. He devoted all his time and energies
to it. He did not establish himself in an arm-chair in a comfortable
well-furnished room, but began to build up his position from the very
bottom, became a police-spy and a detective, unwearied in his efforts
to collect all the evidence he could lay his hands on. He did it all
himself, and when he realized, as he soon did, the slight extent of
his own powers when pitted against the widespread national vice, he
conceived the idea of recruiting a guard and rallying force from the
ranks of the victims.
Accordingly, he began with men whose wealth was not displayed in their
houses, but who, through their connection with the social order which
had come to grief, had been forced into the opposition, both as human
beings and as politicians. He knew that none were more responsible for
the existing state of affairs than these men, because, at a time when
resistance was a necessity, they had been cowardly and kept out of the
way. But he knew, too, that in them a new force of decision had come to
birth, that they longed to make good where they had failed.
Above all, there were the rich young men without any profession. In the
disorganization brought about in the country by the depreciation and
disorder of the currency, they were unable to carry on life as before.
Their society was permeated by the “new rich,” who made use of them
because they allowed themselves to be made use of.
The State Attorney von Wenk had turned to his whilom comrades, from
whom the divers duties of his office had long separated him, and
the man whom he had first encountered and won over to his side was
Karstens. It was from him that he had learned all the circumstances of
Hull’s strange and suspicious gambling adventure. He compared Hull’s
story with the other material which he had hastily collected. Fresh
complaints were constantly being made about swindlers who worked so
cleverly that no taint of suspicion could attach to them, yet who won
so consistently that it was not conceivable that this could be merely
luck. From some similarities in detail in the various stories Wenk was
inclined to refer all these cases to a band of swindlers operating in
concert, and he even had the idea that it might all be the work of one
man. But this was hardly more than an impression. Hull’s experience
was the strangest and most mysterious of all these cases, and it was
fraught with the greatest danger, but Wenk had a notion that therein
lay the solution to all the rest.
* * * * *
After Wenk’s departure, Hull held a long argument with himself. The
uncompromising yet thoroughly courteous way in which Wenk had effected
an entrance had made an impression upon him. He guessed what the
official desired, for he himself was often dissatisfied with his way of
living, although his love of ease usually made him drive such thoughts
away.
Under ordinary circumstances he would have pursued his usual search for
enjoyment without restraint or reflection, either until considerations
of health had set a limit to his dissipations or until a marriage,
either arranged or entered into voluntarily, had caused him to “range
himself.”
Hull by no means approved of the course of affairs in Germany which had
led to the Treaty of Versailles. He at once asked himself, “Where were
you in 1918, when the retreat began? and earlier still, when it first
began to be planned? Are not you, Hull, and all your kind, responsible
for it?”... That was what Herr von Wenk’s words had implied.
But Hull found in himself no trace of such individuality as might have
saved the situation, and he dismissed these ideas from his mind. He
drove to see Cara Carozza and told her of Wenk’s visit.
“For God’s sake, don’t get us mixed up with your State Attorney, dear
Eddie,” said she.
“But ... but ... do we cheat? Are we dishonest? Are we profiteers, or
climbers? We merely keep ourselves going. What are you thinking about,
darling?”
“Eddie, a game of cards in full swing--someone holding the bank--closed
doors, and a State official looking on! That might prove a hanging
matter!”
“But I promised him I would bring you!”
“More fool you!” she exclaimed. “You ought to have got out of it
somehow. Elsie is bringing her friend to-day, and we are going to
Schramm’s. Karstens has already telephoned that he will be there.”
“Then Wenk would be coming anyhow, so _that’s_ all right, as it
happens!”
The head-waiter of Schramm’s little restaurant, recently opened in one
of the residential streets and decorated throughout in most eccentric
style by a modern professional, led Karstens and Wenk from the
dinner-table to a box at the rear. Thence a winding stair led to a room
which had no other exit and seemed to have no windows of any kind.
In the middle of the room stood a fairly large table of an oval shape,
but so arranged that every occupant of an arm-chair was sitting in
a hollowed-out niche of his own, with the leaves of the table under
his elbows on both sides. The table was formed of quaint, curiously
veined Kiefersfeld marble. In the middle only was there a perfectly
white oval left. Around the table, behind the players’ chairs, the
floor was raised and the walls furnished with full-length reclining
lounges, upon which rested crushed-strawberry-coloured cushions with
black designs. A large shade of polished glass attached to a brass
electrolier hung low over the table and reflected the electric light
bulbs which gleamed forth from silver brackets. The walls above the
strawberry-coloured cushions were inlaid with the same warm marble as
that on the table.
Wenk was introduced to Cara Carozza.
“I could not keep the secret, Herr von Wenk. I was obliged to tell my
lady friend here. Please don’t be vexed with me!”
Wenk gave a slight bow, in which there was a trace of annoyance.
Baccarat was being played. Karstens turned to Wenk: “The young man
with the fair beard is the only stranger. All the others play here
regularly.”
Wenk glanced at the stranger and met his eyes. He noticed that they
were fastened on him, and he immediately looked beyond and above them,
but he felt that the stranger had noticed they were speaking of him.
Whenever he looked at him again he found that his eyes were fixed on
the table.
The stranger played a quiet, restrained game. He frequently lost. Then
Wenk ceased to pay attention to him and turned to the others, whom
he watched in turns. They all had their eyes fastened on the white
oval, whereon the cards were being dealt. They seldom looked in any
other direction. There were gentlemen in evening dress, ladies in
_décolletée_, expensively and fashionably attired. The passion for
gambling had seized and carried them all away.
“It is none of these,” said Wenk to himself, “so it can only be that
young man with the sandy beard.”
He began to study him afresh, but only to find that the latter returned
his gaze. Wenk then turned his attention to Cara Carozza. He saw her
wholly given over to her game, sitting next to Hull, to whose money
she helped herself when she lost. If she won, however, she added the
winnings to her own heap. In the player on her other side Wenk thought
he recognized a well-known tenor from the State Theatre, whose picture
often appeared in shop-windows.
“Is that Marker?” he asked Karstens, who nodded in reply.
Wenk won a trifling sum. He played only till he had persuaded himself
that there was no work for him here. Then he gave up his place to an
elderly gentleman who had already been sitting behind him for some
time, boring him by remarks upon his method of play. He seated himself
on one of the lounges and watched the play for a short time longer.
Then he took his departure, Karstens accompanying him. Hull remained
with the Carozza girl.
When Wenk had descended a few steps he looked back at the table. It
seemed as if the fair-bearded man with large mouse-grey eyes followed
his departure eagerly, and then directed an urgent and threatening look
towards Carozza, but it might have been only an illusion.
When Wenk reached the foot of the stairs, he unexpectedly found
himself for a moment face to face with a lady who had already laid her
hand on the balustrade to ascend. He looked right into her eyes and
started back in amazement, while he inclined his head, as if doing
homage, before he passed on. He wanted to say to Karstens, “I have
never seen so beautiful a woman!” but that seemed to him like betraying
a secret, and, consumed with desire, he bore her image with him as he
made his way silently through the deserted streets. When at home, he
soon fell asleep, but the two mouse-grey eyes, which were far older
than the carefully arranged sandy beard, seemed to fasten on his breast
as he slept. They appeared to be trying to colour the ace of hearts
with his own life-blood.
When he awoke next morning he was conscious of nothing but an intense
longing to meet once more the lady he had encountered on the stairs.
III
The next night Wenk was invited to a _soirée musicale_ in the
neighbourhood of Schramm’s restaurant. A young pianist was performing
modern phantasies. Wenk was bored, became fidgety and was the prey to
wandering thoughts. It seemed to him as if he were neglecting some
special opportunity elsewhere. He grew so uneasy that he finally
slipped away, merely leaving a card of apology for his hostess.
He reached Schramm’s and was about to pass quickly by. Then it occurred
to him to look up at the first floor of the villa where the new
restaurant and gaming-house was established, and try to see the windows
of the little room in which he had played the previous night. The
ground-floor windows were large, and through their old-gold curtains a
faint light gleamed, but the four windows on the first floor showed no
signs of occupation. Yet he said to himself, “Behind those unlighted
windows there gleams light ... _her_ light,” and he went in, full of
hope that he might encounter the mysterious lady who had so bewitched
him.
The head-waiter approached him at once, took hat and coat, whispering,
“The marble table?” and looking closely at the visitor as he did so.
Wenk gave a nod of assent, and the head-waiter rapidly preceded him to
the back, Wenk following more leisurely. Then he was led up the winding
stair.
The first person he saw at the gaming-table was the sandy-bearded man.
He sat in his niche, his broad shoulders bent forward, with his eyes
fixed in a steady gaze upon a player opposite. His attitude was that of
a beast of prey who has already played his victim and is only waiting
to pounce upon him. He seemed to be all sinews--at least, that was the
impression he made upon Wenk, who started back at his aspect.
There was one empty seat. Wenk took it and drew out his pocket-book.
An idea crossed his mind, that something special had occurred at the
table. He saw all the players cowering over the little heaps of money
in front of them, and yet there was in them all a distinct, even if
unintentional, glance given to one among their number.
The sandy-bearded stranger was holding the bank, and now he looked up.
Wenk noticed how, at first, annoyed at the disturbance, he raised his
eyes towards him, and then it was clearly noticeable that his face
quivered. At the same moment, however, he closed his jaws so firmly
that his beard stood out round them. The rest was a mere impression,
but this Wenk saw clearly. A shudder went through him as if at some
sudden and dangerous encounter. At this moment the “banker” displayed
the cards he held. Someone said, “Basch has lost again!” All turned to
look openly at the pale thin man whom they had been furtively regarding
when Wenk entered.
With a quiet and drowsy movement Basch pushed the notes lying on the
oval in front of him over to the stranger. He grabbed at them like a
bird of prey. The loser sank back in his seat, and in the same slow and
dreamy way he brought out a fresh thousand-mark note and laid it in
front of him.
“How much are you losing now?” said a lady from the divan behind Basch.
“You will have a lucky life. When one loses to _that_ extent! I regard
you as a champion. You must establish a record.... In losing, you know!
Then you will be so lucky in life that I shall want to....” She broke
off in embarrassment. Then Wenk, with a delicious tremor in his veins,
recognized the speaker as the lady whom he had so abruptly encountered
on the stairs on the previous evening.
“Get ready to stake,” said the sandy-bearded man in a harsh voice,
drowning the speaker’s concluding words.
Basch had not answered her. As the banker called out, he merely made a
movement of his hand over his thousand-mark note, a movement as if he
were secretly conjuring it to do his bidding.
He looked at his cards; it was his turn, and no one else was punting.
“Do you take one?” said the banker sharply.
Basch shook his head dreamily. Wenk noticed Cara Carozza’s
auburn-tressed head behind one the spectators, but his glance always
returned to the other woman.
The banker bought a Court card and disclosed his own hand. He had only
a total of four. Basch, too, with a feverish movement, laid his on the
table. His points were but three.
“He plays as if he were drugged!” whispered Wenk’s neighbour. “To hold
three, and yet not take a card! What folly!”
As he raked in his gains the sandy-bearded stranger gave a hasty
glance at Wenk. The latter felt himself pitted against the winner. He
increased his stakes, won, then lost for several rounds, and won again.
Basch continued to lose every time. By degrees Wenk ranged himself more
and more on his side. He staked his money as if it were a weapon for
Basch against the stranger, a weapon with which to strike him down.
Wenk noticed that the latter looked at no one but himself and Basch.
He therefore accepted the challenge, and threw himself eagerly and
wholeheartedly into the struggle, impelled by some mysterious power
that incited him against the banker. He forgot himself altogether,
and no longer played for the purpose of observing and discovering. He
abandoned himself to the game and played like all those whom he had
come to rescue from the gaming-table. He even forgot the lovely lady.
When he first realized this, he was ashamed, and for the first time
during the evening he glanced round the room to see whether Hull were
there.
But it was not Hull who now sat behind Cara Carozza. Wenk’s search was
vain; Hull was not present. Cara sat with a stranger behind a player
with whom she was sharing the stakes. Then Wenk came to himself. He
stopped playing and at once left the hall, sorely vexed with himself.
When he was on the winding stair he turned and saw that the stranger
with the fair sandy beard was also rising from the table.
Wenk had ordered his car to call for him at the house where the musical
party was held, and did not remember this till he had walked some
distance. Then he retraced his steps and drove home. He went to bed at
once, but he could get no sleep, for the thought continually recurred
that he had made a mistake to come away, that he ought to have stayed
and talked to Basch.
He got out of bed again and went through a bundle of depositions in
order to quiet his conscience. In going through these documents,
written by men who were strangers to him, he got the impression that
all of them, losing so much that they could not but ascribe it to
foul play, must have sat at the gaming-table very much as Basch did.
Had he remained and behaved in a sensible fashion, he would have had
an opportunity of seeing for himself at first hand what had hitherto
reached him through the testimony of others.
Then Wenk became thoroughly discouraged. “I must set to work in quite
another way,” he said to himself. “Goodwill and industry are not
sufficient. Self-denial and inexorable self-discipline and a little
more cunning are necessary! I must make use of every ruse that my
opponent displays.... I must make use of disguise and secret spying.
I must be prepared to stake myself on the game ... must be myself the
snare, if I do not want to be caught in it like a silly pigeon....
A State official with a false beard ... a Browning concealed in his
fist ... a jockey-cap, a tall hat, a wig, and so on, like the cinema
stage....”
In the looking-glass he contemplated his clean-shaven face, finding
that when he made grimaces, drew down the corners of his mouth,
stretched his jaws, and tried the effect of a beard made out of paper
shavings, his features lent themselves very well to disguise.
The next day he procured a complete outfit from the Criminal
Investigation Department. With the help of a Secret Service expert,
he tried all the necessary arts, learned to plaster on a beard, to
alter his complexion, make himself look younger or older, change his
appearance by scars, and so on. He could now make up as a country
cousin, a dispatch-bearing cyclist, a taxicab driver, a porter, waiter,
steward, window-cleaner, an “unemployed,” and other characters. In
the morning he made an exhaustive examination of the criminal museum
which the police had collected, studied the photographs he found there,
returned to his various make-ups, and worked with the zeal of a fanatic.
Thus the day passed, and by evening he felt he had become a stronger
man. He was at once more discreet and yet more daring. He would have
liked to make a tour at once of all the gaming-houses in the city.
He went only to Schramm’s, however. He had long been considering
whether he should not appear there in some sort of disguise, more for
the purpose of making a trial of it and learning to feel at home in
it than for actually starting upon his work. He was still more anxious
to go in the hope of meeting the sandy-bearded man again and seeing
him play, for he was desirous of atoning for his shortcomings of the
previous evening, which had left a painful impression upon his mind. He
would have liked to meet Basch again and talk to him about the evils of
gambling, from which he had suffered so much. He went, therefore, just
as he was.
It was already late when he got there. Hull was present, but he saw
neither the fair-bearded stranger nor Basch. He only heard that the
former had left immediately after him, a fact which all had noticed.
After he left, Basch had remained sitting as if utterly prostrate. He
had not played again, and suddenly he vanished. No one knew him well.
He had never been to Schramm’s before.
The lady who sat behind him estimated that his losses must have been
thirty to thirty-five thousand marks. The blond stranger had won it
all, but he did not win until he began to hold the bank. Everything had
been absolutely in order. The attendant who furnished the cards was
thoroughly reliable.
While talking about the previous night’s play they stopped their game.
Then Cara said:
“There are people who are born players, and if they take only one card
in their hands it is sure to be an ace. They can do what they like;
the power is stronger than they are; it is their guiding spirit, their
God.”
But Elsie did not agree with her. She thought that every player once
in his life came upon a series of lucky days. They lay stretched out
before him, handed to him by his good fairy, for every man had a good
fairy. One must not give up expecting to meet with those times of good
fortune, for one day one could gather in the winnings as quickly as
ripe apples in the autumn....
No one knew the man with the sandy beard. Basch had brought him to
Schramm’s, and the first evening they had gone away together. He might
be a dethroned prince, he was so imperious and abrupt in his speech. A
dethroned prince in want of money, no doubt.
“I have a strange feeling,” said Hull, “as if I had already played
against him once....”
“Nonsense!” said Cara.
In his mind the fancy grew stronger. “It is not so much that I have
played with him, but as if he had done me some very serious internal
injury, affecting my very blood; but how, and when, and where, I have
no idea. It must have been in a dream.”
“He has evil eyes,” said a woman’s voice, which Wenk seemed to
recognize. He looked in that direction, but with the bright light on
the table the corner seemed as dark as a cave and he could descry no
one.
Cara answered the voice in the darkness in a tone that seemed to have
anger in it: “Evil eyes! What do you mean by that? Surely at the
gaming-table no one looks like a saint!”
From the corner there came the words, “He seemed to look at Basch like
a beast of prey eyeing his victim!”
“That was exactly the impression he gave me!” exclaimed Wenk.
He at once rose hastily and went to the corner, entered the dark niche
and started back, for the speaker was the beautiful unknown! A glow
suffused Wenk’s features and his heart began to beat violently, as if
its strokes must be heard. Then he pulled himself together, saying, “I
really must be mad! I am searching for a criminal and am about to fall
in love with someone whom I may have to send to prison to-morrow. This
is really idiotic!” He recovered his presence of mind, bowed to the
stranger and said:
“I should be greatly interested, madam, to hear how you reached a
conclusion which so exactly resembles my own?”
“It cannot be anything else,” said the lady, smiling, “than an unusual
evidence of secret sympathy between me and a State official!”
“She knows me, then!” said Wenk to himself in astonishment. “But how
could that come about, except through Cara Carozza? A State official,
guardian and representative of the law, and avenger of any breach of
it, himself violating its rules! It was absolutely fantastic. Yes, it
must have been the Carozza girl.” From the niche he looked into the
brilliantly lighted room, where the dyed tresses of the dancer gleamed
forth between the heads. “So it was you!” he said to himself; “you want
to bring my plans to nought, you good-for-nothing!...”
Then he remembered the glance the blond had given her that first
evening, and he ended, “You are his decoy!” Now he realized the
connection between them. It was the dancer who brought the blond his
victims. He breathed a threat: “Just you wait; I am taking it all in!”
“Our agreement seems to have struck you forcibly,” said the lady,
interrupting his thoughts.
“As a matter of fact, my thoughts were wandering, and I beg your
pardon, madam,” said Wenk; “it is incomprehensible that any strange
influence should be able to intervene in _your_ neighbourhood, but it
can be explained, nevertheless....”
He did not continue. Two ideas suddenly obtruded themselves. This lady
was undoubtedly an excellent observer. If only he could procure her
help! But the other thought stirred his pulses. Why not abandon all
this searching and spying and following after criminals, and strive to
win the love of a woman such as this, beautiful as a queen and stately
as a goddess! Then he felt her touching his arm hastily.
“Don’t speak,” she whispered, “I beg of you!”
At the same moment Wenk saw three gentlemen entering the circle of
light in the room. The first was a young man whom he knew by sight, for
a few days previously he had noticed him at an exhibition of Futurist
paintings, as the buyer of the most unusual and bizarre of these. He
had asked the name of the purchaser, and the attendant had replied,
“Graf Told bought them. There he is,” pointing to the young man, who
had just now entered the room.
“Herr von Wenk,” said the lady in a whisper, “will you do me a great
favour?”
“With pleasure, madam. I am at your command.”
“I am anxious to leave this room within the next few minutes without
being seen. Can you help me to do this?”
“Certainly,” said Wenk.
“How can I accomplish my purpose?”
“That is quite simple. You see the entrance to that staircase; it is
only a few steps to it. You must look at it well, to be able to find it
in the dark. I am certain that I know where the electric light switch
is. It is just over the first section of the stairs. I will go there
and turn it out, and you can make use of the darkness to gain the
staircase. When you have passed me I will stand directly in the way of
anyone who tries to follow you or to reach the switch.”
“Splendid! Thank you very much.”
Her escape was safely made. When Wenk saw the lady had reached the
bottom, he turned the light on again and entered the room with a light
laugh, saying, “Please forgive me; I did it for a joke, and I did not
realize you would be in total darkness.”
They all laughed, but the dancer was standing, pale and disturbed, at
the head of the winding stair, which she had reached at one bound. She
recovered herself quickly and returned to Hull, begging him to drive
her home. Wenk accompanied them.
As they were about to leave the gaming-hall, Wenk saw the head-waiter
hand Hull an envelope. He went to an empty table beneath a lamp, opened
it, and drew out a little note. It seemed as if an invisible thrust
had sent him staggering. Cara went up to him, but he crumpled up the
note, stuffing it into his pocket, and rose and followed the others out.
When they had reached the street they parted, but Hull turned and came
back to Wenk, saying, in a voice trembling with excitement, “I _must_
speak to you. This very night! Can you see me at your rooms in an
hour’s time? It is something horrible; I am being shadowed!”
* * * * *
“Look at this!” said Hull, as he entered Wenk’s rooms an hour later.
With a despairing gesture he flung an envelope on Wenk’s table. The
latter opened it and drew a small card from it. On it there stood:
HERR BALLING,
I O U
20,000 (twenty thousand) marks
payable November 21st, 4 p.m.
EDGAR HULL.
“My I O U,” said Hull in a toneless voice, and after a pause, “Look at
the other side!”
On the reverse side Wenk read: “You are warned. The reason I did not
take your twenty thousand marks is my affair alone. The transaction
lies between you and me. Play is play, and no State Attorney has
anything to do with it.”
Wenk was staggered. “Yes, yes, yes,” he said, and found no other words
to express the storm which raged within him. Then after a while, as he
collected himself, he said:
“We sat near him, you and I! We could have seized him by the arm, one
on each side, you ... and I! Do you understand?”
“I am shadowed!” whispered Hull, who seemed to have no thought of
anything except his immediate danger.
“Do you understand? Do you know who Balling is? Your Balling? your
distinguished old gentleman? It is the man with the fair beard who was
at Schramm’s. He is your Herr Balling! Good heavens!... We could have
put our hands on his shoulder!”
Hull merely gasped. Now he knew why the sandy-bearded man had seemed
familiar to him; his were the large, fierce grey eyes!
“Yes,” he said, “it _is_ the same man!”
“He has disappeared,” exclaimed Wenk; “he no longer comes to Schramm’s.
And as for you, Herr Hull, we shall henceforth have you under our
special care, but you must endeavour to meet our wishes and be
constantly on your guard.”
IV
Hull departed, and Wenk, alone with the impressions which the evening’s
experiences had left on his mind, asked himself, “Why did the fair
unknown try to get away so secretly? Have I made another mistake? Has
my helping her in her flight placed a weapon in the hand which would
strike at me and my work?”
His agitation increased, but he dismissed his doubts of the lady.
No, he felt he could rely upon her. And now the realization of the
connection between Hull and the gambler, and all the other stories
about the latter, set his mind working in a fresh direction, and other
ideas began to develop. He seemed to hear the beating of the wings of
some new and mighty force that was invading his life. Conflicts were
going on in his physical nature, his phantasy, his nervous energy and
endurance. His knowledge of men and his dominion over them were being
put to the test. Thinking fiercely, he smoked cigar after cigar, and
clouds of smoke surrounded him. It was spring-time, storm, sunshine,
and again storm, in his blood. His muscles were engaged in an imaginary
and heroic conflict with mysterious and mighty giants who were seeking
to strangle his fellow-men. He had seized one of them by the false
reddish beard which he had assumed, in semblance of humanity.
From the town, lapped in slumber, it seemed as if the spirit of the age
rushed into his room--an age fraught with dangers, demands, and tension
of all kinds. It demanded men--demanded of all men all their ambition,
self-discipline, intelligence, selflessness ... selflessness. It should
take him! There he was, free alike from arrogance and from indolence!
Might there not be, he asked himself in his ecstatic monologue, a new
democracy which should redeem the past? Was that the goal towards which
the present gloom was leading mankind? Was he rising on the stormy
wave? He would no longer drift along, striving to help his country as a
mere idealist. No, he would stand firm on his feet; struggle, contest,
but not submit! Freed from thoughts of self, he would expend the last
drop of his blood to become what he had learned to be; he would yield
all he had to give, to the very last red drop.
It was not his career that was at stake, but that which all men have in
common, both in conflict with each other and in helping one another.
It was the surge of humanity in which mortals, for good or ill, were
engulfed in a gloom which none could dominate and subdue. In that night
of reflection the lawyer saw the criminal no longer as a being of an
inferior order. He envisaged him as a man whose pulses raced madly
along, his senses stirred by the powers of hell; a man whose lusts and
appetites, demon-fed, should overreach themselves and be brought to
nought, and he, Wenk, should save and deliver him. The fighter should
gain the ascendancy over his adversary.
In imagination Wenk was now struggling with the blond stranger, and in
him he had a powerful opponent. He suspected even more than he already
knew. If he could relieve mankind of him, he would have accomplished
something by which he could advance further.
The song which Wenk’s heart had been singing for the last two hours
suddenly seemed to be familiar to him, and in astonishment he realized
that the state to which he had now come had been foreshadowed in
his boyhood’s days, even before his university career, his military
training, and his entry into law, when as yet no idea of the
justification of humanity had fired his blood. Thinking over his lonely
bachelor existence, without any womanly influence, he felt a strange,
sad yearning for the father who had died long before.
The next day Wenk asked Hull to procure for him a list of all the
secret gambling-dens, the addresses of which might be obtained with
the help of Cara, who was _au courant_ of such matters. He made Hull
promise, however, that he would not speak to the girl of himself in
this connection.
Wenk visited these places evening by evening. He went disguised as a
rich old gentleman from the provinces. He had chosen this disguise,
first of all, because he had an excellent example of it in an elderly
uncle whom he merely had to copy. The old gentleman gave the impression
that he was thoroughly enjoying all his experiences of the great city.
Wenk had some accomplices among Karstens’ acquaintances. He begged
them to make it widely known that he, the “country cousin,” was a man
of fabulous wealth, which when once settled down, he intended to use
to the full. He thought that thus he might entice the gambler from
Schramm’s and others bent on plunder, that his wealth would be the
candle to these night moths. At times he played carelessly for half an
hour, adapting himself to the character of the game; then he would win
considerable sums, only to lose them again next time. With all this he
never lost sight of his own affairs or his neighbours’, and during the
game his brain was working busily with a keenness which brought its own
satisfaction.
One evening during the second week in which he was pursuing this
course, he came to a gaming-house in the centre of the city which, from
the style of its habitués, who appeared more downright than in some of
the other places, seemed to promise him something out of the common.
There he saw an old gentleman sitting at the card-table, his attention
being drawn to him on account of his horn spectacles. These were of
unusual size. The old gentleman was addressed as Professor. When he
took his cards in his hand, he removed his horn spectacles, exchanging
them for eyeglasses of an uncommon shape.
Then Wenk noticed that the spectacles now lying on the table were not
the usual type of modern horn spectacles, but were of tortoiseshell,
very artistically designed. The old gentleman slipped them into a
large shagreen case, dotted over with green points. All his movements
were very leisurely, so that Wenk had ample time for his observations.
“Those are Chinese spectacles,” he thought to himself, recalling
his own journey to China, which he had made before the war. The
recollection surged up so powerfully that he uttered aloud what he had
really only intended to say to himself.
The Professor, who sat opposite him, nodded to him and said in a firm
voice, which he had not expected to hear from so aged a mouth, “They
are from Tsi-nan-fu!”
He repeated the name, stressing it and separating the syllables,
“Tsi-nan-fu.” It was as if the name had a rhythm and recollection
behind it which affected him strongly, and which he enjoyed in the mere
repetition of the syllables. He looked across at Wenk, as if his eyes
in their large glasses were sending him a challenge. Wenk at once felt
some strange connection with the old Professor.
“Tsi-nan-fu,” said the harsh voice again, as if with special meaning;
indeed, as if he wanted to hurl the three syllables at something, some
invisible goal behind Wenk--to reach, three times over, an invisible
point in the obscurity straight above his head beyond the circle of
electric light.
Wenk involuntarily raised his hand to the back of his head and turned
round. Was he seeking the spot towards which the three syllables were
projected, and had they reached their goal? When he looked round he
observed that behind his neighbour at the gaming-table sat the lady
whose mysterious flight from Schramm’s he had assisted. It seemed as
if she were regarding him mockingly, and he did not know what course to
pursue with regard to her, but at that moment he felt that cards were
being dealt to him, and he turned again to the table to take them up.
As he did so he began to feel sleepy, and felt dimly that the staring
eyes of the Professor were somehow responsible for this. He forgot
the beautiful unknown, and strove to banish his lassitude, sitting
bolt upright and gazing at the green shagreen cover of the Chinese
spectacle-case. It seemed as if the eyes of the old Professor, larger
than ever behind his glasses, were fixed vaguely upon him, and some dim
recollection of past days of travel flitted into his mind. One morning
on his journey to China, through the porthole of his cabin he had seen
a narrow strip of coast-line between sky and sea, and knew it for the
delta of the Yang-tse-kiang. Yes, it was the Yang-tse-kiang.
Pursuing this recollection, Wenk named his stake, won it, and left
his money lying. A comfortable sense of drowsiness pervaded him, and
he stretched himself out, enjoying it. Then he became wide awake once
more, played his game, and continued his watch. The players were
holding the bank in turns, and it seemed to Wenk as if he were only
awaiting the moment when the old gentleman should take it over. “Why am
I waiting for that?” he asked himself. “How strange it is that I should
be. There are feelings that one cannot trace to their source.”
He finally decided that he was awaiting that moment because the
Professor with the Chinese spectacles was the most interesting person
present, and that this waiting sprang from a feeling of _rapport_ and
sympathy with him.
As the evening proceeded, this secret bond between him and the unknown
Professor grew stronger still. “It is childish and sentimental,” he
told himself; “what is it going to lead to?”
Then the old gentleman took the bank, and Wenk seemed to be
released--released from a ridiculous and unnatural tension. “Now
things will be all right,” he thought. He staked a small sum, trying
to indicate thereby that he was no opponent of the banker, and that
it was only for form’s sake he played against him.... He won, for he
held eight points, and then he ascertained that he had staked a much
bigger note than he had intended to. Therefore he put his stake and his
winnings together and ventured both. He drew a king and a five. When he
held a five he never bought another card, and this rule was so firmly
established in his mind that when asked to say Yes or No, he did not
even answer.
“You are taking a card?” were the words he heard in his fit of
abstraction. They were uttered by a deep, compelling voice, and seemed
almost threatening in tone. Strangely, too, they seemed to him to
proceed from the spot behind and above him which had been the goal of
the sounds “Tsi-nan-fu.”
Then he whispered hesitatingly, “Please!” and at the same instant he
seemed to dissociate himself inwardly from this decision, but it was
too late. He had drawn a five, and that, added to the cards he held,
totalled more than twenty-one and made his hand worthless.
The banker’s hand showed a queen and a four, and as he had taken no
other card, he had won the round.
“The country cousin is losing!” said a woman’s voice.
The hasty ejaculation astonished Wenk. He turned round again, trying
to penetrate the obscurity; then he grew uneasy, and at the same time
he seemed to feel the beating of wings above his eyes. Yes, they were
wings, and he himself was in a bird-cage. And now a seven was dealt
him. “That’s no good,” something seemed to say to him, although it
was almost certain to win. But Wenk resisted the suggestion, and
said distinctly, “No other card for me!” It seemed as if it were
almost death to him to have to utter these words.... He felt as if
lightning-stabs were compelling him to close his eyes. Then in the
last struggle of his will against his unnatural weariness he saw the
Professor’s hand resting on the cards. It pressed the upper one with
a slight trembling movement, in evident desire of giving it him, and
it seemed as if a secret and burning stream passed from this hand to
him, seeking to _compel_ him to take the card, although he had already
declined it.
Recognizing this, he was suddenly wide awake. It seemed as if the
chains destined to fetter his soul had fallen from before him, and he
now faced the Professor fearlessly, seized with an incomprehensible
and strangely earnest misgiving with regard to him. He was tempted to
spring up and beat the beckoning fingers away from the card.
“You are taking a card?” said the deep, stern voice, as if issuing an
order. It was the voice he had already heard from behind him. Then
Wenk, in an unusually loud tone, said firmly and indignantly, “No, I
have already declined!”
The large eyes behind the glasses remained fixed, gazing at him for the
space of a second, then shrank back like hounds before a more powerful
assailant. The old gentleman leaned slightly forward, asked for brandy
and water, and shortly afterwards requested to be allowed to give up
the bank and leave the game. He felt suddenly indisposed, he said....
They all busied themselves with him, crowding round his seat, but
Wenk remained in his chair. He was struck by the connection between
his little experience and the old gentleman’s attack of faintness.
Were they indeed connected? He felt as if he were responsible for the
Professor’s collapse. It seemed as if he had subconsciously come into
conflict with him, and that this fainting-fit was the result of their
struggle. He was considering how he could help him. Then he felt in his
waistcoat-pocket and brought out his little bottle of smelling-salts.
He took the stopper out and handed it across, saying, “Perhaps these
salts may be of use? I have just ...” but he was surprised to find that
the old gentleman had already departed.
His earlier misgivings returned. He rose quickly and pushed his way
through the crowd. He wanted to follow the man and bring him back.
Someone suddenly stopped him, saying something incomprehensible, as if
he, Wenk, were responsible for the Professor’s condition; but Wenk’s
hand went to the revolver in his breast-pocket. Cara Carozza advanced
towards him; he pushed her hastily aside, dragging the other with him.
Then with his disengaged hand he violently wrenched himself free of his
assailant’s grip, and hurried to the corridor which formed the dimly
lighted side-entrance. He heard footsteps behind him as he entered it,
hastened forward, closed the door behind him after passing through, and
soon gained the side street where the motor-cars were waiting.
By the light of a lantern he saw the old gentleman, bent and bowed no
longer, but with hasty and powerful stride about to enter a car. He saw
his own chauffeur drawing up to the kerb, and called to him in a low
voice, “Follow that car!”
They flew after it. It was a large and powerful car, but as it was
still early in the evening, there was a good deal of traffic, and it
could not travel at its full speed, consequently they were close behind
it. They were soon caught up in a stream of cars and taxicabs coming
from one of the theatres, so that Wenk could follow quietly and without
exciting suspicion right to the Palace Hotel. The Professor’s car
stopped in front of it, and before Wenk’s car came to a standstill he
saw the other enter the vestibule hastily. He gave a fleeting glance
round. Wenk hastened after him, but happened to be caught in the stream
of those entering, who hid him from sight. He saw the Professor rapidly
open and read a telegram at the hotel bureau, and while he was reading
it Wenk had time to select a favourable spot for observing him. Thus
he saw that the old gentleman, raising his eyes from his telegram, gave
a furtive glance round, then went quickly to the lift, opened the door
and disappeared within it; but Wenk had noticed that there was a lift
attendant sitting inside.
He waited till the light signalled where the lift had stopped, and saw
it was on the first floor; then he rang for it to descend.
“First floor!” said he to the boy, and they went up alone.
“Wasn’t it the gentleman in No. 15 who just went up?” he asked.
“No, sir; it was the Dutch Professor in No. 10.”
“Ah, then my eyes must have deceived me,” he said. “Thank you;” and
he proceeded slowly along the corridor. He came to No. 10, lingered a
moment there, then went on and looked backward, hearing a door open. It
might have been No. 10. He waited, stooping down and busying himself
with his shoelace, and when he heard the door shut again, he turned
round. Then he saw that on the mat in front of No. 10 there was a pair
of shoes.
He went back, an unusual idea having occurred to him. He would knock at
the door and ask the old gentleman whether he had recovered from his
indisposition, and then take him unawares, for he felt he had enough to
go upon to arrest him. The idea seemed to him both a bold and promising
one, but when he stood in front of No. 10 again, he saw that the shoes
outside the door were women’s shoes, and he gave up the thought. Then
he went downstairs and asked to see the hotel manager. He showed him
the necessary credentials and asked about the gentleman in No. 10. The
hotel list was brought.
“No. 10, you see, sir, is Professor Grote, from The Hague.”
“According to your book he is staying here alone.”
“That is so, your honour.”
“Is he always alone here, or now and then with a female companion?”
“I do not allow anything of that sort, your honour. We are very strict
about our guests’ respectability.”
“Well, I can only say that this guest, in spite of his size, has
uncommonly small feet.”
“What does your honour mean by that?”
“He wears ladies’ shoes.”
“Ah now, sir, you are joking.”
“Well, come with me, my good fellow, and see for yourself.”
They went upstairs together. In front of No. 10 they saw a pair of
elegant high-heeled shoes of the latest fashion.
Then Wenk cocked his revolver and went in without the formality of
knocking. He entered the room quickly, the hotel manager following him.
The light was on, but the room was empty. Both the windows were closed
and the bathroom adjoining had none. Wenk searched the cupboards, bed,
and drawers, but nowhere was any clue to be found. He hurried down to
the street, but the stranger’s car had disappeared.
He made the manager inquire who had left the hotel within the last ten
minutes. “Nobody but the secretary,” said the commissionaire. At that
moment the secretary came from behind a partition, ready to leave the
hotel. The man looked at him in amazement.
“You here again! You only left a few minutes ago.”
“_I_ did? I was in the bureau till this very minute,” answered the
employé.
Then Wenk knew all he needed to know, and the circumstance was fully
explained. For the purposes of disguise the man who had disappeared
had prepared the outfit of someone well known in the hotel. He had
put a woman’s shoes at his door, for he conjectured, and rightly too,
that the pursuer, before he entered the room, would go back to the
bureau and inquire about the mystery of the feminine footwear, and he
had made good use of the time this took. It was evident to Wenk that
he was dealing with a mastermind. He was astonished at the dexterity
with which he worked. It immediately recalled the doings of the blond
stranger at Schramm’s, and Hull’s Herr Balling.
On his homeward way, and after he reached his chambers, Wenk thought
over all he knew about the bearded blond, and tried to compare it with
the impressions made on him by the Professor. But, strangely enough,
although many details concerning the gambler at Schramm’s were firmly
and indelibly fixed in his mind, his impressions of the Professor were
wavering and indistinct, although he had encountered him but an hour
before.
Moreover, he grew drowsy and it seemed to him as if he had to recover
from some more than ordinary fatigue which he had undergone in the
course of the day. He began to undress, and a lassitude, almost like
that caused by the loss of blood, overcame him. That feeling of an
inward lightness of body which had seemed so comfortable when he
recalled it at the close of their contest, the nervous tension after
the last occurrence, together with the sensation of faintness, now
took possession of him entirely. He yielded to it and fell asleep
before he had quite finished undressing. In his dream it seemed as if
a mysterious and magic castle had been built up all round him, and
he knew that if he could interpret the three syllables “Tsi-nan-fu,”
or locate that hole in the wall whither The Hague professor’s voice
projected them, he would find the key to unlock the door of the
enchanted castle.
V
For the next few evenings Wenk did not visit any gaming-house. As his
own chauffeur, dressed in leather cap and coat, he drove round the
city, bringing his car to a standstill before one or other of its
well-known resorts, and observing, from the security of the driver’s
seat, the people who entered or left it.
On one occasion, when he was driving to the first of these houses and
proceeding slowly along the Dienerstrasse, he was held up by a block
in the traffic. While he was waiting, he saw in a tobacconist’s, just
in front of which his course was arrested, something which caused his
pulses to beat at double time. It was he, the sandy-bearded man! He had
his back turned and was buying cigars, but it was certainly he! He was
making his choice slowly and carefully as if he defied the danger of
being recognized. There was a car in front of the door. Wenk examined
it closely, but it was unfamiliar to him. He copied its number down.
Once the chauffeur left it, in order to do something to the back of the
car. Wenk, who was behind him, called to him; the man looked up, but
put his hands to his mouth as if to signify that he was dumb.
The man in the shop took up his parcel and turned to the door, but the
face he disclosed to Wenk was one he had never seen before. People
pushed between him and Wenk, so that he saw him for a moment only. Just
then the block was released, the string of cars drove on, and the one
in front of him set off at a bound, as if hastening to get away from
pursuit.
Wenk, however, could not shake off his conviction. He followed. As soon
as the other car was free of the rest, it increased its speed, and
bore off to the Maximilianstrasse. Wenk was unable to keep up with it.
The street was empty throughout its length, and when he had reached
the square at the end he saw that the car in front was turning down
Wiedenmeierstrasse. He still followed, the distance between them always
increasing, but in the moonlight he never lost sight of his quarry
throughout the length of the street. When he reached the Max Joseph
Bridge, he saw that the car in front was making use of the wide square
on the other bank of the Isar to make a detour, and suddenly, with its
engines throbbing, it came back across the bridge and drove past him.
It then drove again down the Wiedenmeierstrasse, which it had just
ascended.
This was certainly a suspicious circumstance, and Wenk did all he could
to gain upon the other car, and turned round while still on the bridge.
Again the other turned into the Maximilianstrasse, and as it was now
teeming with traffic, Wenk was able to bring his own vehicle close up.
The strange car came to a halt outside a theatre of varieties. Wenk
sprang from his car, and when the stranger left his and, turning
his back on Wenk, entered the theatre, he felt the same overpowering
conviction that it really was the blond--it could be no other.
In feverish excitement Wenk pushed past the people and got into the
theatre. He saw that he would overtake the stranger in the _foyer_,
so he waited among the rest, certain that the other would have to
pass by him.... But when he did, Wenk saw a broad, clean-shaven man,
with a heavy mouth and large staring eyes. The face was quite unknown
to him, and coolly and indifferently the large eyes glanced at him.
Disappointed and disgusted, Wenk passed by, intending to go out to his
waiting car.
A few late arrivals detained him in the proximity of the cloakroom. It
was exactly eight o’clock, and the signal that the curtain was about
to go up was already being given. At this moment Wenk realized what a
difficulty there would be and what excitement would be created were he
to arrest his man then and there. Unwilling to let his quarry escape
him, he turned once more, and then saw the other disengaging himself
from a group of men who were pushing forward to the pit, making his
way quietly to the left-hand entrance to the boxes. This led to the
five ground-floor boxes, as Wenk knew. He quickly made up his mind and
bought a seat in one of them for himself. It was the last to be had,
and the plan showed him that each box held five persons.
Going back to his car, he crept inside, and there changed into evening
dress. From the box-office he telephoned his chauffeur to come for the
car, and then returned to his box.
It was dark when he entered it, and he tried, but without success, to
distinguish the stranger’s features in the dim light. When the light
went up again he was equally unsuccessful in tracing him anywhere
among the twenty ladies and gentlemen sitting in the lower boxes. It
was altogether incomprehensible. This corridor led to the five boxes
only, and they were five or six feet above the pit. How had his quarry
escaped him?
Now thoroughly uneasy, Wenk hastened to the street to see whether the
stranger’s car was still there. To his relief he found it there.
He breathed more freely, and turned to go to his own car and remain
there until he could pursue the other, but as he noticed the strange
car again, he saw that it had a taximeter. He had looked at the car
well before, and was certain that it had no register. Without further
reflection, Wenk approached the chauffeur, saying, “Are you disengaged?”
“Yes, sir,” said the chauffeur.
Wenk entered the car, giving his own address. During the drive he
intended to consider his next move; then it suddenly occurred to him
that the man, who had been dumb when in the Dienerstrasse, answered
instantly when spoken to here.
The automobile drove on; a sweetish scent pervaded its interior, which
affected Wenk’s mucous membranes.
Something _was_ wrong then! “A little while ago he was dumb, now he can
talk,” reflected Wenk. “Before it was a private car; now it is plying
for hire like a taxicab. What is it that smells so strongly?” His
nostrils and eyelids seemed to be on fire.
In order to decide what the odour was, Wenk drew one or two deep
breaths. Then he tried to open the window, for he found the smell
unbearable. What _did_ it smell of? He raised his arm, but he saw
that it would not rise to its full extent; it did not obey his will.
At the same moment it seemed as if a heavy block were pressing on his
eyes. Then dread seized him in a fiery grasp. No longer capable of
resistance, he began to bellow furiously, flung himself down and kicked
with his foot at the handle of the door, but without being able to find
it.
For some few seconds he lay on the floor of the car, with occasional
gleams of consciousness. Then these were finally extinguished, and
complete insensibility overtook him, while the car continued its mad
race through the streets.
The chauffeur drove with the unconscious form of the drugged State
Attorney throughout the darkness to Schleissheim. There he propped him
up on a bench, and then drove back to Munich. In the Xenienstrasse he
halted before a residence standing alone. Upon a brass plate might be
read:
DR. MABUSE,
_Neurologist._
A man of massive build, covered by a fur coat, came rapidly out of the
house and through the little front garden to the car. “He is lying in
the Schleissheim Park,” said the chauffeur. “Here is the notebook you
wanted.”
“Did you remove the gas-flask from the car?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Drive on!”
But at this moment a woman, closely muffled up, came out of the
darkness and stepped towards the car. She held on to the door,
murmuring beseechingly, “Dearest!”
Mabuse turned in annoyance. “What do you want? Are you begging?”
The woman answered him gently and sadly. “Yes, begging--for love!”
“You know my answer.”
“But remember the past. Why should this be?” implored the voice.
Mabuse, in wrath, exclaimed, “The past is past. Your part is to obey.
My orders are clear, and there is nothing between Yes and No. You have
heard from George what my wishes are. Drive on, George!”
He was already in the car. The woman fell back to the garden railings,
covered herself up again, and called after the retreating car, “But if
I cannot stop loving you?”
Then a second car pulled up close beside her. A man sprang out and
advanced towards her, saying threateningly, “What do you want here? Oh,
oh! it’s you, Cara! Well, have you spoken to the Doctor?”
She nodded despairingly.
“There’s nothing to be done. His will is like a sledge-hammer,
therefore don’t oppose it. So long! I must go after him.”
And Cara Carozza gathered her disguising garments about her and went
away in grief, downcast and heavy-hearted, to sacrifice herself for him.
* * * * *
“Where are we?” inquired Mabuse through the speaking-tube.
“Past Landsberg!” answered George.
The plans in Mabuse’s head succeeded one another as rapidly as the
trees in a forest in which he wandered continually further. Ever more
steps to climb, more gulfs to cross! Were they really plans after all?
Were they not dreams? he asked himself, suddenly checking the thoughts
that were racing through his mind.
“Five million Swiss francs are now worth about twenty-five million
lire, i.e. five million Italian five-lire pieces. Each of these weighs
twenty grams. Five million, will that be enough? It’s a good idea, for
the gain on every five-lire piece which I buy at to-day’s rate with
Swiss francs is four francs; therefore the total gain will be four
million Swiss francs. Against that the costs are thirty per cent. Good!
Each one, I said, weighs twenty grams. Now, how many kilograms are
there in five million times twenty grams? A hundred million grams? Why
cannot I think out these simple calculations clearly? Am I afraid of
anything?”
Yes, there again he found himself in another forest. “Am I afraid,
really afraid? If I am, I shall come to grief. After all, who is Hull?
Who is Wenk? What absurdity! _I_ ... afraid?”
He collected his ideas, and sent these thoughts packing.
“A hundred million grams make a hundred thousand kilograms. According
to the district he is in, a smuggler can carry from ten to fifteen
kilos every time. How many men am I employing in this work alone?
The whole amount must be brought from Italy to the Southern Tyrol
and thence to Switzerland within a month. The Austrian frontiers are
easier, even if I have to employ twice the number. Spoerri reckoned the
risk to be only three per cent., according to the police reports, as
against ten per cent. by Lake Constance or the Ticino frontier, where
the Customs officials, even in peace-time, used to regard everybody
with suspicion.”
Mabuse’s imagination threatened to run away with him again. Should he
not try to sleep?
“Where are we?” he called through the speaking-tube.
“At Buchloe!” was the reply.
The distance from Buchloe to Röthenbach was eighteen kilometres.
“That will take two hours,” he reflected; “then we shall do it
comfortably. At 2 p.m. we must be at Schachen, and before that we meet
Spoerri at Opfenbach and Pesch on the Lindau Hill. After that we shall
be practically in Schachen, and there will be no chance of sleep.”
But he could not regain control of himself. Wenk’s attempt at pursuit
oppressed him. In the Palace Hotel he had only had ten minutes’ start
of him.
He did not want to acknowledge it, even to himself. He began to
reckon that to smuggle five million five-lire pieces from Italy and
the Southern Tyrol through Vorarlberg to Switzerland would require two
hundred and fifty people on each frontier. That was five hundred men
for the smuggling alone. If he reckoned the buyers and the Bolzano
collectors as well, it was really seven hundred. With their families
he might consider that he was keeping, roughly, about four thousand
people. That was a small township. A little town lay in his grasp,
pledged to evil purposes, working in dark nights, stealing along
mysterious byways, avoiding the revolvers of Customs officials, working
stealthily, steadily, at his will. They had no thought either, but of
him, the owner of the money, the employer and dictator, the possessor
of all power and force. They ventured their lives for him, but he had
never seen one of them. How would it be if he were to see and converse
with them, appearing abruptly before them when they were in the midst
of their enterprise? They would imagine themselves to be caught, until
they should have realized that it was he, their master and employer,
who stood amongst them.
Four thousand people; it was a whole district. But in Citopomar it
would be something very different when he traversed the virgin forests
and had the Botocudos and all the other tribes directly under his
thumb, and had left this insignificant beggarly little continent behind
him! There his word alone would be law. There, in Citopomar, the dream
of his boyhood would be fulfilled--a dream which had already begun to
be realized on that large and desolate island which lay cradled in
the ocean yonder. There he had owned men; there wild Nature was his
alone; as a conqueror he had sailed the waters; his blood and sinews
governed men; his will was imposed on Nature; the palms of his planting
yielded him a luxuriant growth of wealth--sheer gold. He could despise
it because he did not need it, for there he was free, free as a king, a
deity!...
But the war had driven him out of his Paradise and sent him back to
the despised continent of Europe. He could not endure life in these
European countries. He felt as if he were confined in a pasture, eating
grass like dumb, senseless cattle ate their predestined, accustomed
grass. No, he could not live thus! Therefore by undermining State
organization he was preparing a State for himself, with laws which he
alone made, with powers vested in himself over the souls and bodies of
men. By means of his accomplices he was collecting the money wherewith
to establish his empire in the primeval forests of Brazil, the Empire
of Citopomar.
He was self-sufficing. What were men to him? He scattered them at will.
Yonder, however, in the future, in Citopomar, there would be none who
_could_ oppose him.
By degrees, as these thoughts ran away with him, Mabuse fell asleep,
his limbs reclining on the cushions and his phantasies soaring above
all material things. For two long hours he slept, sunk in the darkness
of his dreams.
Then it seemed as if a little hammer were striking his skull, always on
the same spot. It was annoying, and it was unheard of. He had only two
hours between Buchloe and Röthenbach in which to sleep. Who had dared
to strike his head with this hammer?
All at once he was wide awake. The hammer was the whistle of the
speaking-tube.
“Well?” called out Mabuse.
“There is a car behind us.”
“What are its marks?”
“There is a grey patch on the right lamp.”
“What is the time?”
“Half-past one.”
“And where are we?”
“Two kilometres from Röthenbach.”
“Pull up! It is Spoerri.”
The car stopped, and immediately its lights went out, and so did those
of the car which followed. Then it drove close up and stopped. There
was a cough heard.
“Come here!” said Mabuse.
Someone came out of the darkness. Mabuse had drawn the revolver from
his coat-pocket. The car-driver turned on a small electric lamp, and
its gleam disclosed a man wrapped in a large cloak.
“Spoerri?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
The pistol was returned to its place.
“Spoerri, wait here a quarter of an hour, or else drive to Schachen by
another route. You must arrive shortly after me, between half-past one
and two o’clock. I have decided on some great changes that I want to
tell you of before we go to Switzerland. Anything else?”
“Everything is in order. I have another hundred kilos of cerium in the
car.”
“Good. Between half-past one and two o’clock!”
They drove on. As their road approached the Austrian frontier, which
was patrolled by officials, their lights were extinguished for a while,
but in Schlachters they shone out again, and the village was soon left
behind them.
Half-way to Lindau, where forest and hill meet, they stopped again.
“Anybody there?”
“No, Doctor.”
“Not Pesch?”
“I don’t see anybody.”
Mabuse quitted the car impatiently.
“I will punish him for this. I _will_ have my people punctual!”
He waited on, and the minutes crept by. Mabuse slapped his thigh
angrily. To keep him waiting! That a smuggler should dare to do such a
thing! He was consumed with impatience, and felt as if his dignity were
impeached. That a smuggler should keep him, the master, waiting!
Five minutes later a car, with faint lights, issued from the junction
road and stopped on the highway.
“Pesch!” exclaimed Mabuse.
A man turned from the open car.
“Yes, Doctor, here I am. It is Pesch.”
“It is 1.45 a.m., and you were due at 1.35.”
“Oh, a matter of ten minutes doesn’t count. _I’ve_ had to wait often
enough!” answered the voice in the darkness in a defiant tone.
“If I had a horsewhip here I’d cudgel you soundly. Ten minutes mean
fifteen kilometres advance upon a pursuer, you fool! You are earning
two thousand marks from me to-night.”
The other answered boldly, “And with my help _you_ are earning twenty
thousand!”
“Five hundred thousand more likely, you blockhead,” said Mabuse; “but
that’s nothing to do with you. The only question here is who is master
and who servant.”
“You are not my master,” said the other.
“I am not? ... you say so, do you?” he thundered. “Very well, you can
get along home. I don’t want you any more--never any more!”
He turned to his car and got in; then said hastily in a threatening
tone, “If you feel inclined to send any anonymous information to the
authorities, you’ll remember that there is a fir-tree growing in the
wood, and there’s room for you to hang there like your colleague Haim.
Drive on, George!”
The car started off again.
In the neighbourhood of Schachen, where stately houses with upper
stories made cars appear less striking, they found a park gate open,
and without any difficulty George found his way along the dark drive
leading to the villa. The lights were extinguished.
While Mabuse and George were still standing on the doorstep Spoerri
arrived.
When Mabuse opened the door and turned on the light, he saw that
Spoerri was dressed as a monk.
“It is a mere accident,” said Spoerri. “I had to go to Switzerland in a
hurry, and down there in the Rhine valley a cowl is more useful than
even a genuine frontier pass. The last pass I had is in St. Gallen, and
you know that I had to leave there hastily. But I had left the list
of securities with Schaffer, and he brought them to me at Altstetten
to-day. It is not safe to send such things by post nowadays.”
When he said this they were sitting in a large, well-furnished
dining-room. George served the supper, brought ready prepared from
Munich, and warmed up on the electric stove. Still eating, Mabuse said:
“We will liquidate on the lake itself, and thus we shall gain five
points more than on land, according to the lists. I have bought five
million Italian five-lire pieces. They are coming to the Southern
Tyrol, and must be taken to Switzerland by way of the Vorarlberg. You
must look after that, Spoerri. The Italian agent is Dalbelli, in Meran.
You must go there to-morrow. I give you a month to do it in, and then
we shall start a fresh district. Switzerland is now strongly against
the importation of silver, and so there is less competition. We shall
get enough of the five-lire pieces in Italy, and I have tried to do it
with French silver too, but since the Treaty of Versailles there are so
many fresh business combines in France, and they give nobody anything
because the majority of them have not been in trade before. Have you
not noticed that?”
Spoerri nodded, making some inward calculation.
“Stop your calculations till I have done talking,” said Mabuse sharply,
and Spoerri looked up in confusion.
Mabuse continued: “My confidential agent in the Government has informed
me that meat-control will be abolished in Bavaria next month, but the
matter will be kept dark. The difference in the prices prevailing in
Bavaria and in Würtemberg is an enormous one, and for the first few
weeks of decontrol it will still be very considerable. It would be a
good thing to begin buying up now, however, and you can say that I am
prepared to lay out ten million marks. Buy as much as you can get hold
of; haste is wisdom in this respect. Inquire of Meggers in Stuttgart
about the sales, and see that we have enough people for the transport.
Everything must be completed within three days of giving the orders.
We shall want from a thousand to twelve hundred head of cattle, and
look out for beasts of good quality. No sheep or pigs--the risk is too
great. Reckon it up for yourself before you do anything further. We get
thirty per cent. on our purchase, and therefore we can allow ten per
cent. on expenses. You must reckon more correctly than you did about
the salvarsan.”
“That time I hadn’t calculated....”
“Exactly, you hadn’t calculated correctly. Pesch is withdrawing; let
him be closely watched by the Removal Committee, for he is impulsive,
and if he plays the slightest trick he can be strung up beside Haim. By
the way, they haven’t found _him_ yet.... How much did you pay for the
cerium?”
“It was dearer than....”
“Everything always is dearer than ... the Poles or the Bolsheviks can
get it. How much?”
“Fifty marks.”
“Fifty Swiss francs then. They must have it, so don’t yield a stiver!”
He whistled into the speaking-tube under the table.
“George there?” he called out. “Everything in order?... Good. The
_Rhine_ is waiting, Spoerri. George, you are to be pilot; don’t forget
the securities. That’s all for the present”; and turning again to
Spoerri, “You’ll be in no danger in going to Zürich, Spoerri, will you?”
“I am all right as soon as I’ve passed the Customs, and then I go on as
a priest.”
“If you travel by the _Rhine_, you’ll avoid the Customs; you can take
charge of the securities and put them in the bank, to the account
of Salbaz de Marte, mining engineer. Here is the list: a million in
German Luxemburg stock, two million German Colonial Loan, five hundred
thousand-mark notes. These are to be changed at once into milreis; that
gives a better exchange than either dollars or Swiss francs. Inform
Dr. Ebenhügel that fresh securities have been deposited, and that I
want him to make use of the first favourable opportunity and sell
for milreis.... There is one rather difficult matter to settle: the
disposal of the people who have been working for me in Constance. If
they are unemployed....”
“Many don’t want to work any longer, in any case,” said Spoerri.
“I know. Those are the folks who have all they want; there’s nothing
to fear from _them_. With my help they have got their own houses and
are free of debt. But sometimes I have been obliged to take any workers
I could get, and those who don’t own their houses should be carefully
watched. The powder magazine is at Constance, for the young fellows
live there, and if we suddenly withdraw these high wages from them,
there is nothing for them to do but steal, and in a week’s time they’ll
find themselves in prison and will be blabbing everything in their
rage. Talk to George about this, and see what is to be done. He’s going
there to-morrow. The safest thing would be to pack them off into the
Foreign Legion. Go and see Magnard as soon as you have finished up in
Zürich and Meran. Don’t forget to claim the commission for them. Give
it to George, who can divide it among those concerned.... Authorize
Böhm to sell the three motor-boats that we have on the lake besides the
_Rhine_. _That_ always bears the ensign of the Royal Würtemberg Yacht
Club and therefore is unnoticed. Keep the _Rhine_ in this neighbourhood
for any emergency. The boat can do sixty kilometres if it is well
handled. Let us go.”
George was waiting outside. The three men felt their way through the
darkness to the landing-stage, where they could hear the boat’s engines
throbbing.
“You have followed out my orders and there’s nothing on board?” said
Mabuse.
“Nothing but the cerium.”
“Take it out then. I am not a dealer in scrap-iron!”
George hastened forward. Three men were busy in the gloom. Then Mabuse
and Spoerri went on board and the boat started, going cautiously
through the night. The engine scarcely throbbed. There was a slight
vibration in the cabin where Mabuse sat, wrapped in his fur coat; then
he went to the deck aft, and impatiently forward to the engine. After
they had travelled for a while, he listened intently. It seemed to him
as if through the sounds made by his own boat a noise reached his ears.
“Stop!” he cried suddenly.
George stopped the engine, and the sounds outside ceased. They started
again, and immediately the sounds on the water, now on the right and
again on the left, were heard once more. Mabuse went on the fore-deck,
where the noise of the engine was not so distinct. From there he could
hear them quite distinctly.
“We are pursued, or at any rate under surveillance,” he thought. “Can
it be that lawyer-detective Wenk?” Calmly, yet defiantly, he got his
pistols ready. In the darkness he tried to discern what flag the
_Rhine_ was carrying, but it was impossible to find out.
“Spoerri,” he called out softly, and Spoerri came out of the cabin.
“What are we travelling as? Don’t you hear that we are being followed?”
“No, no,” said Spoerri, “we are a Swiss patrol-boat to-night. I heard
that the Germans were about, so I ordered the three other boats to act
as convoy. One is travelling behind us, the others on each side. Nobody
could reach us; we are already in Swiss waters.”
“How much a year do you earn in my service, that makes you take such
care of me?” said Mabuse spitefully.
“Quite enough,” answered Spoerri; “but that is not why I do it.”
“Why then? Are you enamoured of my person, or is it merely the
Christian charity that it suits you Swiss folk to assume since the war?”
“Yes,” said Spoerri simply.
“I have three and a half millions here in my dispatch-case. If you
dared to, you would strangle me, but you don’t dare, and that is all
there is about it. That is your pure humanity and love. During the last
year you have had somewhere about eighty-five thousand, six hundred and
seventy-seven marks or more from me.... Is that enough to stifle the
desire to murder a man?”
“Yes,” said Spoerri once more.
“Then you are a slave--my slave. Do you hear me? You are my slave.”
“I hear you.”
“Shall I slap your face? No; I won’t touch your slave-skin with my own.
I just spit in the air.”
“Into the sea. You won’t pick a quarrel with anybody. There is no point
of honour on the Lake of Constance.”
“Point of honour is an expression that doesn’t exist. A point is
no larger than a squashed fly, and that’s the extent of a man’s
honour--yours too, eh? You have some honour, even if the Lake of
Constance has not?”
“I have never measured it.”
“Speak sense when you talk to me. I won’t stand your tomfoolery.”
“We are getting close to the shore.”
“Are you shirking, fellow?”
“No.”
“You dog!” said Mabuse in a stifled voice, in growing wrath. “I feel
hatred tingling in my finger-tips. I shall grasp you by the throat, you
cur, you cowardly cur, and I shall annihilate you just as the electric
current in the American death-chair does, you miserable wretch!”
At this moment the engine stopped. For some time the sounds of the
boats behind them had ceased.
“Why have we stopped?” asked Mabuse angrily. “I gave no orders.”
“There is no signal from the shore.”
Then Mabuse came to himself again. He stood up, gnashing his teeth, and
asked:
“What is the matter?”
“We must wait. We can always rely on Solly. There is something wrong.”
“Let us wait! Have you weapons ready?”
“Yes, but if we don’t get the signal, we’d better get into the skiff.
Then we can row back to the other boats.”
Behind Romanshorn a searchlight began to play, throwing a beam of light
into the sky. It moved lower and peered about through the darkness,
probing closely and lingering in places, then was directed towards the
waters in the middle of the lake. It rose in the sky once more and then
fell pitilessly on the very spot where Mabuse’s boat was lying. His
knees trembled under the tension.
Suddenly, however, the shaft of light was fixed on a house standing
out prominently in Romanshorn, just where the new church stood on a
hill, and those in the boat perceived that the other craft must be far
beyond on the other side of the point, and did not signify any danger.
Their boat remained in darkness. In the railway-station on the shore
lamps hung here and there at some distance from each other, and their
reflections gleamed fitfully on the black waters. Then Mabuse said
sternly:
“No, we’ll stay here! Tell George to get the pneumatic gun fastened to
the engine.”
Spoerri sprang to do his bidding.
Under the cushions there was a poison-gas installation. Mabuse opened
the nozzle. The wind was from the south-west and therefore favourable
to his purpose. He prepared masks for himself and his companions and
tried their fastenings.
Then he saw on shore a light which shone out brightly and was at once
extinguished, then came again and flickered and was still. The engine
started again, and the boat was soon in the channel, gliding under the
trees, where it finally came to a standstill. The engine was silent,
and a man ashore threw out a cable. Then Mabuse heard someone say, “Dr.
Ebenhügel.”
“Yes,” he ordered, “let him come on board.”
A dim form stepped across the gangway.
“It is I, Ebenhügel, Doctor. I have just come from Zürich. It is on
account of my car that Solly did not give the signal punctually.
The Customs authorities are on the watch every night with their
cars now. Did you get my wire? There is something wrong, for the
clerk has sent a warning. He could not tell us what was up, but from
some reply to one of his superiors he gathered that it came to the
Consulate headquarters in Zürich from the Munich Criminal Investigation
Department.”
“So,” said Mabuse, closing his jaws firmly, “my lord Wenk is on the
track, is he? Just you wait a while, my fine official!” Then, turning
to Ebenhügel, he continued, “I am constantly in danger, but I’ve never
come to grief yet.”
“I meant to say that this danger can only be averted in Munich. If
anything goes wrong, they must not be able to put the responsibility on
us here in Zürich.”
Mabuse answered roughly, “What do you mean by that?”
“This affair is of great importance for several people.”
“For whom then?”
“For myself, for example!”
Mabuse waved his hand with a threatening gesture of dismissal, while
the other stood breathless.
“_I_ have not been drinking,” said Mabuse. “How came you to alter my
plans for such a trifle?”
“I thought it was necessary to warn you. The post is being watched, and
people are not reliable.”
“Who is to convince me that _you_ are reliable? You are one of the
people too.”
“Our common interests should convince you, Doctor. I merely meant to
tell you that it is from Munich that the danger threatens. You would be
safe in Switzerland. You have accumulated wealth which allows you to
live wherever you like. Stay here; you will be safe among us.”
“A lot _you_ know about that! Your business is to look after my
investments, nothing else. You are but my manager. Enough on that head.
Is there anything else to tell me?”
The lawyer described his latest financial operations to Mabuse, who
took down the descriptions furnished him. Then he walked backwards and
forwards alone on the foreshore for five minutes, to ease himself after
his long sitting.
“Is Spoerri still there?” he asked. “Spoerri, you need not go to
Zürich. Ebenhügel will take the portfolio with him. We will go back to
Schachen together.”
Upon the return journey Mabuse could not remain still in one place.
He was constantly backwards and forwards on the small deck. The three
convoys were again throbbing in their neighbourhood, their sounds
drowned in the ghostly darkness. Suddenly Mabuse called through the
speaking-tube to George, demanding brandy. Spoerri heard the order and
shrank in terror.
In the half-hour which the passage took, Mabuse drank the bottle empty.
He was drunk when they landed, and he staggered through the darkness
towards the house in front of them, having issued orders that they were
not to follow for five minutes.
“We want more drink,” said he, when they were in the dining-room.
“George, bring drinks!”
George shuddered, for he knew that the more the doctor drank, the more
violent and unreasonable he became. Spoerri himself was always obliged
to drink till he lost his senses. They drank champagne and brandy mixed
in equal parts.
“This is liquid gold,” stuttered Mabuse thickly. “Here, George, bring
bigger glasses! Let’s have the goblets. Spoerri, take a draught. You
fool of a courier, drink; drink it down, you dog. Down with it into
your currish throat! Now then, another! Drink till you can’t hold any
more in that carcass of yours. I love to see you drink till you’re
sick!”
Spoerri drank until everything swam round him and he lapsed into
unconsciousness.
“And you, my lord Wenk! A State Attorney in Munich! Your notebook!
_Your_ orders to the Criminal Investigation Department, forsooth! Just
wait a moment, my fine gentleman! We’ll begin with Herr Hull, for he
was the first.... (Drink, Spoerri, can’t you, you miserable country
bumpkin, drink; drink as I do!) Let me see--Hull, yes, Edgar Hull, 34,
Hubertusstrasse. Away with him, his turn first. George will look after
it, and you can help him. The Carozza girl can contrive it. Find your
accomplices. Write it down, it is the order of the ... Prince. (Drink
it down, now!) Of the Prince, have you written that? Which prince, do
you say? The Prince, the Emperor of Citopomar, in Southern Brazil. A
word from his mouth and a thousand women lie bathed in their blood,
five hundred men are reduced to impotence. One single word and a whole
edifice totters! Don’t simper, you fool, or I’ll dash your brains out
with this goblet!”
He flung the vessel down, shattering it in pieces, and with the
fragments he threatened Spoerri.
“I ... I am writing it,” stammered Spoerri.
“A thousand women and five hundred men,” shouted Mabuse.
“Doctor,” said Spoerri hesitatingly, struggling with the intoxication
overcoming his senses, “I did not hear; I do not know this Hull. What
am _I_ to do with him? 34, Hubertusstrasse.... Do you really mean _me_,
Doctor?”
Then Mabuse all at once stood upright, intoxicated as he was. “Yes,
you!” he thundered, and then gave Spoerri a heavy blow with his fist,
full on his forehead, knocking him senseless to the floor. “I am going
to bed, George,” he shouted, overcome with rage. He left Spoerri lying
where he was, and went out.
When he came into the dining-room again next morning, Spoerri was
sitting there. Mabuse had breakfasted in bed.
“Show me your notes!” he ordered in a harsh voice. He ran through
them quickly, found Hull’s address traced in drunken characters, and
returned the book to Spoerri. “That’s all right,” said he, and Spoerri
fawned upon him like a cur watching to avoid a kick.
That attitude of his did Mabuse good; it soothed and reconciled him,
and he became talkative. Spoerri was quietly delighted to find the
master friendly towards him, to know that the dread will of this
imperious man inclined him to be amiable, as if recognizing his
devotion.
“Spoerri,” said the Doctor, “I shall go to Constance with you. We
mustn’t let those young men do anything stupid!”
Spoerri brightened up. “Oh, when they once see you, Doctor, there’ll be
no trouble at all.”
The two men remained all day long at the villa. Mabuse drank, but
no longer compelled Spoerri to do so. By midday he was already
intoxicated. Spoerri, tired out by the carousal of the previous
night, watched over Mabuse devotedly. He tried many simple devices to
persuade him to stop drinking, but Mabuse soon saw through them, and
ordered full bottles to be brought and no tricks to be played. Alcohol
was a necessity to him; it inflamed his wild and evil spirit, and in
the phantasies of intoxication he found all his great ideas. There
was no thwarting of his will from without, and when drunk he felt
himself enclosed as in a castle of the _Arabian Nights_. Nobody could
understand that to him alcohol was the bringer of magic, the stream
which intensified life and gave him creative power. He bathed in it
as he might do in the love of some fair woman, yielding himself to it
wholly, bridging chasms, attempting new feats, working unrestrainedly
and overcoming all obstacles.... He became a law unto himself, a world
of which he was the sun.
“Spoerri, how do you like Europe?” he stuttered.
“Oh, very much, Doctor,” answered Spoerri unreflectingly.
Then Mabuse broke out vehemently, “You shall _not_ go to Citopomar, to
my Empire! Europe is a filthy, lousy country, fit for none but grubs
and earthworms. It is the home of parasites, of all creepy, crawly
creatures, but when I am in Citopomar--CITOPOMAR ... Spoerri, I shan’t
take you with me. I am going to sleep now, and will see you later.”
He staggered out, and lying in his bedroom on his bed, fully dressed,
he felt for a few moments as if he were himself the universe, beyond
and above all bounds and limits, the power of his will surging over him
as a stream of molten lava, bearing him with it towards the day when,
in his distant kingdom, his power would be supreme over man and beast,
and all Nature be subjugated to his impulses.
In the evening, when the twilight was descending, they drove to
Constance. Mabuse was sober, silent and morose. His imagination was
already busy and his nerves reacting to his stern resolves, as he
thought of the crowds of young men in the town, which seemed but a
mere speck on his horizon--men who had been working for him since the
Armistice. From this very town he himself had made a new start when
the war had driven him from his own vast plantations in the Solomon
Isles back into the European vortex, and he could find nothing better
to do than work for medical examinations and exchange his career in the
Pacific for that of a doctor in a town of Southern Germany.
VI
Wenk was awakened by a feeling of chilliness, which set him shivering.
He pulled his cloak round him, under the impression that the coverlet
had slipped off his bed, but he soon became aware of his error. He
sat up, feeling giddy and at first unable to recall anything. He came
slowly to himself and then he perceived where he was and saw the castle
buildings gleaming through the darkness.
He rose hastily and moved away, but he was still dazed, and had to jump
about to get any warmth into his body. What could the time be? He felt
for his watch, but it was not there, and then he went hastily through
his pockets. His purse was missing; so, too, were his pocket-book and
his official notebook. He had fallen into the hands of thieves. The
strange thing was how it could have happened that he had escaped with
his life?
Then sudden dread seized upon him. He held his head in his hands,
setting his jaws firmly, striving to subdue his feeling of despair.
His notebook was missing, and in this were to be found addresses,
reports, information, data, plans of all kinds.... The very first thing
he recalled about it was the opening page, on which the Hull affair
was fully set forth.... Wenk now hurried straight forward. If only he
could recover his notebook! He rushed on till he was out of breath,
then stopped and asked himself, “What shall I do? Go to the nearest
railway-station? But what is the time? It may be one o’clock, it may
be five. How am I to tell? And when would the first train start? It
might mean waiting in front of a closed railway-station for four, even
five hours!” Then he reflected that if he were to wake anybody in the
castle he would have to submit to questioning. No; that would do no
good. Should he make a fuss about it? It was clear that the chauffeur
had acted in obedience to the blond stranger’s orders. Had the latter
really penetrated his disguise and laid his plans so cautiously and
cleverly beforehand, or was it the usual thing that anyone who appeared
in any way suspicious should at once be put to the test in this way?
Could it be merely theft, and the book have been taken from him by
accident? He realized that when he seated himself on the cushions he
must have set the gas-current free, for there was no gas in the car
when he got in. That had been arranged, then. No, it wasn’t that way
either. It was something both simpler and safer. The driver could open
the gas valve from his seat. Of course that was the way of it.
Thinking thus, Wenk reached the highroad, only half-conscious of his
resolve to proceed to Munich on foot. He went as fast as he could, but
every now and then he had to stop and wait till a feeling of giddiness
had passed. That must be the effect of the gas. What sort of gas could
it be that operated so rapidly and yet did so little harm? His foes
might just as easily have used a deadly gas, then they would have got
rid of him altogether. Why did they use a stupefying gas merely? Was it
meant for a warning to him?
Now, at any rate, his notebook was in their hands, and perhaps they
wanted nothing more of him than that. It was but an attack on his
little notebook. Whose names were to be found there? Karstens’, for one
... and an account of all the occurrences in the gaming-houses with
the sandy-bearded man and the old Professor, and in the Palace Hotel
likewise. All the places where gambling was carried on were noted there
too. It was clearly only his notebook that they wanted, and that they
had succeeded in getting, but the book he had lost had meant a good
deal to him.
He went faster and faster by the sleeping houses, past the peaceful
suburbs and into the quiet approaches of the town. The byways, in
which traces of snow still lay, seemed like dragons creeping through
the night, bent on spying in the ghostly light on those who went by,
and Wenk shuddered at the thought. But when a tram-car drew near he
felt more at ease. He soon recognized where he was and hastened to his
own chambers. He was thoroughly exhausted when he reached home, threw
himself fully dressed upon his bed and became unconscious once more,
not awakening until the evening.
The first idea which occurred to him then was that henceforth his life
was at stake. He accepted it calmly, for since he was combating evil,
it was natural that it should be so. The conflict would be played out
on the borderland between existence and annihilation, and for one
moment he wondered whether it were worth while to go on. But only for
a moment. He immediately told himself that there could be no question
of hesitation here. Such men are like beasts escaped from a menagerie,
and it was his task, his duty, the justification for his existence, to
help to make them powerless for evil. There must be no fear of men, no
fear of the body any more than he had had of the soul, since his mind
had once succeeded in grasping the crisis through which his country was
passing. Since he too had been a witness of its genesis, he must help
to overcome its effects.
Yet one more thought. Was he a match for his opponent? Must he not
fortify himself if he were henceforward to pit his life and strength in
such a struggle? His adversary seemed to have the advantage of him, for
he worked in the dark. Were his own hands strong enough to seize and
hold the evil powers advancing upon him and to crush them? Had he the
strength to fight the age, for his opponent was more than a cheat, a
criminal--he was the whole spirit of the age, a spirit torn through the
catastrophe of the war from the hellish depths where it was created, to
fall upon the world and the homes of men. He realized that against such
an opponent he must spread his nets more widely if he hoped to ensnare
him. He must have an organization equal to the criminal’s own. He must
not, as hitherto, consider it sufficient to rely on his confederates,
those who were entirely of one mind with himself. He must seek his
helpers in the enemy’s camp.
At once he thought of the lady whose strange and questionable escape he
had assisted. He drove quickly to Schramm’s. Yes, there she was, but,
as usual, a spectator merely. He sat down beside her.
“You are not playing, sir?” said she.
“No, your example has made watching more interesting than playing to
me.”
“Watching,” laughed the lady lightly, “when carried on by a high legal
official is not good ... for the players!”
Wenk had a slight suspicion that this was said with a double meaning,
but whether mockingly or warningly he could not decide; in any case, it
was said to serve the purpose of some other, who possibly was sitting
there at play. Perhaps they worked secretly in partnership.
He observed her closely, but she sat quietly idle. Her bright eyes
roved in all directions. He said to her, feeling his way:
“You have yourself seen a high legal official caught in the toils of
the gaming-devil. His jurisdiction is troublesome to the other player!”
He said “the _other_,” and waited to see whether she would start, or
twitch nervously, or give the player some sign or other. But she did
none of these things, merely remained still and accepted his words with
a friendly smile.
“She is a beautiful woman,” he thought, “and there is some secret
reserve strength in her. Men play for money, but it would be more
worthy of their manhood to play for such a woman as this.”
After a few moments she leaned towards him, saying lightly and with a
playful impressiveness:
“I was present when Basch lost so heavily!”
“I know you were,” said Wenk, astonished and inquiringly.
“And you were playing then, too.”
“Yes, I was playing. I have just confessed it!”
“Ah, but I mean you were really playing _then_! The first evening, when
you came with Hull, you took part in the game, but you were not really
playing. And the evening when the old Professor was there--well, I
don’t quite know, there was some sort of atmospheric disturbance ...
wasn’t there now?” she said, turning to him with a melting and wholly
feminine gesture of friendliness.
Wenk was taken aback. He replied:
“That evening when the old Professor was there? What old Professor?”
“The evening you came as a country cousin,” she answered roguishly.
At last Wenk comprehended that she had recognized him, and his face
showed his disappointment, but she begged him not to mind her having
found him out.
“You were well disguised,” she said, “but I could not believe that
here in Munich there would be two such quaint little monkeys on a
cherry-tree, conjured so cleverly by a Chinese jewel-cutter out of an
amethyst. When I first saw the ring, flanked on each side by stupid
diamonds on stupid fingers, I noticed it with pleasure.”
Wenk looked at her, awaiting something more. Who could she be?
“At any rate, it struck me as curious that there could be two men,
even in such circles as ours”--here she glanced round the table--“who
had some amount of taste....”
“Your sarcasm,” said Wenk, entering into her vein, “does not require
either Yes or No, for the fact that you noticed my ring and so
correctly guessed its origin proves that you belong to a very different
circle from the one you find yourself in here.”
“Oh, I was a stewardess on a steamer bound for Asiatic ports, but the
war has taken both our ships and our calling from us!”
“May I then hazard the suggestion that you have withdrawn from your
former calling at some advantage to yourself?”
“Oh, I am not stupid!” she smiled back.
“There is nothing which it is more unnecessary to assure me of,
Countess.”
There was a momentary flutter in the beautiful woman’s eye, and an
imperceptible something within her seemed to come to a standstill. Had
he known who she was and wanted to play with her a little, and would he
now blazon abroad the fact that she frequented such places secretly?
Wenk laughed aloud.
“Or can it be that the coroneted handkerchief comes from the trunk of
some countess travelling to Asiatic ports, as Sherlock Holmes would
argue? No, dear lady, we are quits. We shall both comport ourselves
more circumspectly in future when we are among our fellow-mortals. I
shall put a stupid diamond on my finger, and you will use a monogram
without a coronet on your handkerchiefs, Countess....”
“Hush!” she said, in agitation.
“But even such precautions would serve no turn!”
“I do not understand you.”
“You force me to pay you compliments. I am seeking vainly for a
suitable way of expressing myself so that I may convey to you my
conviction that the ‘countess’ in you cannot anyhow be suppressed.”
“He will be asking me to sup with him directly,” she said to herself.
“He evidently wants to start a romance,” and the idea amused her. From
sheer exuberance of energy she had come hither, seeking nothing in her
masquerade but relief from boredom, and lo! she had landed a prize like
this!
“At any rate, I need not have taken a circuitous route to Schramm’s!”
she said laughingly.
At the gaming-table nothing sensational was going on. She decided to
feint with him, and said sarcastically:
“You try to disguise your compliments as well as you do yourself, Herr
von Wenk. I am obliged to accept them, since they take me unawares.”
“I merely mean,” persisted Wenk, “that the removal of the coronet from
your monogram cannot remove the stamp of nobility from your brow.”
“I hope you are still masquerading!”
“As an enraptured reader of sentimental romances, you mean? In
any case, dear lady.... But is this quite the place to carry on a
conversation which aims at a more serious turn?”
She answered, looking him up and down haughtily and deliberately:
“Does that mean that you are inviting me to sup with you?”
“I would certainly not venture to do that,” said Wenk hastily,
recognizing her meaning. He saw that she suspected him of desiring to
establish an intrigue, and that he would begin it in the ordinary way
of a champagne supper. “Now,” said he to himself, “if I am to win her
over, I must act in such a way as not to deceive her and yet not fulfil
her expectations, and since she thinks she has guessed me aright, I
must not allow her a feeling of superiority over me. I do not want her
to think me a blockhead. The coronet on the handkerchief seems genuine
enough, and she does not come here for money, for she never plays.
Therefore someone present, or an adventure of some sort, must account
for her being here, and if I am to win her to my side I must prove
myself stronger than the unknown attraction here,” he argued.
“What have you to offer me?” she asked in a frivolous tone; but Wenk
seemed to find something real behind the thoughtless manner, and he
answered intuitively, fearing defeat as soon as the words had left his
lips:
“I can offer you a great adventure, a really great adventure!”
“With you?” she rejoined, equally without pausing for reflection. “As a
lover or as an agent of the State?”
“With me--as a detective!”
“_Can_ you?” she asked disdainfully.
“Shall I give you proofs? Last night I was decoyed into a car and
left in the freezing cold lying on a bench in the Schleissheim Park,
stupefied by gas. To-day, but twenty-four hours later, I am aware that
the man who did this, or ordered it to be done, is the same whom you
saw playing recently as the old Professor, and that this same learned
old fellow is also the sandy-bearded man to whom you saw Basch lose his
money here.”
“Is that true?” she asked in a serious tone.
“Absolutely.”
“The man ... with the reddish beard ... who ... sat ... there?”
“The man who sat opposite Basch like a beast of prey!”
“And what am I ... what have I to do with it?”
“To help me find this man, from whom others must be rescued.”
“I can’t help admiring him!”
“I do not minimize his powers, but there are powers which are evil in
their influence.”
“And yet more really human and greater than those that are called
good!” she cried; and her bosom, slender and youthful as a girl’s,
swelled as she confronted Wenk.
“Ah, now I understand you, dear lady. Listen. Not more really human
or greater, for power is power. One display of it cannot be measured
by another; it is only its essence we can judge. Everything is human,
the good as well as the bad. Evil forces only reap their advantage
through the destruction of good ones, and this advantage is for the
destroyer alone. The forces of good benefit all without yielding their
possessor that gross material gain which he who practises evil strives
to attain. Which is the nobler? That is what you must ask yourself,
and if there is an exuberance of energy in your temperament which you
cannot make use of in the class of society to which you belong, and yet
do not desire to keep inactive.... However, these people are beginning
to notice our talk. I expect the blond has his spies everywhere. Allow
me to take leave of you and request an opportunity of continuing this
conversation.”
“Come and see me to-morrow; come at tea-time please. Ask for Countess
Told, at Tutzing.”
She gave him her hand. Wenk, to whom her name supplied the clue to that
mysterious flight when Count Told had entered the room, kissed her
slender fingers, yielding himself momentarily to her charm and beauty,
and toying with the foolish notion of abandoning his chase of criminals
and yielding to the pursuit of this woman. With these thoughts in his
mind, he said farewell.
Left to herself, the Countess reflected: “We women have no imagination.
I was looking for an adventure among these gamblers absorbed in their
play, and when it presented itself I imagined it was but an intrigue.
But _this_ is a man, indeed! He devotes his life to his task, and no
man can give more than his life, and there is nothing greater or more
beautiful than life. If only I had the chance of doing likewise!” She
resolved to follow Wenk’s leading and do all that she could to help him.
* * * * *
Among his letters next morning Wenk noticed a small registered parcel.
He opened it, to find his watch and his purse with the money intact.
The notebook alone was missing, and on a card these words were typed:
“I am no ghoul. The things my subordinate took from you in error are
returned herewith. I am keeping the notebook because its contents
concern me.--BALLING.”
Wenk was scarcely surprised. This man had thousands at stake; what were
a few beggarly hundreds and a gold watch to him? He did not need this
to convince him that it was really himself, and more particularly his
notebook, that was concerned. He put away both watch and purse and let
his thoughts linger on the alluring Countess.
In the afternoon he was received at her house, a mansion sumptuously
arranged, but in a style that offended Wenk, for since yesterday his
ideas of the Countess had made considerable advance, and it would have
been pleasant to find himself more in sympathy with her tastes than
this home of hers evidenced.
In the very entrance-hall the walls had been painted all over in Cubist
forms and conventional designs tortured into weird shapes in endless
succession, with splashes of colour here and there, as if to create an
impression of the ardent temperament of the designer. “You are cold and
passionless,” said he to himself; “of so calculating and cold a nature
that if one among you disappears, the others have not enough red blood
in their veins to notice his absence?”
The butler, the dark severity of whose livery was lightened by small
silver buttons and blue lappets, took his hat and coat from him and
announced him to the Countess, who was sitting at the tea-table.
“We shall not be alone long,” she said; “my husband will be home at
five o’clock.”
But the decorations of the house had made Wenk feel unsympathetic, and
before he answered he cast a hasty glance at the walls of the room. The
Countess noticed it.
“That is all my husband’s doing,” she said. “To me it appears simply
hideous. What are you to make out of it, if one paints a peasant,
indicates some freshly painted barns, and then tells the beholder that
it is a symphony of Beethoven’s? However, every one to his taste--or
are you perhaps a ‘Futurist’ also?”
“I cannot say that,” said Wenk, “but you seem to imply that they are
the only moderns. Yet all men in secret speak the same language. Our
freedom to express ourselves comes only from individuality!”
“You want to be free?” said the lady. “Are you not your own salvation?
Does not your calling, your expenditure of energy, give you your inner
freedom? There is no salvation from without!”
“That is quite true,” said Wenk simply; and the womanly image which had
haunted him since yesterday, and which seemed to be lost on entering
this house, once more returned to his mind. “It is really what we were
talking of yesterday, this balance of the forces of good and evil, and
I wanted to talk to you about that again to-day.”
“I understood you aright,” answered the Countess. “I will confess to
you that at first I thought you were on the search for an intrigue, and
the idea amused me considerably, for God knows I seek something very
different in the gaming-houses.”
“You will find what you are seeking in my work, Countess,” rejoined
Wenk quickly.
Suddenly the butler, in his black livery, with its blue lappets
and silver buttons, appeared noiselessly, and bent down whispering
something to his mistress.
“My husband!” said the Countess to Wenk, fixing a steady and lingering
glance on him, and as the Count came forward she introduced the two men.
Count Told was an extremely thin man, and gave an impression of
excessive sprightliness. He was surprisingly young and very fashionably
dressed. He gesticulated a good deal, and the movement of his hands
gave prominence to a ring he wore, set with an unusual gem, such as
Wenk had never before seen.
It might have been a flame topaz, with streaks of blood-red across
it, trailing off into milky whiteness at the edges and emphasizing
the clear honey colour of the transparent stone. In the middle of it,
just where its lightning rays were most dazzling, was a tiny pearl,
an islet, hardly larger than a freckle, but of a blue that put the
sapphire into the shade, and....
Thus Wenk was thinking to himself, unable to keep his eyes from the
jewel.
“It is a trifle too big for my hand,” said the Count, answering his
visitor’s unspoken thoughts, “but the stone is so ... how shall I
describe its originality? Well, I can only say that it is like a
recital by Endivian, whom you doubtless know, and it was he who gave
it to me. He brought it back from Penderappimur.”
“Is he the fashionable jeweller nowadays?” asked Wenk, who seemed
somewhat at sea.
“Herr von Wenk,” said the Countess gravely, “Endivian is the
fashionable young Goethe of this season.” Then she laughed. “No!
Endivian the poet received the jewel at the Court of Artimerxes II,
instead of the goblet, from the poem of his spiritual father ...
you know it, ‘Give me no golden chain’ ... and when he returned, he
announced in Germany, much as the Pope announces the Golden Rose, that
his greatest admirer should have it. The choice fell upon my husband.
It would have been better if he had given it me.”
“Why don’t you enthuse about him as I do?” asked the Count, with a
pleasant smile, looking at her very tenderly as he spoke.
“Peter Resch dedicated his rubbish to him, and that was enough for me,”
was the Countess’s laughing retort.
“Pooh, Peter Resch, indeed!” said the Count. “He is one of the
Impressionists who has arrived. By the way, dearest, I have got
something new.”
“From the Jennifer gallery?”
“Can one get a real picture anywhere else? There is nothing left....
And one has a clear and incontestable and direct impression. If the
artistic temperament would only renounce colour ... it would be the
beginning of really abstract thought, of the detachment from everything
which needs the help of another consciousness to interpret its vision.”
The Countess replied, with apparent earnestness: “Thank Heaven, we do
get a little further. If in the realm of music, too, genius had any
prospect of renouncing the crash of sound when it desires to express
itself, the world would soon be attaining its aim.”
The Count went on enthusiastically: “A sublime atmosphere of space ...
in two blues ... which project into the cosmogony and play upon each
other between storm and lightning....
“Whereupon the Almighty leaves His seat, dear Herr von Wenk, saying,
‘My creation has surpassed Me; I take My leave!’”
The conversation continued in this tone for awhile, and an hour later
Wenk took his leave. He felt depressed as he drove home, but he had
hardly sat down to dinner when a note was brought him, and he read:
DEAR HERR VON WENK,
I am sorry that our meeting to-day fell out differently from the one
we had planned. That is not why I am writing to you, however, for
we can continue our conversation in another place and at another
time. But you may have left our house under the impression that my
husband was “nothing but a fool,” and in his wife’s eyes too, and
that would have been my fault, so I want to entreat you not to allow
yourself to take up a depreciatory attitude. It is true that the
Count buys Futurist pictures, but that must be understood more or
less symbolically. I have always found that the more “foolish” a man
appeared at one’s first encounter with him, the more approachable he
became when one met him in his more serious moments.
Au revoir ... but when, and where?
Yours sincerely,
LUCY TOLD.
“So Lucy is her name? And indeed she is rightly called Light. If she
were _my_ light of life!... Oh, what a fool I am,” said he, as he felt
an unaccustomed warmth steal over him--a warmth for which he always
yearned.... Then he stood up, shaking off these delicious tremors, and
saying sternly to himself, “This is a pretty way to reach a criminal
... through falling in love with a beautiful woman.”
The telephone rang: “Hull speaking!”
Hull told him that a new gaming-house had been opened, and he really
must visit it. The saloon was not only arranged to accommodate a large
number of people, at least a hundred, but it had certain mechanical
contrivances which could turn it into a music-hall if the police were
to appear. He did not know how it was done, but Cara had written to him
about it and she was always _au courant_ of any new sensation of this
kind. They were going there, and taking Karstens with them, but Hull
did not know the address of this place, and they would trust to Cara’s
guidance. Of course, she knew nothing about his writing to Wenk.
A rendezvous was arranged, and at ten o’clock Wenk drove to the Café
Bastin, whence they were to set out.
VII
The house they entered lay on the border of the inner city, in one of
the mean, sordid streets leading to Schwabing. Its outward appearance,
like its neighbours’, showed an unimposing façade. It was one of those
shops having lodgings above, and the sliding shutters over the shop
were drawn to the ground. It was too dark to read the name, but Wenk
noticed the number, that of his birth-year--’76.
They entered a dirty stairway in which hung a dusty globe, which gave
an indifferent light to the changing population who inhabited such
houses as these, and then ascended two flights of stairs. A heavy door
opened before them, and in a corridor at the side a light shone out
over the miserable staircase. The corridor ran alongside the staircase;
it was completely empty: a cheap and shabby black and white drugget
ran throughout its length, and its walls were covered with faded
paper-hangings.
“This is lively,” said Cara, “but just wait a moment!”
Then a small door opened from the corridor and a light streamed forth
into the gloomy darkness. They looked upon a swelter of luxury.
There was a little _foyer_ with cushions and curtains, cloakroom
accommodation, little restaurant tables, etc. There was the odour of
prepared foods and the popping of champagne corks. People they did not
know were sitting there. The visitors laid aside hats and coats and
went through into the restaurant.
Yes, there things looked different. On entry, the place recalled the
promenade of a well-known Théâtre de Variétés in Paris. Through little
peep-holes or from the boxes one could see a smooth surface gleaming
with light. This was the gaming-table, and it was of immense size. In
the middle there was a circular opening in which was placed a large
revolving chair. It was the seat for the croupier. Around the table the
places for the players were arranged like boxes. Every box--there were
some single ones, some for two and some for four persons--lay shut off
from the rest and in darkness, and all were furnished with comfortable
seats. People could be entirely separated from each other by a curtain,
and a grating, like those of the Parisian theatres, could be drawn at
will. The players might gamble there as securely as if masked, and,
without being recognized or even seen, could indulge their passion for
the tables.
Two miniature rails led from each seat to the croupier, and upon these
stood a little truck. This was to carry the stakes down and later bring
the winnings back. The sum was made known by sliding numbers displayed
on a board. The pressure of a button sent each vehicle to its destined
spot.
On the dome above the table, in the circle formed by the boxes, were
the _petits chevaux_ in varied colours. The little brass horses had
been carved by a Cubist, and painted in their various colours with
highly glazed enamel. They were set in motion by a crank turned by
the croupier. In the middle, beneath the horses, there hung a little
searchlight which, lighted from below, reflected light upon the dome,
and in this light they ran with the dome as a background. This was
painted in the colours of the spectrum arranged alternately, so that
there was always a dark horse against a light colour and a light one
against a dark colour, followed by their shadows. This gave the effect
of promiscuity which was intensified the faster they ran. The goal was
formed by a thin strip of tiny electric lights let into the dome, and
every box had an arrangement of mirrors by which its occupants could
clearly recognize the winner.
Wenk and his companions took their places in a box for four, which
seemed to have been reserved for them. Cara and Karstens sat in front,
the two other men behind.
When the boxes were all filled, the croupier gathered his elegant
evening dress about him, and slowly began to revolve in his seat, as if
on a mechanical rotating disk, while he delivered the following oration:
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the ‘Go-ahead’ Institute. The ‘Go-ahead’
has in itself the roots of vigour and success. We live in times of
change, and our undertaking is designed to suit all comers. Here you
can play alone, or as a pair, or in company. You can play alone,
because you can have a box for one person only, like the charming
lady of whom I can see no more than the red heron’s feathers in her
coiffure. If you think that for good luck two heads are better than
one, you can seclude yourself from your fellows like yonder elegant
cavalier and his lady; and if you choose to play in company you are
equally invisible from my point of view. In the dome, ladies and
gentlemen, you will find our game, the game of the house, I may venture
to call it, although every other game is equally at your service. There
you see the _petits chevaux_ of the ‘Go-ahead’ Institute. One of the
first artists of our day, whose work you are constantly encountering in
exhibitions and periodicals, has designed them for the ‘Go-ahead,’ and
placed them here, and we have united art with technique, the strongest
product of the age. The reflecting apparatus allows everyone from any
place whatsoever to see at once and quite distinctly whether his horse
is in at the finish. Allow me to demonstrate to you, by a mere turn of
the handle, the very artistic and effective play and counterplay which
is developing in the dome. There was once a man who had no shadow, but
that cannot be said of our _petits chevaux_. Notice, I beseech you, the
extremely artistic effect produced when substance and shadow thus unite
in a piece of work which in its resourcefulness and originality does
the greatest credit to the artist of our house....”
He turned the crank, and horses and shadows chased each other with
kaleidoscopic effect. It formed a pretty and a fanciful picture. Slowly
the horses came to a standstill.
“I had staked on that one,” exclaimed a woman’s voice as the
cream-coloured bay stopped beneath the goal, and in its head the eyes
gleamed forth like stars. They were formed of small electric lamps.
The croupier said: “I will not detain you much longer from trying your
luck, dear madam. I have only now to introduce to you the epoch-making
novelty of the ‘Go-ahead’ Institute. What would you do, ladies and
gentlemen” (here he raised his voice), “if the police were suddenly to
intrude upon you and rob you of your money and your freedom on account
of your forbidden game? You need have no anxiety on that score. We have
hit upon an arrangement which might be called a _garde-police_. The
‘Go-ahead’ Institute may await the police quite calmly. They may be
surrounded and inundated by the police. With a pressure of my little
finger I can turn the whole police force of the city away from you and
let them go ahead elsewhere. Look here!”
He raised his hand, then lowered it with affected impressiveness,
pressing his forefinger down upon the black knob near him. A moment
later the surface of the table was set in motion, and it began to sink.
It moved rapidly and noiselessly, and the speaker sank down with it.
The boxes remained stationary, but from the dome the little horses and
the coloured circles descended--came past the boxes; the dome followed,
and a few minutes later a quartette of nude twelve-year-old children
were to be seen dancing, upon a new stage, to the strains of fiddles
and harps, which began to resound from some invisible quarter. A body
of men, dressed in the uniform of the city police, trooped into the
boxes, exclaiming, “We were told they were gambling here! Where are the
gamblers?”
Everybody in the boxes roared with laughter. The girls continued
dancing, and the uniformed police threw off their disguise and appeared
in evening dress, laughing. The floor began to move again, the girls
still dancing, one of them making a gesture to a gentleman sitting
alone, who sprang towards her, but failed to reach his vanishing
charmer. The floor once more became the ceiling, the _petits chevaux_
reappeared, and in the centre of the gaming-table sat the croupier once
again.
“You see, ladies and gentlemen, we do give the police something for
their pains--the nude girls! And if the case were really serious, they
would soon have a scrap of clothing on. I have to announce that there
is a change of programme every week....” He continued for some time
further in this way.
“This is only an ordinary cinema,” said Wenk, turning to Karstens, and
whispering, “the most ordinary kind of cinema. If the police were to
come, they would discover the whole trick in ten minutes.”
Karstens merely shrugged his shoulders.
Wenk wondered what the aim of such an establishment could be, for it
was bound to be discovered and closed within a week’s time, and the
outlay must have been considerable.
Hull was much struck, having nothing with which to compare what he saw
and heard there.
“Ravishing! enchanting!” said Cara from time to time. “We live in
ingenious times, don’t we? We must come here often, mustn’t we, Eddie?
Which are you going to stake on? I am choosing the black Arab. Black
for me, please Eddie, because you are so fair!”
Karstens cast an amused glance at Wenk. A supper of the most varied and
recherché dainties was provided. Things which seemed to have vanished
in the depreciation of the German currency were seen--_pâté de foie
gras_, fresh truffles, caviare, fieldfares.... In front of a pile of
truffles and _foie gras_, inhaling its pleasant odour, Karstens said
suddenly:
“Our mark to-day stands at seven in Switzerland, but it is seven
centimes, and here things which we have forgotten we ever ordered are
provided for us.”
“Here a mark is worth less than seven centimes,” said Wenk, downcast
and depressed. Whither was it all tending? His heart yearned for help
in his enterprise, and he had no appetite for dainties.
Cara trilled a popular ditty, and Hull, in spite of the influence which
she exercised over him, and his enjoyment of unwonted dainties, began
secretly to be somewhat ashamed. He resolved to send her a parting
present on the morrow, and it should be the parure of Australian opals
she so ardently desired, which a Russian princess, anxious to get on
the stage by Cara’s help, was willing to sell. “This should end it
all,” said Hull to himself. He was disenchanted, and yet at the same
time melancholy. What would become of her? For himself, he almost
thought he would prefer the cloister to....
Just then he savoured a delicious mouthful of truffle, and as he
smacked his lips over it, Hull thought, “Well, there’s something to be
said for this sort of thing, after all. I should not get any more aspic
... and I’ve not broken with her yet, anyhow!...”
Suddenly Wenk got up to go.
“Where are you off to?” cried Cara, excited in a moment.
Karstens turned to her at this instant, separating her from Wenk,
who left the hall undisturbed. He took his overcoat quickly from the
vestibule and was conducted downstairs. The concierge opened the door
for him, looking first through the peep-hole into the street. Then he
exclaimed in great excitement: “Sir, there is a policeman standing
there!” He opened the door, however, and Wenk went out. The policeman
saluted. Wenk saw the uniformed official smiling, and looking back,
found the concierge smiling too. The “policeman” belonged to the
“Go-ahead” Institute. If a real policeman were to enter the street, as
the concierge hastily informed the departing guest, he would see that
there was already someone on guard and move off.
Wenk soon reached the spot where he had ordered his chauffeur to
wait. He was resolved to have this place closed, but he did not want
the affair to get into the papers, and on his drive homeward he
was considering how best to formulate the charge. If possible the
place should not be described, but the cause should be given as that
of disturbance of the peace, misleading of the public, swindling
performances, or something of that kind. He worked the matter out
fully, engaged in his conflict with the “Go-ahead” Institute, and while
still in his car, in his character of prosecuting counsel, he conducted
an indictment which through his skill and stratagem should eliminate
this plague-spot from public life without folks perceiving what it
actually was.
Before he slept, his thoughts, without any apparent connection to
guide them, reverted to Hull, who stood suddenly revealed to him as
typical of the young men of the age. Bound by a liaison with a vulgar,
good-for-nothing girl, whose only talent was to exhibit herself on
the stage; elegantly dressed, without being elegant; spending his
restless evenings between gaming-houses, night-clubs, and the arms of
a courtesan--this was Hull’s life. Yet if he had taken the right turn
he might have put his intelligence and all his available energies into
administering an estate or pursuing a well-ordered peaceful life as an
official of some kind; he might have been the head of a happy household
and the father of legitimate children.
Many such men there were, strong in body and mind, living merely on
their nerves, dedicating to a life of the senses powers which would
have made them successful in the walk of life for which they were
destined. Hull and his kind, feeble and enervated, represented the
spirit of the age. What would the dawn of such a midnight yield?
Wenk went to the telephone and gave the address of the new
gaming-house. The official whose duty it was to watch over Herr Hull
was to get in touch with him at once, but do no more than keep him in
sight when he left the house.
* * * * *
In the middle of a deep sleep the telephone at Wenk’s bedside began
ringing. It was just two hours since he had returned home, and he was
wide awake at once. “Wenk speaking!” said he, and he felt certain in
some subconscious region of his mind, which was in tune with his last
waking thoughts, that the news awaiting him on the telephone was in
some dread, mysterious fashion concerned with Hull.
“Wenk speaking!” he called again, and his whole body was trembling with
excitement.
“Here, sir; the police sergeant on duty.”
“Be quick!” said Wenk, his imagination running riot. What was there to
report?
The voice at the other end spoke hastily: “The gentleman named Edgar
Hull, who was under police protection ... has been murdered this night.
In the open street, too, about 2 a.m. Another gentleman, name of
Karstens, has been seriously wounded. The constable who was detailed
to watch over him is also wounded, and both have been taken to the
hospital. A lady who was with these gentlemen was arrested at the order
of the wounded man. I have ordered the body to be left lying exactly as
it was found until you have seen it yourself. The Service car is on its
way to your honour. Please ring off!”
“Ring off!” echoed Wenk’s voice agitatedly.
He hastened to dress, for the car was already to be heard throbbing
outside. He went down the dark staircase, forgetting to turn a light
on. Then, when he perceived the car in the street, his profile revealed
the jaws drawn firmly together, in the necessity of meeting calmly the
tragic circumstances in which he was involved, and entering into every
detail of this deed of blood perpetrated in the darkness of the night,
so that he might be enabled to act to the best advantage.
During the drive, something within him compelled him to take himself
to task. “I had no business to tremble,” he thought, “when this news
reached me. I must be prepared to face even my own death unflinchingly.
I must school myself further. I must develop all my tastes and
interests and use them in the service of my life’s goal; then only
shall I be equal to my task....”
Hull’s body lay in the darkness. Four men in sombre clothing were
silhouetted around him, and they stepped back as their chief descended
from the car. Wenk ordered them--they were constables--to watch the
entrances to the street and allow no one to approach the scene of the
murder, which was in a gloomy street-turning behind the Wittelsbach
Palace. Not a soul was to be seen in any of the houses.
One of the constables said that none of the public had been near the
place since the occurrence.
It was now three o’clock in the morning. By the light of an electric
torch Wenk gazed upon the corpse. There was a gaping wound from the
neck down the back, and the body lay with its face to the earth. Thus
the police had found Hull when their colleague, blinded with pepper
and bleeding from a wound, whistled for help. The body lay motionless,
curled up like the gnarled root of a tree. The blood which had flowed
from its wounds shone like black marble under the searching light. Wenk
was convulsed with horror at the mental images he sought to overcome.
He tried to photograph the details of the scene upon his memory,
getting the exact position of the corpse. He wrote down the number of
the house, tried to ascertain whether all the doors and windows in the
neighbourhood were closed, whether any footprints could be seen, or any
objects connected with the crime found in the immediate vicinity, but
nothing was to be discovered. Its perpetrators had escaped into the
palace grounds, one of the policemen had told him, and at one bound
they had disappeared. Wenk examined the walls; there, too, there was
nothing to be learnt.
He sent a constable to fetch a car to remove the body, and ordered that
nobody was to come into the street on any account. Those who tried to
force their way in should be arrested, but people were to be treated
with politeness, he said. He then drove to the hospital where the
wounded men were lying.
He found Karstens unconscious, and the doctor informed him that he had
had a severe wound in the back from a narrow and apparently four-edged
dagger, and a blow from some blunt object had probably been aimed at
his head. The constable had not been so severely handled, and his were
mainly flesh-wounds. His shoulder and upper arm were bandaged, but he
could scarcely open his eyes even yet.
He related his story thus:
“Just before 2 a.m. the deceased, with a lady and another gentleman,
came out of the house which had been pointed out to me. In front of it
a constable was standing, and that seemed odd, for I thought to myself,
‘Why is he standing there instead of being on his beat?’ He stood there
for at least an hour; then I thought I would speak to him, but he said
roughly, ‘What do _you_ want? Go away,’ and came threateningly towards
me. I was just going to show him my number-plate when the door opened,
and although it was dark I could recognize Herr von Hull. The constable
pushed me away, and as I did not want to be noticed I moved aside, but
I saw that Herr von Hull had a lady and gentleman with him. They went
off quickly in the direction of the Ludwigstrasse, and the policeman
and I were about three houses away in the other direction. Then he
turned to the house again, saying to me, ‘Now you had better be off!’ I
didn’t bother any more about him, but followed, at some distance, the
lady and the two gentlemen. They turned out of the Türkenstrasse into
the Gabelsbergerstrasse and disappeared from my sight. I hurried after
them, but could not see them anywhere. They could not have got any
further than the Jägerstrasse. Suddenly I heard cries; they were shrill
and then stifled. The war had taught me that that was how men in fear
of death cry out. Before I could even see anybody I whistled for help,
and ran to the street as hard as I could, drawing my revolver.
“I hadn’t gone far when I was suddenly seized from behind. My eyes
smarted terribly, and I felt a thrust in my shoulder. I wanted to pull
the trigger, but my revolver was no longer in my hand and my arm hung
quite limp. Then I thought, ‘I had better do as our major used to
advise us--fall down and lie as if I were dead.’ So I fell down and
someone sat on me, and shoved something at me, holding my mouth. There
may have been two of them; I can’t tell, for I closed my eyes. They
must have rushed at me from a doorway, and I was half insensible by
that time. What happened after that I do not distinctly remember, but I
heard footsteps running, and I was lifted up. It was another constable,
and I quickly told him what had happened and he ran on into the street.
Then a second one came running up. ‘Police!’ I shouted to him. ‘Yes,’
he called back; ‘what is the matter?’ ‘Run round the corner, quick!’ I
told him.
“I forced myself to rise, and then found I was not so badly wounded
after all, though I couldn’t open my eyes. They had thrown pepper at
them. I groped my way round the corner, but I could not see anything.
It was the noise that guided me to the spot. I heard someone speaking,
and a woman’s voice answering. ‘What is the matter?’ I said, and a
voice answered, ‘He said we were to take the female into custody.’
‘Who are you?’ I asked the woman, and she answered, ‘I am an actress,
the friend of Herr Hull. What do you want with me?’ I said, ‘If the
gentleman said so, arrest her!’ She protested, and said she wanted to
speak to Dr. Wenk, the State agent, at once, but the constable said she
could do that later. Then she tried to run away, and there was a good
deal of confusion and bother, and finally the constable had to handcuff
her, she was so defiant, and I heard her call out ‘George.’ So I told
them to arrest her, and I don’t know what happened after that, for I
fainted, and when I came to again I was in the ambulance. I am badly
wounded. Will your honour please tell me the truth: am I going to die?”
Then the doctor laughed in his face.
“No, please, I want his honour to tell me. It’s the doctor’s job to
tell people they are not going to die.”
“But, my good Voss, how can you imagine you are going to die? You have
some flesh-wounds and some nasty bumps, but a man like you doesn’t die
of those things!”
“Indeed, your honour, I have done my duty!” said the injured man. His
voice began to falter; then the tension relaxed and he began to weep
quietly and unrestrainedly. “I know ... no more.... I have ... done ...
my duty!” he stammered.
“You don’t need to tell me that,” said Wenk reassuringly. “He who
stakes his life upon it certainly does his duty, for no one can offer
anything he values more! But now, Voss, I want you to promise me
something, and shake hands upon it. You won’t tell anyone else what you
have seen or gone through this night ... and I beg the same thing of
you, doctor. A great deal depends upon it, for the public at large. I
beg you to lay this very much to heart. It is not the pursuit of one
crime, but of a generation of crime.”
From the constable who had been first on the spot Wenk learnt that
he had seen several figures near the wall of the park, but darkness
prevented his counting their number, nor could he describe them. He
was stopped by one of the gentlemen, who tried to stand up and then
clutched hold of him, saying two or three times over, “Arrest the
woman--arrest the woman.”
“Then at last he fell back and let me go,” went on the man. “Then I
could run a few steps and I saw those figures close to the wall going
round the park, but when I reached it, there was no one there. They
must have had accomplices on the other side of the wall. I wanted to go
after them, but I couldn’t manage it; it was far too high to climb, so
I came back to the spot.”
“And the woman?” asked Wenk. “What about her?”
“I had the impression....”
“Now, Stamm, I don’t want to hear your _impressions_--I only want to
know what you saw with your eyes and heard with your ears. You will be
scrupulously exact, won’t you?”
“Yes, indeed, your honour. When I came back, one of our men was holding
the woman fast. I said to him, ‘Arrest her; the gentleman there said
so. Arrest her at all costs! Hold her fast, don’t let her escape!’
We were all a bit excited, and she shouted out that she wanted to
see Herr von Wenk, and no one was going to arrest _her_. She made a
good deal of resistance, sir, and finally we had to tie her hands.
There were only two of us, and we had to help the wounded and our own
colleague. We did not know in the least what had happened, for we had
only just....”
“_We?_ Tell me only what you yourself have seen.”
“Then I began to try and find out what had happened. There was a man
lying on the ground bathed in blood. He seemed to be dead, for he was
quite still. The other was groaning. Then a third constable came up,
and we sent him to telephone for the ambulance and make a report to the
Criminal Division and let your honour know. That was what Voss had told
us to do first of all.”
“What was the woman doing all this time?”
“The second of our men took her to the guard-room.”
“Don’t go on with your story, Stamm, till I have spoken to him. What is
his name? Keep yourself in readiness to report again; do you hear? And
remember, not a word of this outside the official circle--not even to
your wife. Give me your word of honour!”
“Yes, indeed, sir. The other man’s name is Wasserschmidt.”
Wasserschmidt duly appeared.
“You arrested a woman to-night who was present when the two gentlemen
were attacked,” said Wenk. “Why did you do that?”
“I did it because constable Stamm said that one of the gentlemen,
before he became insensible, called out to him to do so, and my
colleague Voss gave me the order too.”
At this moment the telephone rang in the bureau of the Criminal
Investigation Department, where Wenk was conducting these inquiries.
“Who is speaking?” he asked.
“This is the night editor’s office of the Central News Agency. We have
just been informed of a murder....”
“One moment, please,” said Wenk angrily. “Who gave you that
information?”
“I can tell you that without betraying any editorial secrets, for it
was given anonymously, so to speak. Our night-bell rang, and as I went
to the window I saw a man going away. When I opened it and asked what
was the matter, he called out, ‘Look in the letter-box!’ Then I went
down and found a letter in the box.”
“Can you read me what was in the letter? The State agent for
prosecutions is speaking!”
“Yes, certainly, sir, one moment. The letter runs: ‘Edgar Hull,
Esquire, was attacked and murdered in the Jägerstrasse in the early
hours of this morning. The criminals have escaped. It appears to have
been an act of revenge, for the murdered man frequented gambling
circles.’ That’s all there is.”
“Does anybody in the newspaper staff know about this letter?”
“No.”
“Can you bring this letter to me yourself immediately? I will send a
Service car for you.”
“But, sir, that would be a very difficult matter. I am alone here, and
I must complete the Press matter.”
“What is your name?”
“Grube.”
“Well, Herr Grube, there’s no difficulty in the matter, when I tell you
very decidedly that your coming here is of the utmost importance, far
and away more important than that to-morrow morning every Tom, Dick and
Harry should be able to discuss such a piece of news while he eats his
breakfast.”
“But my duty is ...” he began, but Wenk interrupted him.
“Don’t take it ill that my time won’t permit of my saying any more now,
save that the police car is on its way to bring you here. The constable
is furnished with the necessary authority. Arrange your Press matter
so that the sheet can be printed without the information you have just
given me about a murder. Au revoir, Herr Grube. Ring off, please.”
Wenk sent off the car immediately.
“Well, now, Wasserschmidt, to continue. The lady offered resistance.
How did she do that?”
“She ran a few paces from me towards the wall of the Wittelsbach
Palace, to which the criminals had hurried, and then called out,
‘George.’”
“You heard that yourself?”
“Yes, quite distinctly, and she pronounced the name ‘Georsh.’ And as
she began to run towards the wall too, I did not wait any longer, but I
tied her hands together.”
“And what did she do then?”
“Then she became quieter, and let us take her away. As we were going,
she said again, ‘I shall certainly be able to speak to Herr von Wenk,
shall I not?’ ‘Well, you will have to wait till after he has had his
breakfast,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I could telephone to him?’ but I said that
wasn’t very likely.”
“And then later? Where is the lady now?”
“Still at the guard-room. She spoke quite calmly and said, ‘You have
made a very serious mistake, my good man; but I hope to be able to
set you right with Herr Wenk, for, after all, you are only doing what
you conceive to be your duty. I was with the gentleman who has been
attacked, and the State Attorney was there too, but he went home a
little earlier, or else he would have been in it as well.’ ‘Let us wait
and see!’ was all I said to that.”
“Did you happen to tell her _why_ you had arrested her?”
“No, not a word.”
“That’s right. Wait in the next room.”
Wenk interviewed others, and finally the assistant-editor arrived. He
protested loudly against this high-handed action of the authorities,
and said that his newspaper....
“If it is the duty of your newspaper to serve its readers up the latest
scandal, whether it be a murder or the unlucky ending of a love-affair,
merely because it is a scandal, in as hasty and disconnected a fashion
as it was reported to you ... you would be right to protest. But you
have no right to hinder the authorities whose duty it is to deal with
infinitely more important matters so that you may satisfy fools with a
thirst for gossip.”
“But,” stammered the editor, in an excited tone, “but you are trying to
stifle the Press. We are not living under the old system, you know. The
Republic will....”
“I have no time to bother about what the Republic will do. Be so good
as to give me the letter you telephoned me about!”
“I am sorry,” said the editor, with a confident and self-satisfied air.
“These are Press secrets.”
“Pardon my saying so, editor, but you really are very foolish. I
respect any Press secrets which protect the interests of the community,
but your refusal to give me this letter only injures them. Before I
take it from you by force (an action which would lay you open to a
penalty for resisting the law), I will tell you that this letter is
the only piece of evidence we have at present of an unusually serious
crime. Perhaps then you will become more reasonable, and not entrench
yourself behind the plea of your professional duty, which, as I have
already stated, I do recognize, though I place it far below the
interests which I represent.”
Grube felt uncertain how to act. Finally he brought out the document,
saying, “I deliver it under protest, and....”
“Did you see anything of the man who brought it? Could you recognize
him?”
“There was very little light on the street from my window. I could only
see that he was well dressed, and he certainly wore an opera hat. A
little while after he had disappeared from sight, I heard a car drive
off in the direction he took on leaving our office, and I imagine it
was his.”
“Herr Grube, you will be so kind as to leave this letter in my hands.
You will be an important witness in one of the most notable criminal
prosecutions of recent years. I beg you, upon your honour, to preserve
absolute silence about this letter and everything connected with it.”
Grube, under the spell of the horror which had seized upon him, now
became more pliable, and grew as eager about the affair as he had
previously been obdurate. He handed over the document, exclaiming,
“There it is then! I am quite at your service. That is a very different
matter!”
“My car will take you back to your office again. Please leave word that
I am anxious to see the editor-in-chief as soon as he is able to attend
upon me.”
The assistant-editor withdrew.
VIII
Wenk remained alone, inwardly cool. He had been able to suppress the
horror and dread which the crime had excited in his sensitive and
sympathetic soul. He knew the reason underlying this murder. It was
not revenge, but something far more dangerous and deadly. It was
terrorization! That was revealed to him by the letter to the news
agency, designed to give information about the murder other than the
police reports. It was the terrorizing of all who felt themselves
victims of that fair-bearded stranger who had appeared among them. How
much this gambler must have at stake, he thought, that he could thus
personally announce his crime, to give the affair the turn he wanted it
to have! How many people were in his pay that he was able to carry out
his criminal deeds in this fashion? What sort of people were they, and
what was the example such conduct would afford to those who were still
hovering undecidedly between good and evil? How many adherents might
not the announcement of this deed yet secure for him?
Hull had met his fate because he had revealed to the authorities, in
the person of Wenk, the history of the I O U, and because the pseudo
Herr Balling desired thus to give an example of what would occur to
those who stood in his way. Possibly, even probably, the attack had
also been directed at himself, and he had only escaped because his
indignation had driven him from the place.
Now perhaps it would be impossible, for strategical reasons, to close
down the “Go-ahead” Institute.... Like so many similar places, it might
serve as a trap.
“And what about Cara Carozza?” he said to himself. “Shall I be able to
get her to confess for whom she was acting as a decoy? What can she
confess, and whose name would she reveal? Even if a name and possibly
an address be furnished me, do I know the man’s secrets, and what
precautions he has taken against me? No, I will not go to see this
girl. I will leave her in custody and let her wait.... Then she will
realize that there’s trouble ahead of her. She is weak and vicious;
perhaps she will give in of her own accord.”
Finally, however, Wenk decided otherwise. He would take the exactly
opposite course. He would lull her suspicions by a friendly and
sympathetic bearing. She was crafty, but she belonged to the theatrical
world, and by his assumed friendliness and sympathy with her in the
circumstances leading to her arrest he might make her more ready to
confide in him. He therefore went at once to the guard-room, where he
found her seated in a small compartment. Wenk hastened towards her.
“But, my dear young lady,” he exclaimed, “how came you here? What have
they been doing to you? They have just rung up to tell me what has
happened. What a good thing you thought of me!”
“Oh, Herr Wenk, you come as an angel of light to me in my dungeon.
Let us get away from this place at once! Don’t lose an instant! I am
stifling here. I can’t breathe in these horrible surroundings.” She
hastened towards the door.
“Ah, but now I must prepare you for a disappointment, which is
unavoidable. You see, my dear young lady, we live under the State, and
every State has supreme power. It appoints officials, each of whom
carries on his own peculiar office, and they cannot encroach upon the
domains of others. The State has appointed me one of its Attorneys,
but I am only there to prosecute offenders, not to set innocent people
free.”
“Then what’s to happen to me?” said Cara, suddenly hardening her
attitude.
Her tone warned Wenk, and he came at once to the point:
“Your case does not come under my jurisdiction first of all, but
that of the court of inquiry, and you are bound to undergo an
examination there. It is troublesome, no doubt, but you must blame the
circumstances for that.”
“And what about your part in it?” asked the girl.
“Mine? I can do nothing but tell the examining counsel that we are old
acquaintances, and that I do not think you capable of taking any part
in such a crime.”
“Then why did you come here? You are not the examining counsel.”
Wenk realized then that she had seen through his ruse, and he knew,
too, that she had escaped the snare, but at the same time he was
convinced that she was guilty.
“I came here on account of a minor circumstance in which I can help
you,” he said quickly. “I understand that you resisted the constables?”
“What woman would allow herself to be attacked by coarse brutes of
constables without resisting?”
“Yes, of course; it was the circumstances which were to blame for your
behaving unreflectingly and forcing them to do their duty.”
“I am well known as an artiste. My name ought to have been enough for
them!”
“Did you give the constables your name?”
“Certainly I did, straight away!”
“It is strange that they should not have told me that. They mentioned
another name that you had called out!”
Then Wenk observed that Cara threw a hasty and searching glance, full
of hate, upon him. She looked away again at once, and drummed with her
fingers on her knee.
“They said another name, did they? That’s curious, for my own name is
well enough known, and thought enough of. What might this other strange
name have been?”
“The constable said it was George.”
Her face showed no change when Wenk said that.
“He couldn’t have heard properly, for my name, as you know, isn’t
George,” she said, with an air of indifference.
“But a second constable says he heard you give the same name. It really
_was_ George!”
“How strange!” said Cara, after a pause for reflection. “My husband’s
name was George. Could I, in my excitement, have called....”
“Ah, now everything is perfectly clear. That is quite comprehensible,
but, of course, nobody knew you had been married?”
“I _am_ married!”
“You still are; oh, that’s something different. Shall I send word to
your husband? But perhaps you no longer hold any intercourse with him?”
“Indeed I do! His address is 234, Eschenheimerstrasse,
Frankfurt-am-Main.... His name is George Strümpfli.”
“This will be painful news for him. Are you not afraid that there
may be some difficulty when he hears your name connected with the
circumstance of Hull’s murder?”
Then Cara spoke at last, falling back on her chair. “Hull murdered!...”
she exclaimed, and she sank fainting from the chair to the ground.
For the moment Wenk was taken aback; then he decided that this
fainting-fit was assumed. He raised her on to the couch, then went away
without attending to her further. Going out, he ordered the constables
to keep a sharp eye on the lady, and not let anyone at all go into the
ante-room. They were to keep their weapons fixed.
He drove back to the central police-station and informed the divisional
surgeon, requesting him to drive to the guard-room, and to search the
girl’s clothing without exciting suspicion. He then wrote out the
order for her arrest, and handed it over. He gave orders at the Police
Information Bureau that any journalist who came seeking for news was to
be sent to him direct.
By this time it was daylight. Wenk had a bath and then drove to the
office of the Central News Agency, the editor-in-chief of which had
rung him up on the telephone.
When Wenk had told him all that had occurred, he said: “The reason that
emboldened me to lay claim to some of your time, was this. If it were
an isolated murder I would, although unwillingly, let the reporting
of it proceed in the usual manner. But behind this assault we are
confronted by a gang having at their head a man of apparently enormous
and comprehensive powers. He must have secured to himself an organized
set of followers whose only aim is to guard him while he carries out
his crimes. The letter, which he himself may have handed into your
office, discloses the fact that he desires the affair to be made known
in the way that suits his ends. He means it as a warning. The victim
himself told me not long ago that he had come across him in very
peculiar circumstances, and this he knew. It is his aim to surround
his dark deeds by a wall of dread; folks are to realize that no one
who makes any attempt against _him_ can escape with his life. You can
readily see how great a danger such a man is; at a time when the war
has left folks weak and emotional on the one hand and more readily
incited to evil on the other. We cannot altogether suppress such an
occurrence as this, but I desire that it should be announced apart
from the connecting circumstances known to me, so that the imagination
may not make popular heroes out of murderers. In this I am counting
on the assistance of yourself and your colleagues. May I beg you most
earnestly not to make known _anything_ concerning the Hull affair which
has not first been seen by me? We are living in an age of mental and
spiritual epidemics, and those who would help to bring healing must be
prepared to sacrifice themselves.”
“I will certainly act as you desire,” said the editor-in-chief.
“At the same time,” Wenk went on, “I wouldn’t on any account allow the
impression to get about that such a course is due to more complete
knowledge of the circumstances, or the exercise of authority on the
part of the law, you understand.”
“I quite follow you there,” said the sympathetic editor.
“Then I am grateful to you, and can only hope for good results from our
combined efforts. Our nation is in evil case.”
When he got home Wenk was anxious to go to bed and enjoy a few hours
of much-needed rest. It was already ten o’clock, but just then
his chauffeur, who acted as his personal attendant, brought him a
visiting-card bearing the name of Countess Told.
“I am quite disengaged,” said Wenk immediately, and the Countess was
ushered in.
“Is there any possibility of our being interrupted here by an anxious
wife who is not _au courant_ of the matter which is engaging our
attention?” she asked, as she gave Wenk her slender hand cordially.
“The happiness of possessing a partner for life has never been mine!”
answered Wenk, feeling a delicious sweetness in the proximity of this
woman. And yet she stood before him as something dreamlike, connected
with a life which he seemed to have led not long before. Between this
hour and that lay the mysterious occurrences of the night, and he was
unable to conceive that these feelings of love and longing could be
actually real.
She stood before him, and he found no word to say to her, while she
herself, insensibly influenced by the man’s force of character and
lofty aims, felt embarrassed by this silence, because it seemed to be
a confirmation of her own sensations. “Yes,” she confessed to herself,
“the feeling I have for him is ...,” but she would not utter the word
“love.” She blushed at the thought, a blush which Wenk saw. A tremor
passed through him, and he struggled with himself as he bent low over
her hand.
Then suddenly the vision of the murdered man rose before him, and he no
longer felt bold enough to betray by word or gesture the infatuation
which possessed him. He offered the Countess a chair, and while he
fetched another for himself his imagination was fired by an idea which
afforded a solution of the conflict waging within him. This woman, whom
he loved and to whom he was evidently not wholly indifferent, should
be associated with him in his undertaking, and their common endeavour
might bring about their own harvest. Then he said to her seriously:
“During this last night an acquaintance known to both of us, Edgar von
Hull, has been murdered. His friend Karstens is severely wounded, and
I only escaped because I had happened to leave, two hours earlier,
the locality into which we had been enticed. I believe I know the
instigator of this crime. It is once more the sandy-bearded man and
the old Professor. Its actual perpetrators have escaped, but we have
made one arrest, of a person who is also known to you. I mean Cara
Carozza, the dancer, whose liaison with Hull you are aware of. At
present I have hardly more than a profound conviction that she has had
some share in the crime, but I have thought of a way by which we might
loosen her tongue. If you, Countess, would undertake the unpleasant
enterprise of allowing yourself to be arrested, I would take care to
arrange for your being put into the same cell as Carozza. She does not
know you as Countess Told, but as a lady who frequents her own circles.
Represent your offence as a very trifling one, and say that you will
soon be set free, even if you are found guilty of taking part in an
illicit game.... Promise to help her, perhaps by flight ... and you
must previously have informed her that her situation is a very serious
one, and one never can tell what may happen to persons arrested in such
circumstances as hers.... She will then probably tell you who would be
able to arrange for her escape, and you understand the rest, Countess.
Are you willing to play the part?”
“I will carry out your wishes,” said the Countess, without stopping an
instant for reflection, and her voice sounded eager.
Wenk was sensibly touched by the haste, the ready zeal with which this
gracious and beautiful woman accepted his suggestion.
“Up to now,” she said lightly, “there has never been a chance for me to
do anything really useful, to engage in a bold enterprise with life at
stake, to study life at first hand.”
“And that is what you have been seeking in the gambling-dens?” he asked.
“I do not rightly know. I felt at home in those places, because there
seemed to be no barriers. In my own circle I could perceive the horizon
everywhere, and I could not endure that. I feel I owe you much....”
There was a smarting in Wenk’s eyes. He was overcome with a sensation
of longing; it took possession of him and tormented him, and he asked,
almost roughly, “And your husband?”
She answered calmly, “In every marriage, although you cannot know it
by experience, there is something of what the heart has sought left
unfulfilled. I rob my husband of nothing, if I try to find what I am
seeking without him.”
“I honour and esteem you,” cried Wenk, his voice trembling slightly.
“It is nothing but the natural law,” she countered; “and now tell me
what I am to do.”
“On a certain day, which you shall appoint, I will take you in my car
to the governor of the prison and we will arrange everything with him.
When would it suit you?”
“Next Saturday at this time.” She rose.
“The grey prison walls will begin to shine!” said Wenk.
“Because of such odd proceedings,” laughed she.
“No, Countess, your beauty will light them up,” and Wenk suddenly felt
as if he loved her with a passion which must be shining in his eyes. He
bent so low over her hand in adieu that he concealed his face from her,
and she yielded it to him in a gracious gesture that was almost like
the confession of a mutual understanding between them, then hastened
away.
Out in the street the blood mounted to her cheeks, and half
unconsciously she murmured the word she had suppressed, “love ...
love,” while in Wenk’s room there remained a scent of her which he
eagerly inhaled. Then pressing both hands to his face, and indulging
his secret and mysterious presentiments, he whispered ardently into the
darkness that concealed his vision, “Death and love ... death and love!”
* * * * *
In the course of the day the report of the murder ran through the city.
It arose from the dark quarter where Hull had yielded up his useless
and trivial existence. A dark patch remained there, and the pavement
was coloured with the blood that had been shed. The thaw had made the
gutters moist and muddy, and they had sucked in the dark evidences of
the crime, till from a mere patch it became a monster, reaching from
its own narrow corner to spread throughout the town. Folks came to seek
its source, drinking in on the spot the full horrors of the deed. They
saw the monster rear its head, rush towards them and through them,
leaving disorder, abuse and dread in its wake. Like a dragon it wound
itself through the alleys to the broad Ludwigstrasse, crept through
the squares to the very heart of the city, and began to overflow all
quarters, to escape from the streets to the houses. Like an underground
drain it ran all day long, its gloomy current and dismal stench
striking terror into men’s hearts or drawing thence a force which could
but find its outlet in evil.
Three days later a woman of the streets was murdered in the night, and
the assassin was caught the very next day. He was an “out-of-work,” one
of those relics of war-time, who had fallen into a state approaching
savagery. He confessed that he did not know what he was doing when
he pressed his fingers deep into the girl’s throat. Something seemed
to seize upon him in the dark when he came round that corner by the
Jägerstrasse, and drove him to do it.
The town was enveloped as in a misty fog, impressionable and passionate
as the human heart, and the spring beyond it was obscured. The lights
thrown on life became glaring, its shadows of a wild and overwhelming
blackness. Men’s hearts were torn in two, and everywhere there was
internal conflict.
IX
At four o’clock there was a telephone call from Frankfurt. “George
Strümpfli, artist, was born in Basle in 1885, and lived at the address
indicated from January 1st to December 10th last year. He has now gone
abroad, his whereabouts being unknown. In the records he is entered as
of Swiss nationality, and he is a married man.”
From the register of the town inhabitants Wenk learnt that Cara Carozza
was described as follows: “Maria Strümpfli, formerly Essert, known as
Cara Carozza, dancer, born in Brunn, May 1, 1892, arrived in Munich
from Copenhagen.”
Wenk wondered how the pronunciation of “Georsh” instead of George could
have arisen, for both these people were South Germans by speech, and
“Georsh” was only heard in North Germany.
He went again to see the dancer, who was now in a prison cell.
“I don’t want anything to do with you,” she said in a harsh voice to
Wenk. “You say you are going to help me, and yet you put me in prison.”
“It was not I: that is a mistake on your part. It is the examining
counsel, as I told you at once. I am only here to clear up one
difficulty in the case, and that is the name you called out. That is
the point at issue.”
“Indeed! you seem rather concerned about the verdict.”
“Yes, of course we are. If you were prepared to help us we might get
over the difficulty. Let me see, you said your husband’s name was Carl
... Carl Strümpfli, wasn’t it?”
“In case you forget it again, his name is George.”
“He is a Swiss?”
“You have evidently been inquiring about him.”
“Certainly,” said Wenk. “And so he is called George. Now tell me,
although you may think it a foolish question, had you any special name
for him?”
“No.”
“You never called him anything but....”
“George. No, only George. When can I get away from here?”
“Ah, that depends upon the examining counsel.”
“Well then, he ought to be here. It is shameful that a well-known
artiste like me should....”
“You see, unfortunately everything must take its prescribed course.
‘Without respect of individuals,’ as the legal phrase runs. I cannot
promise you any more than my own help.”
“You are going away again? And without me?”
“For the moment I cannot do anything else.”
The dancer turned away.
Wenk went to the scene of the crime. He had previously studied the
list of those living in its vicinity, and especially those in the
Finkenstrasse. He took two plain-clothes policemen with him, one of
them being the constable who had pursued the criminals as far as the
park wall. They examined the wall by daylight; it showed scratches
from the tips of shoes, and on the top was a trace of blood. Possibly
someone had been lifted up who grasped the top with his hands. In the
clear February day the light fell pitilessly on that trace of the
murdered Hull.
Wenk entered the houses, many of which, he perceived, led at the back
to the park. He spoke to all their occupants separately. Some had heard
a noise in the night, but they did not consider that anything unusual,
and in the houses themselves, as they told Wenk, they had heard nothing.
He examined the park on the other side of the wall. There was nothing
to be seen there beyond a trace of many footprints in one spot,
where they had apparently jumped down, for some of the impressions
were fairly deep. But this spot had been raked, and carbolic acid
thrown upon it. There was an empty tin near, which from its smell had
evidently contained carbolic. This precaution was doubtless taken in
case the police hounds should be requisitioned, and it might have been
put there beforehand, but he did not quite understand the reason, and
decided to test it by means of a hound. It took up the scent in the
Jägerstrasse, ran to the wall and jumped up on it, but when they lifted
it on the other side it went no further. It turned away in disgust
at the smell of the carbolic, ran up and down the wall and then back
again, always in the same direction, and yet always as if irresolute.
It tried to spring into the air.
Wenk had it lifted over the wall again, but when the hound was on the
top, and the man on the other side ready to receive it, it escaped from
him and ran, barking furiously, along the top. It did not run far, but
remained in one spot, barking, with its head downwards, towards the
yard of one of the houses, trying to jump down there. Then with one
spring the hound was over, running towards the house, where it stood
still at the outer wall. This Wenk examined closely, perceiving marks
of scratches occurring at regular intervals upwards. Here undoubtedly
people had climbed up by means of a ladder, and the tracks led to a
window on the first floor. The room it belonged to was empty, and he
asked the people of the house how long it had been so. Then all the
other lodgers were astonished, for they said it was occupied. One of
them exclaimed, “But Georsh is living there!”
Wenk’s heart gave a sudden leap.
“Who?” he said quickly. “What was his name?”
Again the answer was “Georsh.”
“Did you know him?” he asked of one woman.
“Certainly I knew Georsh!” she replied.
“Was that his surname?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who used to call him that?”
“The fellows who were always coming to see him.”
“So his name was George?” went on Wenk, desirous of being quite
certain.
“No, he was called Georsh,” answered one of them.
“Has he lived here long?”
Nobody knew exactly; some thought it was about a year, but he was
hardly ever at home. He tried to get a description of the man, but then
a curious fact came to light. Even about the colour of his hair they
could not agree. One said he was blue-eyed, another declared his eyes
were dark. He was rather tall and thin, and dressed like a sailor.
Again, he looked rather like an athlete.
“What was he then? What was his calling?”
“They said he was a commercial traveller.”
It was curious that there was no mention of this Georsh as an occupant
of the house; he was not on the list given to Wenk.
Wenk went to the Town Register Office, and with the help of the
officials he ascertained that one occupant of the house had been a
George Hinrichsen from the Elbe district. He had left the place about a
month before, and said he was going to Ravensburg, and after that the
room had been taken by a commercial traveller named Poldringer.
It was quite clear to Wenk that Hinrichsen and Poldringer the traveller
were one and the same person. It was just a month ago that Hull
had had that memorable conversation with Wenk. And Hinrichsen and
Poldringer were the same individual as the murderer of Hull, or at
least the person who directed the murder, and it was his name that the
dancer had called out. Possibly the direction Hinrichsen had taken in
departure also agreed with this, for Constance lay near Ravensburg,
and Switzerland could be reached from there.
Wenk telegraphed to the Constance head-office, with special reference
to the passport stations. A few hours later the police officials there
telegraphed back that a man named Poldringer had notified his arrival
there. He gave Bavaria as his native State, and this had struck the
registering official as curious, because the man used a dialect that
was unmistakably North German. On that account the police kept him
under surveillance. They ascertained that he frequented the society of
people who were suspected of smuggling goods across the Swiss frontier.
He often travelled by the steamer to Lindau. “Expect me to-day in
Constance,” telephoned Wenk finally.
Wenk immediately prepared for a journey. He could reach Constance
before night if the little monoplane belonging to a friend of his,
which was always at his service, were ready for a flight. He telephoned
to him and ascertained that it was.
At four o’clock he departed, and in the deepening twilight he descended
at the Petershaus aerodrome near Constance. The police described the
locality in which these profiteers and smugglers were to be found.
He disguised himself as a chauffeur and went to one of their inns to
get some supper. He addressed one man whom he thought to be of their
party, saying that he could get hold of two cars, and also some sort of
export licence, as long as it wasn’t looked at too closely, but if he
had the help of one or, better still, of two bold fellows it could be
done quite easily. There would be a profit of about ten thousand in
it, for the cars were bought in the autumn of 1918 and had been kept
hidden ever since. They were first-class cars that had belonged to two
generals.
The other did not take long to consider. He would broach the matter
to a friend of his, and the three of them would soon pull it off.
They went together later to another tavern, which the friend often
frequented, but he did not appear.
“What is his name?” asked Wenk. “Perhaps I know him.”
“He is called Ball, but you may have known him under some other name.
Most of us find it convenient to have one or two different names here;
you know all about that, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” said Wenk.
Then he grew suddenly pale, for just then a man entered, in whom he
thought he recognized the chauffeur who had driven him to Schleissheim
in the car filled with poison gas. Everything was at stake. Wenk’s
disguise was rather a sketchy one. Supposing this man were the Ball
they were expecting! If he came to their table and sat down, he
would probably recognize Wenk, and the whole story would come out.
He employed all his powers to regain his self-control, and tried to
disguise his features by contracting his facial muscles. He had already
taken the precaution of seating himself in a dark corner.
But the new-comer sat down at some distance from him at a large table
where several young fellows were already sitting. He had his back
to Wenk, but the lawyer felt he must not venture any further, and
promising a rendezvous for the next evening, he hastily took his leave.
He went to the police-station, stated where he had been, and described
the suspected man. The sergeant of police sent for a constable, who
said that according to the description the man must be Poldringer.
“Could we be certain of that? I should like the fact established during
the night. But I beg of you to proceed cautiously in the matter, for
this man is armed at all points!” urged Wenk.
Then he thought it would be better not to go there, said the constable.
It was but a small town, and all the police officials, even the
plain-clothes men, knew these profiteers. His sudden appearance might
give the alarm.
“Well then, I must manage without that. Do you know where he lives?”
“Certainly.”
“Then take me there at once.”
The sergeant took Wenk to a byway where stood a shabby old inn, which
was divided into many courtyards at the back. Wenk at once recognized
that it would be extremely difficult to carry through any arrest here
without a large body of police, and so many constables could not be
quickly and easily procured in a small town like this.
Opposite the house was an iron-foundry. Here Wenk spent the next
forenoon in company with a constable who knew Poldringer, the two
concealing themselves behind a dust-begrimed window.
When, about eleven o’clock, the man whom Wenk knew as the sandy-bearded
man’s chauffeur came out of the house, the constable nudged him,
saying, “That is Poldringer!”
“That’s my man!” said Wenk.
In the afternoon he had a consultation with the head of the Criminal
Investigation Department. Wenk said it was not a case of arresting one
man, but of getting rid of the whole gang, for here in Constance, as
one might say, there was but one division of the army whose general
headquarters was in Munich, and until one could lay hold of the leader
it was not worth while to secure a dozen or so of his accomplices.
Wenk advised their not making use of the announcement of a reward of
five-thousand marks for information (which had been drawn up contrary
to his wish), but rather that they should keep a close watch upon what
they now knew to be one of the haunts of the gang. That would be the
safest way of entrapping their leader, for if they seized the chauffeur
now, his master would receive emphatic warning. And this man, Wenk told
them, was undoubtedly one of the most daring criminals to be met with
in the last ten years. It was not only a money reward, but fame, that
might be looked for, and the constables all promised to do what they
could.
In the evening Wenk met the young man who was going to help him get rid
of the cars at a big profit. His friend had left the town, he said, for
things had gone badly of late. Switzerland was overdone with German
goods, and the German authorities seemed to be regaining their control
of the Lake. They might soon be starving, he said. But _he_ knew what
to do. He wasn’t going to starve, and sooner than be driven out of the
place by hunger, he would join the Foreign Legion. Then at least he
would be safe from the German authorities. He could fill his belly in
peace, and if he were shot down it would be as a free man, whereas if
he stayed here he was bound to end in quod.
Wenk asked what he had to do to get into the Foreign Legion.
“Oh, that’s easier than ever it was,” answered the man. “Before the war
you had to go to Belfort, but now that’s not necessary--you can join up
here.”
“Well, that’s a good thing to know. What’s the address of their
headquarters?”
“Oh, you only need go to the ‘Black Bull’ and ask for Poldringer, or
else come in the evening to the tavern we went to yesterday, for he
was sitting there. He had got a lot of them at his table, and I told
him I’d think it over. If our honk-honk business comes off, I shan’t
need to, though, but we can’t get hold of that d----d Ball; he’d want
to stand in with us, but I expect he’s got something good on somewhere
else. By the way, Poldringer was asking after you last night. You must
belong to his part of the country, eh? He said he thought he knew you,
but I told him you were from Basle and wanted to get two cars across,
and he said, ‘Oh, then it can’t be the man from Munich,’ but I thought
to myself a man might have been in Munich and yet be in Basle now, eh,
mate?”
“I’ve never been in Munich,” said Wenk; “he must have mistaken me for
someone else.”
“Well, it’s all the same thing, anyhow! We’ll get those cars through,
eh? By the way, can you stand me a trifle of ready on the job?”
“A fifty?” asked Wenk.
“Oh well, if it’s not inconvenient, I’d like two fifties.”
“One’s all I can spare at the moment,” said Wenk, pulling a fifty-mark
note out of his waistcoat-pocket.
“You needn’t be afraid of showing your purse, even if it has a hole in
it,” remarked the man.
“You wouldn’t buy any more with fifty out of my purse than you can with
that one!”
“Well, all right; no offence! Where are you staying?”
“In Barbarossa,” said Wenk, at a venture.
“Oh, if the folks there get hold of you, you won’t get out of their
clutches, I can tell you! You go to the ‘Black Bull.’ They’ll look
after you properly there, and everything is arranged so that you can
fly off as easily as these greenbacks will. Not a trace left behind!”
Next morning Wenk flew back to Munich. His trip had been successful,
and the journey in the pure clean air, cold though it was in the upper
regions, invigorated him. He felt as if he were gathering the threads
together in his hand and they were about to form a vast and invisible
net, and he, the fisherman, felt himself ready and able to drag it in.
* * * * *
An hour before Wenk took up his stand at the grimy window of the
iron-foundry opposite the “Black Bull,” the following conversation was
carried on between Constance and Munich:
“Hulloa, Dr. Dringer speaking. Who is there?”
“Hulloa, this is Dr. Mabuse. What is it, please?”
“The invalid seems to be staying here. I am not quite certain yet
that it is he, but I thought I recognized him. I am anxious for
instructions.”
“That’s very strange. He was in Munich to my certain knowledge just
about four o’clock yesterday. What time did you think you saw him,
Doctor?”
“At half-past seven!”
“But the express does not leave until 7 p.m. and only reaches Lindau at
11 p.m. Even if he had used a car he could not possibly have reached
Constance by half-past seven!”
“It is possible that I may have been mistaken, but hardly likely. I
can’t at once abandon the idea that it was the lunatic we are searching
for.”
“Well, in any case, my dear colleague, prosecute your inquiries, and if
you are convinced, use the safest means at your command.”
“You mean the strait-waistcoat, Doctor?”
“Certainly, for you know he is dangerous to the community. Have you any
other news? What about those neurotic patients?”
“They are quite ready to go to the sanatorium, and they start
to-morrow.”
“Good. That’s all, thank you. My best wishes to you, Doctor.”
Mabuse went up and down his room in considerable excitement. How could
it be possible that the State Attorney, who was still in Munich at 4
p.m. should have been seen in Constance at 7.30 p.m.? Might not George
be mistaken?
He dressed himself as a messenger and repaired to the Amandastrasse,
where Wenk had his chambers. He rang his door-bell, and a servant
opened to him.
“Can I see the State Attorney?” he asked.
“He is not at home. Give me the letter.”
“I was to give it to him personally.... When will he be back?”
“I do not know.”
“Has he gone away for long, or shall I be able to hand him the letter
this afternoon?”
“His honour did not leave word.”
“Ah, then I must rely on you,” said the messenger. “You will be sure to
deliver the letter, won’t you?”
“Certainly, give it here,” and the man glanced at the address, but it
was directed to the State Attorney, Dr. Müller, and he said, “You are
making a mistake. Herr von Wenk is the barrister who lives here.”
“Good heavens, so they’ve given me the wrong number! I always say,
‘Write it down, gentlemen.’ And so I’ve made a mistake here. Where does
the gentleman I want live?”
“I don’t know him at all.”
“Well, there’s nothing for it but to go back! Good morning!”
The pseudo-messenger went off, knowing only half he wanted to know. On
the way, enlightenment came to him. “Of course,” he said to himself,
“he must have gone by aeroplane, and I can guess why....”
For an instant a mist swam before his eyes, so acutely did he feel
this discovery of his. For the first time he measured his adversary’s
powers. No one had ever used such means against him before. George had
not yet sent off the discharged smugglers. Were they the reason of this
hasty visit to Constance? Had his--Mabuse’s--band of watchers failed
him? The matter became more difficult and dangerous every day, and
recently several agents of the Foreign Legion had been discovered and
arrested.
“If Wenk has the whole gang imprisoned,” thought Mabuse, “one of them
might blab enough to bring the inquiry home to me, and then for the
first time I shall no longer be safe. I must have him got out of the
way.... Why did George let him go, if he had even a suspicion that it
might be the lawyer? A plague upon the soft-heartedness that allowed
him to escape us at Schleissheim! My life is not safe until he is wiped
out of existence! I shall have to prepare for flight, and I will be
off to the Swiss frontier unless I know for certain by eight o’clock
to-night whether George is arrested or not. Where did George see him?
If I only knew that, for it all depends upon that! I am consumed with
impatience, and my hatred of this destroyer of my peace is burning me
like a fever. Supposing I never reach my kingdom of Citopomar!”
Then Mabuse went home again, carrying a parcel for himself under his
arm. He must be prepared for all eventualities. Should his dwelling
be already secretly watched by the police, he was a messenger who
had something to deliver, and there were cigars in the parcel. But
his chambers were empty, and there was nothing suspicious in the
neighbourhood.
That evening he did not leave his house again. It was safer for him to
see from the window who was coming to him than to find, on returning
after absence, that someone had effected an entry and was watching at
the window for him. He must be ready for anything that might happen!
He spent the evening in examining his finances. There was yet six
months’ work to be accomplished in Germany before he had the amount
he had decided would be necessary. There he knew the ground well, and
anywhere else it would take at least a year to accomplish the same
result. The languages he was conversant with necessitated his being
in countries where German and English were known. Six months! The
words throbbed in his brain, and the blood mounted to his heart. “I
shall stay!” he said aloud in his lonely room, and it seemed as if the
defiance these words awoke rang through him like the blow of the hammer
on the anvil.
Next morning at half-past seven there was an urgent telephone call from
Constance. “Doctor Dringer speaking! I am sorry, but I fear I have
misled my esteemed colleague. There is no further trace to be seen.
Everything is in readiness for departure, and the other patients are
prepared for their journey.”
“It was a pity, Doctor. Ring up again this evening!”
“You swine!” Mabuse growled between his teeth at his window, looking in
the direction of Wenk’s chambers. “If it were only for this half-hour
of uncertainty, you should pay for it with your life! The first attempt
failed through a mere accident. There shall be no accident the next
time!”
Mabuse left his house on foot, went to one of the fashionable hotels,
and asked for the general manager, Herr Hungerbühler. Yes, he was
there, and would be found in Room 115, he was told.
When Mabuse entered the room unannounced, it was empty. “Spoerri!” he
called softly. Then a cupboard door opened and Spoerri came out.
“Wenk seems to be in Constance. George has just telephoned to me. Look
after the matter. How is Cara getting on in prison?”
“It would be safer if she were out of the way altogether. Dead men tell
no tales!”
“No, I have already told you once, she is safer alive than dead,”
answered Mabuse quickly.
“In any case, I have got one of the warders under my control.”
“Why?”
“To contrive her escape, if she’s to be allowed to live!”
“Fool!” cried Mabuse angrily. “I tell you she is safer where she is.
If they were to break open her mouth with a crowbar she would never
say anything. Stop talking such d----d nonsense. She is to come out
when I leave Europe, not before! I came to tell you that I give you a
month to get rid of Wenk. I make it so long, so that it may be safely
undertaken. Make a note of the date, for he’s not to live a day longer
than that!” and Mabuse went off, without a word of farewell.
X
Next evening Dr. Mabuse was invited to spend the evening at the house
of Privy Councillor Wendel, who was interested in hypnotism. After
an early supper an interesting medium would appear. In her trances
memories were awakened within her which referred to her very earliest
days ... to a time when the mind was not developed enough to be able to
record or describe the physical existence of the moment.
Mabuse had made the Privy Councillor’s acquaintance through a patient
of his, an aristocratic and wealthy dame, who had suffered from severe
neurosis and whom Mabuse had very successfully treated by hypnotic
suggestion. In the company were to be found not only professors, but
also authors, artists and the reputed friends of art, such as frequent
the society of the wealthy and fashionable nowadays.
Mabuse’s neighbour at the supper-table was a lady whom he recognized
with astonishment and perplexity. In the gambling-dens she was known to
his accomplices by the nickname of “the dummy.” The lady was Countess
Told.
Throughout the meal he devoted himself to her, paying her every
possible attention, and relating to her eager ears tales of strange
and wonderful experiences in hazardous places, of the chase of wild
animals or of human beings in parts of the world that are little
frequented. He spoke with a grim earnestness, a savage unrestraint,
enjoying once more in recollection the powers he had exercised in such
circumstances. He realized what it was that drove this woman to the
gambling-dens, and it seemed as if this sudden disclosure gave him a
pang, as if there opened up within him a chasm and a gulf so deep that
only a palpitating human heart could fill it. With his imagination and
with his bold recital he was pursuing such a heart, as in the jungle he
had pursued the tiger. The hope of conquest inflamed his blood; he felt
he must make it his own.
It was this woman’s heart he wished to subjugate. He was consumed with
passionate desire as he read in her eyes how his recital fired her
blood. That was the kind of life she craved, and her nature understood
and responded to it. He painted wild scenes for her; he showed himself
struggling for conquest with body, soul and spirit pitted against
unrestrained nature, and he desired her to believe that this wild and
unrestrained nature was within her.
She trembled at his words, and, swayed by his ardour, a longing for
support and tenderness overcame her. The recitals by which he sought to
enchain her interest aroused so forceful an impression of human power
that it seemed, in tearing herself away from them, she was actually
tearing a fragment of living, bleeding flesh when she sought out
her husband with an almost supplicating gesture, as if desirous of
protection from a force too powerful to endure.
Mabuse saw her gesture, and the blood mounted to his forehead. He was
flushed with passionate desire, and could no longer bear to see the
glances of others rest upon her ... other strangers address her ... the
lips of other men pressed to her hand ... or the thought that any other
will should impose itself on her. His was the call of blood that should
reach her, and inflamed with passion and desire, he left the house and
drove home.
All his thoughts were centred on her, however, and as he rapidly
increased the distance between them, and as it were tore the bleeding
flesh from his body, he called out to the image which filled the
yearning gulf within him, “Death and desire! death and desire!”
At home he drank until all around him had dissolved in the mists of
intoxication, and he no longer saw anything but her heart, her bleeding
heart, snatched by his hand from her lovely body, held in his grasp,
enticing and inflaming his passion.
* * * * *
At length came the day when Countess Told should enter upon her prison
experiences. She repaired to Wenk’s chambers, and he took her to the
building, making the governor _au courant_ of the whole story. Before
being led to the cell, she asked, “How long am I to stay there?”
“As long as you like, Countess,” replied Wenk. “It all depends upon
your skill, but of course you have but to say the word and you are
free in an instant, even if you have not achieved your object.”
“I have plenty of time,” she answered, “but I should like to ask for
leave next Monday, so that I can keep an appointment.”
“Most certainly, we can easily arrange that. With your permission, I
will come and fetch you. Besides, you are sure to have something to
report by then!”
“Finally, Dr. Wenk,” said the Countess, “I want you to know that my
husband is in the secret, and you will go and see him, won’t you?
Promise me!”
Wenk assented. A warder took possession of the Countess, and as she
went with him she smiled back at Wenk. “Good luck!” cried he, ere she
vanished along the corridor.
* * * * *
The Countess had left the Privy Councillor’s house in a strange
tumult of feeling. The stranger who had so impressed her had suddenly
disappeared, but his forceful personality had left its mark, and she
could not free herself of it. This mysterious and compelling power
of his effaced the image of Wenk, and the latter receded into the
background.
When the door of the cell opened before her, it seemed as if the time
she had to spend in this narrow space, this strange, cold chamber, so
far removed from the world, would be a period of probation, a time of
testing for herself.
She was to see the stranger again on Monday. “I am asking your
neighbour at the supper-table next Monday for another sitting with
our medium,” the old Councillor had said to her with a mischievous
smile. “He must make up for lost time, because he was called away
unexpectedly. But if he did not see the medium asleep, at any rate he
found Countess Told awake!”
“All right! I shall be pleased to meet him again,” she had answered in
a friendly and noncommittal tone.
The door of the cell closed behind her, and she saw a figure seated on
a stool, but it did not turn round. “Well?” it said growlingly.
“Good morning,” said the Countess.
The dancer turned round slowly. When she at length faced the Countess,
the latter uttered a little cry, and with well-feigned astonishment
hastened to Cara, exclaiming, “What, _you_ here, my dear! But we know
each other! What a strange coincidence!”
She began chattering at once, as if quite oblivious of Cara’s sullen
mood. “Just imagine, they actually caught us all--at Schramm’s--the
most noted resort of them all! I can tell you there was a fine to-do,
my dear. One man sobbed, another tried to jump out of the window, and
you know they are all shut up tight! Somebody sat down and wailed,
‘Oh my wife, my four children, I am disgraced for ever!’ There was a
tremendous fluttering in the dovecot. I could not slip away in time,
and so they got me too! Tell me what is the best thing for me to do?
There’s nothing wrong in entering a gaming-house, and I have never once
played!”
But Cara only eyed her gloomily.
“Do say something. Is there anything the matter?” pleaded the Countess.
“The matter is that I want you to leave me alone,” answered the other.
“Was the young gentleman with the fair sandy beard there?”
“The one who played against Basch, you mean? No, he wasn’t there. I
have never seen him since that night.”
“Was the old Professor there?”
“No, I didn’t see him either.”
“Then you needn’t tell me any more about it; it doesn’t interest me.
The whole world isn’t worth a pin. I am miserable, for I am forsaken
and betrayed. There’s no interest left in life for me. I am lost and
undone, and no one troubles any more about me than if I were a frozen
field-mouse. What dirty dogs they are!”
Suddenly she sprang from her stool and seized the Countess by the
shoulders. “You were with the rest of us. I want to drum it into your
head,” she continued with increasing vehemence, “that there never was
anybody so treacherously betrayed as I have been. And there was no
reason for doing it, for I was an artiste, a well-known and admired
artiste, and here I am now, forsaken and betrayed! Cast aside like a
squeezed-out orange!”
“Why did he forsake you?” asked the Countess shyly. In her own mind
she seemed but a simple child in the presence of this wild and
passionate personality. Yes, he had forsaken her, left her for ever,
she reflected, and she shuddered at the thought. And now he was dead.
At the moment she felt doubtful of the enterprise she had undertaken.
“He is dead,” she said in a low voice which vibrated.
“Who?” cried Cara.
“Your friend ... Hull!” answered the Countess, preparing to enter
sympathetically into the girl’s feelings, the image of Wenk growing yet
fainter in her subconscious mind.
But the other exclaimed passionately, “What are you saying? The man I
mean is not dead; he is alive, and yet I sit here in prison. Yonder in
the town outside he stands, strong as a tower, firm as a rock, I tell
you! How can a puny thing like you know what he was? All others were
as dirt beneath his feet, and their faithlessness too small a trifle
to consider! Hull is dead, but what does _that_ matter? Who cares an
atom about _him_? But that other, the master, the lord, he lives there
in the free air, where there is light and love and life ... where he
might bear to have me lying at his feet, like a rug that only serves to
warm his toes. He is the great man, the lord, the master! He is a bear,
a lion, a royal Bengal tiger, do you hear? He does not belong to this
cold and frosty land; he comes from Bengal, from paradise, from a place
I shall never see again! And I--I--am left to linger in this dungeon!”
Suddenly she said, quite calmly and seriously, “Tell me, do you think
there are men whose will is so strong that they can break down even
these walls when they know how passionately I desire it?”
“There are no such men outside, but within us there are!” answered
the Countess, carried away by the vehemence of that passionate storm
of feeling which had so lately broken over her. How contemptible it
was of her, she thought, to have desired to outwit a human being. She
felt mean in her own estimation, and casting all projects and promises
to the winds, she began to glow in the presence of this strange
personality like the spark of an electric current. “Yes, they are to be
found in us!” she repeated.
“He! he! the conqueror!” sang Cara, with a sound of passion in her
tone, and in the Countess’s heart, too, there sprang up, like a marble
image, the form of the man she had met a few evenings before. On her
heart this image was sculptured, and she allowed its impress to recur
again and again and remain there.
“Do you love him?” she asked the dancer.
But the other answered, as if brushing away an unconsidered trifle, “I
... love? I _adore_ him!”
“I do not love him!” hastily asseverated the Countess, pursuing the
mental image she had conjured up. “But yet he is great, superhuman. He
is a world in himself. In the midst of this tame and quiet existence
he is as a jungle and primeval forest. It seems to me as if he must
have both the tiger and the serpent within him, as well as all that
is boldest in Nature, its gigantic trees, its wild and impenetrable
forests. Do you know, one can creep within them, never coming to an
end, and yet be in him!”
She broke off suddenly. She dared not put into words the fancies evoked
within her. For the husband whose eccentricities she tolerated was no
more to her than a brother--nay, a father. They were bound together by
one voluptuous hour of which no human being knew or even suspected. It
was such an hour as that in which two human personalities melted into
one to create a new being that later on might emerge and begin a life
bound by invisible ties to that mysterious hour. The threads might be
torn from their place, snapped, distorted, yet they remained entwined.
No other desire now possessed her than to yield her senses once more
unrestrainedly to that consciousness of the depths of her being which
enfolded her as in a dream, and which she nevertheless continually
thrust aside.
The two women sat close together, the Countess on the ground.
Both seemed alike to be struck down by an invisible and imperious
fist, striking at these centres of abandonment and yearning and
self-betrayal. After the hasty and intimate avowals forced from them,
the shadow of silence fell upon them.
“Say something!” pleaded the Countess timidly.
“Be silent, or I shall strangle you ... with my own hands!” cried the
dancer.
The Countess shrank back, feeling herself, beside the other, to
resemble a hare in the claws of a mighty and powerful bird of prey.
Food was pushed into the cell, but neither of the women perceived it.
It grew dark, and the dancer lay down, fully dressed, upon one of the
plank beds. The Countess imitated her and stretched herself on the
other straw pallet. The night passed by, and in the long sleepless
hours their fancies flowed into a dark and turgid stream.
Suddenly in the gloom Cara’s voice was heard: “Are you asleep?”
“No.”
“Why are you here?”
The Countess had not the courage to repeat her tissue of lies, and she
remained silent. Cara, too, kept silent for a while, then she said
suddenly:
“You were sent here to pump me! Have I told you anything?”
“Yes.”
“About _him_?”
“Yes.”
“Did I tell you his name?”
“No.”
“That’s all right then, otherwise you would never leave this place
alive. But if you are lying, and I had told it you, I tell you now,
he _has_ no name. He is a thousand men, a whole nation, a part of the
universe!”
“Just like the man I have been thinking of,” reflected the Countess,
but an instant later she did not know whether she had not spoken her
thought aloud.
“When are you going away again?”
“When you want me to.”
“Then go at once, and tell everything I have told you!”
“No,” answered the Countess resolutely.
“Why don’t you, when that is what you came here for?”
“Things are different now.”
“Nothing is different,” asserted the dancer vehemently. “Everything is
as it was and will ever be. He is out there, free as the air; I am here
like a carcass rotting on the ground. Tell everything you know.”
“I shall say nothing!”
“Why not, you--you cursed hussy!” she shrieked.
“Because you love him so!”
Then the dancer grew calm again, but a few moments later she burst into
tears and sobbed wildly and unrestrainedly.
The Countess lay still on her pallet. She felt as if a naked soul with
claws, whence the skin and tissues had been withdrawn, were clutching
at her heart and holding it within its grasp. She felt her own blood
shudder and leap up beneath the claws and mingle with that of the
other. This naked soul that clutched at her was her sister. She was
akin in blood to the criminal yonder, but neither of the women knew
that he who had thus caused their hearts to beat in unison during this
night in prison was one and the same mysterious being.
XI
The news Wenk received of Karstens’ state was very unsatisfactory.
Since he had, apparently, offered strong resistance to his attackers,
a second man seemed to have struck him violently on the head with a
crowbar, and the blow had resulted in concussion of the brain. At
intervals he became conscious, but for short periods only, and at
present it was impossible to say what the outcome would be. His state
was so critical, the doctor declared, that any sustained conversation
with him could not be thought of for at least two or three weeks.
As for the dancer, about whose participation in the affair he would
have something to say, as his shout to the constables to take her into
custody proved, Wenk had for the present to content himself with any
evidence the Countess might obtain. To-day was Monday, and at four
o’clock in any case he would hear whether any explanation might be
looked for from Cara Carozza.
He did not leave the house that day. The two main centres of his
activity could not be reached by him in person; one was the women’s
prison, the other, and far more important, was the town of Constance.
He was frequently called up by telephone from the latter place, for
this Poldringer had to be kept constantly under surveillance.
While spending the waiting hours at home impatiently, he frequently
walked backwards and forwards to the window. On one of these occasions
he noticed a man whom he had first seen as early as eight o’clock, and
again half an hour later, and then not again for some time. The man
always happened to be passing the house rapidly, or else standing at a
turning some distance off. Could it be that he was there to spy upon
his movements? Wenk resolved to put the matter to the test.
He ordered one of the members of the Secret Police to disguise himself
so that anyone at a hasty glance might mistake him for the State
Attorney. Then Wenk’s chauffeur brought round the car to the door where
the masquerader was waiting, and at a moment when the stranger was
again visible at a corner this man got in quickly, settled himself down
inside, and was rapidly driven away. “I shall be able to see how this
simple trick succeeds,” said Wenk to himself.
At this moment there was an urgent call from Constance. “The man under
observation brought the young fellows in his company to the station
at 3.16 p.m. The Offenburg express is due to leave at 3.36. It is
uncertain which of the party will travel by it; some have hand luggage,
and the others none, and it is not yet ascertainable whether the
suspected man will accompany them. One of them bought seven tickets for
Offenburg, but the party consists of eight, and one among them looks
different and has never been seen here before. It is possible that he
may be the leader of the expedition, and in the service of the French.
How are we to proceed?”
“Have three plain-clothes police ready. If the eight go by train, let
these three go too. If one or more stay behind, let one of the men be
left too, so that those remaining are not allowed out of sight. They
may be travelling by separate routes.”
The telephone official repeated the order given. “Good. Arrange to
speak to me immediately after the departure of the express. Ring off.”
Wenk asked to be connected with Offenburg, and in five minutes he was
able to get on to the police there.
“Seven, or possibly eight, men are arriving by the express from
Constance. Plain-clothes men are in the same train. See that sixteen
armed police are in readiness at the station. It is probable that
the travellers will have passes to Alsace. They are forged.... When
you arrest the men, be careful to avoid observation, and the only
information to be given to the Press is that it was a case of Germans
having been enticed into the Foreign Legion; and mind you state
expressly that they will be at once set free and returned to their
homes. You will know nothing about the forged passports. In case there
is a man of the name of Poldringer or Hinrichsen among them, let him be
separated from the rest and kept in close custody.”
Shortly after Constance telephoned again: “Seven men have left. It is
Poldringer who stayed behind; he went to the ‘Black Bull,’ and is under
observation there.”
“Good. Thank you. Please ring up here again at seven o’clock, and
should anything important occur in the meantime, notify the Criminal
Investigation Department.”
Then Wenk had to hurry, so that he might call for the Countess at the
prison at four o’clock. It was then half-past three, and he was alone
in the house. He telephoned for his car, and just as he was going
downstairs he heard a knock at the front door. He opened it.
An elderly man was standing there. His figure was bent, and he had a
bushy snow-white beard, red cheeks and blue eyes.
“Herr von Wenk?” he inquired courteously.
“Please come in,” answered the lawyer, “but I am sorry to say that I am
just going out on urgent official business.”
“I will not detain you a moment,” said the other. “My name is Hull, and
I am the father of the murdered man!”
Wenk bowed, and led the way to his office.
“Herr von Wenk, I have been told that you are conducting this inquiry.
Edgar was my only son, and I brought him up badly, for my whole time
was given to my business, and I had vast interests. My wife died when
he was but a child. I think many sons in our days have had a similar
experience.” He spoke evenly, almost harshly. “But that does not free
me from blame. Our sons were our pleasure, our business our duty. It
would have been better had it been the other way about. I cannot desire
such a life as his to be restored, for what I have heard from various
sides about the circumstances of the case is sufficient, and I do not
wish to know more, but I have allowed myself the liberty of calling
upon you for other reasons. My son used to receive an income of ten
thousand marks from me each month, and the only wish left me in this
unhappy affair is to be able to spend these ten thousand marks as if
he were still living, and add another ten thousand to them. I want the
money to be used to help men to make good, and how am I to set about
this? Can you advise me, sir?”
Wenk answered in a hesitating tone, “I must first of all confess, Herr
von Hull, that your words have taken me aback!”
This man’s bearing moved him deeply. Restrained force of character,
suppressed paternal grief, unutterable sympathy ... everything that
had thus unexpectedly been laid bare to him, threw him for the moment
somewhat off his balance. “Yes. I don’t know ... Herr von Hull, why did
you come to _me_ above all men?”
“I can tell you that at once, sir. It is your task to bring the
murderers to justice, and I should like to replace with something that
is beneficial the harm that has been done by one of my house. I should
like the recollection of my son to bear good fruit. I have had nothing
of his life, but perchance his death may yield something that may
plead for me in eternity.” His voice remained firm until the last word
had been uttered. “But I must not forget that you are in a hurry,” he
continued. “Perhaps it is this same unhappy affair which prevents your
giving me any more time now?”
“You are right,” said the lawyer.
“Can I see you to-morrow or some other day, when we can talk quietly,
when you are free?”
“I shall be free to-morrow, my dear sir. Come when most convenient to
you, preferably in the morning. You are not obliged to fix an exact
time, for I shall be at home all day. I thank you for your suggestion;
we shall be enabled to do a splendid piece of work together, I believe.”
“Nay, it is I who must thank you for being willing to help me raise
a memorial to my unhappy boy that shall redeem his name among his
fellow-men.”
They left the house together, and Wenk drove rapidly to the prison.
“The lady left here long before four o’clock,” said the Governor.
“Indeed!” said Wenk, disappointed. “What did she leave for me?”
“Nothing!”
“And you yourself know nothing either? About the matter she had in
hand, did she get any results?”
“I did not inquire.”
“Why not?” said Wenk, annoyed by his manner.
“I was not instructed to do so,” answered the Governor morosely.
“It is not a question of your exact instructions, but of attempting to
track to earth one of the most dangerous bands of criminals Germany
has ever known. You don’t seem to realize that. What you and your
instructions may be counts for nothing.”
“So much the better. Perhaps another time I may be spared such
innovations....”
“You do not seem to feel yourself thoroughly comfortable in your
post, Governor. I will say a word for you to the Home Secretary! Good
morning.”
“What has happened?” said Wenk to himself. “What is up?” He felt
disappointed and angry as he took his seat in the car again.
* * * * *
At seven o’clock that evening the Countess drove to the Privy
Councillor’s mansion. She found the same company assembled there as
on the last occasion, and this time, too, she saw as little of them.
Around her and Dr. Mabuse, her partner at the supper-table, the
conversation rose and fell, isolating them from the rest. Her neighbour
was more silent than on the previous occasion, but everything he said
was spoken with an impressive intent, directed towards a goal which was
unrecognizable.
The Countess was divided in her own mind as to whether she should
relate her experience in the prison to him, should tell him that she
had come in contact with the soul of a woman, strong and fearless as
the figures in his own recitals; yea, even stronger, since it was a
woman, experienced in renunciation, and carrying on her conflict in
resistance and defence.
In imagination she had entered so thoroughly into the struggle, and
her encounter with this criminal seemed to open up such unusual
circumstances, that the power of the man at her side insensibly seemed
to lessen, and this second meeting with him appeared to yield nothing
that her passionate anticipation had longed for. The man seemed to
decline before her.
She noticed that while he uttered his imperious sentences, both at
their first meeting and on this occasion, he kept his eyes fixed on
her with a compelling look. They were grey eyes, and their glance was
a steely one. She grew somewhat frightened, and in her anxiety yearned
for some human being who could warm her breast with his sympathy and
afford her troubled spirit peace.
She looked across at her husband. He was sitting near the medium,
engaging her in talk, and it seemed as if his words were the mere play
of his graceful fingers, on one of which the ring was flashing, as
if dominating the whole. Then the woman’s heart was overcome with a
strange sad feeling, stilling the fever in her breast--a feeling of
lofty womanly sympathy. He seemed such a child, she said to herself.
“Without me he would be defenceless. He is like a hoop rolling down the
street, its course determined by the obstacles and unevennesses in its
path.”
With this feeling upon her, she experienced a renewed glow as she
thought of her encounter with the dancer; she was lifted out of her
everyday existence, borne onward as in a mighty rush of passion, then
again becoming cool and collected as at the contact with something
cold and forbidding. It seemed to her then that she was struggling to
reach her husband and ever as she approached him she was driven back,
encountering the inflexible and steely glance of the man beside her.
Mabuse grew more and more silent. He ate nothing, and he took no pains
to conceal his taciturnity. On the contrary, he seemed, as it were, to
strive to impress it upon the whole company, just as a mighty African
potentate might exercise his tyranny on his patient and long-suffering
followers, and the very actions of the others served to accentuate this
attitude of adoration of a superior force.
Count Told alone seemed to trifle with graceful gestures about the
medium, who, black-haired and deadly pale, kept her unwieldy form
pressed close to his side, seeming to have eyes for no other. Then the
Countess felt that she hated the man who sat beside her in his sullen
mood while her husband’s attitude was thus bordering on the ridiculous.
And yet it was not hate she felt, but the inward conflict between the
desire to yield herself to the domination of a self-sufficing and
stronger heart and brain and resistance to the impulse of subjugation.
The supper-table was cleared and the company stood around talking for
a while. Mabuse had left his table-companion and sought the society of
Count Told. He engaged him in a discourse on the psychological aspect
of gambling.
“I am a born gambler,” said the Count. “When I am losing, I remain as
cold as ice, but when I am winning my brain lights up and my phantasies
are redoubled.”
Then Mabuse said: “Games of chance are the oldest form, the strongest
and most widespread form, in which a man who is not gifted with
artistic expression may yet feel himself an artist.”
“That is an interesting idea,” said the Count; “pray follow it up a
little further.”
“It is because in a game of chance every man feels that he can
force himself to a creative act. Creation, through the principle
which underlies all life, draws its force from the parallel powers
of volition and accident. By accident we must understand all that
is untried, immeasurable, strange, and impossible of expression in
itself. This is, too, the mental process of creative work, to which
nature has lent a portion of primal force, the work of the artist!
Between the poles of volition and accident this power is wielded as in
a state of trance. Goethe confessed that to be the case with himself
when he was composing his poems. In games of chance there is a like
synthesis. Accident gives the player his material--it may be trifling
and insignificant, or it may be of dominating power. The player sets
his will to work to accomplish a creation of his own from his material.”
“You are a poet yourself, Doctor?”
“Oh, no, I am a physician practising psychotherapy.”
“Such people are our most modern poets. For they give our knowledge of
the unconscious, or rather the subconscious, its perceptible form, and
the subconscious world, which is now firmly established, produces our
psychic existence. We will have a game of baccarat afterwards, shall we
not?”
“Agreed!”
The hypnotic subject was about to begin her test. A doctor led her
forward and threw her into a hypnosis in which she would recall her
wonderful recollections. On the first evening, as Count Told informed
Mabuse in an awestruck whisper, she had related her mental experiences
during her first attempts to walk.
While the Count was speaking he felt an unnatural warmth stealing over
the back of his head. He turned round, but there was nothing behind him
save the tapestried wall, upon which pictures of the old school, to
which he was quite indifferent, were hanging.
The patient did not respond to the hypnotist’s suggestions. She did
indeed fall into a state of trance, but all the spectators could see
that gradually the expression of her eyes indicated that she was
returning from a far-off view, until suddenly they looked straight
ahead and were wide awake again, awake and indignant.
“Someone is tormenting me,” she said.
“No one is tormenting you,” said the hypnotist in a monotonous
and measured tone. “We are guiding you to the early home of your
youth--one, two, three ... you are sleeping--one, two ... you are
sleeping!”
He passed his hand slowly and lightly over her forehead, continuing to
count, “Three ... one ... two ... where are you now?--how old are you?”
“I am ten months and three days old.”
“What did your mother do this morning when she took you out of the
cradle?”
“She unwrapped me and hurt me and ... and ...” She breathed a deep
sigh, then awoke suddenly and said, “There is someone here who ought to
go away. Who is tormenting me?”
“We can obtain no results to-day. There are some disturbing influences
which I do not recognize and therefore cannot remove,” said the
hypnotist.
The Privy Councillor approached Mabuse. “How would it be, Doctor, if
_you_ were to make an attempt? After the tests of your power which
I have already seen, I think we can promise to get rid of these
disturbing influences,” he said.
Mabuse declared himself willing to try, at any rate, though he could
not vouch for the result, as he was suffering from a slight chill which
affected his head. He at once took a short step towards the medium,
however, and they saw that she moved slightly in his direction as if
attracted by a magnet. Mabuse did not utter a word, but he let his
glance wander over part of her body. The girl became even paler than
before, if possible, and although she made no movement, it was easy to
see that she struggled against something invisible, that her resistance
grew quickly weaker and that her eyes fell before him.
Then Mabuse said in a rapid and violent tone: “You are lying in
swaddling clothes. Your arms are bound fast to your side. You are six
months’ old. It is evening, and you are crying. Why are you crying?”
And from the heavy body of this girl, sleeping with wide-open eyes,
there came a piping, fretful voice: “I have a pain in my stomach.”
“That is only wind. You’ve had too much to drink. Who gave it you?”
“I got it from the breast of a woman,” answered the baby voice.
“Do you love that breast?”
Then the girl grew deathly white, and into the childish voice there
crept a piercing and angry note, “No.”
“What did you want to do?”
“I wanted to bite it with my gums!”
“Why?”
Then the girl was seized with trembling, which passed over her whole
body, and Mabuse said, “Every minute that prolongs this endangers her
life. I must bring the experiment to an end!”
He laid the girl down on a sofa, and with reassuring movements he
released her from sleep and bathed her face, and when she came to
herself again recommended her being put to bed.
The conversation now turned upon Mabuse’s experiment, and everyone was
asking questions, speculating on what she would have said.
“That was a fairy-tale,” said Told; “a fable of the preconscious
existence! Doctor, you are a genius. But what did she want to say that
made her tremble so?”
A lady came forward with the same question on her lips, but Mabuse’s
eyes sought the Countess, and she, too, came forward to ask. Then
Mabuse answered, “She wanted to say, ‘Because I hated her so!’”
The Countess shrank back and the others were silent, painfully
affected. Then the Countess leaned forward, saying coldly, “A baby
cannot hate!”
“How do you know that?” asked Mabuse roughly.
“I know it ... of myself,” she replied.
“Then you can rejoice over yourself, for you are not only a genius
at recollection, but also an angel in disposition!” retorted Mabuse
sarcastically.
Conversation broke the company up into little groups. Count Told alone
remained silent. There was still that unnatural warmth at the back of
his head. He looked behind him, and he felt his head; there was nothing
there. He went to a mirror, but nothing was to be seen. He sat down
again and it seemed as if he were falling asleep, yet he saw them all
and heard everything. He wanted to say something, but it seemed as if
the words were plucked from his mouth like ripened fruit ready to fall.
After a short time had passed thus, he rose and went to the group
wherein Dr. Mabuse was standing, saying, “We were going to play
baccarat!”
“So we were!” answered Mabuse. “Shall we be likely to find enough
players?”
Then Told grew wide awake and eager. “It will be fine, playing baccarat
with you. Herr Wendel, will you join us, eh?”
“I must attend to my social duties among the ladies,” answered the
Privy Councillor, “but you will soon be able to find partners!”
Six gentlemen quickly gathered round the card-table which stood in
a part of the room leading to the conservatory. The lamp with its
enormous shade hung low over the table, leaving the rest of the room
in the half-light. In the conservatory, to which a glass door led, the
ghostly branches of foreign palms could be seen outlined against the
glass, and in the moonlight they looked like stiff forms stretching
their dark limbs heavenwards.
They cut the cards to see who should be the first to hold the stakes.
The visitors crowded round the card-table and Countess Told stood in
the dim light, looking down upon it. Mabuse saw her smooth white skin
gleaming from the rich dark red dress she wore. His bearing was cold
and gloomy, and scarcely a word escaped his lips. The feelings that
arose within him were sternly suppressed, and his thoughts were busy
with Count Told alone. When anyone addressed him, he answered abruptly.
He seemed to pay great attention to the game, but he played by leaps
and bounds.
Soon the gentlemen who had begun their game with modest stakes began
to imitate his example, and there was no unanimity in the value of the
stakes. Beside a stake of a mark or two there stood a fifty-mark note,
and then one for two hundred. The small stake seemed to feel ashamed;
it rapidly became twenty, and still faster it grew to a hundred, to
two hundred.... Very soon there was no player who ventured less than a
hundred marks. When they began they found time for conversation between
the end of the hand and the fresh deal, but after a time the talk grew
less, and then ceased. The onlookers, too, became silent. The contest
between the players grew more pronounced, the game feverish, and this
excitement spread to the spectators.
The Countess noted the high stakes her husband wagered. “He has never
played before,” she thought. “What is the matter with him?”
The Count was winning. He let his winnings accumulate. It seemed as if
he were a horse, urged and threatened onward by an eager rider. He
threw his money down. It was now his turn to hold the stakes. It seemed
to him as if the moment in which he should deal the cards and undertake
the manifold risks of gain or loss would be a supreme experience for
him, yielding rich secrets of wonderful joy. He grew excited, and his
phantasies played about the room.
The Countess turned aside in the half-light, constrained at her
husband’s incomprehensible actions. Suddenly the full light of the
lamp fell upon her, revealing where her slender breast rose white and
stately from the enclosing circle of her gown.
“North and south!” said Mabuse, as he contemplated her lovely figure,
“north and south, your turn is coming,” and his tone was sinister and
threatening. Then he turned his glance away, and it fell upon Count
Told’s hands as he took over the bank at this moment. He dealt the
cards out, and hesitated a moment as if perplexed at some strange
occurrence. He was relieved when he had distributed the pack. He
won considerable sums, and it was singular that the same feeling of
perplexity recurred. He won a second time, and now this seemed to
happen continually. Players and spectators alike were astonished at the
run of luck the Count’s game exhibited.
“Look at your husband,” said someone, turning to the Countess; “he is
winning every hand.”
They all cast a glance at the Countess and then quickly returned to
their cards. The Count dealt the cards once more. He disclosed his
cards; he had two picture cards and was about to buy another.
“Halt!” cried a voice suddenly, like the voice of a drill sergeant,
and a hand was laid roughly on the table, reaching the white and
delicate hand of the Count, on which the jewelled ring was sparkling,
and turning it over. Then all the company saw that the Count had been
about to take a card from underneath the pack instead of the one that
lay on the top. The card was a nine.
“Aha, a nine! _Now_ I understand your luck, you gudgeon! You are a
common cheat!”
They all sprang up in confusion. Count Told sat still in his chair, in
a state of utter collapse. He seemed absolutely crushed, finding no
word to say.
“Give the money here!” cried the harsh voice again. “All of it!” The
tone was threatening.
The spectators and the players were crowding together, and a cry rang
through the obscurity. Through the hasty movements of the powerful man
who had seized the Count, one man had fallen to the ground, dragging
another down with him. The latter clutched at the tablecloth, and it
was pulled off, money and cards being strewn over the floor, people
flinging themselves upon it. Suddenly the electric lights went out, but
Dr. Mabuse, who had waited for the cry from the dark corner, rushed
to the fainting Countess, lifted her in his arms and with one spring
bore her under the palms and out into the garden under the moonlight,
through the shrubbery and to the wall leading to the street. He lifted
her over, and from the other side someone helped him with his burden.
An instant later a car was stealing swiftly down the street.
“The northern and southern hemispheres,” he shouted aloud furiously
during the drive. “Now I hold you both!”
The Xenienstrasse was empty. The car came to a sudden standstill. He
carried the Countess, still unconscious, into his house.
XII
Scarcely heeding the abuse and scorn heaped upon him by the crowd, out
of the chaos and confusion of the contemptuous glances of others and
his own feeling of perplexity, Count Told stole, as if in a dream,
towards the vestibule. He thought of his wife, but he had not the
courage to look round for or inquire about her. His car stood before
the door, and the chauffeur was about to start the engine when the
Count made a gesture of denial, saying, “Wait for the Countess!”
He went into the town and hired the first taxi he saw to drive him
home. “What has happened to me?” was the question that he perpetually
put to himself. “What was it that overcame me? Who moved my hand?...
What is it that has happened? I know nothing about it. Can it be merely
a bad dream?”
But it was no dream. He reached his house and had to descend. He went
down the length of the garden and into the house. The footman took his
coat, and the Count went to the room where he and his wife, whenever
they had been out together, were wont to spend a short time before
going to bed, in exchanging the experiences the evening had afforded.
He always looked forward eagerly to these moments.
To-night he was alone there. “Where can my wife be?” he asked himself,
astonished and yet unconscious. So many tender memories clung to this
room, and he felt disappointed that in this dreadful hour she was not
by his side. It was the first painful experience of his existence.
But all at once it became clear to him that she must have sundered
herself from him, and he realized that by that inexpressibly strange
occurrence at the gaming-table in the Wendel mansion he had covered
himself with mire. It clung fast to him, and he thought, “Lucy must
leave me. She must remain away until I have purified myself.” But how
was he to accomplish the task?
And suddenly there came over him, like an icy blast in all its pitiless
severity, the full meaning of what he had done. He had done it, he
really had put cards at the bottom of the pack and then drawn them when
he wanted them, and with these he had won money. Yet he had not desired
to win money! What could have happened? Was there no help anywhere?
He had done something against his will. His act had thrust him out
of decent society, and to the end of his days he would be known as a
cheat. Was there no help to be found?
“I know now,” he said to himself, “what it is I have done, but I do
not know how I came to do it, neither the why nor the wherefore. I am
growing crazy, losing my self-confidence, and I shall henceforth be
unable to feel safe, whatever I do. Horrible, monstrous thought! I am
absolutely afraid of myself. How can I ever have reached such a point?
Yonder is a sculpture by Archipenko and the picture hanging there is
one of Kokoschka’s; I am quite certain of that; but what proceeds from
my own brain, and is my own creation, of that I can never more feel
certain again. I retain my sight, hearing and feelings, but my brain is
rotting!... I shall end in a lunatic asylum! My body moves in the light
of day while my mental powers are wrapped in a dim twilight. Is there
no one that can help me?”
He struggled with his tears, but he could not even allow himself to
weep, for he thought, “Perhaps I shall lose all consciousness of what I
am doing. If I weep, may I not possibly destroy a picture that I have
hitherto loved and worshipped, or abuse my man, or act improperly to
Lucy’s maid?”
And suddenly, at the utterance of his wife’s name, he collapsed
entirely. “Ah, Lucy, light of my life, can _you_ not help me?” he
cried. “Will you not come? Have you no longer faith in me? Why am I
left alone?”
He rang, and then, hastening to meet the footman, inquired for the
Countess.
“The Countess has not yet returned,” he was told.
“Nor telephoned? Has she not...”
“No, my lord, but an hour ago Herr Dr. von Wenk rang up, asking if he
might have the honour of waiting on her ladyship to-morrow morning. His
telephone number has been written down.”
“Go!” said the Count. “I will go to Dr. Wenk ... yes, to Dr. Wenk,” he
thought, and then, a prey to a thousand nameless fears, he cried aloud,
“Or else I shall hang myself! I must be able to tell some human being
what I feel....”
He hurried to the telephone, giving the number written down. “Yes,
this is the State Attorney, Dr. Wenk!” answered a strange voice in the
distance, and Told began to tremble. But he rallied all his energy and
self-control, saying, “Can I speak to you at once?”
He was terribly afraid that the fever of his desire might melt the
connecting wire and that he might get no answer. He breathed freely
again when he heard the words, “With pleasure! I shall expect you!”
“Fritz!” he shouted; “get the two-seater ready,” and he drove back to
Munich.
Wenk believed he had come on the Countess’s errand, and that something
had happened in the prison to put an end to the enterprise they had in
hand.
“I think, Count Told, that after all it was too risky an experiment.
The Countess....”
“No, no,” cried Told, interrupting him. “I ... I ... it is on my own
account that I’ve come here,” and then he began his story. He told,
too, what an extraordinary sensation of heat he had felt at the back
of his head, and this must have been the forerunner of misfortune. “Do
not be vexed, Dr. Wenk, that I, a stranger, should come to you thus,
but I should have had to put an end to myself if I had not been able to
confide in someone to-night. May I go on? Well, these powerful rays,
that were like red-hot iron at the back of my head, changed gradually
to a feeling of well-being throughout my whole body. They seemed to
bathe me in pleasant warmth, and I had a feeling that I was somehow
saved from something that lay before me, and in this very moment of
relief ... it happened! In the first half-hour afterwards I denied
that it could have done, but when I reached home I realized that the
dreadful story was true, and this thing had really happened. There is
no getting away from it, either for others or for myself.”
Wenk at once recalled his experience with the old Professor. He was
startled. Could it be possible that here too ... and he thought of the
Countess and of Cara Carozza. He asked Told, “Have you any suspicion at
all?”
The Count did not understand the question.
“Any suspicion? What do you mean? That I have been like this before?
Ill in this way? No, never!”
“No, a suspicion of any special person who was there?”
“The idea never occurred to me. I can’t understand how anybody else
could.... No ... I don’t suspect anyone!”
“Was there nobody in the company who did not seem to belong there, who
was not quite like the other guests?”
“It was a company of the Privy Councillor’s intimate friends. No, there
was nobody!”
Wenk rejected the idea. Besides, how could there be any connection
between the criminal he was seeking and the Count’s act of cheating?
It was apparently a momentary mental aberration, a loss of will-power.
A subconscious process in a strange and elusive personality which
bordered upon morbidity, which thus strove to register a mental
impression upon its fellow-players. The Count ought to consult a
psychiatrist. It was extraordinary that he should appeal to him, a
criminal prosecutor, but he did not put any question to him on this
head.
Told became silent, and the lawyer respected his mood. Then suddenly
he seemed to pull himself together and said, “I realize that I am
keeping you from your night’s rest; I beg you not to be vexed with
me. In misfortune it seems as if the mind sinks into a gulf, and the
consciousness grasps at the nearest support. You had rung up, and there
was some connection between you and ... my house, and so....” He broke
off. “But tell me, am I really saying what I want to, or am I talking
nonsense? You see, that is the horror of such an experience as mine.
It seems as if I shall always require a neurologist to guide my future
life.”
“Reassure yourself, Count; you are speaking quite clearly and saying
exactly what you want to express. I beg you to make use of me if
you can. My calling in some respects borders upon the sphere of the
specialist in nerve-disorders; perhaps it goes even further, and at any
rate it is bound up with the most mysterious and most speculative part
of man’s being. I am very sorry that the occasion that brings you to me
is such an unfortunate one, else I should be only too pleased by your
visit.”
While Wenk was speaking, desiring to convey that anything out of the
common which was mentally or spiritually of an unusual and critical
nature was really his concern, the idea occurred to him to enlist the
Count’s sympathy in his own aims. Count Told was a man of the world.
He belonged to a sphere through which Wenk hoped to be able to endow
the life of the nation with nobler qualities and loftier ideals. In
the practical necessities which the last few months had forced upon
him he had almost neglected the ideal side of the task before him. The
events of this night had brought him into unexpected relations with a
human being, and he could best serve him by not leaving him alone. He
explained his views to the Count.
“They talk of ours as the ‘upper’ class. This description, which
certainly has a substratum of truth, must be made a living reality once
more. Our class, free of the struggle to obtain a better social status,
is more than ever called upon to foster intellectual development and
mental gifts. It must cherish these noble qualities in itself and
turn them to account for others. Our sphere of politics must be the
spiritual one!”
Count Told’s life hitherto had been irreproachable. Both in sentiment
and in the externals of life he had shown himself superior, but for
lack of serious pursuits to which he could devote himself he had thrown
his energies into following up his hobbies, such as the collection
of Futurist works of art, for which there was as yet no standard to
judge by. He patronized young poets who were at present but a minority
and a novelty. They were brought into the light, and the discovery of
their powers engaged the serious attention of himself and his like.
The struggle to get possession of something new and striking was
carried on in this respect just as it was by the profiteers of ordinary
wares.... It was not the uneducated rich who devoted themselves to it,
but those who sought for their wealth a channel which should return
their gold stamped with the impress of beauty and of intellectual
superiority. But these fell victims to the age, and their ideas
dissolved in hysteria akin to that of a weeping woman whose whole
consciousness can hold but one idea. The value of money declined, and
in so doing its power over men became all the greater; it seized upon
them with ever-growing force, till at last it was like a disease.
Such was the connection between the hobbies of the Count and his like
and the age they lived in. The age made use of what was valuable in
them. The propagandists of the “new art” were merely stockjobbers,
uniting their intellectual ambitions with their speculations. The
celebrated “Blue Horses” were to be had for a couple of hundred marks
at first. X. bought them for eight hundred, and now it was impossible
to obtain them for two hundred thousand. It was such anecdotes as these
that spurred them on.
For a long time Wenk and Count Told discussed these things. The Count
opposed Wenk’s view, having learnt some of the terminology of the
artists whose pictures he bought.
“Folks even begin to say,” said Wenk to him on one occasion, “that
he speaks as well as a Futurist! And this school begins to affiliate
itself with another intellectual movement of our day, which stands
on much the same foundations--with the so-called theosophy. You
will notice that the Futurist _eo ipso_ is also a theosophist or an
anthropologist. But it is not because these ideas are really inwardly
connected, but because the pursuance of them is united. You will always
find nowadays that those who most freely deplore the materialism of our
age are those who in private life are most devoted to it. Moreover, in
the one case as in the other, it is not always a question of money.
Mental and spiritual greed is also an aspect of this age, which
exchanges the dominion of one for that of another. Everywhere folks
are seeking, seeking eagerly to escape from the misery of the present,
and for us mortals there remains but warfare--war against those near
us, against those among us, and against ourselves, and it is our class
especially which must wage war against ourselves!”
Wenk then asked the Count whether he would not spend the night with
him, as it was now so late.
The Count answered involuntarily, “Yes, but my wife....” Then he
stopped, looking at Wenk, and his face showed the return of his
tormenting thoughts. After a time he began again: “You had caused me to
forget my trouble, Dr. Wenk! For this night I have robbed you of, which
you have devoted to me so sympathetically, I shall eternally be in your
debt. I cannot think how I should have lived through it--alone! Now it
seems to be behind me, and I gratefully accept your offer of a bed.”
“How would you like,” said Wenk to Count Told next morning, “for me to
see the Privy Councillor and relate your story to him?”
“I should be extremely glad if you would.”
He hesitated as if he wanted to say something more. Wenk noticed it and
waited. Then he said, anticipating the other, “I am absolutely at your
service. If you have any other wish....”
The Count answered quickly, reddening as he spoke, “Yes, I want to
speak to my wife. When I think of her I feel ... so ashamed!”
“You need not be ashamed!”
“My wife has such a strong and forceful idea of life. It always seemed
as if she found our life together a somewhat feeble thing.... I wonder
whether it will be possible for her to go on living with a husband who
henceforth is but an invalid.”
“I will see her, too,” said Wenk.
* * * * *
The Privy Councillor received Wenk at once. As amiably as he could,
and in the pleasantly sarcastic tone which distinguished him on all
occasions, he told Wenk that his opinion was that the Count had been
anxious to adventure something that might raise him in his wife’s
esteem. The force of her personality stood far above his own, and he
hoped to attain to it by undertaking so hazardous a scheme as to “pack”
the cards and win the game. It was not on account of the money, he was
convinced of that. He merely wanted to exercise his imagination in
adventure as his wife did, but her strength of character always ensured
a safe way of escape. For the more feeble personality the first attempt
had ended in misfortune. His phantasies had been excited by the current
stories of the thieving band of gambling cheats, and the whole affair
was mainly due to his neighbour at the table, whose own desire for
gain influenced a weaker character and thus paved the way to a society
scandal.
“May I inquire, sir, who this neighbour was?”
“Ah, now that I have been so unamiable as to speak of him thus, I
cannot possibly betray him. Moreover, he is the blameless head of a
household, a professor of physiology.”
“The matter is a great deal more serious than you can have any idea
of, sir. The Count spent last night with me, driven to get away from
himself. He told me the story, down to the most trifling detail, and
I have no reason whatever to suspect that he was misrepresenting the
facts. He was absolutely confounded and crushed by the affair. It
seemed as if it had been a failure of intellectual force, a sudden
inhibition of brain-control. May there not have been someone among your
guests who exercised some special influence on the Count?”
“No, there was no Futurist poet or painter among them,” laughed the
Privy Councillor.
“I beg you not to consider my questions importunate, Councillor. You
really are convinced that no such person was present?”
“I do not believe there could have been any. All my guests have been
personally known to me for some time. You know what the occasion of
our meeting was, don’t you? We were studying the effect of hypnosis
on a medium. There were experts, professors, artists of repute, and
some personal friends in the company. Then there was a Dr. Mabuse,
whom I have not known very long, but whose extraordinary success as
a practitioner I respect very highly. He practises psychotherapy. And
that reminds me. If Count Told’s state is such as you describe it to
be, we might see what he can do for the Count, who is the son of one
of my very oldest friends, for I feel a great deal of sympathy for him
in his present position. Tell him from me that I strongly advise his
seeing Dr. Mabuse, to whom I will give him a letter, for I know his
telephone number only.”
Wenk said farewell, and drove from the house to Count Told’s villa at
Tutzing, hoping that he might find the Countess there, but he was told
by the footman that neither his master nor his mistress had spent the
night at home. Then he returned to his own chambers, where the Count,
pale and haggard, waited eagerly for him.
“I felt sure of it,” he said disconsolately, when Wenk told him that
the Countess had not returned home, “but one always hopes for the
impossible. And what about the Privy Councillor?”
“I told him exactly what you told me; he had regarded the matter in
another light, but not a very serious one. He advises you to consult a
neurologist whom he knows, and has given me this letter to him for you.”
“Dr. Mabuse,” read the Count. “Why, he was at the party last night.”
“Shall I go to him?” suggested Wenk.
“No, Doctor, I really must not rely on your kindness any longer. I must
pull myself together and deal with this crisis in my life. I will call
up Dr. Mabuse on the telephone, as we have his number there. I will do
it from here, if I may.”
“Dr. Mabuse,” said the Count at the telephone, “you were present at
Privy Councillor Wendel’s party last night when I had the misfortune
to....”
“That is so.”
“I want your professional help. The Councillor gave me a letter of
introduction to you. Can I bring it at once?”
The other voice answered harshly, “No. I do not see patients except
in their own homes. What is your address? Expect me there to-morrow
morning at 11 a.m. Repeat the appointment; what time is fixed?”
“Eleven a.m.,” said the Count, thoroughly terrified, and then he left
Wenk’s house.
XIII
The Countess opened her eyes on something black, intersected with red
circles and rays. All around her was dark and strange. Somewhere on
high a faint light was glimmering in the room in which she lay. She was
on a sofa, fully dressed. She had never seen the room before, and all
its contents were unfamiliar. She lay there, trying to recall what had
happened, but she found it impossible. One moment alone stood out in
her memory: the recollection of the grey eyes of that Dr. Mabuse who
had told her of tigers--eyes which had held her as with the clutch of
a beast whose claws ran blood. She recalled something like a spring in
the air, a hold that left her breathless, feeling as if the very heart
were being torn from her body and she was sinking, sinking down into a
gulf.
Suddenly a door opened; where, exactly, she did not know, for she
felt rather than perceived it. She was expecting something, but her
imagination flowed back upon herself and she waited.
After a time a voice spoke out of the semi-darkness: “You are awake.
Would you like the light?”
It was a voice which seemed to the Countess at the first moment like
the trump of doom, but in an instant this sensation left her and she
felt incredulous. How came that voice into this mysterious obscurity?
It was the very last she could have expected to hear. She shrank
terrified within herself, and it seemed as if her whole body gradually
stiffened. There was a sound in her throat, but she was not conscious
of it. She stretched her hands in front of her as if warding off a
danger. Then suddenly the room was flooded with light.
Dr. Mabuse closed the door and approached the sofa. He said: “The
situation is exactly what I desired. I have brought you home!”
At these words the Countess regained control of herself. She rose from
the sofa, though she felt faintness stealing over her. What did this
man want with her?--but indeed she knew what he wanted. He was a tiger,
intent on his prey. Nevertheless, she asked him, “What do you want?”
“I have just told you,” he answered curtly.
“And now?”
“You will remain with me.”
“I will not!” cried the Countess. “I will go and help my husband!” And
at that moment she recollected clearly what had happened. Her husband
had cheated at cards. Oh, merciful Heaven, she thought, how could such
a thing have happened? She knew so well how utterly foreign to his
nature such a thing would be. What misery, what despair, what depths
of misfortune! And she herself had been with the woman who was an
accomplice in Hull’s murder, and had succumbed to her power. Everything
seemed to swim before her eyes, and she saw her husband’s unconscious
act through a mist of blood.
She heard the voice of the man beside her, stern and threatening: “You
will not? Have I asked you whether you will?”
He had not asked the tiger or the buffalo. Was he to ask a weak woman?
Was he to ask _her_? She, too, was his prey. This idea filled her with
a sort of voluptuous dread. She was the prey of the strongest man
whom she had ever known. How could she defend herself? He had simply
taken her. Were there men whose will was strong enough to give them
possession of a woman if they never even touched her?
“How did I come here?” she asked.
“We have something more important than that to talk about,” he answered
in a cold, harsh voice that made her tremble. “How are you going to
adapt yourself to the situation?”
“I will never adapt myself to it!” she cried; and it seemed as if
instruments of torture were engraven on her brain.
“That is not the question!” answered the voice, falling like a stone,
falling, lying, lying for thousands of years. “The question is, are you
going to remain with me of your own free will or as my prisoner?”
The Countess, now fully alive to the force and compulsion which
threatened her, strove to collect her wits. She looked, listened,
considered, and slowly began to ask herself, “Shall it be cunning or
resistance?” After a time she answered, “You cannot keep me as your
prisoner in Munich.”
Mabuse replied roughly, “How do you know that you are in Munich?”
“Have you run away with me?” she cried.
“I am not a gorilla.”
“Who _are_ you? What is your name?”
“Whatever you like to call me!”
“Then I shall call you a gorilla,” she was about to retort angrily,
but it seemed as if her tongue refused to utter the hateful name. It
would not be expressed, and something within her appeared to change
and soften the situation, to promise allurement in the distance and
play around her fancy like busy little elves of night. Yet something in
her conscience seemed to tell her that there could be no ease for her
while her husband was cast down by misfortune and her own future was so
uncertain, and she spoke defiantly, “What do you want with me?”
But the man looked at her long and steadily, and she felt as if her
question floated away, minute and unconsidered as a trifle on the
mighty ocean. The ocean was the breast of the man before her. There was
no breast more mighty or powerful; it represented what her inmost being
and her secret desires had yearned after. To rest upon it, to rest ...
as in the jungle....
Then, after he had looked at her in a silence fraught with meaning,
the man spoke. “The human race is too contemptible and inferior to
give its men and women such force as nature has provided for its other
creations; that the one sex should see, know and belong to the other as
naturally and inevitably as light belongs to day!”
“You mean to say,” said the Countess hesitatingly, “that you love me,
and that--is why you have brought me here!”
“I desire you, and that--for me--is stronger than love! You are here
because there is no resisting my desires. You may reign as a queen, in
this breast, and in my kingdom of Citopomar in Southern Brazil. A queen
ruling the virgin forest, its savage beasts, savage and civilized human
beings, valleys, rocks and heights. Who in this miserable continent can
offer you more?”
“No one!” said the Countess, under the secret dominion of the dream
which had so rapidly begun its twofold play in her spirit.
“You have decided, then, to remain of your own free will?” asked Mabuse.
The Countess once more realized her position. She shrank from him,
and tried to shelter herself behind the ottoman. She closed her lips
firmly, but at the same time she was torn by a conflict within; she
desired to go, and at the same time she felt a yearning in some part of
her being to remain and to submit.
He continued: “If it were like this: a man and a woman see each other
for the first time, and in the first glance that they exchange they say
to themselves, ‘There is nothing left to me of what I was. Everything
has vanished like a dissolving view, and thou, the only one, thou alone
remainest. It is inconceivable that there should be a single heart-beat
that does not belong to thee.’ It is as if all the races in all the
ages had united their powers in these two beings, instead of giving
each individual a beggarly portion of it. What a puny creature is man,
but if it were the other way with the race he would be the image of God
and of creation!”
The Countess felt as if a sudden force was stretching her between
two poles. She knew that she herself resembled both of them, and yet
they were unlike each other. “Must I proceed from the one extreme to
the other?” she asked herself, feeling very weary, “or can I remain
hovering between them, calm and comfortable, in the warm rays of a
sunshine that steals over me so pleasantly?”
There was always the inclination to follow the extraordinary and
unusual, that she might feel wherein she was most akin to humanity, and
yet most herself when surrounded by what did not belong to or affect
her. And over her spirit there stole again a feeling as of Paradise,
the scent of the Elysian Fields, the songs of enchanting sirens, and
it seemed as if the limits of her physical nature were dissolved and,
leaving her narrow horizon behind her, she floated as if in ether.
“What is happening to me?” she thought, as, struggling with herself,
she advanced yet nearer to the vision of Paradise which swam before her
eyes.
The eyes of this strange, compelling being flooded her like a spring
season of sunshine. He stood high as the clouds above her. The sunshine
overpowered the earth, but the earth yielded itself gladly to its
rays. Was that the secret of her nature too? she herself asked. The
season, now wild and stormy, advanced like a monster endued with power,
from beyond the horizon, over the forests, rivers, cities, mountains,
looking neither to right nor left and penetrating to the very heart
of things. “If this man overcomes me in such a way, fills my whole
being, is that indeed Paradise? Is it for me completion, redemption,
deliverance? Is this my second nature which I have never yet dared to
follow?”
She desired to resist, but a subtle and enchanting feebleness stole
over her, and she felt herself like a March field, dark and yielding.
A jackdaw was screeching in it, but somewhere or other a thrush was
singing behind her. And the screeching jackdaw and the singing thrush
were snatching at a maggot, a living maggot in the bark of the tree,
and even the bark of the tree seemed to be awaiting and expectant, and
there was a murmuring sound in its cells. And the thrush mounted high
into the air, singing triolets born of the spirit of the soil....
Woman was the thrush, and at the same time she was the maggot. She
yielded herself to the destroying force, and knew it not for the tumult
in her blood. She was stirred in her inmost being, plunged into the
depths and soared again, intangible as an air-bubble.... Above her rose
the call of the man like the rustling sound of the summer, calling the
sap to rise, to push forward the growth which should end in a glorious
harvest.
XIV
Mabuse’s visit to Count Told duly took place. “Your neurosis is not
by any means an unusual one,” said the doctor. “It will be cured when
you regain control of yourself, but it will become worse and finally
be incurable if you don’t succeed in doing that. It is a precursor of
_dementia præcox_. For professional reasons I shall treat you in your
own home, as I do all my patients. I make one condition, however. As
long as you are undergoing treatment you must not leave the house or
see anyone who recalls your former life.”
Told was stupefied by the power and authority which this doctor assumed
towards him. Timid and shrinking by nature, downcast by what had
occurred, he did not venture to make any objection, and from the very
first moment he stood in absolute awe of him.
When Mabuse left the villa, in which he had seen many things which
revealed the life the Count and his wife had led, he said to himself,
“He must be got rid of if she even mentions him again.”
The doctor was in a highly excitable and savage state. The meeting
with this man, who had so long called her his own, had fired his blood
and inflamed him as if he had been a bull in the arena transfixed by a
javelin. He unconsciously lowered his head as if for attack, and his
imagination ran riot, thirsting to satisfy his hate and revenge. It
seemed to him as if a tumour had suddenly burst within him, scattering
its evil and offensive discharge everywhere, and he allowed himself to
bathe in its stream.
When he re-entered his house he went straight to the room in which the
Countess was confined. It was in a secluded corner of the villa. The
only light there was came from a round window in its arched and richly
decorated dome.
The Countess arose as he came in. She was white as the sheets upon her
bed. She went towards him, saying, “Something happened to me in the
night--something of which I was wholly unconscious. What have you been
doing to me?”
“Nothing but what you allowed me to do!”
Then the woman trembled so that she sank down to the ground, raising
her glance to his like an animal that has been shot down, and crying in
horror, “You devil! oh, you devil!”
“That name pleases me,” said Mabuse. “I consider it flattering. It
is, without your realizing it, a caress. Next time you will call me
Lucifer, for I shall bring you light!”
The Countess, lying in a heap on the floor, broke into passionate sobs,
crying in the midst of her anguish, “Where is my husband?”
Then she saw that at the question Mabuse made a gesture, so indifferent
and trivial that she felt her painful anguished appeal was no more than
a drop of dew vanishing in the sand, and as hopeless to look for. And
her downcast broken heart asked itself whether this man could indeed be
so powerful that everything went down before his will--that what she
and others before her had been must be brought to nought?
Once again she must yield herself to the twofold stream within. It bore
the most secret and hitherto unsuspected currents along with it, and
her tortured imagination gave them full play. Must not that which her
blood sought to reveal to her be true? She could not separate herself
from this new world of feeling. Resist and inveigh against it as she
might, she could yet not tear it from her.
The man stood silent before her, and his silence seemed to threaten
her. She thought that by a word of her own she could destroy this
threatening attitude of his, but she found no power to say anything
more than to repeat helplessly, “Where is my husband?” Then Mabuse,
silently and roughly, turned away.
When he had left her, leaving behind nothing but the impression of
his dominating will, she felt as if she missed something in the room.
She would have preferred him to stand there still, and her sense of
isolation passed all bounds, overwhelming her. A bottomless abyss
opened before her, and phantom figures made appealing gestures. But she
could not cast herself down; she hung on to one slender rootlet; she
knew it to be the tiny remnant that remained to her of her former life.
She wished too, that even this rootlet might be torn adrift, for she
would rather have faced death in its entirety than hover over the void.
* * * * *
Mabuse went backwards and forwards in his room. He was like a caged
beast, caught between his rage for vengeance and lust of domination on
the one hand and the resistance raised to the attainment of his goal
on the other. That which baffled him was such a trifle, merely the
memories binding a wife to the hours she has passed with her husband,
either alone or in company, and because it was so slight an obstacle,
the desire to remove and destroy it utterly possessed him with fury
such as he had not known till now.
Spoerri entered. He was dressed as a soldier. “What is that for?” asked
Mabuse morosely, but he did not wait for an answer, and asked about
George’s movements.
“He is at the villa in Schachen. He is very cautious, and does not go
out.”
“What is he doing there?”
“At night he helps to bring the store of cocaine under the summer-house
into Switzerland. I have found something fresh which they are ready to
take there. Ether.”
“What is the ether for?”
“Folks are beginning to take it.”
“Who? What folks? Where?”
“Our folks, in Switzerland!”
“_Your_ folks; how many have you?”
“We can get it to the others!”
“That reminds me of the girls you were sending to Switzerland, to speed
up the smuggling of salvarsan. I don’t want to hear anything about
business matters. You understand, nothing.”
“I won’t say any more about it.”
“Perhaps, Spoerri, there’ll be no need for that sort of thing any
more!”
Then a hoarse cry was uttered by Spoerri. “Oh, Doctor, Citopomar! Is it
to be soon now?”
“We’ll drink to it, Spoerri, we’ll drink to it. I don’t know. Let’s
drink to the shepherd boy with eighty-six thousand marks yearly income!”
“Oh, what have I out of it? Do I not always invest it again in one or
other of your enterprises, Doctor?”
“Because it brings you in ten per cent. more there than it would in an
insurance society. Shall I have to use force, shepherd? Drink, I say!”
Spoerri was the first to fall from his chair. He lay on the floor,
disorder all around him, gazing sadly at his master. He lay there
like a dog about to die, knowing that he could no longer protect his
master’s life.
Mabuse, tottering so that he was obliged to hold on to the edge of the
table to save himself from falling, stuttered: “Spoerri, do you think
there is anyone whose will is strong enough for him to kill someone
else without even touching him?”
But Spoerri did not understand him. He looked up at his master with
glassy eyes, stupid yet faithful, troubled and sick.
“_I_ can! and I shall do it, too!... Sleep,” he said suddenly, and
rising, he spurned the other with his foot. He took a few steps
forward, having to seek support. Then he pulled himself together,
and his will-power was held as it were within an iron vice. Rigidly
upright, without a sign of swaying, inflamed with drink and in a state
of exaltation, he went into the room the Countess occupied and remained
with her without saying a word. And from that hour of humiliation this
woman, too, acknowledged his supremacy. She forgot her past, forgot
her very self, and submitted willingly to her master.
* * * * *
During the night Mabuse started for Lake Constance. Just as he was
approaching the villa at Schachen, having extinguished his lights, he
narrowly missed a collision with the engine of the steam-roller which
was standing in the road a few yards from the garden entrance. It was
directly in front of him when he applied his brakes, and he therefore
did not drive up to the house, but continued along the road for another
kilometre, then left the car standing and went back to the house by the
shore-path.
“Why did you not tell me the steam-roller was here?” he asked George
imperiously. “Even a match-box lying out in the street might betray us.
Go and fetch the car, quickly! It is on the highroad near Wasserburg.
Put it away and come straight back here.”
* * * * *
Next morning the telephone bell woke Wenk from his sleep. “News from
the steam-roller,” he heard, and was at once wide awake.
“Yes, yes; please go on.”
“Last night about two o’clock a car arrived, and pulled up directly in
front of our engine, then drove on again. As it was driving without
lights, I ordered Schmied to follow on a bicycle. He found it about
a kilometre further on, left alone by the roadside, and came back at
once to report. I stole into the garden of the villa, but the dog began
barking and I went outside round the shore. I saw a man come from the
direction of the lake and go into the house. When Schmied and I went
back to find the car it had vanished. There is nothing to be noticed
this morning!”
“Thanks. You can expect me there to-day.”
* * * * *
An hour before this conversation took place on the telephone, while
still dark, Mabuse left the villa. He was wearing women’s clothes and
was rowed across to Nonnenhorn. A motor-boat approached, and in it was
a fisherman returning from a smuggling expedition. Mabuse accosted him,
but the man said he was in a hurry, for he must take his fish home.
Then Mabuse at one bound sprang into his boat, overpowered him, threw
him down and gagged him, and then transferred him to the rowing-boat.
He took off his female garments, beneath which he was dressed as a
fisherman, and making a wide detour, he returned to shore and went to
the farm where in a barn the car was concealed. George was lying in it
asleep.
After a long conversation with George, Mabuse turned and drove back
into Würtemberg, while George returned to Schachen.
Mabuse wanted to get to Stuttgart. His agents there had telephoned the
previous day that a patient wanted to consult him. That meant that they
had got hold of a rich man worth plucking.
While Mabuse was sitting at the gaming-table that evening, he had a
sudden vision of the steam-roller as it appeared directly in front of
him when he applied his brakes. The huge machine was outlined in the
darkness, and it seemed as if it were about to fall upon him, and to
his fancy it took on a strange shape, finally revealing the features
of the State Attorney. As he recalled it, it seemed to stand forth
like some antediluvian monster, bearing Wenk’s face, about to fall
upon and crush him. Mabuse felt vaguely uneasy, and he suddenly left
the gaming-table, where he was losing, and drove back in the night to
Munich. On the way this action of his seemed ridiculous, and he felt
as if his impulse had been unwarranted. “My desire for that woman will
conquer any fear of that accursed lawyer,” he thought, but yet Wenk
seemed to stand in his way, more powerful than ever. Why was he still
there? Had Mabuse’s order not been distinct enough? If not, he would
repeat it!
When once again in his house at Munich he went straight to bed. He
controlled his desire to go to the Countess, and fell fast asleep at
once.
* * * * *
When the road-menders in Schachen returned to work after their midday
rest, a man who had come out of the inn attached himself to their
party, saying that he wanted to speak to the overseer. Was it likely he
could find a job? he asked them.
“You can have mine this minute, if you’ll pay for it well,” said one
jokingly, but the man said that he only wanted the work so that he
could get some pay himself. “That’s another matter,” laughed the navvy.
“There’s the overseer standing there.”
The man went towards him, speaking in a low tone, and unobtrusively
drew him somewhat away from the rest. Yes, he could possibly get a
job, said the overseer, who was really a police inspector; let him
show his papers.
These the man brought out, saying, “Do not show yourself surprised,
inspector. Look as if you were reading the papers through, and take me
on to help the stoker on the engine. He is Sergeant Schmied, isn’t he?”
“Yes, sir.... Well, all right, I’ll take you on,” said the inspector
aloud. “We can give you some work. Come this way. Schmied,” he called
out. He explained to Schmied in an undertone that the State Attorney
was going to spend the day on the engine as stoker’s assistant.
“What have you noticed now?” asked Wenk of Schmied, as the road-engine
moved backwards and forwards.
“While you were on the way, the inspector telephoned to you, but you
had already started. Things seem very strange here. We saw the man go
to the villa that night, and we thought he must be the one who had left
the car standing in the road, but yet it doesn’t seem to tally with the
rest, for when we came back to the car it had disappeared. Early this
morning there was a woman in a rowing-boat on the lake near the villa,
but we could not be sure whether she actually came from there. An hour
later, Poldringer, the man we are watching, came from the highroad and
went into the house; but we had never seen him leave it, and that is
very curious.”
“You have no idea whether the villa has some unknown exit?”
“No, for hitherto our observations of Poldringer all tally. He used to
return the same way he went out. He scarcely ever leaves the place,
not once in three days.”
“Is there no way of getting into the villa?”
“Not without exciting attention. I see that by the way tramps are
turned away. They have a well-trained bloodhound there.... It would not
be possible to effect a secret entrance.”
“Is Poldringer still there?”
“Yes; I saw him at a window just now.”
“Had the car a number-plate?”
“Yes, the Constance district; here is the number.”
“That, of course, is a false one. It came from the Lindau direction, I
think you said?”
“Yes, sir. I telephoned the number to Friedrichshafen, Ravensburg,
Lindau, Wangen and Constance. From Constance they told me that the
number I gave belonged to a car in use by the Sanitary Commissioners
which never left Constance.”
“Isn’t it possible that the car had been expected at the villa, but
did not stop at it, either because they wanted to use it again shortly
or because something had made them a bit suspicious--the steam-roller,
for example?... and therefore Poldringer was told to wait for the
car in the street and take it to some place of concealment? During
that time the man who had brought it here arrived at the villa. He is
either still there with Poldringer or else he was the woman in the
rowing-boat, and he has driven to the place where the car is. We must
find out where they keep it hidden.”
“We often hear the sound of a motor-boat at night not far from the
shore, but we are not able to keep an eye on it.”
“I shall sleep in the trolly with you to-night, and we will stop the
roller half a kilometre further away from the house. Is there any
suitable place to hide in near the house?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll go together. Is that settled? All right, then; now I’m
going to learn how to lay out the stones. Hitherto, I’ve only laid out
criminals!” laughed Wenk.
“Yes, your honour,” said Schmied cheerily, as he released the throttle
and started the engine. “Will your honour please to stoke up!” And Wenk
heaped more coal into its glowing maw.
“Up to now your honour has never fired an engine, only criminals!” he
continued, carrying on Wenk’s joke.
“Yes, but not enough of those, as you see at the villa, my good
Schmied,” answered the lawyer. “However, I hope with your help....”
“We shall catch them all right,” said Schmied eagerly.
“If we don’t overreach ourselves, for I think we are dealing at the
moment with the most dangerous and daring gang in Europe. You know that
we have ascertained so far that it is a case of card-sharping, murder,
terrorization, and all of it done by the help of a gang.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Schmied.
As they were leaving the trolly that evening Schmied whispered: “I
should like to draw your attention to something, sir. Every evening I
go by as if I were taking a little rest after the day’s work, and I
light up my pipe. Just at the side there, you see, we are getting to
a little door. Whenever anyone goes by, the dog begins barking, and I
couldn’t help thinking there was some reason for it, but one can’t find
it out from the street. You see now, I am just close to it, and while I
am going by I fasten ... (just listen to the dog now!) a thread across
the door. Anybody who opens it would break the thread, but he would not
notice it when going through. In this way I can keep watch over the
door, even when it is not actually in view. Then I can tell whether
anyone has gone through the gate in the dark. In the morning I go and
look at it first thing, and take the thread away.”
“Is it there already?”
“I have just fastened it there.”
“Then you did it very smartly, for I did not notice anything,” said
Wenk, praising him.
“Let us go back. It really is a side-entrance to the other villa.”
“Do you know who is living there?”
“For the last thirty years an old maid has been living there. There
certainly is no connection between the two villas.”
They strolled back along the road.
“If you would like to go to sleep, Schmied, I have no objection. I know
what I’ve to look out for now.”
“Well, I really should be glad to, sir, for last night I got no sleep,
and I must be out there again before four o’clock.”
“I understand. Well then, good-night....”
Wenk continued his patrol throughout the whole of the spring night,
but nothing happened, and he noticed nothing out of the common. Next
morning he repaired to the hotel at Lindau, the address of which he
had notified before leaving Munich. The director told him he had been
rung up from Munich, and his man wanted him to know that Count Told
most earnestly desired to speak to him as soon as possible. The call
had come from his home at Munich. He seemed to be greatly agitated, and
begged the man to telephone the message on.
Wenk returned to Munich and rang up the Count, but an unfamiliar voice
informed him that the Count had started on a journey.
“Did he leave no message for me?” said Wenk.
“No.”
“Where has he gone?”
“He left no address. Please ring off.”
Wenk was thoroughly perplexed.
XV
That same morning Mabuse had visited Told. “You are not so well, I can
see,” said he to him. “Your pupils are very much dilated.”
“Is that a sign...?” said Told hesitatingly.
“Yes. Don’t talk about your state; put it entirely out of your head.
Where is your wife?”
The startled Count could not venture on an answer.
“Your wife did not want to live with you any more--never any more!”
went on the Doctor harshly. “That is so, isn’t it? You must destroy the
past, break off all relation to it. Call your man here!”
Told rang, and the man came. The Count, with a gesture, referred him to
the doctor.
“Has anybody telephoned?”
“No, Doctor.”
“Has anyone rung up from here?”
“I did,” answered Told.
“Whom?”
“Dr. von Wenk.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to speak to him.”
“What did you want to say?”
The embarrassed Count answered, “Only ... to speak ... to speak to
some human being or other!”
“Is your servant a bullock, then, or am I one?” asked Mabuse harshly.
“You can talk to me if you want to. What crazy idea has got into your
head?”
The Count turned his head away; he no longer had the courage to face
his doctor.... “Is he going to cure me?” he asked himself. Then he
looked up at him timidly and irresolutely. “You are no human being:
you are a devil!” was the secret cry of his heart, but these fierce
thoughts soon left him, and he felt suddenly sleepy. “I am always so
tired!” he exclaimed.
“Tell your man now, in my presence, to refuse all visitors or anyone
who telephones. He must say, ‘The Count has gone on a journey. He left
no address. Please ring off.’”
Slowly and mechanically Told repeated the order, and the man bowed and
withdrew.
“I am really not sure whether I shall go on with your case,” said
Mabuse. But Told hardly heeded him; he seemed to feel a slow poison
stealing into his veins.
“You are thirsty!” said Mabuse, suddenly.
“Yes, I am,” whispered the Count.
“You are to drink a mixture of brandy and Tokay, as much as you like.
Take good long draughts--the brandy will do you good. You must forget
everything in your past, your wife as well. When you are convinced that
you have succeeded in doing that, you are on the road to recovery.
You must destroy the past, you understand. The alcohol will help you
there.”
“Destroy the past,” stammered the Count, as if sinking into a bog that
threatened to engulf him, “destroy ... the ... past....”
“In two years’ time you can think about resuming your ordinary life
again. In what time?” he broke off suddenly. “What time did I say?” he
thundered.
The Count aroused himself from his lethargy. Horrified at the length of
time involved, he answered in a low tone, “Two years.”
“Do you know that your wife wants to put you into a lunatic asylum? She
is getting the State Attorney, Wenk, to help her. Was not that the man
who rang you up?... I am coming again to-morrow.”
The Count remained alone, dejected and humiliated. It seemed as if
elephants were trampling out his brains, that his spirit was a prey
to crocodiles and he was covered with mud and slime. “The whole world
has forsaken me,” he murmured. The pictures he had collected around
him seemed to be celebrating orgies on the walls. He could no longer
understand how it was they could ever have pleased him, nor why he had
endured them so long. He took a hunting-knife and slit every one of
them from top to bottom, hacking at their frames. When he had done it,
he sprang back in horror. He held his head in his hands, groaning, “Oh
God, am I really mad?”
He began drinking brandy, and he drank it out of a claret tumbler.
When he had had three glasses he was intoxicated. Then it seemed as if
the doctor had left something behind him and that this lay in front of
him. He did not know what it was, but he tried to grasp it, and then
suddenly it had jumped to his head. It seemed like a wedge fastened
there, fitting tightly between the two halves of the brain. Fear seized
upon him and tore his courage to shreds. “Doctor, Doctor,” he shouted,
and he heard his voice re-echo in the empty rooms. The world was so
wide, yet he was alone. And then he became unconscious.
* * * * *
Karstens succumbed to his wounds, and again the public imagination
busied itself with the death of a second victim. Wenk found himself in
a difficulty and decided one day to make a final appeal to the dancer.
He went to her cell.
“I am not going to speak to you,” said Cara when she perceived him.
Wenk took no notice, and said in a troubled tone, his hopes
disappearing: “Do you know that the beautiful lady who was always
looking on at the play at Schramm’s has disappeared?”
“Not the one you sent to me in prison?” answered the dancer instantly.
“Yes,” said Wenk, and it was not till he had uttered the word that
he perceived the significance of this admission. It was all very
mysterious. Had the Countess revealed her errand to Cara, and was she
in league with the gamblers? It seemed incredible, but yet how strange
it was that Cara, who would not at first speak to him, at once gave him
her attention when he mentioned the Countess. Wenk did not want Cara to
think that he was astonished at this, and went on talking, while he was
trying to consider how he could best arrive at the secret; but he did
not stop to reflect upon the ideas that came uppermost. In the course
of the conversation he hazarded a conjecture that had often occurred to
him when he thought of Cara’s connection with the criminal, but which
he had never mentioned till now. He said, “You are sacrificing yourself
for this criminal because you could not make up your mind to part from
him.”
Then Cara sprang up, staring at Wenk as if convulsed. He looked her
right in the eyes, and noticed that an expression of overwhelming
horror stood in them, and was clearly written upon her distorted
features.
“Well?” he asked, encouraged and hopeful.
But Cara remained as if frozen in her stony attitude.
Then he ventured further. “If we came to some agreement, I could make
proposals that would be to your advantage.”
Slowly the dancer recovered from the horror that had seized upon her.
For the last three years, ever since Mabuse had repulsed her, her life
had been a story of self-sacrificing martyrdom and devoted adherence
to the man who had wrought her ruin and driven her to crime. Not for
a single instant had she thought of betraying him, of refusing her
allegiance. Indelibly stamped upon her whole nature like the brand of
a slave was the feeling that mastery and might such as his could never
be contested. And now, through Wenk’s words, she beheld this man whom
she adored threatened with danger. What did the State Attorney know,
and how had he obtained his knowledge? Had the Countess betrayed her
after all? Slowly she evolved a plan by which to discover how much the
lawyer knew. She might possibly convey a warning to Dr. Mabuse, and at
the thought her blood was fired and the delicious sensation of feeling
herself his deliverer, and perhaps, too, regaining the ascendancy she
had lost, stole over her. No, it could not be, she dared not even
conceive of it; to save him from danger would be enough for her, to
know him secure would be bliss. Finally she said, “Since you seem to be
better informed than I imagined, I will speak, but you must give me two
days to think it over.”
The dancer had learnt from the warder that someone had been inquiring
about her, and from the description given she believed it to be
Spoerri. She would therefore have an opportunity of telling him about
her interview with Wenk and warning him of what might occur.
“Very well,” said Wenk, relieved. Then he thought he would clinch the
matter, and as his previous supposition seemed to have hit the mark, he
imagined it a favourable opportunity to inflame her imagination still
further, so he said, “I am trying to get on the track of the Countess;
she seems to be in hiding with your friend.”
He was so ashamed of these words, however, that he blushed as he
uttered them, recalling with painful intensity his few meetings with
the missing lady--meetings which had bound him so closely to her. But
the effect of his words on the dancer was wholly unexpected. She fell
back on her pallet, sobbed aloud, tried to speak, but could utter no
word, and then she clenched her fists and raised them despairingly to
her brow.
Wenk went off quickly, thinking it best not to disturb this attitude
of mind but to let her yield wholly to its influence. As he opened the
door a man stumbled against it, but it was only the warder, who had
come, as he said, to look at the prisoner as his duty was just at this
time. “All right,” said Wenk, and he made his way out.
* * * * *
Shortly afterwards the following things occurred. Near Hengnau, on the
borders of Würtemberg, a man was detained and arrested as he was about
to drive cattle to Würtemberg. At first he pretended to be dumb, but
afterwards he raged furiously at his capture. The examining counsel, in
order to intimidate him, said one day, “You had better confess before
the new law is passed. If you are tried before then you may get off
lightly, but later on it may cost you your head.”
“What new law is that?” asked the man.
“The crime of endangering the food distribution is punishable with
death.”
“What sort of death?”
“Probably hanging!”
“And if I am convicted before that is passed?”
“You won’t get more than a year’s imprisonment at the most.”
Then he suddenly confessed, and his confession opened many doors. He
confessed all that he had been doing for years and gave the names of
all the profiteers known to him. Many arrests were the result. Every
day afforded fresh opportunities, and finally one day the name of the
man whom Mabuse had dismissed on the highroad to Lindau--Pesch--was
mentioned.
Pesch was arrested, and his first night in prison was spent at Wangen,
which was his native place. When the warder entered his cell next
morning, the prisoner had disappeared. A few hours later a telephone
message came to the Wangen police. In a wood on the highroad to Lindau
a man was lying dead. It was undoubtedly a case of murder.
An inquiry took place on the spot. The dead man was Pesch. He had been
stabbed, and as they raised his body they saw on the large white stone
on which it had rested certain signs which had been written in blood.
The very same day experts deciphered these signs. They stood for “Villa
Elise.”
The mayors in the neighbouring districts were asked whether they knew
a villa bearing this name, and thus it was soon ascertained that
at Schachen there was a villa so called, and it was under police
surveillance.
Wenk was at once informed, and he drove to Lindau. The two detectives
who were in charge of the steam-roller had ascertained that Poldringer
had left Schachen on a bicycle the very day that Pesch was imprisoned,
and had not returned until three o’clock the next morning.
Then Wenk arranged that two motor-boats should be stationed on the
lake. They were made to appear as if they were Customs’ official boats,
and were provided with searchlights.
Another human life had been sacrificed, but this fresh murder had
revealed something more far-reaching and dangerous than had yet been
suspected. It was certain that the gang was taking part in this
profiteering movement also, and it became clear that its leader had
created an entire yet invisible State to carry on his purposes and
give effect to the deeds his will imposed on his fellows.
Pesch left a wife and five children, and since the family breadwinner
was gone, they were in absolute danger of starving. Then Wenk sought
out Edgar Hull’s father, to obtain help for them, and the idea suddenly
occurred to him, “Why not establish an educational institution, a real
home-school for the children of criminals, taking them in under an
assumed name? Perhaps that would be a good way to lay out your money.
The children, who so often inherit the parents’ characteristics, could
be watched over and perhaps influenced for good in their early years.
If it were not possible to eradicate their vices, at least they could
be kept apart from their fellows and removed before they have a chance
of harming them. In this way a large proportion of the criminal class
might be rendered harmless and many people would be saved....”
“I will do it,” said Hull, “and I am grateful to you for the
suggestion.”
* * * * *
The next evening Wenk was walking from the Marstall to the
Maximilianstrasse, and as he passed the Four Seasons Hall he thought he
saw someone he knew in the crowd in front of him struggling to gain an
entrance; but he could not recall who it was, and went straight ahead.
As he walked on he strove to remember whose back and shoulders it was
that had seemed so familiar, but he could not place the individual.
Soon afterwards he came to an advertisement window in which the scheme
of a popular lottery was displayed. The large letters could be seen
through the dusty pane, and the words “Lucky Chance” stood out. These
words at once gave Wenk the clue he had been seeking. The back he had
noticed belonged to the sandy-bearded gambler.
He was astounded at the discovery. He had been seeking this man for
many days and nights all over Germany, and here he was, and he had
passed so close by him that he could have touched him on the shoulder.
He turned round at once, went back to the hall and at the entrance
he read a notice stating that Dr. Mabuse was giving a lecture, with
experiments, there that evening.
He immediately ordered one of the constables standing outside to fetch
six plain-clothes men and tell them to close all the exits without
exciting any attention, and when the detectives were placed, he entered
the hall. It was an easy one to search, and he went from row to row,
while the lecturer was engaged in preparing his experiments. Wenk
took up a position here and there, and looked at the folks one after
another. But nowhere did he find the owner of the back which was so
impressed on his mind.
He noticed some of his acquaintance. There was Privy Councillor Wendel
sitting in the front row, and a legal colleague of his was there with
his wife and grown-up daughter, but he behaved as if he saw nobody
and continued his eager search. It was all in vain, however. Then he
took a sudden resolve, went outside again, and gave the detectives
the following orders. All the exits were to be locked except one. Two
detectives were to enter the hall, and one of them was to go on to the
platform at once and request the audience to leave the hall quietly,
one by one. Both were to see that there was no one left behind. The
four others were to stand at the folding doors and let the people pass
through singly, only one half of the door being opened.
Wenk himself would stand by the door, and if he gave any order for
arrest, two of the detectives would at once take the man aside and
handcuff him. The two others would then only have to take care that no
one got near the man arrested. All were to have their service revolvers
ready for use. There was great excitement in the hall when the
announcement was made, and several cries of disapproval of the order
were heard. The detective strove to pacify the disappointed audience.
Mabuse’s first thought, when he heard the Secret Service agent’s
announcement, was a doubt whether he should have ventured on this
public appearance, but he soon dismissed the troublesome idea. Yes,
he had been right, for it provided him, in concentrated form, with
the nourishment upon which his mind battened. With such hypnotic
powers as he possessed he must always be in relation with a larger
and unknown public. To feel his power over the narrow circle to which
his professional duties bound him, the members of which were known to
him, was not enough for his insatiable ambition. His sphere must know
no limits, and with these weird and mysterious gifts of his he could
exploit the triviality and credulity of his fellows and at the same
time give full play to his hatred and his lust for domination.
Upon such a stage as this he felt as if born anew. It was here that
he had inaugurated his reign of power, when the war sent him from
his South Sea plantations back to his home, a ruined man, and this
domination of his he could not renounce. While these thoughts were
passing through his mind he went to the detective and asked what had
happened. “You must inquire of the State Attorney, sir,” said the man.
“Dr. von Wenk is just outside.”
Mabuse turned pale and walked away, going rapidly towards the Privy
Councillor, whom he saw still sitting in the front row. As he went,
he felt in his pocket to make sure that his revolver was safe, and
sensations of hatred and defiance went through his whole body,
fastening as it were like a brand upon his mental image of Wenk.
“First of all you, and then ...” he said to himself, but he was already
smiling in the Councillor’s face.
“Your hypnotic powers,” said the latter, “seem to be giving the State
Attorney some trouble!”
“Is that Dr. Wenk?” said Mabuse, drawing back as if astonished.
“I saw him just now going from seat to seat and fixing an eagle eye on
everybody here, as if to pierce through coat, waistcoat and shirt to
reach a guilt-burdened conscience. He does not seem to have found his
man, however.”
Mabuse’s breast heaved, inflated at the thought of his success. He
felt like a horse in sight of its manger after a long and weary road.
Although he clearly understood what the words implied, he nevertheless
asked the Councillor, “How do you know that?”
“It is quite simple, for if he had found his man, he would have let one
of the detectives take him out without disturbing your lecture.”
“That is true,” said Mabuse. “Let us go.”
He pressed towards the door, taking the Councillor with him. He was
thoroughly on the alert, looking behind him to see that he did not
lose touch with Wendel, and also ahead, where lay the danger he wished
to avoid. Whenever any movement threatened to separate him from the
elderly savant, he used all the cunning at his command to get near
him again. It was above all essential not to leave the hall exposed
to Wenk’s gaze as a solitary individual. The Councillor, who was old
and well known, must help him to throw the hound off the scent. He was
aged, however, and could not hurry; but Mabuse dared not be the last
one to leave, closely eyed as he would be by a disappointed man who had
not found the quarry he sought. There were still some others behind
him, to whose party he might attach himself, so that he need not be the
last.
One thing was certain. It was he, and none other, whom the State
Attorney was seeking, but Wenk did not know that Mabuse was his quarry,
or he would have had him arrested on the platform. How had he got upon
the track? Was it a mere guess that had started him off? Was there
treachery in it? No; _he_ would never be betrayed. Could Wenk have
recognized him, one of those evenings at the gaming-table? No; it was
impossible, his disguises were too perfect for that, so....
Then a hand touched his, and Mabuse looked into Spoerri’s inquiring
eyes, and saw beside him another man of his bodyguard, and he
immediately looked away again unconcernedly. Spoerri and his accomplice
were pressing towards the exit in front of him. Mabuse went on
thinking, and came to the conclusion that mere chance had put Wenk on
this track, some faint resemblance or recollection, some movement or
action.... In any case, Wenk must see as little of him as possible, and
since his back would be exposed to him longer than any other part, he
put his arms through the sleeves of his overcoat and thus altered his
appearance.
And now he had reached the exit with the Privy Councillor. He quickly
pushed him in front, following closely on his heels. At the moment when
Wendel stepped to the door, Wenk was ordering a detective to tell two
men who were lingering on the stairs to move on. Mabuse heard the man
say, “Shall I arrest them?” Then he looked ahead and saw that the order
referred to Spoerri and his subordinate. Mabuse sought to catch his
eye; he took his pocket-handkerchief out with a flourish and blew his
nose loudly. Spoerri saw it and understood, and at once withdrew with
his companion.
Mabuse saw Wenk shaking hands with the Councillor. Then it was his turn
to come forward, and Wendel introduced “Dr. Mabuse.” Without taking
his eyes off the door, through which the light from the hall was now
streaming, Wenk shook hands with Mabuse, saying courteously, “You won’t
be annoyed with me for carrying out my duty, I hope, Doctor?”
Mabuse answered with affected friendliness, his hand on the revolver
in his pocket, “Certainly not; I must naturally take the second place
when it is a question of the good of the community, whom you are
endeavouring to rid of a criminal.”
He had already passed on. Wenk nodded to him, but did not look round
again, as his gaze was still fastened on the door.
The Privy Councillor took Mabuse’s arm going downstairs. Mabuse
accompanied him to the gentlemen’s cloakroom and then took his leave.
One of his cars was waiting in the Maximilianstrasse, and right and
left of him at the entrance to the _foyer_ his people were standing
in readiness for anything that might happen. Spoerri had taken up his
position at the main door of the hall, to keep watch upon the stairs;
then he went out behind Mabuse, and the others, who were in small
detached groups, always ready to close up at a word, followed them. It
was not until Mabuse had taken his seat in the car and driven off that
they dispersed, each going a separate way.
Driving homeward, Mabuse reflected that he had committed one act of
folly. He ought at any rate to have asked when he would be allowed to
give his experiments. This fact depressed him, and he felt that he
had failed in some way. He would never have done anything so foolish
formerly, and the idea occurred to him that perhaps his power was on
the decline, and that it was now time for Citopomar.
Then suddenly he shouted aloud, “No! this is due to that woman! Wenk
wants to hang me, the woman makes me feel old, and she is delivering
me over to the gallows.” Why should this woman, young and beautiful as
she was, who had abandoned herself to her lot with despairing fatalism,
make him feel old? Her abandonment of herself was like wine to him, and
this idea started another train of thought. He was in conflict with
himself. There was no enjoyment in the thought that he had escaped
a great danger, and in the midst of his uneasy reflections he had a
sudden breathless conviction that she made him feel old because he
loved her. Then he felt a hatred of himself, gathering into one mighty
heap all the fierce and bitter hatred he had cherished for others and
pouring it out on himself. So strongly did he suffer from the burden
of these chaotic feelings that his brain grew giddy. But now he had
reached his house.
All the wrinkles in his face were deepened and intensified, but it was
his eyes that looked most dreadful, and the Countess trembled as he
entered her room. No longer were they of the steely grey of an agate,
but rather seemed shot with rays of copper colour.
“What has happened?” she asked.
Then he told her something quite different from that which he had meant
to tell her.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked, and his tone was one of frenzied
delirium. “I am a werwolf; I suck man’s blood. Every day my hatred
burns up all the blood in my veins, and every night I fill them again
by sucking the blood of some human being. If men caught me, they would
tear me into little bits. I will bite through your white throat, you
tormenting witch!”
The Countess started as if stung, and, mad with pain and torture, cried
aloud, “Kill me then! What could be better than death?”
“But I love you!” cried the voice of the man beside her, who seemed to
be possessed by devils.
The woman hid her face in her hands. It was the first time she had
heard such a confession from that imperious mouth, and it stirred her
to the depths of her nature. Her free spirit had been snatched from
the world and confined in a fortress whence there was no escape. Her
life was a dead thing, but the blood within her raged in dread and
mysterious tumult, inflamed and excited by the power of this man. Her
dead soul was afire, and there was nothing left to consume: whence then
came this flame?
Mabuse left the Countess without saying another word. “I have told her
enough,” he said to himself. He threw himself down on his bed, but
could not sleep. He felt as if something new had come into his life,
till then so steady and changeless, as if the danger which he had
always been able to grasp and bring to nought had eluded him and were
sinking into the icy black gulf in whose depths his life and actions
were grounded. For hours he tried to grapple with this new force and
subordinate it to his will, but evermore it seemed to evade him.
Then he returned to the Countess, lying fully dressed and sleepless
on her bed, and he said, “We must talk matters out. Our fates are
entwined, and we must go through life together. From some source or
other of my existence my blood has received something which revolts
against a peaceful and well-ordered life, and will not permit to others
a power above its own. Thus it is that I have become, as it were, the
chief of a robber horde. I have known but two states: the desire to
dominate and the necessity to hate! But now you have come upon the
scene. At first I thought that your spirit would be consumed in the
twin flames that inspire mine, but it is not so. Hundreds have been
consumed by them, but you seem to feed upon them, and they nourish you.
When I am intoxicated, not forgetting my hatred, but putting it on one
side for the time being, because there are more beautiful things, I
often name to you one name--Citopomar. Citopomar is not the outcome of
a disordered fancy, the result of a fit of intoxication. It is a virgin
forest in Brazil, far in the interior. It is being cultivated for
me. All the money I can wring from this petty community of miserable
wretches on this side of the world is being employed there. There is my
country, the land in which I shall end my days. First of all, I thought
of myself there with my harem. Now I know it is there I shall be with
_you_. It is a forty days’ journey to the nearest human dwelling, and
the human beings there could not endure life here, but they cannot
be reached, for the Botocudos would not let anyone pass. It is even
possible that my agents, who have been carrying out my plans, may have
deceived me, and that when we arrive there we may find there is no
kingdom of Citopomar. But no one can deceive me about _you_!
“My professional life here has extended to ever-widening circles, and I
could live a good deal longer under the protection of the State and in
well-ordered society. To-day, however, I had proof that folks are on my
track, and henceforth I must act cautiously. A ship is being built for
me in Genoa. I do not travel by strange ships, but sail under my own
flag. The ship is to be ready on the 1st of June, and on that night we
will embark. Between this and then, however, there is nearly two months
to pass. I cannot rest, and until the very night of our departure I
shall still be a robber chief.
“We will be wary. You must go to another house. It is quite as well
guarded as this one, but if they should discover this one, they will
catch you. I am probably about to leave the place, and at midnight
to-morrow you will depart. Spoerri will take you to the new home.”
As incapable of resistance as of mental participation in his schemes,
consumed in the devouring flames of this man’s all-powerful domination,
the Countess endured his conversation and took his orders. Her fate lay
in his hands.
XVI
At nine o’clock next morning Mabuse was at Count Told’s villa. As he
was now endeavouring to hold himself ready for flight at any moment, he
wanted to bring this matter of the Count to an end.
He had desired him to drink, and for some days now Told had been
drinking, in passionate abandonment. Mabuse looked at him in silence.
When Told was intoxicated he said to him, “You are a person without the
slightest power of resistance. Where is your razor?”
In a thick voice Told answered that it was on the washstand.
“Is it sharp?” said Mabuse with a peculiar intonation. “Sharp enough?”
he repeated with an emphasis so marked that it seemed as if he wanted
to hammer an idea into the Count’s head.
Mabuse took it up, seized a sheet of paper and made a sharp clean cut
in it. Then he said threateningly, “Yes, it is sharp enough.” Thereupon
he laid the razor aside, but did not return it to its case. He called
the servant in, saying to him, “The Count’s condition is not so good as
it was. He is drinking brandy with his Tokay. I have no objection to a
little light Burgundy, but these strong spirits are not to be allowed.
You must take away what is left in the bottle. Your master will ... now
... go ... to sleep!” He uttered the last words in a long-drawn-out,
menacing tone. Then he went out of the room in front of the footman,
and left the house.
Half an hour later, Count Told, not knowing what he was doing, cut his
throat from ear to ear. He had a feeling as if something in his throat
were preventing him from enjoying some great happiness, and he wanted
to remove the hindrance.
At two o’clock a message came from Mabuse to ask how the Count was
getting on. The footman said he was asleep, but he would go and look
at him to make sure. Then he found him bathed in blood, where he had
fallen from his arm-chair to the ground, his body now cold in death.
The doctor’s messenger came into the room, looked at the corpse, and
went back to report to his master.
The man-servant did not know what to do. Since none of the Count’s
relatives were in the neighbourhood and he did not know the Countess’s
address, he felt he must inform the police first of all. But then,
again, he was not sure which was the right office to go to to give
such information, and it occurred to him that the State Attorney, Herr
von Wenk, was an acquaintance of his master’s and had asked after him
recently, so he drove to Munich, sought out the lawyer, and told his
story.
“Was the Count at home then all the time?” asked Wenk.
“Yes, sir, all the time.”
“Then why did you tell me on the telephone that the Count had gone on a
journey?”
“The doctor told me that on account of my master’s state no one was to
be allowed to see him, and I must tell anybody who inquired that he had
gone away. My master saw nobody but his doctor.”
“What was the doctor’s name?”
“I never heard his name, sir. I don’t know it.”
Then Wenk remembered that Privy Councillor Wendel had given him a
letter to Dr. Mabuse, and that the Count had used Wenk’s own telephone
to make an appointment with this doctor.
Wenk trembled as, struck by the horror of a strange suspicion, he
described to the footman the figure of Dr. Mabuse as he had seen it
recently at the Four Seasons Hall. He spoke of him as a tall man,
stooping slightly, without beard or moustache, with a broad face and
big nose and large grey eyes. When the man said, “Yes, he looked
exactly like that,” Wenk grew pale as death. In a moment all the
disconnected impressions, hazy ideas, vague recollections, half-defined
thoughts and images which had been partially obliterated, but not
altogether lost, gathered together in his mind. When Wenk had the hall
emptied, why had Dr. Mabuse not asked the reason for this measure?
Why had he not inquired whether he could continue his experiments
at another time? Why had Wenk, who had seen a man whose back he had
recognized go into the hall, not found him again inside? Why had the
two men who would not obey the detective’s order to move on, suddenly
done as they were told immediately Mabuse appeared? Why had Mabuse’s
eyes, in the brief moment he had looked into them, affected him so
powerfully, as if they sought to read something that lay hidden in his
very soul and was now almost forgotten?
He dismissed Count Told’s servant, and then tried to find Dr. Mabuse’s
number in the telephone book, but it was not given there. Yet Mabuse
had a telephone, for the Count had rung him up from this very house.
The Privy Councillor knew the number.
When Wenk, having obtained the telephone number from Herr Wendel, gave
it, there was no reply. Ringing up the exchange, he was told that the
telephone had been disconnected. He asked who had had it three weeks
before, but this could not be ascertained at once.
Again Wenk rang up the Councillor. Dr. Mabuse had changed his number;
did he happen to know his address? Wendel could give no information.
He only knew the telephone number, and spoke to him on the phone. Wenk
then asked at the Police Registry Office for Dr. Mabuse’s address, but
the name was not to be found anywhere among the arrivals in Munich,
and when, at the Municipal Registry, all the old telephone books were
searched to find Mabuse, he was again unsuccessful.
Thereupon Wenk repaired to the manager of the telephone exchange in
order to make a more thorough search. The manager took him to the
inquiry-room, where two young women were employed, and he asked them
to look again for the number he had telephoned about.
“What were you wanting?” asked the elder of the two, and Wenk explained
that he was seeking the address of a Dr. Mabuse, who three weeks before
had a telephone number that did not appear in the directory.
The girl said she could not find it anywhere, whereupon Wenk returned
to the manager with this information. He declared this was something
quite unheard of, and himself accompanied Wenk to the inquiry office.
He, too, made a search with the clerks, but could find nothing. While
the manager was looking through the lists without success, an idea
occurred to Wenk, and when he was informed that no one of the name
of Mabuse had been entered on the list at all for the last year, he
asked the manager for the telephone number and address of a man named
Poldringer. As he uttered this name he saw the elder girl start and
then immediately recover herself, but an instant later she told him
rudely that there were ever so many Poldringers in Munich, and without
the Christian name and the exact address she could not furnish any
information.
Then Wenk turned to the manager, saying politely, “I am sorry to have
to put you to some inconvenience, but I must take both these ladies
into custody!”
He at once took up a position between the girls and the telephone. “Be
so good as to sit down on these chairs till the detectives arrive;
you here, and your companion there!” The elder of the girls turned
as white as a sheet. The other blushed, and then began to cry. Wenk
said, turning to her, “It is only a formality. If you behave properly,
this matter can be carried through without exciting notice, and it is
probable that it will not be long before the mystery is cleared up.”
Then he rang up the Criminal Investigation Department and asked for
three detectives.
The manager looked through the list of Poldringers, for there were many
entries under the name, most of them being tradespeople. One, of whom
no further information was given, was living in the Xenienstrasse, and
another, without any professional status, in the Ludwigstrasse.
The girls were given in charge, and Wenk went to the Ludwigstrasse. He
came to a lodging-house, looked at the surroundings and inspected the
inside, and then went to the Xenienstrasse. Then suddenly his heart
stood still, for in the Xenienstrasse, at the address given under the
name of Poldringer in the telephone list, he saw on a professional
plate the words
DR. MABUSE,
_Neurologist_.
He hastened away, merely noting the numbers of the houses standing
near. The street consisted of detached villas. A mist swam before his
eyes, and the blood pounded in his pulses; there was a sound as of
pistols in his ears. He had his man. No, he had not got him, but at
last he knew who he was!
Before doing anything else he drove to the prison, for the time Cara
Carozza had demanded had now expired, and what she might tell him would
probably set the seal upon the success of his enterprise.
* * * * *
Early that morning, when it was time for the warder of the women’s
prison to make his first round, the door of Cara’s cell was opened. The
dancer was still asleep. She was shaken by the shoulder and, awaking
quickly, found the warder bending over her, yet it was not the warder,
it was Spoerri. Surely she was dreaming? But no, she was still in
prison. How came Spoerri to her bedside? She put her hand to her eyes
to shut out the vision, and yet she knew in her heart it was reality.
Spoerri was standing there. He said to her:
“Surely you know that I am in league with the warder?” She nodded.
“Then you know, too, that he told me what happened yesterday when the
State Attorney came to see you?”
“What did he tell you?” the girl asked breathlessly.
“That you are going to betray the master!”
The dancer sprang out of bed. “Who says so?” she shouted.
“Please don’t talk so loudly. The warder says so.”
“It is a lie.”
“The warder would have no interest in lying.”
“Did he tell the doctor so?” she asked anxiously, and Spoerri lied in
answer:
“Yes, of course he did, and the doctor sent me to you.”
“It is a lie,” cried Cara again, on the verge of tears; “I was going to
save him!”
“How can you prove that?”
“I was going to save him, I tell you. Spoerri, danger is threatening
him.”
“Danger is always threatening him. That’s mere nonsense. Can you prove
what you say?”
Cara hastily related what had passed between her and Wenk. Spoerri
answered indifferently:
“I mean, can you prove it beyond all shadow of doubt? But be quick,
please, for I must get away from here in five minutes.”
“What can I do to make the doctor believe me?” asked the girl in
despair.
“I must tell you that the doctor is very disturbed, for he could not
have believed it of you.”
“No, no, I could never have done it,” she stammered, thoroughly
downcast; “but how am I to prove that I didn’t ... how can I prove it?
Surely _you_ know, Spoerri, that....”
Then Spoerri with a smile drew out of his pocket a small flask. “The
proof lies there,” he said.
“Where?” asked the distracted girl.
“In here, my pretty one; don’t you see?”
“I don’t understand you,” said the dancer.
“Oh, you don’t need to understand, my child, only to drink. Just one
little mouthful to swallow and then the doctor will know your word was
to be relied on.”
Cara looked horrorstruck at the little flask. “What is it?” she asked.
“A heavenly drink, my pretty one, nothing that hurts one in the least.
The doctor himself made it up. But mind you throw the bottle out of
the window quickly! See, I am opening it for you. Be sure you don’t
forget that! And be quick about it, do you hear? Throw it away _at
once_, for if there’s no bottle to be seen, nobody will know what has
happened. That’s what the doctor expects of you; that is a proof that
no one can doubt. Besides, you know us. Even your husband....”
With that he drew a knife out of his pocket, playing with it lightly.
He threw it at the door, and it stuck there with the point transfixed.
He pulled it out and put it away again.
“Do you see that?” he said. “Now I must be going. Well, au revoir!”
He was about to leave, but Cara sprang towards him and clung to his
knees, sobbing.
“But I am still so young, and I love life. I have been very useful to
him. I was hoping to be set free ... by him. Set free at any rate, even
if he can never love me again.”
“Well, I can only tell you,” answered Spoerri, “that he is very much
disturbed about all this. You can take it or leave it.”
Then the girl said, “Then I will free myself of this existence. I will
show him, a thousand times over, that he can trust me. I will give my
life for him....”
“Oh, spare me your heroics!” said Spoerri roughly.
But the girl went on unheeding, “What am I after all?--a mere shadow
following him about and hiding out of his sight, but yet unable to part
from him. Yes, I will prove it, a thousand times over.... I will free
myself....”
“Well, if we are taken by surprise now, it will be a hanging matter
for us both; he told me so. And who knows whether they won’t even get
_him_?”
Then Cara became suddenly calm, and said quietly, “It is all right; you
can go. And tell him.... No, you needn’t say anything. I don’t want
anything more from him....”
Spoerri left hastily, leaving the little flask in Cara’s hand. It was
now warm from her fevered touch.
“He does not believe me,” she said to herself tremblingly. “The Doctor
will never believe me again. Strange--and yet, can there be any greater
proof to offer that I was always faithful to him? Oh life! base,
incomprehensible, disturbing life! This terrible life of mine! Come!”
she said, apostrophizing the flask; “we will show him there is nothing
to fear from me. We will prove it to you, you ... king of men ... you
enchanting murderer! you sublime destroyer! my horror and my bliss!...”
She shouted aloud, then she grew fearful lest her cries might endanger
the beloved life, and she snatched the stopper out of the bottle.
Standing upright in the middle of the cell, she drank, a moment later
throwing the bottle out of the window, where the sun streaming in
proclaimed the morning of a new day.
* * * * *
Wenk faced the curator of the women’s prison.
“Yes, sir, we were sorry to be unable to inform you, but it was not
possible to communicate with you. The doctor says it must have been a
heart-stroke, for she was found lying dead in her cell this morning.”
Amazed and horrified, Wenk entered the cell. It was empty, the straw
pallet bare. Cara’s clothing lay on a stool. Wenk looked round, and
was about to leave when he saw something shining on the window-ledge.
He went back and examined it, and found it was a small piece of glass,
rounded in shape, with a very strong odour clinging to it. Wenk jumped
on a chair and found another piece of glass outside. Then he went down
into the courtyard, and very soon had collected all the other pieces of
the bottle. It had broken against one of the window-bars. He had the
glass tested, and there were evidences of poison upon it.
He walked back to his chambers--pondering over this new occurrence.
“Another victim!” he said to himself repeatedly. One more sacrifice, a
real sacrifice, for this one had sacrificed herself. This light-of-love
had offered her life as a sacrifice to her love. She had not meant to
tell him anything--he realized that now. She merely wanted to put him
on the wrong track that she might have a chance to warn the criminal.
“I have no success with my women helpers,” he thought sadly, asking how
it was that these steadfast souls should be found on the side of evil
rather than good--always on the side of evil, it seemed to him. When
the dancer was buried next day, he was the only outsider present, and
he returned to his chambers slowly and sadly.
There, however, plenty of work was awaiting him. His idea was to seize
Dr. Mabuse in his own home, and first of all he must ascertain when he
was sure to be found at home, and the two confederates must be secured
at the same time, the one at the Xenienstrasse and the other in the
Schachen villa; there must be no time for one of them to inform the
other.
His preparations must be complete, down to the very last detail, and
then a surprise attack, which must not last more than three minutes,
could be made. It was clear that a man who could boldly carry through
such crimes as these, in the very heart of the city and in the teeth
of the highest civil powers, would have secured himself against all
possible emergencies in his own quarters. That was undoubtedly the
case, and all these careful preparations of Wenk’s required time.
First of all, he must be able to secure one of the neighbouring villas
as his post of observation. It was here that he laid claim to Herr von
Hull’s help. He drove straight to him, asking, “Can you do me a very
great service? Will you employ a confidential agent to lease a floor of
one of the houses No. 26 or 28 in the Xenienstrasse, or, better still,
the whole villa? I want it just as it is, and to be able to go in the
day after to-morrow. The question of expense need not be considered. I
shall want the house for two or three weeks. Spring is approaching, and
there may be someone who wants money for a little trip out of town.”
The old gentleman promised to do what he could in the matter. Then Wenk
asked the police inspector who had engaged him for the road-engine, to
come to town. He arrived by the 11 a.m. express.
“Matters are approaching a climax, inspector,” said Wenk. “You must be
ready to take action at any moment. I will leave the plan of it to you.
You have had plenty of time to get to know the geography of the place
and the opportunities it affords, but the very moment you receive my
order to surround Villa Elise, you must go at it, hell for leather. You
must get your man, alive or dead. We shall put another motor-boat on
the lake, and you can double your force on shore. The road-engine can
be moved away now. The spring season is just beginning in Schachen, so
you and six or eight of your men can be visitors to the lake-side!”
At seven o’clock next morning the inspector returned to his post, and
at eleven o’clock old Hull came with the lease of villa 26 in the
Xenienstrasse.
“There is a young couple living there,” he said, “whom my suggestion
exactly suited. They wanted to go to Switzerland to visit their
parents, but were frightened at the cost of the railway fare. I offered
them five-thousand marks for a month’s rent of the villa, and they
will change them in France. I am afraid I am causing a loss to our
exchange....”
“But you are benefiting your country in another way, Herr Hull, and
that you will very soon find out!” said Wenk.
“You can take possession of the villa at six o’clock to-night!”
At six o’clock, Wenk, disguised as a cyclist messenger, went into the
empty villa, leaving his bicycle outside. He was quite alone in the
house, and at once sought for a window which would afford him vantage
ground. He concealed himself behind a lace curtain and began to watch
the street. The first thing he noticed was that after he had been there
about a quarter of an hour someone stole his bicycle and made off with
it. He had never seen a thief actually at work before; this side of his
calling was presented to him for the first time to-day. He regarded it
as a favourable omen, being much amused by the comic haste with which
the thief had looked round him on all sides, although he was even then
straddling the machine.
For two hours he kept watch on the front door, side door, window and
roof of Mabuse’s villa. No one went out or in, and though Wenk remained
on the watch till midnight, nothing was to be seen. He fell asleep at
the window, woke and watched again, and then slept once more, finally
awaking in broad daylight. His servant brought him a meal prepared in a
restaurant near. It was a long vigil, and Wenk, bringing the telephone
to the window, held conversations with acquaintances and with some
members of the police force.
At last, towards six o’clock in the evening, a car drew up and
immediately drove away again. A gentleman went up to the front door.
Was it Mabuse? No, this was an old gentleman, with the feeble and
uncertain step of a paralytic. Possibly he was a patient.
Soon after that Wenk saw a chimney-sweep leave the house. He went along
quickly and cheerfully, puffing away at a cigarette. Wenk had not seen
the sweep go in; that must have been mere chance, though. The old
invalid seemed to be there a long time; could he be waiting for the
Doctor? Perhaps, though, he was one of his assistants. It seemed hardly
likely. However, he must do nothing rash.
Twilight was already advanced when a man with a parcel rang at the
front door, which was opened with surprising promptness. Half an hour
later this man came out again, and so it went on. Even through the
night people kept coming and going, and next day it was the same story.
On the third day Wenk was called up early by his man. The Criminal
Investigation Department had some important information for him.
Something had happened during the night at a gaming-den. Would he like
an official to bring him a report? Yes, he replied, but the detective
should come in some sort of uniform.
Half an hour later the detective, got up as a telephone repairer,
appeared and told his story. Last night a young man had come to the
guard-room and said that he and others had been playing baccarat in
a secret gaming-house. An old gentleman, who seemed to be partially
paralysed, was playing too, and he always lost his money. When it
was just upon three o’clock in the morning, the old gentleman had
a sudden fit of rage, shouted out something, and immediately three
men, who had also been playing, leaped on the table. They drew out
revolvers, shouting “Hands up!” Then a fourth man went from one visitor
to another, searching their pockets and taking all their money away,
as well as that lying on the table. They had taken twelve thousand
marks from the man who was telling the story. When they came to the
old gentleman they left him alone, and he suddenly stood up and walked
out as if there was nothing the matter with him. Two of the thieves
accompanied him, and the others protected him from behind, and outside
there were two cars waiting.
This story excited Wenk greatly. It did not interfere with his scheme,
but, on the contrary, it showed that Mabuse felt himself secure. Yet
while Wenk was here in a strange house behind a curtain like a sleepy
bat, the criminal was going his accustomed way, calmly, boldly, as if
he had nothing and nobody to fear. After all, it was quite natural.
Why should he not go free when the man who had sworn to bring him to
justice was in hiding here behind a window curtain!
Taking a sudden resolve, Wenk left his post, and did not return till
evening. He had given an order to extinguish the street-lamp in front
of Mabuse’s house by breaking the glass and damaging the electric light
bulb. It was a dark night, and as soon as Mabuse’s windows showed no
light Wenk entered the garden. He was carrying a canister filled with
fine meal, and he clambered over the fence into Mabuse’s grounds and
went cautiously along the garden path, scattering the meal in a thin
layer over part of the short walk between the garden gate and the
house. Then he hurried back over the fence to his own garden and into
No. 26 again.
Half an hour later someone left Mabuse’s house, but Wenk could not see
who. After an hour and a half, he heard steps in the street passing
beneath his window. He saw a man wearing military dress, who went
quickly to Mabuse’s door and disappeared within the house.
Wenk went downstairs again and hid behind a shrub in the garden. After
a long time he heard Mabuse’s front door open, and in the starlight he
could see that a stout, elderly lady was leaving the house. She went
into the street, where a car seemed to spring up from nowhere. She got
into it and drove rapidly away.
Wenk clambered over the hedge between his and Mabuse’s garden, crept on
all fours over the grass to the garden path, and examined the ground
by the help of his electric torch. Then he saw that the footsteps of
all three persons were exactly the same. Therefore, whoever it was who
came out first, and the soldier, and the elderly lady, were one and the
same person. And then it occurred to him that yesterday and the day
before yesterday the chimney-sweep, the paralytic, the messenger with
his parcel, were the same person, and this person was--Mabuse. Wenk
carefully removed the traces of the meal.
To-night must lead to some conclusion or other. In both the nearest
guardrooms special police were ready, fully armed, prepared to break
in at any moment. When Wenk knew Mabuse to be safe at home, he would
hasten to No. 26, send a telephone call, and three minutes later
Mabuse’s house would be surrounded by police. To burst the door would
be the work of thirty seconds. Six men would remain outside and
surround the house. The other six would join him in a rush on the
place. When Mabuse was secured, the order to Schachen would go through.
Wenk stole rapidly back to his own garden, stretched himself flat on
the ground and waited. The earth radiated the warmth of this day of
late spring, and he felt the power that lay in the soil. And in an
attitude of tense expectancy, two hours, one hour, perhaps even minutes
only before his work would be crowned with success, it seemed to Wenk
as if music, a music betraying the secrets of all hearts, stole over
his senses. Tears filled his eyes, and his bare fingers caressed the
fragrant ground. He felt as if it were the very essence of manhood laid
bare, the manhood for which he was risking his life.
He had decided to lie here waiting until Mabuse, in some disguise or
other, should return to the house. Nothing could go wrong now. When the
other was once more inside, like a mouse caught in a trap, Wenk would
hasten back and breathe his order into the telephone.
But before this could happen he was to undergo a strange experience,
something which made his heart stand still and a cry by which he had
almost betrayed himself pass his lips. A car came up the street, and
stopped with a noisy shriek in front of the house. But no one got out.
No, it was Mabuse’s door which opened, and in the person descending the
steps, and pausing in the glow of the headlights, Wenk recognized the
Countess.
If he had not pressed his lips to the ground that very instant, his
cry must have betrayed him. The car hastened back whence it had come.
“Wife-robber! Husband-murderer!” raged Wenk. So this was the secret of
Count Told’s death. “The man is a devil and a werwolf!” he cried.
Suddenly he felt the cold night penetrating his clothing, and he found
himself trembling. Was he going to have an attack of ague now, at the
very last minute? He struggled to subdue the feelings that threatened
to overcome him. In the still night he heard the hammering of the
pulses in his brain, and he bent all his energies to the task of
listening for what was to happen.
Twelve o’clock struck, and it seemed as if the town were shaken by the
powerful strokes, as if these beats must penetrate into the very heart
of this house which sheltered the monster, and every vibration become a
dagger hacking him to pieces.
The clock had ceased striking, and a footstep sounded, but whether near
or far-off Wenk could not at first determine, for the throbbing in his
ears. Suddenly the garden gate creaked, and in the starlight he saw a
broad expanse of white shirt-front. A man advanced rapidly to Mabuse’s
door, and in the instant that he stood on the doorstep, waiting for it
to open, the starlight revealed to Wenk that the figure was that of the
man he was seeking. And now the net was closing around the victim.
Wenk waited three minutes, four minutes. Would not the world come to
an end during these moments? Might not the skies fall, and the last
judgment begin?
Then he pulled himself together and climbed stiffly over the fence
to return to No. 26. He rushed upstairs in the darkness, seized the
telephone, called for the number and gave the guard-room the orders he
had arranged. He had but to name the street and give the number of the
house, which till now he had kept a secret.
A motor-cyclist was to go to the second guard-room directly the
telephone message was received. The car containing the first relay of
police was to follow him immediately, and at the second guard-room
those aroused by the cyclist’s warning were to be ready to get in the
car and proceed with the others at full speed to the villa. Thus it had
been arranged.
After Wenk had telephoned he hastened downstairs again. He stood in
the dark entrance, waiting for the first sound of the approaching car.
Was he not consumed with fever? No, he bit his lips firmly, made his
muscles taut and commanded himself to keep cool. He must be cold and
hard as steel. Steel it should be!
He had not long to wait.
XVII
The house was surrounded by the police who had been detailed for that
duty, while Wenk with the others hastened to the front door and rang
the bell loudly, but the explosive was already prepared. Mabuse had
not yet gone to bed. The unusual noise in the street had sent him to
the spy-hole in the shutters, whence he could see what was happening,
and the first glance revealed the police. While he was still looking
through his peep-hole, and letting nothing of the happenings outside
escape his eye, since the searchlights illuminated everything in the
street, he was taking down from the cupboard close by, where it hung in
readiness, a police uniform.
He heard the ringing at the door. He had a telephone concealed in the
wall, and this George had connected with a villa at the back of his
garden. He pressed the connection and called, “Spoerri!”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“The police are about to break in. Make your escape as arranged. Fetch
the Countess. Get the new car ready for me. Burn all papers. Send
pigeon-post to Schachen. That’s all.” While still speaking, he began
hastily to put on the police uniform over his own clothes.
Then there was the sound of explosion, and the door was broken open, a
chair flying into the air. With one bound Mabuse was in the corridor.
When the explosion occurred he was on the first floor, which was shut
off from the stairway.
Close behind the first of the police who entered through the shattered
door came Wenk, a heavy revolver in his hand. He was at once struck
by the style of the interior, its beautiful carvings and its costly
Persian carpets. He took this in at the very first glance as he hurried
by. He pointed in silence to the stairs, and while those behind went
up them, he and some others inspected the three doors leading to the
basement. All were locked, and in a few minutes they had been burst
open. The police rushed through all the rooms; one, trying to turn on
the electric light, found that it was cut off.
Six policemen had stormed the stairs. The door in the panelled wall
of the first floor leading from the stairs was open. The men advanced
beyond it into a dark corridor, holding their revolvers cocked, and
touching all the objects they encountered in the darkness. Nowhere was
there any electric light to be had, and it was some time before they
had enough electric torches to suffice them. Then in a moment they
had taken possession of all the rooms, and the doors leading to the
corridor were shut behind them by the detectives, who removed the keys.
Wherever they found the rooms empty, they hacked upon the chests and
cupboards. Mabuse heard the sounds, which made his usually silent house
as noisy as a factory.
When furnishing the house he had had a little secret chamber made
near the doorway leading to the first floor. A carpenter belonging
to his band of accomplices had done the work. This chamber was so
cunningly concealed in the cleverly contrived decoration of the walls
as to be invisible from the corridor outside, and on the inner side
the existence of a door would never have been suspected. It was here
that Mabuse had concealed himself when he heard the explosion that
wrecked his front door. In this hiding-place he had a second telephone
connecting him with the other villa. While the noise of the men
storming the stairs covered his movements, he tried to make use of
this connection, but there was no answer from the other end; therefore
Spoerri must already have got away.
Now came the moment when everything must be risked, and the chances of
escape or of death were equal. The little chamber had a second door,
and this, concealed like the other by the decoration of the panelling,
opened directly on to the stairs. It was here that Mabuse stood to
listen.
He subdued all his senses with the supernatural powers at his command,
subordinating them to his hearing; rustlings, voices, hackings, cries,
abuse, orders, the clicking of electric torches, even the spitting
sound of the acetylene searchlights, were inscribed on his ear-drum
as on a microphone. His powers of hearing must be concentrated on one
single moment, and that was the first second, or fraction of a second,
in which there should be neither step, nor sound, nor even breathing
upon the stairs. If this instant occurred before the systematic search
of the house, room by room, had begun, it would give him a favourable
opportunity, his only opportunity, for flight. It seemed as if the very
blood in his veins stood still, the better to help him discover the
fateful moment. All the other senses were in abeyance, and his will
concentrated on his hearing alone. He felt as if his ear were as large
as the Lake of Constance and his hearing as fine as the vibration of a
filament in an electric light. Everything else within him was cold as
ice, and anæsthetized, but his ear bore a volcanic life within it, and
at last he reached that single heart-beat of time which should prove
his salvation.
He pushed open the narrow door on to the stairs. Until he had
reconnoitred he ran a risk that his ear might have deceived him, but he
saw at once that all was well.
In the corridor below a constable was standing. As he passed him,
Mabuse cried, “He has shut himself into the bathroom....”
Then he saw them all running from the rooms downstairs and pressing
to the staircase. Two men stood at the entrance, in the midst of the
fragments of the shattered door. “I am going for reinforcements,”
said Mabuse as he approached them; “he has entrenched himself in the
bathroom....”
They let him pass, and he ran, using one hand to brush others aside,
the other grasping his Browning pistol. Yes, he was getting away now....
The night was bright with the searchlights, and their rays spoke to
him of freedom and good luck. Dazzling, enchanting visions floated
before his spirit. He drank in deep draughts of the light outside.
“What’s up?” asked one of the men outside as he rushed out.
“His honour’s orders ... reinforcements wanted; he’s entrenched himself
in the bathroom,” called Mabuse in reply.
“Take the motor-cycle,” shouted the other.
What luck! Mabuse already had it between his legs. He fell upon it,
mounted, feeling as if he had fallen from a tower on to a bed of down,
and the night, like a friendly monster, swallowed him up, protecting
him alike from the searchlights and from the violence with which the
search-party would have seized him.
A quarter of an hour later he threw the motor-cycle into the canal and
rode away on his little racing car as if sailing upon a cloud. The car
stretched its nozzle towards the south-west and away it bounded in
delight along the boulevard. It was an armoured car....
* * * * *
“What is the matter?” Wenk asked the police as they rushed past him.
“He is in the bathroom, and has entrenched himself,” one of them called
back.
Wenk ran up the stairs. “Where is he?” he cried.
“In the bathroom,” they shouted on all sides. “All hands to the
bathroom,” ordered Wenk.
They ran hither and thither, and their pocket-torches could be seen
gleaming on the walls in all directions. Where are they all going? To
the bathroom. Fifteen men are hastening to the bathroom. “But where
_is_ the bathroom?” Wenk inquired. Nobody knew where the bathroom was.
And now everyone was shouting out, “Halloa, what’s up?”
The electric switches were overhead, and a turn of the loosely fastened
screws now gave dazzling light to the whole place. The rooms were
brilliant in their wealth and luxuriance--pictures, hangings, carpets,
bronzes, furniture. The bathroom was found at last, and the bath in it
was of Carrara marble, but the whole house was empty and deserted.
Wenk was almost beside himself. He felt like an empty shaft, down which
everything good and beautiful and all that was lofty and successful
had fallen into a bottomless abyss. They tapped the walls with their
hatchets, suspecting some hidden space, and soon the secret nook was
discovered and the riddle solved.
Wenk pulled himself together. There was yet another mouse-hole, and it
was in Schachen, at the Villa Elise!
The State Attorney made rapid arrangements at the telephone
headquarters. All the lines were connected up with him, and everything
had been prepared beforehand. The highroads from Munich in all
directions were guarded by police. The stretch of country between
Munich and Lindau had eight posting-stations, and at every one there
was a telephone ready at any moment throughout the night to inform
Munich of anything that had happened there.
Wenk raised the alarm in all directions. Mabuse’s stratagem had given
him a half-hour’s start. If things had happened as he imagined, and the
car of the fugitive were now eighty or ninety kilometres away, there
was yet ten minutes before Buchloe could announce its passing through.
He had hardly reckoned up the distance, however, when he heard “Buchloe
speaking!” and his heart sang for joy.
“A car has just gone through at terrific speed in the direction of
Kempten. It is a large covered car.”
It was 2.10 a.m., and a quarter of an hour later came the Kaufbeuren
report.
“A large covered car, travelling about eighty kilometres an hour, has
just passed, and taken the Kempten road.”
It was now 2.25 a.m. Wenk began rapidly to make calculations as to the
speed of the car, but just then Buchloe rang up again: “A second car
has just come through, a small, open car with one person in it!” Ten
minutes later Kaufbeuren gave the same report.
“They are escaping in sections. The second car is going faster. Mabuse
must be in that one, and his accomplices in the first,” thought Wenk.
From Obergünzburg he had the announcement of both cars in the one
communication, for the second went through just as the official had
informed him about the first. Buchenberg told him the same.
Then Wenk thought it time to call up Schachen. He gave directions to
await the arrival of the two cars and then take action according to the
plan arranged. The man whom it was above all important to secure would
probably be in the uniform of a Munich constable, and they were not to
be misled by this, for it would be Mabuse.
“Now we have him at last,” said Wenk jubilantly, as he received one
communication after another, all of them proving that Schachen was the
destination aimed at.
Place after place stood out on the map to Wenk, and through the night
the villages and tiny towns called to him and ranged themselves on his
side. He bound them together with phantom threads, reaching to the very
limits of the Empire. He wrung the secret of the broad highroad out of
it in the darkness, and the highroad knew nothing of its revelation.
With one small lever he held the long, unending avenue, shrouded in
darkness, in the hollow of his hand. The forces he had disposed were
obedient to him, their general.
“Hergatz” rang on the telephone, and the sound of its bell seemed to
his ears as intimate as if it were his own name being called.
“Yes,” he said, “it is the State Attorney, Wenk, speaking from Munich.
“A little open car has just gone by very rapidly in the Lindau
direction. Two persons were in it, but not clearly recognized.”
“Thank you. Hold on a minute. There will be a second car through.”
Wenk waited, hearing in the suspended lines all the sounds occurring
through the night between Munich and a little place like Hergatz, which
he had never yet visited.
“Are you still connected?” he asked after a while.
“Yes, sir.”
“Hasn’t the second car come through?”
“Not yet, sir.”
After a time he inquired again, and once more he was told No.
A quarter of an hour later he rang up Hergatz again, and the official
said that no second car had been seen.
Wenk opened out the map again and made a feverish search. Yes:
Buchenberg--Isny--Gestratz--Opfenbach ... there was Hergatz! And
behind Isny there was a highroad leading to Wangen and the Würtemberg
district, or on the left another leading to Austria.
He rang up Wangen, but there was no answer. He repeated the call, and
after storming for ten minutes he tried again, but still in vain. He
had left Wangen out of his reckoning and made no plans concerning it,
and in the direction of Austria he could give no orders, for the power
of his lever did not extend so far. A car had disappeared from his
ken; a car had been stolen from him in the night, snatched away in the
darkness from the strange, unfriendly, gloom-surrounded streets.
And then he thought again that the large car might have had a
breakdown. Yes, it must have been so, and that was why the smaller car
had two people in it, when there was only one at the previous stage.
This new circumstance need not worry him. His luck was not going to
desert him: he trusted to it, and it would not fail.
He rang up Schachen. “There will probably be only one car. Let it
arrive, and then wait twenty minutes to see whether the other one
comes, and surround the villa on all sides. Then deliver your blow, as
hard as you can!”
Scarcely had he finished speaking when the telephone rang once more,
and the last stage--the Enisweiler railway-station--was heard speaking.
A small, open car had turned off the Lindau-Friedrichshafen road, and
was rapidly approaching Schachen. Two people were in it.
It was all complete! Wenk himself could do nothing more now. He would
have to wait. Perhaps in a few moments now the fight on the lake-side
which his tactics had prepared might be going on. He ordered them not
to wait for the second car, but to enter the villa immediately after
the arrival of the occupants of the first one, to seize and handcuff
them, extinguish the lights, and wait a full hour for the second one.
He looked at his watch, and laid it on the table before him. It was now
3.18 a.m.
He felt a twitching in the muscles of hands and feet and a throbbing
in his brain. It seemed as if a whirlwind of pain were rising from his
hips to his head, remaining there a while, and then taking the same
direction again and again, times without number.
XVIII
Spoerri had fetched the Countess from the villa in the western suburbs,
which she had occupied but half an hour, and hurried off with her in
the car. Mabuse, in his light little two-seater, had caught up the
heavier car between Kaufbeuren and Günzburg, and both drove on without
stopping. This had all been arranged between them long before. Where
the road to Wangen diverged from the Lindau road, the large car ahead
came to a standstill, and the little car drove close up. The Countess
was transferred; Mabuse drove on, and Spoerri took the road leading to
Austria.
Mabuse had arranged that at this point their roads should separate.
Spoerri should reach Switzerland by way of the Rhine. Each of them must
leave an address in Zürich with Dr. Ebenhügel, who could then exchange
them. Mabuse, with the Countess, would drive to the Villa Elise, where
George, who had been instructed by pigeon-post, would be waiting with
the chest containing the securities and the jewels Mabuse would take
with him on his flight. Then the three of them would immediately cross
the lake to Luxburg, where a motor would be in waiting, and proceed
along the Romanshorn main road to Zürich. There would be a brief stop
at Zürich for the transaction of business.
It was likely that the authorities in Bavaria would ask the Swiss ones
to search for the fugitives, and therefore Mabuse wanted to make his
stay in Switzerland as brief as possible, and to push on to the Italian
frontier. He had had passes for himself and the Countess prepared in
a Portuguese surname. An Italian official had been bribed, and by his
help all difficulties disappeared as chaff before the wind.
The Countess sat at the back of the car, behind its high body. In
front of her Mabuse, sitting at the wheel, seemed like some monumental
image. In the uncertain light the outlines of his powerful figure stood
out with ghostly effect. There was not the slightest movement to be
seen, and from her seat behind he looked like a block of granite, seen
standing alone in a meadow.
They sped by highways, villages, hamlets, and then the waters of the
lake gleamed in the night. A few lights at intervals on its shores,
shapes appearing and disappearing in the darkness, dimly suggesting
human beings, a change in the air one breathed ... two villages
appearing to float like illuminated ships upon the water ... there was
Switzerland already.
Lindau lay to the side, and their car was now racing along roads
bordered by country villas. And then came the last minute. The car
bounded across the track to the Enisweiler station, and rushed forward
to the Villa Elise. At the first glance Mabuse’s sharp eyes saw that
the gates opening on to the drive stood wide open.
The pigeon-post had arrived safely and in good time then. He felt as if
the impetuous haste with which he had driven hither in the darkness
had yielded him a fresh sensation. It was now just before 3.30 a.m.,
and he kept his senses constantly on the alert without slackening his
speed. When he was about to turn into the drive, he pressed the brakes
hard for a moment before allowing the car to run its course; it held up
for an instant, then, veering round, went straight through the gates
and turned towards the garden.
Just then he felt something spring on to the car. On the clutch side,
springing over the door, a form squeezed down on the outer side of
Mabuse. Two hands covered his own, snatched the steering-gear from him,
and a wild, hoarse, impressive voice whispered, “Doctor, I’m here: it’s
George. Give me the wheel. We are surrounded. Straight forward into the
lake....”
Mabuse yielded the wheel and let go the brakes. Under its new guide the
car dashed ahead, thundered round the grey walls of the villa, abruptly
turned a corner, got on to a grass-plot, and raced frantically across
it, along the sloping gravel patch to the wall which divided the lake
from the garden above. Through the gate in the wall it leaped like a
wild horse and then clattered down the inclined wooden footway, the
boards thundering beneath it. A moment later its nose was in the water
and the lake hissing around it.
George leant forward as quick as lightning and gripped levers, Mabuse
helping him. The night re-echoed the Countess’s cry, and then the
vehicle, tottering slightly at first, but slowly righting itself, went
onward over the surface of the water.
“Splendid!” cried George. “It is working like magic!”
This car was an invention of his own. It could be driven straight from
the highroad into the water without stopping, and a couple of levers
turned it at once into a motor-boat.
“It is the pigeons that have done the mischief,” said George, when he
had gained thorough control of his vessel. “After they arrived in the
dark, about an hour ago, I seemed to hear whispering voices behind
a shrubbery. I looked very carefully round, and thought I noticed a
movement going all round the park. In one place, and then twenty paces
further on, and then twenty paces beyond that again, in a circle, the
whole way round, so then I knew we were surrounded. However, I managed
to get to the gate leading to the garden without being seen. It took me
fifty minutes to do the hundred yards. If we had not had this car, we
should now be sitting handcuffed inside the Villa Elise.”
The constables, who had distributed themselves with all possible
precautions about the villa, and had taken four hours to complete the
ring around it, one after another taking up his position, had heard
the car thundering along through the silent night. They lay in tense
expectation at their posts, awaiting the whistle which should summon
them to the house to fall upon the criminals.
Just an hour before there had been a slight interruption. A bird had
suddenly flown through a tree and disappeared beneath the eaves. One
of the constables close to the house had noticed it. He had seen
the bird fluttering about the roof and then suddenly disappearing
without having flown away elsewhere. His conjecture that it was a
carrier-pigeon was soon confirmed by the appearance of a second bird,
which also disappeared in the eaves. The constable stole softly to the
inspector and announced what he had seen and suspected. The latter saw
at once what this might indicate. Poldringer had received warning from
Munich, from the fugitives. He therefore ordered a constable to proceed
with the utmost caution from one outpost to another and relate the
fact, saying that those in the house had probably been warned, and that
they must redouble their precautions and at the same time be prepared
for stronger resistance.
The movements of the constable as he went from post to post had put
George on his guard.... Mabuse’s car reached the grounds, and the
inspector’s quivering fingers were already raising the whistle to his
mouth. At the moment when the occupants of the car should have left it
and be about to close the door of the house behind them, he meant to
give the signal. Two detectives were lying concealed in the shrubs to
the left of the front door, and could reach it before the key was even
turned in the lock, but the inspector gave no sign.
The car rushed round the corner, not stopping at the door. It tore
frantically round the house as if about to rush pell-mell into the
Lake. The inspector, forgetting all caution in the excitement and
disappointment of the moment, sprang forward after it, and saw that
it actually did disappear in the water. Like a sinister amphibian it
leaped over the low wall, thundered down the wooden footway and sprang
into the Lake.
Then at last he blew his whistle, and the posse of constables came
running from all directions, knocking up against each other.
“To the shore!” shouted the sergeant.
There was no car to be seen anywhere. About two hundred yards from the
shore the engines of a motor-boat could be heard in the darkness. They
searched beneath the roadway, up and down the lake-side, dazed and
disappointed, but in vain.
Then at last the inspector realized what must have happened. The
unceasing efforts, strain and hopes of an entire month had come to
nought. His prize capture had escaped him. He was so absolutely
disheartened by this maddening thought that he unconsciously pressed to
his temples the revolver that he held ready-cocked in his hand, as if
his very life must be forfeit through the failure of his enterprise. A
moment later he lowered the revolver, and the ball, singeing his hair,
fell harmless into the night. Upon the Lake a light shone out. Further
on, another. The shot had aroused the attention of the spy-boats.
Not till then did the inspector remember these allies, whom in his
first access of despair he had completely forgotten. “Bring Morse
lamps!” he cried. How _could_ he have overlooked the motor-boats?
Immediately flashes were sent to the two boats: “The fugitives have
escaped, and are on a motor-boat on the lake.”
“All right,” was flashed back, and a few minutes later powerful
searchlights were directed towards the lake. It was not long before
they had located the escaping boat. But they had also warned it, for at
that very moment it was about to run into them.
* * * * *
Mabuse and George were at once aware of their danger. The two
searchlights advancing on them seemed like the open jaws of a monster
approaching to devour them. George steered to larboard, and the boat
settled its course in a new direction. The water streamed over the
rudder and gleamed about them, frothing in the darkness. “There is only
one way,” said Mabuse in a low voice, “the Rhine estuary.”
He considered the matter coolly and boldly. He was once more in a
situation quite familiar to him, because he had lived through and
overcome it countless times in imagination. On the German shore,
whither they could easily return, everyone would be on the lookout for
them. On the Austrian shore there was only Bregenz, shown up clearly
by the searchlights. Between these two regions there was a large and
very sparsely inhabited territory around the Rhine estuary. In twenty
minutes they could reach land and then make their choice between
Switzerland and Austria. If they were lucky enough to run their vehicle
on to land again as easily as they had run it into the water, they
would have sufficient start to make their escape certain.
One of the pursuing boats, however, lay right out in the lake. It
seemed to guess at the fugitives’ intentions, for it did not follow
them in a direct line, but remained to starboard, keeping abreast of
them near the Swiss shore, as if awaiting a favourable opportunity to
intercept them.
Perhaps it only wanted to keep between them and Switzerland. The
searchlights from both boats met above Mabuse’s. The first faint traces
of daylight were already appearing. Firing was heard behind them. One
of the boats now followed in their wake, but at a little distance to
the rear. The two pursuing boats exchanged Morse signals with each
other.
For a time George steered a zigzag course, the vehicle swaying hither
and thither with the constantly changing displacement of the rudder.
George wanted to make it appear that he was trying to break through to
the Swiss shore, but he, too, was excited by the searchlights. He did
not succeed in getting out of their glare for more than a few moments
at a time. The boat which was astern only went so slowly now because it
was solely concerned with keeping them under view and cutting off their
retreat to the German shore. The Morse signals used were secret ones,
and neither Mabuse nor George could make them out although, through
their frequent trips by water, they were fairly well acquainted with
such things.
Suddenly the boat to the starboard side of them extinguished its
searchlight. Above the infernal noise made by their own motor they
could hear the engine of this boat ahead, its sound growing shriller
and nearer. Their own motor was exerting its utmost pressure. The
shooting had now ceased, and above the sounds made by their boat
another noise could be heard. Mabuse bent forward towards it, listening
with all his ears, the searchlight falling full upon him. He still
wore the police uniform which had made his escape possible.
At first the Countess had lain in the boat half-conscious. The shots,
the droning of the engines, the haste and excitement of the men
beside her, had gradually awakened her, and she began to grasp what
was happening. She, too, heard, above the throbbing of the engines,
a second sound. She sat up, holding her head over the side whence it
came, and listened intently.
“What is that?” she asked Mabuse, who was standing near, planted firmly
on the deck with his back to the engine and appearing entirely at
ease. He could be clearly seen in the searchlight with his hand on the
gunwale, listening intently.
“Nothing!” he hissed; “be quiet!”
“What is it?” she asked again in a sharper tone, and there was
something in the sound of her voice that had not been heard for a
long time. It seemed as if a stone that had long lain at her heart
were now being dissolved into a mass of pulp. To this feeling, still
but half-conscious, she yielded herself more and more. By degrees she
appeared to realize what was happening within her. Then, rising and
standing in front of Mabuse, she suddenly cried out, “Now, at last....”
The sounds of the water and the night stole over her like a joy beyond
bound or measure. Eagerly she absorbed with heart and mind the light,
sweet rustle they made, and she perceived that every moment they became
more pronounced. At last she understood. The pursuer was advancing
rapidly upon them, and came ever nearer....
“What do you mean by that ‘at last’?” asked Mabuse roughly. “Sit down
and keep quiet!”
“What is that sound we hear?” she said in a ringing voice.
“Death--perhaps!” answered Mabuse calmly.
“For _you_!” cried the woman facing him, above the swirling of the
waters. “I shall be able to shake you off at last. I shall be saved
from you. The werwolf will be caught, and your power over me and over
others be at an end!”
“I will soon show you that,” said Mabuse, advancing and bending over
her; and then what happened came so quickly that she could scarcely
distinguish the movements.
“George!” called Mabuse, the one word only, and then he unfastened
the police uniform which concealed his clothing and threw it towards
George, who at once donned it and stood near the Countess, exposing
himself to the searchlight, while Mabuse took his place at the wheel.
They heard a shout close to them. “Halt!” cried a voice from out the
sounds her eager ears had been absorbing. “Halt!” A shot whizzed in the
air, and an echo resounded.
George fired in return. The boat gave an upward lurch and then suddenly
two high dams enclosed it. Where was the lake? Where was the wide
expanse of night? There was a rustling sound, and a beating against the
spring tides of the Rhine. The searchlight had disappeared, and a soft,
warm mist covered the stream and the dams. They were smooth as railway
lines, and a bridge lay diagonally above them. The throbbing of the
engine resounded from its arched vault.
Then a sudden movement flung the Countess to the ground. The boat
sprang up into the air with a loud report, but the woman was caught
as she fell; she could feel herself lifted; someone held her, and ran
swiftly with her; her cries were stifled, and a red mist swam before
her eyes.
* * * * *
George lay on the shore, one arm broken. With the sound one he felt for
the police helmet and crammed it down on his head. The fall had stunned
him slightly, but he could have escaped; nevertheless, he lay still.
It was not long before he saw two revolvers levelled at him. Two
electric torches glared before his eyes. “We’ve got the one in
uniform!” said a voice. George kept quite quiet. He was carried from
the land into a boat and fettered to a thwart. The engine started, and
the boat drove across the lake back to Schachen.
The day was dawning when George reached the wooden landing-stage once
more. They took him into the villa and locked him into a room with
barred windows, out of which he could not escape, even had two men not
been in charge of him.
The inspector said to himself, “Thank God, we have caught him at last,
and in his police uniform too! thank God!”
* * * * *
At five o’clock that morning Wenk left Munich in a hydroplane, landing
two hours later at Schachen. He flew up the stairs of the Villa Elise
to reach the room where the imprisoned robber-king was waiting ...
waiting for _him_, the conqueror!
“Here is Dr. Mabuse,” called out the inspector, advancing towards him.
“We have him safe at last, thank God!”
Wenk, jubilant, victorious, and intoxicated with success, entered the
room and saw the man in police uniform fast bound to his chair.
“Where is he?” he asked.
“There ... on that chair!”
Wenk looked at the man more closely. He knew it already: his quarry had
escaped! Back into the endless, the dark and empty night, everything
fell once more, and at first he could neither hear nor speak a word.
Suddenly the inspector said, “But that is Poldringer, the man we’ve
been watching all these weeks!”
“Yes, that is Poldringer,” answered Wenk heavily. Mabuse had escaped.
XIX
Mabuse hastily carried the insensible woman from the bank of the Rhine
channel to the nearest house. It was that of an osier-binder.
“We have had an accident,” said Mabuse, and then seated himself at the
window to watch the approach.
When an hour had gone by thus, and the Countess opened her eyes again,
Mabuse noticed that she started on recognizing him and turned away,
overcome with dread. He went hastily towards her and, stooping down, he
whispered, “We are saved! We are irrevocably bound together!”
The whispered words impressed her with a certain sense of comfort and
security. She no longer withstood him, and soon sat up, the peasant’s
wife promising to look after her.
Mabuse sought for the nearest village on the map. Then he went thither,
in security, knowing that he was not being followed. George had
remained as the victim of the pursuer’s vengeance, and he was saved.
The other’s fate was due to the little trick of the police uniform.
The village was not more than twenty minutes’ distance, and in an inn
he found a telephone. He ordered coffee, and then rang up Zürich. In
half an hour’s time the call came through, and asking who was there, he
was answered, “Dr. Ebenhügel, Zürich.”
“Has Spoerri arrived?” he inquired.
“Spoerri has just come: he is still here;” and Spoerri rushed to the
telephone.
“Spoerri, I’ve had a misfortune. George is taken, but we have escaped.
Bring the car here at once, and put in a travelling dress and coat for
my wife. I shall expect you at 2 p.m. at the Au railway-station in the
Rhine Valley.”
“Very good, sir,” replied Spoerri.
“I called her my wife, and said it quite coolly and intentionally,”
mused Mabuse, dallying with the thought, which yet seemed to imply
something like a fetter; but he dismissed the idea, saying, “She _is_
my wife, my own property!... It is true, she _is_ mine.”
* * * * *
Spoerri arrived punctually. “I shall drive you through the Engadine
direct to the Italian frontier,” he said, when Mabuse had told him all
that had occurred. But to that proposal Mabuse merely uttered one word:
“No!”
“But, Doctor,” Spoerri pleaded, “you can’t remain in Switzerland. The
Munich police have informed the authorities here of your movements. We
shouldn’t get even as far as Toggeburg. It would be almost better to
return to Germany.”
“And that’s exactly what I mean to do! Spoerri, from this day forward
the State Attorney’s life stands under my protection. You are to revoke
my earlier orders to the Removal Committee at once.”
“You are going in for a remarkable friendship, Doctor,” tittered
Spoerri.
“He is to remain absolutely under my protection!” repeated Mabuse, and
they drove through the flat marsh-land back to the peasant’s hut.
The Countess got into the car, and they were soon hastening to the
Austrian frontier. “What sort of passports have you for us?” asked
Mabuse.
“Swiss ones: please take them,” answered Spoerri, handing over
documents with many visas, calculated to arouse a confidence which was
constantly abused yet remained unconscious of the fact.
Three hours later the car was driving along the highroad leading from
Bregenz to Kempten. It drove past a house from which, the night before,
a message had been flashed through to Munich telling of its passing,
and went towards Würtemberg. The travellers spent the night in a
village south of Stuttgart.
In the evening Mabuse went to Spoerri’s room, and said to him: “There
is just one thing left for me to do in Germany, in Europe ... and that
is to get hold of that lawyer, the State Attorney, Wenk, alive. I
want him _alive_, mark you! as much alive as a fly under a glass. The
Countess and I are staying here to-morrow. You will go to Stuttgart and
buy, whatever the price may be, a two-seater aeroplane. We are quite
safe here. The landlord did not even register us, so if the police
appear he is bound to hold his tongue, or else he will be fined. Have
you any brandy?”
Spoerri shrank back in dismay; his martyrdom was about to begin again.
Nevertheless, he had smuggled three bottles out of Switzerland.
“Of course you have some brandy!” said Mabuse, before he could even
answer.
Mabuse drank from the travelling cup which he always carried in his
pocket, and Spoerri had to fill the toothglass on the washhandstand.
Mabuse was longing for a carouse, a really heavy carouse which should
seize him by the throat and press him under the water, as if he were
being given a millstone for a swimming belt. When he had emptied the
second bottle, he saw that he was not likely to get his wish.
“Haven’t you any more?” he asked.
“That’s all there is. I couldn’t venture to bring any more across the
frontier.”
Mabuse laughed satirically. “That’s fine. Here is Spoerri, who has
brought three railway vans full of salvarsan, two of cocaine, enough
prostitutes to fill three brothels across the frontier, yet he hasn’t
enough courage to bring more than three bottles of brandy! Empty your
glass into mine. Don’t your wages include the getting of brandy?”
When the third bottle had been emptied Mabuse, clear-headed as ever,
but more hot-blooded, went back to the room next his own, occupied by
the Countess. He was out of sorts, and resembled an engine that had
been run too fast, so that the heat had covered the glowing cylinders
with vapour, and they could not be set in motion.
He approached the Countess’s bed. “You and I had come to an
understanding together. You have broken through it: you were ready to
betray me!”
“I was!” said the Countess in a low voice.
Then ungovernable fury seemed to possess the man. He snatched her from
the bed, and as he seized her, lifted her high in the air as if he were
going to dash her in pieces against the wall like rotting timber. At
that moment he hated her; she was the embodiment of all his weaknesses.
For ten long minutes, when the patrol-boat was on their track, the
power of his will over her had ceased, and now, when he wanted to
destroy her and would have dashed against the wall the head that defied
him, he could not do it.
With a low cry the woman found herself held on high, and realized the
strength of arm and indomitable will-power of the being to whom she was
secretly--and yet irrevocably--bound. She longed for death. Softly she
repeated a fragment or two of a prayer learnt in her childhood’s days,
and she knew that if she were to die now she would draw this man also
to his death.
But Mabuse, conscious of his power over the woman he held aloft in his
grasp, suddenly came to himself again. Once more he realized that he
was alive, was safe, and felt a fierce joy in the knowledge and in his
possession of her. Almost gently he laid her down, and the poor woman,
condemned afresh to a life of humiliation and degradation, was at the
mercy of the tyrant who dominated her, and from whose power there was
now no escape. She lay wide-eyed and tearless till the dawn, her only
desire for floods and floods of tears wherein to drown for ever the
misery of her existence.
* * * * *
On the morning of the following day Mabuse flew with her from Stuttgart
to Berlin.
There, caught in the toils of the mighty city, among those whose
instincts he developed and used to his own ends, he lived, bent on one
aim alone. One idea presented itself with ever-increasing intensity,
one vision swam ever before his eyes, intoxicating him with a fury of
desire. His phantasies, his strivings, and the goal before him gained
their force because born of the strongest impulse within him, his lust
for power!
There was one man in the world who had set himself to follow his path,
had discovered him in his own territory, and dislodged him from his
fortress. There was one alone who had dared to disturb his plans, to
oblige him to undertake a flight in which his life had been in danger.
It was due to this man’s efforts that the State had interfered with his
schemes for getting rid of those whom his imperious will desired to
remove from his path.
From the woman who had first moved him to the very depths of his
being he had wrested all the power of will with which her personality
resisted him. It was his pride to know that. He had taken her being,
her beauty, her independence, her exclusiveness, and grappled them to
himself, and this work of his was the very highest spiritual expression
of his powers and capabilities. But between him and her there was a
period of ten minutes in which she had escaped his domination, in
which he had to renounce his claim to this symbol of his superhuman
force. And that period of time, that barren, useless part of his life,
he owed to the power of this one man.
His flight from Germany with this woman and his journey across the
Atlantic had been so minutely prepared in all its details that only
death could intervene. His empire of Citopomar, with its virgin
forests, tigers, rattlesnakes, where death lay in wait at every moment,
its mountains and its waterfalls and its rare exotic growths, was
waiting for him, waiting to set him free from Europe, to offer him a
new life. Any day might see him crowned as emperor.
But he would eat of Dead Sea fruit for the rest of his life, did he
take possession of his realm before he had seized upon this man with
all the full force of his lust for power and his deadly hatred, had
held him within his grasp and annihilated him. Between him and Wenk
it was a struggle for existence, and he could know no peace while the
other lived.
Once, when the thoughts surging within him would no longer be
controlled, he replied to the Countess’s inquiry as to when they would
leave Germany, “I shall catch him alive. I shall catch him like a bird
in the snare. He will flutter helpless into my hands. Not till then do
I go.”
She turned away afraid, guessing the man he meant. Since that moment
of her resistance and hope of escape she seemed to have become more
subdued than ever, falling deeper under his demon spell. She did not
venture to oppose or question more.
Mabuse’s enterprise with regard to Wenk developed slowly. But steadily
and surely the net around him was tightening....
* * * * *
Wenk was in Munich again. George had been imprisoned there, and he
played the rôle of a deaf mute. No one had heard a word from him since
his arrest. He was confronted with the constables and tradespeople from
Schachen who had seen him for many weeks, with the young fellows whom
he had tried to hand over to the Foreign Legion, all of whom instantly
recognized him, but he did not utter a word.
One morning they found he had hanged himself with his braces. He
had written one word on the wall of his cell, the word that one of
Napoleon’s generals had made renowned after he had lost the battle of
Waterloo.
An exhaustive search in the Villa Elise brought little to light. It
merely revealed proofs that Mabuse employed the money obtained by
gambling or theft to carry on smuggling and profiteering on a gigantic
scale. The police worked side by side with the Swiss authorities, for
it was believed that Mabuse must be in Switzerland, or at any rate
that he had passed through. Wenk went once a fortnight to Zürich. Now
and then one of Mabuse’s gang was caught, but all were so thoroughly
schooled that no word of betrayal escaped them.
News reached Wenk from Frankfurt that a gambler was at work there,
whose description so closely resembled Mabuse that Wenk travelled
thither at once, but when he arrived there was no trace of the man to
be found. Three days later there was a report of a similar kind from
Cologne, then from Düsseldorf, and later both from Essen and Hanover.
Wenk went hither and thither, not doubting in his own mind that he was
indeed on the track of Mabuse. The latter must have spies in Munich who
watched and reported Wenk’s movements. Knowing that he was followed,
he took every possible precaution, and employed all the cunning at
his command. On his journeys he made use of trains, cars, aeroplanes
indiscriminately. Since he could not help suspecting that Mabuse
had accomplices among his own subordinates, Wenk watched these very
closely. He changed his chauffeur and his housekeeper, altered his
address and his telephone number, took rooms in a hotel, or lodged with
friends in the suburbs. But as soon as he arrived at the town where
the gambler had been seen, he found he had vanished without trace of
any kind, only to reappear a few days later in some other part. The
whole country already rang with reports of the existence and operations
of the robber-king. Dr. Mabuse, the gambler! It was like a ballad,
expressing the devilry and defiance of all who offered resistance to
existing law and order, and it spread from place to place.
In all the towns the police arrested men in gangs, but when the
criminals were sorted out, this man, whose capture was worth more to
them than all the rest, was never to be found. Suddenly it struck Wenk
that Mabuse must be making his way by a circuitous route to Berlin.
From his superior officers Wenk obtained permission to leave Bavaria,
and got in touch with the Prussian courts of justice, and these
appointed him to Berlin on special duty.
He at once travelled thither and took lodgings in the Central district.
Mabuse saw him arrive at the railway-station, and an hour later he knew
where he was staying. At last he had him within reach, in the place
where he desired to accomplish his scheme of revenge and towards which
he had been working, for Mabuse in reality had never left Berlin. In
all the towns to which Wenk had travelled in search of the gambler,
Mabuse had doubles, persons of his own gang, instructed by him. Munich
was too small for the scheme Mabuse had in hand. The abysses of Berlin
would be a safer hunting-ground, and the hunt began on the very next
day.
* * * * *
That day Wenk had been describing to a junior colleague in the Berlin
police his course of action in “the Mabuse case.” They had talked about
it together, discussing a plan of operation, but the only conclusion
they had come to was that the gambler should be allowed to show his own
hand first. To aim at him in the dark would be likely to reveal to him
prematurely the whereabouts of his pursuers.
In the evening, when Wenk had taken a meal in the “Traube” restaurant,
he visited a café, and then, tired out by his long discussion, he
sought his lodgings. There a man accosted him, standing in a doorway
removed from the light.
“If you please, sir ...” said he.
“What do you want?” asked Wenk reluctantly.
“Would some cocaine be useful to you, sir?”
Wenk went on without vouchsafing a reply, and he noticed that the man
followed him, but when he came to the busy Friedrichstrasse he lost
sight of him.
Wenk soon took himself to task for having let the man escape him thus.
He ought to have got into touch with this pedlar of illicit wares, for
he belonged to the same stock as Mabuse. He was half inclined to go
back, but the feeling of weariness was too strong for him and he went
home.
The next night he took the same way home from the restaurant, but
the man was not there. Wenk lingered here and there, and then, as he
approached his lodgings near the Police Market, a man came out of an
entry towards him, saying in a whisper, “Do you want to see some nude
dances?”
Wenk stopped still, saying, “You have come just at the right time. I
don’t belong to Berlin, and I should like to see the real night-life of
this city just for once. Where are your dancers? Go ahead!”
“Follow me, then. I’ll go in front, and when you see me go in
somewhere, you come quick, guv’nor, ’cos of the peelers!”
Wenk promised to follow his lead. The man went round the corner,
listened to see if he were following, and then went on again. Suddenly
he disappeared. Wenk went a few steps straight on. The man must have
gone into one of the entries near, and he walked slowly, expecting to
find him, and looking round about. Suddenly he heard the man’s voice
behind him, speaking low and reproachfully: “I don’t call that quick,
guv’nor. You’ll have the bobbies after you if you can’t be more spry.
Come on here, then!” and the man pulled him into a house standing far
back. The door opened on to a dark corridor, and silently and unawares
it closed behind him, while the corridor was lighted up in the same
instant. This corridor led into a little living-room, and that again
into a hall crowded with people. Two gentlemen sitting near the door
made room for Wenk beside them. His guide had disappeared.
What Wenk saw was a simple performance, deriving its interest only from
the secrecy with which it was performed.
He heard the conversation of the two men at his table. One of them
said, “The only thing that interests me is how this entertainer manages
to get a hundred or more persons here, year in and year out, without
the police finding it out. Now, as an expert, you just tell me that!”
The other answered in German that sounded unfamiliar, “Well, you
can’t really tell whether it is known to the police or not. There
are such places winked at by the police because they are traps for
criminals--yes, really traps set for them. Now in Budapest....”
Wenk listened eagerly. The gentlemen went on talking, drawing him
naturally into their conversation. They disclosed their calling,
and then gave their names. One of the gentlemen was, as Wenk had
conjectured, a highly placed police official. They frequently met
each other. The Hungarian told of various interesting and complicated
cases occurring during the practice of his profession. He described
the Budapest haunts of crime, touched on the many secret gaming-houses
which had sprung up so quickly everywhere since the war, and waxed
eloquent against the ever-increasing boldness displayed by criminals
and the mob generally.
Wenk, with a certain unconfessed distrust, talked very warily, saying
that he was only on leave in Berlin, for the scene of his activities
lay in Munich. But Berlin, as the hotbed of crime, afforded a good
field of study for a Munich criminal prosecutor. He touched lightly on
the existence of Mabuse, though without naming him, and related some of
his bold and shameless crimes.
“Just lately,” said the man from Budapest, interrupting him, “we took
into custody a similar adventurer, and we did it by curious and not
exactly legal methods, but we got no further in any other way. With us
in Hungary, as it is with you here, the assistance of hypnotism in the
detection of crime is forbidden. We had the man of whom we were almost
certain--but, my dear sir, you won’t betray me, I am sure, for the
professional interest you feel in putting an end to such aberrations
is just as strong in me--well, we were practically certain that he was
the leader of a gang which had several murders to their account. He
was in prison, as I have told you. He made himself out a deaf mute, and
we could glean nothing from his papers. No one knew him, yet we felt
almost sure of our man, and that kind of thing is almost unbearable to
an expert, isn’t it?--for when he appeared before their worships, there
was the risk of his being acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence.
That was a most disagreeable idea to me, for I had spent about six
months in tracking him down, and if he were discharged the mistake
would be due to me. I therefore took a very bold step. A friend of mine
had hypnotic powers. He was a barrister, and had often displayed these
gifts of his in private. I wanted him to go to the jail with me, but
he said, ‘I can operate on him from outside,’ and, indeed, a quarter
of an hour later I knew that we had the leader of the gang at last,
and various disclosures were made which shortly after sent him to the
gallows.”
While the Hungarian was telling this story Wenk experienced an aversion
to him. He had a sensation of profound mental resistance to the man,
although he could not explain what had caused such a reversal of
feeling.
“Are you also interested in persons who possess this gift of
suggestion?” asked the police superintendent.
“Uncommonly so!” answered Wenk.
“Perhaps you would like to meet my friend, and see something of his
gifts?”
“Is he in Berlin, then? Yes, that I certainly should!”
“Yes, he’s here now. He has given up practising law, and now exercises
his gifts openly. He has very quickly become celebrated. You must have
heard the name of Weltmann?”
Wenk did not like to say No, so he answered with a subdued “Certainly!”
“Well, he is the celebrated Weltmann. You know he is noticeable
on account of his having only one hand. He lost the other in the
Carpathians in 1915. Well, we’ll arrange a meeting, then. I will see
him in the morning. Are you on the telephone by any chance?”
Wenk mentioned his telephone number. Both the gentlemen then left, to
go to a house where ether, cocaine and opium were procurable, and other
more obvious vices were pandered to.
On the very next day Wenk was summoned to the telephone. “Police
Superintendent Vörös speaking! Things have fallen out most favourably
for you, my dear sir! In the home of one of our countrymen, about whom
I will tell you a few things in confidence, Weltmann is giving an
entertainment this very evening. It is quite enough for you to have
expressed the wish; you may consider yourself invited, without any
further formality. It is a most hospitable house, and you won’t feel
yourself in any way a stranger. There are between sixty and seventy
people invited. I’ll undertake all the arrangements, and if it suits
you I’ll come in a car for you at nine o’clock. The villa is some
distance out behind Nicholas Lake.”
“Thank you very much. Your kindness overwhelms me,” answered Wenk, “and
I do not know how to requite it.”
“Oh, _that’s_ all right,” answered the other heartily. “We Hungarians
are only too pleased to have such a chance. Then we can regard that as
settled?”
“Quite, thank you!”
“How very amiable the Hungarians are,” thought Wenk, as he hung up the
receiver. He felt quite ashamed of himself for having had a doubt of
the police superintendent’s good faith.
He spent the afternoon among the archives of the Criminal Investigation
Department, where he and the colleague with whom he had talked
concerning the Mabuse crimes looked through the collection of
photographs of criminals. Face after face drew his attention. He would
not give up until he had seen them all, and when he came back to his
lodgings, tired out with his protracted labours, he had only just time
to don his evening clothes in readiness for the function he was to
attend.
XX
Police Superintendent Vörös was punctual.
“Now I must tell you something about our host and my fellow-countrymen
out there by the Lake,” he said directly the car started. “He was
formerly Prince of Komor and Komorek, and he married a Viennese dancer.
Of course, his people were furious! They made things so disagreeable
for him that one day he said, ‘All right: you’ve gone too far. You’ve
done with your Prince. From to-day I am plain Komorek,’ and then he
wandered off. He was very rich, anyhow, and not in any way dependent
on his people. The only thing that is still ‘princely’ about him is
his mansion out yonder. You will see it for yourself. He’s been living
there for ten years now. His wife is very smart and exclusive--more
exclusive than a princess. Of course, she is no longer young. Have you
had your evening meal?”
“No, I had no time.”
“Well, that does not matter. At Komorek’s house they are always ready
for guests. You’ll get something good to eat there.”
Wenk asked himself, “Why is the man so talkative?” and once more his
feeling of repulsion for the Hungarian regained its sway. He was
inwardly both excited and uneasy, and in spite of the darkness in the
car his eyes smarted. There seemed to be a constant stabbing sensation
in them, and the thousands of likenesses he had seen that day seemed to
be chasing each other round and round in a never-ending stream. “How
much I should like to be at home and in bed!” he thought to himself.
The car drove through districts which were unknown to him, and this was
peculiar, for he had made the trip to the Nicholas Lake several times
already and thought he knew the district beyond Friedenau. To-day,
however, everything seemed unfamiliar. Was it the thick darkness of the
night and the very sparse illuminations allowed since the war, or was
it his own mood, which was responsible?
“Surely we ought to be at Nicholas Lake by now!” said he.
“I am not familiar with this neighbourhood,” said Vörös.
“I used to have friends out there, and I often drove there by
motor-car, but of course that was before the war.”
“Ah, yes, before the war. Everything was different then,” and they both
became silent.
Wenk looked at his watch, but it was too dark to read the dial, and for
a long time now there had been scarcely any lights.
After a prolonged pause, Wenk said, “Surely the driver has not lost his
way?”
“He is a Berlin taxi-driver. He told me he knew the way quite well.”
Wenk took up the speaking-tube: “Chauffeur, you know where it is?
Nicholas Lake, the Komorek Villa.”
At this moment the car swung round, and lights appeared at the end of a
long avenue.
“Here we are!” said the superintendent of police.
The motor soon drew up among other cars, all close together in front of
the outside staircase leading to the house. It was not lighted, but the
three French windows in the hall on to which it opened gave sufficient
light. Wenk advanced rapidly to the light. Vörös conducted him to the
cloakroom, which was filled with overcoats. A clock in the hall struck
ten; its strokes were harsh and hasty, as if it would flog the hours
away. Wenk, trying to count them, could not keep up with it.
“Ten o’clock,” he said to himself. “We’ve been an hour coming, and
yet the car seemed to be doing about forty-five kilometres an hour.
Nicholas Lake is not so far away as all that!” and again a faint
misgiving stole over him.
He looked towards the Hungarian, who was smiling pleasantly at him.
Then they went towards the large folding doors.
“Allow me to precede you, so that I may introduce you to the Princess
at once.”
A man-servant threw open the door and Wenk followed the police
superintendent into a fairly large hall. The first thing he noticed
was that the light was very subdued; then he saw that in one corner
there was a semicircular raised platform, draped with Persian hangings.
Some chairs and a table, covered with a dark cloth, stood upon it. In
the rows of chairs which filled the room, folks in evening dress were
sitting. There were many fewer ladies than gentlemen, and those there
were, were dressed in very fashionable and striking attire.
Then Vörös murmured, “The Princess!” and presented Wenk.
“Is this the friend you spoke of?” said the lady, with a winning smile.
“You are very welcome, Herr von Wenk. We are pleased that you are able
to give us your company this evening. May I pass you gentlemen on to my
husband? A hostess’s duties, you know, my dear sir!...”
The lady stepped a little nearer to one of the electric lights, which
were all covered with silk shades of a strong deep colour. Then Wenk
saw that his hostess, whom he had taken for quite young, was very much
made up and thickly powdered. Her dress was extremely glaring, and Wenk
was startled by her general appearance as, with an extremely friendly
smile, she inclined her head towards the man advancing, saying, “My
husband,” and left them.
“Good evening, Prince,” said the police superintendent to a man who
bowed to Wenk in what the latter considered a slightly affected way;
and as his host raised his head again, Wenk looked into a swarthy face
with a black moustache, strongly resembling one of those seen in the
collection of criminals’ likenesses he had been studying earlier in the
day. The lady of the house was not in sight.
The Prince, who in appearance was somewhat common, possessed the most
finished manners. He had, moreover, the very rare gift of conversing
without saying anything, for all the subjects of conversation seemed,
as it were, extraneous to him. He accepted any subject offered him,
apparently only to give form to the matter in hand, but made no
contribution of his own.
“That manner of his shows breeding,” thought Wenk. “He is only
moderately gifted, but he has such a desire for form that even the
most trivial matter must be expressed ‘just so’! But what a curious
appearance he has!”
The Prince led him to the first row of chairs, and the company were
begged to take their seats. Wenk did not see Weltmann among them, for
he would, of course, have been noticeable at once, through having lost
his hand.
Wenk sat on his hostess’s left, with the Hungarian police
superintendent close at hand. The rich hangings on the little stage
swayed lightly, and a tall, broad-shouldered man, with rather bowed
shoulders, came forward. He was well and fashionably dressed, but in
contrast to the other guests, who were all in evening clothes, he
wore a dark grey woollen street-suit. It was at once evident that the
hand covered with a dark grey glove was an artificial one. “He is a
Hungarian, that’s quite certain,” thought Wenk, “in spite of his German
name.”
Weltmann had a thick black moustache with drooping ends. His eyebrows
rose suddenly, making a high arch over his eyes. His black hair was
combed right back and plastered smooth. The few words he spoke were
simple and somewhat rough.
He said that the gifts he was about to display before the Prince and
Princess and their guests were matters of fact, and he thought that the
guests would prefer facts rather than an attempt to explain in words
what would probably never be explainable. He would first offer himself
as subject, and ask someone to name a lady and a gentleman in the
company. Perhaps the Princess would name one.
Then the Princess said, “As the gentleman you want, I should like to
name my neighbour, Herr von Wenk!”
“And the lady? Perhaps the Prince would name the lady?”
The Prince answered at once, “Then I shall name my wife.”
Weltmann seated himself, laying his artificial hand upon his knee in a
way which everyone noticed. The other hand he kept in his coat-pocket.
After a pause, in which he had collected his thoughts, he said,
“Princess, have I ever had your watch in my hand--the little watch you
carry in your hand-bag?”
“I don’t believe you ever have!” answered the Princess.
“The number of that watch is 56403. It is an oval-shaped _dernier-cri_
design!”
The Princess drew out her watch, opened it, read the number, and
nodded. She showed it to both her neighbours, and said eagerly, “That’s
quite right!”
“Please to think of a colour and write it down upon a piece of paper,
and show it to your neighbours.”
The Princess considered a while. Then she wrote down, “The amethyst
colour of Herr von Wenk’s ring,” and handed the piece of paper to Wenk.
Weltmann thought for some time, then he said hesitatingly: “It is a
colour in your immediate neighbourhood, but it is rather indefinite. It
is transparent, so it is probably that of a jewel. I cannot say exactly
what two colours it is made up of, but there is violet in it.”
“Lift your ring up to the light, Herr von Wenk,” said the Princess,
and all could see that a deep violet was mingled with a transparent
bluish-white.
“Which gentleman did the Princess name?” asked Weltmann.
“My neighbour, Herr von Wenk,” she replied.
“You, sir,” went on Weltmann rapidly, as Wenk nodded slightly, “have
your pocket-book in your right-hand breast-pocket. In it there are two
notes for one thousand marks each; one is dated 1918, Series D, No.
65045, and the other Series E, No. 5567. Shall I go on, or will you see
first whether this is correct?”
Wenk felt his pocket laughingly.
“No,” said Weltmann, “I meant the right-hand pocket, not the left.
In the left you have your Browning pistol, stamped with the Serraing
trade-mark, No. 201564.”
Wenk looked in amazement at Weltmann, for it was quite true. His
Browning _was_ in his left-hand pocket, and it was one of the Serraing
make. From all sides folks gazed at him, and the Princess leant towards
him, so that he could distinguish the scent of the powder she used.
“Well, what do you think of that, Herr von Wenk?”
The entertainer smiled down at him, saying, “You need not mind showing
the revolver, for in another compartment of your pocket-book you have
the permit which allows you to carry firearms. It was renewed in Munich
on January 1, 1921, and its number is 5. You must have been in a hurry
to get your weapon authorized.”
“Was he dreaming, and was this singular man sneering at him?” thought
Wenk. He brought it out, and everything was just as stated.
“Enough of that sort of thing,” said Weltmann. “Now, if you will allow
me, we will have some examples of transference of will. I should like
one of the gentlemen to come up here.”
Someone stepped on to the stage.
“Do you know this gentleman, Princess?”
“Yes, it is Baron Prewitz!”
“Is the Baron’s being known to the Princess sufficient for the company
to rule out the idea of any private understanding between him and
myself?”
There were cries of “Certainly!”
Meanwhile Weltmann was writing on a table something which it was
impossible for the Baron to read. Then he threw the small writing-block
down to the company below. He looked at Prewitz, quite quietly, for a
short time. Then Prewitz, with stealthy movements, left the platform
and went slowly and cautiously from chair to chair, looking everyone in
the face. Weltmann called out, “I should like four ladies or gentlemen
to come up here quickly. Be quick, please!”
Several started up. Three gentlemen and one lady remained on the
platform, the others returning to their seats. Weltmann placed them
round the table, pointing at a pack of cards lying there.
“Are this lady and these gentlemen known to the company?”
The Princess nodded, and there was a chorus of “Yes!” Meanwhile Prewitz
was advancing towards Wenk. Again Weltmann wrote for some time upon a
memorandum, casting from time to time his glance upon the four sitting
at the table. Suddenly one of them said, “Shall it be vingt-et-un or
poker?” Weltmann went on writing.
They decided upon vingt-et-un, and at once began to play.
“We want one more,” said the lady.
“I am just coming, dear lady,” said Weltmann. “You take the bank!”
By this time Prewitz had come to Wenk. He looked at him steadfastly for
a while, then suddenly seized his left breast-pocket and drew out the
revolver, placing himself at Wenk’s side, the weapon in his hand.
Weltmann said from the stage, “That is because you are so incautious as
to carry a loaded revolver in your pocket! Please”--he turned to the
audience--“be so good as to read what I have written there!”
Someone read out: “The Baron is to go along the first row, chair by
chair, and where he finds someone with a loaded revolver in his pocket,
he is to take it out and sit beside him with it.”
They all clapped their hands, a proceeding which Weltmann, by a brief
gesture, stopped. He left off writing, handed the block down to the
Princess, and sat down with the card-players.
“Page one!” he said to his hostess. She read it to herself, then handed
it to her right-hand neighbour and looked anxiously towards the stage,
where the following incidents were taking place. Weltmann won game
after game. Sometimes he looked away from the table, and then it seemed
to Wenk as if he were beckoning him to come up. Wenk knew it must be a
delusion, due to some effect of the light striking Weltmann’s eye, but
none the less he felt uneasy. The idea occurred to him to yield, and go
up so that he might face this man at close quarters and make sure that
those lightning glances had no reference to him. “Yet that would be
very foolish!” he said to himself, striving to get rid of the impulse.
Suddenly, without a single word having been spoken, one of the players
leaned back, saying in a clear ringing voice, as if speaking aloud in a
dream, “What have I just done? I had twenty-one, and then someone spoke
with my voice, and said, ‘I have lost again.’”
He seized the cards he had thrown aside, and showed an ace, a knave and
a ten.
“Too late!” said Weltmann, who was holding the bank. Wenk put his hands
to his head. He had already lived through such a scene once before.
When was it, where, and to whom did it occur? He cudgelled his brains
to remember. The image of it stood out distinctly, but it stood apart
from any suggestion of the time and place and person.
From the recesses of his mind a form seemed to emerge simultaneously
with his groping efforts to recover the recollections he sought. A
form--was it a human being, a lifeless column, a monster? He could not
say which ... but then the form was bleeding somewhere, and now Wenk
saw, through the misty phantasies of these recent occurrences, that it
had a mouth, and that this mouth suddenly uttered, in clear staccato
tones, the name “Tsi--nan--fu!”
Wenk now distinctly recollected having heard this name from the lips
of the old Professor who was none other than the Dr. Mabuse on whose
account he had come to Berlin. “Dr. Mab ..., Dr. Mab ...,” whispered
the secret voices. Wenk tried to call to mind the features of the old
Professor, but he could not recollect them clearly. Only the mouth
which had uttered the name of the Chinese town with such strange
impressiveness was distinct to his vision.
“Now why,” said Wenk to himself in the midst of the images raised in
him by these recollections, “why should I think at this moment of the
pseudo-Professor? Why do I think of the Professor, and not of Mabuse
under another form, his real form, such as I saw him that evening in
reality in the Four Seasons Hall? Mabuse as a hypnotist? What audacity!
As a hypnotist appearing in public? Had Mabuse the same disconcerting
capability as Weltmann, and had Weltmann the same dark background of
crime as Mabuse?” he asked himself. His thoughts grew ever more remote,
more indistinct and unreal. They were no longer thoughts--they were
misty images which had arisen in his phantasy under the compelling
power of those eyes yonder. He sought to fix his eyes on Weltmann,
striving to picture him with a reddish beard, such as Mabuse had
appeared possessed of when he first encountered him.
And then suddenly Wenk realized how it was he felt some unmistakable
connection with the player there who threw away his cards although he
held twenty-one and must undoubtedly have won the game. These words
were familiar to him from the story told by the murdered Hull. They
were written upon the first page of the notebook stolen from him by
Mabuse’s chauffeur when he left him that night in the Schleissheim
Park, and he had copied them down word for word after his first talk
with Hull. Yes, the bleeding form was that of Hull, and it drooped
like a weeping-willow over Wenk’s spirit. The blood-besprinkled leaves
whispered ever “It is I, Hull! It is I, Hull!”
Then it seemed as if in the mists which continued to gather in
ever-varying shapes in Wenk’s brain there grew and stood out, as the
bone stands out from its tissues in the Röntgen-ray photographs, a
dark nucleus, a central, death-endowed essence, something stony ...
something black ... a man.
The Princess handed him Weltmann’s block, and he thrust these ideas
away somewhat, though he had to struggle to see the words. Then he
read: “The banker wins every game. If one of the players has a better
card than he who holds the bank, he is incapable of holding them
against him.”
He had hardly read this when Weltmann, speaking from the midst of his
game in a voice which seemed to strike Wenk to earth, said, “Read the
second page!” Wenk turned the page in affright. He read, “Under the
hypnotist’s influence one of the players tries to cheat, by dealing
himself an ace. He is caught in the act!”
Then the blood rushed to Wenk’s heart, and like molten lava it coursed
along his veins. His eyes were fixed and glassy, and his trembling
fingers let fall the block. A horrible certainty burst upon him. That
was the secret of Count Told’s fall! Mabuse had subconsciously forced
him to cheat, to ruin him in the eyes of the wife whom Mabuse desired
to possess! That was why he had seen the Countess leaving Mabuse’s
house that night. Mabuse it was who had killed her husband.
What Mabuse had written down occurred on the stage. The lady, who had
in the meantime taken over the bank, dealt the cards so as to cheat and
was caught in the act. Thereupon Weltmann brought the experiment to
an end. He released the four subjects from their hypnotic state, and,
disturbed and still dreamy-eyed, they sought their seats once more.
Weltmann looked down at Wenk, and the latter knew without a doubt that
he was Mabuse. The suddenness of the discovery paralysed him for the
moment, and he struggled to regain calm and self-control. Had he been
enticed into a snare? Was the Hungarian police superintendent appointed
as a decoy? Was this whole place, so far removed from other dwellings,
and this assembly merely an ambush arranged on _his_ account?
Slowly he fought the matter out. He stood between two poles. Either all
around were in league with Mabuse, and in that case there was no hope
of escape, and what he was now going through was merely the preparation
of a revenge which could only end with his death, or else it was merely
by chance that he found himself in a company in which Mabuse also
appeared accidentally. It might well be that Mabuse was a Hungarian.
He might also have been a barrister in Budapest formerly, for his
relations with the Privy Councillor Wendel proved that he had had a
twofold career. It was not, therefore, to be assumed straight away that
he and this criminal could not have met by accident. The next question
Wenk asked himself was whether Mabuse recognized him, and he told
himself that it must be so, for Mabuse had seen him both at Schramm’s
and at the Four Seasons Hall; that was certain. But could this man be
so foolhardy and so certain of himself that in spite of that he could
represent before Wenk’s eyes, with a devilish mockery, what he had just
seen occurring on the tiny stage? If so, it provided the solution to
all the enigmatic acts with which he had concealed his crimes.
The help of the police was quite out of the question, for Wenk did not
even know where he was. But how would it be to let the Prince into the
secret, and get help in the company itself to secure the murderer? He
could only do it if he were quite sure of the company, otherwise it was
doomed to failure from the start. He knew from experience that this
master criminal was always surrounded by a bodyguard of accomplices,
and that they were people who shrank from no devilish deed. Around
him there must be many of Mabuse’s confederates. Should Wenk, as if
accidentally, make his way to some door and escape under cover of the
darkness, leaving Mabuse to be dealt with at a later time, when he
was better prepared to accomplish his overthrow ... or should he try
unobserved to find a telephone in the house and summon the police? But
then again, where were they to come to?
“Isn’t it remarkable, Herr von Wenk? Have you ever seen anything like
it before?” said Vörös.
Wenk had heard the question, but he was so preoccupied with his own
train of thought as to forget to answer it enthusiastically, as he had
intended to do. In the torrent of ideas and possibilities which rushed
through his mind he forgot his resolution. Vörös gave him a hasty
glance, and just at that moment Weltmann asked for fresh assistants.
Wenk, coming to a sudden resolve, pulled himself together and calmly
and boldly ascended the stage, the very first to respond. Far better
to look the wild beast in the face than be behind him! Then he noticed
that Baron Prewitz, whom everybody had forgotten, followed him up.
Stepping forward as before, automatically, he came after him, still
holding the revolver.
“You don’t venture into my domain without protection, I see, Herr von
Wenk,” smiled the hypnotist.
“That is just sarcasm,” said Wenk to himself; “he knows who I am!”
Wenk merely bowed, as much as to say that in Rome he did as Rome does.
He was now standing next the hypnotist, and each took the other’s
measure. Wenk had pursued this werwolf with vindictive fury because in
him he saw the enemy of all that could heal and restore the nation.
When he stood there on the platform with him, isolated for a moment
from all the rest, he felt as if they were two great powers going in
opposite directions. To his mind it was no longer the conflict of good
and evil; it was the struggle of man to man; and, oppressed as he felt,
he still had something almost like confidence in the chivalry of his
opponent ... a confidence that rested upon an impelling yet hardly
perceptible instinct: both were staking their lives on the result of
the struggle. Each was directing a fierce attack upon the other, yet
both must make allowances in this last supreme moment.
“If only I could sleep!” thought Wenk with an inward yearning.
He looked closely into Weltmann’s eyes, taking in all his features.
His was a powerful, muscular figure, and in imagination Wenk divested
the face of its false moustache, eyebrows and wig, seeing beneath
it the smooth-shaven, well-formed cranium of Dr. Mabuse. Wenk would
have recognized him now beneath all his disguises. He gazed at him
calmly, and the other’s glance flickered. The large grey eyes seemed to
withdraw into their own fiery depths.
For a time the performer paid no attention to Wenk. He concentrated
on those who were advancing. No sooner had one of them set foot upon
the stage than he unexpectedly turned right round again and hurried
back into the hall. One after another did this; a dozen, and even more.
Those below were laughing heartily, and the little hall re-echoed
with their merriment. More and more pressed forward, but the effect
was the same on all. With one hand Wenk grasped the wrist of the
other, anxious to see whether he retained consciousness of nerves and
muscles. He meant to resist. The welling-up of generous and magnanimous
feelings had rapidly cooled. He hated, menaced and execrated his enemy
now, and prepared himself for the final conflict. His eager blood
was inflamed against his foe, and he watched him warily, while still
upon his defence. Somewhere in his being a stringed instrument like a
guitar seemed to be playing a melody, and he began to listen to this
mysterious music. It was so tender and yet so distant, but then he fell
back again upon his position of guard and defence. Suddenly a strange
idea occurred to him. How would it be if he too did like the rest, and
ran as if impelled down there along the gangway past the chairs--that
gangway of safety and escape--to where the big door stood encouragingly
open ... to escape and at the same time to do his duty ... to go to
the nearest telephone and summon the police ... to carry out a daring
trick ... and then do like the others, return, still in the same
dreamlike state ... return to the hall and wait--wait for the police,
the rescuers?... It would be a daring trick!
Already some of the muscles in his legs were twitching.... Then
Weltmann called out harshly to Prewitz, “Why don’t you pay attention?
Cock your revolver! Don’t you see that this criminal is trying to
escape?” He pointed at Wenk, and Prewitz cocked the revolver with a
dreamy nonchalance, an indifference that excited horror and dread. He
raised the revolver to Wenk’s face, and Wenk saw in its little orifice
the dark hell of danger before him, for he knew that the weapon was
loaded. “The first step that he takes, without my orders, you will
shoot,” said Weltmann with an ambiguous smile.
In this dread moment Wenk heard once again the clear sweet musical
tones, now in another direction. They sounded soft, sad, and familiar,
as if it might have been his father whistling a lullaby beside his
cradle. He listened, and in the few heart-beats in which he was lapped
in the sound of those wonderful tones, he lost the sense of reality
he had had when he felt with one hand for the pulse of the other. The
flute became the magic flute, and round this phantasy there rose up an
enchanted garden. A high, thick hedge circumscribed the area of his
uneasy wanderings, but there was a gap in the hedge, a wide, unguarded
gap, and in it he perceived the free light of heaven beckoning and
enticing him to tear away and escape.
And then he ran, defying the Baron’s revolver. He sprang with leaps
and bounds across the stage ... the weapon dropping from the Baron’s
hands.... He sprang down its steps at one bound, rushed along the
gangway, leaping like a young colt that feels the approach of
summer. The entire hall was animated over this crowning stroke of the
hypnotist, but Mabuse sent after him a ferocious laugh that resounded
from the walls which had witnessed it.
XXI
Wenk ran full tilt past the servants at the door, who stood with
serious faces, laughing behind their hands. He ran through the hall and
the open door on to the steps, clattered down them, and flung open the
door of the waiting car. It sprang forward, and in a few moments had
disappeared in the dark avenue. In the hall Mabuse stopped laughing to
say, “He is going to the Hell Café to fetch you some of the devil’s
white bread!”
The jerk with which the car started threw Wenk back on to the seat,
but scarcely had he touched it than the cushions seemed to open and he
sank quickly into a hole in them. Something closed together over him,
and it creaked like iron. Then he awoke from his hypnotic state. He
lay there in misery, unconscious how he had got into that position,
with his head hanging back, apparently in some gap in the back seat.
He tried to rise, seeking painfully for ease and consciousness, but
he could not raise himself from the depths. Something seemed to press
him down again, and hard unyielding fetters were crossed over him
many times. The motor went at furious speed, and shook him against an
iron grating which he soon discovered to be the fetters that made an
upright position impossible. They pressed closely down upon him. He
made a furious effort to throw them off, but soon found it was quite
impossible. He would only have his trouble for his pains. He was
absolutely done for. He was himself the bird which had stepped on to
the limed twig!
With angry defiance he turned upon himself saying, “That is as it
should be! The stronger one conquers, and you were the weaker!” But
why was he the weaker? Because he had undertaken a task that from the
very first exceeded his powers. Each one knows his own capabilities.
But what had tempted him to undertake something beyond him? Why, in the
most forlorn and miserable situation of his whole life--a situation
that seemed so incredible that he still had a faint hope it might prove
only a dream--why was he able to guide and reason out his thoughts like
the solution of an arithmetical problem? What was it that had enticed
him? He knew the answer. It was the good in him, the outcome of his
feeling of responsibility towards his fellow-countrymen. He wanted to
help them, and because his conscience was stronger than his powers,
he had come to grief. If this experience were to end in his death, at
least he would die in a good cause, and the soul-sparks which at his
death would flame up again in some other existence would form a beacon
to light others upward.... He would live again in spirit among men....
The sound of the motor echoed through the forest, and Wenk heard it.
What was the enemy’s plan regarding him? The car raced on through the
night like a ship driven by the typhoon. Where was it going? Whither
were they taking him? Was it to Munich? But, if so, why? If they
wanted to put him to death for having disturbed the powers of evil and
undermined their efforts, why did they not take their revenge at once,
instead of delaying it for hours?
He noticed that the windows of the car had no blinds, and he saw stars
gleaming fitfully through the panes. They would not arrive in Munich
till the morning, and it would be impossible to drive a fettered man by
daylight over half Germany in a car with the inside exposed. They were
carrying him off somewhere or other, but where? Where could it be?
It must have been midnight when he left the villa, but even that he did
not know for certain, for of all that had happened to him since the
moment when he had tested his pulse, he had only a dim and hazy idea.
They must certainly be taking him to the place of execution now.
He recalled, with an endless yearning which seemed to encompass him
like the sea, his long-dead father, and with all his energy he clung to
these recollections, melancholy as their associations were. The jolting
hither and thither of his body in the car and the mental excitement
under which he was labouring made him sick, and in his helpless state
he could not even turn his head aside. His brain lost the power of
thinking in clear outlines. Spectres arose around him and devils played
ball with him. They tossed him backwards and forwards between the
Carse of Gowrie and Aconcagua, let him fall, and snatched at him again,
just as he was about to be dashed to pieces on the Cape of Good Hope.
Then it seemed as if a gigantic black band had stuffed him down in a
cave as if he were a sack. The walls of this cave were so close that
he could not lie down, but suddenly, slowly, and yet without ceasing,
they began to grow. They did not grow apart, however, but proceeded,
always at the same pace, towards him, and the moment was already close
at hand when they would crush his bones together and burst his brains.
Consciousness forsook him, and he fell into a dreamlike condition,
dominated by a dull sense of impending death.
When he awoke he found himself stretched out on a leather seat, the
iron fetters no longer binding him. But his arms were tied behind him,
and his legs were crossed on each other and fastened together. A large
handkerchief had been bound over his face, so tightly as to be painful.
It covered his mouth altogether and made breathing difficult.
It was now day, and he heard a rushing sound that rose and fell at
intervals. He soon recognized it--it was the sea! A man looked down
upon him. The handkerchief covered one eye only, and with the other he
saw, over the edge of the bandage, half the objects on his eye-level.
He did not know the man, who just then called to another, “Come here!
he is awake.” Then the other came to look at him, and he too was a
complete stranger to Wenk. He heard them talking, and one said to the
other, “It is nearly five o’clock. The Doctor must be here soon!”
The other answered, “If he said soon after five, he will come then. We
must be ready for him!”
“Can’t you see anything yet?”
The two men went off. Wenk tried to raise his head, but could not see
beyond the frame of the window. The country must be flat--there was
nothing but sky discernible.
“Give me the glass! There he is!” Wenk heard suddenly.
“Now comes the decisive moment,” he thought, and summoned all his
powers to help him dispel the dread ideas which crowded upon him.
The events that followed occurred in rapid succession. The door of the
car was flung open, and hands gripped him by the shoulders, which lay
nearest the door. They dragged him out, his feet striking painfully on
the step and then on the ground. The second man took his legs, and they
carried him a short distance. Then Wenk saw sand-dunes in front of him,
and a few steps further the men had climbed with him to the top.
“Faster!” cried the man behind, as he turned round and looked back over
the landscape.
Wenk heard a motor-car, and said to himself, “That is Mabuse coming!”
Suddenly a light awning appeared above him, and after a time he
recognized it for the wing of an aeroplane.
The two men arranged everything with hasty movements. Wenk was laid
on the sand, and two cords tied together made a noose under his chest
and arms. One man raised his legs and these were fastened by two
cords which had been attached somewhere to a pole rather high up. A
third leash was then slung round his hips. It was not long before Wenk
realized that he was hanging bound to the outer wall of the car of
a flying-machine. He lay closely fastened there like a package that
was to be taken on a journey. With his uncovered right eye he saw
beyond the edge of the bandage that the aeroplane stood on a prepared
landing-stage over a course which sloped down to the sea. Beyond it
stretched the shore. It was ebb-tide.
“I am going to have a sea voyage,” cried a despairing voice within Wenk
sadly. “How long it is since my last voyage. All the years of war lie
between, and yet now, for me, comes the war--the bombshell is prepared.”
From the depths of his muscular being there came an answer to this sad
voice of despair. He exerted his muscles against his bonds. His body
moved and wriggled in the nooses, and the wing of the machine quivered
beneath the shock, and swayed above him.
Then a broad face and a high, well-formed head bent over him, and two
fiery eyes seemed to pierce him through and through.
“Aha!” said the voice of the man who stood above him.
“Yes, there is the foe, there is Mabuse,” thought Wenk.
“Get in!” he heard him say, and there was the rustling of a woman’s
dress, and out of the rustling a voice ... a voice that made his knees
tremble in their bonds. He knew that voice! The rustling was louder
and closer, and the woman’s voice cried, “What is that?” Wenk heard
the horror, trouble and anxiety that spoke in the voice as she put the
question.
“Get in!” said Mabuse again. Then the voice, the well-known, low, sweet
voice of the Countess Told, said in a tone of anxious entreaty, “What
are you doing with this man?”
Wenk said to himself, “She does not know who I am.”
“Get in! He’s going to make the trip with us, and we haven’t a third
seat. Come along quickly, now!” cried Mabuse.
Wenk saw Mabuse’s arm seize the woman and lift her into the gondola,
then he himself got in, making use of Wenk’s body as a step, and when
he was settled in the pilot’s seat, not two fingers’ breadth above
Wenk, he bent down to him and said in a harsh tone, “The gentleman is
going to accompany us on our journey--but whither? Good luck!--All
ready?” he called out to the men.
“All quite ready, sir!”
The propeller hummed and the aeroplane glided along the course so
swiftly that the very moment Wenk felt the throbbing of the engine its
wheels were already clear of the ground and the earth vanished from his
sight. The machine soared upwards steeply, and it seemed to Wenk as if
his body were standing upright. No word was spoken in the car. The air
beat so heavily upon him that it seemed like flying wood, and he soon
began to feel bitterly cold. The cold seemed to cut through the wide
opening of his evening suit and strike at his very heart. He felt that
it pressed ever deeper and deeper within him, like revolving knives.
His hair was stiff and stood on end, and it seemed as if needles were
pricking him all over. He had lost all capability of thought, save for
one idea. It dimly occurred to him that he was enduring martyrdom, and
that this martyrdom was on account of the Countess Told, whom he had
once loved, at a time when such love was not lawful.
Then he felt the blow of a fist on his head, and a harsh voice asked,
“Is twelve thousand feet high enough for you?” A few moments later he
heard, “Or are you already dead--of fright?”
The voice died away and Wenk felt that the aeroplane was being righted.
When it was flying level, a hand touched his head, hastily tearing
away his bonds. Then Wenk saw the face of Mabuse bending over him. He
was silent, but his features were distorted with a malicious joy which
aroused horror. His grey eyes had neither shape nor pupils; they were
like old weather-beaten stones, and, as Wenk recognized with a shudder,
they were glowering death at him. Then the capacious mouth opened like
the yawning chasm in a rocky gorge, and the harsh voice said, “You have
dared to oppose your will against mine. You are now facing your last
moment, and I have taken the gag from your mouth so that my ears may
enjoy the shriek with which you fall twelve thousand feet down to your
own world!”
Wenk heard his voice, and it sounded like thunder rolling along after
the lightning flash. He saw that Mabuse was loosening the bonds that
held his legs. He tugged and tore at them. Suddenly his legs were
free. For a moment they fell, then the leash that was bound round his
hips held them again, and the hands were now busy with this. In a few
seconds it was untied.
In his further fall Wenk’s body regained an upright position, held only
by the noose which bound his chest to the wall of the car. He suddenly
felt that his hands were free, and at this feeling he was fired with a
sudden hope. In the midst of his phantasies there surged upwards like a
fairy story the recollection of the Countess’s beauty and sympathy. He
had never forgotten her, and now in the last moment of his life, when
she herself was so close to him, his feeling for her, exalted to an
undying and compassionate brotherhood, was wafted as a cloud beyond the
savage and brutal murderer, to envelop the frail human being beside him
with indomitable pride and courage.
Wenk saw her eyes, fluttering like birds shot down in the clear blue
ether, glance for a moment beyond and above Mabuse’s eager bent
head.... He saw her hands, tearing off their fur gloves, cling white
and trembling to Mabuse’s shoulder as she strove to drag him back from
his deadly intent.
But Mabuse shook the woman off, and raised his hands with mad rage
to untie the last noose. He tore undone the first of its fastenings,
making Wenk’s body sink deeper, and beat away Wenk’s hands, which were
seeking to maintain a grip on the edge of the car, with his closed
fists.
Then one last defiance of fate, arising from the will to live, lent
strength to Wenk’s voice as he shouted in the air, “He is the murderer
of Count Told. He made him cheat at cards! He put the razor into his
hands that he might cut his throat!”
A fist struck at his mouth, and blood spurted from it, yet at this last
moment of his life it seemed as if his very blood were tasting the
sweetness of a noble spirit. Then a final effort was made to release
him from the bond that held him. A fearful weight pressed on his head,
rolled over his body to press him downward. The weight of it was
immeasurable, black, imbued with the swiftness of a raging storm. But
all at once the iron weight was removed. A part of it became detached
from the aeroplane, unrecognizable, and sank. Wenk’s hands held the
edge of the car as in a vice. The aeroplane hovered and swayed as if
drunken with the high clear air.
* * * * *
This is what had happened:
When Count Told’s name rang through the air, as if thrown from
measureless space, it seemed to the Countess as if she were awaking
from a dream at the bottom of a swamp. Since the night when she had
been torn from her husband and chained to Mabuse’s wicked will, she had
never spoken his name, nor even thought of it. The memory had crept
into her inmost being and hidden itself away, deep in the welter in
which her life was inextricably bound. It had been forced there by
the diabolic power of Mabuse’s lust for domination, and the wife had
suffered it in a kind of subconscious self-defence. Were it not so,
she would have been absolutely and entirely without escape from the
werwolf.
There within her the name had lain and waited and watched until now it
arose again to provide her with a way of escape.
Wenk’s last words had brought it forth from the subconscious recesses
once more. The Countess had received it as a direct weapon against the
secret power of this man who had so long taken forcible possession of
her will and her entire person. She suddenly came to herself, and all
that was frozen within her melted. The gloom and darkness in which she
lay bound grew lighter, and it was day within.
Then, too, she regained all the proud youthful force of her
disposition. She fell into a God-given fury, and her muscles were
endowed with unconquerable strength and vigour. Her hands and her heart
were like iron, and she seized the first weapon to hand, the heavy
screw-wrench, striking the murderer from behind, and dealing a terrific
blow upon his skull.
Mabuse, judged and condemned, lost his balance, and fell over Wenk into
the depths below, which instantly swallowed him up.
* * * * *
Wenk reached a thwart with his legs, raised himself up at lightning
speed, the knots at his breast breaking of themselves. He fell into
the car. The aeroplane was already swaying in space, but Wenk seized
the throttle and righted it. It flew on, and after he had found his
whereabouts he shut off the engines and allowed it to descend to earth
and glide along the shore.
He landed on the sand-dunes of the East Frisian coast. He helped the
Countess out of the machine. She was pale, but fully conscious. She
fell down before him, pressing her hands to her face.
He raised her, saying, “We have saved each other’s lives. Let us keep
silent, and strive to forget. We part here!”
But the Countess answered, “No. I have nothing to conceal and nothing
to forget. The blood that I have shed was entirely evil. I have saved
him from himself and mankind from him. Who can bear witness against me?”
Wenk looked at her, dumb with astonishment, but slowly he understood.
Then he was seized with awe. He wanted to say, “How proud, how
courageous she is!” but his heart glowed within him. He spread out his
arms in a gesture of self-abandonment and appeal. Life, his regained
youth and vigour, came over him like a flood, and at the same moment
the love which had been shaken by so many vicissitudes, but had never
yet found its fulfilment, regained its sway over him.
Then they ascended the dunes together, to seek the nearest village and
return to daily life.
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