Part 10

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?”