Part 20

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.