COMPLICATIONS
The fact that it was Baron von Gratzen's wife and daughter whom I had
managed to snatch from the clutches of the mob was startling, and might
have vital consequences. But whether it would help or harm me, it was
difficult to decide.
The first impression was that it was rotten luck. By all accounts
Lassen was far too great a coward to have faced the mob; and that fact
alone was dangerous since it tended to emphasize the difference between
us. More than enough had transpired in the interview with the Baron to
show that he already suspected I was not Lassen; and this business
might put the finishing touch to his suspicions. My handling of the
car, moreover, might be accepted as an additional proof of the
impersonation.
There was of course another side. It was his wife and child who had
been rescued; and if he hadn't a stone in place of a heart, he was
bound to feel some amount of gratitude. But would that be sufficient to
cause him to smother his suspicions?
The German official is commonly a two-natured individual; showing one
side in his private life and the other in his office. His manner to me
that morning had been friendly enough; but that was after his
suspicions had been quieted and he had regarded me as Lassen. What the
effect would be when his suspicions were again roused, it was
impossible to say.
If he was like many of those I had known in the old days, he would be
quite capable of professing and even feeling the deepest gratitude
privately and at home, and the next minute at his office regretting,
with tears in his eyes, that his duty compelled him to pack me off to
gaol. That's the worst of Teutonic sentimentality. It's pretty much
like a compass needle in an electric storm; you never know where it
will point next.
When we reached the house nothing would satisfy the Baroness but that I
should go in so that her husband should have an opportunity of thanking
me; and in we went. It was a relief to find that he wasn't home; but
she would not hear of my leaving until she was satisfied that I was not
seriously hurt, and wished to send straight off for a doctor to examine
me.
Discussion resulted as usual in a compromise, and Hans carried me off
to the bathroom. There was nothing the matter that soap and water and a
clothes-brush couldn't put right. I was very dirty; had a bruise or
two, a couple of scratches on my face, and a cut on my hand where one
of the men had jabbed at it to make me release my hold of the stick.
The last looked the worst, because of the drop or two of blood smeared
about; but it didn't amount to anything, and I was really lucky to have
got off so lightly.
While I was removing the traces of the scrap, Hans told me a good deal
more about Nita and the position of affairs in the von Gratzen
household, together with his impressions of Nita's father.
"I think he's a regular bear, you know. He is to me; but then he
doesn't like me any more than I do him, worse luck," he said dolefully.
"Do you think the best way to get any one to like you is to begin by
disliking him?"
"I didn't begin it; but he always scowls when he finds me here, talks
to me as if I was a kid of ten, and calls me 'Hansikin.' It makes me
regularly sick, I can tell you. Of course he's awfully decent to his
wife and Nita, and they both worship him; and so does he them. But he's
always trying to make fun of me; and he's such an artful old beggar
that I never get a chance of scoring off him. I believe he's as big a
humbug as any in Berlin. And I'm not the only one who thinks so, too."
"What you've done to-day ought to change his opinion, Hans."
"That's just my rotten luck. I came up too late to do anything, and
even the little I did do, the Baroness couldn't see."
"But Nita saw it."
"And a lot he'll care for what she says. He'll just grin and say I was
a good boy, or some such rot as that, and forget it."
"We'll see about that. He'll know that no boy could send a grown man
headlong into the gutter as you did."
"Did I?" he cried excitedly.
The truth was that he did not; but there seemed a chance of doing him a
good turn, so I described a little fictional incident of the sort,
telling him that he was too excited at the moment to remember anything.
"It was the turning point of the whole show, Hans, for if the beggar
hadn't been downed at that very moment, they'd have got us to a cert."
"Do you think Nita saw it?" he cried boyishly.
"How could she, when her mother was lying all but fainting on the
pavement? She wanted all her eyes for her."
"Just my luck!" he exclaimed with a disconsolate toss of the head, as
we went downstairs.
Nita and her mother had also been using the time to repair, and both of
them appeared to have rallied from the shock. I had to go through more
of the thanksgiving ceremonial. Only the plea of an urgent engagement
got me out of a most pressing invitation to remain to supper in order
to be thanked over again by the Baron; and I had to stem the torrent of
gratitude by bringing Hans' part into action.
"It's awfully sweet of you to give me all the credit, my dear madam,
but you're overlooking my cousin's part; and you owe quite as much to
him. I'm afraid there would have been a very different tale to tell, if
he had not come up when he did."
"I didn't know that," she exclaimed in great surprise; and I saw Hans
and Nita, who were snugging it together in a corner, prick up their
ears.
"I don't want to make him blush," I replied, lowering my voice, and
repeated the fable I had told him in the bathroom, garnishing it with
one or two more or less artistic touches.
"I didn't see all that."
"Unfortunately at the moment you were not able to take notice of
anything, I'm afraid."
"Nita hasn't told me about it either."
"She could not have had eyes or thoughts for any one but you just then.
It's only natural, of course."
"Then I've done the boy an injustice, Herr Lassen."
"Boy!" I echoed with a start. "No boy could have done what he did, and
no man could have behaved more bravely;" with special emphasis on the
"man."
It worked all right. After a moment she called him up, repeated the
pith of the story, and showed her gratitude in a way that made him
blush like a girl. Then she kissed him and declared, to the profound
delight and astonishment of them both: "That's a good-bye kiss to the
boy, Hans. I shall never think of you as one again after this; neither
will the Baron, I am sure. You must stop to supper and hear what he
thinks of it."
He was so overwhelmed by all this that he could scarcely stammer out
his acceptance of the invitation, and when I was leaving he came to the
door and couldn't say enough to thank me. He had a very hazy idea of
all that he had really done, and it wasn't surprising that, being a
German, he was ready to accept the story as gospel and rather to preen
his feathers over his own prowess.
Still he was a decent youngster, and his little harmless swagger was
very intelligible. "I say, cousin," he added as he opened the door, "I
wish you'd do me a favour and tell Rosa. She'll believe it, if you say
it."
"Of course I will. I'm taking the Karlstrasse on my way," I promised
readily. I wanted to hear if there was any news about the progress of
our "conspiracy." The afternoon's affair wasn't all honey, for there
was the question of its effect on the Baron; and the sooner my back was
turned on Berlin the better.
It was old Gretchen's job to attend to the front door, and when she
answered my ring, she told me no one was at home, and that Rosa had
left a parcel for me. A glance showed that the paper wrapper was torn
and that the packet had been put up clumsily as if in a great hurry by
unskilled fingers. Gretchen had evidently been curious about the
contents.
I opened it in her presence, therefore, as there could be no harm in
her having a second look at it, and found a quaint card-case inside,
with some cards printed, "Johann Lassen," and a line saying she thought
I should understand and find them useful. It was rather neat of her,
and clearly was intended as an assurance that she meant to keep our
secret.
She came in soon afterwards and I thanked her for it. She was pleased
that she had succeeded in making her intention clear; but she wasn't so
pleased when she heard that old Gretchen had had a peep at the
card-case. Nor was she at all overjoyed at the story of the afternoon's
doings in the Untergasse. She looked mighty grave about it, indeed.
"I'm not going to say I'm pleased about it, Johann," she declared. We
had agreed that it would be better practice for us to use the Christian
names even when alone. "It wants thinking over."
"Your reason?"
"Von Gratzen. You saw him this morning, didn't you?"
I nodded and gave her a very brief report of what had occurred and that
he had been quite friendly.
She shook her head. "You'll have to be awfully careful with him. He
knows, as well as I do, that my cousin is an arrant coward, and that no
man in all Berlin would be less likely to do what you did this
afternoon; or could have done it, in fact. The Baron's a man I could
never understand. No one can. He does the most extraordinary things;
he's horribly keen and shrewd; quixotic at one time and abominably
harsh at another; although from his manner you'd think he wouldn't hurt
a fly."
"Well, let's hope he'll show his quixotic side over this, for it's too
late to alter things;" and we were still discussing it when Feldmann
arrived, and she asked him eagerly for news.
"There's a hitch, I'm sorry to say. About Hans," he reported with a
worried look. "His permit to travel has been refused. They won't
release him from his training even for twenty-four hours. I did all I
could, I assure you, Rosa."
"And about the other?"
"Oh, that's all right, of course. A mere matter of form; and it will be
ready to-morrow, I expect. But one's not much use without the other."
"Johann could use yours, Oscar," suggested Rosa.
"Not on any account," I protested. "Herr Feldmann might get into no end
of a mess."
"It isn't that, Lassen. I'm so well known all along the line that it
would be hopeless. You'd be spotted in a moment. I'd run the risk like
a shot otherwise; I know how Rosa feels about it."
"What can we do?" she exclaimed, turning to me.
"Make the best of it. Nessa must go without me, if I can't get off; and
there's no chance of that tomorrow. Will the papers have a definite
date for the journey?"
"I gave the date we agreed, but I dare say I could get that altered to
allow us a margin of a day or two, perhaps a week; but then this
wedding is the excuse; and of course that date can't be altered. But I
could see Miss Caldicott into Holland all right."
"What, with a false passport! It's awfully good of you to offer, but
I'm sure she wouldn't hear of it for a second. No; we must try the
other way."
"What's that?" he asked.
He shook his head ominously at the mention of von Gratzen. "I know a
lot about him, and I wouldn't put a pfennig's reliance on any hope from
that quarter," he said emphatically. "I don't say he won't do anything,
mind you, because one never knows what he will do next. He's one of the
sharpest and ablest men in the country; we all admit that; but----" and
he gestured and shrugged his shoulders.
"Unreliable?" He nodded. "In a shifty unscrupulous way, you mean?"
"Oh dear, no; not that at all," he said vigorously. "Individual. That
is the best word. If he thinks a thing should be done, he does it
whether it is according to official rules or not. That is not German.
He is not thorough, as we understand the word."
There remained only the other plan--that Nessa and I should get away in
some disguise, and at a tentative suggestion about false papers,
Feldmann laughed.
"You will easily understand that when a people are subject to so many
rules and regulations as we are, plenty of men set their wits to work
to break them. False identification cards are as common as false coins,
and if you knew where to go, a few marks would buy one, or a genuine
one either, for that matter," he declared; but he made no offer to get
them, and it was better not to press the thing farther then.
I left soon afterwards. The failure to get Hans' permit and all that
had passed about von Gratzen served to make the position more and more
difficult and complicated. The man seemed to be an enigma even to those
who were in constant touch with him, and it was ridiculous to imagine,
therefore, that any one who had only seen him once should understand
him. A close and careful review of the interview with him threw no
light on the matter. He had been exceedingly kind and friendly; but
there had been a moment of startling contrast. That one keen look of
his; so sharp, intent and piercing that it had seemed almost to change
him into a different man; and it might well be accepted as the one
instant in which the mask had been allowed to drop.
In the morning there was another incident. A curt formal summons
arrived summoning me to his office at noon. This, after the previous
day's job in the Untergasse! He might at least have had the decency to
write a private note; and naturally enough the thing increased my
uneasiness.
And then, if you please, it turned out that he had named that time as
it was the hour when he went home to lunch and wished to take me with
him! How could one judge such a man?
I put the note before him, with a word to the effect that I had thought
it was on official business, and he laughed it away, saying he had told
his secretary just to ask me to call.
He couldn't make enough of me; kept speaking to me as "My boy," and "My
dear boy"; smothered me with protestations of gratitude; and capped it
all by asking me to make his house my home while I was in Berlin.
That didn't appeal to me in the least. "Wouldn't it be very invidious,
sir, if I was to go to you when I've only just left my aunt's?"
"I've a good mind to use my official power to compel you, my boy," he
returned laughingly; "but the wife shall talk to you about it. In any
case you must promise to let us see as much of you as possible."
That was easy to promise; and after a few moments we went out together.
If he wasn't sincere, then he was one of the best actors in the world
either on or off the stage.
Which was he?
I could find no answer to the question. Yet everything probably
depended upon it--Nessa's fate and my freedom, and possibly even my
life.