RECOGNIZED
Glocken was furious at the trick I had played him. "You think yourself
mighty smart, don't you?" he said with an oath as we went back.
"One too many for you, eh?" I chuckled. Relief at Nessa's safety made
me comparatively indifferent about everything else. The job which had
brought me to Germany was done, and for the moment nothing else seemed
to matter.
"I'll make you smart in another sense, I promise you," he snarled.
"You can't do it, Glocken, and you'd better not make a fool of
yourself. There's a lot behind all this you don't understand. Here's
your money;" and I gave him the balance.
"Where did you get it? In Berlin--Johann Lassen?"
"You don't look pretty when you snarl like that, Glocken; and if you
believe I'm Johann Lassen, you're a braver man than I think. We're
alone here; and if I were that man, do you think I'd let you live to
tell the police when a tap from this spanner of mine would silence you
for ever?"
That hadn't occurred to him and he jumped away from me as if dreading
an instant attack.
"I'm not going to touch you, man; on the contrary I'm going to make it
easy for you. I'll give you a lift into Lingen in Fischer's car and
we'll stop at the police station, if you like. I saw your game in a
second this morning and it suited me to play up to it. I was told you
were a treacherous skunk, but I didn't think you were such a gorgeous
fool. Come along and we'll have that chat with the police."
He hung back, either because he was afraid to trust himself in the car
with me or because my bluff puzzled him. It turned out to be the latter.
"I don't want to do you any harm, Bulich," he muttered.
"You wooden-headed ass, do you think I'd let you, if you could? Come to
the police and tell your story; but I warn you beforehand that if you
dare to utter a word against me like that, you're a ruined man, lock,
stock, and barrel. Behind me in this affair is one of the most powerful
men in the whole Empire, whose arm is long enough to reach even cunning
Farmer Glocken, squeeze him to a jelly, and leave the remnants to rot
in gaol. And he'll do it, Glocken, as sure as my real name isn't Hans
Bulich, the instant I tell him the scurvy tricks you've tried with me
to-day." I said this with all the concentrated sternness at my command,
and it went right home and frightened him through and through.
"What--what is your name, then?" he stammered.
I shoved my face close to his. "Look at me, you clown, look at me well,
and then ask it--if you dare."
It was a beautiful bluff. Whether he thought he recognized some one of
the innumerable princelings of the Empire or not, I can't say; but he
drew back and doffed his hat, with a muttered: "I beg your pardon, sir."
"That's better. Now I'm Hans Bulich again; and don't forget it," I said
with a change of manner and tone, as I climbed into the car and
beckoned to him to get up beside me. We ran back to Lingen in silence,
and I pulled up just before reaching the police station. "Here you
are," I suggested.
"I'm going back by train, sir, if you please," he answered with
delightful deference; and I took him to the railway and dismissed him
with a last sharp caution to hold his tongue.
I was well over that fence and, if the rest could be as easily
negotiated, I should soon be after Nessa. Glocken was the only man I
feared, because he had seen us so close to Osnabrueck. The fright he had
had would probably keep him quiet for a day or two, until he had had
time to digest the matter; and the interval must be turned to the best
account.
Old Fischer was glad to see me, asked about the day's happenings, and
was relieved to know that Vandervelt had been able to make the return
trip. During the evening we discussed our plans; and after a really
refreshing night's sleep, I went off to the shed to continue the work
there.
Fischer was so elated by his discovery of a mechanic that he brought
several people in during the morning; members of the smuggling ring, I
gathered, for they seemed as pleased about it as he was: chatted to
each other and to me as they watched me at work, asked all sorts of
silly questions about cars and engines and parts; each of them fussing
over me like a hen with one chick.
About midday I knocked off to dine with Fischer, and we were smoking a
pipe afterwards when the police sergeant, Braun, arrived in a somewhat
excited mood and called the old fellow out of the room.
"I'd better be getting back," I said; but Braun stopped me, saying he
had come about me.
This gave me a twinge, and I passed a decidedly uncomfortable ten
minutes while they were jawing with their heads together in the shop.
But there was no cause for alarm, it turned out.
Fischer explained it all. My fame as an aero mechanic had reached the
ears of the proprietor of the Halbermond Hotel where an army flying man
had arrived, and when he had inquired for a man of the sort, the
proprietor had mentioned me, and I was ordered to go to him.
Fischer didn't like the business at all, fearing that it might
interfere with his plans; and it was this which he and Braun had been
discussing so earnestly.
"You'll have to be very careful, Bulich. If he thinks you're half as
good a hand as you are, he's likely to want you for the army."
"I'll be careful. Do you know what the job is?" I asked Braun.
"Pulitz didn't know either," he said, shaking his head.
"Who's Pulitz?"
"The blabber who keeps the Halbermond," replied Fischer irritably. "He
must have lost his head to say a word about you. It wouldn't matter if
you were twenty years older; but there, he was always a fool and always
will be, I suppose."
"Who's the flying man?"
"I don't know. Stranger here; just driven up in his car. If he'd been
any one any of us knew, we might have done something."
"Doesn't the Halbermond man, Pulitz, know him?"
"Never set eyes on him before, and there wasn't the least need to tell
him a word about you. But that's the fool all over, trying to curry
favour and not a thought of the mischief he could do," grumbled Fischer.
"Well, shall I chance it, and not go?"
"That won't do," cried Braun. "He'd report me and have the whole town
hunting for you. You must go, right enough."
"Do the best you can to get out of it," chimed in Fischer. "Let him
think you're no better than a clumsy fool."
"All right, I'll do my best," I replied, laughing, and set out for the
hotel.
I was in two minds about the thing. It would never do to be called up
as an ordinary ranker; but it might be another matter to go as an air
mechanic. Enrolled in the name of Hans Bulich, I should be safe from
the trouble which was waiting for Johann Lassen. There were other
possibilities, moreover. If I could get hold of some valuable
information about the German aero service and their types of new
planes, it would go a long way with the people at home to condone any
breakage of my leave. I had no wish to turn spy, but to be driven into
it was a very different proposition.
More than that, it was not at all improbable that when they found I did
really know something worth knowing about a bus, I might be told off to
take one up; and in that case, well, they wouldn't see it again, if I
was within flying distance of the frontier.
It was best to be careful, however, as Fischer had urged, and not say
too much until I could learn what the flying man really wanted. So I
turned into the shed before going to him, mucked myself up a bit with
black grease, paying particular attention to my face, to avoid the
remote but possible chance of recognition, shoved my hands in my
pockets and slouched along to the interview.
The luck was with me at the start. The porter was just going out, told
me hurriedly where to find the officer's private room, and then ran
off, saying he had to catch a train. He was thus the only person to see
me enter the hotel: the importance of which fact I realized later. The
officer was alone and had been lunching, and the array of drinks
testified to his having done himself remarkably well. Next I recognized
him; but he had drunk too much to remember me. He was a coarse-tongued
bully named Vibach, who had been at Goettingen in my day, and had a
well-deserved reputation as a blustering coward.
"What the devil do you mean by keeping me like this?" he said angrily.
"Do you suppose I've nothing to do but kick my heels waiting for scum
like you?"
"I'm very sorry, sir, but I only just heard you wished to see me," I
replied, with appropriate servile nervousness.
"I've a good mind to put you under arrest. And are you the man these
Lingen fools think a good mechanic? You look more like a dirty street
sweeper, coming into my presence in that filthy state."
"I thought it best----"
"Who the devil wants to know what you think?" he burst in, pouring out
another bumper of wine and draining it at a draught. "Answer my
question, can't you? Not stand there gibbering like a lunatic." There
was scarcely a sentence without an oath to punctuate it.
"I came at once without stopping to clean myself, sir."
"Then some other fool must have bungled my message. I said you were to
come immediately, and when I say a thing I mean it." Another oath for
garnishment. "What's your clownish name, confound you?"
"Hans Bulich, sir."
"Do you know a plough from an aeroplane?"
"Yes, sir," I answered with Teutonic stolidity.
"Ever been in one?"
"Not in a plough, sir."
He roared an expletive at me. "Are you a fool, or trying to joke with
me? That won't pay you, you clod."
"I never joke with my betters, sir. I've been up in an aeroplane, sir."
"Where?"
"Schipphasen, sir."
"Oh, you've been there, have you? How long were you there?" It was a
well-known training school and he began to change his opinion of me.
"About a year. I have my certificates and----" I searched in my pockets
as if to find them, and said: "I've left them at my lodging, sir."
"Why the devil didn't you tell me that at first?"
"You didn't ask me, sir."
"What are you doing in this hole, then?"
"I was going to Ellendorf, but they asked me to stay here a week or so
to do some repairs and things."
"Did they? Like their infernal insolence at a time like this. I'm on my
way to Ellendorf now to fetch a new machine, and my fool of a mechanic
has got drunk, or lost himself, or something. Can you take his place?"
Could I not? Up with him in the bus, what couldn't I do? But I shook my
head doubtfully. "I don't know that I could pilot----"
"You wooden-headed idiot, do you suppose I want you to pilot it?" he
roared, with a shout of laughter. "I want you as a mechanic, you fool."
"I didn't know, sir. Of course I could test the plane and see that
she's all right for you. That was part of my job at Schipphasen, sir;
that and trial flights."
"If that's the case, you ought to be in the army. Have you served?"
"No, sir."
"Why not? You've been in the ranks, I can see that."
Up to that point I had done very well, indeed; but then I tripped. "I
was a one-year man, sir." The one-year men were a comparatively limited
number drawn from the better class; served for only one year instead of
three, and had either passed an examination or been at one of the
Universities, and mixed freely with the officers.
"What regiment?" was the next question.
I named one at random; I think it was the 54th Hanoverians. My luck was
clean out, for it chanced to be the same in which he himself had served.
"That's devilish funny. Let's have a look at you;" and he straightened
up a bit and stared hard at me. "I don't remember any one of your name.
Bulich. Bulich. There was never a man of that name. I mean to know some
more about you, my man. Now that I look closely at you, I believe I've
seen you before. You remind me of some one. Just walk across the room."
Smothering a curse at the change of luck, I obeyed and slouched across,
overdoing it probably in my eagerness and fluster.
"Stop there," he ordered. "Now face round, and come back in your proper
walk. Don't try that game with me again. That's a little better, but a
long way from right, as you know well. Now, who are you? Out with it
and don't try any fool game with me."
"I've come down a bit in the world, and no one knows me now by any
other name than Hans Bulich."
"I mean to know it. Out with it," he shouted.
I was at my wits' end and didn't answer.
"If you don't tell me you'll have to tell the police, mind. I'm going
to bottom this. You've lied to me once, remember."
Suddenly a thought occurred to me. I picked up a tumbler and made a
peculiar motion with it--the secret sign of a Goettingen students'
society, half-masonic, half-drinking club, of which both of us had been
members.
He laughed, swore, and held out his hand. It was part of the ritual we
had been bound to observe by the pledge of the society. I gripped his
hand in the approved manner.
"So that's it, eh?" he said, filling his glass again and motioning me
to fill one for myself. The ice was still of the thinnest, for in my
time there had not been more than a dozen members, and I could see that
he was searching his memory for my name. If he remembered, what was I
to do? I knew what he would do--have me arrested as a spy, and then----
There was only one possible "then" in war time.
The long pause while he was thinking back gave me time to think
forward. My life was in the balance, and it didn't take much
consideration to decide that it was just as well to die at his hands in
that room in an attempt to escape as to be placed against a wall with a
firing platoon in front of me.
At such a moment of crisis one thinks quickly, and under the spur of
this one a wild idea flashed into my thoughts, and the way to carry it
out developed almost instantly. He was a man of my own height and build
and colouring; he was a stranger; no one had seen me enter the hotel;
his uniform would fit me sufficiently well to pass muster; and I was
already quite convinced that if I did not leave the place in his
clothes, I should never do it in my own, except under arrest.
After a very long pause, lasting perhaps five minutes although it
seemed an hour to me, he started, stared at me and got up. "I can't
remember you," he said with a nervous smile, which told me it was a
lie. "Ring that bell for me."
Fortunately I was between him and it. "What for?" I asked.
He was still a coward, I was glad to notice, by his flinching movement,
ebbing colour, and nervous licking of the lips. "I want some more
wine," he said lamely.
"Why not say you've recognized me, Vibach? You know you have, and you
want to bring some one here. We can't have that."
He did precisely what a coward would be expected to do. He lied that he
didn't remember me at all, tried to hold me in talk about our Goettingen
days, and when he thought I was a little off guard, made a dart for the
door to shout for assistance.
The shout died still-born. My hand was on his throat before a sound
could escape, and I held on with a bulldog grip which choked the breath
out of him, as he clutched at my wrists in frantic but vain efforts to
free himself. I had twice his strength and was as hard as nails, while
he was flabby and soft with drink and self-indulgence.
He tried to make some sort of fight of it and began drumming his heels
on the floor; so I lifted him off his feet, locked the door, plumped
him down on a sofa and choked him until his struggles ceased and he lay
half dead from funk and want of breath, shamming unconsciousness.
Then I sat on him, shoved the sofa cushion over his face lest he should
try to shout again, unfastened my "tummy pad," and got out my silken
cord and the "send-you-to-by-by" powder, pushed the cushion back, and
shook him.
"It's no good shamming with me, Vibach; I've no time for it. Stop it,
if you don't want me to knock you on the head and be done with it," I
said.
He was too thoroughly scared not to obey, and he opened his eyes and
started whimpering and begging for mercy.
"You can stop that, too, and listen to me. I don't want your blood on
my hands; but I'll brain you as I would a rat, if you utter a single
cry and don't do what I tell you."
"For God's sake don't," he whined.
"Get your uniform off, and be quick about it too."
He was shaking with funk and could scarcely undo the buttons, so I
played valet and helped him. Then I peeled my own things off and made
him put them on while I got into his. Next, I mucked his face with the
grease and dirt from my own face and hands and rumpled his hair, with
the result that he looked very much the working man. His arms and legs
I tied up securely with a length of my cord and gagged him while I
popped the "by-by" powder into a glass of wine.
He made a little fuss about drinking it, believing it was poison; but
very little persuasion of the necessary sort overcame his scruples; and
in a few minutes he was off, and I knew he would not wake for some
hours.
As I wasn't a thief, I went through the pockets, and was rolling his
money and valuables and so on into a napkin, when I found a paper which
gave me an idea.
It was the army authority to the firm at Ellendorf to deliver the bus
to him.
A veritable gift from the gods! That was the short cut to freedom, and
I made up my mind in a second to use it.
The only thing remaining to do was to hide the man. There was no place
in the room, except under the sofa, where he was likely to be seen when
the servants came to clear the table. The door communicating with the
next room was ajar, and a peep into it suggested possibilities. It was
a bedroom, and I took him in, packed him inside a roomy wardrobe, laid
the napkin of valuables by his side, locked him in, and tossed the key
under the bed.
Then I washed my hands and face and braced myself to face the next act
in the comedy or tragedy, whichever it was to be.