No one was in the rooms. The bed in which Karen had died had been taken
away.
Christian walked up and down for a while. Then he sat down beside the
table and rested his head on his hand. He thought: “Ruth has summoned
Karen, as she will summon many more. What is the world without Ruth?
For Ruth was the kernel and the soul of all things. And what is it that
happened to Ruth, what really happened? Something unspeakably horrible,
immeasurably depraved, but also impenetrably mysterious. To fathom it,
one must subordinate every other feeling and occupation, all delight,
all pain, all plans, and even eating and sleeping and seeing.”
He reflected over the confusion that Karen’s death had created within
him. There was so much empty space about him since she was gone.
The empty space cried out after her and was not to be silenced. No
mournfulness arose that was not reluctant. Her existence had been as
violent and garish as a burning mountain. The earth had swallowed the
mountain, and in its place stretched a great waste.
Steps resounded, the door opened, and Niels Heinrich came in.
He nodded contemptuously toward the table at which Christian sat. He
had pushed his bowler hat far back and kept it on his head. He looked
about like some one examining quarters that had been advertised to be
let. He walked into the second room, came back, stood impudently in
front of Christian, and made a grimace.
“What do you want?” Christian asked.
He had come for Karen’s things, Niels Heinrich announced. The widow
had sent him. He always called his mother that. His falsetto voice
penetrated to every corner of the room. Everything of Karen’s would
have to be handed over to him, he said, and counted and taken away.
Very calmly Christian said: “I shall not hinder you. Do as you please.”
Niels Heinrich whistled softly through his teeth. He turned around and
saw Karen’s wooden box standing in a corner. He pulled it into the
middle of the room. It was locked. First he struck it with his fist,
then with his heel. Christian said it was not necessary to use force;
Isolde Schirmacher had the key. Rudely Niels Heinrich swung around, and
asked whether the pearls were in it. As Christian was silent in his
surprise, the other added with growing irritation that the widow had
told him a long story about a rope of pearls the size of pigeon’s eggs.
He wanted to know who’d inherit those? Undoubtedly they’d belonged to
Karen, had been given to her, in fact. Who’d inherit them, he’d like to
know! Surely the family who were the rightful heirs. He hoped there’d
be no damned nonsense on that point.
“You are mistaken,” Christian said coldly. “The pearls did not belong
to Karen. They belong to my mother, and I am bound by a promise to
return them. At the first opportunity I shall send them to Frankfort.”
Niels Heinrich stood quite still for a while, and a green rage seethed
in his eyes. “Is that so?” he said finally. The gentleman wanted to
liquidate the firm now, did he? First take a poor, stupid wench and
trick her out and make a fool of her year in and year out, and then,
when she was gone, not even put up something decent for her mourning
family. Well, the gentleman needn’t think he’d get off so cheaply as
long as he, Niels Heinrich, was on deck. And if the gentleman didn’t
come across with a good pile of shekels, he’d live to see something
that’d surprise him; he’d find out, so sure’s his name was Niels
Heinrich Engelschall. He laughed a short harsh laugh and spread out his
legs.
“I know who you are, and I’m not afraid of you,” said Christian, with
an almost cheerful expression.
Niels Heinrich was taken aback. His glance, which had grown unsteady,
fell upon Christian’s delicate, narrow, cultivated hands. Suddenly he
looked at his own hands, holding them out and spreading the fingers
apart. This gesture interested Christian immensely, though he could not
account for the source of his interest. The whole man fascinated him
suddenly from a point of view which he had never before assumed; and it
was solely due to this curious gesture. Niels Heinrich observed this
and was startled anew.
Was that all, he asked, that the gentleman had to say? His mood was
menacing now. The gentleman could speak fine High German, he went on,
that was sure. But if necessary, he, Niels Heinrich, could do as much.
Why not? But if a man was a man of family, and especially of a family
where they breed millions the way common folks breed rabbits--well, it
was shabby to try to sneak off like a cheat in an inn. He wasn’t going
to insist on the pearls, although he didn’t like to decide how much of
a pretence and a hypocrisy this story of lending them was. No gentleman
would do such things. But some compensation--he did demand that, he’d
insist on it, he owed that to his own honour; and his late sister, if
the truth were known, would have expected that much.
Again he regarded his hands.
Christian looked at him attentively, and replied: “You are mistaken in
this too. I have no money at my disposal. My liberty of action, so far
as money is concerned, is more restricted than your own, more so than
that of any one who earns his bread by his own work.” He interrupted
himself as he observed Niels Heinrich’s incredulously jeering smile.
The spiritual vulgarity in that smile was overwhelming.
He could take no stock in those stories, Niels Heinrich answered; no,
not if he was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. If the gentleman
would tell him what was behind it all, maybe he’d believe it. To do
a thing like that a man must have bran in his head. If the gentleman
would tell him the real facts, maybe he’d be able to see light.
He’d gladly believe that there was something behind it all. Nobody
could tell, of course, what sort of things the gentleman had on his
conscience; so his Papa and Mama wouldn’t budge with the brass, and
he told elegant stories. But one might make things pretty lively for
the gentleman. There were a good many people, not only in Stolpische
Street but elsewhere, who didn’t think the gentleman’s love affair with
the murdered Jewess all straight and aboveboard. He, Niels Heinrich,
knew a thing or two; other people knew other things, the gentleman
himself knew a damned lot more than he showed, and he’d have to own
up if things got serious. All one’d have to do was to give a hint to
the right people, and the gentleman would find himself more clearly
described in the newspapers than he had so far. His name’d be coupled
with the name of that bloodhound Joachim Heinzen. Then the fat would
be in the fire, or, to use the gentleman’s manner of speech, he’d be
irretrievably compromised.
In Christian’s expression there did not appear the faintest trace of
indignation or disgust. He sat there with lowered eyes, as though
reflecting how he could answer most pertinently and objectively. Then
he said: “Your hidden threats frighten me no more than your open ones.
I do not care in the least where my name is mentioned or under what
circumstances, whether it be spoken or written or printed. No one’s
opinion or attitude has any influence on me, not even theirs who were
once closest to me. So that is the third error which you have made.
There is no basis in reality to anything you have said, least of all
in your references to my friendship with Ruth Hofmann. No one knows
anything about it, and I have spoken to no one; nor did Ruth do so, I
am sure. By what right do you pass a judgment on it, and so shameful a
one too? You have no suspicion how infinitely far from the truth it is.
And yet it surprises me that you expect it to be effective, that you
expect so false and empty an accusation to wound or frighten me. But
won’t you sit down? You’re standing there in such a hostile attitude.
There’s no occasion for enmity between us; I meant to tell you that
long ago. If there’s anything concerning your late sister or myself
that you want to know, I shall be glad to inform you. In return, I’d
like to ask you to answer me a few questions too. Do sit down.” He
pointed courteously to a chair.
These words, with their calm and their courtesy, amazed Niels Heinrich
to the utmost. He had been prepared for tempestuous anger, a proud and
irate repulse, for the customary counter-threat that veiled attempts at
blackmail are wont to receive, for consternation, possibly for fear.
But he was not prepared for this courtesy. It was so fundamentally
different from anything that he had met with among men, that his
eyes stared in stupid astonishment for a while, as though they saw
an irresponsible moron whose behaviour was half absurd and half
suspicious. He grasped the chair and sat down on it--half-crouching,
ready for an attack or any mischief.
“The gentleman talks like a lawyer,” he jeered. “You could make a
success at the bar. What do you want to ask me anyhow? Fire away! Don’t
you have no fear. And seeing as how you talk so educated, I can polish
my rough snout too. I ain’t without education myself. I don’t have to
take nothing from no one. I even had a spell at a gymnasium once. The
widow had ambitions in her day.”
Suddenly his mockery sounded pained and forced. He bit on the iron of
his chain.
“You mentioned Joachim Heinzen a moment ago,” Christian said. “You
called him a bloodhound. Is that your real opinion of him? You and he
were very constant companions, and you must have a fairly accurate
knowledge of his character. Do you really think he was capable of
having committed the murder? Please consider your answer carefully for
a moment; a great deal depends on it. Why do you look at me like that?
What is it?” Involuntarily Christian arose, for the look that Niels
Heinrich fixed on him was literally frightful.
Niels Heinrich arose at the same moment and almost shrieked. Why ask
him such fool questions? What in hell did he mean by ’em? A cardboard
box lay on the table; he picked it up and hurled it down on the floor.
Becoming aware of the imprudence of his outburst and regretting it, he
laughed his goat-like laugh. Then stealthily, with colourless, furtive
eyes he went on. Why shouldn’t Heinzen be capable of the crime? He said
he’d done it and he ought to know. How did the gentleman come to stick
his nose into such affairs? Maybe he was a police spy or something?
He tried to steady his lightless, furtive eyes in vain. But the slack
muscles of his face began to grow taut again as he continued: “I know
the feller. Sure, I know him. But you never know what any one is
capable of till he does it. I didn’t have no notion that he carried
about a plan like that. The devil must’ve gotten into him; he must’ve
swallowed poison. But I told him often enough: ‘You ain’t going to come
to no good end.’” He stuck his fists in his trousers pockets, took a
few steps, and leaned boastfully against the oven.
Christian approached him. “It is my impression that Heinzen lies,” he
said calmly. “He lied to the judge, he lied to himself. He doesn’t
realize the nature of what he says or does or accuses himself of. Don’t
you share the opinion that his mind is wholly confused? Assuredly
he is but the tool of some one else. Some frightful pressure must
have been exerted on him, and under its weight he made statements so
incriminating that he became hopelessly enmeshed. Unless a miracle
happens or the real criminal is discovered, he is lost.”
Niels Heinrich’s neck seemed thin as a stalk. His Adam’s apple slid
strangely up and down. His skin was white; only his ears were red as
raw beef. “Would you be so kind as to tell me, my dear fellow, in what
way this whole matter concerns you?” he asked, in his brittle falsetto
and with an unexpected abandonment of his gutter jargon, of which he
retained only the sharp, staccato rhythm. “What conclusions are you
trying to draw? What are you aiming at? And how the devil does it all
concern me? Perhaps you’ll have the kindness to explain.”
“It concerns you,” Christian answered, breathing deeply, “because
you associated constantly with Joachim Heinzen, and so you ought
to be in a position to give me a hint. You must have some definite
thoughts of your own on the matter; in one way or another it must
touch you. It is my unalterable conviction that Heinzen is not and
cannot be the murderer, but I am equally convinced that he has acted
under the influence of the real culprit, so the latter must be among
those with whom Heinzen associated. Now I cannot imagine that this
individual failed to concentrate upon himself the attention of all
his acquaintances, for he must be a man who is essentially different
from the others. It only confirms my opinion of him that he has so far
escaped the arm of justice. But he must be known; a man who was capable
of that deed could not be overlooked. And that is why I turn to you. If
you had not come to me, I would have gone to you.”
Niels Heinrich grinned. “Awf’ly good of you,” he said, with contorted
lips. “I’d’ve been tickled to death.” Oppression and rending excitement
betrayed themselves in his convulsively raised brows. He tried to
control himself, and yet stammered as he continued: “Is that so? So
that’s your conviction--unalterable conviction, eh? And where do you
get that conviction, I’d like to ask, eh? Why shouldn’t he have killed
her, seeing as how he confessed in court? Why not, eh? Nobody made
him say it. This is all dam’ nonsense; you just simply dreamed this
business or you was drunk. What made you think of it?”
“I shall tell you that,” said Christian, with an expression that had
grown more meditative from minute to minute. “A human being like this
Joachim Heinzen was not capable of killing Ruth. Think what it means
to kill a human being. And when that human being is Ruth! Oh, no, it’s
quite out of the question. The poor fellow is actually weak-minded.
Many believe him guilty for that very reason; but no weak-minded
man could have killed Ruth. Even if we suppose that he obeyed his
animal instincts utterly, and that in his bestial rage he lost all
self-control and all human semblance, yet he could never have gone
to the ultimate length, to murder. Not this lad; it is out of the
question. I have looked at his hands--at his hands and at his eyes. It
is out of the question.”
He paused. Niels Heinrich leaned against the oven, holding his hands
carefully between his back and the tiles.
Christian continued, in a voice that was gentle and yet extraordinarily
clear and penetrating: “It is out of the question, because he does
not possess the necessary qualifications for the deed. I have tried
to sink myself as profoundly as possible into his psychical life. I
have succeeded in excluding from my consciousness all other thoughts
and images, in order to arrive at a vision of his character as well
as of the rôle which he played in connection with the crime. And when
I have imagined him in his most bestial unrestraint, in all the rage
of his lechery, I am still convinced that at the last moment he would
have succumbed to Ruth. If Ruth had looked at him as he raised his arm,
being what he is and as I know him, he would have weakened. He would
have fallen whimpering on his knees, and rather killed himself than
done her any hurt. And if she had inspired him with but one spark of
thought or feeling, she would have won him over entirely. You may reply
that these are mere hypotheses and suppositions; but that is not the
case when one considers what Ruth was. Did you know her? Had you ever
met her?”
This innocent and harmless question brought a ghastly pallor into
the face of Niels Heinrich. He murmured something, and shrugged his
shoulders.
“You may also make this objection: the same pressure which drove
him to his confession may also have driven him to the deed itself.
What will not a human being do in the darkness of mania, especially
one so degraded and brutal and spiritually infirm. I consider his
confessions quite valueless; it is clear that he has been influenced
and commanded to make them. He contradicts himself constantly, and
denies to-day what he affirmed yesterday. He sticks only to the one
point of his guilt. But in this stubborn self-accusation there is more
than mere persistence; there is despair and utter horror. And these are
not manifested as they would be by a guilty soul in the torments of
conscience, but as they would be manifested by a child who has spent a
long night in a dark room, where monstrous and ghastly horrors shook
the very foundations of its soul. His conscience should have been eased
by confession, but the contrary is true. How is that to be explained?
“Furthermore, he is supposed to have lured Ruth to a hidden place.
Certainly it must have been obscure and hidden, for the deed was not
done in woods or lonely fields. But in spite of the most rigid search,
no such spot has been discovered, and at no hearing has it been
possible to persuade Heinzen to point it out. He is being questioned
on this point continually, but he is resolutely silent or answers
nonsense. Two explanations have been proposed. One is that he desires
to save an accomplice who might be tracked from the scene of the
crime. The other is that he suffers from one of those disturbances
or even complete interruptions of the memory, such as are familiar
to psychiatrists in their study of abnormal types. I accept neither
the one explanation nor the other. It is my opinion that he doesn’t
know the place. He was not perhaps even present when the murder was
committed. It is possible that he was drugged or drunk, and awakened
from his stupor only to see the body. And it is possible that the sight
of the body produced in him a fearful self-deception, or that he was
tricked and driven into believing himself the murderer....”
Niels Heinrich advanced a single step. His jaw shook. He felt as though
a rain of burning stones were falling on him. A dark astonishment
and horror were revealed in his face. He wanted to be silent, to
jeer, to go; he wanted to seem cold and unconscious of any knowledge
or understanding. For danger was upon him, the ultimate danger of
vengeance, of the sword, the rope, the axe. He saw them all. Yet he
was not capable of self-control; something within was stronger than
he. “Man alive....” The words came clucking from his throat on fire.
“Man alive....” Then came a wild terror of increasing the danger by his
behaviour. He couldn’t stand that; it was too much for his nerves. What
had that man to do with it? And again he fell silent before Christian’s
slightly blinking glance, and became tense with staring and waiting.
He’d have to watch this man now; the business was getting bad; it was
necessary now to guard his life. God, what wouldn’t that accursed mouth
utter?
Christian walked to the window and returned. He walked around the table
and returned. He had become aware of the stirring in Niels Heinrich;
and he had the impression of having witnessed the bursting of some
taut vessel and felt the flick of flying slime. But this impression
was not tangible at once. Only he had the curious feeling of having
received a confirmation of thoughts and visions of which he was himself
still faintly doubtful; and these he wanted to develop and fortify.
He said: “To lure Ruth to the spot where she was killed needed a
certain cunning. Careful preparations were necessary, and guarded
plans; and these were skilfully made, as their success illustrates.
But all witnesses who know Heinzen agree that he is incapable of such
activities. He is described as so stupid that he cannot remember names
or numbers; and then it is assumed that he could have committed the
murder with the brutal, merciless violence of a degraded debauchee.
The experts in criminology assert that precisely this mixture of the
cunning and the brutal is characteristic of such types and such crimes.
That may be true; but it proves nothing in this case, which was not so
simple. Ruth went another path from that to Joachim Heinzen.”
“Another, eh? What one, eh? Well, well,” Niels Heinrich croaked. “Ain’t
it enough to give you a belly-ache? Ain’t it enough to----” He took
his hat, which he had hung up at the beginning of the conversation,
put it on at a dashing angle, and prepared to go. But Christian knew
that Niels Heinrich would not go, and followed him with a passionately
inquiring glance. He was terribly moved.
Niels Heinrich got as far as the door. There he turned around, and
with a peering, repressed look drew from his pocket, with apparent
indifference, a little revolver. He held it in one hand. With the other
hand he played, still indifferently and as though to amuse himself,
with the trigger and the barrel.
Christian paid no attention to this perfidious gesture. He scarcely
saw it. He stood in the middle of the room, and, in the irresistible
excitement which had mastered him, pressed his right hand over his
eyes. He said: “Perhaps I only dreamed that she determined of her own
free will to die. Oh, it was murder, none the less. But she consented
to it. And those last hours of hers! They must have been unheard
of--verging on the ultimate which no feeling can reach. Step by step!
And then at last she begged for the end. Perhaps I have only dreamed
it, but it seems to me as though I had seen....”
He stopped, for a sharp, whip-like report resounded. A shot had been
fired. One of the chairs beside the table trembled; the bullet was
buried in its leg. But it had also grazed the back of Niels Heinrich’s
hand, and from the wound, which was like a cut, the blood trickled. He
cursed and shook himself.
“You’ve hurt yourself,” Christian said, sympathetically, and went up
to him. Yet both were listening--like accomplices. The entrance of
another seemed equally undesirable to both. Although the detonation
had been moderate, it had been heard in the adjoining flats. One heard
doors opening and questioning, scolding, frightened voices. After a few
minutes the silence fell again. The people in the house were used to
sudden alarms, and quickly quieted down.
Niels Heinrich wrapped his rather soiled handkerchief about his wounded
hand. But Christian hurried into the next room, and returned with a
jug of water and a clean cloth. He washed the wound and bandaged it
expertly. He did so with a tenderness and care that made Niels Heinrich
regard him with tensely wrinkled forehead and sombre shyness. He had
never seen any one, no man at least, act thus. He was passive. He was
contemptuous, yet could not hold his contempt. He could not but let
Christian finish.
“It might have had dangerous consequences,” Christian murmured.
Niels Heinrich did not answer, and so there ensued a long and rather
strange silence.
Niels Heinrich became aware of the terrible meaning of this silence,
and words came from him raspingly: “Well, what’s wanted?”
Christian leaned with both hands upon the back of the chair, and looked
at Niels Heinrich. He was pale, and struggled for expression. “It would
be important to determine where Michael was hidden in the time during
which he was gone,” he began. He spoke differently now--more gropingly
and searchingly, quiveringly and uncertainly, as though, during his
very speaking, he were constantly addressing questions to himself. “It
would be extremely important. Michael is Ruth’s brother. Perhaps you
have heard that for six days he could not be found anywhere. Whenever
the commissary of police or the investigating judge try to question
him, he has an attack of hysterics. So they have determined to let him
be for a while, merely keeping a strict watch over him; but he will
not move from the room, and utters no sound. The medical experts shake
their heads and are at a loss. And everything depends on his being
persuaded to speak at last. Surely it would throw some light on the
mystery. But much would be gained if only we discovered where he was
hidden.”
Niels Heinrich stared in dark consternation. This man grew more and
more terrible. The thought of flight quivered in his eyes. “How d’you
expect me to know?” he grunted. “What the bloody hell do I care? How
should I know? I told you before--what the----” He lapsed back into his
Berlinese jargon, as though it were a refuge.
“I merely thought that rumours might have come your way, that perhaps
people who live near the Heinzens noticed or heard something. Do you
recall any such thing?”
The question was so earnest, so full of monition and almost of
beseeching, that Niels Heinrich, instead of yielding to an impulse of
anger, listened, listened to that voice, and had the appearance of one
who was bound in fetters. And gradually he really recalled a rumour
of that kind which had come to him. There was among his acquaintances
a woman of the streets called Molly Gutkind. On account of her plump
body and white skin she was known as the Little Maggot. She was quite
young, barely seventeen. A few days ago he had been told that the
Little Maggot had given shelter to a boy for quite a while, that
she had carefully hidden him from everyone, and that, since then, a
complete change had come over her. Before that, she had been cheerful
and careless; now she was melancholy, and haunted the streets no more.
He had been told this as he was told all the news of the lower world,
but he had paid no attention to the anecdote, and it had slipped from
his memory. Now it emerged in his mind and fitted the case in question.
An instinct told him that it fitted; but that very perception increased
his feeling of defencelessness before this man who seemed now to be
gazing into him and tearing from him things silent and hidden and even
forgotten. He must follow up the rumour, and very secretively get
to the bottom of it and test it. In order to say something and tear
himself away at last, he murmured that he’d see what could be done, but
the gentleman mustn’t count on him, because spying was not his kind
of business. He dragged himself shiftily to the door with a wavering,
withered expression. He rubbed his moist fingers together and lit a
cigarette, shivered in the coolness that met him from the outer hall,
and turned up the collar of his yellow overcoat.
Christian courteously accompanied him to the door, and said softly: “I
hope to see you soon. I shall expect you.”
On the landing of the second storey Niels Heinrich stopped and laughed
his goat-like laugh senselessly into the void.