"I shall go with you."
"You are about to leave, gentlemen?" a thin voice behind them was
asking.
In their excitement neither had noticed that the lawyer and the Herr
Oberhofmarshal had entered the garden, and had already approached
within a few yards of them.
"Will you very kindly introduce me to the Herr Doctor?" said the
Marshal, after he had courteously tendered his hand to Otto.
The introduction was made.
"It is not quite right," said the Marshal, "that only now I have the
honour ... I hear you have been for more than a week at Rinstedt, and
yet you have not had a minute to spare for us! Not for our theatre, our
school of art, our museum! Not to mention my humble self, although I
have for years been accustomed to no stranger of distinction passing my
threshold. You must make up for this yet, you really must."
Bertram answered the old gentleman in a few courteous words, looking at
the same time entreatingly at the lawyer.
"Your Excellency will excuse me," said the lawyer, "if, considering how
pressed the Herr Doctor is for time, I venture ..."
"Quite right, quite right," said the old gentleman. "Indeed, I already
noticed myself that the gentlemen were leaving. Let us come to the
point--a very, very disagreeable point, in reference to which, acting
on the advice of our common legal friend, with whom I originally
intended only to discuss the judicial bearings of the case, I should
now like to be allowed to claim also your assistance, my dear Mr.
Bermer."
"In that case," said Bertram, who in his impatience almost felt the
ground burn beneath his feet, and who also thought this a splendid
opportunity for getting rid of Otto Bermer, "you will perhaps allow me
to take my departure."
"Pray remain, Herr Doctor, I entreat you!" exclaimed the Marshal
eagerly. "Quite apart from the painful interest which the matter will
have on psychological grounds for such a profound student of human
nature, I feel a moral necessity to have an affair, which it is
desirable to withdraw from the cognisance of the judge, adjudicated
upon by a forum of men of enlightened intelligence and honourable
character--adjudicated upon and,--alas, alas!--condemned. The case is
this ..."
"If your Excellency will allow me?" said the lawyer, in response to
another still more entreating glance of Bertram's.
"Please, please," replied, the Marshal, conveying the pinch of snuff,
which he had just, taken from his box, somewhat abruptly to his nose.
"The case is this," the lawyer went on, without heeding the old
gentleman's annoyance: "your friend Baron Lotter, my dear Burner, has
been guilty of an action which amounts to fraud and forgery. He had
been commissioned to, buy a couple of race-horses for the Court
during the summer, somewhere in Bavaria, and had drawn the money for
them--three thousand thalers--from the Grand Duke's privy purse, upon
an order signed by His Excellency; but he appears not to have paid the
money, but to have given a bill of exchange instead, with the forged
signature of His Excellency, as representing the Marshal's office."
"Is not this monstrous?" cried the old gentleman, "as if the Upper
Court Marshal's office ever paid, with bills of exchange!"
"The daring of the deed is indeed tremendous," continued the lawyer,
"considering the fact which His Excellency has stated just now, and
which was also known to the Herr Baron. And indeed he had taken the
precaution to inform the clerk of the privy purse--into whose hands the
bill of exchange would necessarily come first--when presented for
payment, that the affair was all right; that he would hand him the
money a week before it was due; the little service would not remain
without its reward, as soon as the Baron had got his foot in the
stirrup, in other words, as soon as he was Chamberlain. The poor fellow
was weak enough ..."
"It is incredible!" murmured the Oberhofmarshal; "quite incredible!"
"To be sure, your Excellency," said the lawyer; "nevertheless, he was
weak enough to consent to what was evidently a fraud, until to-day, two
days before the bill was due, and when the money promised by the Baron
had not appeared, his terror compelled him to make a clean breast of it
to His Excellency. Meanwhile the bill had, yesterday, been sent to a
local banker for collection. This banker, who, of course, had never
seen anything of the kind occur in business, thought it advisable to
make private and confidential inquiries of His Excellency as to the
state of affairs, just before the clerk made his confession, and now
His Excellency has the proof in his own hands."
The little old gentleman, who accompanied the lawyer's report with many
a nod and with eager play of features, was opening his mouth, but the
lawyer continued swiftly--
"His Excellency at once went to His Highness ..."
"I beg your pardon!" cried the Marshal. "I struggled for an hour as to
whether I could not spare His Highness this grief. Moreover the young
man's father was my dear old friend, who would turn in his grave if he
could hear that a Lotter, his own son--it is terrible! And be assured,
gentlemen, if I were a rich man--every one knows I am not--I ..."
"Your Excellency would in that case not have gone to Serenissimus," the
lawyer went on; "but it was not to be avoided. His Highness, with his
customary generosity, resolved at once ..."
"That is," the Marshal interrupted him, "in consequence of my report
and recommendation."
"Of course, in consequence of His Excellency's report and
recommendation, resolved at once that the bill was to be paid as if
everything were in perfect order, under the condition that the Herr
Baron should never show his face at Court again, and depart
straightway. This latter point, the Grand Duke declared with very
natural anger ..."
"I really must beg ..." objected the Marshal.
"Declared with considerable emphasis to be the _conditio sine qua non_,
if he were to show a merciful forbearance, in lieu of allowing the law
to take its course. And now we come to the point when ..."
"When," the Marshal said, turning to Otto, "I must claim your kind
services. You have the ... I can only say the great misfortune to be a
friend ... I mean an acquaintance of the Herr Baron, who is at present
a guest in your house. My appearance there, however greatly I should
esteem such an honour, would perhaps cause some sensation, the very
thing His Highness wishes to avoid at any cost. Serenissimus himself
suggested and our common friend here ventures to propose directly,
that ..."
"That you, my dear Bermer," resumed the lawyer, "might give the young
gentleman the requisite strong hint, to which a letter which His
Excellency has just drawn up in my office ..."
"And which I beg herewith to produce," said the Marshal.
"Would give additional emphasis," concluded the lawyer.
"I would beg your Excellency to intrust the letter to me," said
Bertram. "I chance to know where the Herr Baron, who left my friend's
house last night, is to be found at this present moment. To be sure I
must leave at once, lest I miss him. You are coming with me, Otto?"
"Of course," cried Otto; "my carriage is at the door."
"And your horses are swifter than the hired ones, which I had ordered
to be here at five. It is a quarter to five now. We have not a moment
to lose."
"But tell him it as gently as possible, I entreat you," the Marshal
called out after the two friends, who were already crossing the little
courtyard.
Bertram waved his hand in assent.
A minute later the carriage was rattling along the narrow lane behind
the lawyer's garden towards the broad street leading to the town gates.