The next night Wenk was invited to a _soirée musicale_ in the
neighbourhood of Schramm’s restaurant. A young pianist was performing
modern phantasies. Wenk was bored, became fidgety and was the prey to
wandering thoughts. It seemed to him as if he were neglecting some
special opportunity elsewhere. He grew so uneasy that he finally
slipped away, merely leaving a card of apology for his hostess.
He reached Schramm’s and was about to pass quickly by. Then it occurred
to him to look up at the first floor of the villa where the new
restaurant and gaming-house was established, and try to see the windows
of the little room in which he had played the previous night. The
ground-floor windows were large, and through their old-gold curtains a
faint light gleamed, but the four windows on the first floor showed no
signs of occupation. Yet he said to himself, “Behind those unlighted
windows there gleams light ... _her_ light,” and he went in, full of
hope that he might encounter the mysterious lady who had so bewitched
him.
The head-waiter approached him at once, took hat and coat, whispering,
“The marble table?” and looking closely at the visitor as he did so.
Wenk gave a nod of assent, and the head-waiter rapidly preceded him to
the back, Wenk following more leisurely. Then he was led up the winding
stair.
The first person he saw at the gaming-table was the sandy-bearded man.
He sat in his niche, his broad shoulders bent forward, with his eyes
fixed in a steady gaze upon a player opposite. His attitude was that of
a beast of prey who has already played his victim and is only waiting
to pounce upon him. He seemed to be all sinews--at least, that was the
impression he made upon Wenk, who started back at his aspect.
There was one empty seat. Wenk took it and drew out his pocket-book.
An idea crossed his mind, that something special had occurred at the
table. He saw all the players cowering over the little heaps of money
in front of them, and yet there was in them all a distinct, even if
unintentional, glance given to one among their number.
The sandy-bearded stranger was holding the bank, and now he looked up.
Wenk noticed how, at first, annoyed at the disturbance, he raised his
eyes towards him, and then it was clearly noticeable that his face
quivered. At the same moment, however, he closed his jaws so firmly
that his beard stood out round them. The rest was a mere impression,
but this Wenk saw clearly. A shudder went through him as if at some
sudden and dangerous encounter. At this moment the “banker” displayed
the cards he held. Someone said, “Basch has lost again!” All turned to
look openly at the pale thin man whom they had been furtively regarding
when Wenk entered.
With a quiet and drowsy movement Basch pushed the notes lying on the
oval in front of him over to the stranger. He grabbed at them like a
bird of prey. The loser sank back in his seat, and in the same slow and
dreamy way he brought out a fresh thousand-mark note and laid it in
front of him.
“How much are you losing now?” said a lady from the divan behind Basch.
“You will have a lucky life. When one loses to _that_ extent! I regard
you as a champion. You must establish a record.... In losing, you know!
Then you will be so lucky in life that I shall want to....” She broke
off in embarrassment. Then Wenk, with a delicious tremor in his veins,
recognized the speaker as the lady whom he had so abruptly encountered
on the stairs on the previous evening.
“Get ready to stake,” said the sandy-bearded man in a harsh voice,
drowning the speaker’s concluding words.
Basch had not answered her. As the banker called out, he merely made a
movement of his hand over his thousand-mark note, a movement as if he
were secretly conjuring it to do his bidding.
He looked at his cards; it was his turn, and no one else was punting.
“Do you take one?” said the banker sharply.
Basch shook his head dreamily. Wenk noticed Cara Carozza’s
auburn-tressed head behind one the spectators, but his glance always
returned to the other woman.
The banker bought a Court card and disclosed his own hand. He had only
a total of four. Basch, too, with a feverish movement, laid his on the
table. His points were but three.
“He plays as if he were drugged!” whispered Wenk’s neighbour. “To hold
three, and yet not take a card! What folly!”
As he raked in his gains the sandy-bearded stranger gave a hasty
glance at Wenk. The latter felt himself pitted against the winner. He
increased his stakes, won, then lost for several rounds, and won again.
Basch continued to lose every time. By degrees Wenk ranged himself more
and more on his side. He staked his money as if it were a weapon for
Basch against the stranger, a weapon with which to strike him down.
Wenk noticed that the latter looked at no one but himself and Basch.
He therefore accepted the challenge, and threw himself eagerly and
wholeheartedly into the struggle, impelled by some mysterious power
that incited him against the banker. He forgot himself altogether,
and no longer played for the purpose of observing and discovering. He
abandoned himself to the game and played like all those whom he had
come to rescue from the gaming-table. He even forgot the lovely lady.
When he first realized this, he was ashamed, and for the first time
during the evening he glanced round the room to see whether Hull were
there.
But it was not Hull who now sat behind Cara Carozza. Wenk’s search was
vain; Hull was not present. Cara sat with a stranger behind a player
with whom she was sharing the stakes. Then Wenk came to himself. He
stopped playing and at once left the hall, sorely vexed with himself.
When he was on the winding stair he turned and saw that the stranger
with the fair sandy beard was also rising from the table.
Wenk had ordered his car to call for him at the house where the musical
party was held, and did not remember this till he had walked some
distance. Then he retraced his steps and drove home. He went to bed at
once, but he could get no sleep, for the thought continually recurred
that he had made a mistake to come away, that he ought to have stayed
and talked to Basch.
He got out of bed again and went through a bundle of depositions in
order to quiet his conscience. In going through these documents,
written by men who were strangers to him, he got the impression that
all of them, losing so much that they could not but ascribe it to
foul play, must have sat at the gaming-table very much as Basch did.
Had he remained and behaved in a sensible fashion, he would have had
an opportunity of seeing for himself at first hand what had hitherto
reached him through the testimony of others.
Then Wenk became thoroughly discouraged. “I must set to work in quite
another way,” he said to himself. “Goodwill and industry are not
sufficient. Self-denial and inexorable self-discipline and a little
more cunning are necessary! I must make use of every ruse that my
opponent displays.... I must make use of disguise and secret spying.
I must be prepared to stake myself on the game ... must be myself the
snare, if I do not want to be caught in it like a silly pigeon....
A State official with a false beard ... a Browning concealed in his
fist ... a jockey-cap, a tall hat, a wig, and so on, like the cinema
stage....”
In the looking-glass he contemplated his clean-shaven face, finding
that when he made grimaces, drew down the corners of his mouth,
stretched his jaws, and tried the effect of a beard made out of paper
shavings, his features lent themselves very well to disguise.
The next day he procured a complete outfit from the Criminal
Investigation Department. With the help of a Secret Service expert,
he tried all the necessary arts, learned to plaster on a beard, to
alter his complexion, make himself look younger or older, change his
appearance by scars, and so on. He could now make up as a country
cousin, a dispatch-bearing cyclist, a taxicab driver, a porter, waiter,
steward, window-cleaner, an “unemployed,” and other characters. In
the morning he made an exhaustive examination of the criminal museum
which the police had collected, studied the photographs he found there,
returned to his various make-ups, and worked with the zeal of a fanatic.
Thus the day passed, and by evening he felt he had become a stronger
man. He was at once more discreet and yet more daring. He would have
liked to make a tour at once of all the gaming-houses in the city.
He went only to Schramm’s, however. He had long been considering
whether he should not appear there in some sort of disguise, more for
the purpose of making a trial of it and learning to feel at home in
it than for actually starting upon his work. He was still more anxious
to go in the hope of meeting the sandy-bearded man again and seeing
him play, for he was desirous of atoning for his shortcomings of the
previous evening, which had left a painful impression upon his mind. He
would have liked to meet Basch again and talk to him about the evils of
gambling, from which he had suffered so much. He went, therefore, just
as he was.
It was already late when he got there. Hull was present, but he saw
neither the fair-bearded stranger nor Basch. He only heard that the
former had left immediately after him, a fact which all had noticed.
After he left, Basch had remained sitting as if utterly prostrate. He
had not played again, and suddenly he vanished. No one knew him well.
He had never been to Schramm’s before.
The lady who sat behind him estimated that his losses must have been
thirty to thirty-five thousand marks. The blond stranger had won it
all, but he did not win until he began to hold the bank. Everything had
been absolutely in order. The attendant who furnished the cards was
thoroughly reliable.
While talking about the previous night’s play they stopped their game.
Then Cara said:
“There are people who are born players, and if they take only one card
in their hands it is sure to be an ace. They can do what they like;
the power is stronger than they are; it is their guiding spirit, their
God.”
But Elsie did not agree with her. She thought that every player once
in his life came upon a series of lucky days. They lay stretched out
before him, handed to him by his good fairy, for every man had a good
fairy. One must not give up expecting to meet with those times of good
fortune, for one day one could gather in the winnings as quickly as
ripe apples in the autumn....
No one knew the man with the sandy beard. Basch had brought him to
Schramm’s, and the first evening they had gone away together. He might
be a dethroned prince, he was so imperious and abrupt in his speech. A
dethroned prince in want of money, no doubt.
“I have a strange feeling,” said Hull, “as if I had already played
against him once....”
“Nonsense!” said Cara.
In his mind the fancy grew stronger. “It is not so much that I have
played with him, but as if he had done me some very serious internal
injury, affecting my very blood; but how, and when, and where, I have
no idea. It must have been in a dream.”
“He has evil eyes,” said a woman’s voice, which Wenk seemed to
recognize. He looked in that direction, but with the bright light on
the table the corner seemed as dark as a cave and he could descry no
one.
Cara answered the voice in the darkness in a tone that seemed to have
anger in it: “Evil eyes! What do you mean by that? Surely at the
gaming-table no one looks like a saint!”
From the corner there came the words, “He seemed to look at Basch like
a beast of prey eyeing his victim!”
“That was exactly the impression he gave me!” exclaimed Wenk.
He at once rose hastily and went to the corner, entered the dark niche
and started back, for the speaker was the beautiful unknown! A glow
suffused Wenk’s features and his heart began to beat violently, as if
its strokes must be heard. Then he pulled himself together, saying, “I
really must be mad! I am searching for a criminal and am about to fall
in love with someone whom I may have to send to prison to-morrow. This
is really idiotic!” He recovered his presence of mind, bowed to the
stranger and said:
“I should be greatly interested, madam, to hear how you reached a
conclusion which so exactly resembles my own?”
“It cannot be anything else,” said the lady, smiling, “than an unusual
evidence of secret sympathy between me and a State official!”
“She knows me, then!” said Wenk to himself in astonishment. “But how
could that come about, except through Cara Carozza? A State official,
guardian and representative of the law, and avenger of any breach of
it, himself violating its rules! It was absolutely fantastic. Yes, it
must have been the Carozza girl.” From the niche he looked into the
brilliantly lighted room, where the dyed tresses of the dancer gleamed
forth between the heads. “So it was you!” he said to himself; “you want
to bring my plans to nought, you good-for-nothing!...”
Then he remembered the glance the blond had given her that first
evening, and he ended, “You are his decoy!” Now he realized the
connection between them. It was the dancer who brought the blond his
victims. He breathed a threat: “Just you wait; I am taking it all in!”
“Our agreement seems to have struck you forcibly,” said the lady,
interrupting his thoughts.
“As a matter of fact, my thoughts were wandering, and I beg your
pardon, madam,” said Wenk; “it is incomprehensible that any strange
influence should be able to intervene in _your_ neighbourhood, but it
can be explained, nevertheless....”
He did not continue. Two ideas suddenly obtruded themselves. This lady
was undoubtedly an excellent observer. If only he could procure her
help! But the other thought stirred his pulses. Why not abandon all
this searching and spying and following after criminals, and strive to
win the love of a woman such as this, beautiful as a queen and stately
as a goddess! Then he felt her touching his arm hastily.
“Don’t speak,” she whispered, “I beg of you!”
At the same moment Wenk saw three gentlemen entering the circle of
light in the room. The first was a young man whom he knew by sight, for
a few days previously he had noticed him at an exhibition of Futurist
paintings, as the buyer of the most unusual and bizarre of these. He
had asked the name of the purchaser, and the attendant had replied,
“Graf Told bought them. There he is,” pointing to the young man, who
had just now entered the room.
“Herr von Wenk,” said the lady in a whisper, “will you do me a great
favour?”
“With pleasure, madam. I am at your command.”
“I am anxious to leave this room within the next few minutes without
being seen. Can you help me to do this?”
“Certainly,” said Wenk.
“How can I accomplish my purpose?”
“That is quite simple. You see the entrance to that staircase; it is
only a few steps to it. You must look at it well, to be able to find it
in the dark. I am certain that I know where the electric light switch
is. It is just over the first section of the stairs. I will go there
and turn it out, and you can make use of the darkness to gain the
staircase. When you have passed me I will stand directly in the way of
anyone who tries to follow you or to reach the switch.”
“Splendid! Thank you very much.”
Her escape was safely made. When Wenk saw the lady had reached the
bottom, he turned the light on again and entered the room with a light
laugh, saying, “Please forgive me; I did it for a joke, and I did not
realize you would be in total darkness.”
They all laughed, but the dancer was standing, pale and disturbed, at
the head of the winding stair, which she had reached at one bound. She
recovered herself quickly and returned to Hull, begging him to drive
her home. Wenk accompanied them.
As they were about to leave the gaming-hall, Wenk saw the head-waiter
hand Hull an envelope. He went to an empty table beneath a lamp, opened
it, and drew out a little note. It seemed as if an invisible thrust
had sent him staggering. Cara went up to him, but he crumpled up the
note, stuffing it into his pocket, and rose and followed the others out.
When they had reached the street they parted, but Hull turned and came
back to Wenk, saying, in a voice trembling with excitement, “I _must_
speak to you. This very night! Can you see me at your rooms in an
hour’s time? It is something horrible; I am being shadowed!”
* * * * *
“Look at this!” said Hull, as he entered Wenk’s rooms an hour later.
With a despairing gesture he flung an envelope on Wenk’s table. The
latter opened it and drew a small card from it. On it there stood:
HERR BALLING,
I O U
20,000 (twenty thousand) marks
payable November 21st, 4 p.m.
EDGAR HULL.
“My I O U,” said Hull in a toneless voice, and after a pause, “Look at
the other side!”
On the reverse side Wenk read: “You are warned. The reason I did not
take your twenty thousand marks is my affair alone. The transaction
lies between you and me. Play is play, and no State Attorney has
anything to do with it.”
Wenk was staggered. “Yes, yes, yes,” he said, and found no other words
to express the storm which raged within him. Then after a while, as he
collected himself, he said:
“We sat near him, you and I! We could have seized him by the arm, one
on each side, you ... and I! Do you understand?”
“I am shadowed!” whispered Hull, who seemed to have no thought of
anything except his immediate danger.
“Do you understand? Do you know who Balling is? Your Balling? your
distinguished old gentleman? It is the man with the fair beard who was
at Schramm’s. He is your Herr Balling! Good heavens!... We could have
put our hands on his shoulder!”
Hull merely gasped. Now he knew why the sandy-bearded man had seemed
familiar to him; his were the large, fierce grey eyes!
“Yes,” he said, “it _is_ the same man!”
“He has disappeared,” exclaimed Wenk; “he no longer comes to Schramm’s.
And as for you, Herr Hull, we shall henceforth have you under our
special care, but you must endeavour to meet our wishes and be
constantly on your guard.”