Wenk was awakened by a feeling of chilliness, which set him shivering.
He pulled his cloak round him, under the impression that the coverlet
had slipped off his bed, but he soon became aware of his error. He
sat up, feeling giddy and at first unable to recall anything. He came
slowly to himself and then he perceived where he was and saw the castle
buildings gleaming through the darkness.
He rose hastily and moved away, but he was still dazed, and had to jump
about to get any warmth into his body. What could the time be? He felt
for his watch, but it was not there, and then he went hastily through
his pockets. His purse was missing; so, too, were his pocket-book and
his official notebook. He had fallen into the hands of thieves. The
strange thing was how it could have happened that he had escaped with
his life?
Then sudden dread seized upon him. He held his head in his hands,
setting his jaws firmly, striving to subdue his feeling of despair.
His notebook was missing, and in this were to be found addresses,
reports, information, data, plans of all kinds.... The very first thing
he recalled about it was the opening page, on which the Hull affair
was fully set forth.... Wenk now hurried straight forward. If only he
could recover his notebook! He rushed on till he was out of breath,
then stopped and asked himself, “What shall I do? Go to the nearest
railway-station? But what is the time? It may be one o’clock, it may
be five. How am I to tell? And when would the first train start? It
might mean waiting in front of a closed railway-station for four, even
five hours!” Then he reflected that if he were to wake anybody in the
castle he would have to submit to questioning. No; that would do no
good. Should he make a fuss about it? It was clear that the chauffeur
had acted in obedience to the blond stranger’s orders. Had the latter
really penetrated his disguise and laid his plans so cautiously and
cleverly beforehand, or was it the usual thing that anyone who appeared
in any way suspicious should at once be put to the test in this way?
Could it be merely theft, and the book have been taken from him by
accident? He realized that when he seated himself on the cushions he
must have set the gas-current free, for there was no gas in the car
when he got in. That had been arranged, then. No, it wasn’t that way
either. It was something both simpler and safer. The driver could open
the gas valve from his seat. Of course that was the way of it.
Thinking thus, Wenk reached the highroad, only half-conscious of his
resolve to proceed to Munich on foot. He went as fast as he could, but
every now and then he had to stop and wait till a feeling of giddiness
had passed. That must be the effect of the gas. What sort of gas could
it be that operated so rapidly and yet did so little harm? His foes
might just as easily have used a deadly gas, then they would have got
rid of him altogether. Why did they use a stupefying gas merely? Was it
meant for a warning to him?
Now, at any rate, his notebook was in their hands, and perhaps they
wanted nothing more of him than that. It was but an attack on his
little notebook. Whose names were to be found there? Karstens’, for one
... and an account of all the occurrences in the gaming-houses with
the sandy-bearded man and the old Professor, and in the Palace Hotel
likewise. All the places where gambling was carried on were noted there
too. It was clearly only his notebook that they wanted, and that they
had succeeded in getting, but the book he had lost had meant a good
deal to him.
He went faster and faster by the sleeping houses, past the peaceful
suburbs and into the quiet approaches of the town. The byways, in
which traces of snow still lay, seemed like dragons creeping through
the night, bent on spying in the ghostly light on those who went by,
and Wenk shuddered at the thought. But when a tram-car drew near he
felt more at ease. He soon recognized where he was and hastened to his
own chambers. He was thoroughly exhausted when he reached home, threw
himself fully dressed upon his bed and became unconscious once more,
not awakening until the evening.
The first idea which occurred to him then was that henceforth his life
was at stake. He accepted it calmly, for since he was combating evil,
it was natural that it should be so. The conflict would be played out
on the borderland between existence and annihilation, and for one
moment he wondered whether it were worth while to go on. But only for
a moment. He immediately told himself that there could be no question
of hesitation here. Such men are like beasts escaped from a menagerie,
and it was his task, his duty, the justification for his existence, to
help to make them powerless for evil. There must be no fear of men, no
fear of the body any more than he had had of the soul, since his mind
had once succeeded in grasping the crisis through which his country was
passing. Since he too had been a witness of its genesis, he must help
to overcome its effects.
Yet one more thought. Was he a match for his opponent? Must he not
fortify himself if he were henceforward to pit his life and strength in
such a struggle? His adversary seemed to have the advantage of him, for
he worked in the dark. Were his own hands strong enough to seize and
hold the evil powers advancing upon him and to crush them? Had he the
strength to fight the age, for his opponent was more than a cheat, a
criminal--he was the whole spirit of the age, a spirit torn through the
catastrophe of the war from the hellish depths where it was created, to
fall upon the world and the homes of men. He realized that against such
an opponent he must spread his nets more widely if he hoped to ensnare
him. He must have an organization equal to the criminal’s own. He must
not, as hitherto, consider it sufficient to rely on his confederates,
those who were entirely of one mind with himself. He must seek his
helpers in the enemy’s camp.
At once he thought of the lady whose strange and questionable escape he
had assisted. He drove quickly to Schramm’s. Yes, there she was, but,
as usual, a spectator merely. He sat down beside her.
“You are not playing, sir?” said she.
“No, your example has made watching more interesting than playing to
me.”
“Watching,” laughed the lady lightly, “when carried on by a high legal
official is not good ... for the players!”
Wenk had a slight suspicion that this was said with a double meaning,
but whether mockingly or warningly he could not decide; in any case, it
was said to serve the purpose of some other, who possibly was sitting
there at play. Perhaps they worked secretly in partnership.
He observed her closely, but she sat quietly idle. Her bright eyes
roved in all directions. He said to her, feeling his way:
“You have yourself seen a high legal official caught in the toils of
the gaming-devil. His jurisdiction is troublesome to the other player!”
He said “the _other_,” and waited to see whether she would start, or
twitch nervously, or give the player some sign or other. But she did
none of these things, merely remained still and accepted his words with
a friendly smile.
“She is a beautiful woman,” he thought, “and there is some secret
reserve strength in her. Men play for money, but it would be more
worthy of their manhood to play for such a woman as this.”
After a few moments she leaned towards him, saying lightly and with a
playful impressiveness:
“I was present when Basch lost so heavily!”
“I know you were,” said Wenk, astonished and inquiringly.
“And you were playing then, too.”
“Yes, I was playing. I have just confessed it!”
“Ah, but I mean you were really playing _then_! The first evening, when
you came with Hull, you took part in the game, but you were not really
playing. And the evening when the old Professor was there--well, I
don’t quite know, there was some sort of atmospheric disturbance ...
wasn’t there now?” she said, turning to him with a melting and wholly
feminine gesture of friendliness.
Wenk was taken aback. He replied:
“That evening when the old Professor was there? What old Professor?”
“The evening you came as a country cousin,” she answered roguishly.
At last Wenk comprehended that she had recognized him, and his face
showed his disappointment, but she begged him not to mind her having
found him out.
“You were well disguised,” she said, “but I could not believe that
here in Munich there would be two such quaint little monkeys on a
cherry-tree, conjured so cleverly by a Chinese jewel-cutter out of an
amethyst. When I first saw the ring, flanked on each side by stupid
diamonds on stupid fingers, I noticed it with pleasure.”
Wenk looked at her, awaiting something more. Who could she be?
“At any rate, it struck me as curious that there could be two men,
even in such circles as ours”--here she glanced round the table--“who
had some amount of taste....”
“Your sarcasm,” said Wenk, entering into her vein, “does not require
either Yes or No, for the fact that you noticed my ring and so
correctly guessed its origin proves that you belong to a very different
circle from the one you find yourself in here.”
“Oh, I was a stewardess on a steamer bound for Asiatic ports, but the
war has taken both our ships and our calling from us!”
“May I then hazard the suggestion that you have withdrawn from your
former calling at some advantage to yourself?”
“Oh, I am not stupid!” she smiled back.
“There is nothing which it is more unnecessary to assure me of,
Countess.”
There was a momentary flutter in the beautiful woman’s eye, and an
imperceptible something within her seemed to come to a standstill. Had
he known who she was and wanted to play with her a little, and would he
now blazon abroad the fact that she frequented such places secretly?
Wenk laughed aloud.
“Or can it be that the coroneted handkerchief comes from the trunk of
some countess travelling to Asiatic ports, as Sherlock Holmes would
argue? No, dear lady, we are quits. We shall both comport ourselves
more circumspectly in future when we are among our fellow-mortals. I
shall put a stupid diamond on my finger, and you will use a monogram
without a coronet on your handkerchiefs, Countess....”
“Hush!” she said, in agitation.
“But even such precautions would serve no turn!”
“I do not understand you.”
“You force me to pay you compliments. I am seeking vainly for a
suitable way of expressing myself so that I may convey to you my
conviction that the ‘countess’ in you cannot anyhow be suppressed.”
“He will be asking me to sup with him directly,” she said to herself.
“He evidently wants to start a romance,” and the idea amused her. From
sheer exuberance of energy she had come hither, seeking nothing in her
masquerade but relief from boredom, and lo! she had landed a prize like
this!
“At any rate, I need not have taken a circuitous route to Schramm’s!”
she said laughingly.
At the gaming-table nothing sensational was going on. She decided to
feint with him, and said sarcastically:
“You try to disguise your compliments as well as you do yourself, Herr
von Wenk. I am obliged to accept them, since they take me unawares.”
“I merely mean,” persisted Wenk, “that the removal of the coronet from
your monogram cannot remove the stamp of nobility from your brow.”
“I hope you are still masquerading!”
“As an enraptured reader of sentimental romances, you mean? In
any case, dear lady.... But is this quite the place to carry on a
conversation which aims at a more serious turn?”
She answered, looking him up and down haughtily and deliberately:
“Does that mean that you are inviting me to sup with you?”
“I would certainly not venture to do that,” said Wenk hastily,
recognizing her meaning. He saw that she suspected him of desiring to
establish an intrigue, and that he would begin it in the ordinary way
of a champagne supper. “Now,” said he to himself, “if I am to win her
over, I must act in such a way as not to deceive her and yet not fulfil
her expectations, and since she thinks she has guessed me aright, I
must not allow her a feeling of superiority over me. I do not want her
to think me a blockhead. The coronet on the handkerchief seems genuine
enough, and she does not come here for money, for she never plays.
Therefore someone present, or an adventure of some sort, must account
for her being here, and if I am to win her to my side I must prove
myself stronger than the unknown attraction here,” he argued.
“What have you to offer me?” she asked in a frivolous tone; but Wenk
seemed to find something real behind the thoughtless manner, and he
answered intuitively, fearing defeat as soon as the words had left his
lips:
“I can offer you a great adventure, a really great adventure!”
“With you?” she rejoined, equally without pausing for reflection. “As a
lover or as an agent of the State?”
“With me--as a detective!”
“_Can_ you?” she asked disdainfully.
“Shall I give you proofs? Last night I was decoyed into a car and
left in the freezing cold lying on a bench in the Schleissheim Park,
stupefied by gas. To-day, but twenty-four hours later, I am aware that
the man who did this, or ordered it to be done, is the same whom you
saw playing recently as the old Professor, and that this same learned
old fellow is also the sandy-bearded man to whom you saw Basch lose his
money here.”
“Is that true?” she asked in a serious tone.
“Absolutely.”
“The man ... with the reddish beard ... who ... sat ... there?”
“The man who sat opposite Basch like a beast of prey!”
“And what am I ... what have I to do with it?”
“To help me find this man, from whom others must be rescued.”
“I can’t help admiring him!”
“I do not minimize his powers, but there are powers which are evil in
their influence.”
“And yet more really human and greater than those that are called
good!” she cried; and her bosom, slender and youthful as a girl’s,
swelled as she confronted Wenk.
“Ah, now I understand you, dear lady. Listen. Not more really human
or greater, for power is power. One display of it cannot be measured
by another; it is only its essence we can judge. Everything is human,
the good as well as the bad. Evil forces only reap their advantage
through the destruction of good ones, and this advantage is for the
destroyer alone. The forces of good benefit all without yielding their
possessor that gross material gain which he who practises evil strives
to attain. Which is the nobler? That is what you must ask yourself,
and if there is an exuberance of energy in your temperament which you
cannot make use of in the class of society to which you belong, and yet
do not desire to keep inactive.... However, these people are beginning
to notice our talk. I expect the blond has his spies everywhere. Allow
me to take leave of you and request an opportunity of continuing this
conversation.”
“Come and see me to-morrow; come at tea-time please. Ask for Countess
Told, at Tutzing.”
She gave him her hand. Wenk, to whom her name supplied the clue to that
mysterious flight when Count Told had entered the room, kissed her
slender fingers, yielding himself momentarily to her charm and beauty,
and toying with the foolish notion of abandoning his chase of criminals
and yielding to the pursuit of this woman. With these thoughts in his
mind, he said farewell.
Left to herself, the Countess reflected: “We women have no imagination.
I was looking for an adventure among these gamblers absorbed in their
play, and when it presented itself I imagined it was but an intrigue.
But _this_ is a man, indeed! He devotes his life to his task, and no
man can give more than his life, and there is nothing greater or more
beautiful than life. If only I had the chance of doing likewise!” She
resolved to follow Wenk’s leading and do all that she could to help him.
* * * * *
Among his letters next morning Wenk noticed a small registered parcel.
He opened it, to find his watch and his purse with the money intact.
The notebook alone was missing, and on a card these words were typed:
“I am no ghoul. The things my subordinate took from you in error are
returned herewith. I am keeping the notebook because its contents
concern me.--BALLING.”
Wenk was scarcely surprised. This man had thousands at stake; what were
a few beggarly hundreds and a gold watch to him? He did not need this
to convince him that it was really himself, and more particularly his
notebook, that was concerned. He put away both watch and purse and let
his thoughts linger on the alluring Countess.
In the afternoon he was received at her house, a mansion sumptuously
arranged, but in a style that offended Wenk, for since yesterday his
ideas of the Countess had made considerable advance, and it would have
been pleasant to find himself more in sympathy with her tastes than
this home of hers evidenced.
In the very entrance-hall the walls had been painted all over in Cubist
forms and conventional designs tortured into weird shapes in endless
succession, with splashes of colour here and there, as if to create an
impression of the ardent temperament of the designer. “You are cold and
passionless,” said he to himself; “of so calculating and cold a nature
that if one among you disappears, the others have not enough red blood
in their veins to notice his absence?”
The butler, the dark severity of whose livery was lightened by small
silver buttons and blue lappets, took his hat and coat from him and
announced him to the Countess, who was sitting at the tea-table.
“We shall not be alone long,” she said; “my husband will be home at
five o’clock.”
But the decorations of the house had made Wenk feel unsympathetic, and
before he answered he cast a hasty glance at the walls of the room. The
Countess noticed it.
“That is all my husband’s doing,” she said. “To me it appears simply
hideous. What are you to make out of it, if one paints a peasant,
indicates some freshly painted barns, and then tells the beholder that
it is a symphony of Beethoven’s? However, every one to his taste--or
are you perhaps a ‘Futurist’ also?”
“I cannot say that,” said Wenk, “but you seem to imply that they are
the only moderns. Yet all men in secret speak the same language. Our
freedom to express ourselves comes only from individuality!”
“You want to be free?” said the lady. “Are you not your own salvation?
Does not your calling, your expenditure of energy, give you your inner
freedom? There is no salvation from without!”
“That is quite true,” said Wenk simply; and the womanly image which had
haunted him since yesterday, and which seemed to be lost on entering
this house, once more returned to his mind. “It is really what we were
talking of yesterday, this balance of the forces of good and evil, and
I wanted to talk to you about that again to-day.”
“I understood you aright,” answered the Countess. “I will confess to
you that at first I thought you were on the search for an intrigue, and
the idea amused me considerably, for God knows I seek something very
different in the gaming-houses.”
“You will find what you are seeking in my work, Countess,” rejoined
Wenk quickly.
Suddenly the butler, in his black livery, with its blue lappets
and silver buttons, appeared noiselessly, and bent down whispering
something to his mistress.
“My husband!” said the Countess to Wenk, fixing a steady and lingering
glance on him, and as the Count came forward she introduced the two men.
Count Told was an extremely thin man, and gave an impression of
excessive sprightliness. He was surprisingly young and very fashionably
dressed. He gesticulated a good deal, and the movement of his hands
gave prominence to a ring he wore, set with an unusual gem, such as
Wenk had never before seen.
It might have been a flame topaz, with streaks of blood-red across
it, trailing off into milky whiteness at the edges and emphasizing
the clear honey colour of the transparent stone. In the middle of it,
just where its lightning rays were most dazzling, was a tiny pearl,
an islet, hardly larger than a freckle, but of a blue that put the
sapphire into the shade, and....
Thus Wenk was thinking to himself, unable to keep his eyes from the
jewel.
“It is a trifle too big for my hand,” said the Count, answering his
visitor’s unspoken thoughts, “but the stone is so ... how shall I
describe its originality? Well, I can only say that it is like a
recital by Endivian, whom you doubtless know, and it was he who gave
it to me. He brought it back from Penderappimur.”
“Is he the fashionable jeweller nowadays?” asked Wenk, who seemed
somewhat at sea.
“Herr von Wenk,” said the Countess gravely, “Endivian is the
fashionable young Goethe of this season.” Then she laughed. “No!
Endivian the poet received the jewel at the Court of Artimerxes II,
instead of the goblet, from the poem of his spiritual father ...
you know it, ‘Give me no golden chain’ ... and when he returned, he
announced in Germany, much as the Pope announces the Golden Rose, that
his greatest admirer should have it. The choice fell upon my husband.
It would have been better if he had given it me.”
“Why don’t you enthuse about him as I do?” asked the Count, with a
pleasant smile, looking at her very tenderly as he spoke.
“Peter Resch dedicated his rubbish to him, and that was enough for me,”
was the Countess’s laughing retort.
“Pooh, Peter Resch, indeed!” said the Count. “He is one of the
Impressionists who has arrived. By the way, dearest, I have got
something new.”
“From the Jennifer gallery?”
“Can one get a real picture anywhere else? There is nothing left....
And one has a clear and incontestable and direct impression. If the
artistic temperament would only renounce colour ... it would be the
beginning of really abstract thought, of the detachment from everything
which needs the help of another consciousness to interpret its vision.”
The Countess replied, with apparent earnestness: “Thank Heaven, we do
get a little further. If in the realm of music, too, genius had any
prospect of renouncing the crash of sound when it desires to express
itself, the world would soon be attaining its aim.”
The Count went on enthusiastically: “A sublime atmosphere of space ...
in two blues ... which project into the cosmogony and play upon each
other between storm and lightning....
“Whereupon the Almighty leaves His seat, dear Herr von Wenk, saying,
‘My creation has surpassed Me; I take My leave!’”
The conversation continued in this tone for awhile, and an hour later
Wenk took his leave. He felt depressed as he drove home, but he had
hardly sat down to dinner when a note was brought him, and he read: