Wenk remained alone, inwardly cool. He had been able to suppress the
horror and dread which the crime had excited in his sensitive and
sympathetic soul. He knew the reason underlying this murder. It was
not revenge, but something far more dangerous and deadly. It was
terrorization! That was revealed to him by the letter to the news
agency, designed to give information about the murder other than the
police reports. It was the terrorizing of all who felt themselves
victims of that fair-bearded stranger who had appeared among them. How
much this gambler must have at stake, he thought, that he could thus
personally announce his crime, to give the affair the turn he wanted it
to have! How many people were in his pay that he was able to carry out
his criminal deeds in this fashion? What sort of people were they, and
what was the example such conduct would afford to those who were still
hovering undecidedly between good and evil? How many adherents might
not the announcement of this deed yet secure for him?
Hull had met his fate because he had revealed to the authorities, in
the person of Wenk, the history of the I O U, and because the pseudo
Herr Balling desired thus to give an example of what would occur to
those who stood in his way. Possibly, even probably, the attack had
also been directed at himself, and he had only escaped because his
indignation had driven him from the place.
Now perhaps it would be impossible, for strategical reasons, to close
down the “Go-ahead” Institute.... Like so many similar places, it might
serve as a trap.
“And what about Cara Carozza?” he said to himself. “Shall I be able to
get her to confess for whom she was acting as a decoy? What can she
confess, and whose name would she reveal? Even if a name and possibly
an address be furnished me, do I know the man’s secrets, and what
precautions he has taken against me? No, I will not go to see this
girl. I will leave her in custody and let her wait.... Then she will
realize that there’s trouble ahead of her. She is weak and vicious;
perhaps she will give in of her own accord.”
Finally, however, Wenk decided otherwise. He would take the exactly
opposite course. He would lull her suspicions by a friendly and
sympathetic bearing. She was crafty, but she belonged to the theatrical
world, and by his assumed friendliness and sympathy with her in the
circumstances leading to her arrest he might make her more ready to
confide in him. He therefore went at once to the guard-room, where he
found her seated in a small compartment. Wenk hastened towards her.
“But, my dear young lady,” he exclaimed, “how came you here? What have
they been doing to you? They have just rung up to tell me what has
happened. What a good thing you thought of me!”
“Oh, Herr Wenk, you come as an angel of light to me in my dungeon.
Let us get away from this place at once! Don’t lose an instant! I am
stifling here. I can’t breathe in these horrible surroundings.” She
hastened towards the door.
“Ah, but now I must prepare you for a disappointment, which is
unavoidable. You see, my dear young lady, we live under the State, and
every State has supreme power. It appoints officials, each of whom
carries on his own peculiar office, and they cannot encroach upon the
domains of others. The State has appointed me one of its Attorneys,
but I am only there to prosecute offenders, not to set innocent people
free.”
“Then what’s to happen to me?” said Cara, suddenly hardening her
attitude.
Her tone warned Wenk, and he came at once to the point:
“Your case does not come under my jurisdiction first of all, but
that of the court of inquiry, and you are bound to undergo an
examination there. It is troublesome, no doubt, but you must blame the
circumstances for that.”
“And what about your part in it?” asked the girl.
“Mine? I can do nothing but tell the examining counsel that we are old
acquaintances, and that I do not think you capable of taking any part
in such a crime.”
“Then why did you come here? You are not the examining counsel.”
Wenk realized then that she had seen through his ruse, and he knew,
too, that she had escaped the snare, but at the same time he was
convinced that she was guilty.
“I came here on account of a minor circumstance in which I can help
you,” he said quickly. “I understand that you resisted the constables?”
“What woman would allow herself to be attacked by coarse brutes of
constables without resisting?”
“Yes, of course; it was the circumstances which were to blame for your
behaving unreflectingly and forcing them to do their duty.”
“I am well known as an artiste. My name ought to have been enough for
them!”
“Did you give the constables your name?”
“Certainly I did, straight away!”
“It is strange that they should not have told me that. They mentioned
another name that you had called out!”
Then Wenk observed that Cara threw a hasty and searching glance, full
of hate, upon him. She looked away again at once, and drummed with her
fingers on her knee.
“They said another name, did they? That’s curious, for my own name is
well enough known, and thought enough of. What might this other strange
name have been?”
“The constable said it was George.”
Her face showed no change when Wenk said that.
“He couldn’t have heard properly, for my name, as you know, isn’t
George,” she said, with an air of indifference.
“But a second constable says he heard you give the same name. It really
_was_ George!”
“How strange!” said Cara, after a pause for reflection. “My husband’s
name was George. Could I, in my excitement, have called....”
“Ah, now everything is perfectly clear. That is quite comprehensible,
but, of course, nobody knew you had been married?”
“I _am_ married!”
“You still are; oh, that’s something different. Shall I send word to
your husband? But perhaps you no longer hold any intercourse with him?”
“Indeed I do! His address is 234, Eschenheimerstrasse,
Frankfurt-am-Main.... His name is George Strümpfli.”
“This will be painful news for him. Are you not afraid that there
may be some difficulty when he hears your name connected with the
circumstance of Hull’s murder?”
Then Cara spoke at last, falling back on her chair. “Hull murdered!...”
she exclaimed, and she sank fainting from the chair to the ground.
For the moment Wenk was taken aback; then he decided that this
fainting-fit was assumed. He raised her on to the couch, then went away
without attending to her further. Going out, he ordered the constables
to keep a sharp eye on the lady, and not let anyone at all go into the
ante-room. They were to keep their weapons fixed.
He drove back to the central police-station and informed the divisional
surgeon, requesting him to drive to the guard-room, and to search the
girl’s clothing without exciting suspicion. He then wrote out the
order for her arrest, and handed it over. He gave orders at the Police
Information Bureau that any journalist who came seeking for news was to
be sent to him direct.
By this time it was daylight. Wenk had a bath and then drove to the
office of the Central News Agency, the editor-in-chief of which had
rung him up on the telephone.
When Wenk had told him all that had occurred, he said: “The reason that
emboldened me to lay claim to some of your time, was this. If it were
an isolated murder I would, although unwillingly, let the reporting
of it proceed in the usual manner. But behind this assault we are
confronted by a gang having at their head a man of apparently enormous
and comprehensive powers. He must have secured to himself an organized
set of followers whose only aim is to guard him while he carries out
his crimes. The letter, which he himself may have handed into your
office, discloses the fact that he desires the affair to be made known
in the way that suits his ends. He means it as a warning. The victim
himself told me not long ago that he had come across him in very
peculiar circumstances, and this he knew. It is his aim to surround
his dark deeds by a wall of dread; folks are to realize that no one
who makes any attempt against _him_ can escape with his life. You can
readily see how great a danger such a man is; at a time when the war
has left folks weak and emotional on the one hand and more readily
incited to evil on the other. We cannot altogether suppress such an
occurrence as this, but I desire that it should be announced apart
from the connecting circumstances known to me, so that the imagination
may not make popular heroes out of murderers. In this I am counting
on the assistance of yourself and your colleagues. May I beg you most
earnestly not to make known _anything_ concerning the Hull affair which
has not first been seen by me? We are living in an age of mental and
spiritual epidemics, and those who would help to bring healing must be
prepared to sacrifice themselves.”
“I will certainly act as you desire,” said the editor-in-chief.
“At the same time,” Wenk went on, “I wouldn’t on any account allow the
impression to get about that such a course is due to more complete
knowledge of the circumstances, or the exercise of authority on the
part of the law, you understand.”
“I quite follow you there,” said the sympathetic editor.
“Then I am grateful to you, and can only hope for good results from our
combined efforts. Our nation is in evil case.”
When he got home Wenk was anxious to go to bed and enjoy a few hours
of much-needed rest. It was already ten o’clock, but just then
his chauffeur, who acted as his personal attendant, brought him a
visiting-card bearing the name of Countess Told.
“I am quite disengaged,” said Wenk immediately, and the Countess was
ushered in.
“Is there any possibility of our being interrupted here by an anxious
wife who is not _au courant_ of the matter which is engaging our
attention?” she asked, as she gave Wenk her slender hand cordially.
“The happiness of possessing a partner for life has never been mine!”
answered Wenk, feeling a delicious sweetness in the proximity of this
woman. And yet she stood before him as something dreamlike, connected
with a life which he seemed to have led not long before. Between this
hour and that lay the mysterious occurrences of the night, and he was
unable to conceive that these feelings of love and longing could be
actually real.
She stood before him, and he found no word to say to her, while she
herself, insensibly influenced by the man’s force of character and
lofty aims, felt embarrassed by this silence, because it seemed to be
a confirmation of her own sensations. “Yes,” she confessed to herself,
“the feeling I have for him is ...,” but she would not utter the word
“love.” She blushed at the thought, a blush which Wenk saw. A tremor
passed through him, and he struggled with himself as he bent low over
her hand.
Then suddenly the vision of the murdered man rose before him, and he no
longer felt bold enough to betray by word or gesture the infatuation
which possessed him. He offered the Countess a chair, and while he
fetched another for himself his imagination was fired by an idea which
afforded a solution of the conflict waging within him. This woman, whom
he loved and to whom he was evidently not wholly indifferent, should
be associated with him in his undertaking, and their common endeavour
might bring about their own harvest. Then he said to her seriously:
“During this last night an acquaintance known to both of us, Edgar von
Hull, has been murdered. His friend Karstens is severely wounded, and
I only escaped because I had happened to leave, two hours earlier,
the locality into which we had been enticed. I believe I know the
instigator of this crime. It is once more the sandy-bearded man and
the old Professor. Its actual perpetrators have escaped, but we have
made one arrest, of a person who is also known to you. I mean Cara
Carozza, the dancer, whose liaison with Hull you are aware of. At
present I have hardly more than a profound conviction that she has had
some share in the crime, but I have thought of a way by which we might
loosen her tongue. If you, Countess, would undertake the unpleasant
enterprise of allowing yourself to be arrested, I would take care to
arrange for your being put into the same cell as Carozza. She does not
know you as Countess Told, but as a lady who frequents her own circles.
Represent your offence as a very trifling one, and say that you will
soon be set free, even if you are found guilty of taking part in an
illicit game.... Promise to help her, perhaps by flight ... and you
must previously have informed her that her situation is a very serious
one, and one never can tell what may happen to persons arrested in such
circumstances as hers.... She will then probably tell you who would be
able to arrange for her escape, and you understand the rest, Countess.
Are you willing to play the part?”
“I will carry out your wishes,” said the Countess, without stopping an
instant for reflection, and her voice sounded eager.
Wenk was sensibly touched by the haste, the ready zeal with which this
gracious and beautiful woman accepted his suggestion.
“Up to now,” she said lightly, “there has never been a chance for me to
do anything really useful, to engage in a bold enterprise with life at
stake, to study life at first hand.”
“And that is what you have been seeking in the gambling-dens?” he asked.
“I do not rightly know. I felt at home in those places, because there
seemed to be no barriers. In my own circle I could perceive the horizon
everywhere, and I could not endure that. I feel I owe you much....”
There was a smarting in Wenk’s eyes. He was overcome with a sensation
of longing; it took possession of him and tormented him, and he asked,
almost roughly, “And your husband?”
She answered calmly, “In every marriage, although you cannot know it
by experience, there is something of what the heart has sought left
unfulfilled. I rob my husband of nothing, if I try to find what I am
seeking without him.”
“I honour and esteem you,” cried Wenk, his voice trembling slightly.
“It is nothing but the natural law,” she countered; “and now tell me
what I am to do.”
“On a certain day, which you shall appoint, I will take you in my car
to the governor of the prison and we will arrange everything with him.
When would it suit you?”
“Next Saturday at this time.” She rose.
“The grey prison walls will begin to shine!” said Wenk.
“Because of such odd proceedings,” laughed she.
“No, Countess, your beauty will light them up,” and Wenk suddenly felt
as if he loved her with a passion which must be shining in his eyes. He
bent so low over her hand in adieu that he concealed his face from her,
and she yielded it to him in a gracious gesture that was almost like
the confession of a mutual understanding between them, then hastened
away.
Out in the street the blood mounted to her cheeks, and half
unconsciously she murmured the word she had suppressed, “love ...
love,” while in Wenk’s room there remained a scent of her which he
eagerly inhaled. Then pressing both hands to his face, and indulging
his secret and mysterious presentiments, he whispered ardently into the
darkness that concealed his vision, “Death and love ... death and love!”
* * * * *
In the course of the day the report of the murder ran through the city.
It arose from the dark quarter where Hull had yielded up his useless
and trivial existence. A dark patch remained there, and the pavement
was coloured with the blood that had been shed. The thaw had made the
gutters moist and muddy, and they had sucked in the dark evidences of
the crime, till from a mere patch it became a monster, reaching from
its own narrow corner to spread throughout the town. Folks came to seek
its source, drinking in on the spot the full horrors of the deed. They
saw the monster rear its head, rush towards them and through them,
leaving disorder, abuse and dread in its wake. Like a dragon it wound
itself through the alleys to the broad Ludwigstrasse, crept through
the squares to the very heart of the city, and began to overflow all
quarters, to escape from the streets to the houses. Like an underground
drain it ran all day long, its gloomy current and dismal stench
striking terror into men’s hearts or drawing thence a force which could
but find its outlet in evil.
Three days later a woman of the streets was murdered in the night, and
the assassin was caught the very next day. He was an “out-of-work,” one
of those relics of war-time, who had fallen into a state approaching
savagery. He confessed that he did not know what he was doing when
he pressed his fingers deep into the girl’s throat. Something seemed
to seize upon him in the dark when he came round that corner by the
Jägerstrasse, and drove him to do it.
The town was enveloped as in a misty fog, impressionable and passionate
as the human heart, and the spring beyond it was obscured. The lights
thrown on life became glaring, its shadows of a wild and overwhelming
blackness. Men’s hearts were torn in two, and everywhere there was
internal conflict.