At four o’clock there was a telephone call from Frankfurt. “George
Strümpfli, artist, was born in Basle in 1885, and lived at the address
indicated from January 1st to December 10th last year. He has now gone
abroad, his whereabouts being unknown. In the records he is entered as
of Swiss nationality, and he is a married man.”
From the register of the town inhabitants Wenk learnt that Cara Carozza
was described as follows: “Maria Strümpfli, formerly Essert, known as
Cara Carozza, dancer, born in Brunn, May 1, 1892, arrived in Munich
from Copenhagen.”
Wenk wondered how the pronunciation of “Georsh” instead of George could
have arisen, for both these people were South Germans by speech, and
“Georsh” was only heard in North Germany.
He went again to see the dancer, who was now in a prison cell.
“I don’t want anything to do with you,” she said in a harsh voice to
Wenk. “You say you are going to help me, and yet you put me in prison.”
“It was not I: that is a mistake on your part. It is the examining
counsel, as I told you at once. I am only here to clear up one
difficulty in the case, and that is the name you called out. That is
the point at issue.”
“Indeed! you seem rather concerned about the verdict.”
“Yes, of course we are. If you were prepared to help us we might get
over the difficulty. Let me see, you said your husband’s name was Carl
... Carl Strümpfli, wasn’t it?”
“In case you forget it again, his name is George.”
“He is a Swiss?”
“You have evidently been inquiring about him.”
“Certainly,” said Wenk. “And so he is called George. Now tell me,
although you may think it a foolish question, had you any special name
for him?”
“No.”
“You never called him anything but....”
“George. No, only George. When can I get away from here?”
“Ah, that depends upon the examining counsel.”
“Well then, he ought to be here. It is shameful that a well-known
artiste like me should....”
“You see, unfortunately everything must take its prescribed course.
‘Without respect of individuals,’ as the legal phrase runs. I cannot
promise you any more than my own help.”
“You are going away again? And without me?”
“For the moment I cannot do anything else.”
The dancer turned away.
Wenk went to the scene of the crime. He had previously studied the
list of those living in its vicinity, and especially those in the
Finkenstrasse. He took two plain-clothes policemen with him, one of
them being the constable who had pursued the criminals as far as the
park wall. They examined the wall by daylight; it showed scratches
from the tips of shoes, and on the top was a trace of blood. Possibly
someone had been lifted up who grasped the top with his hands. In the
clear February day the light fell pitilessly on that trace of the
murdered Hull.
Wenk entered the houses, many of which, he perceived, led at the back
to the park. He spoke to all their occupants separately. Some had heard
a noise in the night, but they did not consider that anything unusual,
and in the houses themselves, as they told Wenk, they had heard nothing.
He examined the park on the other side of the wall. There was nothing
to be seen there beyond a trace of many footprints in one spot,
where they had apparently jumped down, for some of the impressions
were fairly deep. But this spot had been raked, and carbolic acid
thrown upon it. There was an empty tin near, which from its smell had
evidently contained carbolic. This precaution was doubtless taken in
case the police hounds should be requisitioned, and it might have been
put there beforehand, but he did not quite understand the reason, and
decided to test it by means of a hound. It took up the scent in the
Jägerstrasse, ran to the wall and jumped up on it, but when they lifted
it on the other side it went no further. It turned away in disgust
at the smell of the carbolic, ran up and down the wall and then back
again, always in the same direction, and yet always as if irresolute.
It tried to spring into the air.
Wenk had it lifted over the wall again, but when the hound was on the
top, and the man on the other side ready to receive it, it escaped from
him and ran, barking furiously, along the top. It did not run far, but
remained in one spot, barking, with its head downwards, towards the
yard of one of the houses, trying to jump down there. Then with one
spring the hound was over, running towards the house, where it stood
still at the outer wall. This Wenk examined closely, perceiving marks
of scratches occurring at regular intervals upwards. Here undoubtedly
people had climbed up by means of a ladder, and the tracks led to a
window on the first floor. The room it belonged to was empty, and he
asked the people of the house how long it had been so. Then all the
other lodgers were astonished, for they said it was occupied. One of
them exclaimed, “But Georsh is living there!”
Wenk’s heart gave a sudden leap.
“Who?” he said quickly. “What was his name?”
Again the answer was “Georsh.”
“Did you know him?” he asked of one woman.
“Certainly I knew Georsh!” she replied.
“Was that his surname?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who used to call him that?”
“The fellows who were always coming to see him.”
“So his name was George?” went on Wenk, desirous of being quite
certain.
“No, he was called Georsh,” answered one of them.
“Has he lived here long?”
Nobody knew exactly; some thought it was about a year, but he was
hardly ever at home. He tried to get a description of the man, but then
a curious fact came to light. Even about the colour of his hair they
could not agree. One said he was blue-eyed, another declared his eyes
were dark. He was rather tall and thin, and dressed like a sailor.
Again, he looked rather like an athlete.
“What was he then? What was his calling?”
“They said he was a commercial traveller.”
It was curious that there was no mention of this Georsh as an occupant
of the house; he was not on the list given to Wenk.
Wenk went to the Town Register Office, and with the help of the
officials he ascertained that one occupant of the house had been a
George Hinrichsen from the Elbe district. He had left the place about a
month before, and said he was going to Ravensburg, and after that the
room had been taken by a commercial traveller named Poldringer.
It was quite clear to Wenk that Hinrichsen and Poldringer the traveller
were one and the same person. It was just a month ago that Hull
had had that memorable conversation with Wenk. And Hinrichsen and
Poldringer were the same individual as the murderer of Hull, or at
least the person who directed the murder, and it was his name that the
dancer had called out. Possibly the direction Hinrichsen had taken in
departure also agreed with this, for Constance lay near Ravensburg,
and Switzerland could be reached from there.
Wenk telegraphed to the Constance head-office, with special reference
to the passport stations. A few hours later the police officials there
telegraphed back that a man named Poldringer had notified his arrival
there. He gave Bavaria as his native State, and this had struck the
registering official as curious, because the man used a dialect that
was unmistakably North German. On that account the police kept him
under surveillance. They ascertained that he frequented the society of
people who were suspected of smuggling goods across the Swiss frontier.
He often travelled by the steamer to Lindau. “Expect me to-day in
Constance,” telephoned Wenk finally.
Wenk immediately prepared for a journey. He could reach Constance
before night if the little monoplane belonging to a friend of his,
which was always at his service, were ready for a flight. He telephoned
to him and ascertained that it was.
At four o’clock he departed, and in the deepening twilight he descended
at the Petershaus aerodrome near Constance. The police described the
locality in which these profiteers and smugglers were to be found.
He disguised himself as a chauffeur and went to one of their inns to
get some supper. He addressed one man whom he thought to be of their
party, saying that he could get hold of two cars, and also some sort of
export licence, as long as it wasn’t looked at too closely, but if he
had the help of one or, better still, of two bold fellows it could be
done quite easily. There would be a profit of about ten thousand in
it, for the cars were bought in the autumn of 1918 and had been kept
hidden ever since. They were first-class cars that had belonged to two
generals.
The other did not take long to consider. He would broach the matter
to a friend of his, and the three of them would soon pull it off.
They went together later to another tavern, which the friend often
frequented, but he did not appear.
“What is his name?” asked Wenk. “Perhaps I know him.”
“He is called Ball, but you may have known him under some other name.
Most of us find it convenient to have one or two different names here;
you know all about that, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” said Wenk.
Then he grew suddenly pale, for just then a man entered, in whom he
thought he recognized the chauffeur who had driven him to Schleissheim
in the car filled with poison gas. Everything was at stake. Wenk’s
disguise was rather a sketchy one. Supposing this man were the Ball
they were expecting! If he came to their table and sat down, he
would probably recognize Wenk, and the whole story would come out.
He employed all his powers to regain his self-control, and tried to
disguise his features by contracting his facial muscles. He had already
taken the precaution of seating himself in a dark corner.
But the new-comer sat down at some distance from him at a large table
where several young fellows were already sitting. He had his back
to Wenk, but the lawyer felt he must not venture any further, and
promising a rendezvous for the next evening, he hastily took his leave.
He went to the police-station, stated where he had been, and described
the suspected man. The sergeant of police sent for a constable, who
said that according to the description the man must be Poldringer.
“Could we be certain of that? I should like the fact established during
the night. But I beg of you to proceed cautiously in the matter, for
this man is armed at all points!” urged Wenk.
Then he thought it would be better not to go there, said the constable.
It was but a small town, and all the police officials, even the
plain-clothes men, knew these profiteers. His sudden appearance might
give the alarm.
“Well then, I must manage without that. Do you know where he lives?”
“Certainly.”
“Then take me there at once.”
The sergeant took Wenk to a byway where stood a shabby old inn, which
was divided into many courtyards at the back. Wenk at once recognized
that it would be extremely difficult to carry through any arrest here
without a large body of police, and so many constables could not be
quickly and easily procured in a small town like this.
Opposite the house was an iron-foundry. Here Wenk spent the next
forenoon in company with a constable who knew Poldringer, the two
concealing themselves behind a dust-begrimed window.
When, about eleven o’clock, the man whom Wenk knew as the sandy-bearded
man’s chauffeur came out of the house, the constable nudged him,
saying, “That is Poldringer!”
“That’s my man!” said Wenk.
In the afternoon he had a consultation with the head of the Criminal
Investigation Department. Wenk said it was not a case of arresting one
man, but of getting rid of the whole gang, for here in Constance, as
one might say, there was but one division of the army whose general
headquarters was in Munich, and until one could lay hold of the leader
it was not worth while to secure a dozen or so of his accomplices.
Wenk advised their not making use of the announcement of a reward of
five-thousand marks for information (which had been drawn up contrary
to his wish), but rather that they should keep a close watch upon what
they now knew to be one of the haunts of the gang. That would be the
safest way of entrapping their leader, for if they seized the chauffeur
now, his master would receive emphatic warning. And this man, Wenk told
them, was undoubtedly one of the most daring criminals to be met with
in the last ten years. It was not only a money reward, but fame, that
might be looked for, and the constables all promised to do what they
could.
In the evening Wenk met the young man who was going to help him get rid
of the cars at a big profit. His friend had left the town, he said, for
things had gone badly of late. Switzerland was overdone with German
goods, and the German authorities seemed to be regaining their control
of the Lake. They might soon be starving, he said. But _he_ knew what
to do. He wasn’t going to starve, and sooner than be driven out of the
place by hunger, he would join the Foreign Legion. Then at least he
would be safe from the German authorities. He could fill his belly in
peace, and if he were shot down it would be as a free man, whereas if
he stayed here he was bound to end in quod.
Wenk asked what he had to do to get into the Foreign Legion.
“Oh, that’s easier than ever it was,” answered the man. “Before the war
you had to go to Belfort, but now that’s not necessary--you can join up
here.”
“Well, that’s a good thing to know. What’s the address of their
headquarters?”
“Oh, you only need go to the ‘Black Bull’ and ask for Poldringer, or
else come in the evening to the tavern we went to yesterday, for he
was sitting there. He had got a lot of them at his table, and I told
him I’d think it over. If our honk-honk business comes off, I shan’t
need to, though, but we can’t get hold of that d----d Ball; he’d want
to stand in with us, but I expect he’s got something good on somewhere
else. By the way, Poldringer was asking after you last night. You must
belong to his part of the country, eh? He said he thought he knew you,
but I told him you were from Basle and wanted to get two cars across,
and he said, ‘Oh, then it can’t be the man from Munich,’ but I thought
to myself a man might have been in Munich and yet be in Basle now, eh,
mate?”
“I’ve never been in Munich,” said Wenk; “he must have mistaken me for
someone else.”
“Well, it’s all the same thing, anyhow! We’ll get those cars through,
eh? By the way, can you stand me a trifle of ready on the job?”
“A fifty?” asked Wenk.
“Oh well, if it’s not inconvenient, I’d like two fifties.”
“One’s all I can spare at the moment,” said Wenk, pulling a fifty-mark
note out of his waistcoat-pocket.
“You needn’t be afraid of showing your purse, even if it has a hole in
it,” remarked the man.
“You wouldn’t buy any more with fifty out of my purse than you can with
that one!”
“Well, all right; no offence! Where are you staying?”
“In Barbarossa,” said Wenk, at a venture.
“Oh, if the folks there get hold of you, you won’t get out of their
clutches, I can tell you! You go to the ‘Black Bull.’ They’ll look
after you properly there, and everything is arranged so that you can
fly off as easily as these greenbacks will. Not a trace left behind!”
Next morning Wenk flew back to Munich. His trip had been successful,
and the journey in the pure clean air, cold though it was in the upper
regions, invigorated him. He felt as if he were gathering the threads
together in his hand and they were about to form a vast and invisible
net, and he, the fisherman, felt himself ready and able to drag it in.
* * * * *
An hour before Wenk took up his stand at the grimy window of the
iron-foundry opposite the “Black Bull,” the following conversation was
carried on between Constance and Munich:
“Hulloa, Dr. Dringer speaking. Who is there?”
“Hulloa, this is Dr. Mabuse. What is it, please?”
“The invalid seems to be staying here. I am not quite certain yet
that it is he, but I thought I recognized him. I am anxious for
instructions.”
“That’s very strange. He was in Munich to my certain knowledge just
about four o’clock yesterday. What time did you think you saw him,
Doctor?”
“At half-past seven!”
“But the express does not leave until 7 p.m. and only reaches Lindau at
11 p.m. Even if he had used a car he could not possibly have reached
Constance by half-past seven!”
“It is possible that I may have been mistaken, but hardly likely. I
can’t at once abandon the idea that it was the lunatic we are searching
for.”
“Well, in any case, my dear colleague, prosecute your inquiries, and if
you are convinced, use the safest means at your command.”
“You mean the strait-waistcoat, Doctor?”
“Certainly, for you know he is dangerous to the community. Have you any
other news? What about those neurotic patients?”
“They are quite ready to go to the sanatorium, and they start
to-morrow.”
“Good. That’s all, thank you. My best wishes to you, Doctor.”
Mabuse went up and down his room in considerable excitement. How could
it be possible that the State Attorney, who was still in Munich at 4
p.m. should have been seen in Constance at 7.30 p.m.? Might not George
be mistaken?
He dressed himself as a messenger and repaired to the Amandastrasse,
where Wenk had his chambers. He rang his door-bell, and a servant
opened to him.
“Can I see the State Attorney?” he asked.
“He is not at home. Give me the letter.”
“I was to give it to him personally.... When will he be back?”
“I do not know.”
“Has he gone away for long, or shall I be able to hand him the letter
this afternoon?”
“His honour did not leave word.”
“Ah, then I must rely on you,” said the messenger. “You will be sure to
deliver the letter, won’t you?”
“Certainly, give it here,” and the man glanced at the address, but it
was directed to the State Attorney, Dr. Müller, and he said, “You are
making a mistake. Herr von Wenk is the barrister who lives here.”
“Good heavens, so they’ve given me the wrong number! I always say,
‘Write it down, gentlemen.’ And so I’ve made a mistake here. Where does
the gentleman I want live?”
“I don’t know him at all.”
“Well, there’s nothing for it but to go back! Good morning!”
The pseudo-messenger went off, knowing only half he wanted to know. On
the way, enlightenment came to him. “Of course,” he said to himself,
“he must have gone by aeroplane, and I can guess why....”
For an instant a mist swam before his eyes, so acutely did he feel
this discovery of his. For the first time he measured his adversary’s
powers. No one had ever used such means against him before. George had
not yet sent off the discharged smugglers. Were they the reason of this
hasty visit to Constance? Had his--Mabuse’s--band of watchers failed
him? The matter became more difficult and dangerous every day, and
recently several agents of the Foreign Legion had been discovered and
arrested.
“If Wenk has the whole gang imprisoned,” thought Mabuse, “one of them
might blab enough to bring the inquiry home to me, and then for the
first time I shall no longer be safe. I must have him got out of the
way.... Why did George let him go, if he had even a suspicion that it
might be the lawyer? A plague upon the soft-heartedness that allowed
him to escape us at Schleissheim! My life is not safe until he is wiped
out of existence! I shall have to prepare for flight, and I will be
off to the Swiss frontier unless I know for certain by eight o’clock
to-night whether George is arrested or not. Where did George see him?
If I only knew that, for it all depends upon that! I am consumed with
impatience, and my hatred of this destroyer of my peace is burning me
like a fever. Supposing I never reach my kingdom of Citopomar!”
Then Mabuse went home again, carrying a parcel for himself under his
arm. He must be prepared for all eventualities. Should his dwelling
be already secretly watched by the police, he was a messenger who
had something to deliver, and there were cigars in the parcel. But
his chambers were empty, and there was nothing suspicious in the
neighbourhood.
That evening he did not leave his house again. It was safer for him to
see from the window who was coming to him than to find, on returning
after absence, that someone had effected an entry and was watching at
the window for him. He must be ready for anything that might happen!
He spent the evening in examining his finances. There was yet six
months’ work to be accomplished in Germany before he had the amount
he had decided would be necessary. There he knew the ground well, and
anywhere else it would take at least a year to accomplish the same
result. The languages he was conversant with necessitated his being
in countries where German and English were known. Six months! The
words throbbed in his brain, and the blood mounted to his heart. “I
shall stay!” he said aloud in his lonely room, and it seemed as if the
defiance these words awoke rang through him like the blow of the hammer
on the anvil.
Next morning at half-past seven there was an urgent telephone call from
Constance. “Doctor Dringer speaking! I am sorry, but I fear I have
misled my esteemed colleague. There is no further trace to be seen.
Everything is in readiness for departure, and the other patients are
prepared for their journey.”
“It was a pity, Doctor. Ring up again this evening!”
“You swine!” Mabuse growled between his teeth at his window, looking in
the direction of Wenk’s chambers. “If it were only for this half-hour
of uncertainty, you should pay for it with your life! The first attempt
failed through a mere accident. There shall be no accident the next
time!”
Mabuse left his house on foot, went to one of the fashionable hotels,
and asked for the general manager, Herr Hungerbühler. Yes, he was
there, and would be found in Room 115, he was told.
When Mabuse entered the room unannounced, it was empty. “Spoerri!” he
called softly. Then a cupboard door opened and Spoerri came out.
“Wenk seems to be in Constance. George has just telephoned to me. Look
after the matter. How is Cara getting on in prison?”
“It would be safer if she were out of the way altogether. Dead men tell
no tales!”
“No, I have already told you once, she is safer alive than dead,”
answered Mabuse quickly.
“In any case, I have got one of the warders under my control.”
“Why?”
“To contrive her escape, if she’s to be allowed to live!”
“Fool!” cried Mabuse angrily. “I tell you she is safer where she is.
If they were to break open her mouth with a crowbar she would never
say anything. Stop talking such d----d nonsense. She is to come out
when I leave Europe, not before! I came to tell you that I give you a
month to get rid of Wenk. I make it so long, so that it may be safely
undertaken. Make a note of the date, for he’s not to live a day longer
than that!” and Mabuse went off, without a word of farewell.
X
Next evening Dr. Mabuse was invited to spend the evening at the house
of Privy Councillor Wendel, who was interested in hypnotism. After
an early supper an interesting medium would appear. In her trances
memories were awakened within her which referred to her very earliest
days ... to a time when the mind was not developed enough to be able to
record or describe the physical existence of the moment.
Mabuse had made the Privy Councillor’s acquaintance through a patient
of his, an aristocratic and wealthy dame, who had suffered from severe
neurosis and whom Mabuse had very successfully treated by hypnotic
suggestion. In the company were to be found not only professors, but
also authors, artists and the reputed friends of art, such as frequent
the society of the wealthy and fashionable nowadays.
Mabuse’s neighbour at the supper-table was a lady whom he recognized
with astonishment and perplexity. In the gambling-dens she was known to
his accomplices by the nickname of “the dummy.” The lady was Countess
Told.
Throughout the meal he devoted himself to her, paying her every
possible attention, and relating to her eager ears tales of strange
and wonderful experiences in hazardous places, of the chase of wild
animals or of human beings in parts of the world that are little
frequented. He spoke with a grim earnestness, a savage unrestraint,
enjoying once more in recollection the powers he had exercised in such
circumstances. He realized what it was that drove this woman to the
gambling-dens, and it seemed as if this sudden disclosure gave him a
pang, as if there opened up within him a chasm and a gulf so deep that
only a palpitating human heart could fill it. With his imagination and
with his bold recital he was pursuing such a heart, as in the jungle he
had pursued the tiger. The hope of conquest inflamed his blood; he felt
he must make it his own.
It was this woman’s heart he wished to subjugate. He was consumed with
passionate desire as he read in her eyes how his recital fired her
blood. That was the kind of life she craved, and her nature understood
and responded to it. He painted wild scenes for her; he showed himself
struggling for conquest with body, soul and spirit pitted against
unrestrained nature, and he desired her to believe that this wild and
unrestrained nature was within her.
She trembled at his words, and, swayed by his ardour, a longing for
support and tenderness overcame her. The recitals by which he sought to
enchain her interest aroused so forceful an impression of human power
that it seemed, in tearing herself away from them, she was actually
tearing a fragment of living, bleeding flesh when she sought out
her husband with an almost supplicating gesture, as if desirous of
protection from a force too powerful to endure.
Mabuse saw her gesture, and the blood mounted to his forehead. He was
flushed with passionate desire, and could no longer bear to see the
glances of others rest upon her ... other strangers address her ... the
lips of other men pressed to her hand ... or the thought that any other
will should impose itself on her. His was the call of blood that should
reach her, and inflamed with passion and desire, he left the house and
drove home.
All his thoughts were centred on her, however, and as he rapidly
increased the distance between them, and as it were tore the bleeding
flesh from his body, he called out to the image which filled the
yearning gulf within him, “Death and desire! death and desire!”
At home he drank until all around him had dissolved in the mists of
intoxication, and he no longer saw anything but her heart, her bleeding
heart, snatched by his hand from her lovely body, held in his grasp,
enticing and inflaming his passion.
* * * * *
At length came the day when Countess Told should enter upon her prison
experiences. She repaired to Wenk’s chambers, and he took her to the
building, making the governor _au courant_ of the whole story. Before
being led to the cell, she asked, “How long am I to stay there?”
“As long as you like, Countess,” replied Wenk. “It all depends upon
your skill, but of course you have but to say the word and you are
free in an instant, even if you have not achieved your object.”
“I have plenty of time,” she answered, “but I should like to ask for
leave next Monday, so that I can keep an appointment.”
“Most certainly, we can easily arrange that. With your permission, I
will come and fetch you. Besides, you are sure to have something to
report by then!”
“Finally, Dr. Wenk,” said the Countess, “I want you to know that my
husband is in the secret, and you will go and see him, won’t you?
Promise me!”
Wenk assented. A warder took possession of the Countess, and as she
went with him she smiled back at Wenk. “Good luck!” cried he, ere she
vanished along the corridor.
* * * * *
The Countess had left the Privy Councillor’s house in a strange
tumult of feeling. The stranger who had so impressed her had suddenly
disappeared, but his forceful personality had left its mark, and she
could not free herself of it. This mysterious and compelling power
of his effaced the image of Wenk, and the latter receded into the
background.
When the door of the cell opened before her, it seemed as if the time
she had to spend in this narrow space, this strange, cold chamber, so
far removed from the world, would be a period of probation, a time of
testing for herself.
She was to see the stranger again on Monday. “I am asking your
neighbour at the supper-table next Monday for another sitting with
our medium,” the old Councillor had said to her with a mischievous
smile. “He must make up for lost time, because he was called away
unexpectedly. But if he did not see the medium asleep, at any rate he
found Countess Told awake!”
“All right! I shall be pleased to meet him again,” she had answered in
a friendly and noncommittal tone.
The door of the cell closed behind her, and she saw a figure seated on
a stool, but it did not turn round. “Well?” it said growlingly.
“Good morning,” said the Countess.
The dancer turned round slowly. When she at length faced the Countess,
the latter uttered a little cry, and with well-feigned astonishment
hastened to Cara, exclaiming, “What, _you_ here, my dear! But we know
each other! What a strange coincidence!”
She began chattering at once, as if quite oblivious of Cara’s sullen
mood. “Just imagine, they actually caught us all--at Schramm’s--the
most noted resort of them all! I can tell you there was a fine to-do,
my dear. One man sobbed, another tried to jump out of the window, and
you know they are all shut up tight! Somebody sat down and wailed,
‘Oh my wife, my four children, I am disgraced for ever!’ There was a
tremendous fluttering in the dovecot. I could not slip away in time,
and so they got me too! Tell me what is the best thing for me to do?
There’s nothing wrong in entering a gaming-house, and I have never once
played!”
But Cara only eyed her gloomily.
“Do say something. Is there anything the matter?” pleaded the Countess.
“The matter is that I want you to leave me alone,” answered the other.
“Was the young gentleman with the fair sandy beard there?”
“The one who played against Basch, you mean? No, he wasn’t there. I
have never seen him since that night.”
“Was the old Professor there?”
“No, I didn’t see him either.”
“Then you needn’t tell me any more about it; it doesn’t interest me.
The whole world isn’t worth a pin. I am miserable, for I am forsaken
and betrayed. There’s no interest left in life for me. I am lost and
undone, and no one troubles any more about me than if I were a frozen
field-mouse. What dirty dogs they are!”
Suddenly she sprang from her stool and seized the Countess by the
shoulders. “You were with the rest of us. I want to drum it into your
head,” she continued with increasing vehemence, “that there never was
anybody so treacherously betrayed as I have been. And there was no
reason for doing it, for I was an artiste, a well-known and admired
artiste, and here I am now, forsaken and betrayed! Cast aside like a
squeezed-out orange!”
“Why did he forsake you?” asked the Countess shyly. In her own mind
she seemed but a simple child in the presence of this wild and
passionate personality. Yes, he had forsaken her, left her for ever,
she reflected, and she shuddered at the thought. And now he was dead.
At the moment she felt doubtful of the enterprise she had undertaken.
“He is dead,” she said in a low voice which vibrated.
“Who?” cried Cara.
“Your friend ... Hull!” answered the Countess, preparing to enter
sympathetically into the girl’s feelings, the image of Wenk growing yet
fainter in her subconscious mind.
But the other exclaimed passionately, “What are you saying? The man I
mean is not dead; he is alive, and yet I sit here in prison. Yonder in
the town outside he stands, strong as a tower, firm as a rock, I tell
you! How can a puny thing like you know what he was? All others were
as dirt beneath his feet, and their faithlessness too small a trifle
to consider! Hull is dead, but what does _that_ matter? Who cares an
atom about _him_? But that other, the master, the lord, he lives there
in the free air, where there is light and love and life ... where he
might bear to have me lying at his feet, like a rug that only serves to
warm his toes. He is the great man, the lord, the master! He is a bear,
a lion, a royal Bengal tiger, do you hear? He does not belong to this
cold and frosty land; he comes from Bengal, from paradise, from a place
I shall never see again! And I--I--am left to linger in this dungeon!”
Suddenly she said, quite calmly and seriously, “Tell me, do you think
there are men whose will is so strong that they can break down even
these walls when they know how passionately I desire it?”
“There are no such men outside, but within us there are!” answered
the Countess, carried away by the vehemence of that passionate storm
of feeling which had so lately broken over her. How contemptible it
was of her, she thought, to have desired to outwit a human being. She
felt mean in her own estimation, and casting all projects and promises
to the winds, she began to glow in the presence of this strange
personality like the spark of an electric current. “Yes, they are to be
found in us!” she repeated.
“He! he! the conqueror!” sang Cara, with a sound of passion in her
tone, and in the Countess’s heart, too, there sprang up, like a marble
image, the form of the man she had met a few evenings before. On her
heart this image was sculptured, and she allowed its impress to recur
again and again and remain there.
“Do you love him?” she asked the dancer.
But the other answered, as if brushing away an unconsidered trifle, “I
... love? I _adore_ him!”
“I do not love him!” hastily asseverated the Countess, pursuing the
mental image she had conjured up. “But yet he is great, superhuman. He
is a world in himself. In the midst of this tame and quiet existence
he is as a jungle and primeval forest. It seems to me as if he must
have both the tiger and the serpent within him, as well as all that
is boldest in Nature, its gigantic trees, its wild and impenetrable
forests. Do you know, one can creep within them, never coming to an
end, and yet be in him!”
She broke off suddenly. She dared not put into words the fancies evoked
within her. For the husband whose eccentricities she tolerated was no
more to her than a brother--nay, a father. They were bound together by
one voluptuous hour of which no human being knew or even suspected. It
was such an hour as that in which two human personalities melted into
one to create a new being that later on might emerge and begin a life
bound by invisible ties to that mysterious hour. The threads might be
torn from their place, snapped, distorted, yet they remained entwined.
No other desire now possessed her than to yield her senses once more
unrestrainedly to that consciousness of the depths of her being which
enfolded her as in a dream, and which she nevertheless continually
thrust aside.
The two women sat close together, the Countess on the ground.
Both seemed alike to be struck down by an invisible and imperious
fist, striking at these centres of abandonment and yearning and
self-betrayal. After the hasty and intimate avowals forced from them,
the shadow of silence fell upon them.
“Say something!” pleaded the Countess timidly.
“Be silent, or I shall strangle you ... with my own hands!” cried the
dancer.
The Countess shrank back, feeling herself, beside the other, to
resemble a hare in the claws of a mighty and powerful bird of prey.
Food was pushed into the cell, but neither of the women perceived it.
It grew dark, and the dancer lay down, fully dressed, upon one of the
plank beds. The Countess imitated her and stretched herself on the
other straw pallet. The night passed by, and in the long sleepless
hours their fancies flowed into a dark and turgid stream.
Suddenly in the gloom Cara’s voice was heard: “Are you asleep?”
“No.”
“Why are you here?”
The Countess had not the courage to repeat her tissue of lies, and she
remained silent. Cara, too, kept silent for a while, then she said
suddenly:
“You were sent here to pump me! Have I told you anything?”
“Yes.”
“About _him_?”
“Yes.”
“Did I tell you his name?”
“No.”
“That’s all right then, otherwise you would never leave this place
alive. But if you are lying, and I had told it you, I tell you now,
he _has_ no name. He is a thousand men, a whole nation, a part of the
universe!”
“Just like the man I have been thinking of,” reflected the Countess,
but an instant later she did not know whether she had not spoken her
thought aloud.
“When are you going away again?”
“When you want me to.”
“Then go at once, and tell everything I have told you!”
“No,” answered the Countess resolutely.
“Why don’t you, when that is what you came here for?”
“Things are different now.”
“Nothing is different,” asserted the dancer vehemently. “Everything is
as it was and will ever be. He is out there, free as the air; I am here
like a carcass rotting on the ground. Tell everything you know.”
“I shall say nothing!”
“Why not, you--you cursed hussy!” she shrieked.
“Because you love him so!”
Then the dancer grew calm again, but a few moments later she burst into
tears and sobbed wildly and unrestrainedly.
The Countess lay still on her pallet. She felt as if a naked soul with
claws, whence the skin and tissues had been withdrawn, were clutching
at her heart and holding it within its grasp. She felt her own blood
shudder and leap up beneath the claws and mingle with that of the
other. This naked soul that clutched at her was her sister. She was
akin in blood to the criminal yonder, but neither of the women knew
that he who had thus caused their hearts to beat in unison during this
night in prison was one and the same mysterious being.