Mabuse’s visit to Count Told duly took place. “Your neurosis is not
by any means an unusual one,” said the doctor. “It will be cured when
you regain control of yourself, but it will become worse and finally
be incurable if you don’t succeed in doing that. It is a precursor of
_dementia præcox_. For professional reasons I shall treat you in your
own home, as I do all my patients. I make one condition, however. As
long as you are undergoing treatment you must not leave the house or
see anyone who recalls your former life.”
Told was stupefied by the power and authority which this doctor assumed
towards him. Timid and shrinking by nature, downcast by what had
occurred, he did not venture to make any objection, and from the very
first moment he stood in absolute awe of him.
When Mabuse left the villa, in which he had seen many things which
revealed the life the Count and his wife had led, he said to himself,
“He must be got rid of if she even mentions him again.”
The doctor was in a highly excitable and savage state. The meeting
with this man, who had so long called her his own, had fired his blood
and inflamed him as if he had been a bull in the arena transfixed by a
javelin. He unconsciously lowered his head as if for attack, and his
imagination ran riot, thirsting to satisfy his hate and revenge. It
seemed to him as if a tumour had suddenly burst within him, scattering
its evil and offensive discharge everywhere, and he allowed himself to
bathe in its stream.
When he re-entered his house he went straight to the room in which the
Countess was confined. It was in a secluded corner of the villa. The
only light there was came from a round window in its arched and richly
decorated dome.
The Countess arose as he came in. She was white as the sheets upon her
bed. She went towards him, saying, “Something happened to me in the
night--something of which I was wholly unconscious. What have you been
doing to me?”
“Nothing but what you allowed me to do!”
Then the woman trembled so that she sank down to the ground, raising
her glance to his like an animal that has been shot down, and crying in
horror, “You devil! oh, you devil!”
“That name pleases me,” said Mabuse. “I consider it flattering. It
is, without your realizing it, a caress. Next time you will call me
Lucifer, for I shall bring you light!”
The Countess, lying in a heap on the floor, broke into passionate sobs,
crying in the midst of her anguish, “Where is my husband?”
Then she saw that at the question Mabuse made a gesture, so indifferent
and trivial that she felt her painful anguished appeal was no more than
a drop of dew vanishing in the sand, and as hopeless to look for. And
her downcast broken heart asked itself whether this man could indeed be
so powerful that everything went down before his will--that what she
and others before her had been must be brought to nought?
Once again she must yield herself to the twofold stream within. It bore
the most secret and hitherto unsuspected currents along with it, and
her tortured imagination gave them full play. Must not that which her
blood sought to reveal to her be true? She could not separate herself
from this new world of feeling. Resist and inveigh against it as she
might, she could yet not tear it from her.
The man stood silent before her, and his silence seemed to threaten
her. She thought that by a word of her own she could destroy this
threatening attitude of his, but she found no power to say anything
more than to repeat helplessly, “Where is my husband?” Then Mabuse,
silently and roughly, turned away.
When he had left her, leaving behind nothing but the impression of
his dominating will, she felt as if she missed something in the room.
She would have preferred him to stand there still, and her sense of
isolation passed all bounds, overwhelming her. A bottomless abyss
opened before her, and phantom figures made appealing gestures. But she
could not cast herself down; she hung on to one slender rootlet; she
knew it to be the tiny remnant that remained to her of her former life.
She wished too, that even this rootlet might be torn adrift, for she
would rather have faced death in its entirety than hover over the void.
* * * * *
Mabuse went backwards and forwards in his room. He was like a caged
beast, caught between his rage for vengeance and lust of domination on
the one hand and the resistance raised to the attainment of his goal
on the other. That which baffled him was such a trifle, merely the
memories binding a wife to the hours she has passed with her husband,
either alone or in company, and because it was so slight an obstacle,
the desire to remove and destroy it utterly possessed him with fury
such as he had not known till now.
Spoerri entered. He was dressed as a soldier. “What is that for?” asked
Mabuse morosely, but he did not wait for an answer, and asked about
George’s movements.
“He is at the villa in Schachen. He is very cautious, and does not go
out.”
“What is he doing there?”
“At night he helps to bring the store of cocaine under the summer-house
into Switzerland. I have found something fresh which they are ready to
take there. Ether.”
“What is the ether for?”
“Folks are beginning to take it.”
“Who? What folks? Where?”
“Our folks, in Switzerland!”
“_Your_ folks; how many have you?”
“We can get it to the others!”
“That reminds me of the girls you were sending to Switzerland, to speed
up the smuggling of salvarsan. I don’t want to hear anything about
business matters. You understand, nothing.”
“I won’t say any more about it.”
“Perhaps, Spoerri, there’ll be no need for that sort of thing any
more!”
Then a hoarse cry was uttered by Spoerri. “Oh, Doctor, Citopomar! Is it
to be soon now?”
“We’ll drink to it, Spoerri, we’ll drink to it. I don’t know. Let’s
drink to the shepherd boy with eighty-six thousand marks yearly income!”
“Oh, what have I out of it? Do I not always invest it again in one or
other of your enterprises, Doctor?”
“Because it brings you in ten per cent. more there than it would in an
insurance society. Shall I have to use force, shepherd? Drink, I say!”
Spoerri was the first to fall from his chair. He lay on the floor,
disorder all around him, gazing sadly at his master. He lay there
like a dog about to die, knowing that he could no longer protect his
master’s life.
Mabuse, tottering so that he was obliged to hold on to the edge of the
table to save himself from falling, stuttered: “Spoerri, do you think
there is anyone whose will is strong enough for him to kill someone
else without even touching him?”
But Spoerri did not understand him. He looked up at his master with
glassy eyes, stupid yet faithful, troubled and sick.
“_I_ can! and I shall do it, too!... Sleep,” he said suddenly, and
rising, he spurned the other with his foot. He took a few steps
forward, having to seek support. Then he pulled himself together,
and his will-power was held as it were within an iron vice. Rigidly
upright, without a sign of swaying, inflamed with drink and in a state
of exaltation, he went into the room the Countess occupied and remained
with her without saying a word. And from that hour of humiliation this
woman, too, acknowledged his supremacy. She forgot her past, forgot
her very self, and submitted willingly to her master.
* * * * *
During the night Mabuse started for Lake Constance. Just as he was
approaching the villa at Schachen, having extinguished his lights, he
narrowly missed a collision with the engine of the steam-roller which
was standing in the road a few yards from the garden entrance. It was
directly in front of him when he applied his brakes, and he therefore
did not drive up to the house, but continued along the road for another
kilometre, then left the car standing and went back to the house by the
shore-path.
“Why did you not tell me the steam-roller was here?” he asked George
imperiously. “Even a match-box lying out in the street might betray us.
Go and fetch the car, quickly! It is on the highroad near Wasserburg.
Put it away and come straight back here.”
* * * * *
Next morning the telephone bell woke Wenk from his sleep. “News from
the steam-roller,” he heard, and was at once wide awake.
“Yes, yes; please go on.”
“Last night about two o’clock a car arrived, and pulled up directly in
front of our engine, then drove on again. As it was driving without
lights, I ordered Schmied to follow on a bicycle. He found it about
a kilometre further on, left alone by the roadside, and came back at
once to report. I stole into the garden of the villa, but the dog began
barking and I went outside round the shore. I saw a man come from the
direction of the lake and go into the house. When Schmied and I went
back to find the car it had vanished. There is nothing to be noticed
this morning!”
“Thanks. You can expect me there to-day.”
* * * * *
An hour before this conversation took place on the telephone, while
still dark, Mabuse left the villa. He was wearing women’s clothes and
was rowed across to Nonnenhorn. A motor-boat approached, and in it was
a fisherman returning from a smuggling expedition. Mabuse accosted him,
but the man said he was in a hurry, for he must take his fish home.
Then Mabuse at one bound sprang into his boat, overpowered him, threw
him down and gagged him, and then transferred him to the rowing-boat.
He took off his female garments, beneath which he was dressed as a
fisherman, and making a wide detour, he returned to shore and went to
the farm where in a barn the car was concealed. George was lying in it
asleep.
After a long conversation with George, Mabuse turned and drove back
into Würtemberg, while George returned to Schachen.
Mabuse wanted to get to Stuttgart. His agents there had telephoned the
previous day that a patient wanted to consult him. That meant that they
had got hold of a rich man worth plucking.
While Mabuse was sitting at the gaming-table that evening, he had a
sudden vision of the steam-roller as it appeared directly in front of
him when he applied his brakes. The huge machine was outlined in the
darkness, and it seemed as if it were about to fall upon him, and to
his fancy it took on a strange shape, finally revealing the features
of the State Attorney. As he recalled it, it seemed to stand forth
like some antediluvian monster, bearing Wenk’s face, about to fall
upon and crush him. Mabuse felt vaguely uneasy, and he suddenly left
the gaming-table, where he was losing, and drove back in the night to
Munich. On the way this action of his seemed ridiculous, and he felt
as if his impulse had been unwarranted. “My desire for that woman will
conquer any fear of that accursed lawyer,” he thought, but yet Wenk
seemed to stand in his way, more powerful than ever. Why was he still
there? Had Mabuse’s order not been distinct enough? If not, he would
repeat it!
When once again in his house at Munich he went straight to bed. He
controlled his desire to go to the Countess, and fell fast asleep at
once.
* * * * *
When the road-menders in Schachen returned to work after their midday
rest, a man who had come out of the inn attached himself to their
party, saying that he wanted to speak to the overseer. Was it likely he
could find a job? he asked them.
“You can have mine this minute, if you’ll pay for it well,” said one
jokingly, but the man said that he only wanted the work so that he
could get some pay himself. “That’s another matter,” laughed the navvy.
“There’s the overseer standing there.”
The man went towards him, speaking in a low tone, and unobtrusively
drew him somewhat away from the rest. Yes, he could possibly get a
job, said the overseer, who was really a police inspector; let him
show his papers.
These the man brought out, saying, “Do not show yourself surprised,
inspector. Look as if you were reading the papers through, and take me
on to help the stoker on the engine. He is Sergeant Schmied, isn’t he?”
“Yes, sir.... Well, all right, I’ll take you on,” said the inspector
aloud. “We can give you some work. Come this way. Schmied,” he called
out. He explained to Schmied in an undertone that the State Attorney
was going to spend the day on the engine as stoker’s assistant.
“What have you noticed now?” asked Wenk of Schmied, as the road-engine
moved backwards and forwards.
“While you were on the way, the inspector telephoned to you, but you
had already started. Things seem very strange here. We saw the man go
to the villa that night, and we thought he must be the one who had left
the car standing in the road, but yet it doesn’t seem to tally with the
rest, for when we came back to the car it had disappeared. Early this
morning there was a woman in a rowing-boat on the lake near the villa,
but we could not be sure whether she actually came from there. An hour
later, Poldringer, the man we are watching, came from the highroad and
went into the house; but we had never seen him leave it, and that is
very curious.”
“You have no idea whether the villa has some unknown exit?”
“No, for hitherto our observations of Poldringer all tally. He used to
return the same way he went out. He scarcely ever leaves the place,
not once in three days.”
“Is there no way of getting into the villa?”
“Not without exciting attention. I see that by the way tramps are
turned away. They have a well-trained bloodhound there.... It would not
be possible to effect a secret entrance.”
“Is Poldringer still there?”
“Yes; I saw him at a window just now.”
“Had the car a number-plate?”
“Yes, the Constance district; here is the number.”
“That, of course, is a false one. It came from the Lindau direction, I
think you said?”
“Yes, sir. I telephoned the number to Friedrichshafen, Ravensburg,
Lindau, Wangen and Constance. From Constance they told me that the
number I gave belonged to a car in use by the Sanitary Commissioners
which never left Constance.”
“Isn’t it possible that the car had been expected at the villa, but
did not stop at it, either because they wanted to use it again shortly
or because something had made them a bit suspicious--the steam-roller,
for example?... and therefore Poldringer was told to wait for the
car in the street and take it to some place of concealment? During
that time the man who had brought it here arrived at the villa. He is
either still there with Poldringer or else he was the woman in the
rowing-boat, and he has driven to the place where the car is. We must
find out where they keep it hidden.”
“We often hear the sound of a motor-boat at night not far from the
shore, but we are not able to keep an eye on it.”
“I shall sleep in the trolly with you to-night, and we will stop the
roller half a kilometre further away from the house. Is there any
suitable place to hide in near the house?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll go together. Is that settled? All right, then; now I’m
going to learn how to lay out the stones. Hitherto, I’ve only laid out
criminals!” laughed Wenk.
“Yes, your honour,” said Schmied cheerily, as he released the throttle
and started the engine. “Will your honour please to stoke up!” And Wenk
heaped more coal into its glowing maw.
“Up to now your honour has never fired an engine, only criminals!” he
continued, carrying on Wenk’s joke.
“Yes, but not enough of those, as you see at the villa, my good
Schmied,” answered the lawyer. “However, I hope with your help....”
“We shall catch them all right,” said Schmied eagerly.
“If we don’t overreach ourselves, for I think we are dealing at the
moment with the most dangerous and daring gang in Europe. You know that
we have ascertained so far that it is a case of card-sharping, murder,
terrorization, and all of it done by the help of a gang.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Schmied.
As they were leaving the trolly that evening Schmied whispered: “I
should like to draw your attention to something, sir. Every evening I
go by as if I were taking a little rest after the day’s work, and I
light up my pipe. Just at the side there, you see, we are getting to
a little door. Whenever anyone goes by, the dog begins barking, and I
couldn’t help thinking there was some reason for it, but one can’t find
it out from the street. You see now, I am just close to it, and while I
am going by I fasten ... (just listen to the dog now!) a thread across
the door. Anybody who opens it would break the thread, but he would not
notice it when going through. In this way I can keep watch over the
door, even when it is not actually in view. Then I can tell whether
anyone has gone through the gate in the dark. In the morning I go and
look at it first thing, and take the thread away.”
“Is it there already?”
“I have just fastened it there.”
“Then you did it very smartly, for I did not notice anything,” said
Wenk, praising him.
“Let us go back. It really is a side-entrance to the other villa.”
“Do you know who is living there?”
“For the last thirty years an old maid has been living there. There
certainly is no connection between the two villas.”
They strolled back along the road.
“If you would like to go to sleep, Schmied, I have no objection. I know
what I’ve to look out for now.”
“Well, I really should be glad to, sir, for last night I got no sleep,
and I must be out there again before four o’clock.”
“I understand. Well then, good-night....”
Wenk continued his patrol throughout the whole of the spring night,
but nothing happened, and he noticed nothing out of the common. Next
morning he repaired to the hotel at Lindau, the address of which he
had notified before leaving Munich. The director told him he had been
rung up from Munich, and his man wanted him to know that Count Told
most earnestly desired to speak to him as soon as possible. The call
had come from his home at Munich. He seemed to be greatly agitated, and
begged the man to telephone the message on.
Wenk returned to Munich and rang up the Count, but an unfamiliar voice
informed him that the Count had started on a journey.
“Did he leave no message for me?” said Wenk.
“No.”
“Where has he gone?”
“He left no address. Please ring off.”
Wenk was thoroughly perplexed.