XV

That same morning Mabuse had visited Told. “You are not so well, I can

see,” said he to him. “Your pupils are very much dilated.”

“Is that a sign...?” said Told hesitatingly.

“Yes. Don’t talk about your state; put it entirely out of your head.

Where is your wife?”

The startled Count could not venture on an answer.

“Your wife did not want to live with you any more--never any more!”

went on the Doctor harshly. “That is so, isn’t it? You must destroy the

past, break off all relation to it. Call your man here!”

Told rang, and the man came. The Count, with a gesture, referred him to

the doctor.

“Has anybody telephoned?”

“No, Doctor.”

“Has anyone rung up from here?”

“I did,” answered Told.

“Whom?”

“Dr. von Wenk.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to speak to him.”

“What did you want to say?”

The embarrassed Count answered, “Only ... to speak ... to speak to

some human being or other!”

“Is your servant a bullock, then, or am I one?” asked Mabuse harshly.

“You can talk to me if you want to. What crazy idea has got into your

head?”

The Count turned his head away; he no longer had the courage to face

his doctor.... “Is he going to cure me?” he asked himself. Then he

looked up at him timidly and irresolutely. “You are no human being:

you are a devil!” was the secret cry of his heart, but these fierce

thoughts soon left him, and he felt suddenly sleepy. “I am always so

tired!” he exclaimed.

“Tell your man now, in my presence, to refuse all visitors or anyone

who telephones. He must say, ‘The Count has gone on a journey. He left

no address. Please ring off.’”

Slowly and mechanically Told repeated the order, and the man bowed and

withdrew.

“I am really not sure whether I shall go on with your case,” said

Mabuse. But Told hardly heeded him; he seemed to feel a slow poison

stealing into his veins.

“You are thirsty!” said Mabuse, suddenly.

“Yes, I am,” whispered the Count.

“You are to drink a mixture of brandy and Tokay, as much as you like.

Take good long draughts--the brandy will do you good. You must forget

everything in your past, your wife as well. When you are convinced that

you have succeeded in doing that, you are on the road to recovery.

You must destroy the past, you understand. The alcohol will help you

there.”

“Destroy the past,” stammered the Count, as if sinking into a bog that

threatened to engulf him, “destroy ... the ... past....”

“In two years’ time you can think about resuming your ordinary life

again. In what time?” he broke off suddenly. “What time did I say?” he

thundered.

The Count aroused himself from his lethargy. Horrified at the length of

time involved, he answered in a low tone, “Two years.”

“Do you know that your wife wants to put you into a lunatic asylum? She

is getting the State Attorney, Wenk, to help her. Was not that the man

who rang you up?... I am coming again to-morrow.”

The Count remained alone, dejected and humiliated. It seemed as if

elephants were trampling out his brains, that his spirit was a prey

to crocodiles and he was covered with mud and slime. “The whole world

has forsaken me,” he murmured. The pictures he had collected around

him seemed to be celebrating orgies on the walls. He could no longer

understand how it was they could ever have pleased him, nor why he had

endured them so long. He took a hunting-knife and slit every one of

them from top to bottom, hacking at their frames. When he had done it,

he sprang back in horror. He held his head in his hands, groaning, “Oh

God, am I really mad?”

He began drinking brandy, and he drank it out of a claret tumbler.

When he had had three glasses he was intoxicated. Then it seemed as if

the doctor had left something behind him and that this lay in front of

him. He did not know what it was, but he tried to grasp it, and then

suddenly it had jumped to his head. It seemed like a wedge fastened

there, fitting tightly between the two halves of the brain. Fear seized

upon him and tore his courage to shreds. “Doctor, Doctor,” he shouted,

and he heard his voice re-echo in the empty rooms. The world was so

wide, yet he was alone. And then he became unconscious.

* * * * *

Karstens succumbed to his wounds, and again the public imagination

busied itself with the death of a second victim. Wenk found himself in

a difficulty and decided one day to make a final appeal to the dancer.

He went to her cell.

“I am not going to speak to you,” said Cara when she perceived him.

Wenk took no notice, and said in a troubled tone, his hopes

disappearing: “Do you know that the beautiful lady who was always

looking on at the play at Schramm’s has disappeared?”

“Not the one you sent to me in prison?” answered the dancer instantly.

“Yes,” said Wenk, and it was not till he had uttered the word that

he perceived the significance of this admission. It was all very

mysterious. Had the Countess revealed her errand to Cara, and was she

in league with the gamblers? It seemed incredible, but yet how strange

it was that Cara, who would not at first speak to him, at once gave him

her attention when he mentioned the Countess. Wenk did not want Cara to

think that he was astonished at this, and went on talking, while he was

trying to consider how he could best arrive at the secret; but he did

not stop to reflect upon the ideas that came uppermost. In the course

of the conversation he hazarded a conjecture that had often occurred to

him when he thought of Cara’s connection with the criminal, but which

he had never mentioned till now. He said, “You are sacrificing yourself

for this criminal because you could not make up your mind to part from

him.”

Then Cara sprang up, staring at Wenk as if convulsed. He looked her

right in the eyes, and noticed that an expression of overwhelming

horror stood in them, and was clearly written upon her distorted

features.

“Well?” he asked, encouraged and hopeful.

But Cara remained as if frozen in her stony attitude.

Then he ventured further. “If we came to some agreement, I could make

proposals that would be to your advantage.”

Slowly the dancer recovered from the horror that had seized upon her.

For the last three years, ever since Mabuse had repulsed her, her life

had been a story of self-sacrificing martyrdom and devoted adherence

to the man who had wrought her ruin and driven her to crime. Not for

a single instant had she thought of betraying him, of refusing her

allegiance. Indelibly stamped upon her whole nature like the brand of

a slave was the feeling that mastery and might such as his could never

be contested. And now, through Wenk’s words, she beheld this man whom

she adored threatened with danger. What did the State Attorney know,

and how had he obtained his knowledge? Had the Countess betrayed her

after all? Slowly she evolved a plan by which to discover how much the

lawyer knew. She might possibly convey a warning to Dr. Mabuse, and at

the thought her blood was fired and the delicious sensation of feeling

herself his deliverer, and perhaps, too, regaining the ascendancy she

had lost, stole over her. No, it could not be, she dared not even

conceive of it; to save him from danger would be enough for her, to

know him secure would be bliss. Finally she said, “Since you seem to be

better informed than I imagined, I will speak, but you must give me two

days to think it over.”

The dancer had learnt from the warder that someone had been inquiring

about her, and from the description given she believed it to be

Spoerri. She would therefore have an opportunity of telling him about

her interview with Wenk and warning him of what might occur.

“Very well,” said Wenk, relieved. Then he thought he would clinch the

matter, and as his previous supposition seemed to have hit the mark, he

imagined it a favourable opportunity to inflame her imagination still

further, so he said, “I am trying to get on the track of the Countess;

she seems to be in hiding with your friend.”

He was so ashamed of these words, however, that he blushed as he

uttered them, recalling with painful intensity his few meetings with

the missing lady--meetings which had bound him so closely to her. But

the effect of his words on the dancer was wholly unexpected. She fell

back on her pallet, sobbed aloud, tried to speak, but could utter no

word, and then she clenched her fists and raised them despairingly to

her brow.

Wenk went off quickly, thinking it best not to disturb this attitude

of mind but to let her yield wholly to its influence. As he opened the

door a man stumbled against it, but it was only the warder, who had

come, as he said, to look at the prisoner as his duty was just at this

time. “All right,” said Wenk, and he made his way out.

* * * * *

Shortly afterwards the following things occurred. Near Hengnau, on the

borders of Würtemberg, a man was detained and arrested as he was about

to drive cattle to Würtemberg. At first he pretended to be dumb, but

afterwards he raged furiously at his capture. The examining counsel, in

order to intimidate him, said one day, “You had better confess before

the new law is passed. If you are tried before then you may get off

lightly, but later on it may cost you your head.”

“What new law is that?” asked the man.

“The crime of endangering the food distribution is punishable with

death.”

“What sort of death?”

“Probably hanging!”

“And if I am convicted before that is passed?”

“You won’t get more than a year’s imprisonment at the most.”

Then he suddenly confessed, and his confession opened many doors. He

confessed all that he had been doing for years and gave the names of

all the profiteers known to him. Many arrests were the result. Every

day afforded fresh opportunities, and finally one day the name of the

man whom Mabuse had dismissed on the highroad to Lindau--Pesch--was

mentioned.

Pesch was arrested, and his first night in prison was spent at Wangen,

which was his native place. When the warder entered his cell next

morning, the prisoner had disappeared. A few hours later a telephone

message came to the Wangen police. In a wood on the highroad to Lindau

a man was lying dead. It was undoubtedly a case of murder.

An inquiry took place on the spot. The dead man was Pesch. He had been

stabbed, and as they raised his body they saw on the large white stone

on which it had rested certain signs which had been written in blood.

The very same day experts deciphered these signs. They stood for “Villa

Elise.”

The mayors in the neighbouring districts were asked whether they knew

a villa bearing this name, and thus it was soon ascertained that

at Schachen there was a villa so called, and it was under police

surveillance.

Wenk was at once informed, and he drove to Lindau. The two detectives

who were in charge of the steam-roller had ascertained that Poldringer

had left Schachen on a bicycle the very day that Pesch was imprisoned,

and had not returned until three o’clock the next morning.

Then Wenk arranged that two motor-boats should be stationed on the

lake. They were made to appear as if they were Customs’ official boats,

and were provided with searchlights.

Another human life had been sacrificed, but this fresh murder had

revealed something more far-reaching and dangerous than had yet been

suspected. It was certain that the gang was taking part in this

profiteering movement also, and it became clear that its leader had

created an entire yet invisible State to carry on his purposes and

give effect to the deeds his will imposed on his fellows.

Pesch left a wife and five children, and since the family breadwinner

was gone, they were in absolute danger of starving. Then Wenk sought

out Edgar Hull’s father, to obtain help for them, and the idea suddenly

occurred to him, “Why not establish an educational institution, a real

home-school for the children of criminals, taking them in under an

assumed name? Perhaps that would be a good way to lay out your money.

The children, who so often inherit the parents’ characteristics, could

be watched over and perhaps influenced for good in their early years.

If it were not possible to eradicate their vices, at least they could

be kept apart from their fellows and removed before they have a chance

of harming them. In this way a large proportion of the criminal class

might be rendered harmless and many people would be saved....”

“I will do it,” said Hull, “and I am grateful to you for the

suggestion.”

* * * * *

The next evening Wenk was walking from the Marstall to the

Maximilianstrasse, and as he passed the Four Seasons Hall he thought he

saw someone he knew in the crowd in front of him struggling to gain an

entrance; but he could not recall who it was, and went straight ahead.

As he walked on he strove to remember whose back and shoulders it was

that had seemed so familiar, but he could not place the individual.

Soon afterwards he came to an advertisement window in which the scheme

of a popular lottery was displayed. The large letters could be seen

through the dusty pane, and the words “Lucky Chance” stood out. These

words at once gave Wenk the clue he had been seeking. The back he had

noticed belonged to the sandy-bearded gambler.

He was astounded at the discovery. He had been seeking this man for

many days and nights all over Germany, and here he was, and he had

passed so close by him that he could have touched him on the shoulder.

He turned round at once, went back to the hall and at the entrance

he read a notice stating that Dr. Mabuse was giving a lecture, with

experiments, there that evening.

He immediately ordered one of the constables standing outside to fetch

six plain-clothes men and tell them to close all the exits without

exciting any attention, and when the detectives were placed, he entered

the hall. It was an easy one to search, and he went from row to row,

while the lecturer was engaged in preparing his experiments. Wenk

took up a position here and there, and looked at the folks one after

another. But nowhere did he find the owner of the back which was so

impressed on his mind.

He noticed some of his acquaintance. There was Privy Councillor Wendel

sitting in the front row, and a legal colleague of his was there with

his wife and grown-up daughter, but he behaved as if he saw nobody

and continued his eager search. It was all in vain, however. Then he

took a sudden resolve, went outside again, and gave the detectives

the following orders. All the exits were to be locked except one. Two

detectives were to enter the hall, and one of them was to go on to the

platform at once and request the audience to leave the hall quietly,

one by one. Both were to see that there was no one left behind. The

four others were to stand at the folding doors and let the people pass

through singly, only one half of the door being opened.

Wenk himself would stand by the door, and if he gave any order for

arrest, two of the detectives would at once take the man aside and

handcuff him. The two others would then only have to take care that no

one got near the man arrested. All were to have their service revolvers

ready for use. There was great excitement in the hall when the

announcement was made, and several cries of disapproval of the order

were heard. The detective strove to pacify the disappointed audience.

Mabuse’s first thought, when he heard the Secret Service agent’s

announcement, was a doubt whether he should have ventured on this

public appearance, but he soon dismissed the troublesome idea. Yes,

he had been right, for it provided him, in concentrated form, with

the nourishment upon which his mind battened. With such hypnotic

powers as he possessed he must always be in relation with a larger

and unknown public. To feel his power over the narrow circle to which

his professional duties bound him, the members of which were known to

him, was not enough for his insatiable ambition. His sphere must know

no limits, and with these weird and mysterious gifts of his he could

exploit the triviality and credulity of his fellows and at the same

time give full play to his hatred and his lust for domination.

Upon such a stage as this he felt as if born anew. It was here that

he had inaugurated his reign of power, when the war sent him from

his South Sea plantations back to his home, a ruined man, and this

domination of his he could not renounce. While these thoughts were

passing through his mind he went to the detective and asked what had

happened. “You must inquire of the State Attorney, sir,” said the man.

“Dr. von Wenk is just outside.”

Mabuse turned pale and walked away, going rapidly towards the Privy

Councillor, whom he saw still sitting in the front row. As he went,

he felt in his pocket to make sure that his revolver was safe, and

sensations of hatred and defiance went through his whole body,

fastening as it were like a brand upon his mental image of Wenk.

“First of all you, and then ...” he said to himself, but he was already

smiling in the Councillor’s face.

“Your hypnotic powers,” said the latter, “seem to be giving the State

Attorney some trouble!”

“Is that Dr. Wenk?” said Mabuse, drawing back as if astonished.

“I saw him just now going from seat to seat and fixing an eagle eye on

everybody here, as if to pierce through coat, waistcoat and shirt to

reach a guilt-burdened conscience. He does not seem to have found his

man, however.”

Mabuse’s breast heaved, inflated at the thought of his success. He

felt like a horse in sight of its manger after a long and weary road.

Although he clearly understood what the words implied, he nevertheless

asked the Councillor, “How do you know that?”

“It is quite simple, for if he had found his man, he would have let one

of the detectives take him out without disturbing your lecture.”

“That is true,” said Mabuse. “Let us go.”

He pressed towards the door, taking the Councillor with him. He was

thoroughly on the alert, looking behind him to see that he did not

lose touch with Wendel, and also ahead, where lay the danger he wished

to avoid. Whenever any movement threatened to separate him from the

elderly savant, he used all the cunning at his command to get near

him again. It was above all essential not to leave the hall exposed

to Wenk’s gaze as a solitary individual. The Councillor, who was old

and well known, must help him to throw the hound off the scent. He was

aged, however, and could not hurry; but Mabuse dared not be the last

one to leave, closely eyed as he would be by a disappointed man who had

not found the quarry he sought. There were still some others behind

him, to whose party he might attach himself, so that he need not be the

last.

One thing was certain. It was he, and none other, whom the State

Attorney was seeking, but Wenk did not know that Mabuse was his quarry,

or he would have had him arrested on the platform. How had he got upon

the track? Was it a mere guess that had started him off? Was there

treachery in it? No; _he_ would never be betrayed. Could Wenk have

recognized him, one of those evenings at the gaming-table? No; it was

impossible, his disguises were too perfect for that, so....

Then a hand touched his, and Mabuse looked into Spoerri’s inquiring

eyes, and saw beside him another man of his bodyguard, and he

immediately looked away again unconcernedly. Spoerri and his accomplice

were pressing towards the exit in front of him. Mabuse went on

thinking, and came to the conclusion that mere chance had put Wenk on

this track, some faint resemblance or recollection, some movement or

action.... In any case, Wenk must see as little of him as possible, and

since his back would be exposed to him longer than any other part, he

put his arms through the sleeves of his overcoat and thus altered his

appearance.

And now he had reached the exit with the Privy Councillor. He quickly

pushed him in front, following closely on his heels. At the moment when

Wendel stepped to the door, Wenk was ordering a detective to tell two

men who were lingering on the stairs to move on. Mabuse heard the man

say, “Shall I arrest them?” Then he looked ahead and saw that the order

referred to Spoerri and his subordinate. Mabuse sought to catch his

eye; he took his pocket-handkerchief out with a flourish and blew his

nose loudly. Spoerri saw it and understood, and at once withdrew with

his companion.

Mabuse saw Wenk shaking hands with the Councillor. Then it was his turn

to come forward, and Wendel introduced “Dr. Mabuse.” Without taking

his eyes off the door, through which the light from the hall was now

streaming, Wenk shook hands with Mabuse, saying courteously, “You won’t

be annoyed with me for carrying out my duty, I hope, Doctor?”

Mabuse answered with affected friendliness, his hand on the revolver

in his pocket, “Certainly not; I must naturally take the second place

when it is a question of the good of the community, whom you are

endeavouring to rid of a criminal.”

He had already passed on. Wenk nodded to him, but did not look round

again, as his gaze was still fastened on the door.

The Privy Councillor took Mabuse’s arm going downstairs. Mabuse

accompanied him to the gentlemen’s cloakroom and then took his leave.

One of his cars was waiting in the Maximilianstrasse, and right and

left of him at the entrance to the _foyer_ his people were standing

in readiness for anything that might happen. Spoerri had taken up his

position at the main door of the hall, to keep watch upon the stairs;

then he went out behind Mabuse, and the others, who were in small

detached groups, always ready to close up at a word, followed them. It

was not until Mabuse had taken his seat in the car and driven off that

they dispersed, each going a separate way.

Driving homeward, Mabuse reflected that he had committed one act of

folly. He ought at any rate to have asked when he would be allowed to

give his experiments. This fact depressed him, and he felt that he

had failed in some way. He would never have done anything so foolish

formerly, and the idea occurred to him that perhaps his power was on

the decline, and that it was now time for Citopomar.

Then suddenly he shouted aloud, “No! this is due to that woman! Wenk

wants to hang me, the woman makes me feel old, and she is delivering

me over to the gallows.” Why should this woman, young and beautiful as

she was, who had abandoned herself to her lot with despairing fatalism,

make him feel old? Her abandonment of herself was like wine to him, and

this idea started another train of thought. He was in conflict with

himself. There was no enjoyment in the thought that he had escaped

a great danger, and in the midst of his uneasy reflections he had a

sudden breathless conviction that she made him feel old because he

loved her. Then he felt a hatred of himself, gathering into one mighty

heap all the fierce and bitter hatred he had cherished for others and

pouring it out on himself. So strongly did he suffer from the burden

of these chaotic feelings that his brain grew giddy. But now he had

reached his house.

All the wrinkles in his face were deepened and intensified, but it was

his eyes that looked most dreadful, and the Countess trembled as he

entered her room. No longer were they of the steely grey of an agate,

but rather seemed shot with rays of copper colour.

“What has happened?” she asked.

Then he told her something quite different from that which he had meant

to tell her.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked, and his tone was one of frenzied

delirium. “I am a werwolf; I suck man’s blood. Every day my hatred

burns up all the blood in my veins, and every night I fill them again

by sucking the blood of some human being. If men caught me, they would

tear me into little bits. I will bite through your white throat, you

tormenting witch!”

The Countess started as if stung, and, mad with pain and torture, cried

aloud, “Kill me then! What could be better than death?”

“But I love you!” cried the voice of the man beside her, who seemed to

be possessed by devils.

The woman hid her face in her hands. It was the first time she had

heard such a confession from that imperious mouth, and it stirred her

to the depths of her nature. Her free spirit had been snatched from

the world and confined in a fortress whence there was no escape. Her

life was a dead thing, but the blood within her raged in dread and

mysterious tumult, inflamed and excited by the power of this man. Her

dead soul was afire, and there was nothing left to consume: whence then

came this flame?

Mabuse left the Countess without saying another word. “I have told her

enough,” he said to himself. He threw himself down on his bed, but

could not sleep. He felt as if something new had come into his life,

till then so steady and changeless, as if the danger which he had

always been able to grasp and bring to nought had eluded him and were

sinking into the icy black gulf in whose depths his life and actions

were grounded. For hours he tried to grapple with this new force and

subordinate it to his will, but evermore it seemed to evade him.

Then he returned to the Countess, lying fully dressed and sleepless

on her bed, and he said, “We must talk matters out. Our fates are

entwined, and we must go through life together. From some source or

other of my existence my blood has received something which revolts

against a peaceful and well-ordered life, and will not permit to others

a power above its own. Thus it is that I have become, as it were, the

chief of a robber horde. I have known but two states: the desire to

dominate and the necessity to hate! But now you have come upon the

scene. At first I thought that your spirit would be consumed in the

twin flames that inspire mine, but it is not so. Hundreds have been

consumed by them, but you seem to feed upon them, and they nourish you.

When I am intoxicated, not forgetting my hatred, but putting it on one

side for the time being, because there are more beautiful things, I

often name to you one name--Citopomar. Citopomar is not the outcome of

a disordered fancy, the result of a fit of intoxication. It is a virgin

forest in Brazil, far in the interior. It is being cultivated for

me. All the money I can wring from this petty community of miserable

wretches on this side of the world is being employed there. There is my

country, the land in which I shall end my days. First of all, I thought

of myself there with my harem. Now I know it is there I shall be with

_you_. It is a forty days’ journey to the nearest human dwelling, and

the human beings there could not endure life here, but they cannot

be reached, for the Botocudos would not let anyone pass. It is even

possible that my agents, who have been carrying out my plans, may have

deceived me, and that when we arrive there we may find there is no

kingdom of Citopomar. But no one can deceive me about _you_!

“My professional life here has extended to ever-widening circles, and I

could live a good deal longer under the protection of the State and in

well-ordered society. To-day, however, I had proof that folks are on my

track, and henceforth I must act cautiously. A ship is being built for

me in Genoa. I do not travel by strange ships, but sail under my own

flag. The ship is to be ready on the 1st of June, and on that night we

will embark. Between this and then, however, there is nearly two months

to pass. I cannot rest, and until the very night of our departure I

shall still be a robber chief.

“We will be wary. You must go to another house. It is quite as well

guarded as this one, but if they should discover this one, they will

catch you. I am probably about to leave the place, and at midnight

to-morrow you will depart. Spoerri will take you to the new home.”

As incapable of resistance as of mental participation in his schemes,

consumed in the devouring flames of this man’s all-powerful domination,

the Countess endured his conversation and took his orders. Her fate lay

in his hands.