LINDBERG
When Hammersley entered the house with von Winden he was immediately
aware that a crisis had come in his affairs, for in the hall leading
to the living-room stood Captain Wentz and two soldiers, and when he
was shown into von Stromberg’s presence, the Councilor stood with his
back to the hearth, his long legs wide apart, his hands behind his back
and the expression of his long, bony face was not pleasant to see. He
smiled and frowned at the same time--a smile which possessed so few
of the ingredients of humor that the tangled brows even seemed less
ominous. Doris was nowhere to be seen. Hammersley made no sign of his
prescience of trouble. He put his pipe in the pocket of his leather
jacket, strolled forward into the room and stood at attention. “Search
him!” snapped von Stromberg. And when von Winden had finished, “Leave
us,” he said to the officer, “and keep within call, I shall need you
presently.” He waited until the door was closed and then turned to
Hammersley somberly.
“Your jig is danced, Herr Hammersley, Fräulein Mather has confessed.”
“Confessed what, Excellenz?” questioned Hammersley calmly.
“She has told the truth.”
“Of course, that was to be expected of her.”
“Bah!” roared the General. “There’s no need of more of that. She told
me that you were an English spy.”
Hammersley started forward, the only expression on his face one of
complete incredulity. “Fräulein Mather told you that? Impossible!”
“Do you mean to say that you don’t believe me?”
Hammersley managed a smile.
“It would hardly be good ethics for me to say that. I simply repeat
that it is impossible.”
“Why?” Von Stromberg sneered.
“Because it is morally impossible for her to tell an untruth.”
“_Ach_, so. But it is _physically_ impossible for her to keep from
_not_ doing so.” He leaned forward, grinning craftily. “In the small
games of life, in the things which amount to nothing, women lie with a
careless skill that is amazing, but in a game of life and death, their
little tricks are negligible. Pouf! Herr Hammersley, did you expect to
match mere falsehood and such a tissue of flimsy evidence against a
man of my experience? It was a desperate game from the beginning--one
which could have had only one end. You have been clever--very, very
clever. In time, perhaps, under proper guidance and with the necessary
political opinions, you could have succeeded in becoming a very useful
helper of the Universe, through the medium of the Secret Service
Department of the German Empire. But such cleverness is superficial and
quickly burns out in the hotter fire of genius. I would like you to
know--”
“One moment, Excellenz,” put in Hammersley coolly. “Am I to understand
from your attitude that you believe I am false to the Vaterland?”
Von Stromberg laughed.
“You still insist on acting out the part?”
Hammersley did not answer the question. Instead he asked, “Will you be
good enough to tell me upon what new evidence you base your present
position?”
The Councilor strode to the table and thrust the telegraphic message he
had shown to the girl under Hammersley’s nose.
“This,” he growled. “I will read it to you. ‘Hammersley caused arrest
of Byfield. Has informed on Rizzio and myself----’ It’s signed
‘Maxwell.’ What do you think of my evidence?” He grinned, “Convincing,
_nicht wahr_?”
Hammersley looked up into von Stromberg’s face with a smile.
“Not even in code, Excellenz? It is a pity you did not write it in
English. But under the circumstances you can’t expect me to take any
interest in such a trick.”
“Not you, Herr Hammersley,” he chuckled. “It is not necessary that
you should believe in it. In fact there are reasons why you shouldn’t
believe in it, the most important reason being that Herr Maxwell is
dead.”
“Dead!”
“Obviously. You condemned him and he was put in prison. If he is not
dead it is through no fault of yours.”
Hammersley smiled. “You cannot get me to acquiesce in such strange
statements.”
“I do not ask you to acquiesce. I could not expect to catch Herr
Hammersley by a trick. But Miss Mather was less difficult.”
Hammersley’s jaws set. “I understand. But do you mean to say that I
can be incriminated by a confession made under the stress of a terror
artificially produced?”
“That is a clever turn of phrase, Herr Hammersley, worthy of the high
regard with which I hold your abilities. In reply I can only say
that in time of war my deductions in all matters connected with my
department are final. You are an English spy, Herr Hammersley, and you
are quite aware of the penalty.”
Hammersley raised his head and folded his arms. “Quite,” he replied,
“if you choose to take that action. I can only say that the time will
come when you will regret it.”
“I must take that chance, for there will be no trial.”
Hammersley shrugged his shoulders and turned aside. His face was white
and the muscles at his jaws worked for a moment, but otherwise he gave
no sign of emotion. General von Stromberg had gone back to his favorite
pose by the mantel and Hammersley again heard his voice.
“It seems a pity, Herr Hammersley, that after all it should be you
instead of Herr Rizzio who is the culprit. You are a type of young
man very much to my liking, and the position of the young lady is
unpleasant in the extreme. She has served her purpose here and I shall,
of course, take immediate steps to have her returned to her own people.”
“Thanks,” said Hammersley dryly.
“But the thing that has interested me in your case from the first,”
he continued with a return of his mastodonic playfulness, “and indeed
still continues to interest me, is why you should choose to return to
Germany when you knew that you were under suspicion. Surely you did not
come here to pick cowslips in March? Come now, I could have you shot
this afternoon if I chose. Tell me the truth and I will promise to
postpone the affair until tomorrow.”
Hammersley studied the pattern in the rug thoughtfully for a moment,
and at last he straightened and shrugged again.
“I don’t suppose there is any use playing the game further. Since I am
to go, it doesn’t matter if I tell you. I have planned for some time to
be able to get plans of the recent additions to the fortifications of
Strassburg.”
“_Ach, so._ Strassburg! And what, may I ask, were to be your means of
procuring them?”
“That, of course, since my utility has ceased, cannot possibly be of
interest to you.”
Von Stromberg studied him narrowly for a long moment and then wagged
his head sagely. It was an unnecessary suspicion that he had cherished.
This had been a case with interesting aspects, but after all it was
not much out of the usual way. An English spy betrayed by the simplest
of tricks upon the credulity and affection of a woman. He thought that
Hammersley had been after bigger game. Plans, fortifications--the same
objects, the same methods. Von Stromberg had tried to puzzle out in
the mazes of his wonderful brain the possible chance that this man
could have had of learning of the whereabouts of Herr Gottschalk’s
memoranda and of the momentous decision which had been reached in the
Wilhelmstrasse with regard to them. He studied Hammersley closely,
with something approaching regret that the contest between them
could not have been waged at greater length and for higher stakes.
He felt a genuine human sorrow at this moment over the impending
fate of this handsome young man who was only doing his duty for the
fatuous English. It was too bad. But there was much else to do.
Tomorrow his mission in this part of the Empire would be ended and the
Wilhelmstrasse was calling. He touched the bell upon the table and
Captain Wentz entered.
“Herr Hammersley is to be taken to the room on the third floor. Tonight
you will see that he is securely bound and a guard set over him, within
the room. You will place another guard outside below his window. If he
tries to escape, shoot him.”
Wentz spoke to the man in the hall and Hammersley, between them, was
led to the foot of the steps, and followed his captors to the upper
story. He knew, in view of the instructions that he had overheard, that
any effort to escape would be fruitless. He sat on the edge of the
bed submitting calmly while his feet and hands were bound under the
direction of Captain Wentz; after which the officers went out, leaving
a man to guard him, and locked the door. Hammersley rolled over on the
bed and lay for a long while staring at the wall. The day was fading
into dusk. Five o’clock, it might be, Hammersley guessed. Six hours or
less remained to him in which to act. Six hours in which he must lie
helpless while the one chance of intercepting the messenger from Berlin
came and passed. He lay perfectly still as he had fallen, but his
spirit writhed in agony.
Doris was in a room near him, likewise a prisoner, aware of the fate in
store for him and able to do nothing but wait as he would wait until
the shots were fired below there in the garden, which would be the end
of all things for him. He found that he was thinking little of himself.
It was Doris and what she must be suffering that occupied the moments
of his thoughts which were not given to the remote chances of escape.
His bonds were tightly drawn--a rope tied with German thoroughness.
He moved his hands behind him and tried to gain a little room for his
present ease. If he was to be shot tomorrow morning it would have
seemed indeed a small charity to have permitted him to pass his last
night in some degree of comfort. Could it be that, after all, von
Stromberg suspected the real object of his return? That hardly seemed
possible; for his informant in Berlin, a woman close to those in high
authority, had made every move with the utmost discretion and his own
relations to Lindberg could not possibly be suspected.
Lindberg! Hammersley turned and looked at his guard who was standing
motionless by the window, gazing out at the fading landscape. Lindberg
was his one, his last desperate hope. Udo von Winden, his cousin-- It
was too much to hope that Udo would be of service to him. He had caught
a glimpse of Udo’s face in the hallway downstairs when von Stromberg’s
orders were given. He had gone pale and stared at him in pity and
horror as Hammersley had gone up the stairs, but Hammersley knew that
the ties of kinship, the memories of their boyhood together, were
nothing beside the iron will and indomitable authority of the great man
who had condemned him. Udo would suffer when Hammersley died, for there
had been a time when the two had been much to each other, but he would
do his duty, however painful, as a small unit of the relentless machine
which Hammersley had had the temerity to oppose. What else could be
expected?
A word, a sign, the slightest aid to such a prisoner, and he would be
as guilty as his cousin. Hammersley knew that he did Udo no injustice
in supposing that any help from such a source was out of the question.
If Udo had been caught in England as Hammersley was caught in Germany,
Hammersley knew that he could do nothing to save him.
But Lindberg! Here the case was different. It was Lindberg whose life
Hammersley had saved three years ago in this very forest, when the
Forester had stumbled and fallen in the path of an angry boar who would
have gored him to death, if Hammersley had not shot the beast. Lindberg
the Forester it was, who, in his hours off duty, had been Hammersley’s
chosen companion in many a hunt up through the rocky gorges of these
very mountains, every stick and stone of which he knew as he knew his
own rugged face in the mirror. It was Lindberg who had been so useful
in keeping him informed of the exact state of affairs at Blaufelden. It
was Lindberg who had learned of the microphone that von Stromberg had
installed and it was Lindberg who had listened at the receiver upstairs
in von Stromberg’s room to the conversation when the Councilor had told
Captain Wentz the nature of the documents from Berlin and the hour of
their arrival.
Already Lindberg had repaid a hundredfold the debt of Hammersley’s
service and it was quite possible, now that Hammersley’s actual mission
had been discovered, that he would take to cover, his mind clear in the
thought that he had done all that could be expected of him. But there
was a warm affection between the two, born of many a long day in the
open and many a night by the campfire where the old man had taught him
the Foresters’ secrets of the trees, the birds in their branches and
of the many four-legged things that scurried beneath them. They had
often talked, too, of many other things, and Hammersley had learned
that Lindberg’s politics were those that one learns under the open
sky--the eternal peace of Nature, before which war and men, its armed
instruments, were a blasphemy.
Perhaps Lindberg would find a way. But what way? How? Udo von Winden,
too, was aware of the woodcraft fellowship, for often he had made their
duet a trio. Hammersley knew that Udo von Winden as yet suspected
nothing of the services Lindberg had rendered him and he wondered
whether in this pass the ties of kinship would be strong enough to keep
him silent as to the possible capabilities of the old Forester for
mischief in Hammersley’s behalf.
Hammersley hoped. He clung to the thought of Lindberg’s fidelity and
affection as a dying man clings to the hope of Heaven. He tried to
analyze the old man’s capacities for sympathy and courage. To help a
man in his position seemed to require larger stores of both of these
qualities than human clay was molded for. Lindberg did not fear death,
he knew, but the death he courted was the kind of death Hammersley had
saved him from, a good death in a fair game with a noble enemy, not
the kind of death that awaited Hammersley, a cold, machine-made death
against a kitchen wall. And he must know as Hammersley knew that this
was what would follow.
The dusk faded into dark and the soldier lit a candle. Hammersley
turned his head and examined him attentively. His face was unfamiliar
at Blaufelden, one of the men probably sent down at von Stromberg’s
orders from the upper district to be useful in just this emergency.
Von Stromberg would make no mistakes, of course. He never did make
mistakes. He had enough men about him to cope with the situation
safely. He would leave no opportunity for his plans to miscarry. Any
opportunity, should there be one, must be created. Hammersley managed
to wriggle into a sitting posture on the bed and spoke to his captor in
German.
“You wouldn’t mind my having a smoke, would you?” he asked.
The man looked at him, debating the matter.
“Just get into the side pocket of my jacket and fish out my pipe and
tobacco, _mein junger_. I need a smoke badly. And so would you if you
were going to be shot in the morning.”
“_Ach, wohl._ I see no harm in that, _mein Herr_. You cannot smoke
yourself away.”
He came over, brought out Hammersley’s short pipe, filled it from
the pouch and stuck it between his lips. Then he got out a match and
lighted it while Hammersley puffed.
“Ah!” said Hammersley contentedly. “You are a good fellow. Tomorrow
morning I will give you my blessing.”
The man paced stolidly up and down beside the bed.
“I am sorry for you, _mein Herr_. But it is life. It is all decided for
us beforehand. We are here a moment and then we are gone.”
Hammersley smiled.
“A fatalist! Then perhaps you can tell me if there is any chance of my
escape.”
He was stopped abruptly.
“I can tell you that there is not,” he said severely.
“I would have said as much. But it was a pardonable curiosity, _nicht
wahr_?”
“Pardonable, _ja wohl_,” the man replied, “but most unseemly under the
circumstances.”
“You have a deep sense of your responsibilities.”
“_Ja._ I obey my orders, that is all. I do not care what others do.”
“Therefore you will shoot me tomorrow.”
“Perhaps,” he shrugged. “I am but an instrument of Providence.” He
waved his hand. “But I talk too much, and so do you. It is not seemly
in a soldier and a prisoner.”
Hammersley laughed. “You have a fine sense of the fitness of things.”
“_Ja._ It was so written.”
He relapsed into silence and in spite of efforts on Hammersley’s part
refused to speak further. It was only after Hammersley badgered him for
his unsociability that he spoke with some asperity.
“I will trouble you to be quiet. When I am relieved, my successor may
let you speak and laugh as much as you please. But it is unnatural in a
man at the point of death. It would be better if you were saying your
prayers.”
“I am sure that you are right. But I still have a few hours. Perhaps
you wouldn’t mind telling me the hour at which you are to be
relieved--the hour when we are both of us to be relieved?”
The man gazed at him uncomprehendingly.
“After supper.” He finished indifferently, “Eight o’clock, perhaps.”
Hammersley was silent. Two hours or more to wait before a change of
guards, and then only a chance that Lindberg would be able to do
something. Even then if he managed to get loose, there was left little
more than an hour in which to reach the road by which the machine would
come from Berlin, and even then what should he do without Doris? His
case was desperate. Only a miracle it seemed could make a success of
what had been a pitiful failure; only an act of Providence could save
him from the discreditable end that awaited him.
He drew up his knees and studied the knots at his ankles. His guardian
was the one who had tied them.
“You tie a good square knot, my friend. You were once a sailor?”
But nothing would induce the soldier to talk.
As the supper hour approached, Hammersley could hear the rattle of pans
and dishes downstairs and noticed the odor of coffee. They would not
starve him, of course. In a little while someone would come with food.
After a while, which seemed interminable, the noise of the rattling
dishes ceased and there was a sound at the door into the hall as the
key turned in the lock and Captain Wentz entered. His sturdy back had
never seemed so ugly nor so welcome, for the silence and the inaction
were getting on Hammersley’s nerves. The officer came over to the bed
and gravely examined the knots of the rope that bound the prisoner.
Then, satisfied with the results of his inspection, he straightened and
glanced around the room.
“_Gut_,” he muttered. And then to the soldier: “You will go down and
tell Lindberg to bring Herr Hammersley’s supper. I will stay here
in the meanwhile. You will then relieve the man at the door of his
Excellenz.”
The man saluted and departed. They still trusted Lindberg. Then Udo
had suspected nothing, or if he had suspected, had kept his thoughts
to himself. Hammersley lay back on the pillow preparing a stolid
indifference for Lindberg’s entrance. And when the meal was brought,
Wentz untied his hands and stood over him with an automatic while he
ate.
“Your weapon makes a poor relish, Herr Hauptmann,” said Hammersley with
a laugh.
“I greatly regret its necessity,” replied Wentz with his machine-made
politeness.
Hammersley ventured nothing further, eating silently, and with a
surprising appetite, for good Lindberg’s face in the background had
given him new courage. When the meal was done, he asked for his pipe
again and Wentz ordered the Forester to fill it. Hammersley inhaled the
smoke and exhaled a sigh.
“So far as I am concerned, Herr Hauptmann,” he said with a smile, “when
this pipe is finished you may kill me at once.”
He extended his wrists behind him in silence while Captain Wentz took
half a dozen turns of the rope and made it fast. Hammersley sat up in
bed puffing at his pipe and wondering whether some miracle might not
be induced that would kill Wentz. But he was quickly disillusioned,
for when Lindberg took the dishes and moved toward the door, he heard
Wentz’s crisp orders:
“You will send Max Senf to take the first night watch upon the
prisoner. He is awaiting my orders in the guard room. _Schnell._”
Without even a glance at the prisoner Lindberg saluted and went out
and Hammersley’s spirits fell. Help from Lindberg was impossible.
Von Stromberg was taking every precaution. There was no way out of
it. Hammersley was doomed. But while Wentz was in the room he kept a
cheerful countenance, though for the first time in his life that he
could remember his pipe was acrid. He saw the new guard enter and heard
the last orders of the officer.
“You will watch until one o’clock when your relief will be sent. The
prisoner is to be allowed no privileges. Under no circumstances are his
hands to be untied. If he wants water, you will give it to him with
your own hands. _Verstehen sie?_”
The man stood erect and saluted. “_Zu befehl, Herr Hauptmann_,” he said.
Hammersley saw the door close and heard the key turn in the lock while
Senf came forward into the room and stood by the foot of the bed.
Hammersley studied him closely: a tall, loosely jointed man in his
early thirties with the heavy brows and high cheekbones of the East
Prussian, the face of a Slav, almost, with something of the thoughtful
intensity of the South German mystic. His eyes were large, his nose
thin and his face was bearded, but the lines of his mouth had a
sensitive curve, belied by the big bony hands and broad shoulders. A
sentimentalist, perhaps!
Hammersley determined to try him, for a plan had been forming in his
mind. He had noticed with a glance which had included everything in the
room when he entered, a Bible upon the mantelshelf, and in a tone which
had in it a solemn sense of the doom which awaited him in the morning,
he addressed his guardian quietly:
“Senf, you have a kind face. There is a small favor that you may do me.”
“If it does not conflict with my orders.”
“Not at all. Tomorrow morning I am to be shot. All I ask is that you
will allow me to read for a while the Bible upon the chimneypiece.”
“_Ach!_ I see no harm in that.”
He went over and got the book, opening the pages and looking through
them.
“It is little enough for a dying man to ask,” he said.
“_Danke_,” said Hammersley quietly, his face solemn but his mind
working rapidly. “It is but right to make one’s peace with the world at
a time like this.”
“I am sorry, _mein Herr_,” said the man mournfully. “It is not good for
a man to die in the first flush of youth.”
“If it could only have been in the open, Senf, a soldier’s death, but
this--_Ach, wohl_--we can only go once. It doesn’t matter.” He gave a
deep sigh and asked his guardian to light his pipe again and open the
Book at the Psalms of David.
“I cannot turn the pages, my friend. It is a pity. But propped upon one
elbow I can see quite well if you will but put the candle here upon the
bed.”
The man did as requested and Hammersley thanked him.
“You are a kind fellow. It is bread upon the waters. You will find it
after many days.”
“It is nothing. I would expect as much from another.”
“Now, if you will permit, I would prefer the solitude of my thoughts.”
The soldier turned slowly away and Hammersley bent his gaze upon the
open page, but he did not read. He was thinking, planning, watching
the movements of Max Senf. Eight o’clock was long past. It must be
nearly nine. But two hours remained before the arrival of the messenger
from Berlin. His guardian paced slowly up and down the room between
the door and window, and Hammersley felt, if he did not see, his deep
bovine gaze fixed upon him from time to time. Eight or ten times the
man took the length of the room and then with a deep sigh he sank into
the chair at the foot of the bed. Hammersley did not move his head,
which remained bent forward over the book, but from the tail of his eye
he noted that the tall footboard of the old-fashioned bed partially
concealed him. Propped up as he was he could see the man’s head as far
down as the tip of his nose, but all of his head was in shadow. Arguing
from this, everything upon the bed below the line of the flame of the
candle was invisible to him. But a quick glance showed Hammersley that
the man was not looking at him. His dark eyes were peering straight
before him at the opposite wall and his mind was wrapped in some gloomy
vision.
The plan he had in mind required subtlety. He marked the shadows upon
the ceiling and moved up in the bed so that his own shadow would be
thrown behind the line of sight of his guardian. Then he paused again,
his eyes fixed on the pages, waiting for Senf to look at him again.
He heard the man move in his chair, which creaked as he settled more
comfortably into it. And when Hammersley looked again, only his eyes
were visible, their gaze fixed darkly ahead of him.
Hammersley now puffed a volume of smoke from his pipe and slowly
wriggled his left arm forward under him, so that he could see the knot
that tied his wrists. It was a large knot, but vulnerable. He puffed
more smoke, meanwhile watching the top of the head of Senf. As it did
not move, he lay over half upon his back, and, taking care not to
disturb the book, slowly advanced his arms behind him toward the blaze
of the candle. The knot of the rope caught and blazed, but the candle
sputtered, and he quickly withdrew his hands, sending a volume of smoke
from his pipe to neutralize the odor. Senf sniffed the air curiously.
“Something is burning,” Hammersley heard him mutter.
“My pipe,” he explained carefully. “It is a vile tobacco. But it will
go out of the crack at the window.”
“Will you not try mine, Herr Hammersley? Perhaps it is better.”
“No, thanks. Nothing much matters to a dead man.”
His guardian settled back in his chair, and Hammersley repeated his
maneuver more daringly, his own pipe seething like a furnace.
“You are a furious smoker, Herr Hammersley,” said Senf again.
“It is the way one smokes, _mein Junger_, when one smokes for the last
time,” he replied.
But the fellow got up, sniffing and walking around the room.
“It is a most curious tobacco,” he muttered.
Hammersley’s wrists pained him where his bonds had cut, but he kept
his gaze upon the page of the book, and Senf sat in his chair again.
A strong pull of his arms and Hammersley felt the tension relax. His
bonds came looser and after a few more efforts his wrists were free.
His heart was jumping and he feared a stray glance of the watcher might
see the throbbing of the blood at his temples, but he clasped his hands
behind him and waited, slipping the sundered rope beneath a fold of the
blanket.
Two--three minutes passed and Senf did not move. The untying of his
feet might prove a difficult matter, but he made the venture, working
slowly and patiently, his gaze on Senf’s head. Then, as the knot
yielded a little to his prying fingers, his gaze quickly concentrated
on it. In his efforts he must have made a sound or a suspicious
movement of the shoulders, for when he looked up he saw the head of
Max Senf projecting above the tailboard of the bed, his large eyes
protruding with amazement. They gazed at each other for a tense
fraction of a second and then sprang upright. Hammersley threw his feet
out upon the floor and leaped for the man, catching him around the
waist so that he could not draw a weapon. His legs were useless and the
only chance he had, a desperate one at best, was to drag the man to the
floor by sheer weight and there perhaps throttle him. Senf beat with
his heavy fists on Hammersley’s head and shoulders, and finally forced
him backwards upon the floor, falling with him, but Hammersley still
clung with frantic grip which the man could not shake off. But at last
he managed to get his fingers around Hammersley’s throat and tried to
force his head back.
Hammersley gasped for breath, but still struggled gamely, though he
realized that he had played his last card. Things got dark, and dimly
he saw the door of the room open and someone enter. Wentz, of course.
His game was up.
Senf was panting heavily. “He burnt the rope,” Hammersley heard him
say. “Come and help me. He has a grip of iron.”
The figure from the door moved quickly around the squirming figures,
and Hammersley saw the reflection of the candle on something bright.
A knife. He heard a blow, and the mass of struggling flesh above him
suddenly collapsed and smothered him with its weight. With an effort
he struggled free and rolled aside, looking up into the grim face of
Lindberg.
“Sh--” the man whispered. “I had to do it. There was no other way. I’ve
been waiting outside.”
Hammersley tried to speak, but his throat closed, and while he
struggled for his breath, he saw Lindberg go to the door and stand, his
ear to the keyhole, listening. In a moment he came back.
“_Ganz gut!_ They have heard nothing.”
“Are you sure?” Hammersley managed to gasp, as Lindberg cut the rope
that bound his ankles.
“Yes. He was so sure of himself that he did not shout.”
He helped the prisoner to his feet and they clasped hands.
“Good Lindberg! My friend! I had given up.”
“I have waited until the beer was served. It is well. And now----” He
looked around the room quickly. “You shall go.”
Hammersley had a sudden thought.
“Captain von Winden sent you?”
“No. He knows nothing. But he has not spoken. It is now after nine
o’clock. By half past nine you must go.”
“_Ja doch!_ But you----!”
“I shall remain.”
“No, no; I will not consent to that.”
“Yes, I have thought out a plan.”
“But they will suspect. They will shoot you.”
“No, they will not. Have I not told you that I have thought out a plan?”
“I will listen to it.”
Lindberg meanwhile had been unstrapping his pistol holster and put it
on a chair.
Hammersley glanced over his shoulder at the door. “But they may come
again,” he whispered.
“I think not. There is little time to lose. We will have to take the
chance.”
“But if they return and find me free it will only cause your death and
do me no good.”
“Herr Hammersley, you should know by this time that I do not waste
words. Have I not told you that I have made a plan? Listen. This is my
story for Herr Hauptmann Wentz. I happen to be in the hallway without,
carrying a pitcher of water to the room of Miss Mather--the pitcher is
outside on the table--when I hear the sounds of a commotion in this
room. Fearing that the prisoner has by some miracle gotten free, I
unlock the door with my pass-key and enter. You have burned your bonds
and killed Senf. You spring on me and make me a prisoner----” He paused.
“And you----” Hammersley broke in. “You will be left here? No, I won’t
leave you--not to that fate. I will not go unless you go with me. We
will contrive a way to get out of the country.”
“_Ach, nein!_ Will you not listen? Have I not told you that I have
thought of everything? I have communicated with the lady. She is ready
to go with you. Her room has a dormer window around the corner of the
building, and there is a ledge along the roof. You will go to her. The
distance to the roof of the kitchen is thirty feet. It will require
four sheets, yours and hers. They are new ones and if well twisted will
hold. If you get away safely you can reach the cave in the Thorwald. No
one will ever find you there----”
“Yes, Lindberg--but you--what will you say to them?”
“It is no time to waste words. Even now the lady is waiting for you.
Come, you must get ready at once.”
He walked to the bed and quickly stripped off the blankets, twisting
the sheets and tying them together. Then he took his pistol belt and
fastened it around Hammersley’s waist, slipping a handful of loose
cartridges into the side pocket of his leather jacket.
Hammersley, bewildered by the devotion of his old friend and tossed
between alternatives of duty, stood helplessly. At the moment when he
needed resolution most he was supine. But the minutes were passing. The
thought of his mission suddenly brought him to life, and his face grew
hard, his eyes brilliant with purpose.
“Come, Lindberg. You must go with me.”
“No,” the man insisted. “My plan is the best.”
“No. You must come with me.”
“I have made other plans, Herr Hammersley,” he whispered gently. “You
will go alone. I will give you a reason.” And before Hammersley could
know what he meant to do, he drew his hunting-knife from its sheath in
Hammersley’s belt and plunged it into his own shoulder.
Hammersley could scarcely restrain a cry, but Lindberg smiled at him
and plucking the weapon out, put it in Hammersley’s outstretched hand.
“It is nothing,” he said. “It will bleed a little. The more it bleeds
the better my case with Excellenz. They will be here in three hours, if
not before. Now bind and gag me--quick. There is no time to lose.”
He lay flat upon the floor and as in a dream Hammersley obeyed him,
tying his arms and legs. When he had finished, Hammersley bent over the
man and touched his hand gently.
“Good-by, old friend. Whatever happens I will not forget. God bless
you.”
There was a bright, keen look in the small gray eyes upturned to his.
That was all Hammersley could see of the swathed head, but it gave him
a new idea of self-sacrifice.