Wolf Among Wolves

VIII

“What does this mean?” shouted the indignant Lieutenant. “You’ve been following me, I suppose? You want to arrest me?”

“Don’t talk nonsense, man,” said the other calmly. “How can I arrest you? We’re illegal.”

“Am I only a man now, not an officer anymore?” asked the Lieutenant sarcastically. “Well, what do you want with me?”

“Like to know, for example, how you have succeeded here.”

“I shall report on that to Herr Richter. As ordered.”

“I merely thought you might possibly forget it. That’s why I came to meet you.”

“Why should I forget? In my duty I have never forgotten anything.”

“I merely thought so,” said the fat man in apology, “because we have now been informed which arms dump has been discovered.” He stood still—but only because the Lieutenant had come to a stop—and directed his cold ruthless glance at him, saying very softly: “Yes, you know about it, my friend. You knew about it in there with Herr Richter. It’s yours.”

“I didn’t know.” The Lieutenant nearly shouted.

“Quietly, quietly, my friend,” said the fat man, laying his hand on the other’s shoulder, in such a way that the Lieutenant noticed he was as strong as an ox. “The question now is whether you will tell me who’s blabbed. Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know. Either you know him or you know her, and we’d very much like to know, too. For the future, you understand?”

“I know nothing about it,” said the Lieutenant obstinately.

“Rubbish. The former bailiff, Meier from Neulohe, was sitting in the Entente Commission’s car, and he showed them the dump—we know that now, too. Don’t make so much fuss, man. You’re not telling me for my own profit but for your former comrades, so that they shan’t get caught out again.”

The Lieutenant shivered to hear the other speaking of his “former comrades,” but he took the bull by the horns and declared defiantly: “I have said that I am answerable for the dump with my life. If it’s really done for, I shall do what I said.”

“My dear chap,” smiled the fat man, laying his hand once again on the shoulder—gently, yet the Lieutenant trembled—“my dear chap, don’t flatter yourself. You are finished, one way or the other. You’ve made a mess of things, you’ve lied. No, my friend, you’re done for.” His frozen glance rested on the Lieutenant, from whose thin white lips no word came forth.

“No,” went on the fat man, drawing away his hand. “It’s not a question of you anymore; it’s a question of the others. They’re the ones we want to know about.”

“You know already,” said the Lieutenant heavily. “You say little Meier was in the car—then you know the traitor.”

“We’ve got to find out who was the link between you and the traitor.”

“I’m no traitor!” shouted the Lieutenant.

“Did I say so?” The fat man spoke imperturbably. “Do you think I should have let you leave Richter’s room if you were a traitor? Do you think I’d be here with you now if you were a traitor? No, you’re only a windbag, and some sort of honor’s still in you. Although it must be a peculiar sort of honor. Because you swore on it that the dump was safe, and knew all the time it was found out.”

“I didn’t know,” cried the Lieutenant in despair.

“You’re cowardly and stupid; you shouldn’t think so much about yourself, Herr. It’s not at all important if you live. Now show some guts and tell me everything you know.”

The Lieutenant appeared to reflect. All he said, however, was: “Wait a minute. I’ll just go in here.” And he entered the small public-house before which they happened to be standing. But the fat man did not wait behind; he followed, to listen. “Landlord,” said the Lieutenant, “here is your trench jacket again. I shan’t need it anymore. Give me back my rags.”

“But there was no hurry, Herr Lieutenant. Herr Lieutenant can’t wear the dirty jacket. Wait at least till my wife has brushed it a bit.”

“Give me back the old rag,” persisted the Lieutenant. And while he was changing, he whispered: “No, I wouldn’t let my boy put it on tomorrow.”

The landlord’s eyes looked stupid in their astonishment.

“Good-by and thank you, landlord,” said the Lieutenant, leaving the public-house.

“Acting as usual,” criticized the fat man. “The jacket wouldn’t have been so important, anyway. In your lifetime you’ll have spoiled more than a jacket. But to be noble in his own eyes, yes, everyone likes that. I never met a murderer who said he had murdered for money. They all had some noble excuse.…”

“Listen, you!” shouted the Lieutenant. “If you’re going to follow me, shut your jaw. Or—”

“Or what?” The other gripped the Lieutenant’s arm. And the pressure, seeming to crush the muscles, increased till the veins were almost bursting, and the Lieutenant had to grind his teeth together so as not to scream. “I know you’ve got a pistol in your trouser pocket. Well, try and get it out, now.”

No, the Lieutenant would not even try. That terrible grip crushed even the instinct of combat which had always been his.

The fat man released his arm. “Besides, I’m not following you, but taking you,” he said imperturbably.

“And where are you taking me?”

“To The Golden Hat. I accept your proposal. We’ll ask Herr von Prackwitz and his daughter about the dump. Especially his daughter.”

“No.” The Lieutenant stopped.

“Why not? You yourself proposed it, Lieutenant.”

“I’m not going to stand like a prisoner—and before those people.”

“Whom you know only by sight.” The fat man laughed. “Are you excited, young man, at the prospect of going with me to Fräulein von Prackwitz?”

“Fräulein von Prackwitz can—” shouted the Lieutenant.

“Correct. Exactly what I thought, Lieutenant. You have a little private animosity toward the Fräulein. I wonder why?”

“The Fräulein means nothing to me.”

“Why, even now when you are being careful you can’t speak of her without your face twitching. Well, Lieutenant, what is it to be? Golden Hat or private confession?”

“Golden Hat,” replied the Lieutenant firmly. The Prackwitzes must have been gone a long time by now; how could they still be sitting there, two or three hours after that scene! No, she would have fled; she had her reputation to consider. And even if they hadn’t fled, he wouldn’t let himself be conducted into their presence by this fat detective. He’d find some opportunity to escape, he’d not let himself be deprived of all that remained to him—his deliberate revenge on her. Execution should not be done on him, but by him on her.

Human beings, before they depart this earth, want to know that they have not been wiped from the great slate of life without leaving some trace. The Lieutenant had no children, he had nothing to bequeath, no farewell letter to write. He would be as extinguished as if he had never walked the earth. Honor and ambition, self-respect and manliness, had fallen away from him while still among the living. But … Oh, stay a while, you are so lovely! Still so lovely! There was that white suggestive face, which you were never able to love. Now you can hate it. Behind the forehead is a brain in which you will be registered for as long as it thinks. In that bosom beats a heart which will become fearful at the thought of you, thirty years from now, when nothing more remains of you on this planet. A small eternity for the dead man in one who still wanders in the light; traces of the past in the surviving.

The two of them walked silently side by side, the Lieutenant with his hands in his pockets, with an ugly smile on his face. The detective, lively, with the cold-blooded look of a dog picking up a scent.

For the first time, however, the fat man was unlucky. The waiter, throwing a suspicious glance at the Lieutenant, stated that Herr von Prackwitz had gone out and the young lady was ill. No, no—impossible to see her. The doctor was there, the young lady was unconscious. Without even asking the wishes of these guests he turned away. It was obvious that he laid no value on their presence; he went back to his work.

“And what now?” asked the Lieutenant derisively.

“You’re a bit too sarcastic,” said the other with a trace of irritation. “That betrays how pleased you are that nothing’s come of this visit. Well, we’ll just wait here for Herr von Prackwitz. Waiter, a bitter.”

The Lieutenant had prepared his plan. “Listen,” he said, “there’s still a little money in my pocket, and I want to give it to a girl. Let’s go there quickly. It won’t take half an hour.”

“The maid at the colonel’s? You could have settled that a little while ago. What did she tell you, by the way? Waiter, a bitter!”

“Nothing,” replied the Lieutenant promptly. “She was in a rage with me because I only went when I wished to hear something, she said. We were shits and our Putsch was also shit, or something like that. But I mean another girl now, in the New-town.”

“Shits and shit. Well, that’s something. She got that from someone else; that’s why she was angry with you perhaps. Women like that always get mad with their fellow if some idiot speaks badly of him.… Isn’t the waiter going to bring me any beer? Waiter, a bitter, please.”

“Leave the beer,” begged the Lieutenant. “Let me go to the girl now. It won’t take half an hour—we can always meet Herr von Prackwitz afterwards.”

The waiter set down the glass of beer. “Twenty million,” he said rudely.

“Twenty million!” The fat man was indignant. “What sort of bitter is it here, then? Everywhere else it costs thirteen million.”

“Since midday. The dollar’s now two hundred and forty-two million.”

“Oh,” growled the fat man, and paid. “If I’d known that I wouldn’t have had a beer. Two hundred and forty-two million! You see what good it’ll do giving the girl money; it won’t make her any the happier! It’s all just acting.”

“There are also letters for me there, which I’d like to fetch.”

“Letters! What letters? You only want to get away.”

“All right, we’ll sit here. I’ll have a bottle of wine for my money then. Waiter!”

“Stop,” said the fat man. “Where is it?”

“What?”

“Where the girl lives.”

“In the New-town, Festungs Promenade. Not twenty minutes away.”

“You said before it wasn’t half an hour there and back. What sort of letters are they? Love letters?”

“I’d keep my love letters at a girl’s, eh?”

“Let’s go then.” The fat man finished his drink and stood up. “But I tell you now, if you’re going to make trouble, as you did a little while ago at the barracks …”

“So you saw that as well?”

“I’ll not only smash you in the chest—I’ll go for the stomach so that you’ll never walk straight again.” Something flared in the ice-cold glance which threatened the Lieutenant. But this time it had no effect on him; he merely smiled. “I’m not making any trouble,” he said. “Anyway, as far as I can see, I haven’t got much more walking straight to do, eh? Threats haven’t really much point with someone like me, don’t you think?”

The fat man shrugged his shoulders. Through the rainy, deserted streets the two walked side by side.

The Lieutenant was trying to think how to get away from his tormentor; there were no letters and no girl in the New-town. But out there it ought to be easier to escape, to shake off this spy somehow, so as to do what had to be done without fresh humiliation or harassing surveillance. (Shall I really have courage enough—for that?) It was not going to be so easy to deceive this watchdog, however. Though the man shambled along beside him nonchalantly, the Lieutenant knew quite well what that hand always in his trouser pocket meant; he knew why the other kept so close to him that their shoulders touched at each step. Should he make the slightest unexpected movement the other’s fist would seize him in its demoralizing grip. Or there would be a report, once, twice, right here in the street, and then there would be something in the papers again about a political murder.

Not that! Not that! The Lieutenant was feverishly trying to form an idea of the geography of all the public-houses on their way and the possibility of escaping across the yard from the lavatory. But he could not concentrate on his task; his brain, despite all compulsion, refused to help him. Always the image of Violet von Prackwitz kept on coming between. The waiter had said that she was lying unconscious, and a fierce delight possessed him. Already, at my mere threats, you are unconscious. But wait and see how you will relish life when I have carried out my threat.… But I must think about escaping from some pub. Now we shall soon be passing The Fire Ball.…

Ah, the Lieutenant was obsessed with the girl. Now, death approaching, the scatterbrain had found a significance in life; this man of a hundred love affairs, who had never loved, had discovered hatred—a feeling which was worth living for! He pictured what it would be like when she saw him; it seemed to him he could hear her screams. It had to come to that; he wished it so strongly it couldn’t be otherwise. The wishes of the dying are fulfilled, he thought. And gave a start.

“What’s the matter?” The fat man was sharply on guard.

The wishes of the dying are fulfilled, thought the Lieutenant again, immensely delighted. “There you are. Herr von Prackwitz!” he said. “You wanted to speak to him. Please do.”

Their way to the New-town had brought them into the old long-demolished, long-outgrown fortifications, where the city fathers had made out of rampart and fosse a promenade for the citizens. And they were now walking in the fosse, with the ramparts rising steeply to the right and left, covered with trees and bushes. They had turned a corner and could see a strip of pathway, a lonely and remote spot.

To one side was a bench dripping with rain, and on this bench sat Rittmeister von Prackwitz, huddled, but not awake. His head was hanging over his chest; his sleep was the insensible wheezy sleep of the utterly drunken. Now and then, when his breathing became too embarrassed, his head gave a jerk, raised itself almost vertical and slowly sank, bumping at first on his shoulder, then back again onto his chest.

It was a deplorable, a shameful sight, which Herr von Prackwitz presented. For a moment the two spectators stood silent. The Rittmeister, searching for his car, had not been dumped in this solitary corner of the grounds for nothing. He had been robbed.

“They are like carrion kites!” exclaimed the fat man furiously. “The vermin smell their prey faster than we ever do.” And he threw a suspicious look up at the ramparts. But no branch crackled among the bushes, no retreating foot sent a stone rolling down the slope. The kites had long flown with their spoils. Plundered, stripped to his underclothes, a ridiculous and lamentable figure, Rittmeister Joachim von Prackwitz-Neulohe slept off his intoxication in the drizzle. Too feeble to resist and fight like the strong, he had collapsed and resorted to the dirty Nirvana of alcohol—to awaken, how?

“I thought you wished to speak to the gentleman?” jeered the Lieutenant. The wishes of the dying were fulfilled. If already this could happen to the father, how would the daughter be dishonored?

“What bloody beastliness!” raged the fat man, not taking his eye off the Lieutenant. He is in exactly the same situation as the ferryman who has to ferry a wolf, a goat and a cabbage, and only has one place left in his little craft. He could keep a watch on him or he could help the Rittmeister—both together were hardly possible. “Leave Herr von Prackwitz there,” advised the Lieutenant maliciously. “No one has seen us find him. And I—well, I’ve got to hold my tongue.”

The fat man stood thoughtfully there. “Lieutenant,” he said after a while, “dig yourself in the ribs. Tell me who blabbed about the dump, and I’ll let you go.”

“It’s my business,” said the Lieutenant slowly. “I don’t want anyone else sticking their nose into it. But I give you my word of honor it was all only stupid woman’s gossip and twaddle, not meant badly.…”

The fat man brooded. “I must know the name,” he said at last. “It wasn’t only Fräulein von Prackwitz—”

“It wasn’t Fräulein von Prackwitz!” the Lieutenant cried.

With a terrible blow in the pit of the stomach, the fat man was on him like a sudden storm; he couldn’t even begin to defend himself from the hail of blows. Before he knew where he was, he had been knocked down—the other groped in his pocket, drew out the pistol. “And the safety catch not up, you bloody coward!” he cursed. “Well, my lad, do what you needs must do, without a weapon. But I’ll get you again before you know about it.”

The Lieutenant, unable even to reply, lay on the ground. His whole body was in pain, but far worse was the fury of despair. This fat man, this pitiless brutal giant—he was at the bench, he already had the Rittmeister in his arms.

I must get up, I must go, thought the Lieutenant.

The fat man in passing gave him a frightful kick in the side, and it appeared as if he laughed or sniggered as he hurried away.

He wishes to damage me so that I don’t make off, thought the Lieutenant—and was alone. He lay there waiting for the return of his strength, for a little breath, for the blessing of a decision.… It is my chance, he thought. I must go away, to the Black Dale—the Black Dale. But I’ve no weapon and none of the comrades would give me one. They all know.… Oh, I must leave here.

Swaying, he got up. It was the second time he had been knocked down today, and it was the worse of the two.

“I mustn’t crawl like this; I must hurry, I must run,” he whispered and stood still, holding on to a tree. His face felt as if it had been flayed. I can’t go like this into the town. I must look a sight. He’s knocked me about horribly, the brutal swine. That’s what he wanted.

He was almost in tears with self-pity, almost in tears because it was so cowardly to sob. “Oh, my God,” he groaned, “my God! I want to die. Why don’t they let me die in peace? Will no one help me, my God?”

A little later he found himself walking. He had left the fortifications, he was in the town.

But I must go faster, he thought. He’ll catch me for certain, at the latest in my hotel. Yes, stare, you fool. That’s the way a man looks who’s been trimmed by them. And in a loud challenging voice, quarrelsome as a drunken man’s: “Stare, fool!”

“Good day, Herr Lieutenant,” said a polite, a very polite voice. “Perhaps the Lieutenant doesn’t remember me?”

Befogged by pain and numbness, the Lieutenant sought to recall the face. The polite, dispassionate voice soothed his shameful degradation. It seemed as though no one had spoken to him in that way for ages.

“Räder,” the other assisted him. “My name is Hubert Räder. I was in service at Neulohe, not with the Geheimrat but the Rittmeister.”

“Oh,” cried the Lieutenant, almost delighted, “you’re the one who wouldn’t help me up the chestnut tree. Yes, I remember.”

“But I should now be glad to be of assistance to the Lieutenant. As I said, I’m not in service there now. You look as if you require some assistance, sir.”

“Yes. I fell down.” He thought a moment. “I was set upon.”

“If I could be of service to you, sir—”

“Clear off, man! Don’t you bother me,” suddenly screamed the Lieutenant. “I don’t want to have anything to do with you people from Neulohe. You all bring me bad luck.” And he tried to go more quickly in order to get away from the fellow.

“But, Herr Lieutenant,” said the calm, unimpassioned voice at his side, “I don’t come from Neulohe. And, as I said, I’m not employed there anymore. In short, I’ve been thrown out.”

The Lieutenant stopped. “Who threw you out?”

“The Rittmeister, sir. The Rittmeister engaged me and the Rittmeister threw me out—no one else would have been legally entitled to do so, otherwise.” The man spoke with a certain foolish satisfaction.

The Lieutenant remembered something. Violet had spoken about this servant—a conceited fool. “Why were you thrown out?” he asked.

“The young lady wished it,” replied the servant curtly. “The young lady didn’t like me from the beginning. Antipathies like that do occur. I have read about it in a book. Scientifically they are called idio-syn-cra-sies.”

The wishes of the dying are fulfilled. The Lieutenant would have liked to take advantage of this very timely help, but some instinct or other warned him that it was a little too timely, and he became suspicious. “Listen,” he said. “Go quickly to The Golden Hat. The Rittmeister has met with an accident. You will be received there like the Saviour himself, and get your job back and your wages doubled, man.”

For the first time the gray, murky, fishlike eye met his.

“No.” The servant shook his head. “You must excuse me, sir, but we learned at the training school that one must never return to a situation. Practice has proved that it is not expedient.”

The Lieutenant was utterly exhausted. “Then clear off, fellow,” he said wearily. “I have no use for a servant, I can’t pay for a servant. So leave me in peace.” He walked on. He had wasted so much time, and it was so far to his hotel.

“What do you still want?” he shouted angrily at his silent companion.

“I should like to be of assistance to the Lieutenant. Herr Lieutenant needs assistance.”

“No!” yelled the Lieutenant.

“If you will permit me, sir,” whispered the obstinate voice, “I have taken a small room here close by. You could wash yourself quite undisturbed, sir. In the meantime I will clean your clothes.…”

“Blast the clothes!”

“Yes, Herr Lieutenant. Perhaps you could do with a strong coffee, sir, and a double cognac. I can believe that you will need all your energies today, sir,” he suggested a little confidentially.

“You, what can you believe, you donkey?” cried the furious Lieutenant. “What do you know about my energies?”

“Well, about the dump that was betrayed,” explained the cold, obsequious voice. “I can imagine that you will not so easily put up with what the young lady has let you in for, sir.”

The Lieutenant stood as if struck by lightning. His most secret thoughts in the possession of this intruder, this idiot! He could not understand it. “All right then, come along, show me your room,” he said abruptly. “But if there’s the slightest dirty trick …”

“I will explain, sir. It is all comprehensible forthwith. This way, please, Herr Lieutenant. If I may take your arm, sir, it would be quicker.…”

Half an hour later the Lieutenant, somewhat restored, was sitting in the corner of a deep sofa in Räder’s furnished room. He had had a coffee with a good deal of cognac, and the servant at the moment was preparing him a second.

Thoughtfully he watched the strange fellow’s unruffled activity. “Listen a moment, Herr Räder,” he said finally.

“A moment please, Herr Lieutenant. You must pardon me, it takes time here. Everything is very primitive here.” And he surveyed the room with a contemptuous glance.

“Why have you really come to Ostade? Surely not because you wanted to meet me?” And the Lieutenant laughed, so unlikely did this suspicion seem.

“Oh, yes, sir,” the servant replied earnestly. “I hoped to find you. Ostade is not a big place.” He set the coffee before the Lieutenant, without paying any attention to the effect of his words. Then he pushed forward the bottle of cognac so that it was near at hand. “I would advise a little less cognac now, sir. You are quite fresh again. And you doubtless desire to keep a clear head, sir, I think?”

Under that fishlike, expressionless eye the young man gave a slight shudder. If the fellow isn’t a fool, he thought, then he’s an abysmal scoundrel. “And why did you want to find me?” he asked. “Don’t tell me again that it was to assist me, though.”

“Because I thought it would interest the Lieutenant to know how the dump was betrayed.”

“And how was it betrayed?”

“Because you stopped coming to the young lady, sir, and didn’t take the letters out of the hollow tree, the young lady wrote to Herr Meier about the dump, because the young lady knew that Herr Meier had such a hatred for you, sir.”

“That’s a lie.”

“If you think so, sir.” The reply seemed unperturbed. “How much cognac do you wish, sir? The coffee is exactly hot enough.”

“Pour out, then. You can fill the cup safely; that won’t lay me out.” The Lieutenant looked keenly into the somber gray face. “Even if it were true, the Fräulein wouldn’t have told you.”

“Not when I had to ascertain Herr Meier’s address for the young lady?”

The Lieutenant took a slow gulp. Then he lit a cigarette. “And so you come here just to tell me that? What do you gain by it?”

The cold, lifeless eye again rested on him. “Because I am a revengeful person, Herr Lieutenant. It is all easily comprehensible, as I mentioned.”

“Because she wanted the Rittmeister to turn you out?”

“As well. And also because of something else, because of matters to some extent delicate, sir.”

“Listen, my friend,” exploded the Lieutenant. “Don’t play the gentleman with me. Cough up what you know, or else you’ll see something! I’ve got the feeling that you’re a very cunning dog.” He was astonished to see the gray face redden a little. An unpleasantly simpering, flattered expression appeared there.

“I try to educate myself,” said the man. “I read books. No, not novels; scientific works, often several hundred pages in length.…”

If the fellow’s no idiot he’s an abysmal scoundrel, thought the Lieutenant again. But of course he’s an idiot. “Well, relate your delicate concealments. Don’t be afraid, I shan’t blush.”

“It’s because the young lady didn’t treat me like a human being,” said the servant, once more lifeless. “She would dress and undress in my presence as if I was a lump of wood. And when the master and mistress were away, the parents I mean, then the young lady always used to order me into the bathroom, to dry her.”

“And you were naturally in love with her?”

“Yes, Herr Lieutenant. I am still in love with the young lady.”

“And she knew that? Just wanted to torment you?”

“Yes, Herr Lieutenant. That was the intention.”

The Lieutenant looked sideways at the servant. A thing like that, he thought, a fool and idiot, also has feelings. Suffers and is tormented just like a real human being … “Why don’t you take vengeance yourself?”

“I am more or less of a peaceable temperament, Herr Lieutenant. Violence is not in my nature.”

“So you are cowardly?”

“Yes, Herr Lieutenant. I am quiet-minded.”

The Lieutenant considered. Then he spoke vigorously. “Listen, Herr Räder. Go to The Golden Hat. There you will see a fat gentleman—you’ll recognize him—a detective in a bowler hat. If you tell him about Violet’s letter to Meier, then the young lady won’t enjoy many more happy hours in life.”

“Excuse me, Herr Lieutenant. I’m not for the police. I’m for you, sir.”

It was quiet in the room. Thoughtfully the Lieutenant stirred his cup while the servant stood in a watchful, yet indifferent, posture. The Lieutenant reached across to the bottle of cognac, filled the cup and took a gulp. Then he said softly: “I shall perhaps settle this business not quite as you think, Räder.”

“That will be all right, Herr Lieutenant.”

“If you think I am going to use violence on the girl …”

“The gentleman will have considered what is most efficacious.”

“Most efficacious, yes …”

There was a long silence. The Lieutenant sipped his cognac, the servant stood in the doorway.

“Räder!”

“Yes, Herr Lieutenant.”

“When does it become dark now?”

Räder went to the window and peered out into the gloomy evening drizzle. “With a cloudy sky like this—soon after six.”

“Well, you must get me a taxi for a quarter-past six, here. I must be driven to the border of Neulohe Forest. Agree on the charge beforehand.”

“Certainly, Herr Lieutenant.”

“When you leave the house and also in the streets have a look if that fat detective is spying around anywhere, the one I told you about. A plump, beardless man, pale bloated face, a peculiar glance like ice. Black overcoat with velvet collar, bowler hat … You’ll recognize him, man,” he ended impatiently.

“Certainly, Herr Lieutenant; should I see him I shall recognize him. May I go now?”

“Yes,” replied the Lieutenant, brooding. Then he spoke briskly, yet with embarrassment: “Listen, Räder, there is something else for you …”

“Yes, sir?”

“I require”—he hesitated—“I require a weapon. I have lost mine.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you manage that?”

“Certainly, Herr Lieutenant.”

“But it won’t be so easy to get hold of a pistol here today. And some ammunition, of course, Räder!”

“Of course, sir.”

“You are sure?”

“Quite sure, sir.”

“About the money …”

“I shall be glad to assist the Lieutenant.”

“I have a little. But whether it will be enough for the taxi and the pistol …”

“I will settle that, sir—I’ll be back in an hour’s time then, sir.” Hubert Räder had gone without a sound.

The Lieutenant was alone. On the wall a little Black Forest clock was ticking. In the kitchen the landlady from time to time clattered about. He lay on the sofa in his underwear; his clothes were still drying in front of the stove.

He looked at the table where the empty cup stood next to the cognac bottle, three-quarters full yet. Slowly his hand groped over the table, and was withdrawn. “Herr Lieutenant requires a clear head.” He could hear Räder’s insufferable voice, always somewhat didactic.

Why should I want a clear head for that? he thought. Tell me why, you fool!

All the same, he didn’t pour himself out any more. Drunkenness was rising like a wave in him, to fall again and rise once more, higher. He looked at the clock. Twenty-five past five. He still had a good three-quarters of an hour alone to himself, continuing to live to some extent—then he would be hastening faster and faster to his end. He fixed his eyes on the minute hand. It moved infinitely slowly; no, it was not moving at all. The decrease in the little space between the minute and the hour hands was not perceptible. Yet all too suddenly it would be a quarter past six, and the last independent moments of his life would have expired. To rekindle his wrath he tried to think about Violet von Prackwitz, but Räder’s fishlike leathery face and dead gray eyes swung upwards on a new wave of drunkenness. The fellow never opened his mouth in talking, he thought in sudden disgust; I have never even seen his teeth. It’s certain he has nothing but rotten black stumps in his jaws. That’s why he doesn’t open his mouth to talk. It’s all moldy and putrid.

The Lieutenant wanted to look at the time again but couldn’t lift his head from the sofa.

He was asleep. He was sleeping away his last independent moments, sleeping, sleeping.…

The car drove through the night. In its white headlights the sodden trunks gleamed and were dark at once, vanished before the weary tormented eyes had really perceived them. In the corner sat the Lieutenant, half recumbent, almost asleep still. A piercing headache hindered him from thinking clearly. He could not make out if it was true that in front, next to the chauffeur, the servant Räder was sitting. It seemed to him that he had not wanted this disgusting fellow to come. Then, however, it occurred to him that the servant was paying for the car, though. Let him, therefore, drive his car as much as he wished; the chief thing was that he should go back immediately.

The lieutenant was almost happy that he’d found this solution, despite his headache. All was in order and good; the fat man, too, had not caught him. From now on everything would go of itself; he would be driven right up to the place—and then it was nothing but a little click. Only a click, that was all. The simplest thing in the world, about which there was no need to trouble oneself. He had seen it many a time.…

Anxiously he felt in his pockets and on the seat. Had the servant given him the pistol or not? He had been so drowsy on coming away, he could not remember; and he felt angry at finding nothing but the bottle of cognac beside him. Look at that! Sleepy as he was, he had not forgotten that. Wet my whistle with cognac, he thought, taking a good gulp from the bottle.

The alcohol washed away his drowsiness. Like a flame the thought rose in him: I am nothing but a coward.

The flame died down. “But you will do it,” whispered intoxication. “The chief thing is that you should do it. No one will ever know that you were cowardly about it.”

“Yes, the fat detective knows it!” said his understanding.

“Fat lot I care about him!” whispered intoxication.

“Both of you leave me in peace!” grumbled the Lieutenant.

It was now light in the car, a sort of twilight rapidly becoming brighter.

What’s that now, he thought wearily. Am I not going to be left in peace at all?

But the brightness became stronger; the servant was turning round, half standing up. Was the car on fire? Räder said something to the chauffeur, a horn sounded, a horn replied. And a large car passed swiftly by. Gone! The Lieutenant was in darkness again.

Räder opened the panel in front. “That was the Rittmeister’s car,” he shouted, and there seemed to be triumph in his words.

“Good,” answered the Lieutenant indistinctly. “Good. I always told you so, Räder. The wishes of the dying are fulfilled.”

On the unrepaired country road the car was bumping terribly. “The young lady must have recovered, then,” shouted the servant.

“Hold your jaw!” he yelled, and Räder closed the panel.

He must have fallen asleep again, waking up because the car had come to a stop. Laboriously he heaved himself up; he was half off the seat. Managing to get hold of the door handle he stumbled out.

They were right in the forest, in an inconceivable stillness. No breath of wind, no drop of rain. In front, ten or twelve paces from the car, stood two men, who seemed to be examining the ground.

“Hi! You! What are you doing there?” shouted the Lieutenant, lowering his voice even as he shouted.

The servant turned, walked slowly up to him and stood a couple of paces in front. “Yes, we’re there,” he said softly. “You only need to follow the car tracks, Herr Lieutenant.”

“What car tracks?”

“Of the car, Herr Lieutenant! Of the Entente Commission’s car.”

“How can I do that in the dark?” asked the Lieutenant impatiently.

“Oh, I have a flashlight,” replied the servant patiently. He waited a moment, but the Lieutenant said nothing. “Are you going now, sir?” he asked at last.

“Yes, now,” said the Lieutenant mechanically. “Give me the thing.”

“Here is the torch, Herr Lieutenant, and here—you must excuse me, sir, I could only get a revolver. But it’s quite new.”

“Hand it over. I shall manage with it.” Without examination he pushed the revolver into a pocket. “Well, I’ll go now.”

“Yes, Herr Lieutenant.”

But he did not go.

“Listen,” he ordered, suddenly vehement. “You’re to drive back on the spot. I don’t want you here, you understand? You’re a swine. What you’ve told me is nothing but lies. But—it’s all the same to me. You think you’re very clever, don’t you? But that’s all the same, too. Clever or stupid, swine or decent—we’ve all got to die.”

“If I might make an observation, Herr Lieutenant …”

“What else? You go away.”

“It is always possible that there’s somebody there. It’s not nine yet. And people are inquisitive. I should go as quietly as possibly, Herr Lieutenant.”

“Yes, yes.” The Lieutenant suddenly laughed. “I’ll be delighted to go as quietly as you wish, my clever Herr Räder. But you will allow me a little noise, surely, just once, just for once, eh?” He stared at the other with hatred. “Clear off, you. I can’t bear the sight of your mug any longer. If you don’t, I swear to God I’ll fire on you first.”

But when the pair were in the car, he made a sign to wait. He had forgotten something, something enormously important, something without which a man could on no account die; and he looked for it in the car, on the back seat, under the rug that had slipped down. Then he slammed the door. “Off with you! To hell, for all I care.”

The car moved away, the noise of its engine loud among the trees. In his damp and imperfectly cleaned trench jacket the Lieutenant stood at the roadside, the bottle of cognac in his hand. The last two people he would see in this life had gone. Very well, what of that? The cognac had remained with him—faithful unto death!

He listened intently. He was trying to persuade himself that the sounds he heard came from a motor car, and that he was not altogether alone. But it was so still, so still! And what he heard, that was his own heart beating in his breast—in fear! In cowardice!

He shrugged his shoulders; he was not responsible for his heartbeats. He pushed out his lips as if he were going to whistle, but there was no sound. They trembled.… My lips are trembling, my mouth is parched.

He looked up but could not see the sky. Dark, an uncomforting starless dark. There was indeed nothing more for him but to go down into the Black Dale. There was no discoverable pretext why he should postpone this any longer.…

In the beam of his torch the Lieutenant made out the car tracks. He followed them stealthily and slowly. They were not the tracks of one car only. No, two had been there. And after a little consideration he nodded his head, satisfied. It was all in order, exactly as it ought to be—the car of the Control Commission, and the lorry which had taken away the weapons. That is, it had not been a proper lorry, as one could see by the tire tracks. It was more a large delivery van. Again he nodded his head with satisfaction. Yes, his brain was working magnificently. He was not going into the grave as a withered gaffer, in the full vigor of his years—or whatever it said in the death notices. There would be no death notice for him, however.

Ah-ha! This was where the car had stopped, not being able to go any lower into the Dale. A pedestrian, though, didn’t need to hesitate over that; the path for pedestrians was trodden out clearly enough. The Lieutenant went to and fro, examining everything with his torch. Yes, all in the best of order once more. The visitors, after they had stopped here, had driven on in the direction of Neulohe. All had been carried out according to orders, “comprehensibly,” as that swine Räder would have said. Oh, that swine, that dog!—thank Heaven he had cleared off. In the woods there was not the slightest smell of women, and thus a man could settle his affairs with himself at last, alone. No need to pull a handsome mug, strike a fine pose. If you itched, you scratched yourself. If you wanted a nip from the bottle you took it, and afterwards belched. Quite free and easy. Oh, yes. A baby, hardly entering on life, behaved itself somewhat shamefully; and it was the same before death. Coming out of nothingness, going into nothingness, one conducted oneself pretty coarsely. It was all comprehensible. Said the scoundrelly Räder.

A ghostly pleasure penetrated the Lieutenant. His last draught of cognac had been a powerful one, and he fell rather than walked down the little footpath. But at the bottom his cheerfulness vanished, and his spinning inebriation turned into a viscous mush.…

His face became grave. What a havoc the fellows had made here! They had certainly not put themselves out, those people. Great holes in the ground, mounds of earth, the lids of cases—why, here in the light of the torch lay a spade. I hid everything so neatly, he thought. And these swine have turned it all upside down. You couldn’t notice a thing when I’d finished, and look at it now!

Very depressed he sat down on a mound of earth, dangling his legs in a pit. One about to die could not really sit in a more suitable fashion—but he was not thinking about that now. He put the bottle beside him in the soft earth, dived into his trouser pocket and brought out the revolver. With one hand he shone the torch on it, with the other held it in the light and fingered it. Yes, he had thought as much—a bit of rubbish, factory trash, mass production—a popgun, good to scare away dogs or for youngsters who had stolen the petty cash to commit suicide with—but not for him, a man who understood weapons. Oh, his fine accurately finished pistol, a thing as precise as an airplane engine! The detective had hit him in the belly and stolen the magnificent thing.

Wretchedly the Lieutenant stared in front—and then discovered that there were only the six cartridges in the drum—that villain Räder hadn’t given him any ammunition, although he had specially requested some.

“But I have to try the revolver, it’s quite new, it’s never been shot yet,” he whispered. “I wanted to try it out first; otherwise I won’t know whether it shoots too high or too low.”

A voice sought to persuade him that it was quite indifferent, with a revolver placed against the temple, whether it shot too high or no, but he would not give way. “I was looking forward to trying it. A man ought to be allowed a little pleasure.”

Grief overwhelmed him; he could have wept. It is possible to miss six times, he thought; it has happened before now. And what would I do then?

He sat there pale, with hanging underlip, his eyes wandering all round him. His face was distorted, not so much from the blows as from an expression of desperate fear; he knew that he was acting, that he was only seeking to postpone the end. But he would not acknowledge it. He was not thinking any longer about this end: oh, no, there was still so much to prepare, to consider. He remembered that he had not thought about Violet for a long time. Hate and loathing for the girl had possessed him. He would like to experience those emotions once more.

But there seemed to be room in his breast only for this wretched uneasiness, this damnable flabby feeling, this weakness! I’m no abomination of a Black Meier. No, I swear it, I do not want to be better, I do not want to change myself. I was all right as I was, with teeth to bite, a wolf among wolves.

He took a long pull at his bottle. It gurgled as he drank, it gurgled as he put it down—but, curse it, that wasn’t the only noise he had heard! Up he jumped, revolver in one hand, torch in the other. “Who is there?” he screamed wildly into the wood. “Stand, or I’ll shoot.”

He listened. Nothing! But someone was prowling about. Where? Over there? In the bushes? “Stand or I’ll shoot.” Oh, I heard it all right, the noise of the engine suddenly ceasing in the forest; that swine, that Räder, must have stopped. He’s dodged after me, he wants to see if I shoot myself, get his money’s worth. There! There! I heard something then. “Stand.” Bang!

See, this little pistol doesn’t shoot so badly. It pops. Are you afraid? Did it tickle you? Ah, you’re running. Wait. I’ll run after you. “Stop!” Bang, smash! What’s that? Someone running behind. Is someone coming there? “Who are you then?” Doesn’t show himself, he’s a coward too. Bang! Bumm …

It’s the fat man, of course. The worthy comrades want to know if I am executing their unspoken sentence. Here’s good health; I’m executing a fat fellow first. Bang! That cracked too much, the bullet’s flattened itself against a tree.

Gentlemen, here I stand, have a look. Is the lady Violet also there? Have a look, my girl. Here’s a drink to a long life for you! May you remember me very often and very long.

Away with the bottle! Smash—and bust! Pity, it was a good cognac in it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I regretted that I only had six shots in the drum. See, I fire my fifth into the sky, a salvo for my lady, that her ears may tingle forever because of me. And the sixth shot—one’s enough for me. Like this, above the nose … like this … Should she herself really visit me, I shall be a magnificent sight for her.

Oh, my God, my God, is no one coming? Is nothing to happen? They can’t let me perish like this. Someone must come and say it was all a mistake. I’ll count up to three now, and if nothing’s happened by then, I’ll fire. One. Two. Three! Nothing? Nothing at all? The whole muck is nothing, then! It was all muck, my life, and death is also muck, cowardly vile muck, and afterwards more muck, I know that by now. I was too frightened; it’s not worth being frightened about this muck. I’m quite calm now. It would have been decent of the sentry this morning if he had fired on me. He would have really spared me something. But I can do that, too. Lived alone, died alone. Fire! And what now? Oh.…

Yes, and what now? Oh!

In the Black Dale, at the bottom of the wood, lay a torch on the ground. Its faint beam fell on a plant or two, a mossy stone, some earth.… It was quite still, quite still.… The solitary gleam in the silent night that had been so loud recently.…

And now there comes a sound out of the bushes, someone clears his throat, coughs …

Deep silence, a long silence …

Softly, cautiously, a step approaches, hesitates, stops. Another cough.

Deep silence, nothing but silence …

The step comes nearer, a foot, a foot in a black leather shoe appears in the white torchlight.

A moment later the torch is picked up. Its beam wanders, ceases. Hesitant, as if stuck to the ground, the step advances; the silent visitor looks down on that which is more silent, lying there.

No sound, no sound …

The man clears his throat. The torchlight searches once more, to the right, to the left.

Can he have fallen on it?

The revolver is found, however. He who finds it examines the drum, ejects the empty cartridge cases. The revolver is loaded afresh. Once again the light of the torch is thrown on the dead. Then it goes away quickly, up the slope, along the footpath, to Neulohe.

In the Black Dale it is utterly dark.

IX

No housewife, no help, could have got the Villa ready more painstakingly than had young Pagel. The rooms were clean and warm, the bath stove hot. In the kitchen there was supper waiting, and the young man had even managed to collect a few bunches of flowers from a garden parched by the summer heat and deluged by autumn rains. Gladioli, dahlias, asters …

Where Frau Eva had left behind a desolation stripped of all help, she found a home; and even the disconsolate Lotte, who had been firmly resolved to go away, too, was merry and carefree as never before. For young Pagel had turned the riot of scrubbing into a frolic. He had gone round with the women, taking the portable phonograph with him; and the way the beds could be made and the sweeping done when accompanied by tunes like “Darling, you’re the pupil of my eye” or “We’re boozing away our Oma’s little cottage” was unbelievable. On this one evening there was more laughter in the Villa than there had been in six months.

But laughter gave way to tears, rain drove away sunshine, and—not everyday is Sunday. As the splendid car drove up, no one could perceive from it what cargo of misfortune it held. Before young Pagel could hurry to it, however, its door was opened by a very troubled Herr Finger, and when one looked inside …

To be sure, Fräulein Violet was still asleep, and though her rigid, pale slumber had something alarming about it, that alone would not have made faces so grave and disconcerted. No, it was the Rittmeister, the unfortunate Rittmeister von Prackwitz! During the drive home he had begun to be sick and now, almost naked, groaning and befouled, he was carried from the car.

His wife must have passed through terrible hours; she looked faded and old, her expression sad and bitter. “Yes,” she said austerely, “I am bringing affliction into the house.” She glanced at the faces round her, ghostly in the meager light of the front-door lamp. Young Pagel, the chauffeur Finger, and Lotte, frightened and anxious, a few village women. No, there was no concealment possible. Affliction had taken up its quarters in the house. Frau Eva could endure that, however. Endure? No, it strengthened her. In true affliction pretense disappears.

“Herr Finger, Herr Pagel, be so kind as to carry my husband upstairs. The best thing would be to put him on the couch in the bathroom, till the bath is ready. It is? Good. You girls help me with Fräulein Violet. Don’t be afraid, Lotte; she’s not dead, only in a stupor. The doctor gave her an injection. That’s right—go on now.”

Did the lamps suddenly darken in the house? Had there a while before been singing and laughter here? What were flowers doing in the vases? Affliction had arrived—all went on tiptoe, whispering. Hush! What was that? Nothing, only the Rittmeister groaning. Outside the headlights of the car shone uselessly into the night.

The two men, Pagel and Finger, had undressed the Rittmeister and laid him in the bath.

“No, I have no time for him. You see to it. Violet is more important.” Was Frau Eva thinking of a certain warning? Was Violet still not safe, here in her home? Forest surrounded Neulohe; the world was distant—how could still greater evil arrive? Evil greater than a dishonored, bewildered daughter and a husband who had at last lost all foothold? A still greater evil?

“Lotte,” she said, “go downstairs at once and lock all the doors in the basement and on the ground floor. Make sure that all the windows are really shut. Don’t open the door to anyone without asking me first.” Alarmed and confused, the girl went.

Frau Eva sat by the bed. Her daughter would wake up at half-past twelve or one. Everything depended on that moment, as the doctor had told her, and she would be prepared for it. Not a step out of the room. Violet’s room. Where she had slept as child, as young girl. What she had been such a short time ago! That had to give her strength to outgrow what she had become.

Wordless, the two men were busy with the Rittmeister. Young Pagel washed him while the chauffeur held him, for the slack unconscious limbs kept on losing their support in the bath. Nevertheless, it seemed as though consciousness was returning. The eyelids trembled, the lips, too.

“Yes, Herr Rittmeister?”

“Something to drink …”

Yes, in the dazed brain was stirring the first reawakened foreboding of the evil which had befallen. And he who could not yet think was again demanding fresh insensibility, renewed flight …

Pagel looked at Herr Finger, who shook his head. “He’s bringing up bile already; his stomach won’t stand anything more.”

It was not easy to lift the slippery body from the bath. The Rittmeister resisted, muttering angrily, “Port! Waiter, another bottle.”

“What is it?” cried Frau Eva from Violet’s door.

“We’re putting the Rittmeister to bed now,” said Pagel. “He wants something to drink, madam.”

“He’ll get nothing. Not a drop. Look in my night table, Herr Pagel; there ought to be some veronal there. Give him a tablet.”

At last the Rittmeister was in bed, exhausted, in a restless half-sleep. He had been given some veronal, and had been sick at once.

“I ought to bring my car out of the rain,” said Herr Finger hesitatingly. “It’s a brand-new car and it’s a shame.”

“Your firm will get the money all right.”

“But it’s a downright shame about the car,” replied the chauffeur angrily. “The mess it’s in! And I haven’t had anything proper to eat the whole day, out all the time in the rain and cold …”

“I’ll speak to madam,” said Pagel obligingly. “Please stay with the Rittmeister till I return.” He spoke to Frau von Prackwitz, and then let the chauffeur, the women, and Lotte, too, out of the house. All were in a hurry to get away; misfortune had descended on the Villa.

Wolfgang Pagel himself returned to watch over the Rittmeister. It was obvious that the man was very ill; but far worse than the illness of his body, poisoned by alcohol, was the illness of his soul. The man’s self-respect had been mortally wounded; he writhed under the gloomy thoughts haunting him. All his transgressions rushed into his mind, and he closed his eyes.

That did not help. He sat up in bed, staring at the young man in the armchair near by. He wanted to know if he knew, if others knew, how pitiable, how small, how empty he was, had been, would be. But everything confused him. There was a hunt … the lamps burnt so low. There were pictures, shadows of pictures.… Why was the night so still? Why did he suffer alone?

“Where is my wife? Where is Vi? Doesn’t anyone bother about me? Have I got to die utterly deserted, by myself? Oh, God.”

“It’s late in the night, Herr Rittmeister. Your wife and your daughter are asleep. Try to get a little rest yourself.”

The sick man lay back in bed. He appeared to be thinking, to be calmed by the information. Then he sat up again and asked with a sly tone in his voice: “You’re young Pagel, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Herr Rittmeister.”

“And you’re my employee?”

“Yes, Herr Rittmeister.”

“And you must do what I order?”

“Yes, Herr Rittmeister.”

“Then”—there was a pause, till he said all the more haughtily—“then bring me up a bottle of cognac at once.”

Yes, Wolfgang Pagel, here no amiability can help, no compliance, no avoidance; the Rittmeister looks at you tensely, with hatred. He wants his cognac, and if you are not firm he will get it.

“You are ill, Herr Rittmeister. You must sleep first. You shall have some cognac tomorrow morning.”

“I want it now. I order you!”

“It’s not possible, Herr Rittmeister. Madam has forbidden it.”

“My wife has not to forbid anything. Fetch the cognac or …”

The two gazed at each other.

Ah, how naked the world had become, how the gilt came off! Within the home, the make-up is wiped off and the hollow skull of egotism grins at you with its black eye-sockets. Pagel suddenly saw himself lying next to Peter in Madam Po’s room, the dingy curtains hanging in the sultry air. It seemed like a symbol to him now. No! Like the prelude to a difficult test or examination. In those days he could have picked up his suitcase and slunk away like a coward; that was impossible here. Gone were the blessed lies that had tasted so sweet, up and away had gone the tender image of love. Man against man, wolf against wolves, he must make his decision if he was to respect himself.

“No, Herr Rittmeister. I am sorry, but …”

“Then I’ll get my cognac myself. You are dismissed.” In one jump the Rittmeister was out of bed. Never would Wolfgang have thought that the sick man, whom the two of them had only just managed to lift from the bath, could develop such mobility.

“Herr Rittmeister!” he begged.

“You’ll not dare to lay hands on your employer, what?” screamed the Rittmeister with distorted face, running in his pajamas to the door.

It was the decisive moment. “Yes,” replied Pagel, seizing him.

“Leave me alone!” Rage, the unprecedented indignity, the lust for alcohol, gave the Rittmeister strength.

“Achim, Achim! What’s all this?” The noise of the struggle had fetched in Frau von Prackwitz from that sickbed which she had not intended to leave, her daughter’s.

“You! You!” shouted the Rittmeister, struggling all the more fiercely to tear himself from Pagel’s arms. “You’ve set this young fool against me. What do you mean, I’m not to have any cognac? Am I the master here or you? I …” It seemed as though he intended to throw himself on his wife.

“Put him to bed, Herr Pagel!” angrily ordered Frau Eva. “Don’t be over-nice; get hold of him properly. Achim! Achim! Violet’s lying there ill, pull yourself together, be a man for once. She’s so ill!”

“I’m going,” said the Rittmeister, suddenly almost in tears. “When it’s I who am ill you don’t make any fuss about it. I only want a cognac, one small cognac.”

“Give him another tablet. Give him two tablets, Herr Pagel, so that he’ll keep quiet,” cried Frau Eva in despair. “I must go back to Violet.” And, driven by fear, she hurried away. And as she ran across the passage, her heart beat so wildly. What was she going to see next?

But nothing had changed. Her daughter was sleeping peacefully, very pale, her face a trifle swollen and as if brooding. She felt the pulse. It was beating slowly but powerfully. No reason for fear. Violet would wake up; one could talk with her or not, whichever was indicated; she would be restored to health, and they would leave Neulohe and live in some quiet corner. As for money, her father would listen to reason. No one needed to despair because of a defeat—not even Violet. In reality life, looked at properly, was nothing but defeats. Man, however, survived and enjoyed life—man, this most tenacious, most resistant of all creatures.…

It was five minutes past twelve. The decisive, the fateful, hour had begun. Although the room was oppressively hot she shivered.

She opened the window. There was a gentle wind in the dark night, gently the raindrops fell from the trees, and she could perceive only shadows within shadows. Was the danger which threatened her family to come from out of that shadow world?

She shivered again. What am I doing? she thought, alarmed. I’m cold and I open the window. I’m mad, too. It’s all too much for one person.

Carefully she put up the hook between the casements, so that they would not bang in the wind.

At this moment the bell in the hall rang loudly.

X

Across the passage, each in the doorway of a sickroom, Frau Eva and Pagel looked at one another. The young man could not account for the fear on the woman’s face. “That was a ring,” she murmured.

“It will be the chauffeur,” he reassured her. “He’s had supper somewhere in the village and now …”

“No, no,” she cried in distress.

The bell rang loudly again.

“Don’t open, please, Herr Pagel. An evil will come.”

“Or it’s Lotte. Lotte also went. We can’t shut the girl out. Herr Rittmeister is quiet now; let me quickly open the door.”

“Please don’t, Herr Pagel,” she pleaded, as if one could keep out the misfortune invited by a wrongly conducted life. But he was already running downstairs, prepared for any danger. It was foolish, but something like pleasure was his; he was not useless, he had a task in the world, even if it was only the trifling one of demonstrating to the woman upstairs that she had no need to be frightened. For the first time he understood with heart and soul that life brought happiness only to him who fulfilled a task unswervingly, whether large or small. Satisfaction could come only from oneself.

The bell rang for the third time.

From upstairs Frau Eva shouted something incomprehensible.

As Pagel passed the hat stand in the hall he saw a stout oak stick which the Rittmeister used to take with him on his forest excursions. He seized it, swung it round—thereby endangering the hall lamp—and, holding it ready, opened the door just as the bell rang once more.

Outside stood Herr von Studmann with a flushed rather angry face, and an obviously heavy suitcase in his hand.

“You, Herr von Studmann?” cried Pagel disconcerted, lowering his ridiculous weapon.

“Yes, indeed,” said Studmann, as angry as he possibly could be. “I really don’t know what’s the matter today in Neulohe. I thought I should be expected with impatience and eagerness, bringing as I do what is after all a not inconsiderable sum of money—yet there’s no vehicle at the station, the office is shut and in darkness, the Manor also in darkness but full of uproar, just as if there was an immense party on, although no one came to the door.… And here I’ve got to stand ten minutes in a downpour, ringing!” His voice had become more and more reproachful as the inconveniences caused him by the unreliability of others grew clearer in their recitation.

“Listen, Herr von Studmann,” whispered Pagel hurriedly, drawing the startled man into the hall and carefully locking the door behind him. “Here, or rather in Ostade, there appears to have been an accident. Fräulein Violet was brought back from Ostade very ill, and the Rittmeister—badly drunk. That’s all I know. The worst is that his wife is terribly upset and seems to fear a greater calamity, though I don’t know what.… And I’m quite alone with them. Oh, and the Commission of Control was also here and dug up an arms dump in the forest. Did you know about it?”

“I?” cried Studmann indignantly, putting down his suitcase. “I should …”

“Yes, madam,” Pagel shouted upstairs. “It’s quite all right. Herr von Studmann’s here. Shall he come up?”

“Herr von Studmann! Yes. At once. Thank God, Herr von Studmann, you’re back. I need assistance so much.… I can’t come down.”

Pagel returned to the Rittmeister’s room. His employer seemed asleep; he had managed to keep down two tablets of veronal this time. But he couldn’t be trusted. His eyes were shut, his breathing regular; but Pagel felt that there was something wrong. Something told him that in the meantime the Rittmeister had been out of bed. His face bore a sullen, malicious expression, and Pagel resolved to be on his guard. The prison officer, Marofke, had not given him a tip or two for nothing.

And all this while his ear was aware of the voices in Violet’s room. Studmann’s voice was unmistakably a trifle offended, which was not surprising. He had run around, he had negotiated, he had shown his efficiency and his success, he had brought back a heap of money, very necessary and very eagerly awaited—and there was no vehicle at the station, no one to receive him, the money was unimportant, his success was unimportant! For there has been illness in the meantime; people are occupied with other matters; accidents, for example—one that has happened and one that is to come—more important matters.… Poor Studmann. Pagel could so clearly see him standing in front of the gloomy office, carrying the heavy case which he would not set down for a moment. A good nursemaid, experiencing the eternal disappointment of all nursemaids. He had obtained the wished-for toy, but the child did not even look at it; something else had been found long ago.

In this quiet hour of the night, a bit sleepily because he’d been on his feet since half past four in the morning, young Pagel understood why Studmann, friendly, capable, and ready to help others, had remained an elderly solitary bachelor. People do not love their saviors. Once out of danger they resent that superiority.

The voices came and went in the next room. Pagel looked at his wrist-watch—nearly half-past twelve. I shouldn’t mind going to bed at all, he thought drowsily. The Rittmeister hasn’t stirred in the last fifteen minutes; he’s off at last. But I can’t leave the women there in the lurch, and Studmann won’t be staying much longer; Frau Eva’s voice sounds more and more irritated.… If only I could have a coffee at least, a good thick black coffee! And he saw himself go down to the kitchen in the house.… They’ve got an immersion heater there. He saw it that afternoon. It works fast. He would grind himself a good portion of coffee—a good few grams—put them staight in the cup, pour boiling water over the them, let it draw for three minutes, put a bit of cold in, and then drink the lot, boiling hot, coffee grounds and all. Oh! I’ll be as fresh as a fish in water!

But he had to stay up with this idiot who was certainly not asleep. Why was he keeping his hands like that under the bedclothes? Pagel, worn out, even believed it possible that the Rittmeister had got out of bed to fetch a knife. But had he really got out of bed?

Wolfgang’s sleepy mind stoutly refused to interest itself in this question; he could not withstand the vision of a coffee cup—there it was, as if real! It was steaming, the brownish silvery surface made by fine ground, strained coffee in boiling water.… How good a thing like that is against tiredness! With deep relief it occurred to him that he wouldn’t need to go downstairs at all to make coffee—Lotte would be coming. She’d make him some. Where on earth was the girl? It was half-past twelve. Well, she’d have to make him some coffee all the same.…

Pagel started. Perhaps it was a rustle of the bedclothes. Had it not seemed as if a bare foot had been thrust out of bed? No, the Rittmeister lay quite still, and the voices opposite were also still. Oh, yes, what was it Studmann had said? The Manor in darkness but full of uproar and no one at the door.… He’d not thought of it at the time, but it had remained in his mind, like a hook, to pull him suddenly out of his drowsiness. Lotte not back yet, and the Manor in darkness but full of uproar …

There would be nothing wrong, though. Old Elias was trustworthy, and the mice play when the cat’s away. All the same, he would have to jog Studmann about it; for he couldn’t help feeling a little uneasy. His experience with the Oberwachtmeister Marofke had awoken Pagel a little. He no longer ambled about the landscape among its people. He felt responsible. But for what? Responsible for his actions! For himself! No, he wouldn’t forget to jog von Studmann.

It was twenty to one when von Studmann entered the room and said somewhat abruptly: “Will you please let me out, Pagel? And give me the key to the office? You’re staying here, I suppose?”

Pagel threw a glance at his patient. “Do you think that the Rittmeister is sleeping? Fast asleep?” he whispered.

Studmann gave the Rittmeister a fleeting and very unfriendly glance. “Of course he’s asleep,” he said crossly. “Why?”

“It seems to me he’s only pretending,” Pagel whispered.

Studmann looked at Pagel very suspiciously. “Pagel, have you some understanding with Frau von Prackwitz? I don’t understand it.”

“Understanding? How?”

“Because she asked me at least a dozen times if I thought Fräulein Violet was really asleep. She had the impression the girl had been awake a long time and was only pretending.… And you ask the same thing.”

The two men looked hard at one another for a moment. Then Pagel laughed with all his youthful amiability. “Well, let’s go down, Studmann,” he said. “You are over-tired and I can imagine that you haven’t been greatly thanked for all your pains.” He put his arm through von Studmann’s. “Come along, I’ll let you out now. You really must go to bed.”

Slowly they went downstairs.

“I assure you it’s pure chance that Frau von Prackwitz and I asked you the same question. Word of honor, Studmann.… There’s a peculiar atmosphere in the house now. The daughter’s a little ill—well, daughters sometimes are ill. The father’s had a drink too much. Well, fathers often do that, too. Nothing out of the way then; but there’s an atmosphere here as if all the fates were attacking the house.”

“And do you understand that, Pagel?” Studmann stood in the hall, no longer angry but distressed. “I am enthusiastically received, but nobody worries a bit about what I’ve accomplished, and it was really difficult. I ask what’s the matter, I’m told the situation—which doesn’t strike me as alarming—I say a few calming words and am coolly rebuffed. Because I’m without understanding! Do you understand it? Do you know anything?”

“I understand nothing and I know nothing,” said Pagel, smiling. “Since it appears to reassure the lady, I am sitting up with the Rittmeister and trying not to fall asleep. That’s all.”

Studmann scrutinized him, but young Pagel’s eye was without guile. “Well, good night then, Pagel. Perhaps it will be cleared up in the morning.”

“Good night, Studmann,” Pagel replied mechanically. There was something else he had wanted to say, and he looked after the other carrying his heavy suitcase into the darkness. Then he remembered. “Herr von Studmann, one moment please!”

“Yes?” Studmann turned round.

The two men approached each other and met about ten paces from the door. “What is it?” asked Studmann somewhat peevishly.

“Yes, it just occurred to me.… Tell me, Herr von Studmann, are you very tired? Must you go to bed at once?”

“If there is anything I can do,” began Studmann, immediately ready to assist.

“I can’t help thinking about what you told me when you arrived. You remember? The Manor in darkness but full of uproar. That was what you said, wasn’t it?” Pagel paused, then added: “You know that the owners are traveling?”

“That’s right,” said the astonished Studmann. “I never thought about that.”

“It won’t be anything much,” said Pagel reassuringly. “Some little celebration of the servants. Old Elias will see to it that things don’t get too bad.… But I’d make certain, Studmann; that is, of course, if you’re not too tired.”

“Lord, not a bit,” declared Studmann, pleased at the prospect of something to do. “I’ll have to put the money in the safe first, naturally.”

“I wouldn’t ring. Or call out. I’ve thought it over, Studmann.” And Pagel was astonished to find that he had done so without knowing it. “Outside your window there’s the tarred roof, and from there you can get without difficulty onto the veranda of the Manor. That will take you practically round the house, on the first floor, and you can look in all the windows without being seen.… Yes, that’s the way I’d do it,” he concluded with a certain emphasis.

Studmann gazed at him. “For Heaven’s sake, why? What’s your idea there? What do you think I shall see?”

“Listen, Studmann.” Pagel was suddenly very serious. “I can’t tell you. I know nothing. But that’s what I’d do.”

“This sort of spying round at night …” protested Studmann.

“Do you remember that night we met at Lutter and Wegner’s? Then also I had the feeling that it was a very special night, a night of destiny, if I may say so. Why shouldn’t there be something like that, after all? A night during which everything is decided? Now I have this feeling again. A bad night, a wicked …” He peered into the darkness as though he could somehow discover its face, its evilly lurking face. But that, of course, was absurd. He perceived only a gently rustling, dripping darkness.

“Well then, Herr von Studmann,” Pagel ended suddenly, “so long now. I must get back to my Rittmeister. Good night.”

“Good night.” Studmann stared after Pagel, for such mystical fits meant nothing to him. He could hear the door being shut and locked; then the outside light was turned off and he was in darkness. With a little sigh he picked up his heavy bag and set out for the office, determined to scout round the Manor first and keep both his ears open before taking Pagel’s advice. Climbing by night over someone else’s property struck him as more than questionable.

In the hall young Pagel was standing, listening to the quiet house. He couldn’t shake off the strange mood which had been his since the doze by the sickbed. A glance at the clock showed that he had not been with Studmann more than five minutes. It was a quarter to one. Nothing could have happened; he had kept his eye on the front door all the time and stood quite near it. No one could have slipped in there. The house was quiet.

Yet he had the feeling that something had happened.

Slowly, soundlessly—as slowly and soundlessly as in a dream—he went up the stairs. At the door of Violet’s room appeared Frau Eva’s pale, worried face. He nodded to her and said softly: “Everything is all right.”

He went into the Rittmeister’s room.

His first glance showed him that the bed was empty. Empty!

He came to a stop, searching the room with his eyes. Nobody there, and the windows shut. What would Marofke do in such a case? The reply to this question was only negative, however. Marofke wouldn’t do anything rash.

Catching sight of the bathroom door, he pushed it open and turned on the light; the bathroom, too, was empty. He went back into the passage.

Violet’s door was wide open now, and Frau Eva walking to and fro restlessly. She saw him at once and came to him, possessed by feverish agitation. “What’s the matter, Herr Pagel? Something’s happened, I can see it.”

“I’m going to make myself a coffee, madam,” lied Pagel. “I’m tired out.”

“And my husband?”

“Everything in order, madam.”

“I’m so frightened,” she said agitatedly. “Dear Herr Pagel, according to the doctor she ought to have waked up now; and she is awake, I feel it. But she doesn’t stir, whatever I say to her. She’s pretending to sleep. Oh, Herr Pagel, what shall I do? I’m so frightened. As never before.” Her pale face twitched; she was gripping his hand without knowing it. “Have a look at Violet, Herr Pagel,” she begged. “Just say a word to her. Perhaps she’ll take notice of you.”

Young Pagel was going hot and cold. He had to find the Rittmeister—Heaven knew what he would be up to in the meantime! But he let himself be taken to the bed. Doubtfully he looked down on the still face. “She seems to be sleeping,” he said uncertainly.

“You are wrong. You are certainly wrong. Speak to her! Violet, our little Vi, here is Herr Pagel. He’d like to say good morning to you.… You see, her eyelid moved!”

Pagel almost thought so, too, and the idea occurred to him of shouting: “The Lieutenant’s here!”—an idea immediately rejected. Did one do that sort of thing? And did one do it in front of the mother? After all, why shouldn’t she be left in peace if that was what she wanted? And he had to look for the Rittmeister.

“No, she’s certainly sleeping, madam,” he said again. “And I should let her sleep. Now I’ll make some coffee for us.” He smiled encouragement at Frau Eva.

It was a somewhat unhappy role he played in returning under her eyes into the Rittmeister’s empty bedroom, coming out again and nodding: “In order.” Then he went downstairs—her gaze following him—to the ground floor. Instinct guided him correctly. There were six doors in the hall. Of these he chose the one into the study where, that evening in cleaning up, he had seen the two things which, in the Rittmeister’s state, were likely to come into question—the rifle cupboard and the liquor cabinet.

At the sound of the opening door, the Rittmeister spun round with the air of a surprised thief. He leaned against the table, one hand holding on to the back of a large leather chair, the other gripping the bottle of brandy so greatly desired.

Pagel gently closed the door. Since it was the bottle and not the revolver, he thought himself able to be jocular. “Hello, Herr Rittmeister,” he called out cheerfully. “Leave some for me. I’m done up and could do with a little stimulation myself.”

But the cheerful tone was unsuccessful. The Rittmeister, like many drunken persons under no illusions about the shabbiness of their conduct, laid great value on his dignity. In the young man’s tone he felt only an impudent familiarity. “What are you doing here?” he shouted angrily. “Why are you creeping after me? I won’t put up with it. Get to hell out of this at once.” His voice was very loud and very indistinct; his tongue, almost crippled by schnapps and veronal, refused to articulate the words evenly; his swollen voice spoke as if from behind a muffler. And all this only increased his rage. With bloodshot eyes and twitching face he looked viciously at his tormentor, the young fellow he had picked up out of the morass of the great city, and who now wanted to order him about.

Pagel did not recognize his peril or that he had to do with a man almost out of his mind and capable of anything. Unsuspecting, he went up to the Rittmeister and said in friendly persuasion: “Come along, Herr Rittmeister, you must go back to bed. You know that your wife doesn’t want you to drink anything more. Be nice and give me the bottle.”

All things which the Rittmeister did not wish to hear and which deeply insulted him. Hesitatingly he held the bottle out. But in the moment when Pagel was about to take it, the bottle was raised and fell upon his skull with a crash in which the whole world seemed to be shattered.

“There you are, my little fellow!” roared the Rittmeister triumphantly. “I’ll teach you to obey.”

Pagel, his hands raised to his head, had fallen back. In that second he understood, in spite of a numbness and pain which rendered him almost unconscious, the magnitude of the disaster that had befallen this house. He understood what the woman upstairs had already known for some hours—that they had to do not with a drunken, but with a mentally deranged man. As for the young girl …

“Bear yourself properly, second lieutenant!” ordered the Rittmeister in a scream. “Don’t stand so slackly before your superior.”

Despite the maddening pain, and although he could hardly lift his head, Pagel forced himself to adopt a stiff military bearing. The woman upstairs must not be disturbed for anything. It could only be a matter of a few minutes before the schnapps and the veronal would have done their work on his employer. He would quiet down; Pagel mustn’t let it get to fighting. His limbs were trembling—and the noise …

“Attention!” screamed the Rittmeister. Once more he might command and be himself. In his mouth had been put the word of ruthless power, to be obeyed without the flicker of an eyelash. More deeply than alcohol, power intoxicated him a last time.

“Attention, Lieutenant Pagel! Two paces—forward! About—turn. Attention! Attention, I say! Why are you wobbling, man?”

“What’s this?” said the woman’s voice from the door. “Achim, won’t you give us any peace? How you torment me!”

The Rittmeister turned in a flash. “I torment you?” he shouted. “You all torment me. Leave me alone, let me croak, let me soak. What am I good for?”

His voice became softer. “You may stand at ease, Lieutenant Pagel. I hope I didn’t strike you too badly, it wasn’t my intention.”

And now he was muddled again. “I don’t know why I should do something like that. It’s in me, it’s always been in me; I repressed it, but now it’s got to come out. No one can restrain it; it must out. But when it gets something to drink, it quiets down, goes to sleep.…” He went on murmuring to himself. With his foot he knocked against the bottle on the floor, which had emptied itself. He shook his head and turned again to the liquor cabinet.

“Take hold of him, Herr Pagel,” said Frau von Prackwitz in a faint voice. “Can you grasp him on one side so that we can get him up the stairs? I’ll attend to your head immediately after. I must go back. Oh, let him! Let him take his schnapps with him. What does it matter now? It’s all over. Oh, Pagel, if it wasn’t for Violet, why should I go on living? I’d prefer to do as the pair of them do, go to bed and sleep and not care about anything more. Oh, Herr Pagel, tell me what’s the purpose of it, to marry and be fond of a man and have a child, and then it’s all dashed to pieces, dust to dust, man and child, dust to dust. Tell me, Herr Pagel.”

But Pagel made no reply.

The pitiful little procession stumbled up the stairs. The Rittmeister was hardly conscious, but he did not lose hold of his bottle. His wife was in such agitation that she kept coming to a halt, forgetting their burden, talking at Pagel, demanding a reply. And Pagel, half stunned, heard this gabble; but he also heard something else, and in his tortured brain the thought slowly took shape, that he was hearing something horrible, appalling.

No, the house was no longer quiet. Between the woman’s broken sentences he could hear from the first floor a noise which he had not yet heard that night, a dreadful noise, wooden, dry, lifeless.

Clap … clap.

And again—clap … clap … clap.

In the middle of Frau Eva’s chatter Pagel raised his hand (leaving the Rittmeister to sink down on the landing), looked fixedly at her and whispered: “There!”

And Frau Eva was silent at once, raised her head and looked at Pagel, listening at the same time. It was quite still.

Clap … clap.

Her chin began to tremble, her pale face turned yellow as if laid waste by a sudden illness, her eyes filled with slow tears. And it came again—clap!

In that same moment the spell was broken and together they dashed up the stairs, along the short passage and into Violet’s room.…

Peaceful in the light of the lamp on the ceiling, the bed gleamed whitely. But it was empty. The unfastened windows were clapping in the night wind, slowly, lifelessly, woodenly. Clap, clap.…

And now came what Pagel had feared the whole time, that before which he had quaked and yet had expected … the woman’s scream, the terrible unending scream which broke into a hundred, a thousand little screams, like a diabolic laughter … the creature shattered by her agony.

Pagel laid Frau Eva on the sofa, patting her hands, reasoning with her so that her ear might perceive near by a friendly human voice. Again and again he told himself that this was no conscious cry, that the woman was almost overpowered by the extreme pain.… But then, once again, he felt that this one voice contained the cries of all mothers who would lose their children, sooner or later, for we tarry here not. He went to the window and closed it to make an end of that unbearable clapping, and as he did so gave a glance at the lattice along the wall and thought he saw a trampled vine—and shut the window. He knew enough. The syllogism: arms dump—Lieutenant—Violet, was so easy for him. Half an hour ago he had been tempted to call out to the girl shamming sleep: “The Lieutenant’s coming!” He hadn’t done so, and now the Lieutenant really had come, he believed. Pagel had no doubt that he understood everything. But what could he say about it to the distressed woman?

He comforted her, repeating over and over again that the girl in her fever had run into the woods and that Frau Eva should go with him just for a moment down to the telephone, so that he could inform Herr Studmann. Then they would look for and find the girl.… But no kindly word, no persuasion, reached Frau Eva. She lay there and groaned and wept. He was alone in the house—on the landing the Rittmeister slept away the loss of his daughter. He could not leave her.

Till the telephone below rang shrilly. What had not been possible to the human voice was possible to this ringing. Frau von Prackwitz started up and cried: “Run to the telephone. They have found my Vi.”

She came too, standing behind him, holding the second receiver. They stood very close, with burning eyes, like ghosts … listening. But there came only the voice of Studmann, excitedly reporting that in the Manor the maids were holding an orgy with the escaped convicts, all of them blind drunk and—“Pagel, it is a magnificent opportunity!” With a quick movement Frau von Prackwitz hung up her receiver, and Pagel saw her go upstairs slowly and as if unconscious. In a low voice he told Studmann that Fräulein Violet had disappeared from the house. Police on motorcycles, and a bloodhound, would be needed at once, and two or three reliable women for the Villa.… The door would be open.

He hung up, unlocked the door and left it wide open to this night of calamity; more could not befall the house. Then he hurried upstairs, stepping without ceremony over the sleeping Rittmeister, and found Frau von Prackwitz kneeling before the bed of her vanished daughter. She had thrust her hands beneath the cover, perhaps to perceive all that now remained to her of her child, the faint warmth retained by the bed.

Wofgang Pagel sat motionless next to the motionless woman, his head in his hands. Here, confronted by the greatest pain he’d ever seen, he fell to thinking about another woman, one far off, and much beloved. Perhaps he thought about what man can do to man, in love, in indifference, and in hatred. He hardly came to any decision; calculated decisions hadn’t gotten him very far. But he let something grow within him which had quietly always been there. He gave it all the space he could. It was something very simple: To be as good and as decent as possible. Because we are all of one flesh.

Then he heard the voices and the footsteps of the people below. Now everything immediately became confused, as always when people are involved. He got up and had the Rittmeister brought to bed. He rang the doctor, and the lady would go to bed, too. He himself had plenty to do

But all that only confused the essential thing. To be as good and decent as possible. That was what was important. That’s valid for a whole life.

XI

The wind had become stronger around the third hour of morning. It flung itself booming into the forest and brought the rotten and dead branches crashing to the ground. Autumn was going over into winter. From the swift clouds fled occasional brief showers, but the bloodhound did not lose the scent.

How many people were out! All Neulohe was on foot, no one asleep in the houses; lamps were burning everywhere. An amazing, a prodigious thing! The escaped convicts had hidden themselves in the Manor; they hadn’t gone away at all. Snug in the maids’ bedrooms they had enjoyed love and good food. Then, when the owners went on their travels, there had been a big party. The wild mirth had gone to their heads; in their frenzy they had even made the worthy old Elias, wrapped in a carpet, his mouth gagged, the spectator of their bacchanal. The maids had been utterly shameless in making friends with the convicts. Their rooms had overlooked the harvesters’ barracks; signs had been exchanged, at first only in jest, but afterwards both parties had come to understand one another very well. Old Marofke had been on the right track.

Yes, there had been something rotten, in the Manor as in the Villa. There had been a lot of prayer there, but that alone was of little avail. How would the old lady take the bad news? Her home must appear to her as desecrated.

It had been easy work for the gendarmes; in fact no work at all, as with shouts of “Hands up!” they rushed with Herr von Studmann into the large dining room. The convicts, thinking it a very good joke, had laughed. They had had a delightful time; they had luscious things to relate; they would be the heroes of the prison. And what could actually happen to them? Upstairs in the maids’ rooms their prison dress was neatly put away, not a piece missing; there could be no question of theft or housebreaking. Six months—three months—would square the matter for them. It had been worth that!

The girls, to be sure, sobbed. Oh, how the fat cook howled when the handcuffs were put on her lover, the convict Matzke! She pulled her apron over her head, howling beneath it like a puppy—she was so ashamed.

Pagel, looking in to hurry up the gendarmes, for Fräulein Violet seemed more important now than these convicts, saw Amanda Backs, that strapping buxom wench, standing at a window, her face curiously tense. She was watching with furious eyes the drunken, sobbing, cursing, hilarious uproar in the room—since there were not enough gendarmes to shut off the place, far too many of the merely curious had entered.

Pagel had a feeling of disappointment. Only yesterday he had thought her splendid when, in front of the Entente Commission, she boxed the ears of the traitorous Meier. “You too?” he said in a troubled voice.

Amanda Backs looked him full in the face. “Your brain soft?” she said contemptuously. “I’ve had enough of rotters. No, thanks, I’m cured of that. If there isn’t a decent one, then I’d rather not.” Pagel nodded. “I sleep downstairs because of the hens,” she explained. “I’ve got to get up early and mustn’t disturb madam. But they all sleep upstairs. I knew about it, of course—they’re nothing but a lot of geese, and there’s no geese without cackling.” She looked at the turmoil. “I wonder if they’ve noticed yet?” she said thoughtfully. “I can’t understand it. There should be five of them, and they’ve only got four. I don’t know whether the fifth has escaped or was never here at all.”

Pagel’s eyes shone. “Liebschner, Kosegarten, Matzke, Wendt and Holdrian,” he said immediately. “Who’s missing, Amanda?”

“Liebschner. The one with the uneasy black eyes, a skulking fellow, you know, Herr Pagel!”

He nodded and went up to the gendarmes, to make inquiries. But they had already noticed that a man was missing. Even if they hadn’t, Studmann’s excellent memory spoke as correctly as Pagel’s—Holdrian, Wendt, Matzke, Kosegarten, Liebschner.

Yes, for a time it looked as if the search for Fräulein Violet, in spite of all Pagel’s entreaties, would be forgotten because of this missing fifth man. But toward three o’clock more gendarmes hurriedly arrived, and the curious were ejected. Interrogations began, greatly facilitated by the sudden appearance of a detective or former detective, whom the gendarmes seemed to know; a fat man, exceedingly dirty and wet through, with a strangely frozen look.

Two minutes, and it was clear that Liebschner had not been present at the orgy. Three more minutes, and it was shown that he had never been in the Manor. Ah, the fat sobbing cook, that weeping mountain of flesh! Now she indeed started out from under her apron. “Only four of us sleep upstairs,” she shouted. “What should we do with five chaps? For shame! What do these men think we are!” And she disappeared blubbering under her apron again.

Another two minutes and they knew that Liebschner had been lost by the other four immediately after the escape, in the woods.…

“What is he? Swindler? Let’s not delay here any longer,” said the fat detective. “The lad’s a long time ago in Berlin. Neulohe’s no place for a gentleman like that. He knew what he wanted. Our colleagues at headquarters will be hearing about him. Pretty soon, I hope. Away with those chaps! You, Herr von Studmann, please go over to the Villa and tell the doctor to come as well. It would be better—the girl’s in her nightdress or pajamas, same thing this weather.”

“Frau von Prackwitz …” objected Studmann.

“The lady is asleep, had a small injection. The gentleman’s asleep, had enough, too. The doctor’s got time, I tell you. Wait! Bring some piece of the girl’s clothing so that the hound won’t lose the scent; anything which the girl had next to her skin. And another thing. There’s said to be a forester here, an old ass, Kniebusch or something like that. Get him out of bed—the man will know his own wood.”

“I will fetch the forester,” said Pagel.

“Wait, young man. Herr Pagel, isn’t it? I was wanting to speak to you.”

The big hall had emptied itself. Only two or three of the bulbs set up for the orgy were still alight; the air was icy and seemed dirty. A half torn-down curtain hung from a window revealing a night blind.

The fat man took Pagel gently by the arm, obliging him to walk up and down. “It’s damned cold. My very marrow’s ice. How that young girl must be freezing! She’s been practically two hours outside now. Well, tell me all you know about the young lady. You’re in employment on the estate, and young men are interested in young women. So out with it.” His icy gaze penetrated the young man.

But Pagel had seen and observed a good deal; he was no longer the unsuspecting young man who submitted to every pretension made with authority. He had heard a gendarme exclaim peevishly: “What’s that lump of fat want with us again?” and had noticed how the fat man gave instructions to civilians but never to a gendarme, and how the gendarmes acted as though he were not there, never speaking to him.

“First I should like to know in the name of what authority you are here,” he replied slowly.

“You want to see a badge?” cried the other. “I could show you one, only it’s not valid now. I’ve been kicked out. In the newspapers they call it disciplinary punishment on account of nationalist convictions.”

“You are the only man here,” said Wolfgang more rapidly, “who kept urging the search for Fräulein von Prackwitz. What is your interest in her?”

“None,” said the man icily. He bent closer to Pagel, seized his jacket and said: “You are lucky, young man. You have a pleasant face, not a bulldog’s mug like mine. People will always have confidence in you—don’t misuse it. Well, I trust you, too, and I’ll disclose something. I have a great interest in whatever is connected with arms dumps that have been carted away.”

Wolfgang stared in front of him. Then he looked up. “Violet von Prackwitz is fifteen years old. I don’t think that she …”

“Herr Pagel,” said the detective with a cold look, “in every case of treachery there is a woman behind it, either as instigator or tool. Often an unconscious tool. Always! Tell me what you know.”

So Pagel told what he knew.

The fat man walked beside him, snorting, clearing his throat, looking contemptuously at the walls, tugging furiously at the cord of a curtain, spitting. “Idiocy. Miserable idiocy!” he cried. Then, somewhat calmer: “Thank you, Herr Pagel, things are a little clearer now.”

“Shall we find the girl? The Lieutenant …”

“Blind!” said the fat man. “Born blind in a world of the blind! You’re thinking of the Lieutenant—well, Herr Pagel,” he whispered, “you will be able to say good morning to this Lieutenant in an hour’s time, but I’m afraid you won’t like it.”

It was completely quiet in the hall. Only the lamps still glimmered. Pagel stared at the fat pallid face. As if through a veil it seemed to nod to him, that face acquainted with all the baseness, all the naked brutality, all the sins of the human heart, and which lived on, acquiescent. He looked into that face, and did so again. I was on that road, he said. Did he say it out loud? He heard the wind outside; a dog howled; another answered. The fat man took him by the shoulder. “Let’s go, young man. We’ve no more time.”

They went into the forest.…

The wind blew. It whistled in the invisible treetops, it screamed; branches fell with a crash, showers of rain became spray. Without a word the men advanced. The hound was straining at his leash, followed by his master whispering encouragement and praise. Then came Pagel and the detective, then the doctor with Studmann, and the two gendarmes.… The forester was not there. He could not be found; he was said to be out somewhere. “But I’ll get him!” the detective said in a tone Pagel did not like; and after that he walked silently beside the young man. Once he switched on his flashlight, stood still and said calmly: “Please don’t tread here,” and let the others go on. “Look.” He pointed to something on the ground which Pagel could not distinguish. “He’s thought of everything. She’s wearing shoes now, and he’ll also have brought a coat or something for her.”

“Who’s thought of everything?” asked Pagel, wearied. He was terribly tired and his head more painful than ever. He’d afterwards ask the doctor about it.

“Don’t you know even yet? You told me yourself.”

“If it’s not the Lieutenant,” said Pagel annoyed, “I really don’t know who it is. And I shan’t be able to find out tonight, either, unless you tell me.”

“When the blood becomes too thin,” exclaimed the fat man enigmatically, “then it loses its strength. The blood wants to go back to where it comes from. But we must hurry. My colleagues are far enough ahead to enjoy the honor of the discovery.”

“Do you know, then, what we’re going to find?” asked Pagel, with the same weary annoyance.

“Yes, I know what we shall find now. But what we shall find afterwards, no, I don’t know that. I can’t even guess.”

They quickened their steps, but those in front seemed also to have gone faster, and they were a minute too late; the others were all round him.

There was a murmur, the wind passed overhead. But it was quiet in the Black Dale as the circle of men swayed here and there—the white beam of the doctor’s torch lay intolerably brilliant on that which had once been a face.

“Dug his own grave, too! Quite off his head.”

“But where’s the girl?”

Murmuring. Silence.

Yes, there was no doubt about it, this was the Lieutenant of whom Pagel had so often heard and had once so wished to meet. There he lay, a very quiet, a very dubious figure—to be frank, a pretty bemired heap of rags. It was incomprehensible that this should ever have been the object of hate and love. With an inexplicable feeling of indifference, almost of repulsion, Pagel looked down at the thing. “Were you worth such great things?” he might have asked.

The doctor stood up. “Undoubtedly suicide,” he declared.

“Does any one of the gentlemen from Neulohe know the man?” asked a gendarme.

Pagel and von Studmann looked at one another across the circle.

“Never seen him,” replied Studmann.

“No,” said Pagel, and looked round for the fat detective. But, as he had expected, he was nowhere to be seen.

“This is the place, isn’t it, where …?”

“Yes,” said Pagel. “Yesterday afternoon I had to come here to make a statement. This is the place where the Entente Commission confiscated an arms dump.”

“The dead man unknown, then,” said a voice in the background, decisively.

“But unmistakably suicide,” burst forth the doctor, as if putting something right.

There was a long silence. In the feeble torch light the faces were almost surly.

“Where’s the weapon?” finally asked the man with the bloodhound.

There was a stir.

“No, it’s not here. We scoured the place. It couldn’t fall far away.”

Again that long reluctant silence. It’s like an assembly of ghosts, thought Pagel, extremely unhappy. And he tried to get nearer the dog, so that he could stroke its beautiful head. Had they all forgotten the girl?

But one of them now spoke. “And where is the girl?”

Silence again, but tenser.

“Perhaps—it’s quite simple,” said a gendarme. “He shot himself first, and she picked up the weapon to do the same. But she wasn’t able to, and has taken it with her.”

A thoughtful silence.

“Yes, that would be it. You are right,” said another.

“So we had better quickly carry on the search at once.”

“That can take all night! We’re never lucky at Neulohe.”

“Off! No dawdling now.”

A hand from behind gripped Pagel’s shoulder, a voice whispered in his ear. “Don’t turn your head. I’m not here! Ask the doctor how long the man’s been dead.”

“A moment, please,” called out Pagel. “Can you tell us, doctor, how long the man here has been dead?”

The country doctor, a thick-set man with a peculiarly sparse black beard, looked hesitatingly at the body, then at Wolfgang. His face cleared a little. “I have not the experience of my colleagues attached to the police. May I inquire why you ask?”

“Because I saw Fräulein von Prackwitz asleep in her bed at half-past twelve.”

The doctor looked at his watch. “It’s half-past three now,” he said quickly. “At half-past twelve this man had been dead for hours.”

“Then someone else must have brought Fräulein von Prackwitz here,” concluded Pagel.

The hand, the heavy hand which all this time had rested like a load on his shoulder, was removed and a slight noise in the rear betrayed the fat man’s departure.

“That knocks out your explanation, Albert!” said an irritated gendarme.

“How?” retorted the other. “She could have come here alone and found the dead man. She takes the revolver, goes on …”

“Rubbish!” said the man with the bloodhound. “Are you blind? There were two trails, a man’s and a woman’s, all the way. This is a bad business and it goes far beyond our ability.… We shall have to report a murder.”

“This is suicide,” contradicted the doctor.

“We have to look for the girl,” Pagel reminded them. “Quickly.”

“Young gentleman,” said he with the bloodhound, “you know something or you have a suspicion; otherwise you wouldn’t have asked that question of the doctor. Tell us what you have in mind. Don’t leave us in darkness!”

Everyone looked at Pagel, who was thinking of that time when Violet had kissed him. He would gladly have felt now the firm hand on his shoulder, the voice in his ear. But when we have to make a decision, we’re on our own, and we have to be. The words “I just don’t know” rang desperately in his head. He listened to the words. Then he heard the rough voice again, that evil yet sad sound with which she had spoken: Blood will flow.… Blood will flow. Then he looked from the dead into the faces of the men. “The blood wants to go back to where it comes from.”

“I know nothing,” he said. “But perhaps I have guessed something.… This morning Rittmeister von Prackwitz dismissed his servant after a serious quarrel. The maid there told me this evening that it was about a letter which the Fräulein had written.… The Fräulein was very young and this servant was, according to what I know of him, a very evil person. I could imagine …” He looked questioningly at the men.

“Blackmail then! That sounds a bit different,” cried a gendarme. “None of these damned affairs of traitors, arms dumps, secret tribunals!”

His colleague cleared his throat loudly, almost menacingly. “Let the hound smell the vest. Don’t move, anyone! Take Minka in a circle round the hollow; everything’s stamped down here.”

Within five minutes the hound, tugging at the lead, shot up a little path. The men hurried after it, out of the hollow and up a glade, further and further from Neulohe.

Suddenly the detective was at Pagel’s side again. “You did that very well,” he said approvingly. “Have you guessed it at last, then?”

“Is it really true?” In his shock Pagel stopped. “It can’t be.”

“On, young man! We’re in a hurry now, though I’m convinced we’ll be too late. Of course it’s true—who would it be else?”

“I don’t believe it. That gray, fishlike brute!”

“I must have seen him on the streets of Ostade yesterday,” said the fat detective, “I had a sort of inkling of his face. But one sees too many faces these days which look like the faces of past or future criminals. God help the chap if I find him!”

“If we can only find her.”

“Stop. Perhaps your wish has just been fulfilled.”

There was a delay. At right angles to the glade the bloodhound, tugging, went into a thickly wooded coppice of firs. Battling with the branches and aided by the torch, the men pushed on. No one spoke. It was so quiet that the animal’s impatient panting sounded like the strokes of a steam engine.

“The scent’s quite fresh,” whispered the fat man to Pagel, and forced his way through the undergrowth.

But the little clearing they came to, hardly larger than a boxroom, was empty. The hound with a yelp sprang forward, and its master bent down. “A woman’s shoe,” he cried.

“And another,” exclaimed the fat detective. “Here he … On, gentlemen! We’re just behind him. He won’t be able to go very fast with the girl in stockings. You can praise your dog, man. Onward!”

They ran.

This way and that went the wild chase, between firs and junipers, the hound yelping, the men knocking in the dark against tree trunks. “I can hear her!” “Be quiet!” “Wasn’t that a woman screaming?”

The forest became more open, they advanced faster, and suddenly, fifty or sixty yards in front, there was a light between the branches, a beam white and brilliant …

“A car. He has a car!” cried someone. And they stormed forward. The engine started up, it roared, the glare flickered, became weaker.… And they were running in darkness.

They came to a halt. In the distance a light traveled away. A gendarme lowered his pistol—impossible to hit the tires.

They must hurry back to Neulohe! They must telephone; the fugitives could be followed in the Rittmeister’s car. All set off.

“Pagel,” called out Studmann impatiently, “aren’t you coming?”

“In a moment.”

The fat man held Pagel by the arm. “Listen, young man,” he whispered. “I won’t come with you, I’ll go back to Ostade. Those chaps are full of optimism because they’re on the track and it’s nothing to do with a traitor. Chasing political murderers is something they don’t like, although they have to. But you, young man, are the only sensible-looking one on the farm. Don’t deceive yourself or the others, especially the mother. Break it to her slowly.”

“What is it I’m to break to her?”

“When we were pushing through the thicket I too thought that he’d done it. But when we found the shoes …”

“We had disturbed him.”

“Perhaps. But he had calculated it to the minute. Pagel, I tell you in your worst dreams you couldn’t dream of a fellow like that. It’s possible, of course, that he will still do it, but I don’t think so. It’s much worse.… There are people like that. Generally, in healthy times, the others don’t let them advance. In a rotten diseased age they flourish like weeds.… You needn’t think, Pagel, that this fellow’s a human being. He’s a monster, a wolf who kills for the sake of killing.”

“But you say he won’t do it?”

“Do you know what that means, to be sexually enslaved? Can you imagine it? Dependent on the breath and the glance of such a monster, able to do nothing without his permission and will? There’s your little girl! And now he’s got away he will do the worst he can; continually he will almost murder her and then let her live a little. What he calls living! Just enough for the spark of life to experience the fear of death!”

There was a gust of wind in the trees.

“Pagel,” said the fat man suddenly, “I’m going now. We’re hardly likely to meet again, but it has been, as they say, a pleasure.”

“Pagel,” he said once again urgently, “pray to God that this mother never finds her daughter—she’d no longer be a daughter.”

He was gone without a sound, leaving Wolfgang Pagel alone in the dark and windy forest.