XVI
At nine o’clock next morning Mabuse was at Count Told’s villa. As he was now endeavouring to hold himself ready for flight at any moment, he wanted to bring this matter of the Count to an end.
He had desired him to drink, and for some days now Told had been drinking, in passionate abandonment. Mabuse looked at him in silence. When Told was intoxicated he said to him, “You are a person without the slightest power of resistance. Where is your razor?”
In a thick voice Told answered that it was on the washstand.
“Is it sharp?” said Mabuse with a peculiar intonation. “Sharp enough?” he repeated with an emphasis so marked that it seemed as if he wanted to hammer an idea into the Count’s head.
Mabuse took it up, seized a sheet of paper and made a sharp clean cut in it. Then he said threateningly, “Yes, it is sharp enough.” Thereupon he laid the razor aside, but did not return it to its case. He called the servant in, saying to him, “The Count’s condition is not so good as it was. He is drinking brandy with his Tokay. I have no objection to a little light Burgundy, but these strong spirits are not to be allowed. You must take away what is left in the bottle. Your master will … now … go … to sleep!” He uttered the last words in a long-drawn-out, menacing tone. Then he went out of the room in front of the footman, and left the house.
Half an hour later, Count Told, not knowing what he was doing, cut his throat from ear to ear. He had a feeling as if something in his throat were preventing him from enjoying some great happiness, and he wanted to remove the hindrance.
At two o’clock a message came from Mabuse to ask how the Count was getting on. The footman said he was asleep, but he would go and look at him to make sure. Then he found him bathed in blood, where he had fallen from his armchair to the ground, his body now cold in death. The doctor’s messenger came into the room, looked at the corpse, and went back to report to his master.
The manservant did not know what to do. Since none of the Count’s relatives were in the neighbourhood and he did not know the Countess’s address, he felt he must inform the police first of all. But then, again, he was not sure which was the right office to go to to give such information, and it occurred to him that the State Attorney, Herr von Wenk, was an acquaintance of his master’s and had asked after him recently, so he drove to Munich, sought out the lawyer, and told his story.
“Was the Count at home then all the time?” asked Wenk.
“Yes, sir, all the time.”
“Then why did you tell me on the telephone that the Count had gone on a journey?”
“The doctor told me that on account of my master’s state no one was to be allowed to see him, and I must tell anybody who inquired that he had gone away. My master saw nobody but his doctor.”
“What was the doctor’s name?”
“I never heard his name, sir. I don’t know it.”
Then Wenk remembered that Privy Councillor Wendel had given him a letter to Dr. Mabuse, and that the Count had used Wenk’s own telephone to make an appointment with this doctor.
Wenk trembled as, struck by the horror of a strange suspicion, he described to the footman the figure of Dr. Mabuse as he had seen it recently at the Four Seasons Hall. He spoke of him as a tall man, stooping slightly, without beard or moustache, with a broad face and big nose and large grey eyes. When the man said, “Yes, he looked exactly like that,” Wenk grew pale as death. In a moment all the disconnected impressions, hazy ideas, vague recollections, half-defined thoughts and images which had been partially obliterated, but not altogether lost, gathered together in his mind. When Wenk had the hall emptied, why had Dr. Mabuse not asked the reason for this measure? Why had he not inquired whether he could continue his experiments at another time? Why had Wenk, who had seen a man whose back he had recognized go into the hall, not found him again inside? Why had the two men who would not obey the detective’s order to move on, suddenly done as they were told immediately Mabuse appeared? Why had Mabuse’s eyes, in the brief moment he had looked into them, affected him so powerfully, as if they sought to read something that lay hidden in his very soul and was now almost forgotten?
He dismissed Count Told’s servant, and then tried to find Dr. Mabuse’s number in the telephone book, but it was not given there. Yet Mabuse had a telephone, for the Count had rung him up from this very house. The Privy Councillor knew the number.
When Wenk, having obtained the telephone number from Herr Wendel, gave it, there was no reply. Ringing up the exchange, he was told that the telephone had been disconnected. He asked who had had it three weeks before, but this could not be ascertained at once.
Again Wenk rang up the Councillor. Dr. Mabuse had changed his number; did he happen to know his address? Wendel could give no information. He only knew the telephone number, and spoke to him on the phone. Wenk then asked at the Police Registry Office for Dr. Mabuse’s address, but the name was not to be found anywhere among the arrivals in Munich, and when, at the Municipal Registry, all the old telephone books were searched to find Mabuse, he was again unsuccessful.
Thereupon Wenk repaired to the manager of the telephone exchange in order to make a more thorough search. The manager took him to the inquiry-room, where two young women were employed, and he asked them to look again for the number he had telephoned about.
“What were you wanting?” asked the elder of the two, and Wenk explained that he was seeking the address of a Dr. Mabuse, who three weeks before had a telephone number that did not appear in the directory.
The girl said she could not find it anywhere, whereupon Wenk returned to the manager with this information. He declared this was something quite unheard of, and himself accompanied Wenk to the inquiry office. He, too, made a search with the clerks, but could find nothing. While the manager was looking through the lists without success, an idea occurred to Wenk, and when he was informed that no one of the name of Mabuse had been entered on the list at all for the last year, he asked the manager for the telephone number and address of a man named Poldringer. As he uttered this name he saw the elder girl start and then immediately recover herself, but an instant later she told him rudely that there were ever so many Poldringers in Munich, and without the Christian name and the exact address she could not furnish any information.
Then Wenk turned to the manager, saying politely, “I am sorry to have to put you to some inconvenience, but I must take both these ladies into custody!”
He at once took up a position between the girls and the telephone. “Be so good as to sit down on these chairs till the detectives arrive; you here, and your companion there!” The elder of the girls turned as white as a sheet. The other blushed, and then began to cry. Wenk said, turning to her, “It is only a formality. If you behave properly, this matter can be carried through without exciting notice, and it is probable that it will not be long before the mystery is cleared up.” Then he rang up the Criminal Investigation Department and asked for three detectives.
The manager looked through the list of Poldringers, for there were many entries under the name, most of them being tradespeople. One, of whom no further information was given, was living in the Xenienstrasse, and another, without any professional status, in the Ludwigstrasse.
The girls were given in charge, and Wenk went to the Ludwigstrasse. He came to a lodging-house, looked at the surroundings and inspected the inside, and then went to the Xenienstrasse. Then suddenly his heart stood still, for in the Xenienstrasse, at the address given under the name of Poldringer in the telephone list, he saw on a professional plate the words
Dr. Mabuse,
Neurologist.
He hastened away, merely noting the numbers of the houses standing near. The street consisted of detached villas. A mist swam before his eyes, and the blood pounded in his pulses; there was a sound as of pistols in his ears. He had his man. No, he had not got him, but at last he knew who he was!
Before doing anything else he drove to the prison, for the time Cara Carozza had demanded had now expired, and what she might tell him would probably set the seal upon the success of his enterprise.
Early that morning, when it was time for the warder of the women’s prison to make his first round, the door of Cara’s cell was opened. The dancer was still asleep. She was shaken by the shoulder and, awaking quickly, found the warder bending over her, yet it was not the warder, it was Spoerri. Surely she was dreaming? But no, she was still in prison. How came Spoerri to her bedside? She put her hand to her eyes to shut out the vision, and yet she knew in her heart it was reality. Spoerri was standing there. He said to her:
“Surely you know that I am in league with the warder?” She nodded. “Then you know, too, that he told me what happened yesterday when the State Attorney came to see you?”
“What did he tell you?” the girl asked breathlessly.
“That you are going to betray the master!”
The dancer sprang out of bed. “Who says so?” she shouted.
“Please don’t talk so loudly. The warder says so.”
“It is a lie.”
“The warder would have no interest in lying.”
“Did he tell the doctor so?” she asked anxiously, and Spoerri lied in answer:
“Yes, of course he did, and the doctor sent me to you.”
“It is a lie,” cried Cara again, on the verge of tears; “I was going to save him!”
“How can you prove that?”
“I was going to save him, I tell you. Spoerri, danger is threatening him.”
“Danger is always threatening him. That’s mere nonsense. Can you prove what you say?”
Cara hastily related what had passed between her and Wenk. Spoerri answered indifferently:
“I mean, can you prove it beyond all shadow of doubt? But be quick, please, for I must get away from here in five minutes.”
“What can I do to make the doctor believe me?” asked the girl in despair.
“I must tell you that the doctor is very disturbed, for he could not have believed it of you.”
“No, no, I could never have done it,” she stammered, thoroughly downcast; “but how am I to prove that I didn’t … how can I prove it? Surely you know, Spoerri, that. …”
Then Spoerri with a smile drew out of his pocket a small flask. “The proof lies there,” he said.
“Where?” asked the distracted girl.
“In here, my pretty one; don’t you see?”
“I don’t understand you,” said the dancer.
“Oh, you don’t need to understand, my child, only to drink. Just one little mouthful to swallow and then the doctor will know your word was to be relied on.”
Cara looked horrorstruck at the little flask. “What is it?” she asked.
“A heavenly drink, my pretty one, nothing that hurts one in the least. The doctor himself made it up. But mind you throw the bottle out of the window quickly! See, I am opening it for you. Be sure you don’t forget that! And be quick about it, do you hear? Throw it away at once, for if there’s no bottle to be seen, nobody will know what has happened. That’s what the doctor expects of you; that is a proof that no one can doubt. Besides, you know us. Even your husband. …”
With that he drew a knife out of his pocket, playing with it lightly. He threw it at the door, and it stuck there with the point transfixed. He pulled it out and put it away again.
“Do you see that?” he said. “Now I must be going. Well, au revoir!”
He was about to leave, but Cara sprang towards him and clung to his knees, sobbing.
“But I am still so young, and I love life. I have been very useful to him. I was hoping to be set free … by him. Set free at any rate, even if he can never love me again.”
“Well, I can only tell you,” answered Spoerri, “that he is very much disturbed about all this. You can take it or leave it.”
Then the girl said, “Then I will free myself of this existence. I will show him, a thousand times over, that he can trust me. I will give my life for him. …”
“Oh, spare me your heroics!” said Spoerri roughly.
But the girl went on unheeding, “What am I after all?—a mere shadow following him about and hiding out of his sight, but yet unable to part from him. Yes, I will prove it, a thousand times over. … I will free myself. …”
“Well, if we are taken by surprise now, it will be a hanging matter for us both; he told me so. And who knows whether they won’t even get him?”
Then Cara became suddenly calm, and said quietly, “It is all right; you can go. And tell him. … No, you needn’t say anything. I don’t want anything more from him. …”
Spoerri left hastily, leaving the little flask in Cara’s hand. It was now warm from her fevered touch.
“He does not believe me,” she said to herself tremblingly. “The Doctor will never believe me again. Strange—and yet, can there be any greater proof to offer that I was always faithful to him? Oh life! base, incomprehensible, disturbing life! This terrible life of mine! Come!” she said, apostrophizing the flask; “we will show him there is nothing to fear from me. We will prove it to you, you … king of men … you enchanting murderer! you sublime destroyer! my horror and my bliss! …”
She shouted aloud, then she grew fearful lest her cries might endanger the beloved life, and she snatched the stopper out of the bottle. Standing upright in the middle of the cell, she drank, a moment later throwing the bottle out of the window, where the sun streaming in proclaimed the morning of a new day.
Wenk faced the curator of the women’s prison.
“Yes, sir, we were sorry to be unable to inform you, but it was not possible to communicate with you. The doctor says it must have been a heart-stroke, for she was found lying dead in her cell this morning.”
Amazed and horrified, Wenk entered the cell. It was empty, the straw pallet bare. Cara’s clothing lay on a stool. Wenk looked round, and was about to leave when he saw something shining on the window-ledge. He went back and examined it, and found it was a small piece of glass, rounded in shape, with a very strong odour clinging to it. Wenk jumped on a chair and found another piece of glass outside. Then he went down into the courtyard, and very soon had collected all the other pieces of the bottle. It had broken against one of the window-bars. He had the glass tested, and there were evidences of poison upon it.
He walked back to his chambers—pondering over this new occurrence. “Another victim!” he said to himself repeatedly. One more sacrifice, a real sacrifice, for this one had sacrificed herself. This light-of-love had offered her life as a sacrifice to her love. She had not meant to tell him anything—he realized that now. She merely wanted to put him on the wrong track that she might have a chance to warn the criminal. “I have no success with my women helpers,” he thought sadly, asking how it was that these steadfast souls should be found on the side of evil rather than good—always on the side of evil, it seemed to him. When the dancer was buried next day, he was the only outsider present, and he returned to his chambers slowly and sadly.
There, however, plenty of work was awaiting him. His idea was to seize Dr. Mabuse in his own home, and first of all he must ascertain when he was sure to be found at home, and the two confederates must be secured at the same time, the one at the Xenienstrasse and the other in the Schachen villa; there must be no time for one of them to inform the other.
His preparations must be complete, down to the very last detail, and then a surprise attack, which must not last more than three minutes, could be made. It was clear that a man who could boldly carry through such crimes as these, in the very heart of the city and in the teeth of the highest civil powers, would have secured himself against all possible emergencies in his own quarters. That was undoubtedly the case, and all these careful preparations of Wenk’s required time.
First of all, he must be able to secure one of the neighbouring villas as his post of observation. It was here that he laid claim to Herr von Hull’s help. He drove straight to him, asking, “Can you do me a very great service? Will you employ a confidential agent to lease a floor of one of the houses No. 26 or 28 in the Xenienstrasse, or, better still, the whole villa? I want it just as it is, and to be able to go in the day after tomorrow. The question of expense need not be considered. I shall want the house for two or three weeks. Spring is approaching, and there may be someone who wants money for a little trip out of town.” The old gentleman promised to do what he could in the matter. Then Wenk asked the police inspector who had engaged him for the road-engine, to come to town. He arrived by the 11 a.m. express.
“Matters are approaching a climax, inspector,” said Wenk. “You must be ready to take action at any moment. I will leave the plan of it to you. You have had plenty of time to get to know the geography of the place and the opportunities it affords, but the very moment you receive my order to surround Villa Elise, you must go at it, hell for leather. You must get your man, alive or dead. We shall put another motorboat on the lake, and you can double your force on shore. The road-engine can be moved away now. The spring season is just beginning in Schachen, so you and six or eight of your men can be visitors to the lakeside!”
At seven o’clock next morning the inspector returned to his post, and at eleven o’clock old Hull came with the lease of villa 26 in the Xenienstrasse.
“There is a young couple living there,” he said, “whom my suggestion exactly suited. They wanted to go to Switzerland to visit their parents, but were frightened at the cost of the railway fare. I offered them five thousand marks for a month’s rent of the villa, and they will change them in France. I am afraid I am causing a loss to our exchange. …”
“But you are benefiting your country in another way, Herr Hull, and that you will very soon find out!” said Wenk.
“You can take possession of the villa at six o’clock tonight!”
At six o’clock, Wenk, disguised as a cyclist messenger, went into the empty villa, leaving his bicycle outside. He was quite alone in the house, and at once sought for a window which would afford him vantage ground. He concealed himself behind a lace curtain and began to watch the street. The first thing he noticed was that after he had been there about a quarter of an hour someone stole his bicycle and made off with it. He had never seen a thief actually at work before; this side of his calling was presented to him for the first time today. He regarded it as a favourable omen, being much amused by the comic haste with which the thief had looked round him on all sides, although he was even then straddling the machine.
For two hours he kept watch on the front door, side door, window and roof of Mabuse’s villa. No one went out or in, and though Wenk remained on the watch till midnight, nothing was to be seen. He fell asleep at the window, woke and watched again, and then slept once more, finally awaking in broad daylight. His servant brought him a meal prepared in a restaurant near. It was a long vigil, and Wenk, bringing the telephone to the window, held conversations with acquaintances and with some members of the police force.
At last, towards six o’clock in the evening, a car drew up and immediately drove away again. A gentleman went up to the front door. Was it Mabuse? No, this was an old gentleman, with the feeble and uncertain step of a paralytic. Possibly he was a patient.
Soon after that Wenk saw a chimney-sweep leave the house. He went along quickly and cheerfully, puffing away at a cigarette. Wenk had not seen the sweep go in; that must have been mere chance, though. The old invalid seemed to be there a long time; could he be waiting for the Doctor? Perhaps, though, he was one of his assistants. It seemed hardly likely. However, he must do nothing rash.
Twilight was already advanced when a man with a parcel rang at the front door, which was opened with surprising promptness. Half an hour later this man came out again, and so it went on. Even through the night people kept coming and going, and next day it was the same story.
On the third day Wenk was called up early by his man. The Criminal Investigation Department had some important information for him. Something had happened during the night at a gaming-den. Would he like an official to bring him a report? Yes, he replied, but the detective should come in some sort of uniform.
Half an hour later the detective, got up as a telephone repairer, appeared and told his story. Last night a young man had come to the guardroom and said that he and others had been playing baccarat in a secret gaming-house. An old gentleman, who seemed to be partially paralysed, was playing too, and he always lost his money. When it was just upon three o’clock in the morning, the old gentleman had a sudden fit of rage, shouted out something, and immediately three men, who had also been playing, leaped on the table. They drew out revolvers, shouting “Hands up!” Then a fourth man went from one visitor to another, searching their pockets and taking all their money away, as well as that lying on the table. They had taken twelve thousand marks from the man who was telling the story. When they came to the old gentleman they left him alone, and he suddenly stood up and walked out as if there was nothing the matter with him. Two of the thieves accompanied him, and the others protected him from behind, and outside there were two cars waiting.
This story excited Wenk greatly. It did not interfere with his scheme, but, on the contrary, it showed that Mabuse felt himself secure. Yet while Wenk was here in a strange house behind a curtain like a sleepy bat, the criminal was going his accustomed way, calmly, boldly, as if he had nothing and nobody to fear. After all, it was quite natural. Why should he not go free when the man who had sworn to bring him to justice was in hiding here behind a window curtain!
Taking a sudden resolve, Wenk left his post, and did not return till evening. He had given an order to extinguish the streetlamp in front of Mabuse’s house by breaking the glass and damaging the electric light bulb. It was a dark night, and as soon as Mabuse’s windows showed no light Wenk entered the garden. He was carrying a canister filled with fine meal, and he clambered over the fence into Mabuse’s grounds and went cautiously along the garden path, scattering the meal in a thin layer over part of the short walk between the garden gate and the house. Then he hurried back over the fence to his own garden and into No. 26 again.
Half an hour later someone left Mabuse’s house, but Wenk could not see who. After an hour and a half, he heard steps in the street passing beneath his window. He saw a man wearing military dress, who went quickly to Mabuse’s door and disappeared within the house.
Wenk went downstairs again and hid behind a shrub in the garden. After a long time he heard Mabuse’s front door open, and in the starlight he could see that a stout, elderly lady was leaving the house. She went into the street, where a car seemed to spring up from nowhere. She got into it and drove rapidly away.
Wenk clambered over the hedge between his and Mabuse’s garden, crept on all fours over the grass to the garden path, and examined the ground by the help of his electric torch. Then he saw that the footsteps of all three persons were exactly the same. Therefore, whoever it was who came out first, and the soldier, and the elderly lady, were one and the same person. And then it occurred to him that yesterday and the day before yesterday the chimney-sweep, the paralytic, the messenger with his parcel, were the same person, and this person was—Mabuse. Wenk carefully removed the traces of the meal.
Tonight must lead to some conclusion or other. In both the nearest guardrooms special police were ready, fully armed, prepared to break in at any moment. When Wenk knew Mabuse to be safe at home, he would hasten to No. 26, send a telephone call, and three minutes later Mabuse’s house would be surrounded by police. To burst the door would be the work of thirty seconds. Six men would remain outside and surround the house. The other six would join him in a rush on the place. When Mabuse was secured, the order to Schachen would go through.
Wenk stole rapidly back to his own garden, stretched himself flat on the ground and waited. The earth radiated the warmth of this day of late spring, and he felt the power that lay in the soil. And in an attitude of tense expectancy, two hours, one hour, perhaps even minutes only before his work would be crowned with success, it seemed to Wenk as if music, a music betraying the secrets of all hearts, stole over his senses. Tears filled his eyes, and his bare fingers caressed the fragrant ground. He felt as if it were the very essence of manhood laid bare, the manhood for which he was risking his life.
He had decided to lie here waiting until Mabuse, in some disguise or other, should return to the house. Nothing could go wrong now. When the other was once more inside, like a mouse caught in a trap, Wenk would hasten back and breathe his order into the telephone.
But before this could happen he was to undergo a strange experience, something which made his heart stand still and a cry by which he had almost betrayed himself pass his lips. A car came up the street, and stopped with a noisy shriek in front of the house. But no one got out. No, it was Mabuse’s door which opened, and in the person descending the steps, and pausing in the glow of the headlights, Wenk recognized the Countess.
If he had not pressed his lips to the ground that very instant, his cry must have betrayed him. The car hastened back whence it had come. “Wife-robber! Husband-murderer!” raged Wenk. So this was the secret of Count Told’s death. “The man is a devil and a werwolf!” he cried.
Suddenly he felt the cold night penetrating his clothing, and he found himself trembling. Was he going to have an attack of ague now, at the very last minute? He struggled to subdue the feelings that threatened to overcome him. In the still night he heard the hammering of the pulses in his brain, and he bent all his energies to the task of listening for what was to happen.
Twelve o’clock struck, and it seemed as if the town were shaken by the powerful strokes, as if these beats must penetrate into the very heart of this house which sheltered the monster, and every vibration become a dagger hacking him to pieces.
The clock had ceased striking, and a footstep sounded, but whether near or far-off Wenk could not at first determine, for the throbbing in his ears. Suddenly the garden gate creaked, and in the starlight he saw a broad expanse of white shirtfront. A man advanced rapidly to Mabuse’s door, and in the instant that he stood on the doorstep, waiting for it to open, the starlight revealed to Wenk that the figure was that of the man he was seeking. And now the net was closing around the victim.
Wenk waited three minutes, four minutes. Would not the world come to an end during these moments? Might not the skies fall, and the last judgment begin?
Then he pulled himself together and climbed stiffly over the fence to return to No. 26. He rushed upstairs in the darkness, seized the telephone, called for the number and gave the guardroom the orders he had arranged. He had but to name the street and give the number of the house, which till now he had kept a secret.
A motorcyclist was to go to the second guardroom directly the telephone message was received. The car containing the first relay of police was to follow him immediately, and at the second guardroom those aroused by the cyclist’s warning were to be ready to get in the car and proceed with the others at full speed to the villa. Thus it had been arranged.
After Wenk had telephoned he hastened downstairs again. He stood in the dark entrance, waiting for the first sound of the approaching car. Was he not consumed with fever? No, he bit his lips firmly, made his muscles taut and commanded himself to keep cool. He must be cold and hard as steel. Steel it should be!
He had not long to wait.