Dr. Mabuse, master of mystery a novel
behind them, he was quite unable to make anything out of them.
* * * * *
The next afternoon brought him no enlightenment either. By four o’clock
he had obtained the twenty thousand marks, and he made his way to the
Excelsior Hotel. At his request a telephone message was sent to Room
15. Herr Balling was there, he was told, and requested the gentleman to
send up his card. This Hull did, following close upon it.
In the middle of Room 15 he found a man whom he had never seen in his
life before. He was a short, stout, clean-shaven man, apparently an
American. He made a very stiff bow.
“I beg your pardon,” said Hull. “I must have been directed wrongly. I
wanted Room 15.”
“This is it,” said the other.
“Then Herr Balling must have given me the wrong number.”
“My name is Balling.”
“This time I am _not_ dreaming, I am in full possession of my senses,”
said Hull to himself, and then aloud, he continued: “But the mystery
can soon be explained. Did you write this?” and he extended the
notebook in which the stranger of the previous night had written his
name and address.
“Certainly not,” replied the stout man.
“Then I am not in your debt to the tune of twenty thousand marks?”
“My time is very limited, and I am expecting a friend on business,”
said the other, looking at his watch.
“I will make way for your friend, sir, at once, and will only put one
more question to you. It is not my fault that I am bothering you; I
have been misled in some way.”
The other nodded.
“Possibly you are acquainted,” Hull went on, “with a gentleman of about
sixty, with large grey eyes, a big nose and white whiskers. He wears
good and well-cut clothes and a tall grey hat, and his name is also
Balling.”
“I can only repeat that I know nothing about him,” said the Balling of
No. 15.
Hull thereupon took his leave. Downstairs he asked whether there were
a second Herr Balling in the hotel, but the answer was “No.” Had Room
15 been occupied by any Herr Balling who had just left? “No.” Was the
writing in the pocket-book known? Again there was a negative reply.
“For the first time in my life,” thought Hull, “I find myself unable to
pay a debt of honour.”
Gradually he became uneasy. What a mysterious affair this was! Nothing
of the kind had ever occurred before. He had won money and lost it
again ... sometimes much, and at other times little. He had been in
financial straits. He had had some trouble about a girl he cared for.
Once, indeed, he had been seriously wounded in a duel. Yet all that was
comprehensible and straightforward, so to speak. But this tale of Herr
Balling and the twenty thousand marks had some mystery or other behind
it. He had forgotten that it was he who introduced the stranger to the
club. He had played as if he had lost his head. He had incurred a debt
of twenty thousand marks, and his creditor had furnished a name and
address which did actually exist but were not his, and, moreover, he
would not have the money....
If it had not happened that Hull had no mistress at the moment, he
could have talked this affair over. He pondered over it alone while he
walked along Lenbach Square and the Promenade, looking everybody in the
face in the hope that he might encounter the distinguished stranger
among them. He went to the Café Bastin and scanned all the faces there.
He sat down at a table and waited to see whether the _genius loci_
would be favourable to him and recall the vanished recollections;
but nothing came of it, and he stood up again, a prey to increasing
uneasiness. It seemed as if in the invisible depths behind him another
power, extraneous to himself, was pursuing him, pressing down upon him,
trying to jump on his back as a monkey might do, and lead him into
unlucky adventures of some kind or another.
Hull forced himself to return to his lonely bachelor chambers. There he
met Karstens, and greeted him with relief. But Karstens at once asked:
“Well, has your memory returned?”
“My dear fellow, there’s something wrong with me!”
“With the twenty thousand marks?”
“No, there they are!” and he tapped his breast-pocket. “Nobody
wants them, it appears. There is a Herr Balling in Room 15 at the
‘Excelsior,’ but he isn’t my man, and we’ve never met before. He has
never played vingt-et-un, and nobody owes _him_ twenty thousand marks.
I can’t get rid of the money, and it makes me feel creepy! Something
is going to happen to me. Who _is_ there near me whom I cannot see?
There’s certainly something wrong with me!”
“Come to the club! Perhaps your Herr Balling will go there to fetch the
money himself.”
“Yes, but what about the real Balling in No. 15?”
“Well, that’s certainly odd, I grant you. Come along.”
“All right. Perhaps he’ll be there.”
In the club that night there was no play. The curious circumstance
had so worked upon the members’ imagination that no one felt the need
of trying his luck. Hull was overwhelmed with well-meaning or obtuse
advice.
“Emil,” said one of them to the attendant, “what did his car look like?”
“An excellent one, Herr Baron, a twenty-horsepower at the least--a
closed car with a body like a royal cradle, if one may use such a
comparison nowadays ... so smooth and well rounded and polished. It
started off with a great bound, and soon vanished. It was a first-class
car. I kept a close eye on the gentleman, and I saw that he had the
devil’s own luck when he played against Herr von Hull. He played quite
straight, however.”
They learnt nothing more about the stranger. Nobody came either to the
club or to Hull’s rooms to ask for the twenty thousand marks or to
offer him his revenge.
A few days afterwards Hull made acquaintance with a girl who was
performing jazz dances in the Bonbonnière. She was partly Mexican, she
told him. She soon effected a diversion in his thoughts, and in her
company he rapidly got rid of the twenty thousand marks which he could
not pay over to the stranger.
“It seems as if you were meant to give the money to a woman instead of
to a man,” remarked Karstens, when he told him that he was now free of
his worries once more.
II
About a fortnight later the circles to whom the life of the day is
only a wearisome burden till the hour of play arrives, when the
nerve-tension is once more excited, were all agog with the stories of
a stranger who simply loaded himself with money wherever he chanced to
play. The tales varied constantly. At one time the stranger was a young
sportsman, at another a worthy provincial; now he was a fair-bearded
man looking like an artist, and again a robber and murderer who had
escaped from justice. Some said he was a dethroned prince, others that
he was a Frenchman. Another time they declared him to be a citizen of
Leipzig, who was smuggling pit-coal from the Saar into Bavaria by way
of Switzerland, or profiteering on the money exchange with New York and
Rio de Janeiro. There was endless variety in the descriptions, but the
imagination put the various forms together and made one personality out
of them.
Circles that were exclusive had ceased to exist. Money was a key that
opened all doors, the wearing of a fur coat could conceal any calling,
and a diamond scarf-pin shed lustre on any character. A man could go
into whatsoever company he desired.
There was no longer any sense of security, and the mysterious gambler
might turn up in any place, at any time. He might be anybody’s
neighbour. The authorities were constantly notified of swindling
players, and though in no case could their swindles be proved, their
luck was so continuous that it did not seem possible for it to be due
to ordinary play.
Through the Bonbonnière lady Hull frequently spent his evenings in
places where gambling was indulged in. He heard much about this
swindler at play, and from many different quarters, for theatrical
folk are always particularly interested in anything out of the common,
especially where masquerading is concerned. But Hull’s brain was of a
matter-of-fact and ordinary kind. He did, indeed, still think about
the twenty thousand marks, but mostly with the comfortable reflection
that they had been used in a very different way from that for which
they were destined. Now that the story of his forgetfulness had ceased
to haunt him he had become quite convinced that his friends had played
an elaborate trick upon him, that his I O U and the twenty thousand
marks had been discharged, and the only disreputable part in the affair
had been played by Balling, who, on account of Emil’s watch upon him,
had not felt himself secure. His astonishment was all the greater,
therefore, when a certain Herr von Wenk was announced and the story of
that night’s escapade was brought up once more.
Hull refused to discuss the matter, but the visitor told him he was
a State Attorney and showed his credentials. In the most polite way
possible he continued to question him, saying that his official status
obliged him to pursue the inquiry. Had Hull been able to communicate
with Cara Carozza, his _chère amie_ from the Bonbonnière, instead of
having to face this man by himself, he would have known what to say and
how much to conceal. He was greatly enamoured of Cara Carozza, and by
no means inclined to go into this matter and rake up bygones for the
sake of the country’s morals.
“You will pardon my introducing a personal note, but I understand that
you are very intimate with Mdlle. Cara Carozza, of the Bonbonnière?”
“Good Lord! He knows that, does he?” ejaculated Hull to himself.
“Can you make me acquainted with this lady? It would further the task
which the State has laid upon me, but I would ask you to introduce
me to her as a private individual. It is unnecessary to assure you
that I take you for a man of irreproachable character and quite above
suspicion. Nothing is known to the detriment of the lady, either.
You will be able to render a service to the country and perhaps to
yourself as well. Henceforward you are under the direct protection
of the police. Do not be uneasy; it is possibly quite an unnecessary
precaution. You can rest assured that you will not suffer in any way
through the services you may be able to render to the general public
and the State.”
“What am I to gather from all this, sir?” said Hull hesitatingly.
“You must have come to some conclusion about your extraordinarily lucky
opponent?”
“To be quite candid, I did feel uneasy for a time, Herr von Wenk.
There seemed to be something very mysterious about the affair. Finally,
I imagined that my forgetting that I had brought the stranger to the
club was a feeble joke on the part of my friends.”
“But the Herr Balling in the hotel, who was quite different from the
Balling at the club?”
“That certainly is a mystery to me still, but a false address is often
given for the purpose of evading payment. In this case, however, it
occurred in order to avoid receiving twenty thousand marks.”
“May it not be explained,” continued the State Attorney, “by the fact
that this elderly gentleman had been cheating in some way? He was set
on his guard by some fact unknown to you, and contented himself with
the money he had already won. He gave a name which occurred to him, and
of which he had some knowledge. Unless, of course, the Balling in the
‘Excelsior’ was the Balling from your club, disguised. But you say that
the one was short and stout and the other of rather imposing presence.
Do you still play, Herr von Hull?”
“A little, now and again.”
“With Mdlle. Carozza, perhaps? I am on friendly terms with one of your
intimates, with Karstens. He will introduce me to you, and we shall be
able to renew our acquaintance socially. You must not be prejudiced by
the fact that it has had an official beginning. I hope to be able to