Dr. Mabuse, master of mystery a novel
Lindau, Wangen and Constance. From Constance they told me that the
number I gave belonged to a car in use by the Sanitary Commissioners
which never left Constance.”
“Isn’t it possible that the car had been expected at the villa, but
did not stop at it, either because they wanted to use it again shortly
or because something had made them a bit suspicious--the steam-roller,
for example?... and therefore Poldringer was told to wait for the
car in the street and take it to some place of concealment? During
that time the man who had brought it here arrived at the villa. He is
either still there with Poldringer or else he was the woman in the
rowing-boat, and he has driven to the place where the car is. We must
find out where they keep it hidden.”
“We often hear the sound of a motor-boat at night not far from the
shore, but we are not able to keep an eye on it.”
“I shall sleep in the trolly with you to-night, and we will stop the
roller half a kilometre further away from the house. Is there any
suitable place to hide in near the house?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll go together. Is that settled? All right, then; now I’m
going to learn how to lay out the stones. Hitherto, I’ve only laid out
criminals!” laughed Wenk.
“Yes, your honour,” said Schmied cheerily, as he released the throttle
and started the engine. “Will your honour please to stoke up!” And Wenk
heaped more coal into its glowing maw.
“Up to now your honour has never fired an engine, only criminals!” he
continued, carrying on Wenk’s joke.
“Yes, but not enough of those, as you see at the villa, my good
Schmied,” answered the lawyer. “However, I hope with your help....”
“We shall catch them all right,” said Schmied eagerly.
“If we don’t overreach ourselves, for I think we are dealing at the
moment with the most dangerous and daring gang in Europe. You know that
we have ascertained so far that it is a case of card-sharping, murder,
terrorization, and all of it done by the help of a gang.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Schmied.
As they were leaving the trolly that evening Schmied whispered: “I
should like to draw your attention to something, sir. Every evening I
go by as if I were taking a little rest after the day’s work, and I
light up my pipe. Just at the side there, you see, we are getting to
a little door. Whenever anyone goes by, the dog begins barking, and I
couldn’t help thinking there was some reason for it, but one can’t find
it out from the street. You see now, I am just close to it, and while I
am going by I fasten ... (just listen to the dog now!) a thread across
the door. Anybody who opens it would break the thread, but he would not
notice it when going through. In this way I can keep watch over the
door, even when it is not actually in view. Then I can tell whether
anyone has gone through the gate in the dark. In the morning I go and
look at it first thing, and take the thread away.”
“Is it there already?”
“I have just fastened it there.”
“Then you did it very smartly, for I did not notice anything,” said
Wenk, praising him.
“Let us go back. It really is a side-entrance to the other villa.”
“Do you know who is living there?”
“For the last thirty years an old maid has been living there. There
certainly is no connection between the two villas.”
They strolled back along the road.
“If you would like to go to sleep, Schmied, I have no objection. I know
what I’ve to look out for now.”
“Well, I really should be glad to, sir, for last night I got no sleep,
and I must be out there again before four o’clock.”
“I understand. Well then, good-night....”
Wenk continued his patrol throughout the whole of the spring night,
but nothing happened, and he noticed nothing out of the common. Next
morning he repaired to the hotel at Lindau, the address of which he
had notified before leaving Munich. The director told him he had been
rung up from Munich, and his man wanted him to know that Count Told
most earnestly desired to speak to him as soon as possible. The call
had come from his home at Munich. He seemed to be greatly agitated, and
begged the man to telephone the message on.
Wenk returned to Munich and rang up the Count, but an unfamiliar voice
informed him that the Count had started on a journey.
“Did he leave no message for me?” said Wenk.
“No.”
“Where has he gone?”
“He left no address. Please ring off.”
Wenk was thoroughly perplexed.
XV
That same morning Mabuse had visited Told. “You are not so well, I can
see,” said he to him. “Your pupils are very much dilated.”
“Is that a sign...?” said Told hesitatingly.
“Yes. Don’t talk about your state; put it entirely out of your head.
Where is your wife?”
The startled Count could not venture on an answer.
“Your wife did not want to live with you any more--never any more!”
went on the Doctor harshly. “That is so, isn’t it? You must destroy the
past, break off all relation to it. Call your man here!”
Told rang, and the man came. The Count, with a gesture, referred him to
the doctor.
“Has anybody telephoned?”
“No, Doctor.”
“Has anyone rung up from here?”
“I did,” answered Told.
“Whom?”
“Dr. von Wenk.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to speak to him.”
“What did you want to say?”
The embarrassed Count answered, “Only ... to speak ... to speak to
some human being or other!”
“Is your servant a bullock, then, or am I one?” asked Mabuse harshly.
“You can talk to me if you want to. What crazy idea has got into your
head?”
The Count turned his head away; he no longer had the courage to face
his doctor.... “Is he going to cure me?” he asked himself. Then he
looked up at him timidly and irresolutely. “You are no human being:
you are a devil!” was the secret cry of his heart, but these fierce
thoughts soon left him, and he felt suddenly sleepy. “I am always so
tired!” he exclaimed.
“Tell your man now, in my presence, to refuse all visitors or anyone
who telephones. He must say, ‘The Count has gone on a journey. He left
no address. Please ring off.’”
Slowly and mechanically Told repeated the order, and the man bowed and
withdrew.
“I am really not sure whether I shall go on with your case,” said
Mabuse. But Told hardly heeded him; he seemed to feel a slow poison
stealing into his veins.
“You are thirsty!” said Mabuse, suddenly.
“Yes, I am,” whispered the Count.
“You are to drink a mixture of brandy and Tokay, as much as you like.
Take good long draughts--the brandy will do you good. You must forget
everything in your past, your wife as well. When you are convinced that
you have succeeded in doing that, you are on the road to recovery.
You must destroy the past, you understand. The alcohol will help you
there.”
“Destroy the past,” stammered the Count, as if sinking into a bog that
threatened to engulf him, “destroy ... the ... past....”
“In two years’ time you can think about resuming your ordinary life
again. In what time?” he broke off suddenly. “What time did I say?” he
thundered.
The Count aroused himself from his lethargy. Horrified at the length of
time involved, he answered in a low tone, “Two years.”
“Do you know that your wife wants to put you into a lunatic asylum? She
is getting the State Attorney, Wenk, to help her. Was not that the man
who rang you up?... I am coming again to-morrow.”
The Count remained alone, dejected and humiliated. It seemed as if
elephants were trampling out his brains, that his spirit was a prey
to crocodiles and he was covered with mud and slime. “The whole world
has forsaken me,” he murmured. The pictures he had collected around
him seemed to be celebrating orgies on the walls. He could no longer
understand how it was they could ever have pleased him, nor why he had
endured them so long. He took a hunting-knife and slit every one of
them from top to bottom, hacking at their frames. When he had done it,
he sprang back in horror. He held his head in his hands, groaning, “Oh
God, am I really mad?”
He began drinking brandy, and he drank it out of a claret tumbler.
When he had had three glasses he was intoxicated. Then it seemed as if
the doctor had left something behind him and that this lay in front of
him. He did not know what it was, but he tried to grasp it, and then
suddenly it had jumped to his head. It seemed like a wedge fastened
there, fitting tightly between the two halves of the brain. Fear seized
upon him and tore his courage to shreds. “Doctor, Doctor,” he shouted,
and he heard his voice re-echo in the empty rooms. The world was so
wide, yet he was alone. And then he became unconscious.
* * * * *
Karstens succumbed to his wounds, and again the public imagination
busied itself with the death of a second victim. Wenk found himself in
a difficulty and decided one day to make a final appeal to the dancer.
He went to her cell.
“I am not going to speak to you,” said Cara when she perceived him.
Wenk took no notice, and said in a troubled tone, his hopes
disappearing: “Do you know that the beautiful lady who was always
looking on at the play at Schramm’s has disappeared?”
“Not the one you sent to me in prison?” answered the dancer instantly.
“Yes,” said Wenk, and it was not till he had uttered the word that
he perceived the significance of this admission. It was all very
mysterious. Had the Countess revealed her errand to Cara, and was she
in league with the gamblers? It seemed incredible, but yet how strange
it was that Cara, who would not at first speak to him, at once gave him
her attention when he mentioned the Countess. Wenk did not want Cara to
think that he was astonished at this, and went on talking, while he was
trying to consider how he could best arrive at the secret; but he did
not stop to reflect upon the ideas that came uppermost. In the course
of the conversation he hazarded a conjecture that had often occurred to
him when he thought of Cara’s connection with the criminal, but which
he had never mentioned till now. He said, “You are sacrificing yourself
for this criminal because you could not make up your mind to part from
him.”
Then Cara sprang up, staring at Wenk as if convulsed. He looked her
right in the eyes, and noticed that an expression of overwhelming
horror stood in them, and was clearly written upon her distorted
features.
“Well?” he asked, encouraged and hopeful.
But Cara remained as if frozen in her stony attitude.
Then he ventured further. “If we came to some agreement, I could make
proposals that would be to your advantage.”
Slowly the dancer recovered from the horror that had seized upon her.
For the last three years, ever since Mabuse had repulsed her, her life
had been a story of self-sacrificing martyrdom and devoted adherence
to the man who had wrought her ruin and driven her to crime. Not for
a single instant had she thought of betraying him, of refusing her
allegiance. Indelibly stamped upon her whole nature like the brand of
a slave was the feeling that mastery and might such as his could never
be contested. And now, through Wenk’s words, she beheld this man whom
she adored threatened with danger. What did the State Attorney know,
and how had he obtained his knowledge? Had the Countess betrayed her
after all? Slowly she evolved a plan by which to discover how much the
lawyer knew. She might possibly convey a warning to Dr. Mabuse, and at
the thought her blood was fired and the delicious sensation of feeling
herself his deliverer, and perhaps, too, regaining the ascendancy she
had lost, stole over her. No, it could not be, she dared not even
conceive of it; to save him from danger would be enough for her, to
know him secure would be bliss. Finally she said, “Since you seem to be
better informed than I imagined, I will speak, but you must give me two
days to think it over.”