Dr. Mabuse, master of mystery a novel
It was the surge of humanity in which mortals, for good or ill, were
engulfed in a gloom which none could dominate and subdue. In that night
of reflection the lawyer saw the criminal no longer as a being of an
inferior order. He envisaged him as a man whose pulses raced madly
along, his senses stirred by the powers of hell; a man whose lusts and
appetites, demon-fed, should overreach themselves and be brought to
nought, and he, Wenk, should save and deliver him. The fighter should
gain the ascendancy over his adversary.
In imagination Wenk was now struggling with the blond stranger, and in
him he had a powerful opponent. He suspected even more than he already
knew. If he could relieve mankind of him, he would have accomplished
something by which he could advance further.
The song which Wenk’s heart had been singing for the last two hours
suddenly seemed to be familiar to him, and in astonishment he realized
that the state to which he had now come had been foreshadowed in
his boyhood’s days, even before his university career, his military
training, and his entry into law, when as yet no idea of the
justification of humanity had fired his blood. Thinking over his lonely
bachelor existence, without any womanly influence, he felt a strange,
sad yearning for the father who had died long before.
The next day Wenk asked Hull to procure for him a list of all the
secret gambling-dens, the addresses of which might be obtained with
the help of Cara, who was _au courant_ of such matters. He made Hull
promise, however, that he would not speak to the girl of himself in
this connection.
Wenk visited these places evening by evening. He went disguised as a
rich old gentleman from the provinces. He had chosen this disguise,
first of all, because he had an excellent example of it in an elderly
uncle whom he merely had to copy. The old gentleman gave the impression
that he was thoroughly enjoying all his experiences of the great city.
Wenk had some accomplices among Karstens’ acquaintances. He begged
them to make it widely known that he, the “country cousin,” was a man
of fabulous wealth, which when once settled down, he intended to use
to the full. He thought that thus he might entice the gambler from
Schramm’s and others bent on plunder, that his wealth would be the
candle to these night moths. At times he played carelessly for half an
hour, adapting himself to the character of the game; then he would win
considerable sums, only to lose them again next time. With all this he
never lost sight of his own affairs or his neighbours’, and during the
game his brain was working busily with a keenness which brought its own
satisfaction.
One evening during the second week in which he was pursuing this
course, he came to a gaming-house in the centre of the city which, from
the style of its habitués, who appeared more downright than in some of
the other places, seemed to promise him something out of the common.
There he saw an old gentleman sitting at the card-table, his attention
being drawn to him on account of his horn spectacles. These were of
unusual size. The old gentleman was addressed as Professor. When he
took his cards in his hand, he removed his horn spectacles, exchanging
them for eyeglasses of an uncommon shape.
Then Wenk noticed that the spectacles now lying on the table were not
the usual type of modern horn spectacles, but were of tortoiseshell,
very artistically designed. The old gentleman slipped them into a
large shagreen case, dotted over with green points. All his movements
were very leisurely, so that Wenk had ample time for his observations.
“Those are Chinese spectacles,” he thought to himself, recalling
his own journey to China, which he had made before the war. The
recollection surged up so powerfully that he uttered aloud what he had
really only intended to say to himself.
The Professor, who sat opposite him, nodded to him and said in a firm
voice, which he had not expected to hear from so aged a mouth, “They
are from Tsi-nan-fu!”
He repeated the name, stressing it and separating the syllables,
“Tsi-nan-fu.” It was as if the name had a rhythm and recollection
behind it which affected him strongly, and which he enjoyed in the mere
repetition of the syllables. He looked across at Wenk, as if his eyes
in their large glasses were sending him a challenge. Wenk at once felt
some strange connection with the old Professor.
“Tsi-nan-fu,” said the harsh voice again, as if with special meaning;
indeed, as if he wanted to hurl the three syllables at something, some
invisible goal behind Wenk--to reach, three times over, an invisible
point in the obscurity straight above his head beyond the circle of
electric light.
Wenk involuntarily raised his hand to the back of his head and turned
round. Was he seeking the spot towards which the three syllables were
projected, and had they reached their goal? When he looked round he
observed that behind his neighbour at the gaming-table sat the lady
whose mysterious flight from Schramm’s he had assisted. It seemed as
if she were regarding him mockingly, and he did not know what course to
pursue with regard to her, but at that moment he felt that cards were
being dealt to him, and he turned again to the table to take them up.
As he did so he began to feel sleepy, and felt dimly that the staring
eyes of the Professor were somehow responsible for this. He forgot
the beautiful unknown, and strove to banish his lassitude, sitting
bolt upright and gazing at the green shagreen cover of the Chinese
spectacle-case. It seemed as if the eyes of the old Professor, larger
than ever behind his glasses, were fixed vaguely upon him, and some dim
recollection of past days of travel flitted into his mind. One morning
on his journey to China, through the porthole of his cabin he had seen
a narrow strip of coast-line between sky and sea, and knew it for the
delta of the Yang-tse-kiang. Yes, it was the Yang-tse-kiang.
Pursuing this recollection, Wenk named his stake, won it, and left
his money lying. A comfortable sense of drowsiness pervaded him, and
he stretched himself out, enjoying it. Then he became wide awake once
more, played his game, and continued his watch. The players were
holding the bank in turns, and it seemed to Wenk as if he were only
awaiting the moment when the old gentleman should take it over. “Why am
I waiting for that?” he asked himself. “How strange it is that I should
be. There are feelings that one cannot trace to their source.”
He finally decided that he was awaiting that moment because the
Professor with the Chinese spectacles was the most interesting person
present, and that this waiting sprang from a feeling of _rapport_ and
sympathy with him.
As the evening proceeded, this secret bond between him and the unknown
Professor grew stronger still. “It is childish and sentimental,” he
told himself; “what is it going to lead to?”
Then the old gentleman took the bank, and Wenk seemed to be
released--released from a ridiculous and unnatural tension. “Now
things will be all right,” he thought. He staked a small sum, trying
to indicate thereby that he was no opponent of the banker, and that
it was only for form’s sake he played against him.... He won, for he
held eight points, and then he ascertained that he had staked a much
bigger note than he had intended to. Therefore he put his stake and his
winnings together and ventured both. He drew a king and a five. When he
held a five he never bought another card, and this rule was so firmly
established in his mind that when asked to say Yes or No, he did not
even answer.
“You are taking a card?” were the words he heard in his fit of
abstraction. They were uttered by a deep, compelling voice, and seemed
almost threatening in tone. Strangely, too, they seemed to him to
proceed from the spot behind and above him which had been the goal of
the sounds “Tsi-nan-fu.”
Then he whispered hesitatingly, “Please!” and at the same instant he
seemed to dissociate himself inwardly from this decision, but it was
too late. He had drawn a five, and that, added to the cards he held,
totalled more than twenty-one and made his hand worthless.
The banker’s hand showed a queen and a four, and as he had taken no
other card, he had won the round.
“The country cousin is losing!” said a woman’s voice.
The hasty ejaculation astonished Wenk. He turned round again, trying
to penetrate the obscurity; then he grew uneasy, and at the same time
he seemed to feel the beating of wings above his eyes. Yes, they were
wings, and he himself was in a bird-cage. And now a seven was dealt
him. “That’s no good,” something seemed to say to him, although it
was almost certain to win. But Wenk resisted the suggestion, and
said distinctly, “No other card for me!” It seemed as if it were
almost death to him to have to utter these words.... He felt as if
lightning-stabs were compelling him to close his eyes. Then in the
last struggle of his will against his unnatural weariness he saw the
Professor’s hand resting on the cards. It pressed the upper one with
a slight trembling movement, in evident desire of giving it him, and
it seemed as if a secret and burning stream passed from this hand to
him, seeking to _compel_ him to take the card, although he had already
declined it.
Recognizing this, he was suddenly wide awake. It seemed as if the
chains destined to fetter his soul had fallen from before him, and he
now faced the Professor fearlessly, seized with an incomprehensible
and strangely earnest misgiving with regard to him. He was tempted to
spring up and beat the beckoning fingers away from the card.
“You are taking a card?” said the deep, stern voice, as if issuing an
order. It was the voice he had already heard from behind him. Then
Wenk, in an unusually loud tone, said firmly and indignantly, “No, I
have already declined!”
The large eyes behind the glasses remained fixed, gazing at him for the
space of a second, then shrank back like hounds before a more powerful
assailant. The old gentleman leaned slightly forward, asked for brandy
and water, and shortly afterwards requested to be allowed to give up
the bank and leave the game. He felt suddenly indisposed, he said....
They all busied themselves with him, crowding round his seat, but
Wenk remained in his chair. He was struck by the connection between
his little experience and the old gentleman’s attack of faintness.
Were they indeed connected? He felt as if he were responsible for the
Professor’s collapse. It seemed as if he had subconsciously come into
conflict with him, and that this fainting-fit was the result of their
struggle. He was considering how he could help him. Then he felt in his
waistcoat-pocket and brought out his little bottle of smelling-salts.
He took the stopper out and handed it across, saying, “Perhaps these
salts may be of use? I have just ...” but he was surprised to find that
the old gentleman had already departed.
His earlier misgivings returned. He rose quickly and pushed his way
through the crowd. He wanted to follow the man and bring him back.
Someone suddenly stopped him, saying something incomprehensible, as if
he, Wenk, were responsible for the Professor’s condition; but Wenk’s
hand went to the revolver in his breast-pocket. Cara Carozza advanced
towards him; he pushed her hastily aside, dragging the other with him.
Then with his disengaged hand he violently wrenched himself free of his
assailant’s grip, and hurried to the corridor which formed the dimly
lighted side-entrance. He heard footsteps behind him as he entered it,
hastened forward, closed the door behind him after passing through, and
soon gained the side street where the motor-cars were waiting.
By the light of a lantern he saw the old gentleman, bent and bowed no