Dr. Mabuse, master of mystery a novel
He turned to his car and got in; then said hastily in a threatening
tone, “If you feel inclined to send any anonymous information to the
authorities, you’ll remember that there is a fir-tree growing in the
wood, and there’s room for you to hang there like your colleague Haim.
Drive on, George!”
The car started off again.
In the neighbourhood of Schachen, where stately houses with upper
stories made cars appear less striking, they found a park gate open,
and without any difficulty George found his way along the dark drive
leading to the villa. The lights were extinguished.
While Mabuse and George were still standing on the doorstep Spoerri
arrived.
When Mabuse opened the door and turned on the light, he saw that
Spoerri was dressed as a monk.
“It is a mere accident,” said Spoerri. “I had to go to Switzerland in a
hurry, and down there in the Rhine valley a cowl is more useful than
even a genuine frontier pass. The last pass I had is in St. Gallen, and
you know that I had to leave there hastily. But I had left the list
of securities with Schaffer, and he brought them to me at Altstetten
to-day. It is not safe to send such things by post nowadays.”
When he said this they were sitting in a large, well-furnished
dining-room. George served the supper, brought ready prepared from
Munich, and warmed up on the electric stove. Still eating, Mabuse said:
“We will liquidate on the lake itself, and thus we shall gain five
points more than on land, according to the lists. I have bought five
million Italian five-lire pieces. They are coming to the Southern
Tyrol, and must be taken to Switzerland by way of the Vorarlberg. You
must look after that, Spoerri. The Italian agent is Dalbelli, in Meran.
You must go there to-morrow. I give you a month to do it in, and then
we shall start a fresh district. Switzerland is now strongly against
the importation of silver, and so there is less competition. We shall
get enough of the five-lire pieces in Italy, and I have tried to do it
with French silver too, but since the Treaty of Versailles there are so
many fresh business combines in France, and they give nobody anything
because the majority of them have not been in trade before. Have you
not noticed that?”
Spoerri nodded, making some inward calculation.
“Stop your calculations till I have done talking,” said Mabuse sharply,
and Spoerri looked up in confusion.
Mabuse continued: “My confidential agent in the Government has informed
me that meat-control will be abolished in Bavaria next month, but the
matter will be kept dark. The difference in the prices prevailing in
Bavaria and in Würtemberg is an enormous one, and for the first few
weeks of decontrol it will still be very considerable. It would be a
good thing to begin buying up now, however, and you can say that I am
prepared to lay out ten million marks. Buy as much as you can get hold
of; haste is wisdom in this respect. Inquire of Meggers in Stuttgart
about the sales, and see that we have enough people for the transport.
Everything must be completed within three days of giving the orders.
We shall want from a thousand to twelve hundred head of cattle, and
look out for beasts of good quality. No sheep or pigs--the risk is too
great. Reckon it up for yourself before you do anything further. We get
thirty per cent. on our purchase, and therefore we can allow ten per
cent. on expenses. You must reckon more correctly than you did about
the salvarsan.”
“That time I hadn’t calculated....”
“Exactly, you hadn’t calculated correctly. Pesch is withdrawing; let
him be closely watched by the Removal Committee, for he is impulsive,
and if he plays the slightest trick he can be strung up beside Haim. By
the way, they haven’t found _him_ yet.... How much did you pay for the
cerium?”
“It was dearer than....”
“Everything always is dearer than ... the Poles or the Bolsheviks can
get it. How much?”
“Fifty marks.”
“Fifty Swiss francs then. They must have it, so don’t yield a stiver!”
He whistled into the speaking-tube under the table.
“George there?” he called out. “Everything in order?... Good. The
_Rhine_ is waiting, Spoerri. George, you are to be pilot; don’t forget
the securities. That’s all for the present”; and turning again to
Spoerri, “You’ll be in no danger in going to Zürich, Spoerri, will you?”
“I am all right as soon as I’ve passed the Customs, and then I go on as
a priest.”
“If you travel by the _Rhine_, you’ll avoid the Customs; you can take
charge of the securities and put them in the bank, to the account
of Salbaz de Marte, mining engineer. Here is the list: a million in
German Luxemburg stock, two million German Colonial Loan, five hundred
thousand-mark notes. These are to be changed at once into milreis; that
gives a better exchange than either dollars or Swiss francs. Inform
Dr. Ebenhügel that fresh securities have been deposited, and that I
want him to make use of the first favourable opportunity and sell
for milreis.... There is one rather difficult matter to settle: the
disposal of the people who have been working for me in Constance. If
they are unemployed....”
“Many don’t want to work any longer, in any case,” said Spoerri.
“I know. Those are the folks who have all they want; there’s nothing
to fear from _them_. With my help they have got their own houses and
are free of debt. But sometimes I have been obliged to take any workers
I could get, and those who don’t own their houses should be carefully
watched. The powder magazine is at Constance, for the young fellows
live there, and if we suddenly withdraw these high wages from them,
there is nothing for them to do but steal, and in a week’s time they’ll
find themselves in prison and will be blabbing everything in their
rage. Talk to George about this, and see what is to be done. He’s going
there to-morrow. The safest thing would be to pack them off into the
Foreign Legion. Go and see Magnard as soon as you have finished up in
Zürich and Meran. Don’t forget to claim the commission for them. Give
it to George, who can divide it among those concerned.... Authorize
Böhm to sell the three motor-boats that we have on the lake besides the
_Rhine_. _That_ always bears the ensign of the Royal Würtemberg Yacht
Club and therefore is unnoticed. Keep the _Rhine_ in this neighbourhood
for any emergency. The boat can do sixty kilometres if it is well
handled. Let us go.”
George was waiting outside. The three men felt their way through the
darkness to the landing-stage, where they could hear the boat’s engines
throbbing.
“You have followed out my orders and there’s nothing on board?” said
Mabuse.
“Nothing but the cerium.”
“Take it out then. I am not a dealer in scrap-iron!”
George hastened forward. Three men were busy in the gloom. Then Mabuse
and Spoerri went on board and the boat started, going cautiously
through the night. The engine scarcely throbbed. There was a slight
vibration in the cabin where Mabuse sat, wrapped in his fur coat; then
he went to the deck aft, and impatiently forward to the engine. After
they had travelled for a while, he listened intently. It seemed to him
as if through the sounds made by his own boat a noise reached his ears.
“Stop!” he cried suddenly.
George stopped the engine, and the sounds outside ceased. They started
again, and immediately the sounds on the water, now on the right and
again on the left, were heard once more. Mabuse went on the fore-deck,
where the noise of the engine was not so distinct. From there he could
hear them quite distinctly.
“We are pursued, or at any rate under surveillance,” he thought. “Can
it be that lawyer-detective Wenk?” Calmly, yet defiantly, he got his
pistols ready. In the darkness he tried to discern what flag the
_Rhine_ was carrying, but it was impossible to find out.
“Spoerri,” he called out softly, and Spoerri came out of the cabin.
“What are we travelling as? Don’t you hear that we are being followed?”
“No, no,” said Spoerri, “we are a Swiss patrol-boat to-night. I heard
that the Germans were about, so I ordered the three other boats to act
as convoy. One is travelling behind us, the others on each side. Nobody
could reach us; we are already in Swiss waters.”
“How much a year do you earn in my service, that makes you take such
care of me?” said Mabuse spitefully.
“Quite enough,” answered Spoerri; “but that is not why I do it.”
“Why then? Are you enamoured of my person, or is it merely the
Christian charity that it suits you Swiss folk to assume since the war?”
“Yes,” said Spoerri simply.
“I have three and a half millions here in my dispatch-case. If you
dared to, you would strangle me, but you don’t dare, and that is all
there is about it. That is your pure humanity and love. During the last
year you have had somewhere about eighty-five thousand, six hundred and
seventy-seven marks or more from me.... Is that enough to stifle the
desire to murder a man?”
“Yes,” said Spoerri once more.
“Then you are a slave--my slave. Do you hear me? You are my slave.”
“I hear you.”
“Shall I slap your face? No; I won’t touch your slave-skin with my own.
I just spit in the air.”
“Into the sea. You won’t pick a quarrel with anybody. There is no point
of honour on the Lake of Constance.”
“Point of honour is an expression that doesn’t exist. A point is
no larger than a squashed fly, and that’s the extent of a man’s
honour--yours too, eh? You have some honour, even if the Lake of
Constance has not?”
“I have never measured it.”
“Speak sense when you talk to me. I won’t stand your tomfoolery.”
“We are getting close to the shore.”
“Are you shirking, fellow?”
“No.”
“You dog!” said Mabuse in a stifled voice, in growing wrath. “I feel
hatred tingling in my finger-tips. I shall grasp you by the throat, you
cur, you cowardly cur, and I shall annihilate you just as the electric
current in the American death-chair does, you miserable wretch!”
At this moment the engine stopped. For some time the sounds of the
boats behind them had ceased.
“Why have we stopped?” asked Mabuse angrily. “I gave no orders.”
“There is no signal from the shore.”
Then Mabuse came to himself again. He stood up, gnashing his teeth, and
asked:
“What is the matter?”
“We must wait. We can always rely on Solly. There is something wrong.”
“Let us wait! Have you weapons ready?”
“Yes, but if we don’t get the signal, we’d better get into the skiff.
Then we can row back to the other boats.”
Behind Romanshorn a searchlight began to play, throwing a beam of light
into the sky. It moved lower and peered about through the darkness,
probing closely and lingering in places, then was directed towards the
waters in the middle of the lake. It rose in the sky once more and then
fell pitilessly on the very spot where Mabuse’s boat was lying. His
knees trembled under the tension.
Suddenly, however, the shaft of light was fixed on a house standing
out prominently in Romanshorn, just where the new church stood on a
hill, and those in the boat perceived that the other craft must be far
beyond on the other side of the point, and did not signify any danger.
Their boat remained in darkness. In the railway-station on the shore
lamps hung here and there at some distance from each other, and their
reflections gleamed fitfully on the black waters. Then Mabuse said
sternly:
“No, we’ll stay here! Tell George to get the pneumatic gun fastened to
the engine.”
Spoerri sprang to do his bidding.
Under the cushions there was a poison-gas installation. Mabuse opened
the nozzle. The wind was from the south-west and therefore favourable
to his purpose. He prepared masks for himself and his companions and
tried their fastenings.
Then he saw on shore a light which shone out brightly and was at once