Part 23

Wenk soon reached the spot where he had ordered his chauffeur to wait. He was resolved to have this place closed, but he did not want the affair to get into the papers, and on his drive homeward he was considering how best to formulate the charge. If possible the place should not be described, but the cause should be given as that of disturbance of the peace, misleading of the public, swindling performances, or something of that kind. He worked the matter out fully, engaged in his conflict with the “Go-ahead” Institute, and while still in his car, in his character of prosecuting counsel, he conducted an indictment which through his skill and stratagem should eliminate this plague-spot from public life without folks perceiving what it actually was.

Before he slept, his thoughts, without any apparent connection to guide them, reverted to Hull, who stood suddenly revealed to him as typical of the young men of the age. Bound by a liaison with a vulgar, good-for-nothing girl, whose only talent was to exhibit herself on the stage; elegantly dressed, without being elegant; spending his restless evenings between gaming-houses, night-clubs, and the arms of a courtesan--this was Hull’s life. Yet if he had taken the right turn he might have put his intelligence and all his available energies into administering an estate or pursuing a well-ordered peaceful life as an official of some kind; he might have been the head of a happy household and the father of legitimate children.

Many such men there were, strong in body and mind, living merely on their nerves, dedicating to a life of the senses powers which would have made them successful in the walk of life for which they were destined. Hull and his kind, feeble and enervated, represented the spirit of the age. What would the dawn of such a midnight yield?

Wenk went to the telephone and gave the address of the new gaming-house. The official whose duty it was to watch over Herr Hull was to get in touch with him at once, but do no more than keep him in sight when he left the house.

* * * * *

In the middle of a deep sleep the telephone at Wenk’s bedside began ringing. It was just two hours since he had returned home, and he was wide awake at once. “Wenk speaking!” said he, and he felt certain in some subconscious region of his mind, which was in tune with his last waking thoughts, that the news awaiting him on the telephone was in some dread, mysterious fashion concerned with Hull.

“Wenk speaking!” he called again, and his whole body was trembling with excitement.

“Here, sir; the police sergeant on duty.”

“Be quick!” said Wenk, his imagination running riot. What was there to report?

The voice at the other end spoke hastily: “The gentleman named Edgar Hull, who was under police protection ... has been murdered this night. In the open street, too, about 2 a.m. Another gentleman, name of Karstens, has been seriously wounded. The constable who was detailed to watch over him is also wounded, and both have been taken to the hospital. A lady who was with these gentlemen was arrested at the order of the wounded man. I have ordered the body to be left lying exactly as it was found until you have seen it yourself. The Service car is on its way to your honour. Please ring off!”

“Ring off!” echoed Wenk’s voice agitatedly.

He hastened to dress, for the car was already to be heard throbbing outside. He went down the dark staircase, forgetting to turn a light on. Then, when he perceived the car in the street, his profile revealed the jaws drawn firmly together, in the necessity of meeting calmly the tragic circumstances in which he was involved, and entering into every detail of this deed of blood perpetrated in the darkness of the night, so that he might be enabled to act to the best advantage.

During the drive, something within him compelled him to take himself to task. “I had no business to tremble,” he thought, “when this news reached me. I must be prepared to face even my own death unflinchingly. I must school myself further. I must develop all my tastes and interests and use them in the service of my life’s goal; then only shall I be equal to my task....”

Hull’s body lay in the darkness. Four men in sombre clothing were silhouetted around him, and they stepped back as their chief descended from the car. Wenk ordered them--they were constables--to watch the entrances to the street and allow no one to approach the scene of the murder, which was in a gloomy street-turning behind the Wittelsbach Palace. Not a soul was to be seen in any of the houses.

One of the constables said that none of the public had been near the place since the occurrence.

It was now three o’clock in the morning. By the light of an electric torch Wenk gazed upon the corpse. There was a gaping wound from the neck down the back, and the body lay with its face to the earth. Thus the police had found Hull when their colleague, blinded with pepper and bleeding from a wound, whistled for help. The body lay motionless, curled up like the gnarled root of a tree. The blood which had flowed from its wounds shone like black marble under the searching light. Wenk was convulsed with horror at the mental images he sought to overcome. He tried to photograph the details of the scene upon his memory, getting the exact position of the corpse. He wrote down the number of the house, tried to ascertain whether all the doors and windows in the neighbourhood were closed, whether any footprints could be seen, or any objects connected with the crime found in the immediate vicinity, but nothing was to be discovered. Its perpetrators had escaped into the palace grounds, one of the policemen had told him, and at one bound they had disappeared. Wenk examined the walls; there, too, there was nothing to be learnt.

He sent a constable to fetch a car to remove the body, and ordered that nobody was to come into the street on any account. Those who tried to force their way in should be arrested, but people were to be treated with politeness, he said. He then drove to the hospital where the wounded men were lying.

He found Karstens unconscious, and the doctor informed him that he had had a severe wound in the back from a narrow and apparently four-edged dagger, and a blow from some blunt object had probably been aimed at his head. The constable had not been so severely handled, and his were mainly flesh-wounds. His shoulder and upper arm were bandaged, but he could scarcely open his eyes even yet.

He related his story thus:

“Just before 2 a.m. the deceased, with a lady and another gentleman, came out of the house which had been pointed out to me. In front of it a constable was standing, and that seemed odd, for I thought to myself, ‘Why is he standing there instead of being on his beat?’ He stood there for at least an hour; then I thought I would speak to him, but he said roughly, ‘What do you want? Go away,’ and came threateningly towards me. I was just going to show him my number-plate when the door opened, and although it was dark I could recognize Herr von Hull. The constable pushed me away, and as I did not want to be noticed I moved aside, but I saw that Herr von Hull had a lady and gentleman with him. They went off quickly in the direction of the Ludwigstrasse, and the policeman and I were about three houses away in the other direction. Then he turned to the house again, saying to me, ‘Now you had better be off!’ I didn’t bother any more about him, but followed, at some distance, the lady and the two gentlemen. They turned out of the Türkenstrasse into the Gabelsbergerstrasse and disappeared from my sight. I hurried after them, but could not see them anywhere. They could not have got any further than the Jägerstrasse. Suddenly I heard cries; they were shrill and then stifled. The war had taught me that that was how men in fear of death cry out. Before I could even see anybody I whistled for help, and ran to the street as hard as I could, drawing my revolver.

“I hadn’t gone far when I was suddenly seized from behind. My eyes smarted terribly, and I felt a thrust in my shoulder. I wanted to pull the trigger, but my revolver was no longer in my hand and my arm hung quite limp. Then I thought, ‘I had better do as our major used to advise us--fall down and lie as if I were dead.’ So I fell down and someone sat on me, and shoved something at me, holding my mouth. There may have been two of them; I can’t tell, for I closed my eyes. They must have rushed at me from a doorway, and I was half insensible by that time. What happened after that I do not distinctly remember, but I heard footsteps running, and I was lifted up. It was another constable, and I quickly told him what had happened and he ran on into the street. Then a second one came running up. ‘Police!’ I shouted to him. ‘Yes,’ he called back; ‘what is the matter?’ ‘Run round the corner, quick!’ I told him.

“I forced myself to rise, and then found I was not so badly wounded after all, though I couldn’t open my eyes. They had thrown pepper at them. I groped my way round the corner, but I could not see anything. It was the noise that guided me to the spot. I heard someone speaking, and a woman’s voice answering. ‘What is the matter?’ I said, and a voice answered, ‘He said we were to take the female into custody.’ ‘Who are you?’ I asked the woman, and she answered, ‘I am an actress, the friend of Herr Hull. What do you want with me?’ I said, ‘If the gentleman said so, arrest her!’ She protested, and said she wanted to speak to Dr. Wenk, the State agent, at once, but the constable said she could do that later. Then she tried to run away, and there was a good deal of confusion and bother, and finally the constable had to handcuff her, she was so defiant, and I heard her call out ‘George.’ So I told them to arrest her, and I don’t know what happened after that, for I fainted, and when I came to again I was in the ambulance. I am badly wounded. Will your honour please tell me the truth: am I going to die?”

Then the doctor laughed in his face.

“No, please, I want his honour to tell me. It’s the doctor’s job to tell people they are not going to die.”

“But, my good Voss, how can you imagine you are going to die? You have some flesh-wounds and some nasty bumps, but a man like you doesn’t die of those things!”

“Indeed, your honour, I have done my duty!” said the injured man. His voice began to falter; then the tension relaxed and he began to weep quietly and unrestrainedly. “I know ... no more.... I have ... done ... my duty!” he stammered.

“You don’t need to tell me that,” said Wenk reassuringly. “He who stakes his life upon it certainly does his duty, for no one can offer anything he values more! But now, Voss, I want you to promise me something, and shake hands upon it. You won’t tell anyone else what you have seen or gone through this night ... and I beg the same thing of you, doctor. A great deal depends upon it, for the public at large. I beg you to lay this very much to heart. It is not the pursuit of one crime, but of a generation of crime.”

From the constable who had been first on the spot Wenk learnt that he had seen several figures near the wall of the park, but darkness prevented his counting their number, nor could he describe them. He was stopped by one of the gentlemen, who tried to stand up and then clutched hold of him, saying two or three times over, “Arrest the woman--arrest the woman.”