Part 27

“How strange!” said Cara, after a pause for reflection. “My husband’s name was George. Could I, in my excitement, have called....”

“Ah, now everything is perfectly clear. That is quite comprehensible, but, of course, nobody knew you had been married?”

“I am married!”

“You still are; oh, that’s something different. Shall I send word to your husband? But perhaps you no longer hold any intercourse with him?”

“Indeed I do! His address is 234, Eschenheimerstrasse, Frankfurt-am-Main.... His name is George Strümpfli.”

“This will be painful news for him. Are you not afraid that there may be some difficulty when he hears your name connected with the circumstance of Hull’s murder?”

Then Cara spoke at last, falling back on her chair. “Hull murdered!...” she exclaimed, and she sank fainting from the chair to the ground.

For the moment Wenk was taken aback; then he decided that this fainting-fit was assumed. He raised her on to the couch, then went away without attending to her further. Going out, he ordered the constables to keep a sharp eye on the lady, and not let anyone at all go into the ante-room. They were to keep their weapons fixed.

He drove back to the central police-station and informed the divisional surgeon, requesting him to drive to the guard-room, and to search the girl’s clothing without exciting suspicion. He then wrote out the order for her arrest, and handed it over. He gave orders at the Police Information Bureau that any journalist who came seeking for news was to be sent to him direct.

By this time it was daylight. Wenk had a bath and then drove to the office of the Central News Agency, the editor-in-chief of which had rung him up on the telephone.

When Wenk had told him all that had occurred, he said: “The reason that emboldened me to lay claim to some of your time, was this. If it were an isolated murder I would, although unwillingly, let the reporting of it proceed in the usual manner. But behind this assault we are confronted by a gang having at their head a man of apparently enormous and comprehensive powers. He must have secured to himself an organized set of followers whose only aim is to guard him while he carries out his crimes. The letter, which he himself may have handed into your office, discloses the fact that he desires the affair to be made known in the way that suits his ends. He means it as a warning. The victim himself told me not long ago that he had come across him in very peculiar circumstances, and this he knew. It is his aim to surround his dark deeds by a wall of dread; folks are to realize that no one who makes any attempt against him can escape with his life. You can readily see how great a danger such a man is; at a time when the war has left folks weak and emotional on the one hand and more readily incited to evil on the other. We cannot altogether suppress such an occurrence as this, but I desire that it should be announced apart from the connecting circumstances known to me, so that the imagination may not make popular heroes out of murderers. In this I am counting on the assistance of yourself and your colleagues. May I beg you most earnestly not to make known anything concerning the Hull affair which has not first been seen by me? We are living in an age of mental and spiritual epidemics, and those who would help to bring healing must be prepared to sacrifice themselves.”

“I will certainly act as you desire,” said the editor-in-chief.

“At the same time,” Wenk went on, “I wouldn’t on any account allow the impression to get about that such a course is due to more complete knowledge of the circumstances, or the exercise of authority on the part of the law, you understand.”

“I quite follow you there,” said the sympathetic editor.

“Then I am grateful to you, and can only hope for good results from our combined efforts. Our nation is in evil case.”

When he got home Wenk was anxious to go to bed and enjoy a few hours of much-needed rest. It was already ten o’clock, but just then his chauffeur, who acted as his personal attendant, brought him a visiting-card bearing the name of Countess Told.

“I am quite disengaged,” said Wenk immediately, and the Countess was ushered in.

“Is there any possibility of our being interrupted here by an anxious wife who is not au courant of the matter which is engaging our attention?” she asked, as she gave Wenk her slender hand cordially.

“The happiness of possessing a partner for life has never been mine!” answered Wenk, feeling a delicious sweetness in the proximity of this woman. And yet she stood before him as something dreamlike, connected with a life which he seemed to have led not long before. Between this hour and that lay the mysterious occurrences of the night, and he was unable to conceive that these feelings of love and longing could be actually real.

She stood before him, and he found no word to say to her, while she herself, insensibly influenced by the man’s force of character and lofty aims, felt embarrassed by this silence, because it seemed to be a confirmation of her own sensations. “Yes,” she confessed to herself, “the feeling I have for him is ...,” but she would not utter the word “love.” She blushed at the thought, a blush which Wenk saw. A tremor passed through him, and he struggled with himself as he bent low over her hand.

Then suddenly the vision of the murdered man rose before him, and he no longer felt bold enough to betray by word or gesture the infatuation which possessed him. He offered the Countess a chair, and while he fetched another for himself his imagination was fired by an idea which afforded a solution of the conflict waging within him. This woman, whom he loved and to whom he was evidently not wholly indifferent, should be associated with him in his undertaking, and their common endeavour might bring about their own harvest. Then he said to her seriously:

“During this last night an acquaintance known to both of us, Edgar von Hull, has been murdered. His friend Karstens is severely wounded, and I only escaped because I had happened to leave, two hours earlier, the locality into which we had been enticed. I believe I know the instigator of this crime. It is once more the sandy-bearded man and the old Professor. Its actual perpetrators have escaped, but we have made one arrest, of a person who is also known to you. I mean Cara Carozza, the dancer, whose liaison with Hull you are aware of. At present I have hardly more than a profound conviction that she has had some share in the crime, but I have thought of a way by which we might loosen her tongue. If you, Countess, would undertake the unpleasant enterprise of allowing yourself to be arrested, I would take care to arrange for your being put into the same cell as Carozza. She does not know you as Countess Told, but as a lady who frequents her own circles. Represent your offence as a very trifling one, and say that you will soon be set free, even if you are found guilty of taking part in an illicit game.... Promise to help her, perhaps by flight ... and you must previously have informed her that her situation is a very serious one, and one never can tell what may happen to persons arrested in such circumstances as hers.... She will then probably tell you who would be able to arrange for her escape, and you understand the rest, Countess. Are you willing to play the part?”

“I will carry out your wishes,” said the Countess, without stopping an instant for reflection, and her voice sounded eager.

Wenk was sensibly touched by the haste, the ready zeal with which this gracious and beautiful woman accepted his suggestion.

“Up to now,” she said lightly, “there has never been a chance for me to do anything really useful, to engage in a bold enterprise with life at stake, to study life at first hand.”

“And that is what you have been seeking in the gambling-dens?” he asked.

“I do not rightly know. I felt at home in those places, because there seemed to be no barriers. In my own circle I could perceive the horizon everywhere, and I could not endure that. I feel I owe you much....”

There was a smarting in Wenk’s eyes. He was overcome with a sensation of longing; it took possession of him and tormented him, and he asked, almost roughly, “And your husband?”