Part 44

Then a hoarse cry was uttered by Spoerri. “Oh, Doctor, Citopomar! Is it to be soon now?”

“We’ll drink to it, Spoerri, we’ll drink to it. I don’t know. Let’s drink to the shepherd boy with eighty-six thousand marks yearly income!”

“Oh, what have I out of it? Do I not always invest it again in one or other of your enterprises, Doctor?”

“Because it brings you in ten per cent. more there than it would in an insurance society. Shall I have to use force, shepherd? Drink, I say!”

Spoerri was the first to fall from his chair. He lay on the floor, disorder all around him, gazing sadly at his master. He lay there like a dog about to die, knowing that he could no longer protect his master’s life.

Mabuse, tottering so that he was obliged to hold on to the edge of the table to save himself from falling, stuttered: “Spoerri, do you think there is anyone whose will is strong enough for him to kill someone else without even touching him?”

But Spoerri did not understand him. He looked up at his master with glassy eyes, stupid yet faithful, troubled and sick.

“I can! and I shall do it, too!... Sleep,” he said suddenly, and rising, he spurned the other with his foot. He took a few steps forward, having to seek support. Then he pulled himself together, and his will-power was held as it were within an iron vice. Rigidly upright, without a sign of swaying, inflamed with drink and in a state of exaltation, he went into the room the Countess occupied and remained with her without saying a word. And from that hour of humiliation this woman, too, acknowledged his supremacy. She forgot her past, forgot her very self, and submitted willingly to her master.

* * * * *

During the night Mabuse started for Lake Constance. Just as he was approaching the villa at Schachen, having extinguished his lights, he narrowly missed a collision with the engine of the steam-roller which was standing in the road a few yards from the garden entrance. It was directly in front of him when he applied his brakes, and he therefore did not drive up to the house, but continued along the road for another kilometre, then left the car standing and went back to the house by the shore-path.

“Why did you not tell me the steam-roller was here?” he asked George imperiously. “Even a match-box lying out in the street might betray us. Go and fetch the car, quickly! It is on the highroad near Wasserburg. Put it away and come straight back here.”

* * * * *

Next morning the telephone bell woke Wenk from his sleep. “News from the steam-roller,” he heard, and was at once wide awake.

“Yes, yes; please go on.”

“Last night about two o’clock a car arrived, and pulled up directly in front of our engine, then drove on again. As it was driving without lights, I ordered Schmied to follow on a bicycle. He found it about a kilometre further on, left alone by the roadside, and came back at once to report. I stole into the garden of the villa, but the dog began barking and I went outside round the shore. I saw a man come from the direction of the lake and go into the house. When Schmied and I went back to find the car it had vanished. There is nothing to be noticed this morning!”

“Thanks. You can expect me there to-day.”

* * * * *

An hour before this conversation took place on the telephone, while still dark, Mabuse left the villa. He was wearing women’s clothes and was rowed across to Nonnenhorn. A motor-boat approached, and in it was a fisherman returning from a smuggling expedition. Mabuse accosted him, but the man said he was in a hurry, for he must take his fish home. Then Mabuse at one bound sprang into his boat, overpowered him, threw him down and gagged him, and then transferred him to the rowing-boat. He took off his female garments, beneath which he was dressed as a fisherman, and making a wide detour, he returned to shore and went to the farm where in a barn the car was concealed. George was lying in it asleep.

After a long conversation with George, Mabuse turned and drove back into Würtemberg, while George returned to Schachen.

Mabuse wanted to get to Stuttgart. His agents there had telephoned the previous day that a patient wanted to consult him. That meant that they had got hold of a rich man worth plucking.

While Mabuse was sitting at the gaming-table that evening, he had a sudden vision of the steam-roller as it appeared directly in front of him when he applied his brakes. The huge machine was outlined in the darkness, and it seemed as if it were about to fall upon him, and to his fancy it took on a strange shape, finally revealing the features of the State Attorney. As he recalled it, it seemed to stand forth like some antediluvian monster, bearing Wenk’s face, about to fall upon and crush him. Mabuse felt vaguely uneasy, and he suddenly left the gaming-table, where he was losing, and drove back in the night to Munich. On the way this action of his seemed ridiculous, and he felt as if his impulse had been unwarranted. “My desire for that woman will conquer any fear of that accursed lawyer,” he thought, but yet Wenk seemed to stand in his way, more powerful than ever. Why was he still there? Had Mabuse’s order not been distinct enough? If not, he would repeat it!

When once again in his house at Munich he went straight to bed. He controlled his desire to go to the Countess, and fell fast asleep at once.

* * * * *

When the road-menders in Schachen returned to work after their midday rest, a man who had come out of the inn attached himself to their party, saying that he wanted to speak to the overseer. Was it likely he could find a job? he asked them.

“You can have mine this minute, if you’ll pay for it well,” said one jokingly, but the man said that he only wanted the work so that he could get some pay himself. “That’s another matter,” laughed the navvy. “There’s the overseer standing there.”

The man went towards him, speaking in a low tone, and unobtrusively drew him somewhat away from the rest. Yes, he could possibly get a job, said the overseer, who was really a police inspector; let him show his papers.

These the man brought out, saying, “Do not show yourself surprised, inspector. Look as if you were reading the papers through, and take me on to help the stoker on the engine. He is Sergeant Schmied, isn’t he?”

“Yes, sir.... Well, all right, I’ll take you on,” said the inspector aloud. “We can give you some work. Come this way. Schmied,” he called out. He explained to Schmied in an undertone that the State Attorney was going to spend the day on the engine as stoker’s assistant.