Part 50

As incapable of resistance as of mental participation in his schemes, consumed in the devouring flames of this man’s all-powerful domination, the Countess endured his conversation and took his orders. Her fate lay in his hands.

XVI

At nine o’clock next morning Mabuse was at Count Told’s villa. As he was now endeavouring to hold himself ready for flight at any moment, he wanted to bring this matter of the Count to an end.

He had desired him to drink, and for some days now Told had been drinking, in passionate abandonment. Mabuse looked at him in silence. When Told was intoxicated he said to him, “You are a person without the slightest power of resistance. Where is your razor?”

In a thick voice Told answered that it was on the washstand.

“Is it sharp?” said Mabuse with a peculiar intonation. “Sharp enough?” he repeated with an emphasis so marked that it seemed as if he wanted to hammer an idea into the Count’s head.

Mabuse took it up, seized a sheet of paper and made a sharp clean cut in it. Then he said threateningly, “Yes, it is sharp enough.” Thereupon he laid the razor aside, but did not return it to its case. He called the servant in, saying to him, “The Count’s condition is not so good as it was. He is drinking brandy with his Tokay. I have no objection to a little light Burgundy, but these strong spirits are not to be allowed. You must take away what is left in the bottle. Your master will ... now ... go ... to sleep!” He uttered the last words in a long-drawn-out, menacing tone. Then he went out of the room in front of the footman, and left the house.

Half an hour later, Count Told, not knowing what he was doing, cut his throat from ear to ear. He had a feeling as if something in his throat were preventing him from enjoying some great happiness, and he wanted to remove the hindrance.

At two o’clock a message came from Mabuse to ask how the Count was getting on. The footman said he was asleep, but he would go and look at him to make sure. Then he found him bathed in blood, where he had fallen from his arm-chair to the ground, his body now cold in death. The doctor’s messenger came into the room, looked at the corpse, and went back to report to his master.

The man-servant did not know what to do. Since none of the Count’s relatives were in the neighbourhood and he did not know the Countess’s address, he felt he must inform the police first of all. But then, again, he was not sure which was the right office to go to to give such information, and it occurred to him that the State Attorney, Herr von Wenk, was an acquaintance of his master’s and had asked after him recently, so he drove to Munich, sought out the lawyer, and told his story.

“Was the Count at home then all the time?” asked Wenk.

“Yes, sir, all the time.”

“Then why did you tell me on the telephone that the Count had gone on a journey?”

“The doctor told me that on account of my master’s state no one was to be allowed to see him, and I must tell anybody who inquired that he had gone away. My master saw nobody but his doctor.”

“What was the doctor’s name?”

“I never heard his name, sir. I don’t know it.”

Then Wenk remembered that Privy Councillor Wendel had given him a letter to Dr. Mabuse, and that the Count had used Wenk’s own telephone to make an appointment with this doctor.

Wenk trembled as, struck by the horror of a strange suspicion, he described to the footman the figure of Dr. Mabuse as he had seen it recently at the Four Seasons Hall. He spoke of him as a tall man, stooping slightly, without beard or moustache, with a broad face and big nose and large grey eyes. When the man said, “Yes, he looked exactly like that,” Wenk grew pale as death. In a moment all the disconnected impressions, hazy ideas, vague recollections, half-defined thoughts and images which had been partially obliterated, but not altogether lost, gathered together in his mind. When Wenk had the hall emptied, why had Dr. Mabuse not asked the reason for this measure? Why had he not inquired whether he could continue his experiments at another time? Why had Wenk, who had seen a man whose back he had recognized go into the hall, not found him again inside? Why had the two men who would not obey the detective’s order to move on, suddenly done as they were told immediately Mabuse appeared? Why had Mabuse’s eyes, in the brief moment he had looked into them, affected him so powerfully, as if they sought to read something that lay hidden in his very soul and was now almost forgotten?

He dismissed Count Told’s servant, and then tried to find Dr. Mabuse’s number in the telephone book, but it was not given there. Yet Mabuse had a telephone, for the Count had rung him up from this very house. The Privy Councillor knew the number.

When Wenk, having obtained the telephone number from Herr Wendel, gave it, there was no reply. Ringing up the exchange, he was told that the telephone had been disconnected. He asked who had had it three weeks before, but this could not be ascertained at once.

Again Wenk rang up the Councillor. Dr. Mabuse had changed his number; did he happen to know his address? Wendel could give no information. He only knew the telephone number, and spoke to him on the phone. Wenk then asked at the Police Registry Office for Dr. Mabuse’s address, but the name was not to be found anywhere among the arrivals in Munich, and when, at the Municipal Registry, all the old telephone books were searched to find Mabuse, he was again unsuccessful.

Thereupon Wenk repaired to the manager of the telephone exchange in order to make a more thorough search. The manager took him to the inquiry-room, where two young women were employed, and he asked them to look again for the number he had telephoned about.

“What were you wanting?” asked the elder of the two, and Wenk explained that he was seeking the address of a Dr. Mabuse, who three weeks before had a telephone number that did not appear in the directory.

The girl said she could not find it anywhere, whereupon Wenk returned to the manager with this information. He declared this was something quite unheard of, and himself accompanied Wenk to the inquiry office. He, too, made a search with the clerks, but could find nothing. While the manager was looking through the lists without success, an idea occurred to Wenk, and when he was informed that no one of the name of Mabuse had been entered on the list at all for the last year, he asked the manager for the telephone number and address of a man named Poldringer. As he uttered this name he saw the elder girl start and then immediately recover herself, but an instant later she told him rudely that there were ever so many Poldringers in Munich, and without the Christian name and the exact address she could not furnish any information.

Then Wenk turned to the manager, saying politely, “I am sorry to have to put you to some inconvenience, but I must take both these ladies into custody!”

He at once took up a position between the girls and the telephone. “Be so good as to sit down on these chairs till the detectives arrive; you here, and your companion there!” The elder of the girls turned as white as a sheet. The other blushed, and then began to cry. Wenk said, turning to her, “It is only a formality. If you behave properly, this matter can be carried through without exciting notice, and it is probable that it will not be long before the mystery is cleared up.” Then he rang up the Criminal Investigation Department and asked for three detectives.

The manager looked through the list of Poldringers, for there were many entries under the name, most of them being tradespeople. One, of whom no further information was given, was living in the Xenienstrasse, and another, without any professional status, in the Ludwigstrasse.

The girls were given in charge, and Wenk went to the Ludwigstrasse. He came to a lodging-house, looked at the surroundings and inspected the inside, and then went to the Xenienstrasse. Then suddenly his heart stood still, for in the Xenienstrasse, at the address given under the name of Poldringer in the telephone list, he saw on a professional plate the words