Part 53

At six o’clock, Wenk, disguised as a cyclist messenger, went into the empty villa, leaving his bicycle outside. He was quite alone in the house, and at once sought for a window which would afford him vantage ground. He concealed himself behind a lace curtain and began to watch the street. The first thing he noticed was that after he had been there about a quarter of an hour someone stole his bicycle and made off with it. He had never seen a thief actually at work before; this side of his calling was presented to him for the first time to-day. He regarded it as a favourable omen, being much amused by the comic haste with which the thief had looked round him on all sides, although he was even then straddling the machine.

For two hours he kept watch on the front door, side door, window and roof of Mabuse’s villa. No one went out or in, and though Wenk remained on the watch till midnight, nothing was to be seen. He fell asleep at the window, woke and watched again, and then slept once more, finally awaking in broad daylight. His servant brought him a meal prepared in a restaurant near. It was a long vigil, and Wenk, bringing the telephone to the window, held conversations with acquaintances and with some members of the police force.

At last, towards six o’clock in the evening, a car drew up and immediately drove away again. A gentleman went up to the front door. Was it Mabuse? No, this was an old gentleman, with the feeble and uncertain step of a paralytic. Possibly he was a patient.

Soon after that Wenk saw a chimney-sweep leave the house. He went along quickly and cheerfully, puffing away at a cigarette. Wenk had not seen the sweep go in; that must have been mere chance, though. The old invalid seemed to be there a long time; could he be waiting for the Doctor? Perhaps, though, he was one of his assistants. It seemed hardly likely. However, he must do nothing rash.

Twilight was already advanced when a man with a parcel rang at the front door, which was opened with surprising promptness. Half an hour later this man came out again, and so it went on. Even through the night people kept coming and going, and next day it was the same story.

On the third day Wenk was called up early by his man. The Criminal Investigation Department had some important information for him. Something had happened during the night at a gaming-den. Would he like an official to bring him a report? Yes, he replied, but the detective should come in some sort of uniform.

Half an hour later the detective, got up as a telephone repairer, appeared and told his story. Last night a young man had come to the guard-room and said that he and others had been playing baccarat in a secret gaming-house. An old gentleman, who seemed to be partially paralysed, was playing too, and he always lost his money. When it was just upon three o’clock in the morning, the old gentleman had a sudden fit of rage, shouted out something, and immediately three men, who had also been playing, leaped on the table. They drew out revolvers, shouting “Hands up!” Then a fourth man went from one visitor to another, searching their pockets and taking all their money away, as well as that lying on the table. They had taken twelve thousand marks from the man who was telling the story. When they came to the old gentleman they left him alone, and he suddenly stood up and walked out as if there was nothing the matter with him. Two of the thieves accompanied him, and the others protected him from behind, and outside there were two cars waiting.

This story excited Wenk greatly. It did not interfere with his scheme, but, on the contrary, it showed that Mabuse felt himself secure. Yet while Wenk was here in a strange house behind a curtain like a sleepy bat, the criminal was going his accustomed way, calmly, boldly, as if he had nothing and nobody to fear. After all, it was quite natural. Why should he not go free when the man who had sworn to bring him to justice was in hiding here behind a window curtain!

Taking a sudden resolve, Wenk left his post, and did not return till evening. He had given an order to extinguish the street-lamp in front of Mabuse’s house by breaking the glass and damaging the electric light bulb. It was a dark night, and as soon as Mabuse’s windows showed no light Wenk entered the garden. He was carrying a canister filled with fine meal, and he clambered over the fence into Mabuse’s grounds and went cautiously along the garden path, scattering the meal in a thin layer over part of the short walk between the garden gate and the house. Then he hurried back over the fence to his own garden and into No. 26 again.

Half an hour later someone left Mabuse’s house, but Wenk could not see who. After an hour and a half, he heard steps in the street passing beneath his window. He saw a man wearing military dress, who went quickly to Mabuse’s door and disappeared within the house.

Wenk went downstairs again and hid behind a shrub in the garden. After a long time he heard Mabuse’s front door open, and in the starlight he could see that a stout, elderly lady was leaving the house. She went into the street, where a car seemed to spring up from nowhere. She got into it and drove rapidly away.

Wenk clambered over the hedge between his and Mabuse’s garden, crept on all fours over the grass to the garden path, and examined the ground by the help of his electric torch. Then he saw that the footsteps of all three persons were exactly the same. Therefore, whoever it was who came out first, and the soldier, and the elderly lady, were one and the same person. And then it occurred to him that yesterday and the day before yesterday the chimney-sweep, the paralytic, the messenger with his parcel, were the same person, and this person was--Mabuse. Wenk carefully removed the traces of the meal.

To-night must lead to some conclusion or other. In both the nearest guardrooms special police were ready, fully armed, prepared to break in at any moment. When Wenk knew Mabuse to be safe at home, he would hasten to No. 26, send a telephone call, and three minutes later Mabuse’s house would be surrounded by police. To burst the door would be the work of thirty seconds. Six men would remain outside and surround the house. The other six would join him in a rush on the place. When Mabuse was secured, the order to Schachen would go through.

Wenk stole rapidly back to his own garden, stretched himself flat on the ground and waited. The earth radiated the warmth of this day of late spring, and he felt the power that lay in the soil. And in an attitude of tense expectancy, two hours, one hour, perhaps even minutes only before his work would be crowned with success, it seemed to Wenk as if music, a music betraying the secrets of all hearts, stole over his senses. Tears filled his eyes, and his bare fingers caressed the fragrant ground. He felt as if it were the very essence of manhood laid bare, the manhood for which he was risking his life.

He had decided to lie here waiting until Mabuse, in some disguise or other, should return to the house. Nothing could go wrong now. When the other was once more inside, like a mouse caught in a trap, Wenk would hasten back and breathe his order into the telephone.

But before this could happen he was to undergo a strange experience, something which made his heart stand still and a cry by which he had almost betrayed himself pass his lips. A car came up the street, and stopped with a noisy shriek in front of the house. But no one got out. No, it was Mabuse’s door which opened, and in the person descending the steps, and pausing in the glow of the headlights, Wenk recognized the Countess.

If he had not pressed his lips to the ground that very instant, his cry must have betrayed him. The car hastened back whence it had come. “Wife-robber! Husband-murderer!” raged Wenk. So this was the secret of Count Told’s death. “The man is a devil and a werwolf!” he cried.

Suddenly he felt the cold night penetrating his clothing, and he found himself trembling. Was he going to have an attack of ague now, at the very last minute? He struggled to subdue the feelings that threatened to overcome him. In the still night he heard the hammering of the pulses in his brain, and he bent all his energies to the task of listening for what was to happen.

Twelve o’clock struck, and it seemed as if the town were shaken by the powerful strokes, as if these beats must penetrate into the very heart of this house which sheltered the monster, and every vibration become a dagger hacking him to pieces.

The clock had ceased striking, and a footstep sounded, but whether near or far-off Wenk could not at first determine, for the throbbing in his ears. Suddenly the garden gate creaked, and in the starlight he saw a broad expanse of white shirt-front. A man advanced rapidly to Mabuse’s door, and in the instant that he stood on the doorstep, waiting for it to open, the starlight revealed to Wenk that the figure was that of the man he was seeking. And now the net was closing around the victim.

Wenk waited three minutes, four minutes. Would not the world come to an end during these moments? Might not the skies fall, and the last judgment begin?

Then he pulled himself together and climbed stiffly over the fence to return to No. 26. He rushed upstairs in the darkness, seized the telephone, called for the number and gave the guard-room the orders he had arranged. He had but to name the street and give the number of the house, which till now he had kept a secret.

A motor-cyclist was to go to the second guard-room directly the telephone message was received. The car containing the first relay of police was to follow him immediately, and at the second guard-room those aroused by the cyclist’s warning were to be ready to get in the car and proceed with the others at full speed to the villa. Thus it had been arranged.

After Wenk had telephoned he hastened downstairs again. He stood in the dark entrance, waiting for the first sound of the approaching car. Was he not consumed with fever? No, he bit his lips firmly, made his muscles taut and commanded himself to keep cool. He must be cold and hard as steel. Steel it should be!

He had not long to wait.

XVII

The house was surrounded by the police who had been detailed for that duty, while Wenk with the others hastened to the front door and rang the bell loudly, but the explosive was already prepared. Mabuse had not yet gone to bed. The unusual noise in the street had sent him to the spy-hole in the shutters, whence he could see what was happening, and the first glance revealed the police. While he was still looking through his peep-hole, and letting nothing of the happenings outside escape his eye, since the searchlights illuminated everything in the street, he was taking down from the cupboard close by, where it hung in readiness, a police uniform.

He heard the ringing at the door. He had a telephone concealed in the wall, and this George had connected with a villa at the back of his garden. He pressed the connection and called, “Spoerri!”