Part 58

“There ... on that chair!”

Wenk looked at the man more closely. He knew it already: his quarry had escaped! Back into the endless, the dark and empty night, everything fell once more, and at first he could neither hear nor speak a word.

Suddenly the inspector said, “But that is Poldringer, the man we’ve been watching all these weeks!”

“Yes, that is Poldringer,” answered Wenk heavily. Mabuse had escaped.

XIX

Mabuse hastily carried the insensible woman from the bank of the Rhine channel to the nearest house. It was that of an osier-binder.

“We have had an accident,” said Mabuse, and then seated himself at the window to watch the approach.

When an hour had gone by thus, and the Countess opened her eyes again, Mabuse noticed that she started on recognizing him and turned away, overcome with dread. He went hastily towards her and, stooping down, he whispered, “We are saved! We are irrevocably bound together!”

The whispered words impressed her with a certain sense of comfort and security. She no longer withstood him, and soon sat up, the peasant’s wife promising to look after her.

Mabuse sought for the nearest village on the map. Then he went thither, in security, knowing that he was not being followed. George had remained as the victim of the pursuer’s vengeance, and he was saved. The other’s fate was due to the little trick of the police uniform.

The village was not more than twenty minutes’ distance, and in an inn he found a telephone. He ordered coffee, and then rang up Zürich. In half an hour’s time the call came through, and asking who was there, he was answered, “Dr. Ebenhügel, Zürich.”

“Has Spoerri arrived?” he inquired.

“Spoerri has just come: he is still here;” and Spoerri rushed to the telephone.

“Spoerri, I’ve had a misfortune. George is taken, but we have escaped. Bring the car here at once, and put in a travelling dress and coat for my wife. I shall expect you at 2 p.m. at the Au railway-station in the Rhine Valley.”

“Very good, sir,” replied Spoerri.

“I called her my wife, and said it quite coolly and intentionally,” mused Mabuse, dallying with the thought, which yet seemed to imply something like a fetter; but he dismissed the idea, saying, “She is my wife, my own property!... It is true, she is mine.”

* * * * *

Spoerri arrived punctually. “I shall drive you through the Engadine direct to the Italian frontier,” he said, when Mabuse had told him all that had occurred. But to that proposal Mabuse merely uttered one word: “No!”

“But, Doctor,” Spoerri pleaded, “you can’t remain in Switzerland. The Munich police have informed the authorities here of your movements. We shouldn’t get even as far as Toggeburg. It would be almost better to return to Germany.”

“And that’s exactly what I mean to do! Spoerri, from this day forward the State Attorney’s life stands under my protection. You are to revoke my earlier orders to the Removal Committee at once.”

“You are going in for a remarkable friendship, Doctor,” tittered Spoerri.

“He is to remain absolutely under my protection!” repeated Mabuse, and they drove through the flat marsh-land back to the peasant’s hut.

The Countess got into the car, and they were soon hastening to the Austrian frontier. “What sort of passports have you for us?” asked Mabuse.

“Swiss ones: please take them,” answered Spoerri, handing over documents with many visas, calculated to arouse a confidence which was constantly abused yet remained unconscious of the fact.

Three hours later the car was driving along the highroad leading from Bregenz to Kempten. It drove past a house from which, the night before, a message had been flashed through to Munich telling of its passing, and went towards Würtemberg. The travellers spent the night in a village south of Stuttgart.

In the evening Mabuse went to Spoerri’s room, and said to him: “There is just one thing left for me to do in Germany, in Europe ... and that is to get hold of that lawyer, the State Attorney, Wenk, alive. I want him alive, mark you! as much alive as a fly under a glass. The Countess and I are staying here to-morrow. You will go to Stuttgart and buy, whatever the price may be, a two-seater aeroplane. We are quite safe here. The landlord did not even register us, so if the police appear he is bound to hold his tongue, or else he will be fined. Have you any brandy?”

Spoerri shrank back in dismay; his martyrdom was about to begin again. Nevertheless, he had smuggled three bottles out of Switzerland.

“Of course you have some brandy!” said Mabuse, before he could even answer.